X4: Foundations

X4: Foundations

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By Structure, Not Sermon: A Paranid’s Guide to Station Blueprints
By Jakaya
The divine do not beg for blueprints — they extract them.
Through reputation, resonance, and precise disruption, Axiom outlines the Paranid path to station mastery.
Structure, not sermons. Control, not consent.
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What the Worthy Must Understand First
There is a difference between knowledge given and knowledge taken. One is fed to fools in gilded temples. The other? Prised from clenched hands and locked vaults by those bold enough to reach.

You seek to build. To expand. To elevate your presence among the void. Good. You are beginning to understand what truly matters. But station blueprints — these precious scripts of power — are not simply shared. They must be earned. Extracted. Manipulated into your possession.

Permit me, then, to illuminate the methods by which a discerning operator acquires such things... while still keeping one's name off a bounty board.
Unlocking the Path: Boso Ta’s Inconvenient Necessity
Before you can deploy the tools of persuasion — before you can coax secrets from steel — there is bureaucracy to endure.

The act of extracting station blueprints via percuassion is not simply a matter of equipment. It requires sanctioned access to certain research protocols, conducted through the questionable brilliance of Boso Ta.

  • Ensure your Player Headquarters research projects are underway.
  • Complete the required research for The type of module .
  • This research unlocks the ability to acquire blueprints from modules via scanned data leaks.

Without it, your bombs will detonate... but the data will remain silent.
Methods the Law Abides (and Exploits Can Shadow)
Feign Allegiance, Reap Reward
The factions clutch their designs like relics — but every faction has a price, a threshold, a weakness.

  • Raise your reputation to at least +10 with the faction of your choosing.
  • Once you are deemed “trustworthy,” a Faction Representative will allow blueprint purchases.
  • These can include essential modules like Docks, Storage, Habitation, Production, and more.
  • If they sell it, and you have the coin and credentials, it's yours.
  • However, be warned — the most exclusive modules (such as ship production facilities) are locked behind +20 reputation. Rarely offered. Never leaked. Always expensive.
Divine Static: Finding Truth in the Interference
Even the most fortified sanctums leak — not fluids, but information. Prideful stations, built with precision, often overlook the imperfections between their panels.

To extract these secrets:

  • Equip Your Spacesuit:
    Exit your vessel and don a spacesuit. Ship scanners, for all their noise and reach, are deaf to the subtle whispers of structural failure.

  • Locate Data Leaks:
    Approach the station’s hull and search for data leaks — glowing sparks, erratic lights, faint static. These are the bleeding wounds of careless construction.

  • Scan Up Close:
    Only the suit scanner is capable of extracting blueprint data. Approach each leak carefully and scan at close range.

  • Potential Rewards:
    Scanning may reveal:
    - Blueprint fragments
    - Temporary trade or service discounts
    - Or nothing at all. A false prophet in digital form.
EMP Bombs — Persuasion by Other Means
Some secrets do not yield to charm. For those, we apply persuasion. Quietly. Surgically.

The EMP bomb is not an act of aggression — it is a question, whispered into a data core, and answered through shock and awe.


Acquiring EMP Bombs
There are two methods: barter or fabrication. As ever, the galaxy caters to both the wealthy and the prepared.

Purchase From... Certain Suppliers

  • Visit stations run by the Scale Plate Pact (SCA) or Hatikvah Free League (HAT).
  • Seek out Black Market Traders or Black Market Terminals on civilian stations — often near bar areas.
  • Reputation with pirates helps. Being "not immediately shot on sight" is a good start.

EMP bombs are usually listed under Suit Equipment or Illegal Items. Prices vary depending on reputation and location.


Crafting Your Own — Because Precision Is Sacred
To fabricate EMP bombs, you’ll need access to a Crafting Bench, typically found aboard Equipment Docks, Wharfs, or Trade Stations.

Ingredients:
  • Lodestone (1) – Found in lockboxes, signal leaks, or salvage crates.
  • Remote Detonator (1) – Often recovered during boarding ops or bought from black market contacts.
  • Secure Container (1) – Sourced from wrecks, missions, or high-risk salvage zones.

Approach the bench, select EMP Bomb, and craft. Each batch yields one. Use them wisely.


Using EMP Bombs
Some knowledge does not drift freely in the ether. It clings to steel, locked behind protocols and sanctimonious restrictions. When dialogue fails — and it always does — one must *etch a question into the hull itself*.

This is not vandalism. This is precision enlightenment.

To perform this rite, you will require:

  • A Spacesuit Bomb Launcher: Not a common tool, and rightly so. Install it in your suit. This is the stylus by which we write our will into metal.
  • EMP Bombs: Either acquired from less lawful merchants or crafted by your own hand — a spark of genius condensed into a charge.
  • Space Suit Scanner: The eye that sees the shape of the target — essential for revealing which module you intend to persuade.

The Method:

  • Approach your chosen station.
  • Exit your vessel. In silence. As the void was meant to be entered.
  • Equip your bomb launcher and move toward the target module with deliberation.
  • Deploy the EMP bomb directly onto the module — it will attach like a question begging to be answered.
  • Withdraw to a safe distance.detonate. Energy will surge, protocols will fail, and the module will speak.
  • Data leaks will erupt from the shell. Scan them with haste.
  • If you do not already possess the blueprint, one of the leaks will reveal it. If you do... well, you'll simply be left with sparks and static.

This is not sabotage. It is persuasion — conducted at the molecular level.

Just don’t linger. Not every faction finds curiosity charming.
On the Limits of Access
Not every structure can be coaxed into confession. Some designs are locked away — not by encryption, but by policy.

Certain station modules are never available through EMP disruption or data leaks. No amount of scanning will change that. These blueprints are only offered for purchase from faction representatives, assuming you’ve earned their favour... or tolerated their sermons.

These include:

  • Ship Production ModulesWharfs (S/M ships) and Shipyards (L/XL ships). These are strictly restricted. They must be bought — they will not appear through leaks, no matter how many bombs you bring.

  • Ship Blueprints and Components – Individual ship hulls, weapons, shields, and turrets are likewise bound to direct transaction. They are not found. They are granted.
Footnotes from the Architect’s Desk
Disclaimer:
All information within this guide has been compiled through disciplined fieldwork — the kind conducted in vacuum, under fire, and against the impatient station security. It is as accurate as current conditions permit.

Still, even the most methodical observer cannot account for every factional whim, balance patch, or bureaucratic edit disguised as a "minor update."

Should you uncover an inconsistency in this archive — something that undermines the sanctity of reliable intel — leave a comment. I shall examine, adjust, and purge the impurity.

Information Integrity Report – A Structural Overview
Compiling this document was not unlike navigating Teladi bureaucracy with a Split translator — slow, hostile, and prone to spontaneous threats.

Character Count:6602 Roughly equal to the number of intercepted transmissions I’ve “forgotten” to report.
Word Count: 961 Above standard broadcast length (Enough to qualify as heresy in at least two factions.)
Lines:132 Equal in number to the regulations I ignored while writing it.

If this BBCode were a station, it would be functional, symmetrical, and inexplicably making money from a dock I never authorised.

May your hulls remain sealed, your scans unchallenged, and your enemies unaware of your true intentions.

Looking for More? Check Out My Other Guides
If you found this guide useful, you might want to take a look at my other work:

Got feedback or suggestions? Leave a comment! I’m always looking to refine and improve my guides.

9 Comments
Fosforito 9 May @ 1:12pm 
@Jakaya : I know that call, anyways great writing and guides! Ride safe, enjoy the sun!
Jakaya  [author] 9 May @ 12:49pm 
@Fosforito I may or may not have something suitably ambitious in the works possibly my most expansive guide yet.

Progress has slowed somewhat, I confess… the weather has been excellent, and my motorbike calls louder than the void. But should the skies darken, and the road quieten, I shall return to writing.

As ever, structure demands the proper conditions.
Fosforito 9 May @ 10:59am 
The next one: More dakka always better, A split guide to warfare
darkausg 25 Mar @ 4:03pm 
Also, something that is more of a special case but if you start the game with a station under your control, the game will give you the blueprint for all the module making the station(if possible, i.e it will not give a blueprint of the asteroid for the H.Q. I am not even sure if it is as a blueprint...)

Currently there are only three game start where who gave you a station: An accomplished scientist, The unworthy entrepreneur and the custom game start.
Yes that mean you cannot RP a situation where you found a shipyard and if you want to have more you need to buy the licence
Jakaya  [author] 25 Mar @ 2:08pm 
Thanks for the excellent feedback, Darkausg — much appreciated!

I’ve added a section clarifying the need for Boso Ta research to extract blueprints with data leaks. I didn’t go into how to get the HQ itself, as that’s outside the scope of this guide though it’s a good idea for a future one.

I also added a clear note that ship production modules (like Wharfs and Shipyards) are purchase-only and locked behind +20 rep . Definitely worth making explicit.

You were also right about the EMP section — I’ve reworded it to state that blueprints are guaranteed if the research is done and the module isn’t already known as the previous phrasing was a bit poor.

As for EMP sourcing, I prefer buying too — but I like giving players options.

Thanks again — great points all around!
darkausg 25 Mar @ 12:46pm 
Great guide,




Concerning natural data leak, they can also give mission, and if you don't have th H.Q this is how you unlock it, unless you are on a game start that give you the H.Q, or if you have the Boron DLC installed (in this case the H.Q will appear when you go to heretic end to start the boron DLC)

I really wish they told you how to unlock the HQ because the only way I had to unlock was to use games start who give you the H.Q




They are some module that you cannot obtain with scanning data leak, in particular all the module that allow to build or repair ship cannot be obtain by scanning data leak. There might be other module that cannot be obtain that way, but shipyard, maintenance bay and L/XL ship builder are the most important exception. And also the more annoying
darkausg 25 Mar @ 11:07am 
The only way to obtain shipyard, maintenance bay and L/XL ship builder is to buy them at a faction rep.
Now here is the catch, they are
1) the most expensive module they can offer
2) You need 20 REP to be able to buy them

Though, once you have 1 of each type, you can use it everywhere, no need to buy another type




Regarding the use of EMP, I recommand that you buy them, instead of trying to find lodestone
darkausg 25 Mar @ 10:25am 
One key detail extremely important that wasn't mentioned:

In order to use EMP, you need to have researched the category with Boso Ta, and that requires the HQ in order to do so.
darkausg 25 Mar @ 10:17am 
Also, EMP create 3 signal leak, and upon scanning the 3 signal you are guaranted to obtain the blueprint. I never had a case where an EMP didn't gave me a blueprint, under the condition that I had research the ability of obtaining the blueprint by research