X4 - Now with more flyable ships

None of the X games are good for jumping in. X4 seems the most newbie friendly, though, but you will need to do some work outside the game to get a grip on it. Start small.

Fantastic! Glad you got it sorted.

Thanks for the tips Rod. I’ve done the highway mission loop, but not the second ship. Love that loop, by the by.

It’s so far the most approachable for the new player, but er…if you were a new space trucker, this is NOT the game I’d recommend.

You need to have some time to really sit down and work some things out as well as the motivation/mood to do so. The X series is absolutely not pick up and play, it takes real effort to push through and figure out how things work (see @Ironsight above just trying to figure out how to use the Long Range Scanner).

That being said, X4 is probably better than the other X games in terms of onboarding. That’s a relative statement though, the rest were just even worse.

If you have the time and motivation to dig into the game they can be absolutely fantastic. I have a lot of fun building out my empire and getting the money rolling in. X4 is far more dynamic than previous games in the series and that is leading to some bugs right now, but that dynamism is what has me most excited. There were things in previous X games which are faked on the simulation side, this one actually simulates it.

So, I continue me space journey into X4:

I’ve got my faction rating up to +10 with the Argon, which has opened up some military missions for them. I’ve only completed the introductory mission against the Xenon, but I never fired a shot. A patrol took it out first, so I have yet to see if springing for a new shield, weapon, and engine before hand was money well spent.

What was money well spent was the docking software mk 2. Now I can just gun it for the landing platform and things work out fine. So far.

I’ve also placed a few satellites here and there. I can see the ring showing the satellite range now that I know what I’m looking for. I’m just seeding these occasionally when I get a few stations in range at the same time for when I eventually get a trader working for me someday.

I’m one mission away from getting to the first faction rank with the Teladi-lizards-folk, after which I’ll see what this other mission about getting a captain for my ship is all about. I’m the only man aboard! I’m the captain! If I’m going to have a captain, it will be a lizard man.

I got a mission that requires me to open some lockboxes floating in space, but I think the tools to open them are illegal in Argon space. Doesn’t seem like a good risk/reward at the moment. The repair missions are easy money, though. The resource finding ones kind of annoying - too hard to tell if you are placing a probe just right or not, since I’m not sure what exactly the threshold is for “high yield”. The taxi missions are also pretty easy, too, and let you see the galaxy with a payday at the end. I haven’t found a trading mission that I can complete yet, since I haven’t uncovered stations that produce the required goods. I’m also slightly annoyed that typing the good name into the map search doesn’t work for goods, you need to selected the good specifically from the dropdown. I’ve also done some missions where you clear mines, but the one I had to clear mines around a station had like a couple dozens mines. Too many for my patience, but clearing the way for ships is pretty reasonable. Although, I wonder if I’m supposed to be blowing up the mines or if there is some other more delicate way to defuse them.

I still have no idea what the scan colors mean on stations. When I point my ship at a station section it will flash purple and the information I have about the station goes up. Makes sense. Then it settles into either a green, yellow, or red color tint. Sometimes it is faded color, sometimes pretty opaque. I’ve found some of those data things on yellow ones (a blueprint and a couple missions), but not always, and I think they’ve turned red afterward. But some are red from the start. This is a great mystery that can never be solved.

I do think X4 is way better at on-boarding players than X3 was: dribbling in missions and goals that aren’t overwhelming and help to get you familiar with the different systems. If the built-in encyclopedia actually explained how things worked rather than just telling you what things are, it would be even better at it.

I am a newbie, this is the first X game I have been able to understand and get into.

Its NOT easy though. In game tutorials are awful, you should watch youtube vids before playing to learn the game.

As far as the lockboxes, you just shoot the lock icons with any ship weapon. (Spacesuit doesn’t work)

The catch is that your shots will also damage its hull, so you need to hit all the locks on the box without doing enough hull damage to blow it up. The mission boxes always seem to be the easy mode “just shoot this side of a cube” but the ones you can just find floating with loot in them often have more locks and are a pain in the ass sometimes, although you can save scum if you want.

Thanks everyone. I’ll probably end up getting it this weekend when I can spend some time with it. I don’t mind having to learn from videos outside of games.

Any recommendations on a video to watch that’s more focused than a “Let’s play” type?

Shadowcub does some nice short tutorials on youtube. ObsidianAnt is great but more verbose.

grayduster also has some good videos on Youtube.

thanks! I’ll check him out.

Yes he does! I’m watching the series and taking notes. Here’s his 1st episode:

I liked these ones

(caution Yamiks swears a lot but good info)

Also remember shift+D teleports you back to your ship in any space station!

Cheers!
Rod

edit: also @GuildBoss 's is good too!

Thanks @Rod_Humble and @GuildBoss. I’ve watched one or 2 of yamiks – good stuff.

Walked into a station and now the button to return to the hanger is greyed out so I’m stuck here forever.

Which button are you referring to? The panel you interact with in the transporter room? Someone mentioned above you hit Shift+D to get back to your ship as well, which I wasn’t aware of.

Dang, there’s a run speed?!

I didn’t know about run speed, but I knew about this one, somehow.

Game needs to be played with a hive mind. So many details to miss.

I’ll give it a try with the ship weapons, then. There’s also the hand laser you can buy, I wonder if that might work?

This game.

Yup! I can’t count the number of times I tried SHIFT for sprint, strafed to the right (D), and ended up back on my ship so that little “Always Run” trick helped. Still, it’s an awful habit hitting SHIFT when I feel like I’m going too slowly.

I’m still struggling with firing weapons though. Looking in CONTROLS there seems to be multiple keys/buttons/wheels for shooting but they’re so bizarre and sometimes when I try to shoot, nothing happens while other times I only hear a “blasting” sound but see nothing, not even in 3rd-person.