however the drops must have been nerfed mayor. I am not getting any thing of value, been doing this looting thing for 3 hours and I only have 1 mil. Not getting any of the valuable things he gets a ton of in the vid....
@@dusteye1616 yes, same they have nerfed the programmable field array drop by a lot, after the battle between hop and arg was done I had only two, and I have seen 2 spacefly eggs.
The game is pretty cool and once you get a feel for it I think you'll enjoy it if you like Micro managing lol, the AI can be a pain the in the ass sometimes though.
@@windowsperf i have 990 hrs on it :D great game and trust me when i tell you it is waaaaaaaaaaay easyer then people make it out 2 be there are 3 mechanics in game . Fight Trade Build . Thats it. Olso you use the map and right click to issue orders. Orders are : Atack or trade. That is literarly it :D
@@flankymerc1405no it is ridiculously hard and the ui is confusing. They still haven't made the ultimate X series game yet. They all have bad gameplay mechanics. Wheras playing something like Mass Effect is like crack,it pulls you in,X4 does the opposite,you have to have ice cold patience. Mass Effect reeled me in steaight away. X4 made me run for the uninstall button on Steam.
Wow this is awesome, I'll be restarting and trying this. Just spent 3 hours scanning a space station and failing to find EMP bombs for some "snooping around" mission that won't complete even after a 100% scan - the most boring start to this game imaginable.
Another tip for new players: After about 2h into a new game make sure to deploy satellites at all the Wharfs and Shipyards friendly to you and scan their buy offers for any High demands and shortages. Note them down and check again every few hours. Once you see a pattern you know what the faction owning the station will need to keep the war effort going. Supply them and they'll be able to pump out ships just like in the start of the game. They build stuff and get it blown up, you make a profit, everybody wins. As for why you should wait 2 hours at least: It takes a while for the economy to settle and run through the stored up goods and external supply to kick in.
so that's why so many dudes wrote something about "broken AI" its not like they do not build ships, its that they can't since they missing parts and nobody brave enough keeps supplying them! Makes sense
@@3rdcain356 exactly and this is especially true for the Split since their space is mostly isolated. Every faction is missing something at the start of the game and in case of the Split this something usually needs to be transported through Xenon sectors by the AI for the economy to work without the player. Hence why the Split are often the first factions to fall. Eg. In my most recent game they had an absurd overproduction of food but almost nothing in terms of hull parts which resulted in them being extremely quickly overrun. They literally didn't have the parts to replace their losses nor to build new factories. After just 20h they had only 2 "functional" Free Families systems left everything else was swarmed with Xenon capitals.
Just had to sign in and say that I have watched several start guides, but this one BY FAR is the best one out of all of them. And I just recommended this guide in my Steam review of X4 as well. And of course, Francis John's subsequent guides after this one were very helpful in getting me a great start in my first play through. Thank you, Francis, for your work on these!
Phenomenal, this is the guide I need to get started. I've been a veteran of of X3 and everything before, but found this one hard to get into because of the running around stations, and not knowing what to do. Thanks for this great video.
Great guide FJ! I have over 200 hours in X4 Foundations and still learned a few useful tips. One big thing I'll add though is that a Budgeted Start instead of a storyline start keeps you out of a ship you don't like, AND gets you into a very fast travel speed right away. With the budgeted start you can begin in any sector you'd like and everything else is in place with the story states, and you pick from an array of ships only limited by a budget of about 2M. The Pegasus is fast but has a very weak hull. Here's some highlights of my research: Takoba: two sheilds, two guns, 7885 cruise speed, superb flight parameters, 1.9M Pegasus: weak hull and only one shield, only one gun, fast, 8633 travel speed, cheap, 1.7M Balaur: Great hull strength, many guns!, 6039 travel speed, 2.1M Perseus: Good hull, two guns, 6869 travel speed, cheap, 1.6M Chimera: Great hull, guns guns guns, poor flight parameters, 2.1M Lux: average hull, two guns, 7283 travel speed, cheep, 1.6M Nimcha: average hull, two shields, one gun, 6142 travel speed, poor flight parameters, 1.8M Jaguar: average hull, one gun, 6463 travel speed, superb flight parameters, the cheapest, 1M The cheaper the ship, the more of the budget you can use for other things, but I usually go with the Takoba because of its two shields. Thanks again for this video!
I can see the reasoning for your choice you are looking for a ship that can fight and explore. What I found was that fighting in a fighter was difficult and dangerous. For example a Khaak incursion is 5 ships with hit scan weapons and if unlucky is death to any fighter slower than 500 m/s combat speed. Never mind the Xenon that is just straight death. I usually get 4.5 million and go straight for a Paranid Nemisis medium ship. Good combat speed, 2 medium shields, 5 guns and 2 turrets. You can take out Khaak infestations with one of them and I have even killed K's with one. So what I figured out was I avoided fights until I had a medium or better ship as it was to risky. So in the end the only thing that mattered to me was speed. For speed you cannot beat a Pegasus. Though the new Irukandji from the Boron looks interesting.
Even if speed is your only focus, starting a budgeted game will give you more speed as a baseline, that can still be improved on in game. As I showed, building the Pegasus out to the max for a budgeted game starts you with a ship that travels at 8633. You start the game with the better ship, and you can save all the early money for your Nemesis. Personally, I can fight one or two Xenon Ms and Ts with no problem if I have a with a better hull and shield, such as those in the list I included, and it comes in handy. You even went to collect loot in a favorite fighting area of the Xenon, so a stronger hull and another gun would have been good to have, especially in a starter ship that doesn't lose much to the Pegasus in the speed dept. ....and yeah, best to avoid the Ka'ak in the early game if you're starting in a fighter. Another win for starting as a budgeted game is that you have so many more options for engines, guns, etc. Cheers.
10:38 You actually will run out of oxygen. The Oxygen UI element was a relatively recent addition, but was a mechanic since release... Many of us found out the hard way trying to save some money repairing destroyers. 24:00 Ah Key thing to note about the HQ mission, If you don't have the Boron DLC or are using the Terran starts there are different ways to acquire the HQ. The Boron DLC implemented a replacement for the original mission to get the HQ, which admittedly sped it along. Boso Ta is also voiced by one of the developers.
Very good pacing. I started the video, looked down at the duration 45 minutes and thought I would be skipping a lot. But those 45 minutes were so good. This must have taken you a whole day to make. Much appreciated.
I've put hours/months/years into this series since XBTF. I found your stuff through Rimworld and watching you play games is hilarious. I love it. Best tutorial I've seen so far. Great stuff. aaaand I'll be back for more.
Not trying to be a downer, but there is a tutorial that explains this mechanic and how to use it. I would suggest all new players do all the tutorials before jumping in. Then watching this video.
If I hadn't watched this I would have given up in frustration, and even after watching it lots more research required. Thank you. You certainly fit in a lot of instruction in a very small time.
This is a stunning start - I have used a variant of this since X4 came out and this gives lots of excellent advice. I do exactly the same going west to find the big battle between the Holy Order of Pontifex and the Argons... I do a slight twist on this to allow me to capture fighters more easily - once I have about the same amount of money as Captain Francis, I will go Anomaly Jumping... You fly into an anomaly (There are 2 in BHS-IV) and you come out at one of the other 30 or so anomaly locations scattered throughout the X-verse. Sometimes you come out in Xenon sectors and have to get back into the anomaly quickly... Then after maybe 20 jumps I will have found quite a few sectors and one near Trinity Sanctum VII where the Alliance Wharf will sell me a NODAN - it's not QUITE as quick as the Pegasus Vanguard but it has more firepower and more survivability.. I then set the Elite to go and map some sectors on it's way back to the battle again and I try and find a Scale plate M4 / M5 to capture which joins the Elite in mapping and looting. I will do this until I can afford a Pegasus and then send that mapping whilst I fly the Nodan - as I can often capture Minotaur raiders. NOTE: - anything with Minotaur Raider showing is actually a SCALE PLATE pirate disguised and you can capture them - Capturing a minotaur raider: - if you find one - get up close and scan it when you are within 200m I think is the limit - if you have done that you can see how many people it has on board - and you then start hammering away at it with the Nodans weapons. Just be a little careful as to the weapons it has - if it has plasma they are slow but take all your shields in one hit. - when you get it down to zero shield and less than 87% hull, about every 30 seconds each time you hit with Zero shield, there is a chance some of the pirates will bail - from a complement of 16, they will leave in 2's or 3's and when you get to the final 2, if the hull is not down to less than about 10%, you should capture it - they make good transports for small items being heavily armoured and quite quick for their size. Happy Landings everyone.
Although I just started playing, I followed these tips almost exactly, except I didn't have the cash for the Mk3 combat engines, so I went with the Mk2 instead, for significantly less money, and later, I upgraded to the Mk3 combat engines when I had the cash... and I discovered that the performance difference of the Mk3 over the Mk2 is so slight, that it's almost a joke how much more they cost for such an insignificant improvement. I wouldn't recommend the Mk3 unless you have extra cash you just want to throw away.
Love the tip about holding “o” while in the map view. Glad to see you’re still going to play X4 a bit longer. Watched all your last playthrough. Keep up the great content! 👍
7 months on and it doesn't seem to work for me. Well, it stays on, but once arrive at cargo, autopilot turns off. I scoop cargo, set new target and if I am still holding down "o" shift-a won't re-engage AP. If I let go of "o" then I can engage AP again. ultimately, I still have to switch screens. Woulda been nice if there was "engage AP" option in map right click menu or a button.
The previous games were complex, this one's gone to another level! I am interested in the ship capturing in X4 though, it's what I found the most profitable way to earn in the older games, and it'll be cool to see the changes that have bound to have been made.
Capturing ships is quite profitable in X4, though as I've seen it requires (atleast) a frigate (M class) to manage anything substantial. Was hopping around in a Nemesis (M class Corvette) and got lucky on an M class freighter. Was trying to have them drop cargo, suddenly the pilot bailed at about 40%hull. Guess there weren't a lot of crew to begin with. Saying this, I'm just assuming the ship-capture mechanic is the same, or similar, to previous iterations of the X series. Never really got into it before X4
This is the best tutorial I've seen so far for this game. I got this game like 4 years ago and I absolutely love it but I always get overwhelmed by the sheer size of the game and the loss of direction, so I always play it on and off. This video explains a lot of the things that I missed.
You can shoot with middle mouse button, the advantage is that it will shoot where the cursor is. This makes opening lootboxes a lot easier in my opinion. Press R to recenter the gun.
@@salemprompthous3820 I am not sure what "recenter the guns" even means in X4. Guns shoot either where your mouse is or if you have a target it will attempt to auto-aim. What would recenter even do here? Also, at least in my game, in the default control config space is not bound to anything.
@@musicwombat74 on a fresh install, first boot up (only three I've changed since then are Deploy laser tower, stop engine and change ammo, for missiles and the personal launcher) spacebar is set to fire primary weapons. Recenter guns: after firing with middle mouse button, the main weapons keep tracking the mouse movement. Recentering means the weapons stop their tracking, and are defaulted to firing straight forward (when no target is selected)
@@salemprompthous3820 for what its worth, I believe you, but it is not that way on my install. For me on a fresh install space is not mapped to anything. I mapped it to primary weapons myself for a bit, but did not find it very useful, in 99.9% of cases I want to shoot at something in particular, not just straight ahead. Also, there is a mapping for "deploy the last used deployable item" which I find to be a lot more useful than mapping "deploy laser tower". This way I can deploy whatever I need with a mouse once and then use the binding to deploy more of the same.
Great guide, right to the points. I really like this game but I'm always hesitant to pick it up again. Just found your channel, I hope you have vids on the expansions. 👍
13:40 You're protected from your ship running off even if it has orders when you do a spacewalk as getting up from the pilot seat while flying automatically adds a "wait for signal" order that basically prevents your relief pilot/captain from doing anything until you say so. You can remove that wait order at any time by contacting the ship by selecting it and pressing C, or after you have got back aboard by interacting with the pilot; no need to go through the map and behaviours UI. Absolutely check if you get up while docked though, your ship flying off and marooning you on a station is funny at first, but it gets old fast.
Just make sure to turn off marooning protection once you researched teleport otherwise you'll often wonder what your pilots are doing only to see them holding position within a Xenon blob waiting for you to tell them to move on 😅
Just started playing. Great starter tips even though fast forward till I came across areas that I myself was already struggling with. Just wanted to say thanks and that I got the start with the argon and hod going full send on killing each other. Theirs so many ships fighting it’s actually impacting my pc, to top it off I’ve died so many times to random mines and missiles that for some reason target me. I’ve spent like 3-5 hours replaying that one section because I keep getting killed to random bs, actually died so many times just trying to collect all the space eggs, programmable arrays, damage engine parts, and other good grabs I know where half the ships dropped mines and where to avoid getting blasted by enemy XL ships blowing up. Like theirs 2 massive fleets just bashing each others head, an absolute brawl and everything I’ve wanted from a game like this. I just hope once I make it out I get around that 5mill range. Lord knows how many times I’ve replayed this cause of how much loot drops their are.
I did as suggested for the first hour. The pink guys sent through almost a dozen big ships at one point. I couldn't hoover up the cargo fast enough. They actually managed to take out the defense platform on Blue's side. Wrecks everywhere. I kept getting targeted by stray missiles. What a show!
Thank you so much for this video guide! This is by far the best guide I've found anywhere for new players like me. It's so frustrating trying to figure all of this out. You made it much easier and I can't thank you enough. New sub here :)
The ships only fly off while you are on a station if you have another ship there or the station IS your property, however it gets an issue once one has several ships, yes. Selling Space Caviar is done best to Black Market traders after you got a mission for it, that DOUBLES the price! Same with all the other things they ask for. When buying crew, i always leave ONE place open so i can accept some Taxi missions, they are quick, easy and fetch around 40k. If you think Boso sounds annoying in the english version, try his GERMAN voice, THAT is NIGHTMARE! XD
The black market stuff I have to start getting into if that is the prices they pay. I never bothered with taxi missions I always figured 40k was to little money for the time investment. I hold out for hacking missions, 500k for roughly the same amount of time investment.
@@FrancisJohnYT Hacking missions can go for one or more sectors, Taxi missions are in-sector, i especially use them in the early phase to find all stations in the sector. And early on you don´t get the Security breaker tools for the hacking jobs anyways, but yes, those are awesome moneywise.
Great video and this technique got me started - you can also fully automate this with your NPC ship Captain! - Set the ship orders to "Repeat Orders" on the behaviour tab - Then, while having your ship selected, right-click a central point in space and select "Collect Drops" your captain will collect everything, when your hold is full he will collect software/items. Leave him to it for a few hours, come back and you should have a few million!
perfect. Didn't know how to find containers in the world, or that you can use O to gravity beam loot. Biggest WTF was learning that you need to com a random stranger to learn where to proceed with your quest. I was completely stuck there.
Try this: 1. Get the free Perseus Vanguard 2. Pirate Freelancer Katanas in Segaris 3. Use one of them, sell the other captured ones (strip them down first for more money) 4. Deck out your Katana 5. Start missions you want / Improve terran relations to get a better loadout for your katana
Looking at going back to X4 this video was great to watch and when you said "This video goes beyond the 30 mins" I had to check the timestamp I felt like we were at like 12-15mins max haha Great work and thanks for the info!
Thank you, that really made for a good start. I got a new problem now though. The XEN are attacking Second Contact II Flashpoint, coming through the gate from The Void in a never ending stream. At first, I enjoyed the masses of Spacefly Eggs and other goodies that I could pick up with my fast ship, zooming right through the battles. But now the ANT defenders have run out of ships. Since then, the XEN are wreaking absolute havoc over the sector, effectively choking off all trade within it. This problem is aggravated by the fact that the only trade route to the ANT wharf and shipyard leads thorugh the sector, meaning I can't help them restock their supplies and they can't build any ships anymore. It's a real dilemma. I guess I'll just have to let it happen until I'm rich enough to isolate the XEN sectors with tons of defense platforms ... Though I'm afraid SC II Flashpoint might be completely taken over by the XEN until then, with almost no one fighting back. There's something unbalanced about this. Sure, the XEN are a highly efficient machine species, but they only own a couple of sectors and presumably don't trade with others, so how can they put out a large ship every 5 minutes? It's crazy.
If you need to stem the tide for a bit until you can get up defences a 100 laser turrets can help, spread them out a bit so explosions don't kill them all. Put down 200 if you can afford it, great light show and it buys you a lot of time.
@@FrancisJohnYT Thanks man. I've actually already started doing this, especially on their resupply routes I spotted (works great there, as they only send freighters and miners). After a while they stopped sending anything bigger than M size ships in Flashpoint. Then I set up a blockade there. Didn't work for long, as the AI is not that stupid. After my 80 Mk2 towers killed off about a dozen raiding parties, they stopped coming for about an hour to save up for larger ships - and then sent destroyers that took out my blockade with ease. Gonna try to set up the blockade again to buy enough time to build a defense plattform I guess. It's my first real game anyway, so I'm still learning. Next time I'm gonna focus on important production next to my allies' shipyards and defense plattforms at gates as early as possible. Shouldn't have wasted so much time doing missions at the start.
I would not recommend to new players to scavenge for trash for the first 45 minutes of the game, just because it might sour them to the game or not comport with the way they want to play. It might be better to tell them their options for how to start a game and let them choose. For example, if they want to jump immediately into the story missions, doing the Alliance Invitation missions (Kingdom End DLC) early on will get them a Mako absolutely for free, which is only slightly slower than the Pegasus. Also some people might want to RP and not buy a ship from a race they don't want to be friendly towards or will be utterly unconcerned with how fast their ship is and will want a heavy fighter so they can start dog fighting immediately. I am 1000% a min-max player but I got a friend started on this game recently and the way they want to play is completely different from me. If I told him "you can spend half an hour shooting criminals outside stations to get friendly with a station" he'd just respond with "guess I'm going to be at war with that faction then!" That said, this was a great video, and even I who has played for 200 hours learned a lot from it.
I agree with you on being the trashman.. Plus getting the Pegasus early makes you miss out on experimenting with other small ships. To me the best newbie start would be the Terran Cadet. You start with a below average ship which leaves you ample room to test other ships later, you will get into easy fights with Xenon, plus they give you negative rep with almost all factions which forces you to do the random side quests if you want to befriend them. As most sandbox, the early game is usually the best part and maybe early-mid game but once you reach mid to late game things will get a bit repetitive. Best advice from me is don't try to min-max if you're first time playing as it'll take the fun out of the game. The game is not even hard to begin with.
@@Norden_king Fool me for not following orders without learning how stuff really actually work. I get that there is an audience that enjoys these stuff that "makes your start faster", but I rather learn the game. "Also by 5 mins, he's literally telling you some key bindings" well... then I watched more than that lol. My 5 minutes came from 5 minutes being given orders, so probably watched it for 10
This is a very strange misunderstanding. I'm thinking maybe English isn't your native tongue? No native English speaker would mistake a simple tutorial for being told what to do. The context is extremely basic. However I completely agree about how most tutorials teach you how to bypass as much gameplay as possible for some reason. Turns out many people get their fun primarily from the achievement and progression rather than the gameplay itself. Im as baffled as you are.
Been watching RUclips videos for 2 weeks jumped in the game and just flew around for about 6 hrs getting use to navigating the highways what a blast lol 😊😊😊
Those are good ideas for Button re-assignment. Gonna try that as well. FJ, there is a mod out there that insta-teleports dropped containers into your personal inventory within a certain range depending on the ship class, it´s called "Fly-By Looting". If your idea of a game start is going for drops in battlezones, that mod is a must-have. However in general it´s extremely convenient to have. Every few seconds, everything in your vicinity stuff gets just teleported in. Neat! Oh, to look at yourself on the map, hit R!
Late game a collection mod sounds perfect, early game I like the scrambling for the boxes as quick as you can before they disappear. I flew past my first Damaged singularity engine, did not brake early enough. Before I could get back to the crate it timed out. I only did the swearing on the inside.
Another thing I do in the elite at the beginning of the game while flying around looking at battles I ask the pilot to surrender and sometimes get free ships in the process
Oh yeah, go to a battle where you are neutral to both sides. Look for ships with low health and low shields, and ask them to surrender. It does not make them angry at you, and there is a good chance you can get a nice pile of free ships out of it. They will only bail when they have received a lot of recent damage.
Thankfully, I did remember this one when started a new run. Can definately confirm that there's no rep loss when doing this, and it's easily a nice added pile on the cash-stash. I also managed to get a Nemesis, by way of "Surrender" with only 30mins of playtime. This is just hillarious. Got a nice little fleet of 8 ships, so far, all with their own pilots flying around collecting loot. Anyone loses too much hull near my spot, I'll have them surrender and a brand new ship to add to the collection of collectors......
A helpful tip also, you can pick up cargo just small amounts, the only issue with it is that it attracts pirates too attack you, this can be helpful when doing (kill pirate missions) later on....FYI .
So many people say this game looks dated or ugly but I think it looks great ...or at least serviceable. Very nice ship designs, interface and map are sleek...definitely looks like something I could sink my teeth into.
Cheers for this. X3 veteran but only just got into X4. Got all the DLC inc tinmelines thanks to a steam sale, so I did all the tutorials, did the timelines stuff and then.... kinda of stuck on the sandbox. I know (more or less) how to do things now but it's also still quite different from X3 and I found myself floundering.
I have about 12 hours in and have made nothing in credits. I've been totally lost, started the missions you get at the start and never made a dime. lol I will say I have learned a lot in that time just no money in it. This video is huge for me. Thank you.
I'm getting ready to start all over again, and one thing that stands out is that your default ship does not have satellites. I guess this has changed in the updates over the past year?
Different starts have different load outs, and the starting missions will have a payout, but words the end of the mission string. Hativka free league will just give you a ship straight up, first contact, no questions asked. It's a good mission string to follow for new pilots.
I'm already at about 1000 hours played and just learned I can suck up deactivated deployables. I hate when I overlook these small details that go such a long way. Thank you very much for the useful video. However, you inspired me to start over and I just wanted to add, that you can repeat order the sh*t out of the Argon trashcan. Strip it down except for a good engine and mk2 shield, hire a 1 star pilot or generate one, tell it to collect drops at the important places and as soon as it has 1 inventory, tell it to deposit at HQ. You will miss out on some drops this way, but it's like a checkpoint-mechanic. When it finally gets destroyed, it will have hauled in enough goodies to pay for 2-3 new collector fighters by then. I also always get the free Perseus from Silent Witness and set up a trader with the Callisto from HAT-plots first mission. As soon as the trader gets harassed by a Minotaur Raider, I capture the piece of sh*t and use it to get 5 or 6 Freelance Katanas from PIO space. The goal is to have 3 MK2 Katanas with mk3 shields, while selling the others to pay for the equipment. Now set the Katanas to flee on conflict and let them "fill shortages" until they reach 3 stars. You now either have some decent bodyguards or autotraders. I like to get a freighter with 20 marines at this stage, let it follow me as well and capture my first L-Miner, preferably Gas. Form this point on the moneyprinter goes brrrt. :D Oh, and don't forget to set the Katanas back to use judgment when using them as bodyguards. Learned that the hard way. :D
There is a mod called "Capital ship magnet" or something like that. It basically automates sucking up everything. I think medium ships suck uo at 20km, large at 100, and XL ships at like 200. You can just park and waste Xen allcday long and itll suck up every 30 seconds. Saves holding the O key down.
Use the shortcuts, Luke! (at least for pc) This is one tip most beginners need to learn fast in order to play better the game... use the shortcuts for commands, like shift+ D for docking/ undocking (this also would teleport you back to your ship, if she is docked in a station), is a essential one, another essential one is ctrl+D wich would make you leave the seat Another great shortcut command is to match the target ship speed (shft+X), another grea shortcut press C to start communication with the target ship... Press shft+C to launch counter measures against missiles... Press R while in the map to locate your ship press R in your ship to activat the secondary weapon (usually missiles) press shft+ 1, 2, 3 or 4 to activate modes (SETA, scanner, LRS, travel drive) And FINALLY press H to open up the tutorial menu where you would discover a lot of this shortcuts.
Very good video, great fast pacing and informative for starting players, a bit of a mix of having a good start but also covering how to do some things. I do some things differently, i like my pacing somewhere between min max speed runs, and lollygagging around doing things just for fun. It's a video game after all, everyone will play differently. Now to throw what I might say are tips out there for anyone interested, #1 I like to get some satellite at start, if wharfs have them, and drop them off much like you said on either side of conflict zones, it takes about 30 sec to just zoom around the loop highway. HOP fights both argon and PAR as well as xenon at start, so dropping vision can let me go to where major fighting is going on and not miss it. HOP also fights xenon on a side highway that's a short detour in true vision, so dropping a sat there can be helpful. #2 i like to get as many of the pilots/station manager missions as I can while flying around the loop, especially the ones asking for 2 star managers/pilots. When at the trader, you can get seminars to bring a new recruit up to two stars, it costs about 20k credits per set. The missions will usually pay out between 650-1mil credits, slap those seminars on a low level recruit costing 5k credits and for a 25k investment you get 1 mil back and good amount of rep. You don't even have to go to the station to drop them off, you can do it from the map menu. #3I don't do the criminal traffic much, it's a small slowish grind when grabbing a bigger ship and blasting 2-3 xenon away will get me the same amount of rep soon, or a mining escort mission. #4 Lots of the illegal wares can be sold off to pirate bases or black market traders you find during the signal leaks, as shown it's pretty easy to get large quantities of the stuff and selling it off early for a larger pool of money can have it's place. Also, at pirate bases, you can shoot ALL of the civilian traffic with no rep losses or consequences and just farm inventory items. For anyone looking for secure containers or interfaces. #5 A bit cheesy and broken, but you can comm neutral ships fighting each other in the middle of those battles and demand they surrender, it's best to do it when they are fairly damaged in the middle of the fight, if they do surrender they will leave their ship and you can claim it, this works on s/m ships. Sometimes the xenon PE pilots will also abandon their ships, and the PE is a fairly fast ship, faster then most fighters. Though you can't comm the xenon. #6 The lockbox quests can have a decently large payout and rep gain, for anyone having trouble getting the locks without blowing up the box, at traders you can buy a hand laser. At the lockbox stop and fly out in the spacesuit and shoot the locks with the hand laser. It's much harder to blow up the box and the hand laser is a beam that shoots at the curser for easier aiming. #7 Any spare ships you end up with you can direct them to pick up the inventory drops from an area, such as the illegal wares bandages etc. This can let you collect from multiple combat zones at the same time, just be aware they are more vulnerable to being scanned by police. To get their stuff, talk to the pilot in person. #8. You can craft security decryption systems from the workbench, and then use it in the engineering section of stations on their storage terminal to cause them to eject their cargo. You can also then use your ship magnet to pull this cargo away from the station and turrets to pick it up with all your ships, helpful if you use a cargo ship nearby and on high valuable cargo stations such as claytronics, just be advised if you help yourself to their wares like that, that particular station will turn permanently hostile. So pick your targets carefully, and avoid ship building facilities. You can get as many missions as you want and aborting or failing them causes no rep loss, so pick them up left and right and drop the less useful ones later, all it causes is add clutter.
Good video. Even though I've got hundreds of hours _(Thousands if you count X2, 3 and Rebirth with their DLC's.)_ I've not played X4 for 18 months so I'm going to be rusty when I come back _(Probably in the next hour or two.)_ and being 60+, I forget what and how to do things! 8-\\... But the one thing I found funny, it wasn't for me, was when you land and making sure your ship is in *"Hold Position"* behaviour. I didn't once. I needed a break and to make a cuppa tea _(It's an English thing!)_ so landed. Got out of ship and went to the ship trader, or someone to do something. I can't remember. But I forgot to pause the game. When I came back, I spent 10 minutes running around the station looking for my ship _(Maybe it had gone into storage?)_ before going into the map. It had travelled through some 5 or 6 sectors and was hurtling through space heading towards a gate to somewhere... However. It took twenty plus minutes of me waiting for him to come back. Needless to say, I wasn't happy with my pilot and gave him a good dressing down.
Yeah I know that pilots are supposed to wait for you no matter what but I have had the same thing happen to me enough times that I'm paranoid about it.
One change I suggest is going to the ALI warf in Trinity Sanctum VII and buying a Noden Vanguard. You can just do more stuff with the Noden in the early game.
I looked into them as they were recommended but I never found a use for the Noden. They are a decent all round ship with good cargo capacity for the size but all I want is speed early on to unlock stuff and get to missions. I can make more money faster using the Pegasus.
Instead of modding your travel speed you could also mod your forward thrust. The travel speed mod decreases your boost speed and acceleration by quite a lot. The forward thrust mod has no downside, it also boost your cruising speed, normal acceleration, travel speed and boost speed. You won't gain that much travel speed, but overall I think it's the better mod. It also depends on the engine you're using. For example Terran engines big strength is boost duration and acceleration (along with travel speed acceleration). Installing the travel speed mod on them would defeat the whole purpose of these engines.
One thing to gain a varied ammount of seconds; when telling the ship's captain to bugger off from your chair, quickly double-tap the (default) "F". The captain will get up, and you'll sit down immediately, while the chair is still facing the wrong way (instead of the captain blocking the chair when buggering off xD). When the piloting hotkeys are all "in your muscle-memory", the chair blocking the view will eventually stop being annoying, as it'll be turned around by the time you've undocked. (This is something I picked up from @CaptainCollins, who seem to be a full-time X-series Twitch streamer with a YT channel. Guessing FJ has checked that channel out, as Collins was the first to pop up when I first started out in X4 looking for tips, tricks and how-tos)
Ohh did not know about the double tap to take control instantly. That I am stealing. I was more of a JK Ninja watcher, his stuff was far more info dense.
this was the best pre-early starter boost tutorial for specially over 40 space wana be people who (of course that's not me xd) normally don't have enough time to travel sectors with 2.3 km per second ;) BUT BUT if you don't do it, then you really enjoy that always rememberable hard starting struggling bittersweet, pre-early game which is tbh really really fun :D and painful.
Have played the game for about 183 hours now. Finally getting around to the point in your video where I start to talk to Boso and do the Research 25:00 You say "Teleportation is very tempting" but instead opt to go for chassis. I did not remember that is what you chose and I went for engines. Had to do try to find a race start spot. My bot pilot managed to get my ship stuck inside of a Paranoid station ROFLMAO! Turns out: there is no console. The "recommended solution" for getting your ship unstuck is to TELEPORT ~+100km away from the ship and when the player is not present collision is turned off so the NPC Captain can get the ship loose. I'm kinda stunned that this issue still exists in the game, is (based on the Discord conversations) well-known and yet, there is no "real" solution for it. The solution is to either play with a custom creative session and give yourself teleportation from the outset, or get teleportation finished at the PHQ.
You can also use the Creative Budgeted start and get the Pegasus Vanguard as your starting ship. Mk II Engines/Shields and Mk I Thusters/Gun. Start with the docking comp 2 and police scanner, plus 3 sats. Still have 25k in pocket. Nice little boost
Hey man great guide! I hit a snag though, I never got that Alliance Invitation mission. How do I pick up that mission? All I have is the hatikvah trade revolution one. Thanks
They changed the mission to get the player station. Either that or there has always been alternative methods to get it and I simply had no idea. (scanning leaks until the mission triggers) Either way, the quick and easy way to get set up is very refreshing.
For trash panda-ing, can't recommend enough the collect inventory mod. It lets you set up a ship to run around collecting inventory items from all your other ships and putting it all either in your pocket or at your HQ; there is nothing worse than realizing that your garbage scooper got blown up at some point (being too close to a captial-on-capital fight is extremely bad for your health), losing you several million credits of stuff that it had and would have collected. And don't forget to set up your trash picker to run away if it gets attacked or interdicted by police either! The defaults for both are horrible options for this use case (fighting back for the former, and submitting to scan/ejecting illegal - and thus the most valuable - stuff on the latter).
Can confirm, inventory collector mod is essential. Didn't realize how annoying it is to have to constantly hold the magnet keybind in addition to starting and stopping autopilot over and over until I had already collected 8 million creds worth of trash lmao it was only then that I went and got the inventory collector mod. It's honestly a lifesaver, makes the whole process so much easier. Just wish I'd discovered it earlier in my campaign.
15:00 So Im in the same station, and looking at the list of destinations in the elevator, and there is only one option for a Traders' Corner, yet you have many options. Do you have to find them on foot or something to unlock the ability to get to them via elevator? I looked through the comments but can't see where anyone else mentioned this issue.
I have 15 hours in the game, been all over various sectors, seen dozens of battles, picked up a LOT of dropped containers, but not a single space fly egg. I'm starting to wonder if they removed them from the game since this video was posted.
I originally including the instructions on how to copy the portraits over but the first cut of this tutorial was 57 minutes long. I had to rip out a lot of stuff.
Thanks for doing this, FJ! Due to your last series, I re-installed X4 to take another stab at it (it was previously uninstalled in short order). Please consider Avorion for a future playthrough; it seems similar to X4, but is more buildy/crafty.
I know this is a year old video but just you first 3 minutes explain more to me than many newbie guides do in 15 to 20 minutes.
yeye same
however the drops must have been nerfed mayor. I am not getting any thing of value, been doing this looting thing for 3 hours and I only have 1 mil. Not getting any of the valuable things he gets a ton of in the vid....
@@dusteye1616 yes, same they have nerfed the programmable field array drop by a lot, after the battle between hop and arg was done I had only two, and I have seen 2 spacefly eggs.
@@mrxanthios7045i usually go destroy asteroids. Tons of spacefly eggs in those.
@@ms8studios157what just shoot any asteroid?
5 minutes in and I already know more about the game than my 2 hours in game
About 12 hours for me and I was doing random shit clueless in the second ass ship you get. This guide was so helpful lol
If it wasn't for this guide, I'd never touch this game again. Thank you so much.
The game is pretty cool and once you get a feel for it I think you'll enjoy it if you like Micro managing lol, the AI can be a pain the in the ass sometimes though.
Im on the fence on playing it, this is swaying me some towards trying it.
@@windowsperf i have 990 hrs on it :D great game and trust me when i tell you it is waaaaaaaaaaay easyer then people make it out 2 be there are 3 mechanics in game .
Fight Trade Build . Thats it.
Olso you use the map and right click to issue orders.
Orders are : Atack or trade.
That is literarly it :D
@@user-ip6wq7vr7mno thanks ,this ,like all X Series games plays like a strategy game and I avoid strategy games like the plague.
@@flankymerc1405no it is ridiculously hard and the ui is confusing.
They still haven't made the ultimate X series game yet.
They all have bad gameplay mechanics.
Wheras playing something like Mass Effect is like crack,it pulls you in,X4 does the opposite,you have to have ice cold patience.
Mass Effect reeled me in steaight away.
X4 made me run for the uninstall button on Steam.
Wow this is awesome, I'll be restarting and trying this. Just spent 3 hours scanning a space station and failing to find EMP bombs for some "snooping around" mission that won't complete even after a 100% scan - the most boring start to this game imaginable.
This is the most comprehensive single guide on X4 out there. Every new player would benefit so much from this. Thank You
Another tip for new players: After about 2h into a new game make sure to deploy satellites at all the Wharfs and Shipyards friendly to you and scan their buy offers for any High demands and shortages. Note them down and check again every few hours. Once you see a pattern you know what the faction owning the station will need to keep the war effort going. Supply them and they'll be able to pump out ships just like in the start of the game. They build stuff and get it blown up, you make a profit, everybody wins. As for why you should wait 2 hours at least: It takes a while for the economy to settle and run through the stored up goods and external supply to kick in.
so that's why so many dudes wrote something about "broken AI" its not like they do not build ships, its that they can't since they missing parts and nobody brave enough keeps supplying them! Makes sense
@@3rdcain356 exactly and this is especially true for the Split since their space is mostly isolated. Every faction is missing something at the start of the game and in case of the Split this something usually needs to be transported through Xenon sectors by the AI for the economy to work without the player. Hence why the Split are often the first factions to fall.
Eg. In my most recent game they had an absurd overproduction of food but almost nothing in terms of hull parts which resulted in them being extremely quickly overrun. They literally didn't have the parts to replace their losses nor to build new factories. After just 20h they had only 2 "functional" Free Families systems left everything else was swarmed with Xenon capitals.
@@jasonnchuleft894 so basically Splits = profits
I finally just started this game after having it in my library forever. This game is OVERWHELMING to say the least, thank you for this guide
Just had to sign in and say that I have watched several start guides, but this one BY FAR is the best one out of all of them. And I just recommended this guide in my Steam review of X4 as well. And of course, Francis John's subsequent guides after this one were very helpful in getting me a great start in my first play through. Thank you, Francis, for your work on these!
Phenomenal, this is the guide I need to get started. I've been a veteran of of X3 and everything before, but found this one hard to get into because of the running around stations, and not knowing what to do. Thanks for this great video.
Great guide FJ! I have over 200 hours in X4 Foundations and still learned a few useful tips.
One big thing I'll add though is that a Budgeted Start instead of a storyline start keeps you out of a ship you don't like, AND gets you into a very fast travel speed right away. With the budgeted start you can begin in any sector you'd like and everything else is in place with the story states, and you pick from an array of ships only limited by a budget of about 2M.
The Pegasus is fast but has a very weak hull. Here's some highlights of my research:
Takoba: two sheilds, two guns, 7885 cruise speed, superb flight parameters, 1.9M
Pegasus: weak hull and only one shield, only one gun, fast, 8633 travel speed, cheap, 1.7M
Balaur: Great hull strength, many guns!, 6039 travel speed, 2.1M
Perseus: Good hull, two guns, 6869 travel speed, cheap, 1.6M
Chimera: Great hull, guns guns guns, poor flight parameters, 2.1M
Lux: average hull, two guns, 7283 travel speed, cheep, 1.6M
Nimcha: average hull, two shields, one gun, 6142 travel speed, poor flight parameters, 1.8M
Jaguar: average hull, one gun, 6463 travel speed, superb flight parameters, the cheapest, 1M
The cheaper the ship, the more of the budget you can use for other things, but I usually go with the Takoba because of its two shields. Thanks again for this video!
I can see the reasoning for your choice you are looking for a ship that can fight and explore.
What I found was that fighting in a fighter was difficult and dangerous. For example a Khaak incursion is 5 ships with hit scan weapons and if unlucky is death to any fighter slower than 500 m/s combat speed. Never mind the Xenon that is just straight death.
I usually get 4.5 million and go straight for a Paranid Nemisis medium ship. Good combat speed, 2 medium shields, 5 guns and 2 turrets. You can take out Khaak infestations with one of them and I have even killed K's with one.
So what I figured out was I avoided fights until I had a medium or better ship as it was to risky. So in the end the only thing that mattered to me was speed. For speed you cannot beat a Pegasus. Though the new Irukandji from the Boron looks interesting.
Even if speed is your only focus, starting a budgeted game will give you more speed as a baseline, that can still be improved on in game. As I showed, building the Pegasus out to the max for a budgeted game starts you with a ship that travels at 8633. You start the game with the better ship, and you can save all the early money for your Nemesis.
Personally, I can fight one or two Xenon Ms and Ts with no problem if I have a with a better hull and shield, such as those in the list I included, and it comes in handy. You even went to collect loot in a favorite fighting area of the Xenon, so a stronger hull and another gun would have been good to have, especially in a starter ship that doesn't lose much to the Pegasus in the speed dept. ....and yeah, best to avoid the Ka'ak in the early game if you're starting in a fighter.
Another win for starting as a budgeted game is that you have so many more options for engines, guns, etc. Cheers.
10:38 You actually will run out of oxygen. The Oxygen UI element was a relatively recent addition, but was a mechanic since release... Many of us found out the hard way trying to save some money repairing destroyers.
24:00 Ah Key thing to note about the HQ mission, If you don't have the Boron DLC or are using the Terran starts there are different ways to acquire the HQ. The Boron DLC implemented a replacement for the original mission to get the HQ, which admittedly sped it along. Boso Ta is also voiced by one of the developers.
Terran Cadet still gets the HQ handed to them with the KE DLC. Genesis is the only one that you have to do any sort of 'work' now to get the HQ.
i love the devs lol
Thanks, i only have base game and was a little confused trying to follow this as it didn't exist for me
Very good pacing. I started the video, looked down at the duration 45 minutes and thought I would be skipping a lot. But those 45 minutes were so good. This must have taken you a whole day to make. Much appreciated.
I've put hours/months/years into this series since XBTF. I found your stuff through Rimworld and watching you play games is hilarious. I love it. Best tutorial I've seen so far.
Great stuff. aaaand I'll be back for more.
This is truly epic, fantastic quality. Approachable and without a lot of over-explainy min-max things.
So many things that just are not intuitive, like the Shft-3 scanner not doing anything, until pressing R. Really appreciate the tips.
Not trying to be a downer, but there is a tutorial that explains this mechanic and how to use it.
I would suggest all new players do all the tutorials before jumping in. Then watching this video.
If I hadn't watched this I would have given up in frustration, and even after watching it lots more research required. Thank you. You certainly fit in a lot of instruction in a very small time.
I feel your pain 😅😅
Thank you for the tutorial! After 40 hours of playing i just realized that there is a Crafting station when you showed the crafting!
Clear, fast and to the point! Great guide video you did, thx man. Subscribed❤
Thank you for this video, I have been waiting literally for years for someone to make this guide.
This is a stunning start - I have used a variant of this since X4 came out and this gives lots of excellent advice. I do exactly the same going west to find the big battle between the Holy Order of Pontifex and the Argons... I do a slight twist on this to allow me to capture fighters more easily - once I have about the same amount of money as Captain Francis, I will go Anomaly Jumping... You fly into an anomaly (There are 2 in BHS-IV) and you come out at one of the other 30 or so anomaly locations scattered throughout the X-verse. Sometimes you come out in Xenon sectors and have to get back into the anomaly quickly... Then after maybe 20 jumps I will have found quite a few sectors and one near Trinity Sanctum VII where the Alliance Wharf will sell me a NODAN - it's not QUITE as quick as the Pegasus Vanguard but it has more firepower and more survivability.. I then set the Elite to go and map some sectors on it's way back to the battle again and I try and find a Scale plate M4 / M5 to capture which joins the Elite in mapping and looting. I will do this until I can afford a Pegasus and then send that mapping whilst I fly the Nodan - as I can often capture Minotaur raiders.
NOTE: - anything with Minotaur Raider showing is actually a SCALE PLATE pirate disguised and you can capture them -
Capturing a minotaur raider: - if you find one - get up close and scan it when you are within 200m I think is the limit - if you have done that you can see how many people it has on board - and you then start hammering away at it with the Nodans weapons. Just be a little careful as to the weapons it has - if it has plasma they are slow but take all your shields in one hit. - when you get it down to zero shield and less than 87% hull, about every 30 seconds each time you hit with Zero shield, there is a chance some of the pirates will bail - from a complement of 16, they will leave in 2's or 3's and when you get to the final 2, if the hull is not down to less than about 10%, you should capture it - they make good transports for small items being heavily armoured and quite quick for their size.
Happy Landings everyone.
thanks for the video. It encouraged me to came back to X4 after a couple of years. look forward to more
Although I just started playing, I followed these tips almost exactly, except I didn't have the cash for the Mk3 combat engines, so I went with the Mk2 instead, for significantly less money, and later, I upgraded to the Mk3 combat engines when I had the cash... and I discovered that the performance difference of the Mk3 over the Mk2 is so slight, that it's almost a joke how much more they cost for such an insignificant improvement. I wouldn't recommend the Mk3 unless you have extra cash you just want to throw away.
Noob guide to random game means we got another new one starting soon! I'll be here for it.
Love the tip about holding “o” while in the map view. Glad to see you’re still going to play X4 a bit longer. Watched all your last playthrough. Keep up the great content! 👍
7 months on and it doesn't seem to work for me. Well, it stays on, but once arrive at cargo, autopilot turns off. I scoop cargo, set new target and if I am still holding down "o" shift-a won't re-engage AP. If I let go of "o" then I can engage AP again.
ultimately, I still have to switch screens. Woulda been nice if there was "engage AP" option in map right click menu or a button.
The previous games were complex, this one's gone to another level!
I am interested in the ship capturing in X4 though, it's what I found the most profitable way to earn in the older games, and it'll be cool to see the changes that have bound to have been made.
Capturing ships is quite profitable in X4, though as I've seen it requires (atleast) a frigate (M class) to manage anything substantial.
Was hopping around in a Nemesis (M class Corvette) and got lucky on an M class freighter. Was trying to have them drop cargo, suddenly the pilot bailed at about 40%hull. Guess there weren't a lot of crew to begin with.
Saying this, I'm just assuming the ship-capture mechanic is the same, or similar, to previous iterations of the X series. Never really got into it before X4
The ALI wharf to the north west of GOP wharf has a significant discount on ships and equipment. you can save lots of money early game
This whole first tutorial you been dropping 💎
This is the best tutorial I've seen so far for this game. I got this game like 4 years ago and I absolutely love it but I always get overwhelmed by the sheer size of the game and the loss of direction, so I always play it on and off. This video explains a lot of the things that I missed.
I drop in and out of this game quite a lot, but every time i come back i refer to this video. It helps so much.
ive been waiting on this ever since you started playing! cant wait to see what your next Tutorial is about!
I am new to this and was going to purchase the community of planets and this video convinced me to get it! Your video really helps!
You can shoot with middle mouse button, the advantage is that it will shoot where the cursor is. This makes opening lootboxes a lot easier in my opinion. Press R to recenter the gun.
"Press R to recenter the gun"
Nice troll :)
Without secondary weapons on the ship, hitting R will recenter the guns. Personally, I just hit the spacebar (default for primary weapons)
@@salemprompthous3820 I am not sure what "recenter the guns" even means in X4. Guns shoot either where your mouse is or if you have a target it will attempt to auto-aim. What would recenter even do here? Also, at least in my game, in the default control config space is not bound to anything.
@@musicwombat74 on a fresh install, first boot up (only three I've changed since then are Deploy laser tower, stop engine and change ammo, for missiles and the personal launcher) spacebar is set to fire primary weapons.
Recenter guns: after firing with middle mouse button, the main weapons keep tracking the mouse movement. Recentering means the weapons stop their tracking, and are defaulted to firing straight forward (when no target is selected)
@@salemprompthous3820 for what its worth, I believe you, but it is not that way on my install. For me on a fresh install space is not mapped to anything. I mapped it to primary weapons myself for a bit, but did not find it very useful, in 99.9% of cases I want to shoot at something in particular, not just straight ahead.
Also, there is a mapping for "deploy the last used deployable item" which I find to be a lot more useful than mapping "deploy laser tower". This way I can deploy whatever I need with a mouse once and then use the binding to deploy more of the same.
Great guide, right to the points. I really like this game but I'm always hesitant to pick it up again. Just found your channel, I hope you have vids on the expansions. 👍
With 400+ hours logged, I still learnt some juicy nuggets from this video. Thanks!
13:40 You're protected from your ship running off even if it has orders when you do a spacewalk as getting up from the pilot seat while flying automatically adds a "wait for signal" order that basically prevents your relief pilot/captain from doing anything until you say so. You can remove that wait order at any time by contacting the ship by selecting it and pressing C, or after you have got back aboard by interacting with the pilot; no need to go through the map and behaviours UI. Absolutely check if you get up while docked though, your ship flying off and marooning you on a station is funny at first, but it gets old fast.
Just make sure to turn off marooning protection once you researched teleport otherwise you'll often wonder what your pilots are doing only to see them holding position within a Xenon blob waiting for you to tell them to move on 😅
this guide is amazing, I became addicted to this game because it helped me get started.
First class guide, helped me a lot to struggle through the first hours, thank you mate!
Thank you so much for this guide, I ended up hanging out in Second Contact II until HOP did a massive invasion and cashed out at 7 million.
Have fun storming the castle :)
A fast ship and a bit of money to start automated mining or a factory is the nicest start in my opinion.
Just started playing. Great starter tips even though fast forward till I came across areas that I myself was already struggling with. Just wanted to say thanks and that I got the start with the argon and hod going full send on killing each other. Theirs so many ships fighting it’s actually impacting my pc, to top it off I’ve died so many times to random mines and missiles that for some reason target me. I’ve spent like 3-5 hours replaying that one section because I keep getting killed to random bs, actually died so many times just trying to collect all the space eggs, programmable arrays, damage engine parts, and other good grabs I know where half the ships dropped mines and where to avoid getting blasted by enemy XL ships blowing up. Like theirs 2 massive fleets just bashing each others head, an absolute brawl and everything I’ve wanted from a game like this. I just hope once I make it out I get around that 5mill range. Lord knows how many times I’ve replayed this cause of how much loot drops their are.
I did as suggested for the first hour. The pink guys sent through almost a dozen big ships at one point. I couldn't hoover up the cargo fast enough. They actually managed to take out the defense platform on Blue's side. Wrecks everywhere. I kept getting targeted by stray missiles. What a show!
Thank you so much for this video guide! This is by far the best guide I've found anywhere for new players like me. It's so frustrating trying to figure all of this out. You made it much easier and I can't thank you enough. New sub here :)
The ships only fly off while you are on a station if you have another ship there or the station IS your property, however it gets an issue once one has several ships, yes.
Selling Space Caviar is done best to Black Market traders after you got a mission for it, that DOUBLES the price! Same with all the other things they ask for.
When buying crew, i always leave ONE place open so i can accept some Taxi missions, they are quick, easy and fetch around 40k.
If you think Boso sounds annoying in the english version, try his GERMAN voice, THAT is NIGHTMARE! XD
The black market stuff I have to start getting into if that is the prices they pay.
I never bothered with taxi missions I always figured 40k was to little money for the time investment. I hold out for hacking missions, 500k for roughly the same amount of time investment.
@@FrancisJohnYT Hacking missions can go for one or more sectors, Taxi missions are in-sector, i especially use them in the early phase to find all stations in the sector.
And early on you don´t get the Security breaker tools for the hacking jobs anyways, but yes, those are awesome moneywise.
Very good video Francis, really enjoying it , thanks !
Great video and this technique got me started - you can also fully automate this with your NPC ship Captain! - Set the ship orders to "Repeat Orders" on the behaviour tab - Then, while having your ship selected, right-click a central point in space and select "Collect Drops" your captain will collect everything, when your hold is full he will collect software/items. Leave him to it for a few hours, come back and you should have a few million!
perfect. Didn't know how to find containers in the world, or that you can use O to gravity beam loot. Biggest WTF was learning that you need to com a random stranger to learn where to proceed with your quest. I was completely stuck there.
Try this:
1. Get the free Perseus Vanguard
2. Pirate Freelancer Katanas in Segaris
3. Use one of them, sell the other captured ones (strip them down first for more money)
4. Deck out your Katana
5. Start missions you want / Improve terran relations to get a better loadout for your katana
how to cheat the game...for people playing for the first time.. play normally,
Awesome guide! Really needed ALL the help! Very well done sir!
Looking at going back to X4 this video was great to watch and when you said "This video goes beyond the 30 mins" I had to check the timestamp I felt like we were at like 12-15mins max haha Great work and thanks for the info!
Thank you, that really made for a good start. I got a new problem now though. The XEN are attacking Second Contact II Flashpoint, coming through the gate from The Void in a never ending stream. At first, I enjoyed the masses of Spacefly Eggs and other goodies that I could pick up with my fast ship, zooming right through the battles. But now the ANT defenders have run out of ships. Since then, the XEN are wreaking absolute havoc over the sector, effectively choking off all trade within it. This problem is aggravated by the fact that the only trade route to the ANT wharf and shipyard leads thorugh the sector, meaning I can't help them restock their supplies and they can't build any ships anymore. It's a real dilemma. I guess I'll just have to let it happen until I'm rich enough to isolate the XEN sectors with tons of defense platforms ... Though I'm afraid SC II Flashpoint might be completely taken over by the XEN until then, with almost no one fighting back. There's something unbalanced about this. Sure, the XEN are a highly efficient machine species, but they only own a couple of sectors and presumably don't trade with others, so how can they put out a large ship every 5 minutes? It's crazy.
If you need to stem the tide for a bit until you can get up defences a 100 laser turrets can help, spread them out a bit so explosions don't kill them all.
Put down 200 if you can afford it, great light show and it buys you a lot of time.
@@FrancisJohnYT Thanks man. I've actually already started doing this, especially on their resupply routes I spotted (works great there, as they only send freighters and miners). After a while they stopped sending anything bigger than M size ships in Flashpoint. Then I set up a blockade there. Didn't work for long, as the AI is not that stupid. After my 80 Mk2 towers killed off about a dozen raiding parties, they stopped coming for about an hour to save up for larger ships - and then sent destroyers that took out my blockade with ease. Gonna try to set up the blockade again to buy enough time to build a defense plattform I guess. It's my first real game anyway, so I'm still learning. Next time I'm gonna focus on important production next to my allies' shipyards and defense plattforms at gates as early as possible. Shouldn't have wasted so much time doing missions at the start.
I would not recommend to new players to scavenge for trash for the first 45 minutes of the game, just because it might sour them to the game or not comport with the way they want to play. It might be better to tell them their options for how to start a game and let them choose. For example, if they want to jump immediately into the story missions, doing the Alliance Invitation missions (Kingdom End DLC) early on will get them a Mako absolutely for free, which is only slightly slower than the Pegasus. Also some people might want to RP and not buy a ship from a race they don't want to be friendly towards or will be utterly unconcerned with how fast their ship is and will want a heavy fighter so they can start dog fighting immediately. I am 1000% a min-max player but I got a friend started on this game recently and the way they want to play is completely different from me. If I told him "you can spend half an hour shooting criminals outside stations to get friendly with a station" he'd just respond with "guess I'm going to be at war with that faction then!" That said, this was a great video, and even I who has played for 200 hours learned a lot from it.
I agree with you on being the trashman.. Plus getting the Pegasus early makes you miss out on experimenting with other small ships. To me the best newbie start would be the Terran Cadet. You start with a below average ship which leaves you ample room to test other ships later, you will get into easy fights with Xenon, plus they give you negative rep with almost all factions which forces you to do the random side quests if you want to befriend them. As most sandbox, the early game is usually the best part and maybe early-mid game but once you reach mid to late game things will get a bit repetitive. Best advice from me is don't try to min-max if you're first time playing as it'll take the fun out of the game. The game is not even hard to begin with.
@@Norden_king butt hurded?
New player... 3 or 4 hours played. I just quit the video in 5 minutes because I want to learn some stuff, and not be ordered to do things.
@@Norden_king Fool me for not following orders without learning how stuff really actually work.
I get that there is an audience that enjoys these stuff that "makes your start faster", but I rather learn the game.
"Also by 5 mins, he's literally telling you some key bindings"
well... then I watched more than that lol. My 5 minutes came from 5 minutes being given orders, so probably watched it for 10
This is a very strange misunderstanding. I'm thinking maybe English isn't your native tongue? No native English speaker would mistake a simple tutorial for being told what to do. The context is extremely basic.
However I completely agree about how most tutorials teach you how to bypass as much gameplay as possible for some reason. Turns out many people get their fun primarily from the achievement and progression rather than the gameplay itself. Im as baffled as you are.
I'm going through Timelines now...I'm on the 6th graph. I'm hoping to beat it before starting the game so I can get that ungodly xperimental shuttle.
Thank you so much. This video is fantastic and has given me a great start and understanding of the game.
This video helped me a ton. I did almost everything except buying the scout ship. Been exploring the first 10h with a Eclipse and having a lot of fun.
Been watching RUclips videos for 2 weeks jumped in the game and just flew around for about 6 hrs getting use to navigating the highways what a blast lol 😊😊😊
I love this and all your other videos, I hope you kepe making more, as I. New to x4 and learning
Those are good ideas for Button re-assignment. Gonna try that as well.
FJ, there is a mod out there that insta-teleports dropped containers into your personal inventory within a certain range depending on the ship class, it´s called "Fly-By Looting".
If your idea of a game start is going for drops in battlezones, that mod is a must-have. However in general it´s extremely convenient to have.
Every few seconds, everything in your vicinity stuff gets just teleported in. Neat! Oh, to look at yourself on the map, hit R!
Late game a collection mod sounds perfect, early game I like the scrambling for the boxes as quick as you can before they disappear. I flew past my first Damaged singularity engine, did not brake early enough. Before I could get back to the crate it timed out. I only did the swearing on the inside.
One FJ forgot is to reasign W to run instead of doubletap. Was covered in an earlier video but anyway. Love the game and nice tutorial!
@@MrRiccochet I changed that just yesterday, it´s fantastic.
@@FrancisJohnYT Even with the mod that still can happen, i swear inside as well every time XD
i'm new and this guide help me alot, thank you sir!
Great fun watching your stuff. Thank you very much !
I was thinking of picking this up and this is a great vid with info at breakneck speed. Love it. Guess I'm buying it lol
Another thing I do in the elite at the beginning of the game while flying around looking at battles I ask the pilot to surrender and sometimes get free ships in the process
Cheeky.... I love it 😂. Gonna try this if I start a new game
Oh yeah, go to a battle where you are neutral to both sides. Look for ships with low health and low shields, and ask them to surrender. It does not make them angry at you, and there is a good chance you can get a nice pile of free ships out of it. They will only bail when they have received a lot of recent damage.
Ok that sounds to good to be true, I have to give this a go.
Thankfully, I did remember this one when started a new run. Can definately confirm that there's no rep loss when doing this, and it's easily a nice added pile on the cash-stash. I also managed to get a Nemesis, by way of "Surrender" with only 30mins of playtime. This is just hillarious. Got a nice little fleet of 8 ships, so far, all with their own pilots flying around collecting loot. Anyone loses too much hull near my spot, I'll have them surrender and a brand new ship to add to the collection of collectors......
You make this game look awesome. If I had the time, I'd play it. I'm just excited to see more ONI content right now though.
Making my way towards 150 hours in game, never understood the ship modifications, and how you can boost the stats of your ships. 10/10.
A helpful tip also, you can pick up cargo just small amounts, the only issue with it is that it attracts pirates too attack you, this can be helpful when doing (kill pirate missions) later on....FYI .
So many people say this game looks dated or ugly but I think it looks great ...or at least serviceable. Very nice ship designs, interface and map are sleek...definitely looks like something I could sink my teeth into.
The issue is the NPC models. Other than those, almost all space games age like wine.
Perfect timing for this videos release I just learned to fly the other day.
Cheers for this. X3 veteran but only just got into X4. Got all the DLC inc tinmelines thanks to a steam sale, so I did all the tutorials, did the timelines stuff and then.... kinda of stuck on the sandbox. I know (more or less) how to do things now but it's also still quite different from X3 and I found myself floundering.
Hey thanks, what fun to follow this through. You helped provide quality chill time over xmas.
I have about 12 hours in and have made nothing in credits. I've been totally lost, started the missions you get at the start and never made a dime. lol I will say I have learned a lot in that time just no money in it. This video is huge for me. Thank you.
I'm getting ready to start all over again, and one thing that stands out is that your default ship does not have satellites. I guess this has changed in the updates over the past year?
Different starts have different load outs, and the starting missions will have a payout, but words the end of the mission string. Hativka free league will just give you a ship straight up, first contact, no questions asked. It's a good mission string to follow for new pilots.
I'm already at about 1000 hours played and just learned I can suck up deactivated deployables. I hate when I overlook these small details that go such a long way. Thank you very much for the useful video.
However, you inspired me to start over and I just wanted to add, that you can repeat order the sh*t out of the Argon trashcan. Strip it down except for a good engine and mk2 shield, hire a 1 star pilot or generate one, tell it to collect drops at the important places and as soon as it has 1 inventory, tell it to deposit at HQ. You will miss out on some drops this way, but it's like a checkpoint-mechanic. When it finally gets destroyed, it will have hauled in enough goodies to pay for 2-3 new collector fighters by then.
I also always get the free Perseus from Silent Witness and set up a trader with the Callisto from HAT-plots first mission. As soon as the trader gets harassed by a Minotaur Raider, I capture the piece of sh*t and use it to get 5 or 6 Freelance Katanas from PIO space. The goal is to have 3 MK2 Katanas with mk3 shields, while selling the others to pay for the equipment. Now set the Katanas to flee on conflict and let them "fill shortages" until they reach 3 stars. You now either have some decent bodyguards or autotraders. I like to get a freighter with 20 marines at this stage, let it follow me as well and capture my first L-Miner, preferably Gas. Form this point on the moneyprinter goes brrrt. :D
Oh, and don't forget to set the Katanas back to use judgment when using them as bodyguards. Learned that the hard way. :D
The suggestion to get the Scout is THE Advice for newcomers. Good job
There is a mod called "Capital ship magnet" or something like that. It basically automates sucking up everything. I think medium ships suck uo at 20km, large at 100, and XL ships at like 200. You can just park and waste Xen allcday long and itll suck up every 30 seconds. Saves holding the O key down.
Use the shortcuts, Luke! (at least for pc)
This is one tip most beginners need to learn fast in order to play better the game... use the shortcuts for commands, like shift+ D for docking/ undocking (this also would teleport you back to your ship, if she is docked in a station), is a essential one, another essential one is ctrl+D wich would make you leave the seat
Another great shortcut command is to match the target ship speed (shft+X), another grea shortcut press C to start communication with the target ship...
Press shft+C to launch counter measures against missiles...
Press R while in the map to locate your ship press R in your ship to activat the secondary weapon (usually missiles) press shft+ 1, 2, 3 or 4 to activate modes (SETA, scanner, LRS, travel drive)
And FINALLY press H to open up the tutorial menu where you would discover a lot of this shortcuts.
Me and my friends are still holding our breath, from 2018, for this game to be CooP.
Very good video, great fast pacing and informative for starting players, a bit of a mix of having a good start but also covering how to do some things.
I do some things differently, i like my pacing somewhere between min max speed runs, and lollygagging around doing things just for fun. It's a video game after all, everyone will play differently.
Now to throw what I might say are tips out there for anyone interested,
#1 I like to get some satellite at start, if wharfs have them, and drop them off much like you said on either side of conflict zones, it takes about 30 sec to just zoom around the loop highway. HOP fights both argon and PAR as well as xenon at start, so dropping vision can let me go to where major fighting is going on and not miss it. HOP also fights xenon on a side highway that's a short detour in true vision, so dropping a sat there can be helpful.
#2 i like to get as many of the pilots/station manager missions as I can while flying around the loop, especially the ones asking for 2 star managers/pilots. When at the trader, you can get seminars to bring a new recruit up to two stars, it costs about 20k credits per set. The missions will usually pay out between 650-1mil credits, slap those seminars on a low level recruit costing 5k credits and for a 25k investment you get 1 mil back and good amount of rep. You don't even have to go to the station to drop them off, you can do it from the map menu.
#3I don't do the criminal traffic much, it's a small slowish grind when grabbing a bigger ship and blasting 2-3 xenon away will get me the same amount of rep soon, or a mining escort mission.
#4 Lots of the illegal wares can be sold off to pirate bases or black market traders you find during the signal leaks, as shown it's pretty easy to get large quantities of the stuff and selling it off early for a larger pool of money can have it's place. Also, at pirate bases, you can shoot ALL of the civilian traffic with no rep losses or consequences and just farm inventory items. For anyone looking for secure containers or interfaces.
#5 A bit cheesy and broken, but you can comm neutral ships fighting each other in the middle of those battles and demand they surrender, it's best to do it when they are fairly damaged in the middle of the fight, if they do surrender they will leave their ship and you can claim it, this works on s/m ships. Sometimes the xenon PE pilots will also abandon their ships, and the PE is a fairly fast ship, faster then most fighters. Though you can't comm the xenon.
#6 The lockbox quests can have a decently large payout and rep gain, for anyone having trouble getting the locks without blowing up the box, at traders you can buy a hand laser. At the lockbox stop and fly out in the spacesuit and shoot the locks with the hand laser. It's much harder to blow up the box and the hand laser is a beam that shoots at the curser for easier aiming.
#7 Any spare ships you end up with you can direct them to pick up the inventory drops from an area, such as the illegal wares bandages etc. This can let you collect from multiple combat zones at the same time, just be aware they are more vulnerable to being scanned by police. To get their stuff, talk to the pilot in person.
#8. You can craft security decryption systems from the workbench, and then use it in the engineering section of stations on their storage terminal to cause them to eject their cargo. You can also then use your ship magnet to pull this cargo away from the station and turrets to pick it up with all your ships, helpful if you use a cargo ship nearby and on high valuable cargo stations such as claytronics, just be advised if you help yourself to their wares like that, that particular station will turn permanently hostile. So pick your targets carefully, and avoid ship building facilities.
You can get as many missions as you want and aborting or failing them causes no rep loss, so pick them up left and right and drop the less useful ones later, all it causes is add clutter.
Good video. Even though I've got hundreds of hours _(Thousands if you count X2, 3 and Rebirth with their DLC's.)_ I've not played X4 for 18 months so I'm going to be rusty when I come back _(Probably in the next hour or two.)_ and being 60+, I forget what and how to do things! 8-\\...
But the one thing I found funny, it wasn't for me, was when you land and making sure your ship is in *"Hold Position"* behaviour.
I didn't once.
I needed a break and to make a cuppa tea _(It's an English thing!)_ so landed. Got out of ship and went to the ship trader, or someone to do something. I can't remember. But I forgot to pause the game. When I came back, I spent 10 minutes running around the station looking for my ship _(Maybe it had gone into storage?)_ before going into the map. It had travelled through some 5 or 6 sectors and was hurtling through space heading towards a gate to somewhere...
However. It took twenty plus minutes of me waiting for him to come back. Needless to say, I wasn't happy with my pilot and gave him a good dressing down.
Yeah I know that pilots are supposed to wait for you no matter what but I have had the same thing happen to me enough times that I'm paranoid about it.
One change I suggest is going to the ALI warf in Trinity Sanctum VII and buying a Noden Vanguard. You can just do more stuff with the Noden in the early game.
I looked into them as they were recommended but I never found a use for the Noden.
They are a decent all round ship with good cargo capacity for the size but all I want is speed early on to unlock stuff and get to missions.
I can make more money faster using the Pegasus.
Love your videos! So incredibly helpful for getting into a new game
Looks like they improved this game a lot
Instead of modding your travel speed you could also mod your forward thrust. The travel speed mod decreases your boost speed and acceleration by quite a lot. The forward thrust mod has no downside, it also boost your cruising speed, normal acceleration, travel speed and boost speed. You won't gain that much travel speed, but overall I think it's the better mod. It also depends on the engine you're using. For example Terran engines big strength is boost duration and acceleration (along with travel speed acceleration). Installing the travel speed mod on them would defeat the whole purpose of these engines.
One thing to gain a varied ammount of seconds; when telling the ship's captain to bugger off from your chair, quickly double-tap the (default) "F". The captain will get up, and you'll sit down immediately, while the chair is still facing the wrong way (instead of the captain blocking the chair when buggering off xD). When the piloting hotkeys are all "in your muscle-memory", the chair blocking the view will eventually stop being annoying, as it'll be turned around by the time you've undocked.
(This is something I picked up from @CaptainCollins, who seem to be a full-time X-series Twitch streamer with a YT channel. Guessing FJ has checked that channel out, as Collins was the first to pop up when I first started out in X4 looking for tips, tricks and how-tos)
Ohh did not know about the double tap to take control instantly. That I am stealing.
I was more of a JK Ninja watcher, his stuff was far more info dense.
@@FrancisJohnYT JK Ninja has the info but delivered with witty style.
A bit overwhelming after basically forgetting everything in the first in game tutorial but all info essential. Thanks
this was the best pre-early starter boost tutorial for specially over 40 space wana be people who (of course that's not me xd) normally don't have enough time to travel sectors with 2.3 km per second ;) BUT BUT if you don't do it, then you really enjoy that always rememberable hard starting struggling bittersweet, pre-early game which is tbh really really fun :D and painful.
Damn that was close.........Was whatchin the timer and distance......on the edge of my seat!
One thing that makes the researcher voice acceptable is: I smile and think "its nice Grian did some voice acting for the game
Long time elite fan looking to get on this
Have played the game for about 183 hours now. Finally getting around to the point in your video where I start to talk to Boso and do the Research 25:00
You say "Teleportation is very tempting" but instead opt to go for chassis. I did not remember that is what you chose and I went for engines. Had to do try to find a race start spot. My bot pilot managed to get my ship stuck inside of a Paranoid station ROFLMAO!
Turns out: there is no console. The "recommended solution" for getting your ship unstuck is to TELEPORT ~+100km away from the ship and when the player is not present collision is turned off so the NPC Captain can get the ship loose.
I'm kinda stunned that this issue still exists in the game, is (based on the Discord conversations) well-known and yet, there is no "real" solution for it. The solution is to either play with a custom creative session and give yourself teleportation from the outset, or get teleportation finished at the PHQ.
Loved the after credits scene!! 😂
You can also use the Creative Budgeted start and get the Pegasus Vanguard as your starting ship. Mk II Engines/Shields and Mk I Thusters/Gun. Start with the docking comp 2 and police scanner, plus 3 sats. Still have 25k in pocket. Nice little boost
31:56 LETS GOO!!!! that was a bit more hype than I expected.
that was amazing. looking forward to the next video
Hey man great guide! I hit a snag though, I never got that Alliance Invitation mission. How do I pick up that mission? All I have is the hatikvah trade revolution one. Thanks
They changed the mission to get the player station. Either that or there has always been alternative methods to get it and I simply had no idea. (scanning leaks until the mission triggers) Either way, the quick and easy way to get set up is very refreshing.
For trash panda-ing, can't recommend enough the collect inventory mod. It lets you set up a ship to run around collecting inventory items from all your other ships and putting it all either in your pocket or at your HQ; there is nothing worse than realizing that your garbage scooper got blown up at some point (being too close to a captial-on-capital fight is extremely bad for your health), losing you several million credits of stuff that it had and would have collected.
And don't forget to set up your trash picker to run away if it gets attacked or interdicted by police either! The defaults for both are horrible options for this use case (fighting back for the former, and submitting to scan/ejecting illegal - and thus the most valuable - stuff on the latter).
Can confirm, inventory collector mod is essential. Didn't realize how annoying it is to have to constantly hold the magnet keybind in addition to starting and stopping autopilot over and over until I had already collected 8 million creds worth of trash lmao it was only then that I went and got the inventory collector mod. It's honestly a lifesaver, makes the whole process so much easier. Just wish I'd discovered it earlier in my campaign.
I play the game during the day, and in the evening's I watch your videos and take notes on my laptop.
great video thanks for the knowledge.
I am planning my plunge into the X universe and soaking up all these kinds of videos to at least ease the dreaded early hours of not knowing shit. xD
Good luck. Once you get a few the Xeon contained with some defence platforms you can take your time and build up a massive fleet.
15:00 So Im in the same station, and looking at the list of destinations in the elevator, and there is only one option for a Traders' Corner, yet you have many options. Do you have to find them on foot or something to unlock the ability to get to them via elevator? I looked through the comments but can't see where anyone else mentioned this issue.
I have 15 hours in the game, been all over various sectors, seen dozens of battles, picked up a LOT of dropped containers, but not a single space fly egg. I'm starting to wonder if they removed them from the game since this video was posted.
You'll have better luck mining and looking for nodes on astroids
5:19 That's a Starsector portrait! It really does fit X4 extremely well
I originally including the instructions on how to copy the portraits over but the first cut of this tutorial was 57 minutes long. I had to rip out a lot of stuff.
Thanks for doing this, FJ! Due to your last series, I re-installed X4 to take another stab at it (it was previously uninstalled in short order).
Please consider Avorion for a future playthrough; it seems similar to X4, but is more buildy/crafty.