Just listened to one of your videos earlier for the first time, the most recent before this one. Was super impressed but also disappointed that was the latest video and here to my surprise is another upload! Subscribed look forward to more!
Re: updated boost audio, that might be the change I'm most excited about. Elite Dangerous has custom sounds based on ship and the sounds also change based on your current speed. It's such an underrated detail that makes me so happy to play the game. Now, X4 is starting to add this feature!
I absolutely love the new boost mechanics. I could NEVER stand the shield mix mechanic it was absolutely nonsensical and took the fun out of dogfighting. It’s fast paced and intense now
First? Thanks for doing these. I can't handle doing beta right now. Too busy testing all the bugs from that other game that the new Ego guy came from :P
draining power from shields for boost made perfect sense, but most people will gripe to remove all challenge from the game, and then complain that it's too easy.
In the end the game isn’t about good dog fights, as much as it tries to. It’s a space sim sandbox where dogfights are one possible way of advancing the game, though ultimately you win it by playing the other aspects. So it makes sense to make the strategy part less frustrating, and AI boosting their shields away was a great frustration. So frustrating in fact that people chose to disable boost on their AI controlled ships. I agree that ship boost *regen* should reduce shield regen and vice-versa. I’d aim for the classic mechanic of balancing engine, shields and weaponry, meaning that shields and boost regenerate even slower if you’re also firing. But, I fear, this might be impossible to do without further increasing the load on the universe simulator, with even more pools and calculations to keep track of per ship.
Oboy. I have just started playing X4 a few weeks ago and only played for about two hours before switching to the beta. With so little experience I couldn't really tell what had changed. I've done a lot of combat and I've found the combat quite nicely balanced, I would not say it's too easy! Despite boost being so useful, facing a group of 5 Xenon is still quite a challenge, especially in a ship that's not specially built for combat. I did wonder why the enemies seemed to not use boost, your video explains it. I suppose if they do start using boost wisely I'm really going to sweat!
Interesting. So assuming the AI doesn't use Boost very well - which engine is best for NPC pilots? Guessing Split or Paranid for S/M combat ships with their high Cruise speed/accel, and Teladi/Terran for L/XL ships that might better use Travel drive in short bursts mid-engagement?
I'd say that's about right. Split will likely be the absolute top pick for carrier fighters, and either Terran or Paranid will be optimal for most other ships. Teladi will probably see some use, but since AI-controlled ships tend to have dedicated roles, the more specialized engines will probably be more optimal.
My Katana with purple grade hull and engine mods should be fun. I'm guessing it won't be able to go at near 8km/sec on boost with the new system, but not needing shields to boost is enough.
The Katana can go way more than 8k with the new system, but its steering is basically nonexistent over about 500, and you can't mitigate it with FA toggling like before. It might be okay with the right combination of engines and mods, but I've struck out with all the ones I've tried so far.
Going to be honest I wasn't thrilled when I heard the flight model was being overhauled this late in the game, I figured it would come with all sorts of issues and new/previously fixed bugs resurfacing. Still not thrilled with the way a lot of the changes sound and the fact that we might be coming up on the next patch without all the kinks being worked out. With just a bit of practice it was almost impossible to die with the old boost (never let yourself get under 50% shields). Now, it sounds like an even bigger "player wins every dogfight" button. There are SO many moving parts to this game that when you overhaul something as foundational as the flight model it's going to have a downstream butterfly effect on the rest of the game. It's been so many years already that this is the way the game was designed and everything else built around it I'm cynical that there's any single *fix* like re-calibrating turret effectiveness that isn't going to muck up something else just as much as it "fixes" things. I haven't played the beta patch yet so my opinion is based entirely on second-hand observation. Ya know, so it's not worth much. I just hope I'm wrong in the end, because X4 is one of a few "modern" games I'm still excited about these days as huge swaths of the industry have seemed to pivot in a more rent-seeking direction to try and offset spiraling development costs.
The main issue with the previous system was that once you lost shields there was nothing you could do avoid dying, especially in smaller ship fight more then 1 enemy. It was basically a death sentence. There should be enough means for people to make use of their skills if they want, but a game should be punishing for the punishment sake.
One upside is that reworking the flight model is a signal that they plan on continuing to support the game, and they’re not winding it down in favor of moving onto something new and uncertain, at least not just yet.
The old flight model also meant that you simply died in some fights, no matter what you did. Dogfights weren’t won by being a better pilot but by having a ship with more shield than the other guys, and enough DPS to kill them in one or two bursts. Actually, dogfights weren’t won by that either. They were won by having wingmen who focus your target. Because while 1v1 or even 1v4 could be won as a player in a kitted out heavy fighter, 4v4 would be over *much* more quickly. Even the games missions teach you that, and they don’t hammer many points home like this one.
I’d like to see how this affects the XEN and KHA ships. Both used to have OP boost stats and people might be in for a surprise once the AI learns to use the “new boost”. I’m talking unkillable PEs and Fs, if you don’t bring ion nets…
Just looking at the raw stats, XEN boost has medium speed, very high acceleration, and low endurance due to poor recharge and speed retention. KHA has low speed, medium acceleration, and very low endurance due to poor capacity and speed retention. Their defensive boosting might end up being a little stronger than before, but they won't be able to keep it up for long, especially if they've already spent some boost energy on offense.
Any updates on the fighter AI, specifically with carrier undocking? Some of the patch notes indicate improvements, but I haven’t been able to test it myself.
Carrier undocking has been gradually improving throughout the beta. Last time I checked (Beta 6), undocking was working pretty smoothly and was actually slightly faster than in 7.1. Docking still had a couple of issues and was slower than 7.1.
Given, say, a Medium hauler, which I tend to build a lot of: Do they perform better at their tasks with Teladi or with Paranid engines? Do the Acceleration and Charge Time outweigh the lower top speed?
With midweight to heavyweight medium ships, TEL and TER were pretty competitive at distances below two jumps, but Paranid absolutely dominates beyond that distance.
hey Snuggles. I know this isn't the video for it, but wanted to ask since your testing was about done. has anything in this beta given you cause to believe that an AI owned Asgard is at all a threat? or is it still the most useless ship for AI, despite being instant victory if player controlled?
So would you say Boron engines are worse or about the same as before? Their acceleration was absolutely dreadful as it was before and their only saving grace was the instant travel engine engagement on their larger ships which was only really useful to the player, imo.
In absolute terms, Boron engines are a bit better now, but several of the other engines have gotten significantly bigger buffs than them. So, in relative terms, I'd say they're a little worse now when compared to the other engines, but I don't think it's really going to change the "meta" when it comes to Boron ships.
@@CptSnuggles07 Thank you for sharing your assessment of the Boron engines specifically. I had a feeling that was going to be about they way they would turn out. As you indirectly implied, the Boron were never really about their engines anyway, ha ha. I was just concerned their engines might have been at a significantly greater disadvantage than they already were, which would have just been a 'nerf' that wasn't really needed.
I agree with most of your analysis, though probably not with the suggestion to have boost affect shield regen. If you are concerned with the player being able to abuse boost to get out of most situations, I would instead add initial boost consumption, and boost regen delay, similar to how weapons work. This would make it so that constantly tapping your boost drains it faster, and boost regen gets delayed for several seconds after finishing boosting. These would also create two new stats that different races could have different performance with. Maybe one race could have very small initial boost consumption and recharge delays to make them effective at short boost bursts, while another race could have longer delays and bigger initial consumption, but then have better regen and endurance, as an example.
Not a bad thought! We're probably past the point in the beta where they'll be adding new stats to things though, and in future patches I'd prefer to see Egosoft just focus on the AI and turrets.
Best engine for Scouts? Best engine for Courier? Best engine for Interceptor? Best engine for Fighter? Best engine for Heavy Fighter? Best engine for Corvette? Best engine for Frigate? Best engine for Bomber? Best engine for Destroyers? Best engine for Freighter/Miner? Best engine for Carriers/Auxiliary? Best engine for other XL ships?
"Travel engines have been rebalance to be good at travel, and faction differences make sense now."
Makes a grown man cry.
Just listened to one of your videos earlier for the first time, the most recent before this one. Was super impressed but also disappointed that was the latest video and here to my surprise is another upload!
Subscribed look forward to more!
He doesn't make a *flood* of videos, but it's definitely a case of quality over quantity.
I agree with your assessments & suggestions on the engines. I’m loving Egosoft’s work. Cheers to everyone.
Re: updated boost audio, that might be the change I'm most excited about. Elite Dangerous has custom sounds based on ship and the sounds also change based on your current speed. It's such an underrated detail that makes me so happy to play the game. Now, X4 is starting to add this feature!
Absolutely love your work, please, keep up! Also reaaly enjoy your vocabulary :)
Excellent X4 Videos! Hope you will make more in the future
I absolutely love the new boost mechanics. I could NEVER stand the shield mix mechanic it was absolutely nonsensical and took the fun out of dogfighting. It’s fast paced and intense now
I love your X4 content. I pretty much bninged all of your videos as soon as I stumbled across yoru channel, great work!
decoupling boost and shield, is a very big buff for fighters. I approve.
Great work on that testing
First? Thanks for doing these. I can't handle doing beta right now. Too busy testing all the bugs from that other game that the new Ego guy came from :P
draining power from shields for boost made perfect sense, but most people will gripe to remove all challenge from the game, and then complain that it's too easy.
In the end the game isn’t about good dog fights, as much as it tries to. It’s a space sim sandbox where dogfights are one possible way of advancing the game, though ultimately you win it by playing the other aspects.
So it makes sense to make the strategy part less frustrating, and AI boosting their shields away was a great frustration. So frustrating in fact that people chose to disable boost on their AI controlled ships.
I agree that ship boost *regen* should reduce shield regen and vice-versa. I’d aim for the classic mechanic of balancing engine, shields and weaponry, meaning that shields and boost regenerate even slower if you’re also firing.
But, I fear, this might be impossible to do without further increasing the load on the universe simulator, with even more pools and calculations to keep track of per ship.
It actually makes the game harder as the AI could not handle this fact and constantly drained all their shields.
I'm just glad that I don't have to be a sitting duck with 0 shields when I'm trying to run away from Xenon.
facts
3:30 I think it would be even better if they gave you the recharge rate in seconds of boost per second
Oboy. I have just started playing X4 a few weeks ago and only played for about two hours before switching to the beta. With so little experience I couldn't really tell what had changed. I've done a lot of combat and I've found the combat quite nicely balanced, I would not say it's too easy! Despite boost being so useful, facing a group of 5 Xenon is still quite a challenge, especially in a ship that's not specially built for combat. I did wonder why the enemies seemed to not use boost, your video explains it. I suppose if they do start using boost wisely I'm really going to sweat!
Welcome to X4!
@@CptSnuggles07 thank-you!
Interesting. So assuming the AI doesn't use Boost very well - which engine is best for NPC pilots? Guessing Split or Paranid for S/M combat ships with their high Cruise speed/accel, and Teladi/Terran for L/XL ships that might better use Travel drive in short bursts mid-engagement?
The new results appear to favour Paranid or Teladi engines for super freighters over Terran.
I'd say that's about right. Split will likely be the absolute top pick for carrier fighters, and either Terran or Paranid will be optimal for most other ships. Teladi will probably see some use, but since AI-controlled ships tend to have dedicated roles, the more specialized engines will probably be more optimal.
My Katana with purple grade hull and engine mods should be fun. I'm guessing it won't be able to go at near 8km/sec on boost with the new system, but not needing shields to boost is enough.
The Katana can go way more than 8k with the new system, but its steering is basically nonexistent over about 500, and you can't mitigate it with FA toggling like before. It might be okay with the right combination of engines and mods, but I've struck out with all the ones I've tried so far.
I remember teladi engines to have very good deceleration, that could be important for miners or fully loaded cargos now.
That's possible. I haven't specifically tested their decel yet, but I've found them generally pleasant to use on a lot of different ship types.
👍👍
Going to be honest I wasn't thrilled when I heard the flight model was being overhauled this late in the game, I figured it would come with all sorts of issues and new/previously fixed bugs resurfacing. Still not thrilled with the way a lot of the changes sound and the fact that we might be coming up on the next patch without all the kinks being worked out. With just a bit of practice it was almost impossible to die with the old boost (never let yourself get under 50% shields). Now, it sounds like an even bigger "player wins every dogfight" button.
There are SO many moving parts to this game that when you overhaul something as foundational as the flight model it's going to have a downstream butterfly effect on the rest of the game. It's been so many years already that this is the way the game was designed and everything else built around it I'm cynical that there's any single *fix* like re-calibrating turret effectiveness that isn't going to muck up something else just as much as it "fixes" things.
I haven't played the beta patch yet so my opinion is based entirely on second-hand observation. Ya know, so it's not worth much. I just hope I'm wrong in the end, because X4 is one of a few "modern" games I'm still excited about these days as huge swaths of the industry have seemed to pivot in a more rent-seeking direction to try and offset spiraling development costs.
The main issue with the previous system was that once you lost shields there was nothing you could do avoid dying, especially in smaller ship fight more then 1 enemy. It was basically a death sentence. There should be enough means for people to make use of their skills if they want, but a game should be punishing for the punishment sake.
One upside is that reworking the flight model is a signal that they plan on continuing to support the game, and they’re not winding it down in favor of moving onto something new and uncertain, at least not just yet.
The old flight model also meant that you simply died in some fights, no matter what you did. Dogfights weren’t won by being a better pilot but by having a ship with more shield than the other guys, and enough DPS to kill them in one or two bursts.
Actually, dogfights weren’t won by that either. They were won by having wingmen who focus your target. Because while 1v1 or even 1v4 could be won as a player in a kitted out heavy fighter, 4v4 would be over *much* more quickly. Even the games missions teach you that, and they don’t hammer many points home like this one.
wondering what they did to the K acc rates now. they take a while to turn but move fast once they hit that direction
👍
I’d like to see how this affects the XEN and KHA ships. Both used to have OP boost stats and people might be in for a surprise once the AI learns to use the “new boost”.
I’m talking unkillable PEs and Fs, if you don’t bring ion nets…
Just looking at the raw stats, XEN boost has medium speed, very high acceleration, and low endurance due to poor recharge and speed retention. KHA has low speed, medium acceleration, and very low endurance due to poor capacity and speed retention. Their defensive boosting might end up being a little stronger than before, but they won't be able to keep it up for long, especially if they've already spent some boost energy on offense.
@@CptSnuggles07 sounds great both from a balancing standpoint and from the lore POV.
Thanks!
Good
Turrets need muzzle velocity adjustment
At least 2km/s to be able to hit anything with current engines
Yeah currently anything other than flak cannons are pretty much useless
Any updates on the fighter AI, specifically with carrier undocking? Some of the patch notes indicate improvements, but I haven’t been able to test it myself.
Carrier undocking has been gradually improving throughout the beta. Last time I checked (Beta 6), undocking was working pretty smoothly and was actually slightly faster than in 7.1. Docking still had a couple of issues and was slower than 7.1.
@ awesome, glad to see it!
Given, say, a Medium hauler, which I tend to build a lot of: Do they perform better at their tasks with Teladi or with Paranid engines? Do the Acceleration and Charge Time outweigh the lower top speed?
With midweight to heavyweight medium ships, TEL and TER were pretty competitive at distances below two jumps, but Paranid absolutely dominates beyond that distance.
hey Snuggles. I know this isn't the video for it, but wanted to ask since your testing was about done. has anything in this beta given you cause to believe that an AI owned Asgard is at all a threat? or is it still the most useless ship for AI, despite being instant victory if player controlled?
So would you say Boron engines are worse or about the same as before?
Their acceleration was absolutely dreadful as it was before and their only saving grace was the instant travel engine engagement on their larger ships which was only really useful to the player, imo.
In absolute terms, Boron engines are a bit better now, but several of the other engines have gotten significantly bigger buffs than them. So, in relative terms, I'd say they're a little worse now when compared to the other engines, but I don't think it's really going to change the "meta" when it comes to Boron ships.
@@CptSnuggles07 Thank you for sharing your assessment of the Boron engines specifically. I had a feeling that was going to be about they way they would turn out. As you indirectly implied, the Boron were never really about their engines anyway, ha ha. I was just concerned their engines might have been at a significantly greater disadvantage than they already were, which would have just been a 'nerf' that wasn't really needed.
I agree with most of your analysis, though probably not with the suggestion to have boost affect shield regen.
If you are concerned with the player being able to abuse boost to get out of most situations, I would instead add initial boost consumption, and boost regen delay, similar to how weapons work. This would make it so that constantly tapping your boost drains it faster, and boost regen gets delayed for several seconds after finishing boosting. These would also create two new stats that different races could have different performance with. Maybe one race could have very small initial boost consumption and recharge delays to make them effective at short boost bursts, while another race could have longer delays and bigger initial consumption, but then have better regen and endurance, as an example.
Not a bad thought! We're probably past the point in the beta where they'll be adding new stats to things though, and in future patches I'd prefer to see Egosoft just focus on the AI and turrets.
Hot ❤
Best engine for Scouts?
Best engine for Courier?
Best engine for Interceptor?
Best engine for Fighter?
Best engine for Heavy Fighter?
Best engine for Corvette?
Best engine for Frigate?
Best engine for Bomber?
Best engine for Destroyers?
Best engine for Freighter/Miner?
Best engine for Carriers/Auxiliary?
Best engine for other XL ships?