How I play X4:

1. Start game

2. Do the tutorial missions until it asks me to find parts to build a bomb

3. Get frustrated trying to find new places to jump to because the 2 possible stations you have on the map never have the shit you need and exploration fucking sucks

4. Give up and play X3 instead

It’s a sandbox so you just kinda do what you want with the tools the game gives you. Think of it like the Mount & Blade of space games. The story missions help get you going, but you could totally ignore them. I just have never figured out how to really get around in X4. The layout of the universe is dumb, and finding new sectors is a pain in the ass without having drones or AI ships to do it for you.

I played and enjoyed X3.

X4 added the “walking around space stations” thing, which feels kind of pointless to me. I haven’t played that game much. But as to the series in general:

So, the X series is really more of a space megacorp simulation. Like, you can individually dogfight, but it’s not really a Privateer. You can own huge ships, build up a network of space stations and a substantial fleet. A lot of the aim is getting access to parts to building and optimizing ships for combat, trading, scouting, etc. You can set up automated fleets of trading ships, set up defenses in a sector to protect your industrial concerns. Build battleship-like gun ships, build carriers and the ships to put in them, stick flak guns to deal with pesky fighters that can maneuver around slow-moving heavy rounds from your big ship guns, etc.

It’s got a steep learning curve, and the early game in X3 wasn’t very forgiving. The series does not do hand-holding.

In general, the early game (well, in X3, could be that X4 differs) is about getting the economy going with your individual actions. Once you can build up enough credits, you can start building out space stations and can set up supply chains; that provides a flow of income to support your fleet activities.

kagis

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2239846532

X4 Beginner Guide 5.1

The 4 quickest way to earn money in X4 is to either sell unclaimed/abandoned ships, collect containers from destroyed ships, trade advanced satellites or to make Spacefly Caviar (1 million a pop. Needs to be crafted at a crafting bench in a traders corner on any station).

IIRC, finding a particularly good trade route was better in X3 at the beginning, so maybe that differs.

Most of the story surrounds combat.

You can definitely run into forces that greatly outclass you.

Unless things have changed significantly since X3, there are a series of ship classes. These mostly play differently. There are scouts that are useful for exploring but will lose to just about anything in combat. But they’re by far the best for exploring, because they can outrun dangers. I generally wasn’t into anything beyond combat up until I got a high-end heavy fighter, as ships below that were, IMHO, just too fragile, not very forgiving of mistakes.

In combat, strafing is really important, because weapons take a while to get where you are, and if you’ve shifted your position by strafing, you won’t be there. The AI will aim assuming that you are continuing on your current course; using stating to switch around your vertical and horizontal movement will make stuff fired at you tens to miss.

There are ways to take down much larger ships using blind spots, where weapon arcs don’t cover.

I’ve played X4 a lot but it’s been a while. Travel mode should be Shift-F1, wait for it to spin up and after 5-10 seconds you should be going thousands of meters per second.

How fast a ship accelerates should depend on the ship, you can view the specs for whatever ship you’re flying. Same with top speed and travel speed. At wharfs and repair depots you can swap out different engines and such for different stats.

Salvagable items should be shown by little squares with a / through them on the map. IIRC you go near them and hold O to pull them in. You can also command AI ships to do the same. Keep in mind you may pull in contraband so be careful.

Each person (player and AI) has a personal inventory that holds small items and then each ship has a cargo hold as well. The difference can be confusing sometimes. If you have asked an AI ship to collect drops you will need to interact with the pilot and tell them to give you their inventory. Those items can be sold at the shops on various stations.

Boost and shield both share the same energy pool. This is a big gotcha, if you boost then you lose shields.

There is a lot to learn in X4 but there is no other game like it. At first you will have to do missions and buy/sell/mine to make money. In the long run what you should be aiming for is building a moneymaking empire of AI-piloted miners, traders, and/or stations.

Watch Captain Collins on YouTube, he has put out lots of good videos on how things are done.

The official forums and Reddit X4Foundations subreddit are good too.

I’ve never played X4, only X3 and I loved it. It was essentially space trucker simulator. Buy resources low, sell at other stations high. Rinse repeat. Exploit the stock market. Build a fleet. Lose parts of your fleet because the pathing is fucking stupid and they will crash into things. So on.

I haven’t played X4, but I’ve played a lot of elite dangerous, and some of the problems you describe happened to me in ED as well. And like X4, ED did not explain it at all. I had to learn it from watching videos about the game, and other discussions in other forums. So maybe there are similarities in what I experienced

The speed limiting was due to being within close proximity to planets and stars who’s gravitational field prevents you from accelleratin quickly. If you are in open space, you accelerate very quickly, and can go faster than if you are close to something large. So maybe it has something to do with where you are.

I’ve had boost disabled randomly for me and I didn’t know why, but eventually I learned it was because I had been deploying my cargo scoop by accident and not realizing it before I got blown up. Maybe there is a ship module or function you are accidentally toggling that disables it?

That’s an annoying aspect of these space sim games, but one I’ve come to appreciate as learning the complex intricacies of flying a spaceship feels rewarding in its own right. Like being able to describe what every little button and switch does in an airplane, or a recoding stuido’s sound board. It makes you feel like you’re really mastering a skill, instead of just playing a game.

You got further than I did. I barely managed to get my ship going, then flew around for a short time and just gave up. The controls are horrible.

It’s like they looked at Space Engineers and said, hell yeah we can absolutely make a worse control and menu system!