Making peace in the galaxy kills profitsss (Endgame boast)

[Ryba]

So I managed to make a peace in the galaxy. HOP is beaten. Pirates are down. Xenon is down. Hatikvah's are down. Not a single red dot over all map (except Khaak's). What's the reward ? Less income. During war my factories were able to gather about 1 000 000 000 credits during several hours of game. Now they gather 200 000 000 and dramatically falls. Well. I have massive fleet with over 200 destroyers and still 860 milions of credits.

Just wanted to post it after 1,5 year of struggle and developing my small one-ship family bussines into galactic corporation and finally - peacefull Galactic Empire Waiting for new adventures with Splits. I hope they will make me some problems.

Please post your situation - I'm curious how you prepared galaxy for Splits.

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[spankahontis]

Civilian Economy needed ^Exhibit #A^

[exogenesis]

I feel your sadness, I've been through similar game strands.
But after a while profits become irrelevant anway.

Killing off HOP (a least the miltary parts), stops X4 galaxy evolution like nothing else.
No orders at my shipyards once HOP is gone, everything is peaceful (yawn)
Even leaving the Xenon alive doesn't help much - their attack 'fleets' are pretty toothless very quickly (unless you stay in sector to watch).

Done those game lines, & a few times now I've backtracked to much earlier games saves in order to keep the 'zest',
now I watch Argon deal with Xenon & Argon/ANT/PAR deal with HOP, as best they can,
sometimes stepping in if things go too far...

Somehow I think the game is predicated on an overly aggresive HOP faction - a bit too much perhaps ?

[Zyferon]

Strange. I thought the true endgame makes credits meaningless. If I produce everything I need and I own all the blueprints I need, what use are credits?

[Nort The Fragrent]

This confirms my thinking, the game is quite restricted in its outcome. I have studied the manufacturing chain, it too is really quite small in its complexity. Giving rise to limited end results.

All those Billions that build up have no where to go! So why bother striving to get wealthy! ? !

Ship Blueprints need to have a build restriction on them, Make them more like a licence to build say 10 Ships. Then it expires. Or something like that !

Station Modules also need to be restricted, Making you pay closer attention to where you build your limited number of say Silicon plants. Not have massive Factories that produce everything all at once. That is silly, and has to be Culled from the game.

By implementing a build restriction you gain more possibilities to expand the map! As you can only build so many, your decisions need to be more thought as to where you build. Knowing you have a limit !

And by vastly increasing the map, the game opens up more in diversity, and how you as a player set down your roots.
There needs to be a lot more commodities in the market, and they need to be Faction related to certain Weapon Manufacture processes. So if you want the best blaster, you have to go into there territory and do what is required to get the Blaster !!!!

This x4 is way to generic, and simple.

[Lord Crc]

All those Billions that build up have no where to go! So why bother striving to get wealthy! ? !

IMHO the main issue is that there's no maintenance cost. You just need to amass the credits to buy a ship, after that it's free to use. In reality, maintaining a huge fleet is expensive, which limits further growth.

Building a ship shouldn't be a decision of "do I have the cash right now", but rather "can I afford to have this ship".

[GCU Grey Area]

IMHO the main issue is that there's no maintenance cost. You just need to amass the credits to buy a ship, after that it's free to use. In reality, maintaining a huge fleet is expensive, which limits further growth.

Building a ship shouldn't be a decision of "do I have the cash right now", but rather "can I afford to have this ship".

Agree, but think the same should be applied to stations too. Workforce should not be an optional extra & in addition to supplying food & meds, those workers should also be paid. Perhaps with the salary at the discretion of the player (higher pay = faster recruitment).

[Pesanur]

All those Billions that build up have no where to go! So why bother striving to get wealthy! ? !

IMHO the main issue is that there's no maintenance cost. You just need to amass the credits to buy a ship, after that it's free to use. In reality, maintaining a huge fleet is expensive, which limits further growth.

Building a ship shouldn't be a decision of "do I have the cash right now", but rather "can I afford to have this ship".

If I not remember bad, for X3 Reunion, existed a mod that allow you to crew the ships, but you need to paid to the crew (can be the AEGIS mod? I'm not sure). Also in all of the X3, the auto-traders captains need to be payed. This can be interesting for X4.

[Tomonor]

A relatively easy solution to this would be an infinite pirate raid pool with always "red" pirates of course.

Or at least those guys were the backbone of the post-core systems in X2-X3 games.

[Ynesra_Voles]

Totally agree!
All personnel need to crave salaries!

Also, I think that (Just like in real world.) major factions should go to war with the player if her economical advantage becomes way too big, like in 4x strategy games.
Want peace with Argons? Don’t build in their sectors and keep your cruisers away from their core systems.

So in the endgame you inevitably will go to war with one to all neighbors... And when/if you are done - a Khaak invasion or a new expansion will be on its way!

[Nort The Fragrent]

Like any Empire in History, When they exceed the Critical mass. They collapse to wither away.
Not enough resources to support the Empire,
Internal feuding with top down command collapse.
Spread too far and wide to be controlled.
Any number of small things can cripple an Empire, so why not in X4. Get too big and your Empire can not sustain its self.
You have to manage it, very carefully.

I think we are over thinking this game, after all it is basically a shoot em up game. Big Guns being the Foundation. Kill all others, then bath in your glory as your Empire suddenly collapses.

There does need to be degradation of Ships and factories, also disgruntled worker’s who start to vanish, cos you haven't paid them.

Otherwise the game is just spread your green far and wide, ! Then What ?

[GCU Grey Area]

I think we are over thinking this game, after all it is basically a shoot em up game.

Doesn't have to be. Sometimes several weeks go past without me firing at anything. Most of my time is spent on Trade & Build - enjoy the economy & station building mechanics far more than the combat side of the game. It's also comparatively rare for anything red to even make it to the areas of the map I spend most of my time in, so in practice very few opportunities to shoot anything anyway.

[Cyclo_Hexanol]

IMO a big issue is how small the map is as well.

In X3 we had a LOT of systems in our map to play with and limiting that to the small number of sectors we have in X4 has a couple of downsides:
1. Less opportunity. It doesnt take very many auto trading ships to completely saturate the map.
2. Less economic diversity. In X3 there were wares produced only in certain clusters making those products more densely available there.
3. Any 1 system lost could have massive effects on the economy because instead of losing 1 out of 20 systems the faction is losing 1 out of 6. That is potentially a lot of production and if they lose ship yards and warfs they dont tend to have more to fall back on(other than yours).

I also loved X3 because of how expansive the map was. Going and interacting with different markets was fun and interesting. A hundred hours into the game I thought I had found all the sectors and found out there was a whole new region I didnt know about.

edit:
Additionally making 1 faction responsible for 90% of the conflict and economy driving is kinda wonky.

[adeine]

IMO a big issue is how small the map is as well.

In X3 we had a LOT of systems in our map to play with and limiting that to the small number of sectors we have in X4 has a couple of downsides:
1. Less opportunity. It doesnt take very many auto trading ships to completely saturate the map.
2. Less economic diversity. In X3 there were wares produced only in certain clusters making those products more densely available there.
3. Any 1 system lost could have massive effects on the economy because instead of losing 1 out of 20 systems the faction is losing 1 out of 6. That is potentially a lot of production and if they lose ship yards and warfs they dont tend to have more to fall back on(other than yours).

I also loved X3 because of how expansive the map was. Going and interacting with different markets was fun and interesting. A hundred hours into the game I thought I had found all the sectors and found out there was a whole new region I didnt know about.

More than just the size it's also an issue of faction relations and layout. In X3 it was significantly more difficult to be "friends with everyone" and you usually had to work on it for a significant chunk of the early game. X4 is skewed towards starting on good relations with everyone, and even if you don't, rep gain is so quick it is basically meaningless.

Add the ring of superhighways and the entirety of the map is more or less accessible instantaneously, making regional distinctions and exploration moot. Whereas X3 had different regions of space separated by (dangerous) pirate or Xenon sectors, or blocked off by reputation. It really misses moments like entering Terran space for the first time from the Commonwealth, or traversing the pirate corridor between Elena's Fortune and Aladna Hill.

[GCU Grey Area]

It really misses moments like entering Terran space for the first time from the Commonwealth, or traversing the pirate corridor between Elena's Fortune and Aladna Hill.

3.0b has brought a bit of that back for me. In my game the sectors between Second Contact & Silent Witness (i.e. most of the northern part of the map) are either eerily deserted (station demolition mostly courtesy of HOP) and/or Xenon infested to a rather worrying degree. It's downright spooky - tend not to hang around for any longer than necessary when traversing those sectors & certainly won't let any of my ships go anywhere near the region.

[Derp]

Lorewise, the galaxy settling into peace is typically when the precursors shake things up by realigning the gates to root out more xenon, right? Are there any late-game mega-xenon mods you could add to bring in a new existential threat?

IMO a big issue is how small the map is as well.

The map is huge. Each X4 sector is three or four times as large as your typical X3 gates-inna-box. It's the highway ring that makes it feel small, along with convenience functions like galaxy-wide teleportation. Mod the ring away so you actually have to schlep between sectors, and only teleport to nearby ships that you can physically see, and it becomes a big, big place.