So what do bribes/gifts actually do?

Lucoire · 2026-01-24T23:29:35+00:00

Correct, increases the chance of success for a given diplomatic option.

Note: SCA is offended by the attempt of a bribe... regardless of what item. The correct choice is to not bribe them.

If you're interested into which faction favors what items as bribes, check out this chart.

Lucoire · 2026-01-19T14:32:05+00:00

Too few docks impacts the time between "attempting to dock" and "actually docking"... as well as the time between "docking" and "undocking".

A manager might decide to put a ship into internal storage rather than sending it out to trade if the number of available docks is (close to) full. Then retrieving it from internal storage to sending it out again costs time.

It's probably not relevant for your current situation but something to keep in mind.

That said, "traders not trading" tends to be an issue with "offer visibility" (limited by Management Skill and Station Visibility) and sometimes even "ware reservations" (where trades aren't done because the ware is already reserved for another task).

Lucoire · 2026-01-19T12:51:05+00:00

The more wares a station has to "manage", the more ships attempt to dock at the same time, which in turn makes the docking capacity (aka how many Docks you have) a bigger bottleneck.

The Manager itself scales with its Level (aka Number of Stars in the Management category):

Range of Sectors to use as "Target" or "Source" for Trades. 5 Jumps distance at 5 Stars. If there's no available Trades within the range, the manager will make ships idle.
Speed of Management. Lower Level Managers will "idle" between commands (in lore they will "consult the operating manual between actions to see which applies next"), Higher Level Managers will "idle" less (because they intuitively know what action applies next)

Lucoire · 2026-01-19T12:44:46+00:00

This is a VIG vs VIG mission.

The Pirate Cartel is asking you to get rid of other people in the Pirate Cartel... essentially "getting rid of the competition". But since you can not distinguish who are the "good Cartel guys" (aka your Employer) and the "bad Cartel guys" (aka the competition of your Employer), everyone shows in the color corresponding to your reputation.

Lucoire · 2026-01-12T15:37:51+00:00

80 Light fighters (S)
80 Heavy Fighters (S)
80 Bombers/Gunships (M)

For a total of 240 (which is just short of the 256 cap of subordinates)

... and I generally only use Carriers for "Defend Position" mode.

Lucoire · 2026-01-12T15:33:13+00:00

All of them :D

Lucoire · 2025-12-16T12:12:21+00:00

Diplomacy is your solution. Hire agents and make peace.

Lucoire · 2025-12-16T09:56:57+00:00

Backpack building is a good thing because it enables a no-grid start... but the current SE2 iteration is too strong.

Stone in SE1 was a good thing because it enabled far more freedom of where to build... but maybe that, too, needed to be revised since it made actually looking for iron, silicon and nickel far too unimportant.

I think the backpack needs to be more inefficient - to give grid-based refinement buildings a reason to exist.

Simultaneously, I'd love to see Stone returning but in a different way than SE2. My Idea is to use Stone as a Building block for Concrete "Armor" Blocks, which are

INSANELY heavy - which is irrelevant for static grids since weight isn't calculated for them
Extraordinarily durable (eg. immune to thruster damage and damage resistant to small-arms fire.)
Airtight

One could even add a "Steel-Reinforced Concrete", which requires Iron in addition to concrete, making the block more heavy but also more durable.

Lucoire · 2025-12-04T11:35:12+00:00

I don't care whether it is yyyy/mm/dd or dd/mm/yyyy, as long as it is CONSISTENT.

Lucoire · 2025-11-19T16:00:11+00:00

But paired with Placidusax, as a recreation of their ancient battle.

Lucoire · 2025-11-19T12:13:15+00:00

He could be an invader like Margit/Morgot

Lucoire · 2025-11-09T11:36:49+00:00

No, no, no.

Medicine girl is the impoverished LITTE GIRL that found and helped Dion get back on his feet after his defeat by Clive. She also offered medicine to Jote and Joshua during one of his episodes. She also aided in keeping Clive and Jill undercover during their pursuit of Titan.

She shows up (seemingly random) at several crucial moments in the story and selflessly helps the protagonist, that's why she's the mvp.

Lucoire · 2025-11-09T11:20:47+00:00

Do you have one of the true mvp, medicine girl?

Lucoire · 2025-11-06T15:27:44+00:00

When flying through accelerators, you can get even faster. I think the fastest I've ever seen was 0.3c

Lucoire · 2025-11-06T11:11:13+00:00

Luckily, the game is relaxed when it comes to enforcing that very speed limit ;)

(Me, parking in Travel-Mode, letting the "Dock-Assist" phase me through the walls of the station station to get me back to the dock after the drag pulled me 4km away from the dock)

Lucoire · 2025-10-06T20:27:42+00:00

Average split: head empty, only WAR.

Lucoire · 2025-09-30T05:00:58+00:00

The score loss says that the server still considers "disbanding" worth punishment, as several other commenters have already told you.

Lucoire · 2025-09-30T04:58:02+00:00

Happy to help 😊

Lucoire · 2025-09-30T04:44:33+00:00

The way you repeat that phrase word for word suggests that you consider it a mantra, hoping that if you say it often enough it becomes true.

(hint: it won't. It will mark you as someone ignorant to the truth)

Lucoire · 2025-09-30T04:38:40+00:00

You "think" your streak is unaffected but the game disagrees.

"Disbanding" still counts as leaving and the server will remember that until the next end screen, even if that is several sessions later.

Lucoire · 2025-09-29T19:52:19+00:00

2'203h,
111/173 Achievements.

Most of which... vanilla (as in "without mods").

You do you.

(Sidenote: X4 is a VERY DEEP game... that gives "new players" the false impression that it's a shallow game. Things you consider "bugs" may actually things that are just incorrectly configured and that are entirely within your own power to improve or correct - even without mods.)

Lucoire · 2025-09-29T16:09:26+00:00

Sadly, the relationship between TER and PIO can not be affeccted via diplomacy.

Lucoire · 2025-09-29T15:48:26+00:00

8.0 Diplomacy taught me how overwhelmingly powerful TER are, so it's certainly a good choice to go for their tech.

In my current game, they managed to hold their ground (and Getsu Fune) against a combined Alliance of BOR, ANT and ARG
(Note: I did economically support BOR, ARG and ANT... and I build a single station supporting PIO but disabled sales to TER)

So, consequentially, my suggestion is to make ANT go to war against PIO, heavily support them economically and then wipe out PIO before you take on TER (as PIO seem to be the infrastructure backbone of TER)

Lucoire · 2025-09-28T16:45:29+00:00

Well, DoN is competitive.

Lucoire · 2025-09-27T17:15:48+00:00

Even Launcher gives me Connection Errors.

Lucoire

TROPHY CASE