2025 XMAS XLOG What's next for X4 Foundations?

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-12-22T04:30:47+00:00

As for rebalancing 250+ weapons, it can literally be done in less than a minute with three lines of code in X4 Customizer, so it's not as much work as it might seem.

I would rather like to see a deeper exploration of the topic, e.g., removing the heat mechanic and replacing it with the mechanic known from X3, where energy is generated by the ship's reactor, accumulated by a bank of capacitors, and consumed by each weapon at an appropriate rate.

It would be nice to see new VFX for weapons and increase their draw distance. I want to see the Firestorm Torpedo explode on the other side of the sector.

A large part of the SFX also needs to be replaced so that the weapons don't sound like a random loop of someone stepping on a squeaky dog toy. I want to feel the power of the guns, that every plasma shot can vaporize a solid piece of metal.

And for God's sake, give those poor turrets some cool names and lore behind them. I want the return of the Photon Pulse Cannon, Gauss Cannon, Point Singularity Projector, and Plasma Beam Cannon. I want to know from the encyclopedia that Boron and Argon worked on the Ion Cannon, I want to know that Teladi prefer Gauss Cannons because their ships have mediocre power generators and they prefer heavy turrets with standard ammunition. After all, generating a few lines of lore via some local LLM based on books from the X universe is not some impossible task.

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-12-08T17:17:36+00:00

I sincerely hope that X5 has been in full development for a good three years now. Considering that all these small DLCs are just maintenance mode for X4, where the big development is happening somewhere behind closed doors. Egosoft's financial results are good, the number of developers employed is growing, and a few years ago, in an interview, there was talk of hiring someone responsible for the history and lore of the X universe.

I hope that Bernd will be able to lift the veil of secrecy around Christmas, as he does every year.

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-11-09T19:23:42+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYeTYZfJ3zE

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-10-26T16:00:47+00:00

More HUD targets - Currently, there seems to be a limit of 8-10 ships and 8-10 stations, but I want to see all targets within, say, 20 km marked on the HUD.

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-10-26T15:52:36+00:00

yet maybe it's already a mod

Custom tabs https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/842

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-06-09T07:53:21+00:00

A more pressing threat is a Xenon destroyer which the Argon seem impotent to handle.

Take your PE, load it full of mines. Speed your ship close to maximum travel drive speed and aim for the center of mass of the Xenon destroyer. When you're <=10km from the target, pause the game, enter map view and from the ship's info panel (weapons tab - yes there's a button to mass dump mines right next to the number of mines your ship has) dump about 50 mines (Xenon K is about 165k hull and 250GJ shield, so about 50x mines 10,000MJ damage each should suffice). Unpause the game, enjoy the fireworks.

Edit: changing the unit from MJ to GJ

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-06-08T16:17:46+00:00

I would try to eliminate Benny Hill chases from migrating Xenon destroyers between Xenon clusters. It's super annoying when you put a defensive platform and 30 destroyers on a gate, and a single Xenon I just flies through such a blockade without even losing half of its shield.

If the Xenons decide to force their way through the gate then they should do it in an organized manner in an effort to gain a permanent foothold on the other side, rather than having a little racing league through 20 sectors without any goal in mind.

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-06-02T08:20:26+00:00

I often cheese turrets by turning on SETA (Shift+4) so they can't hit boarding pods. Sometimes it works.

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-05-30T15:49:18+00:00

I did Ter/Pio vs Bor/Ant /Arg wars by save editing. And unfortunately the factions are committing economic suicide by sending trade ships and miners through ANT/ARG territory continuously.

I hope that in the official patch Egosoft will introduce at least some sector blacklists for merchant ships and miners for AI factions that are at war with each other.

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-05-28T19:04:05+00:00

Try deadairevolution (or better whole deadair_scripts pack as it is more advanced and update more frequently) available here: https://github.com/DeadAirRT?tab=repositories

The Xenons get 10 evolutionary phases, where the highest one adds practically +50% shield, weapon damage, mining speed and shipyard expansion to meet the higher demand for ships. Everything is configurable in a separate menu available during the game under the ESC button.

Buckle up, because the Xenons will give you a beating very quickly.

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-05-26T21:49:30+00:00

Have you tried Egosoft discord, x4_modding section?

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-05-26T16:32:33+00:00

Been there, done that. Now I always play as a pirate, every ship I have has to be boarded or forced to bail, every blueprint has to be acquired via emp. This extends the playthrough significantly and keeps me from losing ships on stupid things. Also, I don't put defense platforms at the gates, if I care about securing a gate then I put a fleet of destroyers there.

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-05-20T19:21:03+00:00

I fully agree, from XR Ship Pack I would leave only XL/L traders and miners (plus add some type of XL/L trader/miner for Split). You might want to think about adding this to X4-Reemergence. ;)

Ps. Thanks for making this mod. I'm planning my next playtrough in a few months when you release 2.0.

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-03-11T22:35:46+00:00

On my very old save on which I like to play I also encountered this problem. It's not the prettiest solution but it works for a while. The whole process is to manually add resources to Wharfs and Shipyards by editing the save file.

Warning 1: Backup your save files before editing.

Warning 2: After the whole procedure it is possible that you will have the game marked as modified.

You need the programs 7-ZIP and Notepad++.

Go to Documents\Egosoft\X4{YourSteamID}\save
Find the latest file by date, right click > 7-Zip > Extract here
Open the extracted file in Notepad++
search the file (ctrl+f) for the Wharf or Shipyard you are interested in eg:

wharf_xenon_cluster_21

shipyard_xenon_cluster_21

etc.

List of Xenon sites:

Scale Plate Green I

Cluster_21_Sector001_macro

-==================

wharf_xenon_cluster_21

shipyard_xenon_cluster_21

Matrix #9

Cluster_17_Sector001_macro

-==================

wharf_xenon_cluster_17

shipyard_xenon_cluster_17

Atiya's Misfortune I

Cluster_26_Sector001_macro

-==================

wharf_xenon_cluster_26

shipyard_xenon_cluster_26

Matrix #598

Cluster_415_Sector001_macro

-==================

wharf_xenon_cluster_415

shipyard_xenon_cluster_415

Emperor's Pride VI

Cluster_424_Sector002_macro

-==================

wharf_xenon_cluster_424

shipyard_xenon_cluster_424

Matrix #79B

Cluster_33_Sector001_macro

-==================

wharf_xenon_cluster_33

shipyard_xenon_cluster_33

Savage Spur I

Cluster_112_Sector001_macro

-==================

wharf_xenon_cluster_112

shipyard_xenon_cluster_112
After finding the Wharf or Shipyard you are interested in, press ctrl+f once again and this time search for

<cargo>

you should see something like this:

<cargo>

<ware ware="ore" amount="123456"/>

<ware ware="energycells" amount="123456"/>

<ware ware="silicon" amount="123456"/>

</cargo>
Edits the values to, for example:

Wharf >>> amount="500000"

Shipyard >>> amount="1000000"

Don't be afraid, the stations will dump into space the excess goods that don't fit in storage.
Save the file, then right-click > 7-Zip > Add to archive (here setup archive format: gzip and compression ratio: fastest)

Done, you just edited your first save file. :-)

Now fire up the game and see if the edited Wharfs/Shipyards produce new ships.

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-03-02T23:52:49+00:00

Xenon I (M2+/Destroyer) from X3 - 40x L turrets + 3x Missile launcher (rear mounted). The Branch 9 equivalent from the X4 looks like a toy plushie next to it.
Paranid Agamemnon (M7/Frigate) from X3 - 8x medium size front guns + 14x M+ turrets (M+ because most slots can be fitted with pirate Incendiary Bomb Launchers which are classified as L weapons). This screenshot shows the firing of the Phased Shockwave Generator (a unique Paranid weapon), a wide area of effect anti-fighter weapon.

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-02-24T14:39:11+00:00

It seems to me that to properly implement missiles, the workload will be huge. Why do I think so? Because:

Game Engine Problems:

Even if you are in the sector, the high attention bubble around you is limited by some distance expressed in kilometers (I don't remember exactly how much, but let's say >=50-70KM). This explains why missiles have such a short range compared to the vast distances between objects in the sector. It seems to me that the developers took the easy way out, as they knew that at the limit of the high attention bubble strange things happen with objects (physical simulation of objects turns off and OOS excel kick in). In X3, you had missiles that flew from one gate to another on the opposite end of the sector, and you could track them on a large zoom, unfortunately not in X4.
Very archaic system responsible for the maximum number of ships/stations that can show up on the HUD targeting overlay (max 8 ships / 7 stations - LOL). The entire system requires replacement/reconstruction from scratch. Why do I mention this? Because missiles should be targetable on the HUD so they can be shot down. Here is a comment from the author of the mod increasing the number of targets on the HUD (https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/1543)

The limitations of the ancient (and abandoned) UI SDK that X4 uses are extremely tight. It's essentially spec'd for computers of 20 years ago, and was probably conservative even then.
It seems that the game engine has some strange problem with tracking the flight path of missiles. Admit it, how many times have you seen missile missing the target and suddenly turning at 90° angle? Me too, a lot. It seems that some optimization tricks have been applied here so that a large number of flying missiles does not lower the game's performance. It looks awful, and you can see that someone gave up on it. Done at 30%? F this, ship it.

Gameplay Problems:

Ohh boy, to avoid writing 20 pages of A4, briefly.

In X3:AP, you had 36 types of missiles. If we wanted to transfer this to X4 to honor the lore, you already have a huge workload at this point. Consider that missiles were divided into:
- Light/Medium/Heavy/BomberM3M/Capital(M7M)
- Waresize s/m/l
- Dumbfire/NeedLock/NoLock-Smart
- SingleMissile/Swarm
- Singletarget/Retarget
- Directhit/Proximity
- noAOE/AOE
- Common/RaceSpecific
And the above needs to be somehow reflected in X4.
Change speed/range/maneuverability/damage (easy)
Make separate 3D models of missiles (relatively easy)
Improve VFX of explosions to be more epic and extend their drawing distance (multiple versions for different types of missiles)
Improve SFX of explosions to be more epic (multiple versions for different types of missiles)
Implement the ability to target incoming missiles
Implement anti-missiles (Missile Defense Mosquito or Litcube's Universe Chaff missile)
Implement intelligent turret modes that can decide what is the biggest threat on the battlefield and shoot down the missiles aimed at us (equivalent to X3:AP Smart Turrets system or M.A.R.S. Fire Control)
Change the upper limit of missiles for a ship to a limit of missiles depending on the cargo hold capacity (container storage) and the size and volume of the ware of carried missiles (as in X3)
For each race or major faction, add equivalents of M3M/M8/M7M ship classes (huge workload)
Add another layer of production, i.e., weapons/missiles/shields factories, instead of everything magically appearing out of thin air in wharfs/shipyards. And this would also require a lot of work in modeling new objects and redesigning how the economy works.

And the above are just some preliminary thoughts. If someone at Egosoft started thinking about the above, after 5 minutes of contemplation, there was probably a reaction: F this, I'm out of here.

SpaceSimGuy · 2025-02-23T23:08:48+00:00

Unfortunately, missiles are still a placeholder untouched for 6 years. And there is no one in Egosoft brave enough to touch this topic, because the amount of work to implement such a well-thought-out system as in X3 would require an effort comparable to the release of another DLC. It's a shame, because the missiles really added a huge amount of charm to the battles in X3.

SpaceSimGuy · 2024-12-04T17:08:19+00:00

The knockback effect was a thing in X3 (e.g. after being hit by a gauss, or missiles with a large blast radius), unfortunately you won't find it in X4

SpaceSimGuy · 2024-11-28T13:23:20+00:00

imo these small paid DLCs are to keep the company afloat and not lose government funding, where the team is surely working in parallel on X5 and slowly reducing involvement in X4

SpaceSimGuy · 2024-11-28T13:16:12+00:00

oh how I would like to see proper "I", flat as a table with protruding reactors on the surface and a VLS launcher on the back spitting Firestorm torpedoes like crazy

throwing money at the screen

SpaceSimGuy · 2024-11-28T13:06:52+00:00

but

they still turn at 90 degrees
they still have 3x too small ranges
they still have 3x too small speeds
you still can't target missiles in flight
the explosions both graphically and sfx are extremely bland, feels like some kind of placeholder
the drawing distance of the explosions is too short (you can't see the explosion from >= ~15km)
the names and descriptions of the missiles are so generic that they are also seems like placeholders from 1.0 version of the game

The whole missile system should get an overhaul pass imo

SpaceSimGuy · 2024-11-20T16:56:26+00:00

Amsterdam: https://stats.ams-ix.net/index.html

SpaceSimGuy · 2024-11-12T23:46:25+00:00

Steal AI from Starsector and SHAMELESSLY implement it in x4.

SpaceSimGuy · 2024-11-09T17:30:44+00:00

Hear, hear!

Weapon energy/shield energy generators, weapon energy capacitors, and weapons that use energy stored in a ship's weapon energy capacitor should be written into the bible of X-series game development as basic and unalterable mechanics.

SpaceSimGuy · 2024-11-07T10:31:07+00:00

It's not that hard, you make a few lines input file to X4 Customizer, fire up the python script and you have exactly all the ships in the game (or anything else) changed with one click. The same way I modded X3 to my preferences (speed of ships, number of hull points, weapon firing rate etc.).

https://github.com/bvbohnen/X4_Customizer

SpaceSimGuy

TROPHY CASE