Mods

[Ice]

I am getting ready to start a new game. Is there any good mods i should use. Ive not played in a year.

[hydlided]

best mod, the vanilla mod. I heard it was amazing.

[Gwizzz]

Everyone has personal preferences, either to play vanilla or even which mods to use. I'll share ones I use but you should browse them all on Nexus and Steam as you might find something else you like.

I run Win 7 so some are placed in the user\ my documents\extensions folder identified below with (DX), and some are in the \Steam\steamspps\common\X4 Foundations\extensions folder designated below starting with (RX) or root extension folder.

Some or all of these may get replaced by actual game content or patch fixes. If you happen know of any mods that have been patched and could now be considered obsolete let me and/or the mod creator know so they can be retired. I've been using these before patch 2.5 so some of the functionality may have already been incorporated into the base game. If not, perhaps soon. In the meantime, many thanks to the devs and mod creators that make this game even better!

(RX) Sector Satellites - allows a single satellite to pull trade data from all stations in a sector to reduce having to place multiple satellites. Also adds Hostile detection satellites to alert you if an enemy L/XL passes in range. Good for giving a heads up on Xenon invasions. Also adds a survey satellite that will discover data vaults, ships, anomolies. Quicker than having to re-explore everything if you are doing another play though.
(RX) Battleships - they appear to be altered aux ships with increased weapons, HP, and shields. They do a nice job of filling in for actual battleships until those are added in game with patch 3.0 and/or the Split Vendetta DLC. These things will eat Xenon Ks for lunch if you pilot them so they can get full bore broadside on them. The AI is so so at using them so be careful as they are expensive!
(RX) Collect Deployables - allows NPC pilots to pickup nav beacons, satellites, resouce probes
(RX) Custodia Ultra Heavy Fighter - a reavamped Argon Eclipe with 6 weapons, 3 shield gens and no room for crew or cargo. It is almost as good as owning a Nemesis corvette but cheaper and easier to get early game.
(RX) Find Ownerless scan - outputs a notification to your log of unclaimed ships and datavaults using your long range scanner.
(RX) G_Workaround - required for use with some mods
(RX) Holomap info colors - colors different factions sectors, stations, icons, so they stand out. Argon is blue, Xenon is red, Paranid are purple, Teladi is green (or orange depending on version you use)
(RX) Info Center - a vastly expanded ship information GUI that is configurable with what you want to see. Shows in text what a ship is doing instead of relying solely on those little icons.
(RX) JP_collect placeables - another collect placeables routine.. Works slightly different than the other version
(RX) Right Click API - required by some mods to allow hooking into the right mouse context sensitive menu

(DX) Advanced satellite range - increases the satellite range by 3x. You'll use less satellites to see more area. I usually place one in the middle of the sector or near large groups of stations. Used in conjunction with sector satellites above.
(DX) amb_fix_boarding - Elite marines are faster than novice marines at boarding.
(DX) Better Scan Colors - changes the color of scanned station modules so you can see what has and has not been scanned. Only visible when scan is active.
(DX) Boarding Pod Crews - 1 marine per boarding pod instead of default 5?. Configurable in XML. More marines make it to the target vessel to actually get on board.
(DX) Collect inventory wares - ships piloted by an NPC will collect inventory items for you.
(DX) Crystal Finder - makes the crystals glow so you can see them in the asteroid fields.
(DX) Double Pirates - increases the number of pirates to harass traders.
(DX) Employee training - allows you to train piloting, management, engineering, using the in game seminar books.
(DX) Encounters - reworks the deep space encounter scenarios - adds new possible encounters and makes them so they don't spawn right in front of your ship.
(DX) Extended range scanner - increases the time the long range scanner remains active so you don't have to scan as often.
(DX) fix bail chance - improves bailing %
(DX) Fix Illegal Buy - black market traders will sell some illegal items (duh).
(DX) Getting paid - deducts credits to pay the salary of your captains, engineers, marines, and managers. Configurable in the XML. No more free hired help.
(DX) HQWOA - HQ without the huge ship blocking asteroid in the middle of it.
(DX) Improved Quasar - beefs up the glass cannon fighter
(DX) JP_Add tag - Add a descriptive tag to beginning or end of your ship name
(DX) JP_Another Explorer - alternate explore AI routine for your scout ships.. Explores x,y, and z axis.
(DX) JP_Drone Attack - Allows ships equipped with drones to manually target an enemy and unleash a swarm
(DX) (JP_Rename My Wing - allows you to rename your wings
(DX) JP_Show Me Player Stuff destroyed - provides an on screen notification when ships are attacked or destroyed.
(DX) Learning all the things. Increases the rate that pilots, managers, marines, engineers learn their trade. Can be used with or without the Employee Training books above
(DX) Legal Inventory - could be considered a *cheat* as it removes the illegal flag from items like hacking devices. If you don't want to be a real smuggler.
(DX) Mass move marines - yep.. you read that right
(DX) Mass Move service crew - these guys and gals move in groups too!
(DX) Mine defense - set turrets to target mines like they would missiles
(DX) More Chaff - increases the amount of flares ships can carry (Note: Just for technicalities sake.. real chaff are strips of foil used to confuse radar guided missiles whereas flares are used against heat seeking missiles. X4 seems to use heat seekers so flares is more appropriate)
(DX) No more awaiting order - removes the repeating AWAITING ORDERS audio. They still say it.. once.
(DX) PHQ_warp - allows you to teleport the PHQ to a different location
(DX) remove wait for you - removes waiting for your signal on stations and carriers
(DX) SC42 boost remove for L/XL - as stated. Removes the ability for cap ships to use boost to gain a few m/s while draining their shields
(DX) SC42 Capital weapon gains. Buffs the Destroyer main guns (not turrets)
(DX) SC42 shield gains. Reduces recharge delay, increases recharge. Makes taking down a capital ship a lot harder
(DX) SC42 Travel drive big ships - reduces travel drive charge time to 10s instead of 30s?
(DX) SC42 Turret gains - buffs turrets
(DX) Xenon gains - buffs xenon
(DX) Scale Plate use all - Scale Plate Pirates fly a larger variety of "borrowed" ships.
(DX) Ship traders sell paint mods - Not cheap but well worth the price
(DX) Shuttles - increase crew size on couriers so they are useful
(DX) Signal Leak Hunter - shows way points to comm and signal leaks around stations when you activate the short range scan
(DX) Spherical long range scan - the long range scan now scans 360 degrees around your ship instead of just out the front.
(DX) Steambeans Crafted Mod parts - can make T1, T2, T3 ship mods from collected parts
(DX) Tater trader - another auto trader routine with more options than the default one.
(DX) Buy Trade notification - adds a notification when traders spend credits to buy goods, acts the same way as the already included notification used when traders sell goods.
(DX) Tradeable Seminars - adds a small chance traders will have skill books for sale. Useful with the skill book trading mod above.
(DX) Unskilled auto trade - Allows a no star captain to trade wares (default required a 3 star captain). If you want to be a purist and manually send your no star pilots on manual trading runs until they gain 3 stars .. then don't use this.. heh, rigggghhhtt.
(DX) Urgent Messages - colors important messages RED. (NOTE: Doesn't seem to work with the show me player stuff attacked/destroyed mod above. Unless they are merged, I'll use the real time show me stuff attacked/destroyed mod above. This is listed so you can have a choice.
(DX) Various NPCs - Adds more pilots, engineers, marines, managers to station docks for hire.
(DX) w.e. Dynamic Scale plate relations - Makes it so you can change the currently static -5 relation with scale plate green. No more will the SCA ignore your capping or destruction of their "borrowed" ships!
(DX) X4 longer build times. Yep.. L O N G E R build times! A ship may take 40 minutes to be put together!! WHEW!!!! Plan ahead.

[Tanvaras]

I do recommend playing Vanilla to learn the basics and see what you might want in the way of mods (warned that Venture system does not work with modded games). After playing a good 100+ hours in Vanilla I have moved to using mods, some I recommend is;

Variety and rebalance Overhaul mod + their recommended additional mods [forum.egosoft.com]

Foundation of Conquest and War - Not sure is compatible wiht VRO mod above [forum.egosoft.com]

Faction War/Economy enhancer[forum.egosoft.com]

These mods really change the game in ways that improve the fun that can be had with X4, there are tons of smaller mods to improve something basic you may need, check out Workshop or Nexus for more to suit what your after.

[Forkkrul Assail]

Gwizzz
'(DX) Urgent Messages - colors important messages RED. (NOTE: Doesn't seem to work with the show me player stuff attacked/destroyed mod above. Unless they are merged, I'll use the real time show me stuff attacked/destroyed mod above. This is listed so you can have a choice.'
Do you know of any mod/way to alter the audio associated with alerts. I need a klaxxon type thing.
Sorry to jump on your post Ice...