X4: Foundations or Elite Dangerous

[Thoothun]

Title gius

I am looking for spacesim, but not so complicated :P More focused on flying and exploring

[Commander Hitman2b]

Elite have a big univers to explore but you might find some coward killing you for "fun" again and again and again X4 is more a empire building simulator in space

[Gregorovitch]

ED has a more sophiticated flight/dogfighting and much bigger universe etc for exploring

X4F has a much more detailed and interesting economy, station building, managing your own inventory many trade and mining ships plus combat fleets etc all operating at the same time. It's a strategy game as well as a spae combat/exploration sim. And it's pretty complex.

ED sounds more up your street.

[Aieonae]

Elite dangerous

[Bozz 💀]

Elite dangerous, If you asked me a monnth ago I would not belmieve that I'd say ED but right now ED is a lot better and you'll get a lot more enjoyment than this Early Acces game.
Wait at least 6 months before checking this one back

Originally posted by USG El Présidente Hitman2b:

Elite have a big univers to explore but you might find some coward killing you for "fun" again and again and again X4 is more a empire building simulator in space

That is absolutely not true, I played ED a lot and you only see very few human players in the game except in a few systemes that you can avoid very easy until you get a better equiped ship.

EDIT: both ED and x4 are complicated and will take a few hours to learn how to fly and play; ED is more simulation when it comes to ship controlling, x4 is more "arcadish"

[MaGicBush]

I'm actually going to recommend no man's sky if your all about exploration. It's come a long ways and is pretty fun now. Elite dangerous I found very boring, as your just exploring the same stuff over and over(much like rl). whereas nms has much more variety in exploration, and imo more to do now.

[Bozz 💀]

Originally posted by MaGicBush:

I'm actually going to recommend no man's sky if your all about exploration. It's come a long ways and is pretty fun now. Elite dangerous I found very boring, as your just exploring the same stuff over and over(much like rl), whereas nms has much more variety.

I agree with this guy.

[wizaerd]

Originally posted by Bozz 💀:

Originally posted by MaGicBush:

I'm actually going to recommend no man's sky if your all about exploration. It's come a long ways and is pretty fun now. Elite dangerous I found very boring, as your just exploring the same stuff over and over(much like rl), whereas nms has much more variety.

I agree with this guy.

+2

[Ketraar]

I have spend now a total of 63h in ED, 43 of them in the Horizons DLC in the last weeks. ED is a Space Trucker Sim, its tedious long winded boring grind. Its basically a job that you do fro free. Missions have RL timers so if you take a Passenger tour mission that requires you to fly say 3 destinations that will total around 500k light years it will take you hours and if you happen to have a life and say cant play for the next 3 days you will need to complete that mission as it will be fail since the timer goes on even if you are playing solo.

The flight model is OKish its based on Air Flight models but returns good dogfights, though AI is here far more forgiving then any human you might encounter, even if you grind to a big ass ship, any veteran player will kick your bastu in a Sidewinder unless you get good.

X4 is far deeper and has a lot more ways to play. The preference will heavely depend on play style and gameplay focus. So if you are looking for action and dogfights, then Elite is your choice. Exploration is average in both, where you have quantity in ED but mostly just the same after a while, where in X4 its less but more focussed (especially lore stuff).

As a trader X4 is just supperior, not just hawling wares with own ships but also building stations, is non existing in ED.

Still for me its not a either or, just do both, I do.

MFG

Ketraar

[Voidflakes]

Elite Dangerous has a MASSIVE universe with 400 billion star systems, however, once you've explored 4 or 5 of those star systems, you've practically found everything there is to find. There are a few places you can find unique things, but more often than not you'll have to fly for a full 24 hours or more REAL TIME just to get to them. Most systems are essentially just various elements copy-pasted into slightly different patterns.
Combat is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome though, and Elite Dangerous is the ONLY decent choice we have for VR, something which it does EXTREMELY well.

X4 is much more "enclosed" with only 47 sectors, but they're typically well-detailed up to a certain point - if you fly a decent distance away from the populated areas (where all the stations, ships, asteroid fields are) you'll find you're just flying through empty space where 2-5 ships get proc-genned in front of you every 200-500km or so (but this is probably more dependant on your max travel speed than the actual distance you're travelling). Typically, X4 has much more to offer than E:D in terms of different things to do and ways to do them, there are 5 main species (only 3 of them in game currently, other 2 coming later) instead of only humans - there is usually at least one game start for every race too.
The last X game - X: Rebirth, which was pretty awful - had a VR version, but it was NOT added to the main game, instead you had to pay full price AGAIN for a separate VR version which was a massive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ d!ck move.

No Man's Sky is much like Elite Dangerous in that the universe is HUGE, but extremely limited due to the copy-paste effect of it's procedural generation. That said, it DOES have a fairly decent pool of planet/terrain/weather pattern types, so if it's ONLY exploration you're looking for, I would agree with the others that this sounds like the game for you. Space flight is very arcadey and basic, but you can get out of your ship and wander around to your hearts' conent - this makes it not so much a space "sim", but more an exploration game which is set in a universe where you travel from planet to planet.
NMS has no VR support whatsoever, which is a real pity as it's a gorgeous-looking game and could very easily be the best of the bunch in terms of VR experience, if only it were implemented.

[PeaceMaker]

Depends:

Cons of Elite:
Elite dangerous forces you Online 24/7. If their server quits your game quits, even in Solo mode which I played mostly in.
Complex navigation system. Complex Faction relationship system (which is not necesarrily a bad thing).
Lots of griefing in multiplayer Online.
Does a lot of nickel and diming, buy skins, buy clothes, buy more skins, buy laser colours, etc,etc It`s like part game part store trying to sell you stuff - (one of those things they don`t mention until you`ve got the game- A big negative in my book). No personal customisation of your ship except name and what you buy from them.
can`t leave ship except in buggy (see later). No legs, can`t walk.
Missions can be very, very long. No saving. It`s all real time. You leave a day long mission and come back a day later you`ll fail the mission.
You pay for beta patches (I am not kidding), maybe they changed it now. A bit full of themselves and have a raft of acolytes that will leap to defend against any criticism you have of it. Some guys are ok though.

Pros:
Set in a recognisable galaxy. Actual real systems to explore. Very detailed. Feels real.
Ships handle very nicely. Shields, power, weapoins work well and can get quite indepth.
You can name ships. Landing on planets is nice. No city planets, just moons. Can ride buggy-car on planet (buggy as in car, not broken). . Stations are very realised, feels real. Some missions are actually interesting. Some super-bland.
very nice customisation of yourself except everyone is a bit sexless (too thin and flat).
Multiplayer (not a plus in my opinion). Everyone Human. Aliens are enemy which I like.
Track Ir\VR.

Cons of X4.
Early release, still quite buggy. Not much life at Stations sometimes.
AI pretty buggy once you start getting into the game. Some stuff works, some don`t.
Tutorials are minimalistic. No customisation of character. No real choice of character. Research is abysmal. Issues with major ships and fleets escorts (as in they don`t work yet). Missions mostly bland, no spice to them. Too many aliens, I find it kind of silly.
No Trackir/VR

Pros:
You can walk, run around stations and explore the cockpit. Stations that are well realised. Place your own custom picture on ships. Name ships. Tiny ships to huge ships to see.
Indepth economy simulator. You can make your own Stations. Plenty of NPC people wandering about. No Nickel and diming... yet. Potential Faction wars between AI and Player (buggy).
No multiplayer, except for ventures. Lots of missions. Lots of nice planet and space views to be lost in.
Space walking in spacesuit which is real nice.


So Elite has its advantage that its far less buggy- but it has been out for years. for me it`s online all-the-time, even playing alone, and the constant attempts to sell you something is a huge crutch.

X4 has been out a month. It`s pretty buggy and needs at least 4 months to start really matching up. But you`re not held online all the time and it lets you play without trying to take money out of your butt 24\7.

[Bozz 💀]

I personally really loved combat in ED, it never gets boring fighting in warzones, or around asteroids, it's really the best part of the game to me.
What Ketraar said about the Space Trucker Sim is true and you really need to have some time to play the game, but you can also grind a few hours until you get a viper and then go fight or even hunt players ^^ the viper is not very expensive but it"s one of the best combat ships if you know how to fly specially in asteroid zones.
I remember when it came out (the first year) I played with 3 friends and it was really awesome doing the warzones in coop, when you hapen to meet real players it gets very crazy ^^
But yeah the game is very long and you'll need a lot of time if you wanna really progress and enjoy it.
But right now the game is in a far better state than x4.

x4 is nice if you don't dig too dip, I had a lot of fun in the first 30 hours I played but then the more you dig the more it gets dirty ^^ AI is broken, your ships don't behave like they should, fleet management is abyssimal, research is a big joke... but if you focus on exploring, trading a bit here and there and just enjoying the environmennt fighting some ennemies without trying to get big fleets or lots of tradingn ships, it's A okey ! and you'll have some fun, but you'd better wait a few months, I think you'll enjoy x4 even more if you wait for more updates.

EDIT: look at No man's sky, it's really getting a great game now
And consider buying xR it's a bit like x4 but with only 1 flyable ship but you can own hundreds of ships and walking on them while they do they business, the game is not perfect but more polished than x4.

x3 is also an extremely good game even in 2019 specially with mods. far superior to xR or x4 but graphics are a bit outdated.

[cobra188]

Elite dangerous j'ai aimer jouer, mais a force de perdre son vaisseaux quand on vous attaque par surprise en vitesse croisiere ,et payer une assurance ?? pour le vaisseaux!!, j'ai suspendu le jeu avec un vulture!,sur x4 rien de tout ça et on peut reflechir a la strategie a prendre.

[BEAR]

I'll be honest I'm a bit disappointed with X4. The game hasent grown exploration wise from X3 and is not at all as smooth running as X3. It almost feels like a regression.

My issue with ED is Im not going to casually jump on to do some space sim and put on VR goggles, talk to my ship in game and have some kind of waazzoo joystick setup to play the game.

Hopefully X4 smooths out and more exploration content is added through DLC. The main problem with exploration in X4 though, is it is not a true sandbox game, it's scripted and it's not player driven because it's not multiplayer. The only impact you really have as a player in X4 is on the economy. Also the whole in sector vs out of sector mechanics are annoying. If I'm in sector directing my ships the meta says they should be set up a certain way. If I'm out of sector and they are doing atonomous action the meta says they should be set up a different way. That is flawed in my mind.

[Hyrael]

If all you want to do is fly and explore, then Elite is pretty simple. You can kit a starter ship out with a landing craft, get a fuel scoop and head off into the unknown to chart unexplored moons etc. I personally find it kind of boring but the game does a good job of making you feel like some vulnerable speck of dust when you're exploring the surface of some high gravity moon a zillion lightyears from inhabited space. It's a bit creepy actually.

As for X4, well there's really not much to explore, lots and lots of empty space, stars in the background you can never reach (every star you can see in Elite, you can travel to) and some vaults you can pop open to add some entires to encyclopedia.

As someone said above, No Man's Sky is genuinely a decent game now for exploring random new worlds, and even their oceans. I just wish the game had a more "serious" aesthetic.

[Tanvaras]

Above comments say it all, and if Exploration is your primary goal, I have to go with No Man's Sky. Hello Games have brought NMS from death to quite a brilliant game. Elite is good, but slowly dwindling into boredom-ville, Once you have jumped to around 20 star systems you have most likely seen every version of planet/star/etc, It does it job well, but its a job as stated above.

1. NMS - Play for 5 mins or 5 hours you get something done.

2. X4 - Play for 10 mins to 5 hours get something done.

3. Elite - Travel 30 mins - 5 hours to get somewhere to combat, or back and forth trade grind. Take a mission its time and need to complete it in-case you can not play again in the few hours it gives to complete it. Every time I have logged into Elite, its had to be a few hours of play to get anything truly beneficial out of it. It's a good game no doubt about it, but it is like a second job.

All 3 games are worth your time, you just have to pick what you overly prefer as your preference, we the players can recommend, but only you can decide which one is right for you.