ship progression recommendations?

[VA gamer]

I'm more interested in having drones/turrets/whatever doing my combat for me, mostly due to slow reflexes.

Looking for an early game ship to get started with this playstyle, and ship progression that will get me through mid-game/PHQ mission line.

[mcb0ny]

Find an M class with many turret slots and slap Argon or Split Flak turrets on there. They should be able to kill many S/M class ships without much effort from your side.

Terran Jian would be the best for this.

Now, the downside is, you risk friendly fire if you have allies nearby, and they won't like it ;]

[zpc]

I'd say get a certain derelict destroyer and you are good to go. If you can stand the visuals, that is. I can't thus I also recommend: bring your rep with PAR to 20 (easy, just do some missions), sell the ugly derelict destroyer and buy yourself a Odysseus E. This can dock S and M ships - so you can take a small fleet with you.

Whatever Odysseus you prefer another recommendation would be to use the hotkeys introduced with 6.0 to get more controls over your wingmen:
- Attack my target
- Back to your assignment

I'd add every fighter and M ship you come accross while playing the game as an interceptor to the own ship (=destroyer). What your destroyer turrets can't kill fast enough you can destroy with a focus fire command to your fleet.

Of course, fighting the more serious enemies like bigger Xenon fleets will take a lot more and / or a carrier.

But as you said you don't like the early dogfighting, this is an alternative "start". The derelict destroyer can be aqcuired in a matter of minutes. You can also bolster your early fleet with the other derelicts the game has in various places. See this list for details: https://roguey.co.uk/x4/help/spoilers/unclaimed_ships/

[Azrelus]

You'll love Destroyers, Carriers and Battleships.

For early game, a corvette or frigate work well as player ships. Gunboats are very slow and not very good as a player ship.

If you want to go gunboat, my favorite is the Peregrine and Jian. Peregrine has a lot of shielding for it's class and isn't painfully slow and the Jian a lot of turrets all facing upward.

Corvettes, The Nemesis, Katana and Kuraokami are my favorites. The Nemesis is a decent corvette that works well in most situations and is fast enough to escape, the Kuraokami is an upgraded version of the Nemesis and the Katana is stupidly fast, with ship modifications, mine reaches 1500 m/s without travel drive.

Lastly, Frigates. Frigates fit more what you're looking for, they can deploy drones (only combat ones), have turrets, decent shields and are generally fast but have less mount points for non-turret weapons. My picks for these are, well, almost all of them. The Cerberus has 4 turrets with good coverage on all sides, decent shields and ok speed. The Gorgon has 4 turrets mainly facing upward. The Falx has 2 turrets, but more non-turret weapons, the Cobra has 4 turrets and is very fast.

The Osprey is just agonizingly slow but has ok turret coverage.

You can check their stats here and compare to make your choice
https://roguey.co.uk/x4/ships/

[Donauwelle]

In case you own KE you might also take a look at the Guppy.
Its an "L" ship,
however its quite Cheap, quite small and quite fast...
It can house 16 Fighters (8Deck/8Storage) and all the Drones you can imagine.

For a lumpy 9 Mil (arround) you get a min config Guppy serving you as early-Mid game flagship.
2-3 Hrs of crystalfarming+ Boronunlock, Alternatively one freighter full of boardingcrew and its yours.


Only cons, no M landingpad (But with teleport on lv1 you wont rly bother)
and the non-interchangable equipment (wich is a real bummer... why egosoft WHY?)

But then you can field 16s-class, repair+Def-drones and even go for early torp-runs on K´s+ I´s while also having quite the firepower (especially with Dumbfirerocket turrets) and manouverbility (it circles K`s+I´s with ease) on the Guppy itself for a basicly Laughable pricetag.

Id go so far and say the Guppy is the first satisfying frigatte...

[Daddy Shark]

How much you got to spend on this here ship? If you don't like doing the fighting yourself you can let the AI pilot do the fighting for you. If you stick with the same guy and get him leveled up they're halfway competent.

There's two ways to go, blow all your wad on one badass ship like a kitted out katana, or go with a group of S fighters. Either way should get you killing quick.

[Mythos]

Originally posted by Donauwelle:

In case you own KE you might also take a look at the Guppy.
Its an "L" ship,
however its quite Cheap, quite small and quite fast...
It can house 16 Fighters (8Deck/8Storage) and all the Drones you can imagine.

For a lumpy 9 Mil (arround) you get a min config Guppy serving you as early-Mid game flagship.
2-3 Hrs of crystalfarming+ Boronunlock, Alternatively one freighter full of boardingcrew and its yours.


Only cons, no M landingpad (But with teleport on lv1 you wont rly bother)
and the non-interchangable equipment (wich is a real bummer... why egosoft WHY?)

But then you can field 16s-class, repair+Def-drones and even go for early torp-runs on K´s+ I´s while also having quite the firepower (especially with Dumbfirerocket turrets) and manouverbility (it circles K`s+I´s with ease) on the Guppy itself for a basicly Laughable pricetag.

Id go so far and say the Guppy is the first satisfying frigatte...

How fast do you run out of Ammo with dumbfire rocket turrets?

What type of fighters are you using?

[Donauwelle]

Originally posted by Mythos:

How fast do you run out of Ammo with dumbfire rocket turrets?

What type of fighters are you using?

The guppy has a Missile storage of 790 (with all slots dumbfire) wich is quite low compared to lets say an Odysseus E with 1.700 or a Behemoth with 1.000
It also manages to fire 10 Rockets at once with full Broadside, so you chew thru your 790 Missiles like nothing.
Generally as Early-Mid game Carrier i`m fine with this.
In early-mid game Quests and Combat you wont need your missiles that much, your fighters do the job just fine, (16 of them lol) and if you want to go dakka on a early K or smth... you have more then enough stored Rockets to do the job...
Quite expensive tho, but considering how quick this thing can be aquired im totally fine with this...

Regarding Fighters i say the usuall early suspects.
If you "just started" 9 Mil for the Guppy is still quite a price-tag (even tho you get a crazy powerspike) so go with what you can afford.
16 minimum Nodans are better then nothing.
You got the nerves to farm Moreyas? sure go for it
Cimearas? ofc why not...

To keep the Design in line im currently using 8 Mako+8Barra.... All boron so to say....
But thb thats not very effective....
They kinda suck.... Statwise

[Mythos]

Originally posted by Donauwelle:

Originally posted by Mythos:

How fast do you run out of Ammo with dumbfire rocket turrets?

What type of fighters are you using?

The guppy has a Missile storage of 790 (with all slots dumbfire) wich is quite low compared to lets say an Odysseus E with 1.700 or a Behemoth with 1.000
It also manages to fire 10 Rockets at once with full Broadside, so you chew thru your 790 Missiles like nothing.
Generally as Early-Mid game Carrier i`m fine with this.
In early-mid game Quests and Combat you wont need your missiles that much, your fighters do the job just fine, (16 of them lol) and if you want to go dakka on a early K or smth... you have more then stored Rockets to do the job...
Quite expensive tho, but considering how quick this thing can be aquired im totally fine with this...

Regarding Fighters i say the usuall early suspects.
If you "just started" 9 Mil for the Guppy is still quite a price-tag (even tho you get a crazy powerspike) so go with what you can afford.
16 minimum Nodans are better then nothing.
You got the nerves to farm Moreyas? sure go for it
Cimearas? ofc why not...

To keep the Design in line im currently using 8 Mako+8Barra.... All boron so to say....
But thb thats not very effective....
They kinda suck.... Statwise

Hey good info, thanks for the reply. I'm at med game right now with two stations pumping out goods. I'm actually at the point where I'm looking to buy a L ship so this was perfect. I too am doing a boron playthrough and trying to stick with their ships mostly.

I've never really used missiles before. They always confuse me with like 5 different launcher types and different warheads. I don't really know which launcher pairs with what warhead or how you even figure that out. Looking at stats it doesn't really say.

[Donauwelle]

Yeah at the beginning Rockets are quite confusing,

Short Summary

Torpedos
Dumbfire with (mediocre) tracking, slow, huge bang (rly huge) can only be used by S+M ships
Best against Capital-ships + stations via swarms of S-M ships (bomber)


Dumbfire Rockets

Dumbfire 1/2
Dumbfire without tracking, medium speed, big bang (lower dmg then torp) can be used by S+M as Frontal weapon or as M-L Tower
Best against Capital-ships + stations via Destroyer / Carrier

Cluster
Dumbfire without Tracking, slow (as f***), massive DMG and explosion
Best to strip ships/stations off their turrets

Scatter
Faster Cluster with less explosion wich for some reason works like a shotgun aka deals more dmg if your close (weird thingys)


Guided Rockets

Sizes
Small = best against S ships
Large = best against everything bigger then S

-Smart
Fire-and-forget with best tracking, good dmg, good speed, crazy price
Best guided rocket for pure DPS, way way more expensive then rest

-Heatseeker
Fire-and-forget with mediocre tracking, easy to avoid via countermeasures, good dmg, good speed, quite cheap

-Guided
Classic Lock-on-launcher, easy to avoid, good dmg, good speed, cheapest

-Swarm
Fire-and-forget Swarms, can barely be avoided/some always hit, low dmg, medium price, look`n`good

-Emp
Deactivats enemy thrusters and drives (dont ask me for timers, i never use them)

-Interceptor
Crazy range, crazy speed, crazy hard to avoid, deals no dmg
Good to get ships out of hyperdrive and pirate them


Very short summary

Use Torpedo on Small ships and Dumbfire Rockets on L+XL ships,
nevermind guided rockets, they are fun but not very good...

[Mythos]

Originally posted by Donauwelle:

Yeah at the beginning Rockets are quite confusing,

Short Summary

Torpedos
Dumbfire with (mediocre) tracking, slow, huge bang (rly huge) can only be used by S+M ships
Best against Capital-ships + stations via swarms of S-M ships (bomber)


Dumbfire Rockets

Dumbfire 1/2
Dumbfire without tracking, medium speed, big bang (lower dmg then torp) can be used by S+M as Frontal weapon or as M-L Tower
Best against Capital-ships + stations via Destroyer / Carrier

Cluster
Dumbfire without Tracking, slow (as f***), massive DMG and explosion
Best to strip ships/stations off their turrets

Scatter
Faster Cluster with less explosion wich for some reason works like a shotgun aka deals more dmg if your close (weird thingys)


Guided Rockets

Sizes
Small = best against S ships
Large = best against everything bigger then S

-Smart
Fire-and-forget with best tracking, good dmg, good speed, crazy price
Best guided rocket for pure DPS, way way more expensive then rest

-Heatseeker
Fire-and-forget with mediocre tracking, easy to avoid via countermeasures, good dmg, good speed, quite cheap

-Guided
Classic Lock-on-launcher, easy to avoid, good dmg, good speed, cheapest

-Swarm
Fire-and-forget Swarms, can barely be avoided/some always hit, low dmg, medium price, look`n`good

-Emp
Deactivats enemy thrusters and drives (dont ask me for timers, i never use them)

-Interceptor
Crazy range, crazy speed, crazy hard to avoid, deals no dmg
Good to get ships out of hyperdrive and pirate them


Very short summary

Use Torpedo on Small ships and Dumbfire Rockets on L+XL ships,
nevermind guided rockets, they are fun but not very good...

Good write up. What's the differences between mk1 and mk2 variants of launchers? As far as I can tell, the can only hold a few more warheads.

[rubyismycat]

If you are in the early game and you are poor here is what you do its quick its easy and it gets you lots of rep and a few ships. ~Go to Hatikva do all their story missions then wait for an unexpected visitor at your hq follow his Split quest line now.The first mission in this Questline will give you a split Cobra get it repaired leave its weapons alone its a perfect mission running ship it has Flack turrets and you can dock a small fighter on to it meaning you can switch to a small ship when you need to during missions i have literally billions of credits and several space sectors under my control in my current game and i am still flying my trusty Cobra.

[Lucifer69]

You can start the game and go grab the Odysseus for free (Faulty Logic VII). This one ship can solo most fights. Worst case, just grab a few fighters for cover. And when you want to shoot something manually it has a main battery as well. Might want to bring a well armed ship or two with you when you go to claim it.

That said, if you really want to go all in on turrets then ultimately you'll likely end up with the Raptor and/ or a bunch of gunships (Peregrine, Jian, etc).

[Kazmeister]

Just hire a cheap pilot (or marine, whatever you can find), give them a pilot primer and one star pilot course to get them to two stars, and let them fly and fight for you. You can just stand behind the seat and issue commands. This is CEO-style X4 lol

[Twitch.tv/KAEN_SG]

The Guppy Light Carrier is a very good choice but I would avoid missiles as rearming them is a P-I-T-A. Most dockyards will run out of missile components if you drain too many out of them as most AI factions do not really produce them in sufficient quantities.

Boron doesn't have very good carrier based fighters or bombers though.
Mako does "ok" as an interceptor but Barracuda is barely useable in the bomber role.

If you go with a 50/50 Interceptor/Bomber config... you will not be able to handle a K without lots of manual hands-on dogfighting or massive casualties after every fight.
I would just avoid K's and most large enemies (or bring 5 guppies i guess).

[Aieonae]

Originally posted by Daddy Shark:

How much you got to spend on this here ship? If you don't like doing the fighting yourself you can let the AI pilot do the fighting for you. If you stick with the same guy and get him leveled up they're halfway competent.

There's two ways to go, blow all your wad on one badass ship like a kitted out katana, or go with a group of S fighters. Either way should get you killing quick.

I agree, mid game is too huge a margin to gauge considering, given I had played most of the plot, even then I don't even consider I am at late game or end game for the matter.

That said you might want to look into guppy for some casual fast carrier that can field 16 fighters with 20 disposable drones to be fit for combat.