Is it a must to build?

[Nimiria Nova]

Hey,

I always like the style and combat of those kind of games but is it possible to earn good money, get fleets etc. with only doing combat? Or can one only get the real cash when he becomes a trading/building expert?

[StormhawkV]

No, not really but some plots require large amounts of money that are much easier to acquire with huge factories. In X4 it's a bit easier to make money with combat compared to previous games. On the other hand building is now an actual construction effort. I haven't done much building myself until now and was still doing fine but I also haven't started those plots yet.

[Yuki]

Its not a must to build in general. But its also not a must to have whole fleets or do all of the missions. The game offers some content for lonewolf pirates too, even full story arcs.
It does however mean skipping an essential and huge part of the game.

And if you want to become billionaire with massive fleets- then building is a must.
If you want to modify your ship modules to your liking, then building is a must (if limited, doesnt need that much).
If you want to settle in an area and not be on the run from the Xenon all the time, then building is likely a must. At least a tiny bit like a small defense outpost.
If you want to bolster an NPC empire, then... well, mostly. A "strongly recommended".

"Good money" is a relative term. Combat or rather "looting" (e.g. NPC battlefields) is one of the best starting incomes. But thats it. It doesnt get any better from here. While building- does. Its kind of unlimited.

[Pandorian]

If you enjoy just stealing everything, then you'll be able to build fleets fairly quickly. It is possible to have fleets built without engaging in trading, but it's not going to be pleasant. Most of the economies are fairly weak and even if you have the money to order a ship, that doesn't mean it's going to be built in any reasonable time due to supply issues.

[PeaceMaker]

Originally posted by Nimiria Nova:

Hey,

I always like the style and combat of those kind of games but is it possible to earn good money, get fleets etc. with only doing combat? Or can one only get the real cash when he becomes a trading/building expert?

I've never built up a base. that stuff bores me. Yep you can build a fleet just by flying around and buying ships, etc. I've only had like 5 freighters and a couple of battleships at most (the battleships I literally captured one and found another), but you can buy 'em when you make enough cash.

[Yuki]

Lets put it that way: There are MMORPG's that allow you to level exclusively with crafting/gathering, "life" skills. WoW even made a news appearance when the first one finished that pacifistic path to level 60 after months. Or was it years?

X4 without building is pretty much that.

Realistically? No. And why would you, if you are so much against any "building" there are so many other essential but non-pewpew things in X4 - It may just not be the game for you.

However! If your question is "do i need to spend hours over hours in that station editor?"-
The answer is no.

You can just make a simple outpost in a minute. Or- import a template shared by others. The only thing that would be required is:
Open editor, load template-> confirm.
Fill in some money and dont bother with it again until it asks you for a station manager.

Do you need to spend most of your time with it? No. You can, it also has that much potential - but you dont have to.
Do you need to stand on that bridge of your construction vessel and watch it do its job? No. You can do that, thats the awesome thing in X4. But it will do its job either way. "Building" is by design something that just happens automatically in the background over time while you go do other stuff. Like pew pew. Or trade. or explore, or whatever you like.
Of course you can stay at mere tutorial level. At only gathering herbs for thousands of hours.

The current "end game" is terraforming, and that is right out impossible without building, Its straight up a requirement to even start let alone make any progress.
You get your own station from something you can consider your main and tutorial quest- and that requires building already. A dock so you can see your guidance character through most of your journey face to fishtank. At the very least this and some extentions to that station are a realistic minimum (Storages to store resources you need for research. Which you need to upgrade your ships -> Not a single ship upgrade without building).

Completely without? No not really. But neither has it to be a focus.

[HunZolka]

There is a mod that makes sure you get bounty if one of your ship destroys a Xenon ship (otherwise it only counts if you do it personally).

At least the mod was needed for it when I last played, don't know if it changes since.

Anyway that way you can get some lucrative fleet action if you start patrolling around gates that lead to Xenon space.

When I last played I had small, gradually expanded fleets at all such gates, passively generating money. When they were getting overwhelmed I could just teleport into one of the ships and help out.
This kind of larger scale, but sensible combat was really missing from the game otherwise for me.

[Nimiria Nova]

Thank you all for your nice answers :)

I do not want to be a pirate. More like one who hunts the bad guys. And then get a bigger ship, maybe even a capital one. Getting some wingmen/pilots etc. - and yes a mod for bounty with Xenon sounds good :)

I may try that mod out then when I start to play the game.

And yes if I have the money / can get the money via combat then I guess I would like to have some defense outposts and some kind of home base but that`s it.

I don´t mind building a bit and make some defense / base structures but I do not wish to be a facility manager or trader to make some cash :D I want, how it was called, pew pew :)

[Yuki]

Originally posted by Nimiria Nova:

And yes if I have the money / can get the money via combat then I guess I would like to have some defense outposts and some kind of home base but that`s it.

Combat directly wont give you much- without modding the game. Sadly.
HowEVER. You want wingmates? Why stop at the meager bounty? Let a wingmate loot the battlefield while you cause another. Yet another wingmate tow that wreck to a scrapyard. Now we are talking $_$
And thats in for sure, even without mods. Its that mix that sets X4 apart.

Fly safe!

[Apex Artist]

Install the mod, "Roaming Fleets". This rightly pays you for providing or helping with sector security. Shoot down a Xenon in Argon space? You get a payment from Argon. It scales with your fleet, because any of your ships destroying Xenon, bring payment. The amount of pay per kill is adjustable by the player too. In the default, you're paid nearly 1 mil for taking the final shot to bring down an I, a few hundred k...to take down a K, 20-30k for an S, and a few thousand for destroying a fighter.

[McDragon]

The biggest profit here is not from factories, or military operations, but from faction tasks to collect a fleet to order, where you are replenished with the cost of the fleet and also get +50% on top, regardless of the cost. You can easily make 40-100 million for one such order. No factory in the game will be able to provide the same, no matter how large it is. And knowing how expensive the ships of the "Earth Protectorate" can be, you can estimate how much you will be paid for a fleet of 2 destroyers and 10 heavy fighters. The main thing is to collect the initial amount, which is not so difficult.

[ArcticISAF]

I’ll just throw in that a good early game opener and one that could sustain you is setting up some miners to do their thing in a safe sector. Once they’re set up to local automine (and there’s a refinery in the same sector to accept the raw resources) then it’s pretty much set and forget. Occasionally they might overfill the refineries if there’s too many miners (so can’t sell), but they can be just moved to elsewhere. My example is the Oort Cloud, great perfect safe place to mine. Had a bunch of miners sitting there all game and they’re probably giving 5-10 million an hour, lots of opportunity for more. It’s great to set up, and you can go hopping around the galaxy wherever fighting whoever and you know you’re making good money in the background regardless.

[Yuki]

Originally posted by McDragon:

You can easily make 40-100 million for one such order. No factory in the game will be able to provide the same, no matter how large it is.

The moment a station breaches 100M/h i give them the ☆ mark in the list. Its a nightsky in my station overview.
I have yet to figure out what i do for 500M - three are already beyond that, or if 1 bil will be the next step.

[McDragon]

Originally posted by Yuki:

Originally posted by McDragon:

You can easily make 40-100 million for one such order. No factory in the game will be able to provide the same, no matter how large it is.

The moment a station breaches 100M/h i give them the ☆ mark in the list. Its a nightsky in my station overview.
I have yet to figure out what i do for 500M - three are already beyond that, or if 1 bil will be the next step.

Perhaps this is a shipyard with a very well established system for delivering everything it needs to non-stop production of all types of ships in the game. Otherwise, I don't know how to achieve this.
It's also possible you're talking about selling the Protectium, but that thing can't always be sold as briskly as it started out, stocks at the NPCs fill up and the boom ends.

[Yuki]

Its actually relatively easy. For 100m+ all you need is a scrapyard. Upsized of course but those things are printing money.
The others, shipyards as well yes. But "self sufficient" high end goods also reach that rather quickly. Or Terran basic material factories- in terran territory.

[McDragon]

Originally posted by Yuki:

Its actually relatively easy. For 100m+ all you need is a scrapyard. Upsized of course but those things are printing money.
The others, shipyards as well yes. But "self sufficient" high end goods also reach that rather quickly. Or Terran basic material factories- in terran territory.

Actually, I have 3 large factories with several scrap processors, in different parts of the gate network, and they are not even close to the indicators you are talking about. Everything rests on how the manticores deliver cubes from mobile compressors, this is very inefficient. In addition, in order to power such a factory outside of Avaris, you just need a wild amount of energy panels and such a factory will cost about 150-200 million credits, it will not pay off quickly either. During this time, you will have time to make a billion on those tasks to collect fleets. Now I am building the largest such factory (for nothing to do) there will be about 10 metal processors, and the rest of the space is crammed with solar panels, warehouses, production of essentials for work and living modules. But it looks so monstrous even on the diagram that doubts about the appropriateness of such a thing are already creeping in. And remembering how much it will take to carry resources to build such a thing, it’s even depressing in general.