Just bought it..

[Max Power]

any advice to get started?

[Dunkler Messias]

Yeah, just start the game, use the young gun start and explore the universe. Don't read any guides and don't watch videos.

[Geist]

Yes. Do the Tutorials :-D Don't skip the tutorials.

[Venerable_Sin]

Experiment, make mistakes, get frustrated, find the solutions then improve on them. :) Terran and hatikva are great newbie quest lines that show you some of the central aspects of this game. Hatikva is for the base game (original tutorial missions) Terran is dlc (egosoft tried again to improve tutorial)

[Mordtziel]

Go set keybindings for...
Toggling Flight Assist
Toggling Autoroll
Wing: Attack my Target
Wing: Resume Assignment
Deploy Mine
Deploy Laser Tower
Repeat Last Deployment

Consider changing a number of other keybindings that are...pretty arbitrarily set.

Tutorials are your friend. If you have the Timelines DLC, it's basically an expanded tutorial system. It presents you with preset scenarios with an objective, sometimes timed. There's a lot to learn and it will take quite some time to get a real grasp on it all.

[Max Power]

thanks all !

[zpc]

Fly around, take in the view. There is a lot happening in the X4 universe without the player doing anything.

[Doom]

Originally posted by Max Power:

any advice to get started?

Do the tutorials, skip Timelines. Select "play open world".

[areudeadyet]

Dont listen to those who tell you to skip Timelines DLC (if you own it). Tutorials are great to learn some basic stuff, but Timelines help you to be better in game. I am also new into this game, that DLC helped a lot.

[Ryno]

My advice is don't get too freaked out by the Xenon. Some new starts have them strong and constantly invading. Others they start slower or focus on other areas of the map. But the races will eventually balance things out on their own. Territory is rarely lost permanently.

Take your time, learn the game and do some of your own role playing. There are story missions which can help you get started but I personally like to just do my own thing and pick away at the story missions. The game is so open that very few missions have time limits so just do your thing, learn and enjoy.

[Geist]

Originally posted by areudeadyet:

Dont listen to those who tell you to skip Timelines DLC (if you own it). Tutorials are great to learn some basic stuff, but Timelines help you to be better in game. I am also new into this game, that DLC helped a lot.

Great to see that it helped someone new :-)

[Zloth]

Timelines is its own save file, so you can pop back and forth from it, if you even have it.

As for advice, well, yeah:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2954241930

I haven't read through this one in a while to make sure it's still accurate.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2504731629

[Mordtziel]

Originally posted by areudeadyet:

Dont listen to those who tell you to skip Timelines DLC (if you own it). Tutorials are great to learn some basic stuff, but Timelines help you to be better in game. I am also new into this game, that DLC helped a lot.

The people that are generally against the Timelines DLC are longtime veterans of either the series or the game itself long before the dlc came out. It serves as an annoyance to those people, but for new people it's a great tool that helps prevent the player from being overwhelmed by putting game concepts into bite-sized chunks.

[HyperWayne]

Originally posted by Geist:

Yes. Do the Tutorials :-D Don't skip the tutorials.

i 2nd this.. as a new player itll help you SO MUCH everything else you learn as you go.

[Carlsberg]

I spent my first few hours figuring out my controller bindings and getting familiar with menu system, worked through some tutorials, made lots of mistakes and was killed a few times.

Then I wiped my saves and started anew, much better second time with some understanding of how this game plays.