Tips for beginners?

[Chris1996]

Could anyone give me tips
what should I do soon as I launch this game?
what features should I take advantage of? sorry for many questions but this looks more playable than elite dangerous (in my opinion) what happens if i screw up? i assume there's a save and load system right?
I want to be a miner and a trader, role play as a mercenary from time to time. if possible.
I bookmarked a site that shows me the commands and controls incase i forget.

Thank you to anyone who takes their time to read this post and those that respond to me, I appreciate it very muchly.
Oh one more question, are resources finite? anything in this world thats not fixed? (random?)
thanks again

[uni790]

Resources are infinite, yes there's a save load system, turn off cloud saves(they break things easily according to the devs)

Your desired play styles are possible to some extent, but in the end you'll end up tucked away in a corner just commanding from the map screen, as things never work quite right when you're near by.

But yea, with a save load system, infinite resources (a couple of ships there's only ever the one of that you can capture(I believe)) you can easily just take your time here, though I would recommend getting some AI miners at least set up in whatever faction you like's space, that way it's less likely the Xenon run them over.

Also, keep in mind the AI is entirely incapable of doing anything but the simplest actions on it's own, it will need you to babysit it, lol. (like you can tell it to go mine ore in a system and it's fine, but you assign it to a station to go mine, and you'll have to check it every 15-20 mins and make it drop a cargo hold full of ice, because the station wanted just one piece, they will all do this, repeatedly.)

[Binkysim]

Check out the guide by the Rugged Gamer from the guides section here https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2448858078 it will help you get into X4 in a nice friendly way and not just dump you in the deep end :)

[TSP]

As someone that has only a few stations (but quite large, ~200m a piece) I can say that I have had very little issue with miners designated to stations. I have a station that stores all the raw materials, so there's that. There are also workarounds for this such as more production so ice gets consumed faster (and product sold quicker).

Anyway, I like doing the missions myself as a merc, and arrrr-ing big ships is also fun. Even more so when selling back to thr faction you stole it from.

[Chris1996]

right guys, just completed the tutorial, mastering the basics, relatively straight forward, trading though, adding parts to the ship seems a bit confusing at first, i just need to get better adjusted to the screen, flight controls and going into your space suit is pretty cool. space suit though is a bit tedious but im getting the hang of it.

[Chris1996]

Originally posted by Binkysim:

Check out the guide by the Rugged Gamer from the guides section here https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2448858078 it will help you get into X4 in a nice friendly way and not just dump you in the deep end :)

greatly appreciated. Ill watch that now, any tips that help are greatly appreciated.

[Chris1996]

Originally posted by Chris1996:

Originally posted by Binkysim:

Check out the guide by the Rugged Gamer from the guides section here https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2448858078 it will help you get into X4 in a nice friendly way and not just dump you in the deep end :)

greatly appreciated. Ill watch that now, any tips that help are greatly appreciated.

ohh ive seen thism getting missions though seem a bit confusing, whats this about going into scanner mode to check for damaged electricals. is this for all or just some missions? hope that makes sense.

[Chris1996]

Originally posted by uni790:

Resources are infinite, yes there's a save load system, turn off cloud saves(they break things easily according to the devs)

Your desired play styles are possible to some extent, but in the end you'll end up tucked away in a corner just commanding from the map screen, as things never work quite right when you're near by.

But yea, with a save load system, infinite resources (a couple of ships there's only ever the one of that you can capture(I believe)) you can easily just take your time here, though I would recommend getting some AI miners at least set up in whatever faction you like's space, that way it's less likely the Xenon run them over.

Also, keep in mind the AI is entirely incapable of doing anything but the simplest actions on it's own, it will need you to babysit it, lol. (like you can tell it to go mine ore in a system and it's fine, but you assign it to a station to go mine, and you'll have to check it every 15-20 mins and make it drop a cargo hold full of ice, because the station wanted just one piece, they will all do this, repeatedly.)

thank you for the tips. ill remember this when i get a bit deeper into these mechanics

[Chris1996]

i thoroughly enjoyed the tutorial!

[BlackD]

dont know if the linked video covers this but if you ever go manually mining for nividium (or anything else), do it with an M ship and 1 or 2 other miners following you.
reasoning: when you activate the scanner, you can see some orange-glowing spots on asteroids (if you dont, just deactivate and activate the scanner again, the spots appear randomly). when you shoot them with the normal (not turret) mining laser a piece of the asteroid will "break off" wich you can collect. with each, lets say "outcrop" you shoot the total amount the asteroid holds gets lower until its depletet. this way you get WAAAY more out of one asteroid then you would by simply blowing it up like the AI does. following this "mini-game" you can easily fill 2 M ships by mining just 1 asteroid

[Oddible]

A few tips:
- Have fun, there are almost no timed missions or time limits, do whatever you want whenever you want
- Build slowly, build up your passive income. When you get 100k cr just buy a small miner and set it to mining Silicon (dropping a handful of resource probes helps) in a sector with a lot of stations (Grand Exchange?). Then buy another, then a Medium, then another.
- When you find a bug, it isn't a bug, it is a peculiar way the system works - come to the forums and ask, like 99% of the time people complain about a bug it was just that they didn't know how something works
- Miners make more money early than traders - the economy is real not simulated, so as the factions build up the economy will really start cooking! The economy centers around combat, losses in battle will drive more economy
- You can make good money early game just doing transport missions - transport Joe from station a to station b
- You can make better but more risky money flying around combat zones (Hatikvah's Choice, Ianamus Zura IV) and picking up drop boxes after battles and selling them to the Trader's Corner in stations
- There is no best ship or best weapon or best station. You do you. Roleplay limitations make it even more fun.
- When you start building stations build from the bottom of the economy up, so rather than starting out with a factory that builds Advanced Electronics, start with Refined Metals and Silicon Wafers and Graphene. Then Hull Parts since they're in high demand early. (Unless you're playing Terran just put one Energy panel on each station, no need for a dedicated station for energy cells).
- There are often several different ways to accomplish the same thing - check alternatives!
- You can steal blueprints for station parts using EMP bombs
- You can board and steal ships from the SCA without rep loss, your rep with them is pegged to -5 always

Good luck!

EDIT: One more thing I forgot to mention...
Scan stations for the boron scientist mission EARLY in your game (unless you started Terran). That is the main storyline quest and it has quite a few unlocks so is good to do pretty early.

[Oddible]

One more thing, about the global situation. The player matters in this game. If you ignore the factions long enough and just do your thing, the Xenon will eventually overrun parts of the universe. Or one faction may overrun another. There is a limit to this because factions (including the Xenon) have a max limit to the number of ships they can have on the map at any point so the factions will eventually fight back.

The BIGGEST impact you can have to universe stability is feeding the factions raw materials. Miners make stability. Feed the factions Ore and Silicon and Methane and they will produce their own defenses - ships and stations - and will eventually be more resilient to attacks. Feed Argon and they will stabilize vs the Xenon in Hatikvah. Feed the Teladi / Ministry and they will stabilize in Ianamus Zura. It is a bit trickier to get the Split stabilized because their economy is a mess early and the political situation with the FRF means they can't build their own capital ships but it can be done too.

[Tankfriend]

Originally posted by Oddible:

- There is no best ship or best weapon or best station. You do you. Roleplay limitations make it even more fun.

There are "best" things in the game depending on what you're trying to achieve, but the game gives the player enough room that min-maxing isn't required.

[rudi]

Originally posted by Oddible:

A few tips:
- Have fun, there are almost no timed missions or time limits, do whatever you want whenever you want
- When you find a bug, it isn't a bug, it is a peculiar way the system works - come to the forums and ask, like 99% of the time people complain about a bug it was just that they didn't know how something works
- There is no best ship or best weapon or best station. You do you. Roleplay limitations make it even more fun.
- There are often several different ways to accomplish the same thing - check alternatives!

Good luck!

So true!

[Binkysim]

Originally posted by Chris1996:

Originally posted by Chris1996:

greatly appreciated. Ill watch that now, any tips that help are greatly appreciated.

ohh ive seen thism getting missions though seem a bit confusing, whats this about going into scanner mode to check for damaged electricals. is this for all or just some missions? hope that makes sense.

Mostly when starting out just go for the very easy missions like repairing data leaks and shooting at criminal traffic and yes do the tutorials too as they cover much of the basics :)

The scanner mission you are refering to is scan a specific station to a percent like 25% just go there and turn on scan mode shift 2 and fly around the station and it will slowy scan as you fly over parts of it and increase the % thats it needs, shift 2 again will go back to normal scan mode, I hope that helps :)

[Chris1996]

Originally posted by Binkysim:

Originally posted by Chris1996:

ohh ive seen thism getting missions though seem a bit confusing, whats this about going into scanner mode to check for damaged electricals. is this for all or just some missions? hope that makes sense.

Mostly when starting out just go for the very easy missions like repairing data leaks and shooting at criminal traffic and yes do the tutorials too as they cover much of the basics :)

The scanner mission you are refering to is scan a specific station to a percent like 25% just go there and turn on scan mode shift 2 and fly around the station and it will slowy scan as you fly over parts of it and increase the % thats it needs, shift 2 again will go back to normal scan mode, I hope that helps :)

Yeah been doing that and now i have to deliever a ship. I only had one, now I have two.so how do i get the second ship so i can go in it once i drop the one with antimatter in it? i got unlucky,raiders of sorts spawned in and killed me when i tried to command the second ship to come find me, a little awkward but i think thats the only way, i imagine i have to go in my space suit real quick and fly to the second spaceship to escape to a safe distance?