[5.10 Tutorial] The Path to Profit – Kath’s Guide of how to become an Industrial Tycoon in X4.

New Updated and Extended Version (2.2.1)
This is a step by step guide of how to become an industrial tycoon in X4 foundations starting from scratch.

This guide is mostly for new players that have mastered the very basic game mechanics and want to start with more complex tasks. Also some of this information might come in handy for seasoned players.
It will explain how to forge an industrial backbone that will enable you to become a galactic wide player to complete your personal goals in x4 (in reasonable time!)
Also we will put a close look on Blacklists and Automation for mining trades and your supply-chain.
I prefer a strongly modded but lore friendly and non-cheaty game to get the most out of my experience.

This guide includes:

What mods are there that add new content.

How to get initial cash (and advanced methods)
How to setup mining operations.
How to gain standing with the empires.
How to build stations and where.
How to manage Blacklists and supply-chains.
How to deal with threats like Kha'aak, pirates and xenon.
Additionally I has loads of useful information about common issues you will encounter on the way.
Added list of working mods after "Boron Update"

Setting up a new game (Quick guide on Mods) (Updated)

In my opinion this game is so much better with mods. Its just amazing how much they are adding to your experience of x4.

For my guide its not necessary to mod the game nor does it matter which start you pick.
Sooner or later ull land in the sandbox and that’s when this guide comes in.

Mods will make enemies and economics smarter, immersion stronger, battles more interesting and intense. In addition you will have more ships and customization options without breaking the balance.

All these mods work with 5.0 after 60 hours of gameplay i only had minor issues.

Just to clarify for new players: the basic unmodded game is refered as "vanilla" .

If you want to use the mods you might need to find the newer versions on nexusmods since the steamworkshop is not really up to date due to the recent release of avarice.
Additionally I will explain how to get these mods and implement them to working order.

[Update]Due to recent player feedback I have rewritten this section[Update]

Some readers wished a different approach on how I recommend mods to new players.
Especially mentioning VRO (Variety and Re-balance Overhaul) was criticized because it changes the general flavor of the game quite drastic.

Therefore I will divide it into two sections and handle VRO separately, explaining what it does and why I like it most.

Also mentioning mods at the very top of a new player guide was often seen problematic.

Here I just don’t agree. People that like such complex sandbox games usually don’t fear additional content and complexity and quality of life functions. They embrace them and start loving the game even more. Especially if they are so easy to implement and smoothly working as in x4.

Of course its up to you what mods you want to use for your game!
They are not mandatory and some of you might even prefer to implement many more.
But I say: Even if you are new to this game you should try them straight away. It just enhances your experience so well that you should really try them!

WHAT DO MODS DO:
There are several different types of mods and here is what they do:

1) Mods that add content (mostly ships and weapons)
2) Mods that modify the visual appearance (ship-skins and models, effects, explosions)
3) Mods that modify ship behavior (behavior scripts, automation scripts, special task scripts)
4) Mods that re-balance entire aspects of the game (ship-stats and balance, resource yields, space-economics, pilot skill system etc.)

Full Re-balance or Vanilla+
Before you start modding you need to make a decision. Do you want the game to be completely overhauled or do you just want additional ships with the good old vanilla feel.

In this guide I recommend VRO which is a complete overhaul of game mechanics. All ships get a boost to their hull and shields which will make battles last longer. Also it will increase the range and behavior of turrets. Especially capital ships are completely different. They will engage battle at a higher range and combat really feels different than in a vanilla game.
That’s only touching the surface!
If you want more information before making your decision you can check this wiki:
https://sites.google.com/view/vrowiki/Home

It does not matter what you choose! Just keep in mind that all mods that add ships come in two versions: Standard or VRO (only required if you are using the Re-balance Overhaul itself.)

The most important mods that I recommend:

1)More ships:

-XR Shippack (+VRO Update if using VRO)
(Source: Nexusmods)

-Ship Variation Expansion (+VRO Update if using VRO)
(Source: Nexusmods)

-Minor factions expanded (+VRO Update if using VRO)
(Source: Nexusmods)

2)Visuals

-X4 Fire and Smoke
Its not realistic if ships burn in space, yes but oh boy it looks sooooo good!
(Source: Steam Workshop)

-Paintjobs as you see fit – there are many packs available.
(Source: Steam Workshop)

-VRO Icon Pack (if using VRO)
(Nexusmods or Steam Workshop)

3)Behavior Scripts

-Better Piracy
(Source: Steam Workshop)

-Fly-by Looting and Lockbox
(Source: Steam Workshop)

-Rebalance mining plus
(Source: Steam Workshop)

-Mules extensions
(Nexusmods or Steam Workshop)

4)Rebalance

-VRO
(Source: The latest version can be found on reddit because the author lives in ukraine and has a war on his doorstep – still he managed to update and release a version for 5.0)

-Faction Enhancer with all four modules (War/Econ/AI/Catch-up)
(Source: Steam Workshop)
WARNING: the Faction Enhancer mods can make the Endgame considerably harder, Xenon incursions are way harder and there will be trouble (in the late game). This adds some edge and especially later on much more challenge and content and fun. Id even recommend it for new players.

-Trader Seminars
(Source: Steam Workshop)

-Autotrader Skill Rebalance

-Extra Game Options
(Source: Steam Workshop)

-Hazards Rework
(Source: Steam Workshop)

-Sector Satellites
(Nexusmods or Steam Workshop)

-Sirnukes Mod support API's
(Source: Nexusmods or Steam Workshop)



I am using some more but that are the basic mods improving the experience.

How to mod:
The way I got it working:
1st Step: Get all mods with Source Steam Workshop
2nd Step: Start the Game and disable Steam Workshop on Expansion Options Menu (the mods you installed are not removed - just disabled) This prevents Version Conflicts
3rd Step: Get all other mods from Reddit (VRO) and Nexusmods as marked in the previous description and put the folders in your extension DIR (steam\steamapps\common\X4 Foundations\extensions).
4th Step: Start the Game again and enable all Mods in the extensions option menue

There should be no conflicts now.

If its all working do a copy of the extensions folder for backup if you want to add more mods later you can move back to working order if there are any conflicts and issues.

Getting Started.. (How to make your first few Millions)

No matter which start you pick after a little time you are thrown into the sandbox and that’s where the fun starts.

First thing! Find the big universe accelerator loop and fly it once so you uncover all core systems!

For the first phase of your journey you will need some considerable starting funds assuming you starting from scratch.

I used to do crystal mining but due to the developments and patches this has been nerved allot.
I wrote a guide for that but its way outdated, it will still teach you all about it thou.

Methods to get cash early:

Ninja Looting:
The fastest way to get cash early is ninja looting!
When the game starts factions will clash that are in war which each other. Especially during the first 1-2 H in the game there will be mayor battles between the factions.
You just need to watch the impressive firework and scoop the remains. Especially Spacefly Eggs and Programmable Field arrays are super profitable to sell (don’t forget to craft Caviar before selling)
Placing a few satellites will help with locating ongoing battles
The systems where empires regularly collide are:

Second Contact Flashpoint (SCF): ANT/ARG vs. HOP and XENON this is a great starter system for ninjalooting, its also less dangerous than most others. Regularly check gates for battles!

Hatikvah’s Choice I (HC I): Check the gate to xenon space, there will be never-ending incursions and TONS of loot but its also very dangerous to be there. Save early and often!!

There are more systems like that but these two are the best ones.


Spacefly Egg Scooping:
Spacefly Eggs spawn when large ships are destroyed or asteroids are mined (Spacefly like to lay their eggs there.).
Locate a big npc mining Operation and follow them to a belt. Once they start mining - wait for the roids to pop and scoop the remains. You will get eggs, unstable crystals and lodestones which can be sold well at stationtraders,

If you have discovered a Black market trader (Advanced!) you may consider crafting spacesuit bombs and emp and sell them there instead.

Good systems are Argon Prime (AP), SCF, Holy Vision (HV) and many others. Just lookout for a system with very high mining activity (can shift over time)

IMPORTANT: Asteroid remains will only spawn when you are in the system! So you need to tail the miners.

You may combine these two options! Scoop loot from a battle the return tailing miners or shoot some crytals until a new battle rages and repeat.

Once you have the first few millions dont go shopping yet! We need to boost your moneymaking further and more important automate it so you can stop grinding and do more fun stuff like exploring (if you’re a new player).


ONCE YOU GOT APROX. 5 MILLION ITS TIME TO LOOK INTO TE NEXT SECTION
(5 Mil is definitely not enough starting cash you will need to return to this phase after spending it but the next chapter will tell you how to spend it!)

All together you will need close to 30 Million to be able to complete the next phase

Early Scouting...

NOTE: Due to different game-starts some of these systems may be inaccessible!
Terran system require high standing for entry same for split space!
This exploration has not to be done at once, you can uncover a part of the universe and then get back to it later. All phases are fluent and can be revisited when the time is right or you feel like doing it.



NEW PLAYERS!

Considering you are a new player this will be probably a quite a journey for you!
Enjoy doing it! Remember i told you to save the starter cash for the next phase? You may just ignore it and spent some of it at a shipyard for a fighter and go around discovering stuff.
Don’t forget to pack it with satellites and drop some.

Seasoned Players:

You might want to get it done fast cause you have been in most systems already in another play-through...
There are several scripts in the workshop to speed up and automate exploration!
There is still a veery long way ahead of us so no shame to get it over with fast.

Consider installing:

-Sector Satellites Script
-Automated Exploring Scripts
-Open map and stations script (VERY cheaty and therefore optional!)

Id recommend to use the sector satellites script from workshop. You only need to drop ONE advanced satellite and it will uncover all stations in the system. Do it as you see fit so it does not spoil the fun of exploration. The latest script will just open the entire map and is only recommended for very experienced players that what to scoop the entire exploration.
Remember you still need to go there and drop a satellite. Also automated miners will not work properly if you haven’t been in the system yet! So you still need to go there at least once.

THE GOAL

No matter how you deal with exploration the goal to reach the next phase will be to have uncovered:

-New Players: Try to find and uncover stuff in Teladi, Argon and Paranid space first. the rest can be done later when you are more experienced.

- All major factions capital systems + their shipyards and warfs (preferably with a satellite placed next to them). Additionally the surrounding systems with their resources. You need to find resources around that capital system and uncover them (no need for survey probes but it helps if you uncover asteroid belts and gas-clouds on the system map. You can check this on the encyclopedia entry of that star-system. Once you successfully uncovered its resources this info will be added there. You will see if the system has ore, silicon ice etc and their yields. This is very important for the next phase.

- You need to find ORE / SILICON / ICE and HELIUM / METHANE / HYDROGEN sources preferably close to each of the Warfs and Shipyards

-Additionally you want to search and uncover the two Nopileos Fortune star-systems (more of that later)

Once this is done you can start with the next phase!

Automated Mining Operations (and getting standing) (+your first Blacklist)

You have acquired a few millions and uncovered some empire capital systems and their resources?

Good... time to start some mining operations!

In each Faction Capital system you have uncovered you need to buy two medium Mining ships for mining ore. i would not recommend fitting them with the best equipment i usually go for a medium preset fitting (i customize everything anyway but for starters med preset will do ok). Most important the ship needs to have a mining beam and mining turrets. Additionally equip the strongest available shields (a good investment) and NO guns. Why no guns? Simple! Cause you don’t want mining ships to fight. They should avoid conflict and always try to run away. But pilots will sometimes decide to fight that lil puny kha'ak drone cause they can. And then die cause they are too dump to kill it. Stripe them of the ability to fight back!

When you got a working setup SAVE IT! you will surely need it again later on!!

Global orders:

Now some legwork: I know its a ton of work but configuring them properly is worth it!
Check your global orders! They should be somewhat like: response on attack = use judgment, Police = Comply, Pirates = Escape. Automatic Resupply=medium. Leave the rest as default and remove all notifications you might find non-significant.

Now its time for your first Blacklist!
Create a new Blacklist and call it Default Travel Blacklist. Restrict travel to "sectors owned by enemys" and manually add the sector "Hatikvah’s Choice I" to your Blacklist. Then save it!

Why HC I , course its a hellhole and sooner or later your ships will get randomly shot by laughing xenons while having a BBQ in HC I , that’s why! Ill explain this in more detail later on but keep in mind that system is DANGEROUS.

Go buy some skill-books for your pilots at the nearest station trader.
You will need the workshop mods:
-Trader Seminars
and
-Autotrader skill rebalance

for this to work.

I think skilling is broken in x4 that’s why i don’t think that this is very cheaty, but if you want you can do it without of course (its just a pain in the ass!)

EVERY Miner should be setup in the following way! (or similar to your personal preference)

1. Rename the ship
I prefer SECTORNAME/TYPE/SIZE/NUMBER
A "free" automated medium sized miner for Solid minerals in Argon Prime shall be therefore called AP Freeminer M 1


Why? Cause you’ll have hundreds of ships later on and if you want to replace a loss it will be a pain to find out what you lost and where the heck!
Name them how you like but a system like that works fine for me.
Later on ill introduce more names :) . If you get the message a ship has been destroyed look into the log or check your shiplist. HV Freegasminer M 2 has been killed - ok lets chk holy vision!

2. Skill your pilot to LVL 2 (will increase its range)

3. Enable the travel blacklist and put in the Default Travel Blacklist" you created earlyer.
then UNCHECK trade and activity blacklist settings (put them to "off" manually cause they will collide with other advanced blacklists later on)

4. Start an automine operation by setting default behavior to "advanced automine", then set the range accordingly. usually buy 1 sector / sell 3 sectors. I usually use the capital sys as an anchor.
If not using scripts you may put them to "sector automine instead" and then increase range and setting over time. Usually i go for ORE/SIL and if its a gasminer for all three.

5. Make sure the command "dock and wait is unchecked" and the ship should start mining.

I know that’s quite some work for configuring a single ship but if your lucky you only have to do it once and that lil bugger will mine for you until the end of your play-trough generating like 100k every half an hour(ish).
I guess that a worthy investment of your time.
Don’t forget to check on them from time to time if there are any issues like no ore in the system or no trades available and consider increasing their buy/sell range slightly.

now repeat!

until every major faction you have access to has 2 mineralminers automining in their capital.
if you got some spare cash you can buy 2 Gasminers as well... same procedure to set em up.
Just make sure the desired gasclouds are in miningrange (chk in encyclopedia!)

Great you got yourself a passive income and more importantly these miners will increase your standing with factions over time, so you can buy more stuff from them!

Two additional ways for passive income are:

1st is Autotrading which is quite similar to automining. You setup a trading ship and have it distribute wares between station for profit, the blacklists work similar, id restrict access to faction-wide trade. and setup a few for each empire. The downside to those is that they need to be replaced more often due to regular gate travel. once u got the miners going u might consider setting up a few of them.

2nd is Nividium mining which is not used in any production chain and can be considered being a luxury ware used by planet population. you can sell it at trading stations for a very decent profit.


One last thing!

How can i access Factions i don’t have standing with?
The fastest way to gain standing is shooting criminal shuttles at the stations mass traffic!
Whaat? WTF?
Fly to any station of the faction that dislikes you / usually stations are not shooting you by default even if you are on bad terms with the faction, typically split cause they’re on bad terms with you on most starts. Get close! See all the little shuttles around them? That’s civilian mass traffic! they’re not considered as "real ships". After a minute or two a smuggling shuttle will appear (or not :)) and you will be asked to assist in pursuit. Shoot it! make sure you don’t hit anything else! If you succeed you’ll get a (considerable) positive standing increase. Swap station and repeat!!
You can get (if lucky) from -15 to 0 in less than an hour!

Advanced moneymaking / Pirate the Pirate!

This section is about how to get SERIOUS starter funds for station-building but also requires a certain amount of preparation.

The goal is to start a piracy operation on Pirates!

You will need:

-A Corvette (fully fitted)
-5 Transporters filled with marines

That’s not an easy task cause you’ll need about 15 mil to buy it all.

Consider finding and selling abandoned ships to fund this operation.
Experienced players will know what I’m talking about.
There is a certain abandoned Destroyer that will get you the cash instantly. Or else try to get the smaller ships or even an abandoned corvette. There are surely enough other guides about how to get them.

A decent and accessable corvette is the Nemesis vanguard buyable from the paranid warfs but others will also do the job fine (or even better)

The best fitting is a good shield and at least four front facing gun ports.
Fit them with your preferred weapon and leave 2 ports empty.
then go to argon warf any buy ion guns and fit them.
setup your guns accordingly that you can fire ALL at once and 2nd the IONS seperate.

then go buy 5 Medium Transporters with high crew capacity.
I prefer Hermes Vanguards with 20 crewslots, the boa is also really good but way more expansive.
Appoint 1 Pilot and fill them up with 20 marines.
Quick funfacts about marines. Not every race is well build for that job and teladi and paranid are quite bad at it. This is reflected by the game due to the fact that if you recruit marines you might randomly get a few veterans among them. That’s usually only the case if you recruit them at stations owned by sturdier races like argon and split (best).
So id recommend hiring your first 100 marines in a split warf to get a couple of vets with them. then later on replenish them at a argon warf so they dont need to go 10+j for reinforcements.

Ok! Now lets do some intel!
Pirate ships use mimicri! They disguise themselves as normal ships and only a manual shipscan can reveal their true faction identity. Luckiely there is a fast and easy way to find them because pirates prefer certain shiptypes and the shipnames give them away! Pirate ships variants are called "pillager" or "marauder" in addition to their shiptype.

Also there are certain systems with high pirate presence like Nopileos Fortune II (NF II) or The Cove for example. My preferred huntingground is NF II because its fast and easy to reach. With Minor factions Extended Mod there is even a NPC shipyard there.

So in preparation i prefer to cover the system with advanced satellites so i can reveal pirate movements on the map.
We are especially looking for pirate owned destroyers. With all the mods there are plenty of classes but the most classic pirate destroyer in vanilla and mod version is the Phoenix Sentinel or Vanguard , here were looking for the "Pillager" edition.
So check your map and search for destroyer shipicons and try to locate a pirate ship by clicking it and checking its name.

The next section is an in depth explanation of how to capture a Pirate destroyer. I will use the "fool proof" method, of course experienced players could probably do it faster or better :P .

In depth boarding tutorial (Pirate the Pirate Part 2)

Example:
OK there! i found a "Pillager Phoenix Sentinel" Destroyer flying around in NF II. Lets get it!
I take my corvette and set my 5 Transports to follow me.
Now im getting close to the target and select it. It will show that the ship belongs to the teladi company which is allied to me. I’m getting close and do a manual shipscan. Now its true identity is revealed and it now belongs to scale plate pact. Prior scanning is necessary otherwise the ship will call for help and your standing will suffer greatly.
Now i will target the engines get behind the ship (which is a dead spot for turrets with that design) and shoot down its engines. Now the ion guns will come in handy because next to they’re very high shield damage they also stun the engines and make the ship slow down.
After that I’m starting to kill the destroyers turrets usually starting with the large ones.
To do this with a Phoenix is especially easy because there are allot of dead-zones where they cant reach you when you get close enough. If you attack other types it can be an easy to very rock hard task to do this so i recommend to do a phoenix if its your first time :) .

Ok, Engines down, Turrets down , eventually some drones and lasertowers killed. now its time to sent the boarding pods.
To do so, open your map, select your corvette and all 5 transports. then rightclick the enemy ship and select "board". A menu will popup with boarding options. Since were first-timers and our marines just left marine elementary school we want them to get the job done we will go for a medium approach. So on the first tab the lowest option is fine cause all the turrets are down. 2nd medium (the higher the hull % the harder the fight) so strong is aprox. 80% hull , medium is 50% hull etc. .
usually boarding ships should not fight so "keep your distance" is the preferred option but since my drop-ships lack turrets pretty much any option is fine. Also it saves time cause You are still in a combat environment and don’t want to spend half an hour to configure the boarding operation. Then select all ships and side the marines onto the target. A bit of inelegant micromanagement here but that’s how its done :) .Additionally you’ll see the boarding strength and the strength of the enemy resistance. Sometimes it might be necessary to do multiple boarding attempts (Yes! do the boarding , fail , replenish marines at a warf and try again while holding the ship in check with your corvette. there are times when that’s a valid tactic.) When all is done, begin the boarding.
First phase the ships will close in and launch the pods. Watch for defense drones and towers - pirates love to throw 1 or 2 in this phase to annoy you.
Once they reach the ship they will start to breach. Sometimes you need to damage the target further usually the game will tell you what to do. once breaching is done the fight start and can sometime take a few minutes when your marines try to overcome the resistance.

Hint: if the enemy ship has too many defenders you can try to shoot the ship for a while with your ions (avoiding hull damage) from time to time a few crew members will randomly bail from the ship.
Takes alot of time but works. Eventually consider using the better piracy mod and harass the target.

After some time the fight is done and the ships ownership will transfer to you,
Congrats you got a (almost) brand new destroyer!

Now for the aftermath: Check the shipinfo and go to the crew-tap and appoint the least experienced marine to be the new captain. If lucky the pirates have aleady repaired at least one engine so the ship can slowboat to the next shipyard. Engines with less than 30 % hull are inoperable and cant move any more. You need to eject your spacesuit and manually repair one engine with your repair laser. Usually i manage to avoid that but it can happen!

If you got teleportation researched you can now move your dropships close and transfer the remaining marines back to your ships. especially your veterans should be recycled because experienced marines make boarding much faster and easieer. If not, sent the ships to the nearest shipyard have them dock and then transfer them over. You can move them with boarding pods again in empty space but i had encountered a few bugs there that i found very annoying so better save than sorry. With teleportation researched i did not have these issues.

Now its payday! i recommend stripping and selling all mods to the shipyard first! if you’re lucky the ship had premium engines which can be sold for up to 7 million (just replace them with the cheaper ones)

Then replenish the service crew and the repair drones to avoid paying for repairs, also giving the captain a few crew seminars will speed up the process. You can leave it be for a while, prep the next boarding, repair ships and get back to it later.

Finally sell the ship!

For ship and equipment you should get between 15-20+ Million and its therefore the best way to cash up for the next phase.

Note: Don’t forget to save before and after the fight. So many things can go wrong :))

Building an Empire (Station-Tutorial 1)

The first part of this section is about planning and getting bpo`s.
The second Part will be about what to build and where.
The third part will be about how to configure and feed them while avoiding losses.

So the things that are needed most in the x4 universe for all empires to thrive are ships and stations.
And they keep losing them, constantly! The main commodity needed to build ships and stations are hullparts and claytronics. Is also the most needed ware to build your own empire so this is where we start.

Since I’m usually planning on a large scale and stations take a very long time to build i prefer to have several stations build at once. At first were going to feed the empires with hullparts and making some nice cash with them as a side effect. Later on we will redirect the hullparts to support our own station building projects.

This wont be a tutorial on how to build stations but rather a guide what you need for expansion and what works well in the sandbox.

I recommend two tools for station-planning.
The first one will be a station-calculator found on an internal website which is mandatory for station-planning.

The station-calculator can be found here:

http://x4-game.com/#/station-calculator

The second tool is the ingame stationbuild simulator where you can plan and outfit stations.

Stationplanning can take hours. At least if you are like me and enjoy making them efficient AND beautiful at the same time. Since you cant really leave the menu all the time to deal with the universe i would advise doing it in the simulator first and using the calculator to find out what modules and how many you need for the end product.

You cant just start building stuff but also need the necessary blueprints to do so!

To make it easier i would name three phases of building requiring different blueprints.
The main issue is that some types of blueprints require huge amounts of cash to buy and cannot be afforded in the early game. Habitation and Shipbuilding can be done in the mid-game to late-game but since the stationbuilding takes so long its good to have the entire station planned in its entirety even before hiring the first builder. Especially if you planning a warf that’s something to consider. And what tycoon would you be without a warf :D .

The first phase: Basic Production, Docking and Storage

The second phase: Workforce and its needs

The third phase: Shipbuilding

The First Phase:
Good news! Basic Blueprints are quite affordable!
Soooo... for your first station you need just a few.

I would always recommend to start supplying the Empires with Hullpartsso will explain the first station in depth and afterwards you have do the rest. Easy enough ;) .

There are a few decisions you need to make before planning your first station.

I will completely exclude terran economy cause that really easy to master once you got into the universal stations.

There are 2 supply chains for universal stations, teladi and non teladi. Teladi made a great discovery which is called teladianium and replaced refined metals because its more efficient.
I run all my stations with teledianium cause its more efficient.
It does not matter what you choose but once you did you need to stick to it.
Its just important to know that all modules that use refined metal are using teladianium instead and there are teladi versions. Also its probably the easiest Faction to get standing with early. also their space is quite safe to build in.
All you need to know is that you should buy teladi blueprints first and if you use non teladi modules they wont work if they need refined metal. So that’s quite important for planning the stations :).

IMPORTANT: When planning a station always also check the logistic overview while doing it! its a total classic to mix up teladium and refined metal chains and therefore ruin the build. Usually you will find out once the station is build and somehow doesnt work "facepalm"!
No, ♥♥♥♥ i messed it up twice in my current game and i got 1000h experience and still f**k-up.

I will continue in the next part with how to build your very first hullpart production.

stay tuned :)

Your first Factory (Station-Tutorial 2)

Ok, lets start!

So i wont tell you to build a Monster of a station but i find that aprox. 7 modules for producing hullparts work nicely for me and npc-empire will have enough need to buy them without ruining the market.

The First Build:

Lets take a look at the station calculator:
If you just add 7 TELADI (!!) Hull part production facilities into the calculator it will tell you what to feed them for them to work. Isn’t that easy?



7 x Teladi Hull Part Production
1 x Energy Cell Production
1 x Graphene Production
3 x Teladianium Production

Now you just need the blueprints and get started!
But wait! You also need a Docking Area and a storage area and connecting sections!

So add a standard dock for small ships , for large ships , all connector blueprints and storage.
Go for L storage (Container/Solid/Liquid) a 3m6s dock and a 3 way E-dock

So now you know what blueprints you need.
Next enter the station simulator and piece it all together beautifully :) .

Its also important in what order you build.

Build order should be:
basic docking
large docking
storage
energy cells
teladianium
graphene
hullparts

A word on storage!
Don’t forget to plan sufficient storage EARLY!
If the station is building its hard (but not impossible) to change the building order.
Also make sure you don’t mix up the storage modules , container always first!
If you find out you missed it or build too few it can take ages for them to build on the end of the chain leaving the station unproductive.
A solar power plant can already sell energy cells to factions if you have a dock and storage, even if the other modules are far from completion. Miners can get ore and store it even before the advanced modules are build giving your production a head start.
in conclusion building order matters!
Especially with bigger builds calculate a VERY GENEROUS STORAGE!
Also cargo-drones cannot be added to a station without a container storage because the necessary resources are NOT taken from the buildstorage.

now piece it all together accordingly in the right order. then save the blueprint for your actual game.
you can ignore weapon-loadouts , make sure all gunports are empty, usually hullpartforges don’t need to be defended in the early game (you may add 15ish defense drones)

Placement:
The goal for us should be placing a HPF in all major Faction capital systems. That’s where the most demand will be. Also there are allot of npc miners helping you feed it later.

CHECK THAT ORE AND METHANE ARE AVAILABLE WITHIN 0-1 JUMPS AWAY
(some systems lack methane you always need to check if all needed resources are actually in good range of your factory this is especially important later on when you build more complex factories)

Its not that important to place a station anywhere close to a lain or gate.
Place it somewhere in the middle preferably close to other station not to far off the warf and shipyard. Eventually use other stations as a "meat-shield" in case of an incursion, with luck the other stations defenses will deal with and xenon passing by.
Make sure its not close to any anomalies or dangerous gates.
(i once placed a station close to a wormhole so my ships got sucked in trying to dock at the far right docking port ... happened by total coincidence and was as funny as annoying to me ... true story i swear!)

DON’T FORGET TO BUY A LICENSE WHEN BUYING A STATION PLOT

Also don’t buy a plot that is too big.. you planned the station in the simulator write down how much space you need!

Congratulations were half way done!

Configuration:

Once the station is build you need to configure and feed it.
Assign a station Manager , skill him a few levels , 3 is usually ok.
Now take a look at the supply chain. id recommend to setup buy and sell-orders semi manually.
First are Energy Cells, you’ll see how many are consumed per h if you click the tab. Setup a sell-order if the storage exceeds 1.5 times the hourly consumption. You can leave automatic pricing on. Then take a look at the ORE and METHANE. Setup the buy-order to maximum and reduce the buy-price to minimum. this way the npcs will help you feeding it with cheap ore and gas - you’ll provide its basic needs with its own dedicated miners.

Feeding it:
For the stations basic need you will need aprox. 6 medium miners. 4 M Oreminers , 2 M Gasminers
It will consume:
Methane -4,800
Ore -25,200
I’m no expert on numbers but these 6 miners usually prevent it from running dry and with your buy-orders on the local marked npcs should provide cheap material as well.
If that thing is running for a while and you see a shortage you may add some more.

Afterwards buy 2 medium Haulers and assign them to trade for the manager helping with sales.

You may also provide them pilots with a few seminars to make sure they act sane!

Now to the next chapter which is super important to reduce your losses!

so see you in the next chapter!

Blacklists for Dummies (Station-Tutorial 3)

Blacklisting sectors are very important for keeping your losses low.
Also they require allot of micromanagement.

----------NOTE--------
This is also the part of the tutorial where im most unsure if there are better ways to manage and configure Blacklists.
Id be very happy if any other seasoned player would tell me in the comments if im missing anything.

So lets assume you have build your first operational Hullpartforge (HPF)

As explained earlier you have already created your first blacklist restricting the travel-access to all systems owned by enemies and Hatikvah’s Choice I (HC I)

There are multiple types of blacklists. Here i will mostly look into the travel and activities blacklist.

As far as i understand any blacklist you create applies as default to all ships that have not unchecked the use default blacklist in their info menu.
Therefore every time i order a new ship i uncheck this option and manually select the blacklist that this ship actually needs to avoid later conflicts.

Setting up the Travel Blacklist
So the travel blacklist that we created earlieer should apply to ALL civilian ships that i own therefore every ship receives that blacklist.

In most of my play-throughs especially in a modded game (i got like 1000 hours of playtime) the xenons will launch very strong incursions into HC I. that’s why i want no ship to pass through it, trade or mine there. Also short-cutting through enemy space is always a bad idea.

The second thought is that miners and traders should only operate in systems that are close to their Factories and to space that i control or provide safety too.
Another common issue is the ship AI which will sometimes assume that other systems are better to mine in because the asteroid density is higher and travel too far out getting killed somehow on the way by pirates, Kha`ak or xenon.

Conclusion: For any Station i build i will create an own sector activity blacklist disabling access to all sectors that they should not be in.
Step 1 First you need to find sectors where the necessary resources are to be found.
Step 2 Create a sector activity blacklist and restrict all sectors
Step 3 Manually add exceptions for those systems the miners should work in , then rename and save it
->do not choose the military or civilian ship option. (i think that will apply to ALL ships you own)
Step 4 Apply the blacklists manually to the station (!). in this case: Travel-blacklist: the default blacklist we created earlier + the sector activity blacklist that we created for this task
Step 5 uncheck the Trade Blacklist Option - it should be showing (OFF) now
Step 6 Assign the ship to the station it should work for

this way it will mine safely and only use the "safe" sectors.

Issue: Mining and trading are both counted as activities so traders will not trade outside of that selected territory.

If you want a ship to trade with station wares you must not assign it to the station but have it trade freely within the range you want using the auto-trade option. It will still buy wares at your station and sell it to nps faction and it can be anchored in the station system restricted by trade-range 0 (buy wares in the anchored system) and sell wares x sectors away. the profit will still land in your station account and it works fine.

Trade Blacklists:
If you want stations to not sell resources or prevent other factions from buying from your stations (Pirates and other scum) you can create a trade blacklist.
As far as i understand this blacklist is only for goods a station will sell to nps traders and does not apply to your own ships. In this particular case i prefer to have it turned off.

Later on you might want to restrict factions buying ships from you because they’re in war with each other. They will start banging each other in front of your station eventually hitting it and forcing it to retaliate which can cascade and ♥♥♥♥ up your standings for good. -> keep that in mind for later... especially HOP and PAR love to fight each other on your turf so choose one of them and restrict the other. (there is another blacklist option for that within the station menu but i thought this is worth mentioning regarding the blacklists)

Sooo.. i know its a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of micromanagement but you only have to do it once... considering the amount of time it takes longer to replace a loss and reconfigure the ship, its worth doing the mirco asap to avoid it in the first place...

you will still have losses to replace but it will be way worse if you don’t set it up first.

Again Im thankful for any of your thoughts on blacklists in the comments!

Real Estate Management (Station-Tutorial Part 4)

Damn this Guide is never-ending :)

OK back to the Macro-management.

Now you know how to setup and configure stations.
Its time to mass produce them!
Remember the part about advanced moneymaking?
Every single destroyer you capture is worth a new HPF.

So strip it sell it and build a HPF in every faction-capital you have access to.
Additionally you will build 1 more in the system that you want your wharf in!

Compared to other factories they’re cheap and fast to build.

As soon theire operational you can think about your first claytronics factory as well.


Claytronics

Claytronics are the glue that keeps stations together. If you’re playing with mods, systems will regularly loose stations to xenon incursions so the demand will stay high.

They’re very expansive so I’m usually building them more strategic.
Always choose a system with all sorts of resources close by.
You need much of every Gas for them so make sure it can be found in the system.
Also they should be placed close (not too close thou :)) to conflict-zones in high traffic areas.
I think Trinity Sanctum has it all for example.
Usually i don’t build more that 2 of them for moneymaking.

Additionally you want to build 1 more in the system you’re going to build a wharf in.
Claytronic forges justify the use of Large Mining ships so i recommend using those for feeding them. Don’t forget to do the Blacklist micro.

With the income from the HPF and some Piracy you should be able to build and supply them.

The WHARF

Now its time to place your first Wharf. I prefer to build an all in one wharf, to pre-plan it and to place it EARLY because it takes ages to build.
!WARNING!
(THIS ALL-IN-ONE WHARF IS AN ENDGAME PROJECT – IT WILL TAKE DAYS (REAL-TIME!) TO COMPLETE)

Basically there are so many designs for them but to help you i will provide a list of stuff you need in the next chapter.

Of course you can decide freely to build supply-chains for other commodities first or even build scrapyards instead that’s all up to you. There are hundreds of options now!

Going Tycoon (Station-Tutorial Part 5)

The Wharf... finally.

This is all up to you, i can only provide one working design which i consider a large all in one Wharf.
It will have enough output to build all capitals you want in reasonable time.

7 x Energy Cell Production 5,162,353
8 x Teladianium Production 1,138,248
4 x Silicon Wafer Production 841,604
6 x Graphene Production 478,608
3 x Superfluid Coolant Production 214,386
2 x Antimatter Cell Production 391,690
4 x Teladi Scanning Array Production 7,228,884
2 x Quantum Tube Production 2,157,444
5 x Plasma Conductor Production 6,710,220
5 x Microchip Production 10,751,710
16 x Teladi Hull Part Production 27,872,144
6 x Teladi Engine Part Production 6,706,770
2 x Teladi Advanced Composite Production 3,563,352
4 x Weapon Component Production 4,495,984
4 x Turret Component Production 5,392,340
12 x Smart Chip Production 4,296,768
3 x Shield Component Production 3,677,901
2 x Missile Component Production 199,830
2 x Field Coil Production 9,844,558
4 x Antimatter Converter Production 20,200,016
2 x Advanced Electronics Production 2,736,046
14 x Argon L Habitat 7,588,952
4 x Food Ration Production 2,974,916
1 x Meat Production 704,062
2 x Spice Production 789,196
2 x Wheat Production 1,679,736
2 x Water Production 204,360
8 x Argon Medical Supply Production 5,105,656
Total: 143,107,734

That’s quite a price-tag! But with ships and connectors and docking and everything its more realistic to expect twice the amount or more. Also the wharf modules are missing and not includes the blueprints.


That’s more or less optimized for capital production and has "only" 14k Workforce but enough to get the job done.
Also planning it is quite a task if you want to work space efficient. ill try to do some pictures later to give you an impression.
You’ll need some hours to plan it but for me that’s real good fun to do.
Especially if you see that behemoth completed in space one day.
It will take VERY long to build. Don’t expect it to be finished until late mid-game and completion will start the endgame.
That’s why its also important to lay the foundation early on. Just place it early and feed it from time to time.
Also expect 20-30 L-Miners to feed it!
The good news: You already have a HPF and a CPF close-by so you just dump their production into the building storage and you’ll get it for free .. more or less ;)
Again Im not a number guy so some of you might find it poorly optimized. Feel free to flame the design in the comment section :PP

There is ONE bid advantage of the all in one Wharf! Since you have a huge in-house workforce for your Factories all Production will get a very strong boost!

The Markets and You. (Station-Tutorial Part 6)

Now you have created a backbone for your Empire and set up the foundation for a huge wharf.
Do not expect it to finish anytime soon but keep feeding the build from time to time with spare resources and cash.

In this Chapter we will now look at the markets and how to locate shortages in the factions economies and use them to our advantage. Additionally you will learn the basics for setting up a modular wharf and managing it.

Sooner or later during play you need to check the universe market and customize a list of high-tech goods needed for shipbuilding and make enormous profit by filling them.

High-tech goods are (we’re only looking at end-products): Advanced Electronics (AE), Antimatter Converters (AC), Turret Components (TC), Shield Components (SC), Field Coils (FC), Missile Components (MI), Weapon Components (WE), Advanced Composites (AdCo), Scanning Arrays (SA), Smart Chips (SmC), Drone Components (DC) and Engine Parts (EP).
Also we covered Hull-parts (HP) and Claytronics (C) earlier


Also since these are exactly the Products a Wharf needs for building ships I will show you what is needed to build Factories to satisfy market gaps and also build the core industry for a modular wharf.

Due to resource needs, it makes sense to combine some of these goods into single but smaller factories. The obvious advantage is that smaller factories are so much faster to build than the all-in-one wharf complex but surely not as epic to look at.

Since every game develops differently its always up to you to watch the markets and fill gaps yourself.
Sometimes mid-products can shortcut as well and it might be a good idea to build smaller factories for those as well but in this guide well focus on end-products.

Now I will introduce 6 types of factories covering every mentioned component.
Also I will explain how to set them up to be automated and how to avoid losses by limiting them to save sectors.

CORE and AE, AC, FC Forges (Station-Tutorial Part 7)

When planning these Forges it makes sense to build a CORE-Blueprint first and save it. The we use it as a foundation for all factories.

Core BP:
- 1x 3-Way Docking
- 2x 3m6s Dock
- 2 Container 1 Solid 1 Liquid Large Storage Module (eventually more…)
- (Optional) 2 Disc Defense Platforms

1) AE Forge:

Station Costs
Amount
6 x Advanced Electronics Production
8,208,138
2 x Quantum Tube Production
2,157,444
3 x Microchip Production
6,451,026
1 x Graphene Production
79,768
2 x Silicon Wafer Production
420,802
1 x Superfluid Coolant Production
71,462
1 x Energy Cell Production
737,479
Total:
18,126,119


2) AC Forge

2 x Antimatter Converter Production
10,100,008
1 x Advanced Composite Production
1,838,613
3 x Microchip Production
6,451,026
1 x Graphene Production
79,768
2 x Silicon Wafer Production
420,802
1 x Refined Metal Production
102,823
1 x Energy Cell Production
737,479
Total:
19,730,519


3) FC Forge

Station Costs
Amount
3 x Field Coil Production
14,766,837
4 x Plasma Conductor Production
5,368,176
2 x Quantum Tube Production
2,157,444
2 x Superfluid Coolant Production
142,924
2 x Graphene Production
159,536
1 x Energy Cell Production
737,479
Total:
23,332,396

TC-SC, WE-MI-HP, EP-AdCo-SmC-DC Forges and Wharf (Station-Tutorial Part 8)

4) TC SC Forge

Station Costs
Amount
9 x Turret Component Production
12,132,765
5 x Shield Component Production
6,129,835
1 x Scanning Array Production
1,785,049
2 x Plasma Conductor Production
2,684,088
2 x Quantum Tube Production
2,157,444
1 x Microchip Production
2,150,342
1 x Superfluid Coolant Production
71,462
2 x Graphene Production
159,536
1 x Refined Metal Production
102,823
1 x Silicon Wafer Production
210,401
1 x Energy Cell Production
737,479
Total:
28,321,224

5)WE MI HPF

Station Costs
Amount
7 x Teladi Hull Part Production
12,194,063
2 x Graphene Production
159,536
3 x Teladianium Production
426,843
2 x Energy Cell Production
1,474,958
6 x Weapon Component Production
6,743,976
4 x Missile Component Production
399,660
2 x Plasma Conductor Production
2,684,088
1 x Superfluid Coolant Production
71,462
1 x Teladi Advanced Composite Production
1,781,676
Total:
25,936,262

6)EP AdCo SmC DC Forge

Station Costs
Amount
6 x Teladi Engine Part Production
6,706,770
2 x Teladi Advanced Composite Production
3,563,352
6 x Teladi Scanning Array Production
10,843,326
8 x Smart Chip Production
2,864,512
2 x Graphene Production
159,536
3 x Teladianium Production
426,843
1 x Antimatter Cell Production
195,845
2 x Silicon Wafer Production
420,802
4 x Drone Component Production
13,900,524
1 x Microchip Production
2,150,342
1 x Teladi Hull Part Production
1,742,009
3 x Energy Cell Production
2,212,437
Total:
45,186,298

(7) Wharf
There are several decent Systems where you could setup a Wharf. Make sure there are enough quantities of each needed resource close-by. Probably the best places are: Napileos Fortune II and VI, Getsu Fune ,Trinity Sanctum, Family Zhin and some more that are up for you to discover!

The Wharf Design will be up to you as well.
First you will add lots of docking space and huge container storage because this will be also functioning as your warehouse. Dont forget 1 solid 1 liquid storage for ice and water.
Then you will consider how much workforce you want to man the ships. I would recommend in between 5-10 k people and production modules (food and medical supplies) to fill their needs.
Additionally you will need energy cells for ship production so add 2-3 Solar Power Plants
Now add the Habitat modules (id stick to one race make sure you plan the supplies accordingly)
Add some defenses and finally as many ship production modules as you see fit, usually I go for 1 S/M 2 L and 1 XL
There you are! Now you got everything for a modular wharf.

The next chapter is about configuring and feeding them also how to keep your ships save.

Advanced Configuration and Blacklists. (Station-Tutorial Part 9)

We are getting close to the end of the Station-Tutorial now.

Feeding the Stations:

We have definitely reached the point where smaller miners don’t make sense any more and we should now have the funds and experience to go for the large ones.

So for all stations there is one rule of thumb: 1 Large Miner for aprox. 5K resource need.
I wont dive into what ships are the best nor if that’s a perfectly optimized approach on how to feed them. For me it works fine!

Also you want at least one Miner for each type of resource, solid or liquid.
That way you don’t need to depend on npcs and are entirely self sufficient.

I would strongly recommend to now train all associated miners and managers to lvl 3 to avoid stupid judgment and boost mining efficiency.

Blacklists
We have used 2 types of blacklists in this tutorial and now its time to take a look at 1 more.

1)We want to restrict our miners to save sectors and have therefore created a default travel blacklist (Avoid all systems owned by enemys and HC I).

2)We have created an individual activities blacklist for the station/system. This BL is based on where the resources are that our station need to function we want all sector remove and manually add only the sectors where the required resources are to be found and the station system itself. (example: For our new factory complex in getsu fune we will allow the system itself (ORE, ICE, SIL) and Asteroid Belt (everything else).)
DO NOT USE THE MAKE IT DEFAULT OPTION FOR ANY BLACKLIST

3) Now its time to add one final rule to make the Factories self sufficient and now buy resources from other factions. Go to the Blacklists and now add your first TRADE-BLACKLIST. Check “restrict all factions” and save it as “self sufficient supply”. Now it will only accept goods delivered by player owned ships. Now go to the Logical Overview screen of your station that you want to self-supply. Prepare for some heavy micro now!

Go to each individual resource you don’t want to be bought off npc ships, usually that would be the incoming wares like minerals and gasses. Now for each ware there will be an option to “use station setting” , now “uncheck” that and apply your new trade rule.
Now the station will only accept ore from your miners but will keep trading with other races.If this station is only build to supply a wharf you can restrict all trade with other factions by applying the trade blacklist to the “station trades” found in the information tab as well to make it default for ALL wares, if you want to sell overproduction to other races you can do this in the wharf/warehouse instead.

At this point you need to decide which stations should be self sufficient (more profit) or should still rely on npc support for feeding. Id recommend leaving the HPF’s be and set the CF’s to self sufficient, or boost them first with npc ore and then, later on close the cycle.

FYI: Supply-Traderule option applies only for resupply of drones and missles!


4) Now for the last Blacklist you want to restrict shiptrades with factions that are in war with each other. Earlier I mentioned why. In short factions will start fighting each other at your wharf when selling ships to them simultaneously. At some point they will hit your warf, the wharf will retaliate, events cascade and you will suffer a strong reputation hit.
To avoid that you need to create a trade blacklist according to the location of your wharf. Usually the closer to faction space, the more ships the faction will buy. Also I don’t like pirates to buy ships from me (with exceptions). For example a wharf in NF II should never sell ships to PAR and HOP both. Decide which faction you want to get stronger and stick to it. Setup a “trade blacklist” customized for the region and apply it to your wharf (as soon you got your first ship build module a new option will be available in the information screen called “ship trades”). Do this before assigning a shiptrader to your station and you should be good.

5) Last thing. If you got a terran wharf build you want to do 2 things ASAP. First you need to change the “preferred build method” from “universal” to “terran” (info screen). Terrans use a different supply chain and will for example demand different building resources for station drones which totally sucks if you forget to set it up early. Second before you assign a station trader to the wharf restrict all faction but terra and segaris because otherwise other factions will queue build orders for ships that require a different supply chain and therefore get stuck in your build queue and also the station will start demanding “universal” wares that you don’t have.

Warf Supply Chain and deliveries:

To be honest i got sick and tired trying to properly configure the supply from my warf so im using a mod now that does this job perfectly: Mules Extension (Supply Mule)
just use that to enable the wharf to get the goods from your factories. I tryed hard to get it done in vanilla but it seems to be totally messed up.

Congrats, you now are a pro at blacklists!

This concludes the station-build-tutorial

Terran economy – its a no-brainer!

Terran economy is super easy. I don’t like it!

There are only 4 main building resources: energy cells, metallic microlattice, silicon carbide, and computronic substrate.

Id go for a terran wharf complex straight away and don’t bother with smaller factories.
This one complex will satisfy all your needs and is also a filthy money printing machine on “easy” mode.

The basics are:

30 x Terran Energy Cell Production
6,858,300
2 x Silicon Carbide Production
739,698
2 x Metallic Microlattice Production
111,252
4 x Computronic Substrate Production
8,803,582
3 x Protein Paste Production
2,022,893
6 x Terran MRE Production
1,668,684
10 x Terran Medical Supply Production
1,571,195
30 x Terran L Living Quarters
27,158,415
Total:
48,934,019

When you got the BP’s add ship building modules and in the meantime sell the produced resources. Keep adding miners those few production modules eat more than your entire all-in-one wharf.

You could even build all transport and mining fleets using that thing but luckily terran ones are the worst at many civilian tasks. Again its a stupidly easy no-brainer money printing machine!

Dude where is my Station??!! (Emerging Threats)

Whoah! Thank you for reading all this!

Last Chapter.

I assume you followed my recommendation and got all the nice additional mod content.

That means the game is harder than usual.

Xenon might have wiped out the Split, or Hatikva is a red deathtrap? Or worse The Void has fallen and access to Terra is blocked! OR ALL OF THAT AT ONCE ?! (!Screaming Emoji!)

Lets deal with that later!

First off: The Kha ak
They love eating your miners! They never stop BZZZing, and they keep spawning randomly in save systems!
What a nightmare! What are we gonna do about them?
Kha’ak usually spawn bases in random system and start harassing your miners.
If you find their bases and destroy them your system is safe again - until the next base spawns, or it respawns straight away on another random deadspace spot in your system.

Khaak are weak! Easy prey. One single decent fit destroyer can deal with their base on autopilot!
BUT , ... They’re veeery hard to locate. Especially in big systems. And that’s the problem.
Kha’ak bases randomly spawn on the edge of the known deadspace and are super hard to find even if you sent out multiple automated scouts and spam everything with satellites. They’re sometime easy to find sometimes its almost an impossible task.
NOTE: Kha’ak also spawn in smaller number without a station. so not every system with kha’ak has an infestation!

That’s why im using a mod called "Open map and stations"
Usually i don’t like cheaty mods! They break immersion and i usually like things to be challenging.
This mod will uncover the map with pressing a hotkey. Showing all stations including the Kha’ak ones. God i hate them but that’s the only really working solution i found to locate those damned stations. After that its easy, sent one destroyer and 30 mins later they are no more...

The Pirates
I don’t see pirates as a threat, they’re fun content! Yeah you loose some ships to them but that’s life!
You can avoid that by using "comply" global order and loose Freight. I go for the "flee" option which works especially well if you don’t put turrets on every ship.
Larger ships can even successfully fend them off or just tank them.
Funfact: Its too funny if you prefer the "comply" option. Sometime your station-size superfreighter might drop a fortune worth of cargo because a discoverer sentinel tells him to do so...
for me: not an option :))

The Xenon
The Xenon can be VERY dangerous. With modded games they have the potential to wipe out entire empires (if you play 100h plus).
At some point you need to deal with them or loose some highly valued customers!
If they cut off important trade-routes it will disrupt supply-chains and could be game-breaking.
I LOVE IT! I mean they’re supposed to be your endgame content! The final challenge maybe.
When the game was released playing vanilla they were just boring ... usually you could wipe their systems with a decent sized destroyer fleet and pooof.

Nowadays and with modding they can be really challenging to fend off / don’t get me wrong its a sandbox sometime they stick to their turf forever and dont really rage to much.
Then on another play-through OH BOY, i remember desperately trying to fortify hatikvah and failing!
The Patriarchy in ruins losing system after system (due to catch-up mod they’re coming back no worries) but just a shadow of their former power. The void had fallen Flashpoint, Argon and Antigone besieged. Incursions going into Teladi core-space A NIGHTMARE! AND SOO MUCH FUN!
BUT, if your more a new player or one that is enjoying building more than conquest this could spoil your fun at some point.

If you want the Xenon to be more tame you will have to help the empires defend their borders.
You will need to build some strong Citadels to keep them from killing your customers.
Just enough to prevent them from taking over. (you can build some totally op citadels but its more fun to not do it)
So what to do to keep the game fun and balance until you ready to face them directly.
I would recommend building some citadels on some key-points of the map early.
Usually about the time your first few HPF are finished you should start dealing with xenons.
If systems are taken over you’ll need a few battleships to take them back if lucky.

Key-points are Hatikvah, The Void (Flashpoint if TV is too hot), Family Nhuut (mandatory to keep split economy alive because its they’re only decent mining system) end eventually some other bottlenecks you see fit. Somehow Paranid and telladi don’t have that much pressure on them and do way better on defending their space.

Don’t wait too long to do this, in later game 30h plus xenon will start to push hard!
So cover these systems with citadels. Rule of thumb the closer you build them to the invasion gates the harder to build them but also they are more effective in fending of the invasion. its possible to seal them in their space but all the factions loosing ships to them is boosting the economy which is good for you.
Id say maintain a balance .. prevent them from taking the systems but don’t seal them entirely so they can boost the economy.

Conclusion and Feedback

This concludes my guide!



I wrote this because i love the game and want to share my experience with its player-base.
I really hope you find this useful and it helps to master the mechanics and have more fun playing!

Thank you very much for reading this! I hope you enjoyed it.

I want to thank all the moders constantly improving the game with amazing content!

Thank you Egosoft for creating such an amazing game.

Thank you Yarpen for exchanging space-stories and being my space-mate for so many years!

Thank you my beloved wife.



--------------------
This guide is probably still full of typing errors, also english is not my native language so don’t bother my grammar.

This is the 2nd extended version.

Feel free to comment and endorse it if you like.

Greetings

KATH


FEEDBACK SECTION

I got some feedback on this guide but since i dont want to redo it just yet i will add requested info as "bonus" content until i will integrate it into the guide itself some time in the future.

FAQ:

Q:Why not tell us where to find abandoned ships?
A:There are other good guides on how to find them. Google is your friend.

Q:Alot of other game basics are not explained. How do i assign a ship to a station and so on...
A:This guide is for people that know alot of basics already and want to go for more "complex tasks".

Changelog:
2.1
-The mod-section received an update. I changed the info about mods, did some more explanation and changed the succession.
-Added a FAQ.
-Added a changelog
-Added a "To do" list.
-Added 2 Bonus sections
-Reformating the text slightly.

2.2
-Added two new bonus chapters
-Added some new pictures

2.21
- Added a list of working mods

To do:
-Add a section on how to "steal blueprints" from factions.
-Go over the boarding section and extend it.
-Explain how pilot and manager skills work. (done)
-Explain the benefits of shiptypes (small vs large)
-How to speed up build times at npc wharfs (done)
-Taking a look at scrap economics.
-Better explaining "why" to do things.
-Market mechanics.
-Find a "vanilla" way of doing things for everything i shortcutted on.

How skills work (Bonus 1)

In this game you can hire employees that work for you on ships and stations.
They have an individual skill-level that enable them to work more efficient if raised.

Key positions are:

Pilots:
The better a Pilot gets at his job the more sane he will react in a combat situation.
I cannot explain how that exactly works but it should help him survive when being attacked.
If he is trading or mining it should increase his efficiency. As a miner he will mine faster for example.
Also certain tasks like advanced automining or autotrading require a minimum piloting skill (Vanilla).
In addition each skill-level will increase the range he can operate at (range of sectors he can travel to buy/sell goods)

Managers:
The skill affects the range of his subordinates and their efficiency.

Service Crew:
The higher their level the faster they work.

Marines:
The skill effects their combat ability when boarding.

How to improve their skill.
Employees will get experience while doing their work. This is a very slow process but at some point they will climb a level.
Also you can get skill seminars by looting ships or completing missions. Then speak to the employee via comm and manually give him a crew seminar to raise his experience.
There are seminars for each level.

How to train Pilots so they can finally do the advanced tasks. (Vanilla)

I once came up with the idea to build a flight school for my pilots.

The idea is to setup a small base (landing pad and maybe 2 defense modules) close to a Kha’ak installation 50-60 km off. Then put some unexperienced pilots in some corvettes to “protect” that base.
Now they will cycle at 40 km and attack all Kha’ak that spawn at the installation without attacking the structure itself. Kha’ak ships are quite weak and if the corvettes have good shields they should survive.

I setup the “flight school” and it worked as intended. The problem was that the amount of time these pilots needed to reach lvl.3 was still enormous (at that time it took many hours even thou these pilots were constantly fighting and training).
Once the pilots had reached lvl 3 I still had to move them to the nearest shipyard and manually transferred them over to the ship they should serve in as a pilot.

Another way was to fill up a large ship with crew at a shipyard hoping that some of these people came with a high skill at piloting, then selecting them and put them on other ships to serve on.

In the option menu there is a separate tab for employees where you can check their skills.

Still, the amount of micromanagement is INSANE!
In my opinion the skill-system is broke!
That’s why I skipped this madness and went for a mod instead. If you want to do it the “vanilla” way that’s fine.

If not use:
-Trader Seminars
-Autotrader Skill Rebalance

from the steam workshop.

(I don’t know if it got overhauled in any recent updates and feedback is welcome!)

How to get standing with factions. (Bonus 2)

I was asked to point out how to increase standing with non-player factions.

You get standing by:
-Completing any trades with factions (via mining or trading)
-Personally destroying enemies within 10 or 20 km of their ships and bases.
-Doing missions for the faction.
-Shooting criminal shuttles within station mass traffic (see tutorial section “Automated Mining Operations (and getting standing) (+your first Blacklist)”)

How to speed up production at NPC-Wharfs (Bonus 3)

If you order ships at a shipyard it can sometimes take a long time until the actual production starts.
Every time you order a ship to be build you will see if the shipyard will require additional resources to start production. You can either wait for npc-traders to fulfill these needs or haul the resources yourself which is often much faster. I recommend to take a note of what is needed. For this task I usually build a Fleet of large transports that are dedicated to this task. Every time I put up a bigger order I will sent them to fill up the gaps.

How to get parts for ship upgrades. (Bonus 4)

Since ventures are currently disabled or your running a modified game you will need to find ways to get parts for upgrading your ships for better performance at shipyards. Especially the ships you fly manually perform much better if you upgrade them. Later on I also tend to boost my best battleships with upgrades.
There is one faction in the game that has a very high drop-rate for exceptional parts: Duke’s Buccaneers. So I would say at some point build a small strike-force and start farming them for parts. Especially the medium BUC-transports (prometheus-class) are the ones you should be looking for. They randomly spawn at systems with a “lost property office”. You can either capture or destroy them and use their modifications for your own ships.

Also Xenon ships and npc faction ships can drop modifications but at a way lower rate. BUC seem to mostly drop hull mods but I also got some decent advanced weapon and shield tech.
I could not tryout other pirate factions like yaki yet.

Additionally you can accept missions for factions and trade guilds that offer upgrades as a reward but its usually quite a time investment. I do it if I need very specific mods.

List of mods currently working after "Boron Update"

After the recent update there have been alot of issues with mods which added ships and modules to the game, thx to the mod-devs many have been fixed... here is an overview of what im currently using and everything should work. Note: VRO is not included but im assured its already worked on.

[Mark Brandis]

Great guide - many thanks for the effort you put into this!!!

Btw, who finds a typo may keep it ;)

[SkeL]

Removing the mods from the top was a good idea, I'm a new player in X4 and I would rather get the achievements first.
If modding the game didn't disable achievements I wouldn't care, but sadly it's not the case :(

Just giving a feedback, and probably that's the reason new players don't like mods right away.

[Comander-07]

You should probably remove the "5.10" from the title, this makes the guide look outdated even though its amazing.

[Majora]

Would really like to see this guide updated!

[Elkhan]

What major changes would this need if redone for the 7.0+ build?

[Gallakai]

Id say the quickest way to make money at the beginning is taking that odyssey in thats claimable in that xenon system next to the paranid and then you can sell and buy a freighter and start boarding things and as long you dont shoot you wont lose rep no matter what you board.

[Thargoid]

VRO has been updated now. I see you've not got mules running? I had issues with stutters using the updated Mules and Warehouses, were you using the older Mules and did you have issues?

[Katharsis]

Good point. I am currently thinking about updating the guide with the new Boron DLC released. Unfortunately many mods are currently not working yet and im so used to them that the game feels a bit dull without them. I really hope that most of them get fixed at some point. Finding out what works is a bit of trial and error but in a few weeks i might overhaul this guide entirely including all the ideas i got from the feedback.

[siremagu]

Sorry, I meant it should be added to the getting started section.

[siremagu]

In your early scouting you should add that battlefield pickup is a lot quicker when you have an AI captain do it. Don't forget to tell people how to get the pilots inventory transferred to you.