[FEEDBACK] Existential Crisis

[TroubledRabbit]

this crisis is suppossed to be aimed for the "fight" component, not the think part.

I would stress that there is already too much and too easy fight (I mean: X3 is challenging for me as a 'dogfight in space', X4 as XR never were which I think was intentional). But OK, there is a lot of players who like to 'pew-pew' and nobody is really *forced* to fight constantly (with lower drops the incentive for it is on the new low). You can without a great effort make a peaceful gameplay.

Besides - the fight will never be challenging in such a game with an ambition to encompass so much, it cannot be - because a lot of players would just rage quit understanding that the 'AI' is blatantly cheating by numbers (this is happening anyway, VIGs are most obvious example) or hidden modifiers which the devs would have add (because it have to to stand a chance against even quite average player). Within the game mechanics the 'crisis' is a repetitive chore of crunching numbers - look how many players testing the stuff complains exactly about it.

But concluding - 'let them fight', but do not force anyone who does not want/desire to.

[adeine]

Besides - the fight will never be challenging in such a game with an ambition to encompass so much, it cannot be - because a lot of players would just rage quit understanding that the 'AI' is blatantly cheating by numbers (this is happening anyway, VIGs are most obvious example)

VIG is actually a good example of an interesting fight, in earlier versions of the game at least*. They don't cheat, all of their ships are built and rebuilt. Taking them on as a player does require some strategy and you certainly can't do it in a single Asgard. Wiping them out in my game, while not a crisis, was absolutely a taste of what a fight based crisis should seek to replicate. They do put up a good fight, although it's pretty much over after one large successful engagement since there's no way for them to reproduce quickly.

* I remember something in the patch notes saying VIG accumulating too many ships/fleets in their territory has been changed. I don't know if that meaningfully changes things or makes the fight less intense.

[chew-ie]

this crisis is suppossed to be aimed for the "fight" component, not the think part.

This - although I wouldn't mind some think part I'm totally disappointed that we got yet another feature for the trade-economy-faction.

The best moment in X4 military-wise was the campaign through the Xenon sectors to reach the Yaki base. Sure, one could cheese-sneak through. But really fighting the Xenon there and removing them is a huge military task and a lot of fun. There you could move your fleets and the X4 combat really shines. Some fleets engage, others do station demolitions - the whole sector is fighting a slow battle. Taking my time I had a week full of fun

What we got now is a overpowered zapper beamed in randomly and deleting all of your forces no matter the type. Without exploiting the Asgard-printing-loop only trade-economy-players have access too there is no way to replenish the losses in time let alone push back the thread. Zero strategy involved besides grinding the enemy down.

terrible design.

Agreed, said so on one of the first pages already.

VIG is actually a good example of an interesting fight, in earlier versions of the game at least*. They don't cheat, all of their ships are built and rebuilt. Taking them on as a player does require some strategy and you certainly can't do it in a single Asgard. Wiping them out in my game, while not a crisis, was absolutely a taste of what a fight based crisis should seek to replicate. They do put up a good fight, although it's pretty much over after one large successful engagement since there's no way for them to reproduce quickly.

Indeed - it's a huge battle one needs to prepare for (in terms of dealing with the fighter armada) and really satisfying to free RIP =)

[TroubledRabbit]

VIG is actually a good example of an interesting fight, in earlier versions of the game at least*. They don't cheat, all of their ships are built and rebuilt. Taking them on as a player does require some strategy and you certainly can't do it in a single Asgard. Wiping them out in my game, while not a crisis, was absolutely a taste of what a fight based crisis should seek to replicate. They do put up a good fight, although it's pretty much over after one large successful engagement since there's no way for them to reproduce quickly.

* I remember something in the patch notes saying VIG accumulating too many ships/fleets in their territory has been changed. I don't know if that meaningfully changes things or makes the fight less intense.

That becomes OT slowly...

They kinda do - in manpower. Fielding that much of a fighter fleet needs a serious army (because of the design decisions actually fielding the big ship heavy armada is less manpower taxing - they have strangely small crews and do not die in mass, most of the time). The 'scrap economy' is a kind of 'cheat' also which is artificially (or by grace of bug) impaired, without which it would be economic 'Asgard' (it is anyway, just on smaller scale). The seemingly superior terrans at least are unable to interact with the rest of economy - which is a limitation and their build strategy is costly (and they have kind of underwhelming everything except one corvette and main guns).

Dealing with the VIGs as Xenons is just a tedious process in either military (AA fit and tanky ship, you do not need even a fleet) or economic (build def stations, most will suicide on them).

The worst part however, is that all that jazz is inconsequential, you are determined by quest outcomes and you cannot just wipe them out or even force them to run and abandon the system. Even if you 'join' and get sovereignity, they still police the Avarice. So much of 'liberation'...

This quest line looks like the left hand were not aware about what the right is doing.

Anyway: the bottom line - in whichever way the 'crisis' stuff will go (IMO it should go back onto the drawing desk) - please do not force this upon the players.

[palm911]

i htink i broke the crisis. .

i have been defending one sector for more than 1 hour, everything gets killed,. but a few minutes later a group of khaak ships spawns in the sector. i have placed satellites to see if i could be missing a capital ship , (xenon) but there are no where to be found.

[taronas]

One critical aspect to me seems that the cisis (in it's current state) cannot be added to any existing game because the state that various players games are in can be way too different.

One player way over the trigger threshold has no trouble at all

I do hope they will be scaling up with their power soon. They have not yet done any real harm.
My current network is 46 billion and my fleetstrenght is at 4.5 billion

vs. somebody just reaching the trigger point

Tried my best to endure the crisis, but it has been hard. I do accept that part of it is due to the fact I focus on the economy/industrial side of the game.

Those are just two (and probably not the most extreme) of the opposite examples found in this thread.

So this Crisis should only happen in new games, with Players beeing aware that this will happen at some point and can plan accordingly.
But sadly, knowing that this Crisis will happen enforces a certain play style and is totally against the freedom that X4 provides.

I'm with the folks who suggest that there has to be some active part on the player like accepting a mission to trigger this whole thing.

[oddgit]

Im all for timers in missions, but i do believe a trigger other than hey you have accumulated a bunch of stuff, here are some random attacks that could be super difficult to deal with. And why only the player, it should hit any faction with a large enough economy/military, sort of an ingame way of limiting the sizes of other factions fleets(im looking at you VIG) I dont mind sending my fleets in to help allies, but id happily let the xenon run all over ZYA or HOP.

[Balpha]

I dont understand whats happening with crisis.

I payed my 500 million. Still getting attacked in hordes

Boso wants me to talk to him. He just says hello.

Do i just infinitely have to keep fighting these hordes. I cant do anything else and my fleets are getting smaller and smaller.

[CBJ]

I dont understand whats happening with crisis.

Without your savegame, neither do we. Please provide it so that we can investigate.

[Casishur]

I think it's good that there's an event that ( can't be delayed and can't be dodged unless you pay the 500,000,000 cr)

Now it is still missing something fine tuning e.g. a shipyard module of the khaak hive base.
An XL ship of the Khaak is apparently still unused and probably has even more "oomph"


I know it could be a lot to ask for the graphic designers, but would it be possible to model a shipyard module tailored to the khaak?


Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[Hammerhirsch]

Do I understand correctly? The crisis starts on its own when I have 500 million? So I don't have to talk to Bosa Ta first or anything like that. for it to start? It would be annoying for me to be forced into a crisis that I have to overcome first before I can do anything else, such as terraforming or other quests that I still want to do.

[Starlight_Corporation]

One critical aspect to me seems that the cisis (in it's current state) cannot be added to any existing game because the state that various players games are in can be way too different.

One player way over the trigger threshold has no trouble at all

I do hope they will be scaling up with their power soon. They have not yet done any real harm.
My current network is 46 billion and my fleetstrenght is at 4.5 billion

vs. somebody just reaching the trigger point

Tried my best to endure the crisis, but it has been hard. I do accept that part of it is due to the fact I focus on the economy/industrial side of the game.

Those are just two (and probably not the most extreme) of the opposite examples found in this thread.

So this Crisis should only happen in new games, with Players beeing aware that this will happen at some point and can plan accordingly.
But sadly, knowing that this Crisis will happen enforces a certain play style and is totally against the freedom that X4 provides.

I'm with the folks who suggest that there has to be some active part on the player like accepting a mission to trigger this whole thing.

I do agree there has to be a more active trigger for folks who continue an existing save into the release of 7.0. Crisis feels okay when you start from scratch I think, as you'll be much smaller & can prepare accordingly.

Main issue I have with the crisis is that I play an old game (started shortly after ToA release) & I am very sprawled out with minimal defenses (I'm friends with everyone, except Khaak/xenon, so no need for a large standing army). 60 billion worth in assets (ships + stations), but think only 1.5 billion in military ships, most of them in Wretched Skies X to keep the Xenon from wrecking havoc (can't make m leave, there's an I popping in every 5-10 minutes). Few destroyers spread out to guard active mining areas from Khaak.
Main issue I face is that the crisis nearly exclusively targets my civilian assets & hardly struck my more militarized sectors (Wretched Skies X, despite holding two Asgards, 6 Raptors & 2 Rays never got struck by example despite holding at least half of my military value) hence my civilian losses have been staggering (and seminars above 1 star are way too hard to come by to loose them willy-nilly)

Made me realize I was woefully unprepared for the crisis and the first 'introduction' crisis being handled near exclusively by the Teladi fleet did gave the wrong impression on their strength. Rolled back to 6.20 & began a large militarization campaign to build up my forces (more Raptors & Rays, for they seem to handle the Crisis Khaak fleets the best, Erlking for disposing of the Xenon fleets, its fast enough to go anywhere)
Did participate in beta to see what the crisis was about, so I wouldn't be overwhelmed at 7.0 release. I do plan to rejoin beta at every new version launch & test the crisis & roll back after I got a taste for it to see if the start/trigger conditions change (to test it for long save game folks)

Still looking forward for 7.0 & enjoy the idea of an endgame crisis that is threatening you but feel there's a major gap in power between the first introduction crisis - whom the NPC fleets handled nearly wholly by themselves- & the subsequent ones who can engulf a sector in khaak fleets & ravage your civilian assets before the military ships arrive from wherever they are.
Note, don't mind loosing assets but current trade empire I got never evolved alongside the Crisis, hence it is woefully unprepared for the crisis in its current form but nothing money & time can''t fix. Best course of action i can give trade-moguls that don't have a large military (compared to their assets) is to pay Boso-Ta his 500 million & be done with it and hopefully a way to reactivate it later in the game when you are prepared to take on whatever the Xenon/Khaak throw at you.

I would not tone down the crisis strength imo, but rather find ways to tailor the start of it better, so folks can have their endgame challenge as they see fit to meet it. Honestly can even look into a method to beef it up by player action for those extreme Warlords out there with military fleet strengths in the tens of billions.

[EGO_Aut]

What upsets me the most is that player fleets make no sense because they behave too stupidly. It is better to deal with the crisis with a single Syn alone than with a fleet.

I feel sorry for the non-DLC, basic players because they can't offer suitable resistance - I tried it with an Odysseus E and am desperate - of course with Syn, Asgard, Erlking or, well, Rattlesnake (tricky maingun range) it's no problem.

I prepared each of my complexes with 6 def. Plattforms, 4 destroyers (Syn, Rattle, Phoenix, Odysseus E) and 4x torpedo bomber (Moreya). Teleporting in the Syn from crises to crisis, works well so far. Sometimes a Ragnar jumps on my complex one shooting a destroyer

Maybe iam half through the crisis, sometimes its kind of stress test, the longest incursion was in Second Contact II and at the same time one in Merkur. Thanks to my well prepared factions, they helped themself a lot, while i had time to def my complexes.

[EGO_Aut]

PS: to handle the massive lag around my complexes, i reduced the amount of def drones now its much better

[SpaceCadet11864]

Do I understand correctly? The crisis starts on its own when I have 500 million? So I don't have to talk to Bosa Ta first or anything like that. for it to start? It would be annoying for me to be forced into a crisis that I have to overcome first before I can do anything else, such as terraforming or other quests that I still want to do.

No, it does not start when you have 500 million. My net worth is 6.7 trillion, and I've already had like 600 million CR on hand as well without a crisis. You have to have 500 million CR in military assets, and it's not 500 as listed in your empire balance but is done by a separate calculation which I believe is hidden from the player.

[ZombyDog]

Do I understand correctly? The crisis starts on its own when I have 500 million? So I don't have to talk to Bosa Ta first or anything like that. for it to start? It would be annoying for me to be forced into a crisis that I have to overcome first before I can do anything else, such as terraforming or other quests that I still want to do.

No, it does not start when you have 500 million. My net worth is 6.7 trillion, and I've already had like 600 million CR on hand as well without a crisis. You have to have 500 million CR in military assets, and it's not 500 as listed in your empire balance but is done by a separate calculation which I believe is hidden from the player.

It was posted in the OP by Xenon_Slayer as being build cost not purchase cost of Military assets which is probably doable for spreadsheet enjoyers to calculate but based on my experience I could have a dozen Asgards and another 2 dozen very expensive fitted assorted Destroyers and still not hit that threshold ( I tend to build tall rather than wide so I don't typically need to operate a much bigger fleet ). If you had a several hundred hour old save and a trade empire that extends over most of the commonwealth, but maintain a minor force of combat vessels as you've already suppressed the Xenon to a small pocket you keep as a hunting reserve and you have made nice with everyone else you may fall short of that military ship threshold ( unless you maintain a boneyard of obsolete materiel just in case ). if on the other hand you have many dozens of Barborossas as your principal ship of trade, you're even closer than you imagined to eventually opening 10 of your sectors to Xenon/Kha'ak invasion. The invasion is very player sexual though, because I build tall once the major systems I operate in were invaded and repulsed, the last couple of systems hit were ones where I had a single S class fighter in system either sector exploring ( or even more upsetting, my personal pimped up and modded to heck S class fighter docked at a faction rep station so I could teleport over and rank up after just a few more trades got nuked hard before I noticed ).

[SpaceCadet11864]

Do I understand correctly? The crisis starts on its own when I have 500 million? So I don't have to talk to Bosa Ta first or anything like that. for it to start? It would be annoying for me to be forced into a crisis that I have to overcome first before I can do anything else, such as terraforming or other quests that I still want to do.

No, it does not start when you have 500 million. My net worth is 6.7 trillion, and I've already had like 600 million CR on hand as well without a crisis. You have to have 500 million CR in military assets, and it's not 500 as listed in your empire balance but is done by a separate calculation which I believe is hidden from the player.

It was posted in the OP by Xenon_Slayer as being build cost not purchase cost of Military assets which is probably doable for spreadsheet enjoyers to calculate but based on my experience I could have a dozen Asgards and another 2 dozen very expensive fitted assorted Destroyers and still not hit that threshold ( I tend to build tall rather than wide so I don't typically need to operate a much bigger fleet ). If you had a several hundred hour old save and a trade empire that extends over most of the commonwealth, but maintain a minor force of combat vessels as you've already suppressed the Xenon to a small pocket you keep as a hunting reserve and you have made nice with everyone else you may fall short of that military ship threshold ( unless you maintain a boneyard of obsolete materiel just in case ). if on the other hand you have many dozens of Barborossas as your principal ship of trade, you're even closer than you imagined to eventually opening 10 of your sectors to Xenon/Kha'ak invasion. The invasion is very player sexual though, because I build tall once the major systems I operate in were invaded and repulsed, the last couple of systems hit were ones where I had a single S class fighter in system either sector exploring ( or even more upsetting, my personal pimped up and modded to heck S class fighter docked at a faction rep station so I could teleport over and rank up after just a few more trades got nuked hard before I noticed ).

Thanks, yeah, I have no idea what build cost means, so I guess I re-wrote my memory of "unknown hidden cost" - because build cost can vary as each thing contributing to the cost of it has a min price and max price. I'm not sure what this means, if this means the build cost of all the wares that were paid or if it is a specific amount per ship and is based on specific numbers???

[ZombyDog]

No, it does not start when you have 500 million. My net worth is 6.7 trillion, and I've already had like 600 million CR on hand as well without a crisis. You have to have 500 million CR in military assets, and it's not 500 as listed in your empire balance but is done by a separate calculation which I believe is hidden from the player.

It was posted in the OP by Xenon_Slayer as being build cost not purchase cost of Military assets which is probably doable for spreadsheet enjoyers to calculate but based on my experience I could have a dozen Asgards and another 2 dozen very expensive fitted assorted Destroyers and still not hit that threshold ( I tend to build tall rather than wide so I don't typically need to operate a much bigger fleet ). If you had a several hundred hour old save and a trade empire that extends over most of the commonwealth, but maintain a minor force of combat vessels as you've already suppressed the Xenon to a small pocket you keep as a hunting reserve and you have made nice with everyone else you may fall short of that military ship threshold ( unless you maintain a boneyard of obsolete materiel just in case ). if on the other hand you have many dozens of Barborossas as your principal ship of trade, you're even closer than you imagined to eventually opening 10 of your sectors to Xenon/Kha'ak invasion. The invasion is very player sexual though, because I build tall once the major systems I operate in were invaded and repulsed, the last couple of systems hit were ones where I had a single S class fighter in system either sector exploring ( or even more upsetting, my personal pimped up and modded to heck S class fighter docked at a faction rep station so I could teleport over and rank up after just a few more trades got nuked hard before I noticed ).

Thanks, yeah, I have no idea what build cost means, so I guess I re-wrote my memory of "unknown hidden cost" - because build cost can vary as each thing contributing to the cost of it has a min price and max price. I'm not sure what this means, if this means the build cost of all the wares that were paid or if it is a specific amount per ship and is based on specific numbers???

Wares have a base value with upper and lower price variations based on supply/demand ( I am just making an asssumption but now I'm using Roguey's X4 as my reference ). A Dragon uses 142 energy cells and 1179 hull parts for the base chassis ( I'm not going to start adding the modules because I'm not a spreadsheet enjoyer ), energy cells average cost is 16 credits, for hull parts it's 209, so the chassis base build cost in raw credit terms is 248,683 cr. Add a Split Combat Engine Mk 4, Mk 2 Neutron Gatlings, shield, thrusters and your build cost goes up significantly. The cost to buy from a faction wharf also includes a mark up on top of the build cost which is why that Dragon fully kitted might set you back from memory like 13mil cr depending on market prices, ware availability and faction standings, but has a much more reasonable build cost of 4.4mil cr ( assuming you're building from your own wharf using inputs bought at their average prices, not counting the effective cost being nil if you're making all of the inputs from raw resources yourself ). https://roguey.co.uk/x4/ does allow you to calculate build costs for individual ships based on your preferred loadout, but if you wanted more definite figures for an entire fleet you'll need a copy of excel. If you wanted to see what that build cost is in game, it's pretty close to the figure that Factions will offer you when you go to sell a ship to their wharf/shipyard ( although in my current game Tri are only offering me 4mil cr for the Dragon, so I don't know the exact maths behind the transaction - maybe it's faction standing related or a different bill of goods between Roguey's X4 using 6.20 data and my game running the 7.00 beta 2 ).

[Zekavin]

Just a quick thought about the requirements to start the crisis. The trigger to start the crisis should take into consideration ship destroyed by the player faction.
Ex. X Xenon Ships destroyed for them to launch raids against players
Y kha'ak Ships for them to start raiding players.

Why wouldn't they want to actually reclaim their lost sectors / annihilite the player for destroying a big chunk of their assets ? We pose a threat to them.
They could also target player sectors in priority (not just assets) . They attacked a sector where I had only military ship for some reasons.
Not every players own a sector (I suppose), but it's would be a serious cons of owning one.

If they come from new gates / bases or their systems, other factions may also get involved and the balance of the economy may take a big hit if we don't defend our allies.
A massive fleet could potentially pose a threat even if it have to travel. Gate defence station deal insane amount of damage but still can get damaged / destroyed especially with the new ships (ex. the H and Ravagers).

The first time I heard about Existential crisis, I was somehow expecting a whole faction (ex argon) to declare war on us and attack our sectors.
I'm kind of glad we don't break reputation with other factions by using Xenons / Kha'ak.

[oddgit]

For those of us with long running games that don't want to restart. A delay to the start would be nice. Right now it basically is the first thing i will have to do right after the update goes live, which will be sending my self defense fleet to whatever sector needs help then paying off boso. I know more than a few people suggested a trigger to the start that isnt just economy based. Its pretty abrupt to load up your game and then have to deal the event. I like that it is stressful and causes lots of damage.