The Online Venture Feature
Update 1.50 to X4: Foundations introduces the Venture Feature. The Venture Feature is an optional Online Feature linked to your Egosoft community forum account.
Please note that this new feature is considered to be in Beta at this time with plans for future iterations. In this case the "beta" tag refers to how the Ventures operate online behind the scenes - it isn't a risk to save games in the way that participating in a beta for game updates might be.
Participating players are able to construct a station module that sends ships into the game worlds of other participating players, and of course 'welcome' them into theirs as they see fit.
Opting in or out of Ventures
This is done via the in-game Online Features menu. After you have logged in and registered your game (see the Online Features page for details), two options are available (see the following image).
The first option is for opting in or out of the feature. The second lets you choose whether to see the forum account names of owners of ships that visit your universe.
What are Ventures?
The Venture Feature can be turned on or off. When turned on, we can send and receive ships.
The feature enables ordering sub-capital Captains out into the multiverse to explore and interact with whatever they find in the environments of other players. Your Captains will endeavour to travel peacefully but their ships should be prepared for hostility. As catastrophic as some journeys have been in some other realities, all Captains have surprisingly been snapping back to their former reality on expected completion of their mission.
Each Venture is anticipated to take a specified period of time. For reasons unknown, the duration is not affected by time acceleration technology. Stepping into is associated with uncertainty but your Captains are confident of finding some tradable currency or technology.
Building a Venture Platform
Players can build and operate one Venture Platform:
- Select a favorite station to add it to
- Build a Venture Platform
- Build a S/M Venture Sendoff Dock
Blueprint knowledge is added to existing and new games. Starting construction of these modules is only possible when your game is registered and you are logged in (see Online features page).
Sending Ships on Ventures
The following steps explain how to boldly send your Captains into the multiverse:
- Open the Map, select a Captained Ship of choice and right-click on your Venture Station:
- Select the "Venture from..." order, and pick the station
- Whilst on the station, take a Transporter to the Venture Platform
- Approach the window where you'll your Ship and the Control Console
- Use the Control Console to select an Venture for your Ship from the Venture Missions tab:
- Gyroscopic apparatus form a field around the ship, taking it in to limbo during the Venture
- After your ship returns, use the Control Console and open the Venture Results tab:
- All ongoing and completed missions are listed
- Review the "Venture Completed" entries to lean about their results and rewards
The above steps are illustrated in the images at the end of this page.
Venture rewards
Captains have a chance to return with the following rewards:
- Paint Mods
- Exceptional Equipment Mod Parts
- Credits
- Crew skill training (not implemented yet)
- EgoCredits, for future use
The rewards from Ventures are stored in your online Venture Inventory that is found within the Player Inventory (see image at the end). Something you unlock in one save game can be available in a new game too.
About your ships
What is flying through the multiverse will be your ship. It will have your module selection, your paint mod, your crew, the name you gave it, and even your logo (other players will only be able to see custom logos if they have your logo in the custom logos folder).
What happens when the game is modified?
Visitors from other universes can enter your universe (as long as you are logged in) and your mods will apply to the visitors. However, you cannot send ships on ventures from a modified game yourself, and nothing you do to visitor ships will be fed back to the person who sent them.
