Hello Space Tomato, Thank you for covering our game. Great show! As others have already pointed out in the comments, the gameplay is primarily set in first person, but players have the option to switch to a third-person view while flying, as prominently demonstrated in the video. Otherwise, you're spot on with the description of X4!
egosoft, please add more on foot gameplay in your next next update. Maybe player boarding combat, cozy interiors and more NPC diversity and personality to make them more believable up close.. Thank you for this lovely game. Don't stop supporting it, it definitely has great future ahead.
CIG originally promised real physics but fun. And here we see older games now working to deliver one of the abandoned promises that made a lot of us excited for SC...
I'm a realism snob, but damn I have a lot of fun in this game. Being in 1st person on the bridge of your capital ship with 200+ ships at your command is currently unmatched in any space game.
CIG could copy capital ship combat from this game, and get ride of CR vision of capital ship combat being a nose to nose fight like if they where fighters...
"Is it all third person when you're flying?" No. The game by default has you in the the cockpit/bridge, but you can choose to fly in third person (which is particularly useful when flying big capital ships when trying to understand the full scope of the battle around your ship and the current condition of your ship, turrets and subcomponents), but unlike Star Citizen, X4 gives you a fully functional HUD for when you're controlling the ship in third person.
^ This. Egosoft runs a sustainable business model that even if at some point they close their doors for whatever reason, won't leave people holding bags.
X4 is the game that keep giving. X4 combined with a flight model that is more similar to early Star Citizen flight model would be great. I loved how in early versions of SC's Arena Commander felt a lot like very controllable machines, but machines still, without being overwhelmingly complicated. So happy to see John Pritchett working on the X4 flight model. It's gonna be amazing! I hope they'll eventually add the rebirth VR functionality back in. A 2-4 player co-op mode in an X game would be amazing too, if this would not hurt the depth, complexity and moddability of the game. If other players could just fly ships like AI captains and not deal with space station design and such, this would already open enormous gameplay possibilities, but it's understandable why they have not attempted this.
Wow, when you have been playing the X series for over 20 years you assume everyone knows about it and has tried it once or twice. That said, if you’re new to the series you are in for a treat. X4 is arguably the best of the series and allows you to live out the space fantasy in a wonderfully designed way. The clips don’t do it justice, you need to try it out. You will be amazed by the level of functionally you have. Egosoft Devs are “pound for pound” the best Devs in the industry hands down; and X4 is amazing product. I can’t praise it enough. My steam account shows 1002.2 hours played. Amazing value for the amount of money I paid for the game… just sayin.
I love this game, it's definitely a single player star citizen. Imagine star citizen and you're the leader of your own faction, you get to order people around, that's what this game feels like. The only thing that's probably missing is in the experience is the on foot combat, there's on foot gameplay, you can walk around your ship but the interiors are just cockpits, I wish they will add more interiors and on foot gameplay even FPS in the next next update, after that it will definitely be like star citizen but can run on non NASA PC.
I think it still sucks that theres a specific slot for thrusters in SC yet theres literally no way to swap them for anything. This type of customisation is exactly what is needed in SC
It's a really really good game and gives the player a lot of freedom to do what they want. It can be hard to learn, but the sheer scope of what the player can do, interact with the universe and affect the universe on a grand scale is more than what most games dare to even consider, let alone actually do. Such as allowing a player to own, control and even set laws in star systems they own. Even allowing a player to go to war and actually wipe out an entire main faction. But some systems are simpler in some ways than what I think Star Citizen is aiming for. Such as with several ship level systems like components and engineering. I might be wrong on this, it's been awhile since I last played, but I don't there is any real way to adjust power levels to affect the performance of your ship. Ship internals when walking around are also really simplistic. And there is absolutely zero planet landing. What you can't deny though, is just how many things X4 already has in game. With several functional gameplay loops. Drones, hired NPC pilots, and ai turrets all working to excellent effect. And full control from the micro (your ship) all the way to the macro (you star systems, factories, logistical and trading fleets, combat fleets, fighting in a battle yourself or directing multiple engagements across the universe at the same time, directing not just ships, but entire fleets of ships). Six full alien and human factions, each with their own economies, equipment, needs (some using similar resources, some having very different economies compared to the others like the Terrans and Boron) with some of those factions (like the Teladi and Paranid) having sub-factions that act as political rivals for the player to build a relationship with and affect their destiny. So when you're looking at the some specific individual components, it can look a little simple sometimes when comparing to other certain competitors like Star Citizen. But then when you consider what you can do in this game in the grand scale, it actually feels really surprising just how much they've fit into the game and just how much freedom they've given to the player to affect that world. I actually think Star Citizen could and should learn a thing or two from X4.
s citizen has learned a couple of things from them :D , like trying to implement crew, crafting, station building, space nebulas, npc communications etc etc, they even hired one of their devs into s citizen long ago (now it seems the reverse is happening)
When I was a kid in the 70's I built spaceships out of Lego cubes. Now I command destroyer fleers in X4. I spent some 3 to 4k of hours playing X2, X3, Rebirth and now X4. The game is far from perfect (npc behaviour, path finding, economy) but it is great fun and offers real challanges. The first being: mastering the UI 😉. While others wait an eternity for the perfect space sim, or wait for the next hyper duper gpu to throw money at, I simply play X4.
X4 is very immersive, agreed. Likewise I started with imagining spaceships under blankets as a kid, and now it's X4 and when the mood suits - Elite Dangerous in VR.
@5:40 The company did scale up. Egosoft went from like 5 people at the launch of X4, to around 30-40 developers now. The game has never been realistic for console with the menus, and info dump required. In many ways X4 is much closer to EVE than Star Citizen. The company size increase has been reflected in the major DLC, especially Boron and Terran.
its mostly in first person, but they recently been improving 3rd person flight and for this video i think they showed mostly in 3rd person to show the flight mechanics on the ships alittle better. been playing the x series for about 24 years, original x game was one of the first pc games i ever owned, love the series to death, also has allot of lore and several books. the biggest change from x3 to x4 was x4 no longer just faked an economy, in x3 things were just spawned in as needed and player action didnt truely effect stuff that much on the economy sided, in x4, everything is simulated, you can starve out an entire economy by blockading, theres many different playstyles in the game, from a humble freighter pilot, to an empire managment sim where your taking out other empires.
I have always loved X4 for the extensive ability to control a vast space empire including space stations, capital ships , and fighters. The only thing that attracted me to SC was the flight model but with the extensive updates in flight model and graphics as well as extensive gameplay updates X4 is a dream for any solo player. I especially like the fact that I can have NPC's run my entire fleet while I fly escort. I am testing the flight model now and it feels great . Definitely worth a try. Hope to see more content . The beta with the flight model is available now.
X4 is more akin to the orinal pitch for SC before we got all the FPS side of things and procedural planets. Loved the X series and i look forward to trying out this beta, thanks for putting it on our radar while we wait on 4.0 and beyond for SC.
Been playing a ton of X4 instead of SC of late; the graphics are not as good as SC but that's offset by everything else. It's first person if that's what's preferred.
Forgot to add: you can get the X4 Foundations base and all the game DLCs (typically one that you can buy comes out each year alongside free enhancements to the core game, so there are five paid DLCs now) for about the price of a C1 Spirit, or maybe a Nomad if there's a Steam sale.
@@beardedbarnstormer9577 no, complex systems like the npc dynamic economy, ship components, crew, spacestation building etc etc were there from day one, they ve just been non stop adding more, perfecting and correcting
@@positronikiss It has more to do with Yogi's abilities and attitude both coming up short. But yeah, Yogi's been overwhelmingly subpar by pretty much any metric.
Thanks for covering this! X4 has been one of my fav games for the last 5 or so years...discovered it around when I learned about Star Citizen and basically used it when SC was too buggy or I felt like running a full RTS empire....such an underrated game that all SC fans should try.
Love this game! It's not perfect but it feels really nice to play, it has big depth and flexibilty on how you play. Fight, trade, mine, haul, build space stations, control sectors, build massive fleets or just explore..
Been having a blast with the 7.1 (the non-beta). Way more than in Star Citizen this year where enemy ships teleport around and even logging on to do a simple hauling mission can take a better part of an hour because the servers are always in a poor state. X4 flight might be arcade-y but even before the new flight model the flying feels better than in Star Citizen. No artificial restrictions of "no guns if you want to use missiles" and no fiddling around with Qdrive calibration, just point at the direction you want to go and engage travel mode. Of course you can fiddle around with the map and set a destination if you want the autopilot to take you there. As for the UI... I'm used to the old X3 UI. Let's just say the X4 UI is way better.
X4 is really great (And there is also a insane StarWars mod) and they keep updating it. The new flight model (currently in beta) is good but thrusters are weaks so it drift more than in Star Citizen but it is now sooo much better.
well the drift is the point I think... before ships, even the biggest had basically instant acceleration and also very fast breaks... you really had to know how to decouple to make a ship drift. And thats, funny enough, what so many people ask for SC, especially in terms of balancing speed: lower accelerations, make high speeds possible but also punishing if used wrong... but CIG only says: "We dont want that people may crash" and at the same time "We dont want people to get out of the crosshair, once in range!"
Yes X4 Foundations is MUCH more like a single player EVE Online than Star Citizen. It is honestly the closest thing to a complete Space Sandbox that you can find. You start out in one tiny ship and 10,000 credits and can end up Being a Pirate Lord, a Smuggler, a Trading conglomerate, or a Mercenary up to controlling vast swaths of the universe employing Thousands of NPC's running an empire worth hundreds of billions of credits.
It varies from player to player, but coming in new, some things might seem overwhelming or that it has a steep learning curve. Watch a guide or two and you'll get hang of it. Has some nice production chains, you can build factories/stations, etc. Some aspects feel RTS at times but the game doesn't try to excel at everything... however, on the main focus, it's a gem. There's so many mods... star wars mod with a whole new galaxy map, there's a mod to add new commands/behaviours to your units, to improve AI behaviour. There's even a mod to add Battlestar Galactica and the Vipers to the game. Player created ships, etc. You'll find the bulk of the mods in Nexusmods. Give it a spin... UI isn't amazing but given the logistic and empire side of the game, it kind of fits.
6:55 Should be 6 or even seven games actually (don't even quite remember if the "Add-On" for the first was even stand-alone): X-BTF (the original), (X-Tension, the addon), X2, X3, the standalone Add-on X3 Terran Conflict, the rebbot X-Rebirth and now X4. Fun-fact between X3:TC and Rebirth (so around 2010) Egosoft even planned a multi-player game quite similar to what later became Star Citizen... just of course more focussed around economy, but I guess back then the time wasnt right especially before crowd funding was such a big thing.
X4 doesnt have planetary landing or fps combat - yet - ive played through it many times as there are a bunch of scenarios/stories - many many mods like sw coversion etc
Having put thousands of hours into this game it is pretty arcad-y but very fun. Though once you get into the empire building side it turns into more of an rts at times 😊 Also aince the company is small their producer tends to make them force the game out to early. It took about a year to get it to x3's level and since then its been better in every way personally. Having played it day 1
Ah, X4, what an amazing game. I fully endorse this game and recommend any star citizen fan to at least take a deep long look at it. Unfortunately, there is no demo to my knowledge, and the game is so deep that a 2 hour play session is NOT going to be enough to figure out if you like it. If you buy it to try it, you are commited. That said, the one thing that keeps killing X4 for me is the lack of Co-Op mode. I also dislike the artstyle and the GUI of X4, and having played it, oh dear the Map needs a massive overhaul. At least it did the last time I played, it may have gotten said overhaul since. I suppose the mod support can adress the artstyle issue however. Theoretically one could even mod star citizen ships into this game, though the weapon systems would of course be different. Either way, I guess I better check on it.
Biggest question is, can capital ships now aim their main guns at enemys if they are not on the same Z coordinates? That was a bit frustrating when i played last. Even tho you can manually bring them on the same level but comon. Other then that its absolutly great except the graphics. I have 100s of hours in X3 and X4. I love building a Empire. Influensing the outcome between wars of different factions etc.
As you said, X4 is a single-player game in which you can fly scouts and fighters in first person; configure ships to mine asteroids for solids and gases; configure ships for cargo and haul commodities; map space sectors; fly capital ships with NPC crew that have skills and can be trained to improve; buy, configure and delegate ships to NPC crews that are working on your behalf; design and construct space stations and production facilities; and fight the hostiles. The reason for getting back to X4 (and v7 is really improved over prior releases) is the sense that CIG really is taking SC down a path of 'first person EVE' and tailoring the game for orgs and multiplayer, a vision too far removed from what was pitched 12 years ago and one which threatens to come at the expense of solo play rather than complementing it.
I'm sorry but you are wrong. SC will be the bridge between X4 and Eve Online, a mix of the two where the world is NPC driven albeit affected somewhat by the actions of players. You will be able to play alone but will need help in riskier areas and larger endeavors. That help may be players at the start (and probably always) because the AI required for NPCs to be effective crewmates and allies is just incredibly hard to design and implement. They might be able to make AI crewmates that don't obey the players in any way and let player act as crewmen for NPC commanded ships, but making NPCs that are under the player's command is incredibly unreasonable (yet I'm sure they will try anyways because there's unhinged players that want everything, yet they complain about moving goalposts and development time). You will have access to all gameplay loops completely solo, you don't even have to interact with people thanks to the org and contracts apps they have planned. There will be a single player narrative story, plenty of guilds to grind rep with, numerous professions... what else do you want, the 100 systems they promised?
@@polblanes At the start the game was described as "Massively single-player online" with many people in a shared space but not a traditional MMO with all that entailed. The pitch was that players would be present in a shared, holistic universe but like a character in a Star Wars film, outnumbered by NPCs that sculpted the economy. The pitch was that there would be encounters but also PvP preference settings. The pitch was that new content, new star systems, would be added every couple of weeks and that exploration meant finding new jump points to be named after the discoverer. The pitch was that flying even capital ships would be feasible solo, albeit backed by NPC crew that would be demanding to manage. And remember: back at the start the only way to get ships was cash; there were no in-game ship shops or rental kiosks. How much of that remains today? How much of that history is now slagged-off in both videos and comments today? "Play solo? It's an MMO, stupid; just get friends and join an org". "NPC crew? Should never have been planned". "Solo a big ship with NPC crew? Who told you that would ever be possible?". "PvP sliders? It's an MMO, carebears". "NPC crew won't be in release 1.0". "NPC crew will probably just be dropped anyway 'cos it will never work". "Don't like it? Just go".
@First_Chapter I'm sorry but you are 100% right. I and so many people I know have turned off and tuned out of SC for the reasons you suggest, nail on the head.
@First_Chapter Well every single thing you said is coming as they've shown time and time again. The universe will have more npcs than players, using the quantum AI system or whatever it's called now. The economy will be driven by those npcs as I said. You will be able to fly a Polaris solo and have NPC crew on it, I don't know how good that will be but they intend on delivering on it after 1.0. All of what you said. Your worries are unfounded. And I have no idea what you mean with the ships only being available for cash. Being able to purchase ships with ingame currency was always their pitch and plan. If you believe otherwise you're misinformed and completely crazy since you basically want a pay to win game with 0 progression.
@@MikeAsano You do you. You don't have to play the game during its development. But everything he said will come to the game and they've said it time and time again. Just wait until it does.
It has come a very long way from launch. Also tons of mods to customize your experience further. I like to increase the number of combat ships for more and bigger battles. But cap ship ai last I played was still pretty dumb and more likely to get themselves popped than fight effectively unless you micro manage everything or leave the system to let the simulation handle things. But the simulation isn't as fun as being there. That said, for some reason my ai fleets like to start fights with the locals and get me into wars I didn't want with my trade partners lol
Wish SC went with much more modular hulls than all these super bespoke single purpose hulls. Not where every ship can do everything all the time; more so, having the ability to tweak more ships to do more things. That feels like a much more efficient use of assets. Fewer hulls, more modules.
Also fewer ship sales. If you look at Star Citizen's development, the most polished part of it is the ship pipeline. If ships were not the main source of profit for CIG, we would have had server meshing years ago and peak ship design would be the cutlass or the connie.
@ no kidding there. Practically they are some of the best ships. Titan, cutlass, Connie. If you get bold C2- based on real world know how. They had a solid lineup of hulls a long time ago.
Limited only, but yes. Limited on small ships means similar to an Origin 100i in SC, but without a bed, and entering/exiting the ship on-foot via a ladder or an elevator.
German developer, I mean, look at his background, the whole wall is full of physical folders with paper in it. That is how the German game developer work/have to work....
Wow X4, Elite Dangerous, SC, all of those space games gets a lots of love and big updates in upcoming months, only EVE Online is lacking... srly eve management is wasting so much possibilities with this game
Elite Dangerous Odyssey seems to be getting more focus at Frontier with new ships coming out like the Cobra Mk 5 after years when nothing appeared and the promise of being able to colonise star systems and build space stations in the works (still future though just now).
I hope you're going to give it another try it out it's really worth it. 2:55 you can fly in first person from cockpit. I think they just chose 3rd person here to better show the flight mode. 5:50 why didn't they scale it up? Well maybe that's a question you can ask Bernd when he does another Q&A Session. But if we have a look at SC I think we can see why they didn't want to scale it up. I also think they aimed for a console Release with X:Rebirth. This game had a lot of mechanics that resembled console games but I also think it was so bad it would have never passed Sony/MS quality control and would never have been allowed on these. I think they know their audience by now fairly well and I guess there aren't many on consoles.
This update makes me want to pick up the game again! The UI is definitely on the Dwarf Fortress end of things, but the rest of the game makes it worth learning.
Bought a couple years ago on GOG. Definitely worth buying. Downside is that the borders between factions are mostly open, similar to Eve Online. Setting up a large supply chain between factory stations is a pain. Cheesing the game is too easy. The game is enjoyable despite shortcomings.
You actually dont need a huge team to get a project done. In fact, a development group of that size would likely result in messy & broken code, scope creep, lack of focus, high overhead, corruption, and waste.
Wish Egosoft all the best, but the UI and UX of this series is a dealbreaker for me. Wish it wasn't the case, as this seems custom made for me, but I cannot get past the 'placeholder' quality UI.
Im not willing to participate in the beta for the changes (the AI has NOT adjusted to the changes very well at the moment) but Im eagerly awaiting the full release of this patch to start a new playthrough
i think this may fit perfectly all of those that are constantly cry at PVP and having to see other humans around in SC, this really seems like a perfect option until CIG opens private servers for an offline experience
1- Its usually played in first person not 3rd, 2- They never scaled the compagnie because they are making games that are more niche they never had the budget I believe nor that much investment, they also shot themselves in the foot with the release of X:Rebirth a couple of years back and I don't think they want investors breathing down their neck and tell them what when how to do their work. 3- This is only my opinion, but they have very old school UI, mechanics in their games that add complexity in a complex game and its not everyone cup of tea, so it probably impacted a lot of sales and for some reason never changed these old school UI. It sure wouldn't be easy, but I'm sure the UI could be much simpler, intuitive and graphically appealing that what they have now. At least you get used to it. 4- My main issue with X4 and why I have a hard time loving the game is the AI. You literally can't have a wingman following you, it so slow and delayed in its movements everything will take for ever. So imagine moving and ordering huge fleets, fleets with AI that can't even aim their main batteries on target and get confused and miss and that's after taking 10 minutes to get into position. You get better results in fights when out of sector so the game doesn't have to actually control the ships and just estimate damage, when playing in-sector well the game has to simulate everything and the AI is so poor your fleet end up being less effective. I DO understand that the game has TONS of things to simulate at the same time and a computer as so much compute for AI and they have to optimize performance in some ways. But yeah, the game has its limitations. X4 still has a place in my heart, I just wish some of its major flaws would get solved.
I tried x3 and couldnt get into it. Like you said, the ui wasnt impressive and i was just trade gronding for little to no profit to the same few places.
Egosoft has simply done what CiG has been doing for the last 5 years. Please dont compare features, they just implement changes and not tell us we have to collect "telemetry data", "we dont have resources to adjust component stats" ....
X4 has an ugly interface. I tried to get into it years ago but just couldn't. The learning curve was just too steep. That being said, the old X3 game had a decent flight model, but modders were able to overhaul it and it was the most fun I had in a space sim prior to Star Citizen. It is so sad that Star Citizen has not fixed/finalized their flight model after all this time. I suspect John Pritchett left CIG specifically because Chris Roberts refused to listen to him and forced him to make changes that simply are not working out very well. The loss of John is very likely the reason the SC flight model is still in limbo. I don't think that X4 will ever surpass Star Citizen as a better game, but if they deliver a flight model that gains popularity and a lot of attention, it will force Chris Roberts to give up on his silly dream of WWII dogfighting in a space game. In fact, the recent back peddling on Master Modes may be in response to what John is doing with X4. Even if it's not a better game, it's still a completed game and the dogfighting was always fun. If Star Citizen funding drops too low, the entire project could be in jeopardy so Chris Roberts has no choice but to fix this ASAP. In the worst case, if X4 becomes a major threat, perhaps Chris Roberts will swallow his pride come groveling back to John to return to CIG and fix this mess.
I don't see how X4 would be a threat, seems like comparing a lemonade stand to Ubisoft. Egosoft sells games and DLC and operates an indie dev sized staff of 30. CIG sells the promise of internet space ships in a perpetual bugtester simulator and has a AAA big budget staff of 1k+ 😁
@@4tonmike That's true, but Squadron 42 is being delayed again and the last major change it's waiting on is the final flight model. Unless CIG delivers a hit with their single player game they will be compared to other games that have a solid/fun flight model. This is especially true with X4 because a former CIG employee is working improving their flight model.
In spite of ugliness. X4 and pritchett will succeed where Star Citizen have decided to take a turn for overthinking horse blibds unrealism to get pile of been there done that mix of World of Warcraft / Eve What have they done to your grav legs mate, glad you ain't here to see.
![KRK - ชนิสรา Ft.WanMai , N/A [Official MV] Prod. By Sakarin](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/C-WMwwYobcU/mqdefault.jpg)
Hello Space Tomato,
Thank you for covering our game. Great show!
As others have already pointed out in the comments, the gameplay is primarily set in first person, but players have the option to switch to a third-person view while flying, as prominently demonstrated in the video. Otherwise, you're spot on with the description of X4!
egosoft, please add more on foot gameplay in your next next update. Maybe player boarding combat, cozy interiors and more NPC diversity and personality to make them more believable up close.. Thank you for this lovely game. Don't stop supporting it, it definitely has great future ahead.
@@sonic55193 how can I give you 100 thumbs up?
CIG originally promised real physics but fun. And here we see older games now working to deliver one of the abandoned promises that made a lot of us excited for SC...
Real physics, like your ship slowing to a stop when you turn off the engines in zero-G?
I feel attacked.. this game has been out for how long and it feels like all that I've been waiting out of StarCitizen...
I'm a realism snob, but damn I have a lot of fun in this game.
Being in 1st person on the bridge of your capital ship with 200+ ships at your command is currently unmatched in any space game.
CIG could copy capital ship combat from this game, and get ride of CR vision of capital ship combat being a nose to nose fight like if they where fighters...
"Is it all third person when you're flying?" No. The game by default has you in the the cockpit/bridge, but you can choose to fly in third person (which is particularly useful when flying big capital ships when trying to understand the full scope of the battle around your ship and the current condition of your ship, turrets and subcomponents), but unlike Star Citizen, X4 gives you a fully functional HUD for when you're controlling the ship in third person.
Very impressive game for a staff of 30.
Egosoft doesn't scale up because they don't want to sell their soul to investors.
^ This. Egosoft runs a sustainable business model that even if at some point they close their doors for whatever reason, won't leave people holding bags.
X4 is the game that keep giving. X4 combined with a flight model that is more similar to early Star Citizen flight model would be great. I loved how in early versions of SC's Arena Commander felt a lot like very controllable machines, but machines still, without being overwhelmingly complicated. So happy to see John Pritchett working on the X4 flight model. It's gonna be amazing!
I hope they'll eventually add the rebirth VR functionality back in.
A 2-4 player co-op mode in an X game would be amazing too, if this would not hurt the depth, complexity and moddability of the game. If other players could just fly ships like AI captains and not deal with space station design and such, this would already open enormous gameplay possibilities, but it's understandable why they have not attempted this.
Wow, when you have been playing the X series for over 20 years you assume everyone knows about it and has tried it once or twice. That said, if you’re new to the series you are in for a treat. X4 is arguably the best of the series and allows you to live out the space fantasy in a wonderfully designed way. The clips don’t do it justice, you need to try it out. You will be amazed by the level of functionally you have. Egosoft Devs are “pound for pound” the best Devs in the industry hands down; and X4 is amazing product. I can’t praise it enough. My steam account shows 1002.2 hours played. Amazing value for the amount of money I paid for the game… just sayin.
Egosoft punches above their weight in a lot of respects. Lots of substance
My account says 3800h 😂😂😂
Omg yes. Ive always loved this series and seeing the old sc flight model return in some form in X4 is the greatest xmas gift.
I love this game, it's definitely a single player star citizen. Imagine star citizen and you're the leader of your own faction, you get to order people around, that's what this game feels like. The only thing that's probably missing is in the experience is the on foot combat, there's on foot gameplay, you can walk around your ship but the interiors are just cockpits, I wish they will add more interiors and on foot gameplay even FPS in the next next update, after that it will definitely be like star citizen but can run on non NASA PC.
I think it still sucks that theres a specific slot for thrusters in SC yet theres literally no way to swap them for anything.
This type of customisation is exactly what is needed in SC
It's a really really good game and gives the player a lot of freedom to do what they want. It can be hard to learn, but the sheer scope of what the player can do, interact with the universe and affect the universe on a grand scale is more than what most games dare to even consider, let alone actually do. Such as allowing a player to own, control and even set laws in star systems they own. Even allowing a player to go to war and actually wipe out an entire main faction.
But some systems are simpler in some ways than what I think Star Citizen is aiming for. Such as with several ship level systems like components and engineering. I might be wrong on this, it's been awhile since I last played, but I don't there is any real way to adjust power levels to affect the performance of your ship. Ship internals when walking around are also really simplistic. And there is absolutely zero planet landing.
What you can't deny though, is just how many things X4 already has in game. With several functional gameplay loops. Drones, hired NPC pilots, and ai turrets all working to excellent effect. And full control from the micro (your ship) all the way to the macro (you star systems, factories, logistical and trading fleets, combat fleets, fighting in a battle yourself or directing multiple engagements across the universe at the same time, directing not just ships, but entire fleets of ships). Six full alien and human factions, each with their own economies, equipment, needs (some using similar resources, some having very different economies compared to the others like the Terrans and Boron) with some of those factions (like the Teladi and Paranid) having sub-factions that act as political rivals for the player to build a relationship with and affect their destiny.
So when you're looking at the some specific individual components, it can look a little simple sometimes when comparing to other certain competitors like Star Citizen. But then when you consider what you can do in this game in the grand scale, it actually feels really surprising just how much they've fit into the game and just how much freedom they've given to the player to affect that world.
I actually think Star Citizen could and should learn a thing or two from X4.
s citizen has learned a couple of things from them :D , like trying to implement crew, crafting, station building, space nebulas, npc communications etc etc, they even hired one of their devs into s citizen long ago (now it seems the reverse is happening)
When I was a kid in the 70's I built spaceships out of Lego cubes. Now I command destroyer fleers in X4. I spent some 3 to 4k of hours playing X2, X3, Rebirth and now X4. The game is far from perfect (npc behaviour, path finding, economy) but it is great fun and offers real challanges. The first being: mastering the UI 😉.
While others wait an eternity for the perfect space sim, or wait for the next hyper duper gpu to throw money at, I simply play X4.
X4 is very immersive, agreed. Likewise I started with imagining spaceships under blankets as a kid, and now it's X4 and when the mood suits - Elite Dangerous in VR.
@5:40
The company did scale up. Egosoft went from like 5 people at the launch of X4, to around 30-40 developers now.
The game has never been realistic for console with the menus, and info dump required. In many ways X4 is much closer to EVE than Star Citizen.
The company size increase has been reflected in the major DLC, especially Boron and Terran.
its mostly in first person, but they recently been improving 3rd person flight and for this video i think they showed mostly in 3rd person to show the flight mechanics on the ships alittle better.
been playing the x series for about 24 years, original x game was one of the first pc games i ever owned, love the series to death, also has allot of lore and several books. the biggest change from x3 to x4 was x4 no longer just faked an economy, in x3 things were just spawned in as needed and player action didnt truely effect stuff that much on the economy sided, in x4, everything is simulated, you can starve out an entire economy by blockading, theres many different playstyles in the game, from a humble freighter pilot, to an empire managment sim where your taking out other empires.
Captain Collin’s is doing backflips over this update I bet and yes there is a first person view
I have always loved X4 for the extensive ability to control a vast space empire including space stations, capital ships , and fighters. The only thing that attracted me to SC was the flight model but with the extensive updates in flight model and graphics as well as extensive gameplay updates X4 is a dream for any solo player. I especially like the fact that I can have NPC's run my entire fleet while I fly escort. I am testing the flight model now and it feels great . Definitely worth a try. Hope to see more content . The beta with the flight model is available now.
@@eoconnor2000 stop it lol. I don’t need another game!
X4 is more akin to the orinal pitch for SC before we got all the FPS side of things and procedural planets. Loved the X series and i look forward to trying out this beta, thanks for putting it on our radar while we wait on 4.0 and beyond for SC.
Lmao at the thought of X4 being associated with the word arcadey
If you get this game Star Wars Interworlds is a must
Been playing a ton of X4 instead of SC of late; the graphics are not as good as SC but that's offset by everything else. It's first person if that's what's preferred.
only took them 7 years post launch to get there, people forget how ROUGH x4s path has been, for whatever reason space sim games are hard
Forgot to add: you can get the X4 Foundations base and all the game DLCs (typically one that you can buy comes out each year alongside free enhancements to the core game, so there are five paid DLCs now) for about the price of a C1 Spirit, or maybe a Nomad if there's a Steam sale.
@@beardedbarnstormer9577 no, complex systems like the npc dynamic economy, ship components, crew, spacestation building etc etc were there from day one, they ve just been non stop adding more, perfecting and correcting
Nice to see expanding your Horizons (pun intended) into the X4 universe.
10:20 Star Citizen needs this kinda flight moder upgrade, ships feel weightless...
We had it. It is literally the same guy.
@@Roboticus_Prime_RC what happened to the ships physics then?
@5pu7nik Yogi happened with his egg-shaped thrust bubbles and arcade boost guages.
@@Roboticus_Prime_RC yogi is dei, dei hires bad.
@@positronikiss It has more to do with Yogi's abilities and attitude both coming up short. But yeah, Yogi's been overwhelmingly subpar by pretty much any metric.
Thanks for covering this! X4 has been one of my fav games for the last 5 or so years...discovered it around when I learned about Star Citizen and basically used it when SC was too buggy or I felt like running a full RTS empire....such an underrated game that all SC fans should try.
It's a very fun game, just looks a bit dated!
3:06 In X4 I always fly with a cockpit view
Love this game! It's not perfect but it feels really nice to play, it has big depth and flexibilty on how you play.
Fight, trade, mine, haul, build space stations, control sectors, build massive fleets or just explore..
Been having a blast with the 7.1 (the non-beta). Way more than in Star Citizen this year where enemy ships teleport around and even logging on to do a simple hauling mission can take a better part of an hour because the servers are always in a poor state.
X4 flight might be arcade-y but even before the new flight model the flying feels better than in Star Citizen. No artificial restrictions of "no guns if you want to use missiles" and no fiddling around with Qdrive calibration, just point at the direction you want to go and engage travel mode. Of course you can fiddle around with the map and set a destination if you want the autopilot to take you there.
As for the UI... I'm used to the old X3 UI. Let's just say the X4 UI is way better.
X4 is really great (And there is also a insane StarWars mod) and they keep updating it.
The new flight model (currently in beta) is good but thrusters are weaks so it drift more than in Star Citizen but it is now sooo much better.
well the drift is the point I think... before ships, even the biggest had basically instant acceleration and also very fast breaks... you really had to know how to decouple to make a ship drift. And thats, funny enough, what so many people ask for SC, especially in terms of balancing speed: lower accelerations, make high speeds possible but also punishing if used wrong... but CIG only says: "We dont want that people may crash" and at the same time "We dont want people to get out of the crosshair, once in range!"
@@Liopleurodon Thats so true
This game is awesome. Looking forward to the new features.
Yes X4 Foundations is MUCH more like a single player EVE Online than Star Citizen. It is honestly the closest thing to a complete Space Sandbox that you can find. You start out in one tiny ship and 10,000 credits and can end up Being a Pirate Lord, a Smuggler, a Trading conglomerate, or a Mercenary up to controlling vast swaths of the universe employing Thousands of NPC's running an empire worth hundreds of billions of credits.
Perfect timing! Picked it up in recent Steam sale and having a great time so far.
It varies from player to player, but coming in new, some things might seem overwhelming or that it has a steep learning curve. Watch a guide or two and you'll get hang of it. Has some nice production chains, you can build factories/stations, etc. Some aspects feel RTS at times but the game doesn't try to excel at everything... however, on the main focus, it's a gem.
There's so many mods... star wars mod with a whole new galaxy map, there's a mod to add new commands/behaviours to your units, to improve AI behaviour. There's even a mod to add Battlestar Galactica and the Vipers to the game. Player created ships, etc. You'll find the bulk of the mods in Nexusmods.
Give it a spin... UI isn't amazing but given the logistic and empire side of the game, it kind of fits.
Hope you will try this game out some time! It's very very good!
6:55 Should be 6 or even seven games actually (don't even quite remember if the "Add-On" for the first was even stand-alone): X-BTF (the original), (X-Tension, the addon), X2, X3, the standalone Add-on X3 Terran Conflict, the rebbot X-Rebirth and now X4.
Fun-fact between X3:TC and Rebirth (so around 2010) Egosoft even planned a multi-player game quite similar to what later became Star Citizen... just of course more focussed around economy, but I guess back then the time wasnt right especially before crowd funding was such a big thing.
Actually X-series motivates me to play SC ... the gameplay was revolutionary from the begining onwards ...
X4 doesnt have planetary landing or fps combat - yet - ive played through it many times as there are a bunch of scenarios/stories - many many mods like sw coversion etc
Having put thousands of hours into this game it is pretty arcad-y but very fun. Though once you get into the empire building side it turns into more of an rts at times 😊 Also aince the company is small their producer tends to make them force the game out to early. It took about a year to get it to x3's level and since then its been better in every way personally. Having played it day 1
Ah, X4, what an amazing game. I fully endorse this game and recommend any star citizen fan to at least take a deep long look at it. Unfortunately, there is no demo to my knowledge, and the game is so deep that a 2 hour play session is NOT going to be enough to figure out if you like it. If you buy it to try it, you are commited.
That said, the one thing that keeps killing X4 for me is the lack of Co-Op mode. I also dislike the artstyle and the GUI of X4, and having played it, oh dear the Map needs a massive overhaul. At least it did the last time I played, it may have gotten said overhaul since.
I suppose the mod support can adress the artstyle issue however. Theoretically one could even mod star citizen ships into this game, though the weapon systems would of course be different.
Either way, I guess I better check on it.
Really hope you try this game Space Tomato :)
I love x4 esecially the modding abilities
This shit looks way better than their controls before.
First-person, usually. I actually haven't seen anyone use third-person, but it never looked this good before.
I've seriously considered buying the game on account of this. 🤔
Biggest question is, can capital ships now aim their main guns at enemys if they are not on the same Z coordinates? That was a bit frustrating when i played last. Even tho you can manually bring them on the same level but comon. Other then that its absolutly great except the graphics. I have 100s of hours in X3 and X4. I love building a Empire. Influensing the outcome between wars of different factions etc.
As you said, X4 is a single-player game in which you can fly scouts and fighters in first person; configure ships to mine asteroids for solids and gases; configure ships for cargo and haul commodities; map space sectors; fly capital ships with NPC crew that have skills and can be trained to improve; buy, configure and delegate ships to NPC crews that are working on your behalf; design and construct space stations and production facilities; and fight the hostiles. The reason for getting back to X4 (and v7 is really improved over prior releases) is the sense that CIG really is taking SC down a path of 'first person EVE' and tailoring the game for orgs and multiplayer, a vision too far removed from what was pitched 12 years ago and one which threatens to come at the expense of solo play rather than complementing it.
I'm sorry but you are wrong. SC will be the bridge between X4 and Eve Online, a mix of the two where the world is NPC driven albeit affected somewhat by the actions of players. You will be able to play alone but will need help in riskier areas and larger endeavors. That help may be players at the start (and probably always) because the AI required for NPCs to be effective crewmates and allies is just incredibly hard to design and implement. They might be able to make AI crewmates that don't obey the players in any way and let player act as crewmen for NPC commanded ships, but making NPCs that are under the player's command is incredibly unreasonable (yet I'm sure they will try anyways because there's unhinged players that want everything, yet they complain about moving goalposts and development time).
You will have access to all gameplay loops completely solo, you don't even have to interact with people thanks to the org and contracts apps they have planned. There will be a single player narrative story, plenty of guilds to grind rep with, numerous professions... what else do you want, the 100 systems they promised?
@@polblanes At the start the game was described as "Massively single-player online" with many people in a shared space but not a traditional MMO with all that entailed. The pitch was that players would be present in a shared, holistic universe but like a character in a Star Wars film, outnumbered by NPCs that sculpted the economy. The pitch was that there would be encounters but also PvP preference settings. The pitch was that new content, new star systems, would be added every couple of weeks and that exploration meant finding new jump points to be named after the discoverer. The pitch was that flying even capital ships would be feasible solo, albeit backed by NPC crew that would be demanding to manage. And remember: back at the start the only way to get ships was cash; there were no in-game ship shops or rental kiosks. How much of that remains today? How much of that history is now slagged-off in both videos and comments today? "Play solo? It's an MMO, stupid; just get friends and join an org". "NPC crew? Should never have been planned". "Solo a big ship with NPC crew? Who told you that would ever be possible?". "PvP sliders? It's an MMO, carebears". "NPC crew won't be in release 1.0". "NPC crew will probably just be dropped anyway 'cos it will never work". "Don't like it? Just go".
@First_Chapter I'm sorry but you are 100% right. I and so many people I know have turned off and tuned out of SC for the reasons you suggest, nail on the head.
@First_Chapter Well every single thing you said is coming as they've shown time and time again.
The universe will have more npcs than players, using the quantum AI system or whatever it's called now. The economy will be driven by those npcs as I said. You will be able to fly a Polaris solo and have NPC crew on it, I don't know how good that will be but they intend on delivering on it after 1.0. All of what you said. Your worries are unfounded.
And I have no idea what you mean with the ships only being available for cash. Being able to purchase ships with ingame currency was always their pitch and plan. If you believe otherwise you're misinformed and completely crazy since you basically want a pay to win game with 0 progression.
@@MikeAsano You do you. You don't have to play the game during its development. But everything he said will come to the game and they've said it time and time again. Just wait until it does.
Please post the source to the original video so we can get more testers to voice their thoughts easier. Would appreciate it tomato, love your content
It has come a very long way from launch. Also tons of mods to customize your experience further. I like to increase the number of combat ships for more and bigger battles.
But cap ship ai last I played was still pretty dumb and more likely to get themselves popped than fight effectively unless you micro manage everything or leave the system to let the simulation handle things. But the simulation isn't as fun as being there.
That said, for some reason my ai fleets like to start fights with the locals and get me into wars I didn't want with my trade partners lol
You can fly 1st person.
Fine game. 👍
Wish SC went with much more modular hulls than all these super bespoke single purpose hulls. Not where every ship can do everything all the time; more so, having the ability to tweak more ships to do more things. That feels like a much more efficient use of assets. Fewer hulls, more modules.
Also fewer ship sales. If you look at Star Citizen's development, the most polished part of it is the ship pipeline. If ships were not the main source of profit for CIG, we would have had server meshing years ago and peak ship design would be the cutlass or the connie.
@ no kidding there. Practically they are some of the best ships. Titan, cutlass, Connie. If you get bold C2- based on real world know how. They had a solid lineup of hulls a long time ago.
Do the ships have interiors?
Limited only, but yes. Limited on small ships means similar to an Origin 100i in SC, but without a bed, and entering/exiting the ship on-foot via a ladder or an elevator.
@First_Chapter Sounds like a pretty good upgrade from Elite Dangerous if you don't want to be forced to crew up with randos.
German developer, I mean, look at his background, the whole wall is full of physical folders with paper in it. That is how the German game developer work/have to work....
That also explains why their UI is design is so awful - all function and no form :D
Wow X4, Elite Dangerous, SC, all of those space games gets a lots of love and big updates in upcoming months, only EVE Online is lacking... srly eve management is wasting so much possibilities with this game
Elite Dangerous Odyssey seems to be getting more focus at Frontier with new ships coming out like the Cobra Mk 5 after years when nothing appeared and the promise of being able to colonise star systems and build space stations in the works (still future though just now).
I hope you're going to give it another try it out it's really worth it.
2:55 you can fly in first person from cockpit. I think they just chose 3rd person here to better show the flight mode.
5:50 why didn't they scale it up? Well maybe that's a question you can ask Bernd when he does another Q&A Session. But if we have a look at SC I think we can see why they didn't want to scale it up. I also think they aimed for a console Release with X:Rebirth. This game had a lot of mechanics that resembled console games but I also think it was so bad it would have never passed Sony/MS quality control and would never have been allowed on these. I think they know their audience by now fairly well and I guess there aren't many on consoles.
This update makes me want to pick up the game again! The UI is definitely on the Dwarf Fortress end of things, but the rest of the game makes it worth learning.
Nice! The old flight model was where they lost me. Graphics... don't care too much about that. That's what mods are for. :)
Bought a couple years ago on GOG. Definitely worth buying. Downside is that the borders between factions are mostly open, similar to Eve Online. Setting up a large supply chain between factory stations is a pain. Cheesing the game is too easy. The game is enjoyable despite shortcomings.
Ooof, yeah... The UI of X4 looks like coderart and feels like navigating spreadsheets.
You actually dont need a huge team to get a project done. In fact, a development group of that size would likely result in messy & broken code, scope creep, lack of focus, high overhead, corruption, and waste.
I just got X4 and No Man's Sky, which has been a lot of fun so far. I'm sick of CIG deleting my ships.
X4's flight model is what put me off playing it. This is great news. You can play 1st or 3rd person flight.
Wish Egosoft all the best, but the UI and UX of this series is a dealbreaker for me. Wish it wasn't the case, as this seems custom made for me, but I cannot get past the 'placeholder' quality UI.
X4 is first person. It's not a simulator, though with the update, flight looks less like flying an airplane, and more like being in space.
Im not willing to participate in the beta for the changes (the AI has NOT adjusted to the changes very well at the moment) but Im eagerly awaiting the full release of this patch to start a new playthrough
i think this may fit perfectly all of those that are constantly cry at PVP and having to see other humans around in SC, this really seems like a perfect option until CIG opens private servers for an offline experience
X4 was always interesting to me but was also confusing and hard to learn the game 😂
Goofy and CIG keep swapping folks.
1- Its usually played in first person not 3rd,
2- They never scaled the compagnie because they are making games that are more niche they never had the budget I believe nor that much investment, they also shot themselves in the foot with the release of X:Rebirth a couple of years back and I don't think they want investors breathing down their neck and tell them what when how to do their work.
3- This is only my opinion, but they have very old school UI, mechanics in their games that add complexity in a complex game and its not everyone cup of tea, so it probably impacted a lot of sales and for some reason never changed these old school UI. It sure wouldn't be easy, but I'm sure the UI could be much simpler, intuitive and graphically appealing that what they have now. At least you get used to it.
4- My main issue with X4 and why I have a hard time loving the game is the AI. You literally can't have a wingman following you, it so slow and delayed in its movements everything will take for ever. So imagine moving and ordering huge fleets, fleets with AI that can't even aim their main batteries on target and get confused and miss and that's after taking 10 minutes to get into position. You get better results in fights when out of sector so the game doesn't have to actually control the ships and just estimate damage, when playing in-sector well the game has to simulate everything and the AI is so poor your fleet end up being less effective. I DO understand that the game has TONS of things to simulate at the same time and a computer as so much compute for AI and they have to optimize performance in some ways. But yeah, the game has its limitations.
X4 still has a place in my heart, I just wish some of its major flaws would get solved.
so looks like CIG lost some good developers, and we got stuck with Yogi.. 🤦
At least we don't have Mr hovermode
@@theg0z0n Yep Yogi is not top tier talent, but at least he acknowledges when he fucks up. RIP in pieces master modes.
I tried x3 and couldnt get into it. Like you said, the ui wasnt impressive and i was just trade gronding for little to no profit to the same few places.
Guess I'll check out X4 again after a few years hiatus. ^^
I really hope the UI will be better. Because that was THE main downside of the game.
Egosoft has simply done what CiG has been doing for the last 5 years. Please dont compare features, they just implement changes and not tell us we have to collect "telemetry data", "we dont have resources to adjust component stats" ....
thats not true, its literally the opposite
if x4 went multiplayer star citizen wouldn't have a chance
X4 has an ugly interface. I tried to get into it years ago but just couldn't. The learning curve was just too steep. That being said, the old X3 game had a decent flight model, but modders were able to overhaul it and it was the most fun I had in a space sim prior to Star Citizen. It is so sad that Star Citizen has not fixed/finalized their flight model after all this time. I suspect John Pritchett left CIG specifically because Chris Roberts refused to listen to him and forced him to make changes that simply are not working out very well. The loss of John is very likely the reason the SC flight model is still in limbo.
I don't think that X4 will ever surpass Star Citizen as a better game, but if they deliver a flight model that gains popularity and a lot of attention, it will force Chris Roberts to give up on his silly dream of WWII dogfighting in a space game. In fact, the recent back peddling on Master Modes may be in response to what John is doing with X4. Even if it's not a better game, it's still a completed game and the dogfighting was always fun. If Star Citizen funding drops too low, the entire project could be in jeopardy so Chris Roberts has no choice but to fix this ASAP.
In the worst case, if X4 becomes a major threat, perhaps Chris Roberts will swallow his pride come groveling back to John to return to CIG and fix this mess.
I don't see how X4 would be a threat, seems like comparing a lemonade stand to Ubisoft. Egosoft sells games and DLC and operates an indie dev sized staff of 30. CIG sells the promise of internet space ships in a perpetual bugtester simulator and has a AAA big budget staff of 1k+ 😁
@@4tonmike That's true, but Squadron 42 is being delayed again and the last major change it's waiting on is the final flight model. Unless CIG delivers a hit with their single player game they will be compared to other games that have a solid/fun flight model. This is especially true with X4 because a former CIG employee is working improving their flight model.
@@merclord I would like CIG to succeed but the best predictor for future behavior is past behavior, so...
@@4tonmike I get it. But Chris Roberts created Wing Commander so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
@@merclordBack In the day scrambling to defend the Ticonderoga eh
X series, has always been dedicated devs, that know their niche, x3 flopped hard,
In spite of ugliness. X4 and pritchett will succeed where Star Citizen have decided to take a turn for overthinking horse blibds unrealism to get pile of been there done that mix of World of Warcraft / Eve
What have they done to your grav legs mate, glad you ain't here to see.
every game is better than Star trash