Clarification from Egosoft: "The Piloting skill of service crew does not matter. Their skills are composited with that of the pilot in some cases, but only their engineering and/or morale skills are used. All pilots can launch countermeasures. Pilots with better skill can launch countermeasures earlier: on missile lock, or when an attacker begins to initiate lock."
condensed format: * Unlocks certain commands (this isn't entirely accurate, it is related to the total skill of the pilot, which is 4 parts piloting, 1 part morale) * Unlocks certain formations (same as above, it's a composite of piloting and morale ) * Dictates range of an autotrader, autominer, even when assigned to a station (in this case, the manager's management skill OR the pilot's piloting skill, whichever is higher) * Increases repair rate or max repair amount (in conjunction with the engineering/morale of the service crew) * Increases how fast drones and fighters can be deployed * Reduces delay between firing missiles * Guides usage of countermeasures * Tries to stay closer to maximum range in combat for capital ships * Calculating delays in automatic actions (he was not clear what this relates to. He only mentions autopiloting as an example, but NPCs don't autopilot. I'm very curious about this one, considering things like the autotrade delays are lengthy for AI-faction autotraders (approx 60s), but for player.faction ships they're approx 5s)
Calculating delays in automatic actions can only mean the reactiontime of starting with a new task after ending the last step. Espacialy turning and maneuvering and following to new orders should improve to that, wich results in him shooting an other 0 star pilot like 3 times as often as he shoots back simply cause he works down his list of actions quicker, right?
Wow, they really need a seperate window for all the crew. After 100 hours, didn't even know I could click on "Number of Hired Personnel" to see all your crew. Thanks!
It would also be required to have escape pods so you can save your pilots if you've had to spend 40 mil on hiring them or 400 hours training them. The cheaper they are and the easier they train up the less the lack of a retrieval mechanism hurts.
so trying to have the patience to learn this game. this is the first video that really explains things that i feel i need to know and in a way i can understand. thank you
Oh WOW! Thank you very much for the explanation! Did not know of a lot of the hints you gave on this video! Great! Greetings from Salzburg / Austria KR Max
The piloting skills is one of the most important in X4. I just wish its effect was better shown in-game. It may help justify spending millions on an experienced pilot.
Thanks for the info and for digging into those files. I can confirm that better skill for pilots matters for destroyers a lot, as I have 16 destro but only 14 of them have pilots with 4 or 5 stars and most able crewman and some in specialist, and 2 of them have 2 and a half stars with all crew apprentice. So those 14 always use their range when attacking a station or whatever I attack but those 2 little noobs always go very close and I have to manage them around. What I don't really know if this skill matters on fighters pilots assigned to a carrier. I have around 30 fighters with pilots at 2 stars and I can never manage them to do what they should when I give the order to defend on the carrier. They go and dock but they undock pretty soon and just wonder in system sometimes or they just stay in one place or stay docked always. The carrier is having the pilot at 5 stars piloting and crew is mostly specialists so yeah, I don't really know how I can use this fighters with the said carrier as it should. I also keep the destro out of any fleet because they start to act funny also:( This should be explained more clearly in the game and thank you again for the info.
Well current lvling system is to slow to even use those pilots. Its way more effective to just use zerg of ships. I even tried to get a max morale marine turned into other class and then use it as a ship captain, but stars will stay the same.Boarding, managment and other skills just dont stack.
Did not find if anyone mentioned it in the comments - looks like good piloting also affects exploring. Bad pilot moves like an old generation stupid Roomba vacuum cleaner, chaotically running from one corner to another, 4-5 stars pilot moves in a spiral with increasing radius (as you would do while doing recon in a new sector).
I just want to be able to auto trade again. When I started the fires of defeat scenario u get a free 4 star pilot. 80 hours into the game I have nobody higher than 2 star and that's with training seminars bought from stations and getting scouts and leaving them to explore for hours on end.
Yea, this is, in my opinion an endless and useless grind ever saw in a game... If you dont mind modding your game you should look over "learnAllTheThings" mod or "taterTrader" . Even If tater trade seems a bit op (the range for autotrading is big).
@@k3ubz I wanted to keep vanilla for now. Maybe if I restart. But I will write those down and check them out. I would like the game to have levelling as default. I do see the odd 2 star training as a reward attached to missions like hacking and I don't fancy those mission types.
@@thomasjohnston1805 Learning all the things if really ligthweight :) it only puts a script on the game that every crew has a chance of leveling up 1 point (3 points=1star) every 20 minutes. Thats it.
Sooo... if i decide to extent my tradestation radius... i can simply assign my old 5 star traders to the new built 0 star manager trade station and that will instantly make him act like a 5 star manager? So the trader gives acces to his manager to wares stored in the 5 sectors away distanced main trading station? Or will it only or even allow to auto trade assigned station traders to get better deals further away? If the 5 star trader is assigned to the commands of his manager it should only be theoretical but not practical be possible for him to trade wares out of the trade distance area of his manager. Is that right? Shouldnt it be like he can see the wares but not comunicate with his manager enough to actively achieve those better deals for his station?
I have had pilots ask me what to do when I have global orders set to tell them what to do in those situations. Is that a bug or is that related to pilot skill?
i experimented with 2 star pilot, 4 star morale ,half star management , agsint a single xenon scout, i lost the cerebrus, from that moment on i have no wasted time on pilots kills. If a 2 star pilot can`t defeat a single scout ship in battle ,then piloting skills are useless. Subscribed.
They certainly help speed up repairs, plus they gain morale while doing so For M-class ships capable of using them, adding repair drones dramatically speeds up repair times too..
@@renyaoqin Out of battle, though, it appears. Plus an engineer can be traded and if needs be converted to a marine to take over an abandoned ship. It'd be more useful if marines could do repairs.
Higher piloting seems to take a more optimized flight path and do less stupid shit. With a 0 skill pilot it feels like they're just spinning in circles sometimes and autopilot could do it way better.
Because they are a small team with a huge game to write and it still isn't done. Getting the game working in all its aspects is far more useful at this moment than documenting it.
@@cammy9r What is the point of instructions when it has to be based on what the authors of the game think is needed to be known? Especially when "You can't tell me what to do" is the clarion call of today.
The problem with the piloting skill is. It does not seem to get better by itself. I am now 180 hours in the game and one of my first traders hat 2 stars and still has 2 stars. Same for all others. It's not a slow progress. It's zero progress.
Clarification from Egosoft: "The Piloting skill of service crew does not matter. Their skills are composited with that of the pilot in some cases, but only their engineering and/or morale skills are used.
All pilots can launch countermeasures. Pilots with better skill can launch countermeasures earlier: on missile lock, or when an attacker begins to initiate lock."
This information is amazing! Thank you for pulling all this data together and presenting it so clearly :)
condensed format:
* Unlocks certain commands (this isn't entirely accurate, it is related to the total skill of the pilot, which is 4 parts piloting, 1 part morale)
* Unlocks certain formations (same as above, it's a composite of piloting and morale
)
* Dictates range of an autotrader, autominer, even when assigned to a station (in this case, the manager's management skill OR the pilot's piloting skill, whichever is higher)
* Increases repair rate or max repair amount (in conjunction with the engineering/morale of the service crew)
* Increases how fast drones and fighters can be deployed
* Reduces delay between firing missiles
* Guides usage of countermeasures
* Tries to stay closer to maximum range in combat for capital ships
* Calculating delays in automatic actions (he was not clear what this relates to. He only mentions autopiloting as an example, but NPCs don't autopilot. I'm very curious about this one, considering things like the autotrade delays are lengthy for AI-faction autotraders (approx 60s), but for player.faction ships they're approx 5s)
Calculating delays in automatic actions can only mean the reactiontime of starting with a new task after ending the last step. Espacialy turning and maneuvering and following to new orders should improve to that, wich results in him shooting an other 0 star pilot like 3 times as often as he shoots back simply cause he works down his list of actions quicker, right?
Wow, they really need a seperate window for all the crew. After 100 hours, didn't even know I could click on "Number of Hired Personnel" to see all your crew. Thanks!
It would also be required to have escape pods so you can save your pilots if you've had to spend 40 mil on hiring them or 400 hours training them. The cheaper they are and the easier they train up the less the lack of a retrieval mechanism hurts.
Thanks for this info, I knew the obvious things like jobs but none of the other stuff and I was always curious.
so trying to have the patience to learn this game.
this is the first video that really explains things that i feel i need to know and in a way i can understand. thank you
Many thanks that explain a lot of things.
Waiting your next videos :)
Oh WOW!
Thank you very much for the explanation!
Did not know of a lot of the hints you gave on this video!
Great!
Greetings from Salzburg / Austria
KR
Max
You're welcome
Thanks for all the clarification!
The piloting skills is one of the most important in X4. I just wish its effect was better shown in-game. It may help justify spending millions on an experienced pilot.
Thanks for the info and for digging into those files. I can confirm that better skill for pilots matters for destroyers a lot, as I have 16 destro but only 14 of them have pilots with 4 or 5 stars and most able crewman and some in specialist, and 2 of them have 2 and a half stars with all crew apprentice. So those 14 always use their range when attacking a station or whatever I attack but those 2 little noobs always go very close and I have to manage them around. What I don't really know if this skill matters on fighters pilots assigned to a carrier. I have around 30 fighters with pilots at 2 stars and I can never manage them to do what they should when I give the order to defend on the carrier. They go and dock but they undock pretty soon and just wonder in system sometimes or they just stay in one place or stay docked always. The carrier is having the pilot at 5 stars piloting and crew is mostly specialists so yeah, I don't really know how I can use this fighters with the said carrier as it should. I also keep the destro out of any fleet because they start to act funny also:( This should be explained more clearly in the game and thank you again for the info.
great idea for a series. i hope you have been well
@@jh5kl doing ok, thanks
Oh man this series is going to help a lot :D
@@Madalaskan01 morale coming up next!
Very interesting and useful! I'm sure I can just goggle it, but a short video on the process of viewing the xml file(s) would be interesting as well.
No video, but it is pretty easy via Google.
Well current lvling system is to slow to even use those pilots. Its way more effective to just use zerg of ships.
I even tried to get a max morale marine turned into other class and then use it as a ship captain, but stars will stay the same.Boarding, managment and other skills just dont stack.
Did not find if anyone mentioned it in the comments - looks like good piloting also affects exploring. Bad pilot moves like an old generation stupid Roomba vacuum cleaner, chaotically running from one corner to another, 4-5 stars pilot moves in a spiral with increasing radius (as you would do while doing recon in a new sector).
Amazing bit of info, ty for this.
You're welcome.
Thanks so much for this
Wow a 4 star miner! I've had miners since the get go, they don't seems to be rising at all
That was on a pre-3.0 save, sadly.
very instructive video, thanks for sharing
Thanks!
I just want to be able to auto trade again. When I started the fires of defeat scenario u get a free 4 star pilot. 80 hours into the game I have nobody higher than 2 star and that's with training seminars bought from stations and getting scouts and leaving them to explore for hours on end.
Yea, this is, in my opinion an endless and useless grind ever saw in a game...
If you dont mind modding your game you should look over "learnAllTheThings" mod or "taterTrader" . Even If tater trade seems a bit op (the range for autotrading is big).
@@k3ubz I wanted to keep vanilla for now. Maybe if I restart. But I will write those down and check them out. I would like the game to have levelling as default. I do see the odd 2 star training as a reward attached to missions like hacking and I don't fancy those mission types.
@@thomasjohnston1805 Learning all the things if really ligthweight :) it only puts a script on the game that every crew has a chance of leveling up 1 point (3 points=1star) every 20 minutes. Thats it.
Sooo... if i decide to extent my tradestation radius... i can simply assign my old 5 star traders to the new built 0 star manager trade station and that will instantly make him act like a 5 star manager?
So the trader gives acces to his manager to wares stored in the 5 sectors away distanced main trading station? Or will it only or even allow to auto trade assigned station traders to get better deals further away? If the 5 star trader is assigned to the commands of his manager it should only be theoretical but not practical be possible for him to trade wares out of the trade distance area of his manager. Is that right? Shouldnt it be like he can see the wares but not comunicate with his manager enough to actively achieve those better deals for his station?
The range is determined by who has the highest skill. So if the trader is higher than the manager, it should use the traders skill.
How do I level up my pilot skills?
I have had pilots ask me what to do when I have global orders set to tell them what to do in those situations. Is that a bug or is that related to pilot skill?
i experimented with 2 star pilot, 4 star morale ,half star management , agsint a single xenon scout, i lost the cerebrus, from that moment on i have no wasted time on pilots kills.
If a 2 star pilot can`t defeat a single scout ship in battle ,then piloting skills are useless.
Subscribed.
Really nice vid, but do M3-M5 AKA fighters really need an extra service crew for self-repairing?
They certainly help speed up repairs, plus they gain morale while doing so
For M-class ships capable of using them, adding repair drones dramatically speeds up repair times too..
@@snafu2350 Did a bit of testing, full 5 star pilots themselves can repair a ship to 92%
@@renyaoqin Pilots, not engineers? Tks for the info regardless :)
@@renyaoqin Out of battle, though, it appears.
Plus an engineer can be traded and if needs be converted to a marine to take over an abandoned ship.
It'd be more useful if marines could do repairs.
Higher piloting seems to take a more optimized flight path and do less stupid shit. With a 0 skill pilot it feels like they're just spinning in circles sometimes and autopilot could do it way better.
I'm not sure I saw anything to suggest that, other than time to react is affected. That doesn't mean it isn't true, could be hardcoded.
Why don't the devs just tell use these things?
No idea.
They do have their own channel (Egosoft) and they have a few tutorial videos
Because they are a small team with a huge game to write and it still isn't done. Getting the game working in all its aspects is far more useful at this moment than documenting it.
@@cammy9r What is the point of instructions when it has to be based on what the authors of the game think is needed to be known?
Especially when "You can't tell me what to do" is the clarion call of today.
The problem with the piloting skill is. It does not seem to get better by itself. I am now 180 hours in the game and one of my first traders hat 2 stars and still has 2 stars. Same for all others. It's not a slow progress. It's zero progress.
x1.5 playback speed and I still dozed off. Please talk faster in your videos. Also thanks for the information.
Too long This video could be reduced to 3 minutes I guess
Man... I don't know if it's my headphones, but your constant lip-smacking makes this absolutely unwatchable.