X4: Foundations

Im really trying to like it but the lack of intuitive UI or explanations on where to go for certain things I really making it hard to want to keep playing.

So, this game is one of the classics - alongside Kenshi, Rimworld, and others which afford limitless player agency and is rife with jank. You learn to accept the jank - such as the utter impenetrability of the gameplay to the bizarre interface choices, to the bugs - in order to get to the meat of the game of which there is truly nothing else on the market that does everything it tries to do and often succeeds. Like many people will tell you - it's a very hard game to get into. The 'cut your teeth' content in the timelines DLC is actually worse than nothing, but is almost required due to the rewards. The tutorials are awkward, but absolutely required yet none of it really prepares you. I'll tell you though that the end result when you're really in it - is singular. My longest running game I was operating as a mercenary and had a military force of ships that could warp into a sector and unload 4 full wings of 4 squadrons each of fighters and a battlecruiser with 12 beam turrets. We were fighting the good fight against the X and the K. I promise, it gets worth it and I promise it will be chewing chalk until it is.

make sure t watch youtube to get a better grip on the game. once yu know what is going on there is so much you can do

Good Game, but the on-boarding could be a lot smother

This is a certified X series game, for sure. It hits all the right buttons in my brain unlike X Rebirth, which felt more arcadey than simulator. Interestingly, a lot of things from Rebirth were brought over, but they still feel pretty fresh overall, like the highway system which has been revamped a lot. It has the overwhelming sense of scale that X3 had, the economy functions pretty much exactly as expected, and it doesn't take too long to start snowballing. Third person is actually fun to play in, too, but I love that you can get up from your ship's chair any time and just walk around. The interior of stations are way, way cooler too. One thing I kind of struggle with is some of the ships the new factions have (though some are winners; I love the paranid ships). They just don't really sit right with me in terms of the aesthetic. For example, I never liked how Rebirth changed Teladi ships into these weird half sphere things which look all wonky in comparison to their typically very utilitarian design philosophy which demands as much space as possible. In the case of X4, they made the originally scary, imposing, asymmetrical looking Phoenix into a gigantic dome with engines in the rear, nothing like the original M2 which actually looked like a warship. Similarly, the Albatross is now just a couple of tubes with a platform in the middle, not this menacing, overwhelmingly supersized transport which looks like it could single handedly haul the moon all by itself after trading out a station of all of it's commodities in one go. Overall, I think they did the Teladi a great disservice in their new design philosophy and it detracts from the sheer scale the game presents. So, I'll be honest, I was scared when the reviews started talking about the menus, but, well, it really isn't much worse than X3. There's really more like two main menus, one you can get to in the map menu and one you can get to using the enter key. It's inconvenient but not exactly impossible, especially if you've played X3. I find the orders menu(s) to be a bit more confusing, though. You can direct ships from the map using just your mouse, but there's these other menus for stuff like default behavior, and the two aren't the same, some orders you can simply never give on the map interface itself. So, how does this really compare to X3? Not bad, not too bad at all. It's technically a smaller game in terms of total sectors, but it takes place over much vaster distances. The universe actually feels alive and the game will most definitely advance with or without your "assistance". The 100% native station design system is super cool, too. I only wish you could do the same thing to ships, and mix and match ship modules. And you, person who's never ever played an X game? You *could* go and play X3 Terran Conflict first, if you wanted to, but X4 provides the same overall experience, it just looks and feels better and is streamlined much more. Unfortunately, it's also more expensive, and requires DLC to get a lot of the featured factions already present in the standalone games like X3:TC. So it depends.

you need a phd to play this janky ahh game

great game, very deep and complex, amazinng music and amazing community if you get stuck/lost