X4: Foundations

Просто будуй.

Really cool. Surprised nobody's done this before in a video game

With now 800 hours in this game I feel like I should say something about it. In the time I've played this game, I've gone through about 4 actual attempts. First unmodded, which was a great idea for the first playthrough. I went though a few of the tuorials and they explained things decently enough, for me at least. I've seen people saying the tutorials are ass and don't help at all, but I can't say the same. Before I actually dive into the saves and my experience with them, I wanna say something that everyone should DEFINITLY KNOW before going into this game. I say it to everyone who asks me about this game. If you listen to anything in this mess of a review, it should be this. --- This is a game CENTERED around combat. This is not Eve Online. This is not Elite Dangerous. This is not a game that you should expect to give you whatever style of play you want. If you come in wanting to make a trade network that has no affiliation with anyone, you will come away disapointed. If you come in wanting to play a single little ship that fights/trades/explores the galaxy, you will come away bored AND disappointed. You will get the most degree of fun out of this game if you play it as an Empire builder. Pick a faction or factions to support and do small jobs mine clearing/transporting folks/trading -> buy haulers to do the trading for you and bigger ships to help you fight-> use said ships to fight/trade and build rep with the faction or factions you chose-> build a station to sell goods the local economy needs -> Use the funds to build MORE stations and MORE ships -> Use THOSE funds and the resouces from THOSE stations to build your own fleets of haulers and capital ships -> Kill everything not allied to you or the faction/s you support and win the game. THIS IS YOUR ONE AND ONLY WARNING that this is how x4 is built to be played. I love this system. I've waited all my life for a game using this system to exist. This is why this is a positive review In spite of my complaints. If you want this to be anything else, you're gonna have to look elsewhere man. The only other thing that seriously matters is the fact that the whole cycle takes a lot of time. I mean a TON of time. My first playthrough was something like 350 hours and I didn't even finish everything. It's entirly in the realm of posibility that my playthrough would only be considered DONE after something like 500 hours. This is the Rimworld of space games. There's a huge reason the cheat mod is one of the highest upvoted mods in the workshop. Don't be ashamed to start a sandbox universe to give yourself some starting dosh and a handfull of stations if you want that end game chaos out the gate. --- I got quite far with my first save. I had this game wishlisted for about 3 years and finally got it and the DLCs for crazy cheap, so I had all of them when I started. I fell in love with the Boron and their ships, and completed their story in its totality. I'd recommend it, given they just hand you a huge capital ship at the end of it. I almost finished the whole holy war quest in the south of the galaxy. (By the time I actually got to it the one side was nearly entirly wiped out, so it wasn't much of a decision in who I should support lol). I almost finished the Split Vendetta storyline. My favorite faction by far in terms of asthetics and ships. Also the strongest fighters. Who knew that in a game full of future space lazers, the best weapon would just be a minigun. I barely messed with the Teladi cause, tbh, just didn't like their ships. I appriciate the effort to make a unique-feeling sci-fi faction, but come on guys... their biggest hauler - the best in the game in terms of cargo space - was the easiest thing to board. Now because the boarding mechanic is so broken and doesn't even loose you any standing with the faction if you don't damage the ship, you could take a small ship with a few marines, hide real close under the guns of the hauler, and board it with no issue whatsoever. Amassing a gargantuan fleet that could pull in a stupid amount of money from trading really early on. The Argon federation and Antigone Republic... exist, and I'll be totally honest chief I hardly remember any of it. The good guys if this universe has those and they have a gate directly to a Xenon sector to provide a place to get consistent fights early on. Farmed that gate for a long while, but otherwise I didn't really think much of em. Liked the big capital ships though. Touched on the Terran republic, but because they hate everyone I couldn't do much. Loved their ship designs though, enough to attempt a playthrough with them after my first one. Tried to do the Tides of Avarice, but my poor laptop damn near melted through my dest. Seemed interesting enough though, might go back there now that I have an actual gaming PC. My first playthrough was great, but after I discovered the extent of mods for this game, I went on to another save. (It was something I toyed with for a WHILE. I was hesitant to give up on the save given I was about 300 hours into that one game at that point, but it became easier after I tried ToA. The universe was also pretty stalemated at that stage, and I learned that the only thing I really had left was to up my income by about 400% to get into the late game. Not a fun idea without mods, I decided.) Theeeeen I saw the Star Wars total conversion mod, and that has now consumed my life lol. However, notice with a few of those I NEARLY finshed. See, x4 does this fun thing where at the end of your campaign, you're given a really fun task to help the faction you helped win. What is this really fun task you ask? Well simply supply the faction with 40 ships! :D ...oh you thought there was more to it? Nah f**k you buddy, give us 40 ships. If there was an end game mission to waste your time more, I have yet to see it. This is clearly meant the stage of the game where you're supposed to have stations making every type of material and your own XL Warf so the cost is basically peanuts, but the thing is, to even BE at that stage, you need an income of at least 100 million an hour. You heard me right, 100,000,000 an HOUR. And this ain't no cute cozy incrimental game ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I told you at the top of this you'd be playing for 500 hours. When I ended my first playthrough at 350-ish hours, I was making maybe 10,000,000. I did not know I would need oh so much more to be where the game wanted me for those missions. I've been having a lot of fun with this game. It's never felt too much and I love it to bits, but man... that main story needs work. Not only is it pretty forgetable save for the unique missions, but also the ends of some of em with those insane requests are just utter BS. Last point of contention I'll raise is the performance in battles and populated sectors. It is... dear god, painful. In a game, as I said, BUILT around combat, holy mother of framerate does it tank sometimes. Small engagments are buttery smooth, but as soon as you see things touching 60 in total, it starts chugging. It's the same story for populated sectors. If you're somewhere with more than 10 stations, you're gonna just have to put up with below 30fps. Rendering 100 ships doing trades outside the player's focus is one thing, but actually showing you how they all land and take off? Yeah the game don't like that so much. TL;DR, this game isn't a "do everything you want" type game. Don't come in thinking this is Stelaris but wow I fly the ships ooo aaah, it has an intended playstyle and you aren't gonna have a lot of fun unless you like it. It takes eons to actually play though and it has its problems with performance, but it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥ fun and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ beautiful. Play it if you want to build an Empire and crush your foes under the weight of ships you built yourself.

This game is so hard to get into. The controls are absolutely unhinged. Literally just put an interaction key, why do I have to go into menu's to get back into my ship? I should just be able to press E when I'm near it. Why do I have to remember 40 hotkeys to do the most basic actions... The concepts here seem really cool but actually wtf is the UI/UX.

Episch.

I really tried to like this but the awful control scheme completely turned me off to an otherwise interesting game. I genuinely can't understand how a game in development for this long can have UI and controls this bad.

Un juegazo

je to bomba hra na dlouhé chvíle

Played this for a while, took a break, then tried to get back into it. Played nearly 110 hours because I'm stubborn and was determined to at least understand this game. Or at least understand why some people enjoy it so much. I failed. A confusing, opaque mess. This is not a game for me.

буквально состоит из багов, косяков и недоделок, но как же затягивает....