X4: Foundations Reviews

My goal buying and playing X4 Foundations and all DLC (yup) years after release was to experience a polished space sim. It delivers on an enjoyable exploration experience, with the most interesting faction being the Boron imo. The space combat at the S/M ship level is also very satisfying and fairly balanced, but fast-paced action stops there. Fleet dynamics for larger ships are well-implemented, but do not measure up to my point of comparison, Starsector. The crux of the game remains its industry / economy simulation which will be the backbone of your empire and fleets. I didn't get all the way there, as the game successfully bored me before I could get to enjoy its main selling point fully, for the following reasons: - NPCs are bland and inaesthetic - they will all greet you with the same death stare and monotone AI-generated voice. - Ships are varied and carry great faction identity, but again are not pleasant to look at save for Terran and Boron. - Weapons and systems variety is a letdown. They are few, sport generic names, and are functionally similar. - Of the few weapons available, Missiles, Plasma and Flak dominate unequivocally, and seeking variety seems a suboptimal move in a game that simulates battles on a numbers contest. - Performance starts to tank as the game progresses and more active elements populate the map, to the point I could foresee Stellaris levels of game stalling if I continued into the lategame, which I have borne enough of for a lifetime already. X4 might resonate with your inner spreadsheet enthusiast, but it wasn't the space sim I was looking for. --- I am also aware that mods exist, and tried them out. They successfully throw balance through the window and the game remains similarly boring and unsightly, just with more variety populating the expanse. A handful of modded ships like the ATF Freyr are very aesthetically and functionally pleasing however.

Its a fun game to a extent but it feels strangely empty. It feels like there is so much to do but too little at the same time, hard to explain but once you play it you will understand what I mean. Very complicated to learn. I would like to see somethings such as planets to go to and some more diplomacy stuff such at nations and all that (might be in this game already I havent played much). Between this, No Mans Sky, and Starsector I would rather play Starsector than this to itch my space sim needs.

still runs like crap and the flight model makes anything bigger than scout fighter feel like fly a 1000 ton bar of soap. its fair enough to update the flight model but it seems that none of the environments or controls have been updated to take into account the new model. for example the already terrible auto pilot is now now completely unusable as it just crashes into everything and travel drive speed instead of just regular speed.

This game wasn't good, and now, many years and many updates later, it is.

at this point ive hit the 300hours mark. i have every expension and plan to buy the next ones that will come. The game is so deep that after 300 hours you will still learn new stuff and or figure new things out. better or efficient ways to run your stations. ways to impact the econemy . Best to descibe this game to someone who never played. Eve online/elite dangerous, single player mixed with GTA that evolves to stellaris during your playtime. Dogfights, station managment builder, galaxy sim. econemy tycoon. for devs. we want ventures back! not as beta but as part of the game. make it a new dlc. so you make some money. autopilot can use some love For endgame when you have an empire. there should be a better option to make peace with another faction. or atleast a cease fire

This game offers everything I haven't found so far in a space game, the ability to enter and take command of multiple types of ships, actually enter stations and other areas, as well as build your own facilities, while interacting with other life forms. Most space games I have played have either been primarily human focused with the belligerent or invading alien race that you have no contact with other than fighting. This game is truly one of a kind, a shame I haven't found it sooner.

Start out in a teensy ship, struggling against other teensy ships that want to steal your lunch. Keep winning, buy bigger ships, buy friendly ships, buy good investments. Eventually control a multi-star system empire, helping or crushing empires at will. Then go fly that teensy starter ship through your grand economic machine, just for the hell of it. #goodfeels

Bad UI which is the main cause of the steep learning curve of this game. If you can look past that (Youtube videos are your friend), there's a pretty good game for hours and hours of fun and entertainment. Enjoy!

Just want to say a quick shout out to the devs for seemingly achieving the impossible and maintaining a fantastic native Linux version of X4. It's been running great for me for years, all major functions of the game seem to work well; cloud saves are saving, graphics are beautiful (High Settings, Native FSR3, 75-90 FPS), game is stable over hours-long play sessions. I'm running the game on CachyOS (Arch) Plasma Wayland AMD Ryzen 5 7600X AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT 32GB RAM Thanks for all your efforts Egosoft, I love this game :)

Overall, I like that game and what it tries to do. But there are some major issues that ruin the experience more and more as I progress into late game. 1)NPC piracy is horrendous, "I was asked to drop my cargo" If you have a substantial fleet of traders, you will be hearing it a lot. No matter how aggressively you destroy pirates there is always more. It is ridiculous, no matter what you do right now, fighting huge fleet to save galaxy from Xenon, doing quest in order to stop civil war, building station to trade or want to just explore space in peace, you will get this idiotic message: "I was asked to drop my cargo" again and again and again and again. What is worse it's all fake, pirates are appearing out of thin air, and you cannot prevent attacks by destroying their station or through deterrents like well-equipped traders or increased patrols. And [b]your traders are actually actively trying to get killed! [/b] Their default response is to stop and then flee, which is what actually making them vulnerable for attack, if they would just ignore it, pirates would never catch them. But Egosoft didn't give us option to just ignore pirate demands, because pirates are too stupid and that would basically remove npc piracy from a game. And as cherry on top, if you drop your cargo pirates don't even try to pick it up, so everything about that mechanic is fake. 2)Station sieges take a ridiculous amount of time, even when you're using 10+ destroyers. I understand that factions need some time to react to an attack, but still, it's insane how long it takes. And what's worse every now and then your destroyers just randomly charge into melee range and get obliterated in seconds, despite having [b]4-5 KILOMETERS[/b] range advantage, why?! Why 7 years after release ships cannot hold distance to a STATIC object. 3)The new flight model in 7.5 has ruined S-class ships for me, they are completely uncontrollable. Maybe the old model was unrealistic, but it felt good. The ship was responsive and handled nicely. Now small ships tend to drift all the time. Also there are some minor stuff that is just weird, why it works like that 7 years after release: Why there is no stats on weapon/equipment icons in the wharf/shipyard? Why you need to open encyclopedia to see something as basic as range or damage. Why you can only compare 3 ships at a time, if there is space for more ships to be compared? When you target subsystems on L-class, after you destroy them, your target frequently jumps to something random on the other side of the ship, which completely disrupts your attack, it would be so much better if it select only elements that are visible to you right now. Why there is no command to mine in the whole sector? Only to mine at specific position in the sector. There is new button in 7.5 to move everything in your inventory to and from storage, which is great in theory, but why it also moves SETA, EMP bombs, launcher, blaster, repair laser etc to storage?! it doesn't make any sence, why would you want to lose all your equipment every time you want quickly drop illigal stuff...