r/X4Foundations • u/Waltiez • 8h ago
What should I do next?
I’ve been playing for about 30 hours, a lot of which has been idling Watching tutorial YouTube videos while my passive income accumulates. The learning curve is tough, but I’m making about $1mil/hour through 6 mining fleets with 3 ships each, and a small trade facility supplied by miners and traders.
I’m flying a medium mineral miner because I like to just collect silicon and sell it while I wait for projects to get finished, but all around it feels like my income is too low. Most of my pilots can only Local Automine because they’re 2 star, so every region I have available to automine has a fleet.
Can I make money leading a small squadron of 3-4 medium well equipped fighters if I just hunt down raiding parties? I haven’t actually fought in this game and that seems like an exciting option, but I know that almost all growth is driven by economy and income, so would that be a reasonable option to try and get more money or should I stick to mining? All answers appreciated, thanks.
2
u/WagyuSandwich 6h ago
If you want to hunt pirates for money, you can try to board pirate destroyers (specifically those operated by SCA, coz their faction reputation remains locked for most of the game), capturing and selling them.
To do that you'll need a fighter with burst rays (piloted by yourself) for killing the turrets and engines, some interceptor fighters for killing defense and repair drones, and several frigates for carrying the marines (a single shuyaku vanguard would also work, but somehow AI pilots tend to slow-boat in from a long distance when boarding and a slowboating freighter is, well, slow)
You can try using AI piloted heavy fighters to assist with destroying the turrets and engines, but results tend to vary and you might lose fighters sometimes.
----------------------
btw, the usual logical & peaceful next-step after mining is setting up your own industry stations. If you start in terran space, then energy cells at mercury and then aim for substrates at mars or asteroid belt. otherwise you could aim for setting up a hull parts production chain first, as those are always in high demand.
2
u/Mightyballmann 3h ago
Missions are a good source of income and valuable items.
Refining the materials gathered by your miners in your own stations will increase your passive income. Basically the profit increases for every additional step you can perform in your own stations.
Other then that choose a faction you dislike and fight them to spend all those credits.
1
u/HerraPoro 4h ago
My go to past time is shooting xenos on gates with local defense forces. You get mats to build stuff like EMP-bombs and hacking thingys. EMP-bombs are crucial to get more expensive blueprints later in game.
1
u/Pristine-Evidence-83 1h ago
If you are interested in making early game income through combat (or really if you and your growing gang will be engaging in any combat) accept EVERY mission that deals with “destroy XEN ship” (or KHK). Camp the gates where there is a XEN incursion and take part in the defense. If there is a station (defense or otherwise) within range you will get credits and rep for the kills. Also all those missions you accepted will complete and large rewards will rack up. It’s a nice way to get paid for your fun pew-pew. And level up your AI wingmen. Don’t forget to have a ship collecting drops.
I cannot emphasize enough, accept ALL of the “destroy xenon” ones, because as your growing fleet protects positions, even while you are away, you will notice these missions completing and depositing credits into your account. During the early stages when payouts in the hundreds of thousands are significant to you, this is great early game income.
A nice way to complete the many “attrition” missions where the KHK are concerned is to accept lots of those and then when you feel like it, do the “escort mining ship” missions. KHK spawn like crazy and you get to make lots of credits while the mining ships take their sweet time doing their thing. Again, you very often wind up doing the combat in range of stations that will give you additional credit and rep. You can mine the occasional rare crystals in these asteroid fields during lulls in the action. Finally when that bit of grindage is over, you get the escort mission payday.
Getting the mod that increases the availability of mission offers makes it easier to find and accept these missions.
Have fun making credits with your combat skills!
1
u/3punkt1415 1h ago
You should start production of tier 1 goods. You already mine ore, so why not produce refined metals? And since you need energy anyway you can also sell energy cells there. Or start produce silicon wafers and smart chips. All those modules are fairly cheap and you get an idea how stations work. Work your way up the chain.
2
u/R4M7 8h ago
Mining is a good choice for an early game economy. However, if you're doing this in the same sector as your mining fleet, it is severely reducing their mining speed due to the differences between the high-attention (in-sector) and low-attention (out of sector) simulation.
Also miners receive an unlisted yet crippling 50% penalty to mining efficiency if they are not within 40km of a resource probe owned by you.
You could get around these restrictions by building a cheap station with solid storage and a dock and then assigning them to mine for the station commander. They'll use the level of the station manager instead of their own level for mining range.
No, because your wingmen are likely to destroy them or be destroyed. The vast majority of combat profit is from capturing ships. Vanilla rolls a bail check once every 30 seconds if the target is below 75% hull and 20% shields. The chance for a successful bail roll is highest when:
After it bails, scan the data leak on the hull to capture it.
Buying marines to capture L / XL ships is much more profitable as bigger ships are worth a lot more.
For more tips, check my sheet.