u/cmndr_spanky

I saw early access officially launched just a few months ago. I’m seeing almost no chatter about it when I search Reddit, and because of the name of the game searching does not really come up with useful results on YouTube..

Based on official content from the developer, I can see mostly it’s about physics, but I’m having a lot of trouble determining if the gameplay is entertaining yet.

I’m a migrant from star citizen so I’m looking for a decent SIM like cockpit experience and not afraid to learn Newtonian maneuvers.

I’m also particularly interested in hearing anecdotes on how well it supports HOTAS set ups and track IR. Are the cockpits realistic at all? Or is it only third person view Eve online style?

Either there truly is zero YouTube content about the game or the search keywords are just a complete dead end for marketing purposes I can’t tell

I've seen mods that both rebalance and tweak visuals of weapon effects, but not just the visuals and sounds, and nothing more.

Basically I find the weapons, turrets on big ships in particular.. the sounds, all of it to be completely anemic in this game. M beam turrets form my capital ship look like pencil lines, barely make sound. Bolts, neutron gatlings, flak, blast mortars.. .the visual effects and sounds all suck IMO compared to other space games.

Anyone have a highly recommended mod that fixes that? not even sure how possible it is to improve that stuff with a mod, so feel free to tell me that doesn't work.

Beams should fucking glow. Should make a sound that's more than a gentle hum. gatlings should sound like like the apocalypse is raining down.. not the limp muffled sound in x4.

Flak and blast mortars should sound and look way more devestating.. I realize this is partly because when flying a big ship in 3rd person mode, your camera is kind of far away from the ship relative to its size which makes the sound weaker.. but I don't care about the why, i just want the experience.

Edit: almost forgot missiles ! Also feel very unsatisfying to use. Shooting a light missile feels like I traced a thin line to an enemy with barely a visible collision or missile eruption… wtf ?

ok you get the idea :)

This is a v1, but testing shows it works well and can be installed and uninstalled on a save without issue if you follow the steps.

This wasn't a particularly complicated mod to make, but I wanted a light "eve online" style mission system. basically dock at a warf or shipyard, there's a new mission menu, it spawns enemy xenon fleets in the same system as that station, the rest is kind of obvious :)

Enjoy and LMK what you think.

https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/2326

(depending on my own time, I might add future eve-like mods as a suite. I'm thinking better cargo contracts than the base-game ones, triggered gate-camps in "low-sec" sectors of x4.. I've got a whole bunch of ideas).

I’ve been reintroducing myself to 9.0 since over a year away. Mostly piloting ships manually and like others have noticed the boson lance is a fantastic turret weapon on M-sized ships. Has great Burst damage and range and accuracy. However, as main guns I’m finding them TERRIBLE.. I tend to play with the game setting “auto-aim” assistance on and unlike other mains, the boson lance don’t snap to enemies at all. I typically circle strafe enemies in an S ship with flight assist off trying to grind them down to bail or destroy. The boson lance accuracy seems overly tricky and of course if you miss 2 shots the cooldown / reload takes forever. Meanwhile if I fit beams, gatlings, pulse .. those work as main guns without issue.

Anyone else finding something similar ? Or is this just a get gud scenario ?

In pre-9.0 x4 I remember trying every weapon I could find on my player-flown ships and I remember being disappointed that in terms of accuracy and prolonged damage output, nothing really works other than the boring old pulse laser mk2.

The only exception is that gun that specifically damages surface elements / turrets against large ships, but 9.0 nerfed that severely.

I'm seeing a lot of popular mods that not only change what the ships looks like, but are also changing the balance and weapons and stats:

VRO

Reemergance (I think?)

SWI

Even found a nifty Eve online one (its called factions I think, but its no longer maintaned).

They all have one thing in common, they also change balance, stats and are doing a lot more than skinning the ships.

To be honest I just want to reacquaint with how the game balance feels and re-learn stuff as part of 9.0, and I'm also concerned about compatibility issues of these mods with 9.0 (at least from a balance perspective).

I know its subjective, and I do love x4, but I think most of the ships look like crap. The only exception might be the split ships which all look kind of great to me. The rest all look cartoony or bad or cheap to me (there are exceptions here and there of course).

Are there any "eve online" or SWI like conversion mods that JUST touch the aesthetics of all the ships and NOTHING ELSE? Like I'm still ok if a ship is called "syn" or "katana".. I just want them to look better :)

Sorry I know this sounds harsh and negative, but I'm coming from other games where the graphics and space ships just look way WAY better.

It got some hype at launch but not sure it looks like a fun game playing long term (only focus being factory production)? Does the game hold entertainment value as a perpetually playable space sandbox ?

And if not, have the devs confirmed if that's coming soon? Or just not on their radar at all ?

I would like a game with:

* The fleet management and manufacturing economies of X4 / real-time NPC trading and a universe that just runs itself sorta-speak. With lots of NPC ships with their roles doing their business everywhere.

* A proper galaxy map and star system maps to explore like Elite Dangerous (doesn't need to model the actual entire Milky Way though.. That'd be nuts)... As a counterpoint I find the "revealing fog of war of hexagons map" gameplay of X4 to be terrible, not at all exploration gameplay, not at all feeling like I'm in actual outer space with planets and stars.

* Actual Elite Dangerous-like exploration gameplay with scanning, sellable data, probing, rare materials / artifacts to sell ( don't need to have landable planets though, I'm ok going to orbit and probing / scanning etc), and anomaly scanning and visit out in space between planets / moons.

* Some of the "small fleet / survival" mechanisms / limitations of Starminer (I think it's actually more fun to forced into managing small fleets and a few mega-ships, rather than 1,000s of ships requiring so much automation, you're no longer really playing a game and just staring at a map of things only.

* 3rd person manual ship control (in addition to point-click command fleet management), that offers optional newtonian physics mode for people who like to turn n' burn "The Expanse" style... turrets / weapons can be automated... Not sure how worth-it actual aiming is. Starminer's ship control scheme and combat is fantastic IMO.

* Ship customization / modules (again hugely inspired by my love of Starminer here).

K thanks.

Love, space gamer.

In case you need a sense of what I like… over the last many years, I’ve put many hours into elite dangerous, x3, x4, star citizen. And casually played no man’s sky, Starfield. Stellaris. In my ancient past, I even played Eve online many years ago until I burned out on that in a bad way…

TLDR: starminer as a sandbox game is already fun and rewarding in early access, and has the potential to be a masterpiece with some more dev investment. And I really hope they get the opportunity.!

I think what most sandbox style games get wrong is not making progression and effort feel rewarding.. it’s hard to have the right pace of activity without being a grind emotionally or without the feeling of progression being meaningless.

Somehow starminer has figured out a formula for this that works, at least for me. Right at the edge of feeling engaging, but not frustrating past my breaking point.. it’s difficult in a way that feels fair.

For example, the decision to have players control ships in a Newtonian physics environment, and only control one at a time. Yes, it slows down the game, but I also feel like I am genuinely honing a new skill. The time I’m putting in isn’t just increasing a synthetic number or XP points or dollar value tied to my character, I’m getting better at flying my ships, I’m nudged to enjoy my environment and the “vibe” of being a deep space miner, not staring at a map 99% barking orders at fleets of ships and toggling to spreadsheets for resource management. The game keeps me “present”.

Related the game decision that I can only fly one ship at a time: this forces you to think logistically about how you build your ship and how you choose to specialize ship roles based on the modules you install on them. Want a giant mega-ship that can do everything? You can build that, but it will be very slow and therefore slow your revenue. Want to create lightweight mining and combat ships and use a dedicated hauling ship to sell and or refine metals ? You can do that, and progress revenue faster, but you’ll have more logistical challenges when you want to jump to other sectors. You can dock ships inside a big hangar ship to jump, but they can’t be over a certain size. Which I guess discourages building up too quickly.

If you start with the campaign rather than sandbox, it’s a nice launchpad to get you going without too much suffering… there’s tons of salvage and mining and ways to quickly get your mini empire up and running and feels fun and not punishing.

Want to test yourself in tougher starting conditions ? It has those options too.

Visually the game looks fantastic, lighting in particular is fantastic and presents better than most indie space games I’ve tried. Almost AAA in visuals to my eyes.

The learning curve isn’t what I expected. There are a few tricks and rules and systems you just need to be told about and definitely must do the long tutorial. But once you get through it, it feels pretty straightforward. The core challenge is just learning how to balance energy / heat / resources, and not crashing while learning to fly ships. The rest is really about your own taste… expand fast/slow.. build an army of ships or take your time with a do-it-all ship, it’s up to you. The game encourages imagination and experimentation and I love that.

There is combat and it is fun, but if you’re expecting a space themed action game, look elsewhere. This is more methodical and reminds me a bit of how combat looks in the expanse TV series. Burn your thrusters a bit and do a pass-by and your laser or ammo turrets will auto track and fire on enemies if they are within range. It’s actually pretty cool to behold and although shooting isn’t manually or aim based, just using the Newtonian physics movement system makes it feel fun and challenging as you plan your maneuver.

I’m still earlier in the campaign so I’m not yet experiencing the “end game” but I’m pretty confident it will last a long time before I get bored or feel there’s no challenge. I’ll probably just keep playing as a sandbox once the campaign missions dry up.

I do wish it had a slightly cooler map / star system, and had some kind of “jump” animation. I’m not yet clear on if there’s a real economy. Do prices change based on demand or based on where you are in the system / which system.

EDIT: one thing I don’t have a feel for yet is the feeling of “discovery and exploration” in this game and does the universe randomly configure itself in places or is it all hand curated (the starting sector is obviously).

If anyone has experience with the “end game” and how perpetual play works I’d be curious to hear.

A few days ago I posted this about how I thought the voice model was terrible at doing web searches and answering questions with any recent web accessible info. I got the usual useless quips from people, but one user pointed out the "Standard" voice model was actually much better than the "Advanced" one ( a setting in the iOS app that was easy to find).

He was right, and the difference is so enormous I thought it was worth posting here for others to be aware of.

In the usual "advanced" mode the voice agent was completely unwilling to do any recent web searches to provide up-to-date info on a topic, gaslighting me there was nothing to find, despite me 100% knowing there was more info.

In "standard" mode, the voice model was magnitudes better. It was doing full searches under-the-hood and getting very recent info online to answer my questions when I asked it to. It also gave much more detailed responses, very comprehensive.

Despite the quality of the voice audio itself being a bit "dry", I'm never going back. The standard voice model is the only one worth using as far as I'm concerned unless your main use case for the app is just casual banter (which is almost never why I use it personally).

I currently have a Source Audio Ventris, which sounds fantastic. In particular I also love that I can have a plain old spring sound, a more out there plate or hall, or something crazy.

However, I rarely tinker with it, I hate anything that requires using software, I hate presets, I hate hidden functions, I hate knobs that are dual functions (meaning for a given knob there's its setting and its alt-setting).

I'd love just a pedal that toggles between Spring, Plate, and cathedral (or whateveR).. with basic knobs for all things just there, no secondary functions, no presents, the knobs are what they are. But also, would be nice of the pedal can be good mono or stereo. Would be nice if it still had a decent processor and "high-bit" studio audio quality, and more or less sound as good as my Source Audio Ventris (obviously without ALL of the reverbs it can do, and doesn't have to be a "dual reverb" engine.

The Empress everyone seems to love comes close, but it still presets, and vague knobs like "thing 1" and "thing 2", and a little out of my price range. Mercury X still has dual function knobs and a LED menu that completely turns me off.

Only thing I can find is Strymon blueSky V2 , which seems to be the BigSky little brother, with no menus and just simple toggles and knobs that do exactly what they say. No clue how good it sounds though. And happy to go cheaper if I can get the sound quality I'm looking for, if that pedal even exists.

there's the UAFX Golden Reverberator, but I'm weary of the mystery A/B/C toggle, it STILL seems oriented to using software to configure it, and has a preset thing... I dunno maybe that doesn't get in your way if you just ignore it? But also I had a UAFX delay pedal once and I just found it hard to get to sound great and returned it (Starlight echo-rec thing.. maybe I was after a "tape" sound instead I dunno).

thanks in advance :)

9/10 posts on this subreddit is a hapless bot post.. attempting to game Reddit SEO to push another bullshit agent solution and mystery GitHub repo nobody needs.

Are the mods asleep ?