X4 Foundations - Split Vendetta (Freelancer Like Game)

If it wasn't for Freelancer I would never have probably heard about the X series as being a little German studio they seem to go under the radar a bit. One of my mates who got me on to Freelancer in 2003 said "hey I found a game series just like it" and that was it, I was an addict lol. God knows how many hours I've put into the X series over the last 15 years.. and I'm still way behind in them due to my OCD urge to do and see everything haha! These days every man and his dog is making Freelancer like games but back in the 2000s and early 2010s there wasn't that much out there so the X series (particularly X2 and X3) was my way of dealing with Freelancer withdrawal symptoms lol. Sure they didn't have the great story and awesome planet landings Freelancer had but the ships and planets were gorgeous and the game universes huge. Being able to become a business mogul and build my own empire of stations and fleets of capital ships to whoops ass with was particularly fun and addictive for me. I've even been reading the X novels over the years to immerse myself in their universe further (although I'm gonna get stuck soon as they're not all translated to English haha).

Well anyway those who are familiar with X games will also know that pretty much every game they release is practically a friggin disaster at launch lol with endless bugs and broken or missing features. Then rather amazingly unlike most studios they then spend years releasing patches and addons to the games until after around 2 or so years the game is friggin awesome lmao! Sure enough X4 has followed that path and they recently released the first addon for X4 Split Vandetta which appears to be quite an improvement over the messy vanilla release. No doubt they'll be more coming too over the next few years. Presumably Egosoft must make their money back through addons as I don't know how those guys survive the bad first releases and somehow keep going. I think the first X game came out in 1999 so its over 20 years now haha.

Has anywhere here played X4 yet? I don't have it yet as I've been holding out of a physical collectors release (yeah I'm one of those old weirdos lol) which is probably not going to happen as they've said they can't afford it these days sadly but nevertheless I've been drooling over their videos lately to build some anticipation for the inevitable digital only purchase lol. I like how you can walk around the bridge of your capital ships while station construction looks way more advanced than previous games with you putting together all the modules yourself into whatever custom setup you want. Then of course you can walk around them and hire staff and mercs etc.

Trailer for the new Split addon looks cool...

And now they're doing a video series talking about each aspect of the game..

Trading

Fighting

Building

others not released yet..

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Yeah 100% agree with all that! The stories and characters of X1, X2 and X3 Reunion were really good. My connection to them was also why I enjoyed the books. However X3 Terran conflict onwards you just a generic player start sadly.

As for multiplayer yeah interestingly Egosoft have said in their latest videos (Part 6 below I think) that they plan to expand on this 'visit other players' thing in future patches and dlc etc. So in another year or 2 maybe we'll find out what the final incarnation will be haha.

Anyway over the last few days they've uploaded the final episodes in their series. I really enjoyed watching these.. but my god does the latest version look more complicated than ever! There's just SO MUCH you can do, customize and tinker with.

Think (Missions) - The mission management system in X3 Terran Conflict was a huge upgrade from X3 Reunion & previous games. Every time I'd play those older game sifting through endless cr*ppy news about spawnling donations and people laying eggs etc trying to find decent missions I'd find myself screaming "WHY DON'T THEY DO THINGS LIKE FREELANCER" lol and thankfully Egosoft eventually listened. The X4 version looks similar to the excellent X3TC one but just better organised and with more variety which is fine by me lol!

Explore - the exploring spooky derelicts part looked cool and reminds me of the stuff Star Citizen are toying with, except this game is actually finished haha (well sort of lol).

Strategy - this was one of my favourite things about X3 Reunion onwards (X1-2 it was much harder due to more simplistic system views).. sometimes I would park my ship for days and not go anywhere and just spend my entire playing time in the system views directing my fleets, managing resources, and building stations just like a game of Sins of a Solar Empire.

Quote from wombat1940

If you were new to the X series where would you start?

Sorry …… the beginning of course .….… but where is the best beginning to cover it all?

[I'm am a very patient player, don't mind the hard slog to cover all the detail.]

Primary category of interest: exploration, and recording my findings through System and a Universal mapping.

[In fact combat is of no interest to me at all and hopefully to be avoided.]

Thank you.

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When I was first introduced to the X series around 2007ish it was X3 Reunion.. as soon as I saw the game start in the Argon system and looked at that stunningly realistic planet and its moon, not mention the reflections of both that planet and moon on the sides of the ships and stations I fell in love and wanted to play it so bad as I don't recall any other space game looking as good in 2006-7ish.

Not the best photo as its a bit low rez and only shows a small fraction of the system.. but it gives an idea of what blew me away all those years ago

Can kinda of see the planet ship reflections in the left of this shot

But I stopped myself, I went and got my hands on X1 and X2 and played through them first before getting stuck into X3. I'm glad I did as like we said above there's a connected story through X1-3.. however that being said X1 is very old and very difficult to play, there's next to no tutorial and landing your spaceship on stations without crashing is a nightmare haha (although you get treated to these cool in-game scenes after land though). So if you want to go back then X2 may be the safer bet as it's still good looking today, good story, pretty good interface. It was a very popular game, that some feel was never equaled after. I love X2 but I think I still prefer X3 in whole as X3 was such a huge game, it looked friggin awesome, and it was the first one that gave you a player HQ. However as mentioned above its mission structure was terrible as you'd have to sift through daily news to find missions. So if you want to do missions and become a trading and station building mogul than X3 Terran Conflict is probably your better starting point as that was the game that brought in a more modern missions structure and it added sub factions to the game that you can do work for. I installed a mod into X3TC that allows me to see what every single alien race and sub faction (including pirates) thinks of me and how much they like/hate me just like we have in freelancer

Quote from SWAT_OP-R8R

combat is key part of the game and can not be avoided at all.

Not necessarily.. you're far safer in X games than you ever were in Freelancer that's for sure. In FL you could be in the most fortified system in the game and yet still some asswipe pirate would unload on you the second you leave a station lol.

I don't know about X4 or Rebirth yet but avoiding combat is actually not too hard in most X games. X1 and X2 have near constant alien raider attacks in all system making avoiding combat quite difficult however systems are big so you could usually avoid them but yeah it was usually impossible to not getting into some trouble, especially in X2. X3 Reunion and X3TC generally only have isolated conflicts in certain systems so if you want to be a harmless trader and station builder avoiding combat you can do it EASILY, in fact I found it a bit disappointing how little I was attacked in those 2 games, I feel TOO safe lol. There are pirate systems (& X3TC has war action systems) that sometimes block the way between peaceful systems but once you have a jump drive you can avoid them entirely. There's a huge galaxy of systems to explore in the X3 games so avoiding trouble is easy haha. If you want to play their main stories then obviously combat can't be avoided, but if you just want the sandbox business experience then its friggin easily to play a game without firing a single shot haha.

The entire X series is on steam (& GoG too I think) these days.. I got them all dirst cheap (like 2 bucks each i think) in a steam sale a year or so ago, they patched the old ones to work on modern machines too.

https://store.steampowered.com/franchise/x/#browse

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Quote from SWAT_OP-R8R

I dont know any X game where you were able to avoid combat or at least intense situations.

There are pirates everywhere. There are Xenon invasions. Khaak invasions... the main story of ALL the X games forced you to fly deep into Xenon territory while being constantly under fire, there Split are pretty unforgiving if you provoke them... the Paranids are not any better than the Split.

And since capturing other faction ships is the best way to build up a fleet (trade fleet first) combat is a key element of the games.

Yeah I mean outside of the main story as yes its obviously impossible to finish the main storyline in any X game without combat. However it really is easy to avoid combat in X3 Renuion & X3 Terran Conflict since if you don't want the trouble then you don't go looking for it . So if Wombat wants to play a sandbox exploring and trading game without fighting anyone he could do it just fine in them. He's talked about doing that in FL and FL is exactly the same in that its impossible to finish the story without combat missions. So if he can do it in that then he can do it in X3 games just the same.

With X3R I setup shop building stations and trading ships in the Argon systems (especially presidents end as its nice and empty thanks to the Khaak in X2 haha) and I was never attacked. I've seen threads on the egosoft forum from angry players complaining about no action and no Khaak attacks and people would reply that apparently the Khaak fleet will pick a random system and attack it and generally just sit there for the rest of the game until someone kills them. I had the same problem as I don't know what system they picked in my game but I never saw them haha. Xenon never ventured further than a system or 2 from their home systems so I never saw them either unless I visited them looking for a fight (sadly they don't random spawn attack systems in X3 like they used to in X1-2). Not one of my ships or stations got attacked.. after the constant danger in X2 I was really shocked with how I was never in danger unless I did a mission or visited an enemy home system in X3.

With X3TC same thing again.. no sign of the Khaak fleet so presumably they're off being lost in some useless system. Xenon are the same again only defending their homes. I was never in danger unless I went looking for it lol. I don't generally capture ships, I like building up a huge business empire and simply buying the cap ships I want. The one time I couldn't do that was with the Paranid Hyperion corvette which is my favourite 'player home ship' to spend most of my time in so I had to train up some marines and attack one. I made sure the Paranid loved me before hand, took it as quick as a I could, then hailed them saying it was an 'accident' just as my marines took control mwahaha. Then did some more missions for them to mak them love me again. Was like it neeeeeever happened haha. Then I dissembled it in my player HQ to get its specs so I could build more!

Quote from wombat1940

wishing to just become an SP “friend's with everybody, enemy to non” explorer and record my findings. This was achieved, with the help others, by tweeking
my CF2.0 game. This all done without the use of God mode.

Subsequently, I've visited every System, and with the help of Martind Forlon, mapped every System.

In the original FL I too used mods to have that experience. I make my shield super strong and everyone like me if I killed nomads (even the nomads liked me more if I killed them haha). Once I made everyone love me I mapped out every system exploring every little secret hehe.. I hope to explore all the systems of CF one day too. No doubt Swat and the others have crafted all sorts of gorgeous and mysterious places to be found out in the darkness.

Also I did something quite similar in X3TC.. as mentioned in a previous post there's a mod that allows you to see what all major and sub factions think of you (purely view them, it doesn't modify them) just like in FL. Using this I was able to work away via trading and station building missions to make almost every faction including the pirate factions like me haha. I started getting station building missions from pirates and building huge networks of stations for them. The more stations I'd build for them the more places where job opportunities (eg MORE station building missions haha) would crop up. Super cool to actually build pirate empires across multiple systems they usually either no or little presence in lol as I'm not sure if the egosoft intended that. By not taking on any factions shooting/war missions and only doing trading, building and other non-combat missions I was able to get everyone liking me except for the a special paranid pirate faction (apparently you have to blow up their HQ and cap ships to force them to respawn before they'll talk to you and give missions lol) and of course the Xenon and Khaak who I don't think it's possible to make them like you without cheats haha. But every single other major faction and sub faction loved me and wanted to do business with me without me having to fire a shot at anyone haha. I do like playing the stories though so naturally I switch from business player to combat player for those but no one has to do them if they don't want to haha.

X3 Albion Prelude will likely be harder as there's the big war going on but I suspect I can avoid it and build a big trade empire again haha. Then when I feel like it I'll go in all guns blazing and complete the game stories.

No idea about Rebirth and X4 though.. maybe they'll be more like X2 again where I was constantly having to run back to my stations to protect them from xenon and pirate attacks despite being in core Argon systems. I'd end up building huge fleets to patrol and protect those systems while I was away. Was a relief but also a bit disappointing when I didn't need any defenses for my stations in X3 lol. Maybe I should have built them in a hostile system to keep my heart pounding haha.

Quote from wombat1940

Been checking out other FL Mods over at Blake's Sanctum. The only SP mod appears to be FL Shadow of Fear. Sorry, don't mean to be disloyal to OP and Crossfire …… nothing will beat CF. FL Discovery looks to be Multiplay only ……..

Oh and thanks for visiting my site Wombat. Unfortunately I'm guilty of being way behind on updating it. I've posted threads gathering info on FL like games all over the FL forums (I probably drive Swat nuts as he must see all my duplication across the different forums we're both members on haha) and have been given heaps of feedback on FL like games and FL mods, some appearing to give that single player experience you and I prefer.

Here's some I've been told about and will add to my list but I haven't tried them yet..

There's FL Nomad Legacy mod which has an english translation and a single player story with NPcs etc I believe.

Freelancer: The Nomad Legacy mod - Mod DB

There's FL Genesis mod which I think is hybrid like CF in that it is single player but supports multiplayer too.

Genesis mod for Freelancer - Mod DB

There's the old FL shattered worlds mod which I think supports single player and is not just multi.

Shattered Worlds:War-torn mod for Freelancer - Mod DB

There's FL Aftermath mod but I hear thats pure multiplayer like Discovery sadly.

Freelancer: Aftermath

Maybe SWAT_OP-R8R knows of some more single player FL mods not mentioned here or on my site?

Outside of FL there's some FL like single player games coming or already out which I'm excited about however I suspect they're heavily combat focused which you may not like.

Everspace 2 has a premade galaxy instead of random generated this time thankfully.

Everspace 2

Starpoint Gemini looks cool.. I've wishlisted it to keep an eye on it haha

Starpoint Gemini 3 (New Freelancer Like Game)

I'm waiting for Rebel Galaxy Outlaw to come to steam as I cbf dealing with another game client (epic game store)

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw

Quote from wombat1940

Sorry...… what is a sandbox game ?

I'm running with X4-Foundations. I think because Steam told me I'd spent 177 hours (I think) training in the X4 environment. (I could take-off, launch, return and land for my efforts.) So I hope your X3 experiences accompany me in X4.

Thanks for the list. I'm setting up my Tablet to try them all. I'm keeping my CF2.0 version on my Notebook. Don't want anything contaminating that.

Thank for the lengthy post. Just what I needed to get my spirits up.

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No worries mate, hope it helps.

Sandbox game means "do what you want" essentially instead of being stuck in a "your have to play the game this way" linear path. But this describes it better.

Sandbox game - Wikipedia

Cool! Let know how your X4 experience goes and whether you can forge a business and trading empire with minimal violence like I did in X3 haha.

Forgot to post about this here.. we've got a new addon on the way! The Terran's are back!

I'm kind of surprised that Egosoft didn't do a Boron expansion (using fan suggestions on how to achieve their look and mobility in non-liquid environments) and then put in a bit of a cliffhanger story ending with a Terran tease, so you could then save the Terrans for a big stand alone game with a new story like they did back in the day with Terran Conflict (same engine but separate to X3 with a sexy cliffhanger to bridge the games). Reckon they would have made more money in the long run IMO even if some fans would have hated having to buy a new game again though of course haha.

Also I was drooling over this video below the other day. The 'Pilot' youtube guy did very sexy video on the Split Raptor supercarrier haha.. my god when the sun reflects off it like that... drools. And those dark red C&C NOD like interiors.. oh baby lol. Can almost see why all those crazy people bought gorgeous super expensive ships in Star Citizen lol!.. almost.

Looks like X4 Cradle of Humanity is out now. I can't run the game on my old rig so I'm drooling over all the videos appearing online instead lol. As usual it was pretty buggy on release but it sounds like most of the issues have been fixed already.

Planet terraforming looks cool:

New launch trailer:

I've always loved the soundtracks to past X games and still hum many of the songs after all these years lol.. the new one sounds amazing:

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Quote from Blake00

I'm kind of surprised that Egosoft didn't do a Boron expansion (using fan suggestions on how to achieve their look and mobility in non-liquid environments)

Quoting myself here lol as they finally done it! Egosoft are creating another addon pack for X4 and are bringing back the water based Borons! I've been asking for this for years and years! Every time people would say it's impossible I'd pitch my 'stations with separate water areas and Boron encounter suits for the normal dry areas' idea and how it could work in the X4 engine. So to now see that they've actually done that and made it a reality makes me so happy, as this is pretty much what I pictured in my mind years ago. And I loved the extra touch of redoing the good old Kingdom End music too.