Ep8 Making money the fast way : X4 Foundations

Our money making plans have quickly come together and we are now churning out ships for the AI. We will have to be careful about who we sell to, don't want to have two of our customer getting in a shooting match as they exit the wharf.
Included DLC
Split Vendetta
Cradle of Humanity
Tides of Avarice
Kingdoms end
Credits Song
Rise of the protectorate by Alexei Zakharov
Save file :
/ francisjohn
Discord server : / discord
X4: Foundations is a huge space sandbox simulator that lives and breathes within your gaming system. Thousands of ships and stations trade, mine and produce, all realistically simulated. In this universe, you can grow from being the lone pilot of a fighter ship, to managing a vast empire, commanding your fleets and designing colossal space stations. Transition seamlessly from first-person action, boarding ships and visiting their bridges, to an expansive strategy and management simulation. Choose your own path at your own pace. The decisions are yours. Trade - Fight - Build - Think.

[@HansWurst-gl8it]

Get the blueprints for two factions that are hostile to each other and sell ships to both of them. Automate one ship to collect boxes around your wharf.

[@chaosstripe9446]

Hello, yes, I believe Satan will send you your idea of the month certificate shortly.

[@derAtze]

Francis kinda has to do this. This is exactly his ways of dealing with... things 😁

[@rickjamesbitch7632]

Haha I've done something like that and not necessarily on purpose 😆

[@christophemalgouyres]

Upgrading multiple ships at once is possible, just made 3 low and 3 medium preset courriers to check: - select them all in the property list; - right click on your favorite wharf to upgrade/repair; - at the top of the screen, click on the ship's name (between size and presets); - select the 6 x Courrier entry in the list; - select your favorite preset; - launch the upgrade; - enjoy your whisky while waiting for the job to be done!

[@alexvsergeev]

You can upgrade ships in bulk. Select a group, order an upgrade, and in the upgrade menu click on the ship name. It’ll let you choose other ships from the group to modify. Also, if there are ships of the same model, you can upgrade them all at once.

[@galsherp6173]

thanks!

[@MultiChillMusic]

This was a "flaw"/exploit in X2 that if you bought 10 ships, but the equipment doc had only one of the weapon you needed, you could "batch buy" said 10 ships and then get that "1" weapon for all the ships bought. Don't know if that's the same in this game.

[@salemprompthous3820]

Closed Loop works nicely when focusing on destroying ships (like the defense stations at the jump gates). Just need Tugs, and scrapyard/recyclers. Can make base components, like hull parts, from just scrap and energy

[@Magnum.Bloodstone]

X4 Tip: I give my stations a short code at the beginning of their name, like [FS01] and [FS02], then any ships assigned to that station, I append [FS01] or whatever to the end of their name. That way, when a ship inevitable gets destroyed, I easily know which station needs the replacement. My HQ doesn't use [ and ] so it's at the top of the list, and [PD01] Portal Defence stations are late in the alphabet so they are at the end of the list.

[@playa124us]

oooh standard naming conventions, you must work in IT.

[@Smo1k]

@@playa124us ...or chemistry 🙂

[@johanlarsson9805]

you mean there is still no way to automate this? Like the manager having a list of which ships he is supposed to have and then simply having him replace the lost ships? too bad

[@geekey265]

So, I's are typically escorted by a maximum of 2 Ks. Anything else is a separate battle group. Additionally, an I group will typically defend a shipyard/Wharf sector. The Xenon by default can only allot a single I Group for invasion & Raiding efforts which is built and sent out separate from that shipyard defense group. Slight Spoiler, You will need an XL Fab or MBay to bring the Erlking online

[@hquest]

Anxiety is: being able to download a FJ video before plane takes off 🤣 one has to get good stuff to watch on a flight, you see.

[@snigbylife]

You kind of sounded like Emperor Palpatine with the “almost fully operational Death Star (defense platform)” commentary at the @21:00 mark. That poor Type K captain probably had a fish face and was yelling “it’s a trap!”

[@BrunoBonamici]

about selling adv satellites, you can also add equipment to the runs. And you can use a fleet that was built using the same preset. For example, you can build 16 katanas at high preset, tell them all to refit at target wharf, and you can select all 16 and switch them to minimum preset. If you had all the terran blueprints, 16 katanas would give you around 500 million per run. If you scale that to 32 thats 1b per run with minimal work (assuming you have all the resources needed to build and equip them). But you can do the same with any ship type assuming you have the necessary blueprints.

[@michaelbennett7561]

If you have modules on a station you don't need anymore, you can just deconstruct them. You get a 100% refund on all the construction materials which goes right back into the station's build storage, which can be used to build something else you want.

[@rybuds47]

Oh man thank you, my station is such a mess.😂

[@Zopzodeman]

If you like large Plasma turrets , get a Syn from the terrans (either do the plot or buy the blueprint ) , has 8 L slots that all can fire forward...

[@FrancisJohnYT]

I like the look of the firepower on the Syn but it's so slow, would prefer something with a bit more speed.

[@tyw4439]

@@FrancisJohnYT yeah everything's got tradeoffs, like the split rattlesnake you alluded to (still awesome front battery even if you do have to get a bit closer, and very quick as well). erlking though... yeah you won't regret getting that fully put together. and once you get into station hunting it's hard to beat an upgraded asgard, almost makes everything too easy.

[@sim.frischh9781]

The computer has a noticable anti-player bias, once you get close enough they will attack you as long as they do not already have a target that actively shoots back at them and keeps them aggro-ed, this is quite annoying but also makes the AI factions comfortably predictable. I like to put up laser turrets behind jump gates and then lure the enemy through, usually i can kill the fighters before anything large comes through.

[@JoshSweetvale]

You may wish to leave a squad of non-player capital ships to blockade a gate while the station is being built.

[@michaelbennett7561]

To target things more specifically, click on the previous surface element button, not the next surface element button. That will make it so the things closest to the center aiming point of the target will be targeted first. I think this is probably a bug from the recent 6.0 patch and the intention might have been to make it so that target next surface element would have done this instead. I might make a bug report about it.

[@rybuds47]

Holy crap thank you.

[@scottmartin1148]

I love the names of your stations. I am just getting into X4 but I played Elite Dangerous and some others. I chose this game because I liked Port Royale 2, actually. I'm following your Newbie starting guide and your Early to Midgame money by fighting (aka Money from Shooting) guide. I love how you offer non-standard solutions (exploits? nah...) to the routine game.

[@jakotheshadows87]

When you look at the info panel on the sector itself, you can see the resources the sector has and in what quantities. Anything in the 100k+ territory is reasonably sufficient to not worry if your miners are hanging out there. If the resource you're trying to mine is below that, you may want to consider imposing some sector activity restrictions on the station commander so they don't send their miners to mine depleted sectors. There are also travel restrictions, but I don't like those as those can cause more problems than they're worth since your ships won't even go through those sectors to get to where they really need to go which can slow things down.

[@SamsTopBarBees]

I love this series, I eagerly wait for it to show up :D

[@playa124us]

IDK about most but I would enjoy this series even more if one would see more of you playing. then a summarized version.

[@MultiChillMusic]

Yo!!! If you run out of Advanced Satellites, you can always go and capture the Freelance Katana's in the Pioneer regions. These bad boys have 100 AS per ship captured!! AAAAAND they are easy to capture. Good hunting/money making.

[@followingtheapocalypsesson4337]

Fin: Drew can fly now!? Poe: Dew can fly now.

[@yaemz123]

When you are ship hunting, you could assign a ship to loot the drops after you finish killing everything. Edit: you did set one doing that at your crossfire control center.

[@grandfremdling3841]

Great

[@nommy8599]

Don't forget to take time to walk your dog!

[@ShadowWolfTJC]

I wonder what kind of name Francis has for these kinds of cross-shaped defense platforms. Killer Crosses? Icons of Obliteration? Crucifixes of Quarantining?

[@chaosstripe9446]

"Thoughts & Prayers" Kill 'em with Kindness, I always say.

[@warburd]

Crucifixes of Quarantining 😂

[@fenix-1212]

Interesting things.. Thanks! Make more x4 videos! ))))

[@aagwfan]

With all the ships around the production station it looks like they got good defensive abilities. What I would wonder is if it is a good idea to put a couple of defenses platforms to prevent some random ship getting in and causing damage before help can arrive.

[@darkstars1988]

If you dont loot anything. How will you ever have the Freshest of caviar on your current Ship haha

[@warburd]

Loving your work big fella and belly laughing through you commentary 😂 How, in the name of all that is holy, do you keep track of all those ships and production stations? It makes my head spin thinking about it... On the plus side, it's the only game I'll ever need as I don't have time for any other, (or living in the real world apparently) 🤷🏻‍♂

[@MelfiortheOne]

Ultimate goal is to get Asgard. With extra modding you can one shot xenon I. Although the game becomes even more easy mode than it is normally.))

[@dandyphan8511]

Wow so many people and hollywood stars who help made this video.😂😂😂😂😂

[@bencarpenter8980]

I really want to play this game... but how many hours it would take seems insane

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Yeah, I am doing it the brute force way. But I have learned enough I figured I can reach this point in a quarter of the time next run.

[@bencarpenter8980]

Fair play, I'll definitely be waiting for the tutorials so!

[@MN-vz8qm]

@@bencarpenter8980 It is a very long game.. and no much point in rushing anyway (unless you are already a veteran searching for a new challenge). So yeah, it is a very long game. Super fun tho.

[@rybuds47]

You are right, but also you can just save and come back when you have time. I use it as something to go back and play between other games.

[@zacharypump5910]

This might be a dumb question, but which model exactly improves reverse thrust? None of them in the list mention that.

[@LordMoridin]

For the mining distance. If you to to the information tab of the individual mining you, you should see the "max gate distance" for gathering and selling at the bottom. Since it is assigned to the station, the max value should come from the station manager's skill level rather than the captain's skill level. It is possible that because (if) you initially configured those miners to only mine in the current sector, it using that setting instead of the max value from the station. I'm not 100% sure about all that as it might have changed since I last checked. I remember being able to configure the max distance on in station settings before but I don't seem to be able to do that now. This isn't exactly related but there is a mod "Improved mining operations" that you might want to check out. I have only been using it for a bit so I'm not sure how much better it is than normal. And also, rather than having miners attached to your stations, you can create separate "mining stations" in, or at least closer, to the mineral/gas fields. A mining station is simply a station with docks and solid/liquid storage, it probably costs less than a 1 million for one. Of course, this mainly becomes important if you run out of resources within 1-2 sectors of your stations.

[@JPEaglesandKatz]

@Francis, Not sure where you got those large big plasma guns from... My odysseus didn't have any Large guns at all when I snagged it... Even with ARG rep 20 I can't equip anything there

[@superdupergrover9857]

The defencive platforms remind me of the Christ the Redeemer statue. So Christ the defender/avenger. Or you can just call it the iron cross.

[@moustifleouf4093]

oh yeah

[@icenote1591]

What mods do you have on your destroyer Odysseus? Also, do you have the blueprints for your warf you can import?

[@alabalala]

You said you should have made more smaller factories.. What do you recommend exactly?

[@Avadon5]

next please try the game wartales, it seems right up your ally

[@HeavyDemir]

why do people build the admin. center on their def. platforms???

[@FrancisJohnYT]

You only need one admin centre to claim a sector and usually you don't build a factory before you have pacified a sector. So build defence platforms at the gates to help secure the sector, put an admin centre on one and when you wipe out the last enemy building the sector with flip to your control. It's just sort of works out as the most cost efficient way to do it. Plus you are left with defence platforms at every gate as well.

[@galsherp6173]

3:00 .. what about repeat orders?

[@FrancisJohnYT]

I tried but it does not seem to affect buying consumables. With trade goods it knows you are going to buy them so it allows you to sell the goods you have yet to buy. With consumables it does not register that you have queued up a buy order so you don't have the option to sell them.

[@galsherp6173]

@@FrancisJohnYT ... so just buy them before, set up the sequence and profit? (didnt tryd, im poor)

[@Ionizedwater1]

What was at the 6:20 mark lol

[@sim.frischh9781]

That´s the "Logistical Overview" of stations, you can see what is used to produce what. It´s quite confusing when you see it for the first time, but once you know how to read it, it´s really helpful. Generally, the less materials and the less productions, the simpler it looks, so it will grow with you expanding your production plants naturally.

[@Tieberious]

Comment Mccomment

[@ReospecMedia]

Het man since i already subscribed you, if u don't mind can i get your savegame file

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Sorry about the delay, bit behind on comments. Save file linked below. It's from EP11 so it's a bit later into the playthrough. drive.google.com/file/d/1QGIqW_P8J18sRWpfKylRHkp_KQXDY-Hr/view?usp=sharing

[@GertBowker]

here I am many hours into the game and got less than 1mill credits

[@KeiboredKowboi]

first ! And awesome, Another awesome francis video.

[@EricKendrick2]

Don’t rub it in ;)

[@seanhunter111]

I'm enjoying watching this series but this game looks awfully grindy so I don't think I will actually play it.

[@r3dp9]

That's the best kind of lets play. Let's me enjoy content I'd normally not be able to experience.

[@jh5kl]

doesn t need to be if you don t want too, you can just play the story mission campaigns that exist around the galaxy, you don t need to trade if you don t want to, you don't need to mine, build an empire, have a fleet, pilot a ship, etc, you can stick with just what you like, this is a campaign with rpg elements, rts, 4x, shooter looter, eurotruck in space, palatine han solo mandalorian simulator. but it doesn t have to, you can stay away of what you don t like 🙂