X4 Foundations: Terran fleet action showcase, with the good and the bad

Hello everyone,
After all the tests I did with the Commonwealth fleets, I felt like my terran fleet was a bit neglected. :P So I gather the terran "crew" and away we go to have some fun with the xenon.
Fleet composition:
1 Asgard
3 Syn + 3 Osaka on defend
2 Tokyo + 80 Kalis on intercept
1 Honshu + protection fleet = 20 Katana for AA protection + 20 Flax with torpedo launchers for anti capital ship protection
This clip shows what to expect from your terran fleet when you will lead it in a combat scenario.
Observations:
- the Asgard AA protection is not great. Maybe the effectiveness of the turrets can be increased by using non-terran tech, such as argon flak, but as some of you know, my terran ships must have terran tech. There are rumors that the Asgard have been nerfed prior to the launch of the CoH DLC, as can be seen from the grey areas on the lower half of the ship, top and bottom, that look like turrets placements to me. I wonder what kind of a beast the Asgard could have been, if the nerf hammer had not hit.
- I'm forced to make a single exception to my terran tech for terran ships rule, in the form of torpedo launchers for Falx. From all my tests, I simply could not found another terran anti capital ship solution for M ships. Is a bit strange that the terrans have torpedoes, but not launchers, but that's the way things are.
- in regard of turrets options, my favorite is "atack my target" for L turrets, as I'm not happy with the target prioritization of the "atack all enemies", heavy hitting turrets will engage a xenon M, while ignoring the xenon P that is hitting my engine. I switch to "atack all enemies", when I target a threat like a xenon K that wants to travel drive in top of my Asgard, moment in which I'm not really concern about small fry.
- the fleet behavior in X4 have some problems, in the sense that the ships in the fleet will not follow close your leader flagship, especially when you fly it. Maybe human actions are too impredictable for the AI, I don't know, but I would expect that some "move to the leader position ASAP" command, to be issued, and Boso Ta forbid, even use the travel drive when doing so...
- destroyers...despite having 5 star captains, were very close to ruin my day when I've engaged the xenon station. If it is posible, destroyers should be keept away from stations. Even if no direct atack orders are issued, they will take the worst aproach and response to the station atack.

[@lagrangewei]

"This battlecruiser shoots, it destroys, but wait! It does more..."

[@planexshifter]

Such great tunes. I really like the Terran ships n equipment. I’m excited to see the new Boron ships!

[@peterhoffmann2231]

looking forward to you showing us the boron stuff. i hope they have some unique weapons

[@ragnos28]

I share that hope 🤓

[@Miszkaaaaa]

Ah carriers and fighters! I love when I order fighters to attack a K that jumped into the system, but firstly they need to dock before engaging!

[@ragnos28]

That and the bug that gives auto dock and wait orders, with the player having to select all and give "resume your duties" command, if not they will stay put, even if the carrier is teared to shreds.😑

[@Miszkaaaaa]

@@ragnos28 Yeah I love that too! Clicking tru my 50 fighters to delete the orders

[@Miszkaaaaa]

@@ragnos28 Why this game is so perfect yet so miss-tested/miss-designed...? It never got the enough love from the devs

[@ragnos28]

@@Miszkaaaaa I also get the vibe that the devs don't play their game that much. Everything is a surprise for them...what !? destroyers slam in their targets, capital ships and station alike? I don't believe it, give us a save file...what !? fighters get stuck on carriers? I don't believe that, give us a save file...what!? fleet subordonates are chilling while I'm getting pounded by the enemy? give us a save file...and so on. They do try to fix bugs, and I had my "successes" on the Tehnical Suport forums, where aspects that I brought to the devs attention had been fixed, like so: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h3Sof5ebiatpjrM, but is a slow process, and the "surprise" part always get me 🤨 I've also brought the their attention the fighter stuck bug, they claim to fix it, but from what I've seen lately not quite 🧐 Meh, rant over 😋Let's hope 3.6 fixex will include the "super glued" fighters 😉

[@planexshifter]

And also, kudos on these vids. I’m sure you know this but you can remove the HUD shift+H. It would just give you some more cinematic flair.

[@ragnos28]

Thank you Yeah, i know how to remove the HUD, I'm just not used to play w/o it, so it stays on all the time. 😋

That was fun, entering a Xenon sector with your Asgard and then ramming directly into a Xenon K 😂 it never knew what hit him 😛

[@ragnos28]

Got to put a "how's my driving? I'm trying so hard" sticker on the back of the Asgard 😅

[@chaschristiansen]

I use Terran Kulkri as a sorta spec ops fighter wing. Normally 12 of them with 2 mkII mason streams and a single pulse laser. I give them split engines and they tear through xenon swarms. If you put a few squadrons of other fighters with them, they can kill a K pretty easy too.

[@ragnos28]

I've tested 40 meson equipped Kalis against Xenon K: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mHbSgGSohrl4h5Y, was not pleased with the result., way too slow for my taste. Split engines are not an option for me, as an self imposed rule, if terrans don't have acces to a tech, my terran ships don't have that tech, same for all races.

[@chaschristiansen]

@@ragnos28 that's fair, I kinda get the principle. I play a very hybrid game, push the xenon back for a while while I build a massive custom fleet then use a mod to make the xenon smarter and badder and have a full on OOS war. Just got my first Shipyard in my current save. Maybe next game I will try race exclusive tech.

[@ragnos28]

​@@chaschristiansen I also get the appeal of mixing races tech 😋, but I need a lore "excuse" to do it, like creating a paranid faction that uses argon tech: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jmekeX14dpucjqs 😁

[@chaschristiansen]

@@ragnos28 I honestly didn't know any of the lore about this game when I started playing X4. It is because of how the expansions came out that I went back and learned it all and even picked up X3. Egosoft did a beautiful job with the gate reopens. I'll give your play style a try. Have you tried VRO yet?

[@ragnos28]

@@chaschristiansen I play only vanilla, in part because I want the results my tests to be reproducible w/o mods required. Also, because when I want to report a bug or some strange behavior on the Tech Suport forums, I get the ...are you using mods? huh, huh? are you? mods, mods?

[@SergeyPupkoMusic]

I'm almost done building a similar fleet, getting the flax's kitted out with torp launchers but that's proving a challenge since argon keeps on running out of resources lol. Otherwise, it's a matter of popping out 3 Osaka's and bam... Probably not gonna do a large scale in asion like this at first but gonna try getting my feet wet somewhere around hatikva's choice so if I need to I can bugger out fairly easily.

[@ragnos28]

Well, you can either feed resources to the argon, or buy the torp launchers BP and start working on a wharf of your own.

[@SergeyPupkoMusic]

@@ragnos28 eh, I have it running afk while I'm at work. A lot of them got done overnight, by the time I get home, I'm probably gonna be good to go. I am thinking about setting something up but it'll cost a bit to get it up and running, and I still have to grind another 10 levels. :P Might try to see if I can spot a K or I on one of their systems and let the fleet feast. :D I heard they're good for boosting rep.

[@ragnos28]

@@SergeyPupkoMusic That's one way of doing it. 😋 I usually do what I can to remove the factions from the ship building and refitting equation, for my fleets, because they never have the resources I require. I guess is intentional, so that the player have good oportunities to make money by suplying the mats the factions wharfs and shipyards need.

[@SergeyPupkoMusic]

@@ragnos28 oh yeah... I'm pretty much self sufficient in terms of building ships. My one and only station in asteroid belt is popping out every ship I need and sells silicon carbide and computronics substrate to the tune of about a billion credits a day. 😂 But I'm probably going to end up setting up an argon service station so I can outfit my own ships with torps and I'm thinking of making some plasma syns for station bashing and long-range capital bashing.

[@ragnos28]

@@SergeyPupkoMusic This is my shipyard and supporting infrastructure: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nKbaZqesadyXe7M. The shipyard buys everything except energy cells, so if CW mats are needed, it buys those too. And for reffiting my CW fleets, I've built an EQ that also buys everything: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l2m0d62OZbp4j8U.

[@GachiBoi]

terran M minigun turrets less effective the Argon M flak turrets?

[@ragnos28]

Way less, there are just copies of the factions bolt, and we all know how effective those are. 😐 In X3TC, terrans use to have their own, kick ass AA turret (and other unique weapons), in X4 the devs just went Ctr+c, Ctrl+v, change the sound and visual effects, et voila...terran unique weapons. 🤨

[@planexshifter]

Argon arguably has the best turrets. They have fast rotation speed and longer range than most.

[@elgwynnyapit2683]

The asgard need a lot of m size turrets and the terrans need L class Plasma

[@ragnos28]

Yeah, I remember when terrans had their own flak (Starburst Shockwave Cannon) and their L turrets used to shoot freaking black holes at their enemies (Point Singularity Projector) 😮... apparently, the devs memory is not that good 🧐

[@Raddosseuss]

I just wonder how long it will take me to wipe out the terran from the X universe , Since the X3AP the terrans are a pain in the arse always attaking my ships out of nowhere in the war conflicts smh , since that day I destroyed all their base in the moon!

[@ragnos28]

After you board an Asgard, not long, because terrans don't have torpedoes, and their Asgards under AI control are a joke. Also, since the terrans don't have plasma tech, their defence stations are also a joke. The problem is that in X4, only the xenon can be wiped out, the factions can't be really wipe out, cuz they will just pop out stations in friendly space, and you game will be turm in an eternal whack-a-mole, with you going around trying to smash the terran stations that will just appear out of nowhere.

[@liammorris1018]

Try pulse turrets :), Terran pulse turrets are king.

[@ragnos28]

I did: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hGPRh5Vsr5eIrtk ...half of the dmg of bolt and they miss xenon Ps...screw that....

[@dmitrykuznetsov972]

Terran laser is not fair thing...distance, power... not balanced. Quit the game because of this. Not interesting.

[@ragnos28]

At least the L beams turrets are better that the CW ones, everything else suck, no equivalent of L plasma or M flack. In X3TC the terrans used to fire small black holes at the enemy (Point Singularity Projector) and had their own highly efficient flack turret (Starburst Shockwave Cannon). In X4, other that the Asgard main weapon, the terrans are the "joke" race.

[@dmitrykuznetsov972]

​@@ragnos28 ohhh... ty, i wrote about "asgard main weapon". No enemy that will be a challenge for it. Not interesting. And is this the fight (at 2.33?) really? Mockery. Like a "God mode' in any game. X3 still much better, missile cruisers, drop pods, powerful guns, everything is balanced.

[@ragnos28]

@@dmitrykuznetsov972 Ahh...now I get what you are talking about. 🙂 Yes, the Asgard main weapon is crazy OP, and can get really boring to take out 6 xenon Ks in quick succession. But, then again X4 is a sand box game, If a weapon or a ship is OP the player can just choose not to use it, the AI is incapable to use it properly, so it does not affect gameplay. You can also RP just a single faction ships and tech, take the argon for example, no uber ships in there, all is average. I have lots of fun using race specific fleets, with only the tech available to that race, in all kinds of combat scenarios...I don't need the "God mode" to have good fleet combat experience. I've also enjoyed X3 a lot, and only had to abandon it when my HDD fried and I lost all my saves, and there is no way I could pick up the grind again...and there were enough frustrating moments in X4, when jumping back to X3TC seem like a very good idea. 😉

[@trlavalley9909]

Game is pretty easily modded, I believe you would find good info at NexusMods/X4 Foundations, I've never downgraded a weapon, but I did buff the Behemoth Pop guns a good bit. For the Primary Weapon on a Major Races ships, the Vanilla weapon is so saddly disappointing. Phew Phew...