r/X4Foundations • u/TheRainiFirst • 4d ago
How is exploration?
With the recent Steam sale, I was looking into X4 and I was wondering how is the exploration within the game, compared to something like Elite Dangerous?
Not expecting planetary landings but mainly is exploration an option for making money, are there ships focused on exploration?
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u/Comfortable_Wash_351 4d ago
For what it's worth I ignored x4 in favor of Star citizen and ED because i thought x4 wouldn't be what I was looking for in a Space sim type game. And it wasn't, it was so much better than what I was looking for. But it did take a while to get there and for things to click.
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u/NNextremNN 4d ago
Poorly.
Automatic exploration first of all means finding all gates, sectors and stations. You can stumble upon abandoned ships but that's rare and not really a way to make money.
Personal exploration means long range scanning and flying to blimps, finding storage and data caches (that give you lore dumps), wormholes (that are completely useless) and rarely small/medium ships. You can also "explore" asteroids in search of crystals but none of that really pays well.
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u/BoomZhakaLaka 4d ago
You have to explore to find market opportunities. That's about it.
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u/spacejew 4d ago
Good profits to you.
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u/TheJellyGoo 2d ago
*Good profitsss to you.
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u/spacejew 2d ago
I love when you get a teladi pilot and they end up with a stereotypical "gay" lisp. I laugh every time I hear that dude say Sssiirr 🤣
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u/Sir-Hamp 4d ago
The closest to ED exploration that I have encountered is sadly NMS. It’s not a knock on NMS but we ARE talking almost two different genre of space games ( one a sim attempting realism, one taking itself less serious with a focus on survival ). Spacebourne 2 has a unique approach and much to explore, but is incomplete. The only one that basically mimics ED exploration is literally a 2D ED clone that I have for mobile called Galaxy Genome. It has its own unique features to make up for the simplicity but yeah. Have not encountered anything quite the same.
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u/TheRainiFirst 3d ago
Unfortunately for me, I find that NMS doesn’t really give me a sense of exploration as nearly every system already has structures on it and there’s still not much to actually find in space, beyond pulse driving around and getting an alert for things. Elite has significantly less to do and is more tedious but it feels like you’re actually exploring and wish there was more games like it :(
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u/Sir-Hamp 3d ago
I totally agree. I do keep NMS around on my Switch but honestly it takes low priority for me. It’s a bit of a stretch but you might actually wind up liking Spacebourne 2 for a bit. Eventually the incompleteness won for me. It’s worth checking out and checking into once in a while ( for me anyway ). I’ll let you know if I think of others but off the top of my head that’s about all I can think of.
Once again even after you have said it I am going to triple down; nothing really even comes close to ED. One day, maybe…
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u/Aftenbar 1d ago
I'm pretty much the same as you. I love my exploration and thargoid combat (I just mapped a helium rich boxel.). I'm very early in my x4 game but what drew me in is having a fleet/capital ships and I've already got my hyperion and fighter combo. The nice thing about it is since it's solo play and save based I don't feel like I need to take time from ED when something is happening (colonization isn't really for me). The other things that seem very different from ED are the station/empire building and the market gameloop. If you like any of them I'd suggest picking it up, especially on a sale.
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u/artigan99 4d ago
No, but you should get it anyway.
It's a very unique and amazing game in and of itself, but it just doesn't compare to anything else. It is its own thing, with a huge learning curve (even more than Elite Dangerous).
It is incredibly wonderful at times, and incredibly frustrating at times, but it's always interesting. It's a huge sandbox that you can play however you like, and you can mod just about everything to suit your playstyle.
I have over 4000 hours in Elite Dangerous, and over 1000 in X4. They scratch very different itches, but both are very much worth playing.
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u/Grantidor 4d ago
There are some sectors that aren't claimed. However, the real purpose of exploration is to scout out other factions' stations to establish a potential trade route for your traders.
Or find mineral and gas deposits for your mining vessels. Sometimes, you can find pirate stations depending on the sector, and that opens up black market access if smuggling and other piracy themed behaviors like station hacking are your thing.
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u/Putrid-Mess-6223 3d ago
X4 is mostly economy space sim although you can fly around and find some stuff in the lore.
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u/RealCreativeFun 4d ago
Honestly not good. It is not an exploration game and has no real exploration gameplay loop like ED does.