Tutorial : Defence platforms, designs and weapons : X4 Foundations 

So the lasers would basically "net" the enemy? Nice strategy! 👍

@@Vlamyncksken yeah man, exactly that!

Thanks, I was wondering how these handle the combat changes in 7.0 - does the manager skill up quickly from all these kills? not sure if that affects their skill or not.

@@tonytwotimes2859 I started with a one and a half star mgr I had working as service crew. By the time the def platform was finished, he was two and a half. I gave him a two star seminar I got from doing a guild mission, so he was then almost four stars in management. After the Ks and I were destroyed, he was still at almost four stars. I think running the station/maintaining drone counts with trades for components does more for his skills than actual defense battles.

This also applies to anything else on a station. Want a free-flow station producing "Everything", it can be done.

Why aren't mine shooting any thing that comes through?

@@stopbegging4likes only reason I can think of is the turrets themselves haven't been built...? Can be checked through looking at the construction and see whether or not all resources have been delivered, and that the construction ship is still on-site (sometimes they can get targetted by attackers and they'll either flee or get destroyed)

@@salemprompthous3820 I don't understand why it takes so long, i nearly wiped out the xenon and the stupid builder still hasn't finished my simple defense platform, it's been 2 weeks and is only a dock and 4 disk, smmfh

@@stopbegging4likes maybe there are no components in the local area to feed the turrets?

That's good IF you can keep all your enemies in the one area. If they end up scattering, you'll need multiple bands of fire in different directions. Which is probably the one and only good thing about having such a narrow arcs: Your turrets Will actually focus on different targets at the same time. Which they generally don't seem to like to do when they can all share the same Target. At least that's been my experience. I personally like as many targets being shot at simultaneously.

Also, a bit curious: which ship is @FJ flying during the building process? (Looks like a Split design..??) 6 forward-facing weapons, I wanna try that one 😅 Been loving the Nemesis Sentinel so far; 5 forward-facing, 2 medium turrets and a boot full of laser towers, annihilates most of what I aim at, and anything that tries to come up my tail gets a laser-beam (or ten) to the face by way of the towers, and flak turrets if they're not otherwise occupied. Usually start out with a quick 5x beam or bolt setup, then work my way (in terms of both rep and cash) to 1 Ion + 4 plasma to hunt L-size for hijack-runs. Other builds/tips are highly appreciated, as I'm still fairly new to the game ❤

@@salemprompthous3820 Pretty sure it's the Split Dragon. It's an awesome ship, tons of guns and FAST! I need to buy more of them xD

@@AnzusWarGames it is the Dragon, yeah. Thanks. Managed to get one by asking a pilot to surrender, while they were fighting someone else. Completely banged up ship, so was unsure at first. After a major overhaul, repair and upgrade, it left my Nemesis in the (space)dust 😍

@@salemprompthous3820 That's awesome! haha nice find man!

Me too bro! It`s greate decision! Splits are cool!)

How do you make the closed-loop station use the closed-loop ver of the missiles? I have build the station closed loop with all argon parts but once I select a missile it puts an automatic buy offer for missile components and smart chips...?

Never mind... as soon as I asked the question I found the answer after 2 days of searching....

Have you tried the new Boron weapons with this? The large Ion Net shoots fast and far. It does not seem to slow anything down and doesn't do much damage, but all you need to do is annoy the Xenon and it should come and attack.

@@ZlothZloth I have not tried it with Boron platforms yet. Was just thinking about this yesterday actually since I have time to experiment with them again.

@@shanecameron1546 Did you have to change to global closed loop to get the missiles to not need missile components, or was there another way to do it?

omg thank you. rotation has caused me to rage more than once.

OMG I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!! My stations are always so freaking wonky because I am to lazy to check for 90° everytime

IMO, teleporting to pilot is faster :) Especially when you have highest teleport tech.

@@MelfiortheOne once you have a few collectors its easier to gather all stuff at once. Besides if your collector dies before you have time to collect you lose alot of income unless you teleport to them often

@@thomasstensson8407 next level is to build a scrap recycler nearby and run tugs around :))

I have heard of the teleporting problem before, do you have any mods installed that affect the Xenon? It's just all my Xenon so far as I saw came though the gate like other ships.

@@FrancisJohnYT No mods. They were doing it before I built the defence platform because I had 3 lines of laser towers running perpendicular to the gate, about 40 towers in each. The towers started at 4 k's from the gate and went back another 5k's [end at 9 k's from the gate]. So the Capitol ships would jump high and to the side and 12 to 15 k's away from the gate. When I built the platform I just removed one string of towers and left the rest there and built where the towers were. I left the rest there cause I'm lazy and they do still clean up the small ships. I have 3 other platforms now and all these act normally.

As far as I can tell the defence platforms are insane overkill. Have not seen anything in the base game even scratch them.

Walling in a faction before going to war like say the Vigor Syndicate is a time honoured tradition. Also helps deal with massive fighter swarms.

I suggest the Pegasus from ALI wharf w combat engines filled w laser turrets for the loot grabber. Crazy fast and can bounce when it gets hairy then come back. Haven't lost one yet.

looking cool is almost as important as efficiency in my eyes

Why are your collector ships fleeing to Xenon systems!! You can set up no go systems in one of the menus, not specific to a ship but specific to all your automated ships. It's to stop traders wandering into dangerous systems, can't remember where it is exactly but a google should be able to locate it.

@@FrancisJohnYT many thanks, I found it! Under blacklists; slightly obscure menu, that makes you feel dumb for not noticing. Thanks again! Now my ships don't decide to commit suicide, at least not death by sector jump anyways.

That would be why. He put it on the station in this video just to show how.

For the closed loop stuff you have to select closed loop before you click commit for the first time. You cannot change it after you have clicked the commit button. If you have clicked the commit button already you have to cancel every building and start again from scratch. I have been caught by that before as well.

@@FrancisJohnYT Hi, i did it exaclty step by step as u did but it didnt work, however, one i had alll modules setup, i saved blueprint, deleted everything, loaded blueprint back and selected closed loop again, confirmed changes and than it worked. Strange, but worked finally. Thanks again

Weird, I have had the K/I's accelerate through but none managed to slip by without engaging the station. Were you in sector or out of sector? I find in sector transits of ships jump about a bit depending on how busy the gate exit is.

@@FrancisJohnYT it's happening both in and out of sector (the void), K/I are appearing in an area up to 30km around the gate. Confirmed it happens with singles as well.... not one has come thru the actual gate (or even close).... I had my carrier fleet behind the defence station (its been defending the sector for weeks) which the xenon would make a b-line for... so I moved that fleet further away and now the xenon are attracted to the defence station first.... a significant litter of bodies around the station when I return from OOS... but watching on the map they are still appearing a long way out when OOS... I have also added L.Beam and missiles as per post below and now catching 90% of small craft too (unless they come thru at speed). I have been watching their arrivals at Holy Vision, and they seem to appear within 10km of the ring, so I will build a defence station there and see what happens.... anyway happy with the overall effect... thanks for posting your video

Not that I can recall. Some NPC stations give better marines than average, you can google the good one's if your interested.

It's been over a year since I have played. Most turrets should be set to fire at will straight away. I don't think I ever changed their settings. Did you figure it out in the end?

@@FrancisJohnYT Yes thank you

Generally I try and not stay in the system as the platforms for to long, out of system combat their is no friendly fire. Also removes a bunch of the targeting inaccuracy. But generally I never had any issues with friendly fire, I usually only place the platform at locations where Xenon come through. Not many live friendly ships nearby.

@@FrancisJohnYT Ahhh. That explains it.. I was in the same system I think. I will try one more time :) Cheers mate.. Love your vids :D

Because of flack aoe damage, don’t use it on defense stations in npc territory, replace it with beam.

@@aimmlegate thanks! after around 50 hours more gameplay i noticed these def platforms dont last anyway, when xenon I comes in they dont have enough hull to out gun it alone. Its not a leave and forget kinda thing, but I havent tried building 2 at a time yet.

Enemy ships can potentially leave the gate fast enough to skip by the platform, but I have not seen an I or K manage to do that. Where I have placed them and observed everything got drawn to the platform and destroyed. It can stop entire invasions, can take out three xenon capital ships at the same time. It also comes with repair down to heal chip damage in between waves.

@FrancisJohnYT thanks for getting back to me. I tested out a similar station since I posted this. I was very surprised when I checked on it later and saw a dead I. It apparently took a lot of damage, I had forgotten to have it make repair drones, and it dropped to about 74% health. I did have a couple extra modules on that one. i think a pair of the straight argon ones with similar weapons, and I think that damage came from multiple fights. I did notice fighters slip by, but adding a boron ring defense with a few large ion net turrets solved that problem. It's pretty rare that anything slips past without being engaged now. I even noticed that it can hit some things using the travel drive, trying to go in the gate from elsewhere. Thanks for the video. This is becoming my key to resolving xenon problems, and I think it'll work against ZYA and most other threats. It's good to know the "standard" small one can fend off a K + I attack. I haven't tried it against a terran attack. How well will it work when getting hit by a syn, asgard or the other terran one with long range weapons? I suppose a similar story for the hop or argon, who can at least field long ranges destroyer weapons, split's are only 6-7km.

You get access to flak from four races, Argon, paranid, teladi and split. You need to have 10 relations with them to buy it.

If you are in a ship and select any object the HUD will tell you how far away the item is.

Strange the K's should have gotten shredded before they even got in range. You got any mod installed to make the enemies more dangerous?

@@FrancisJohnYT playing vanilla, as I have not played through x4 completely and steam is notorious for removing access to the badges when you mod. I noticed that the turrets can be upgraded just like the ship weapons. Probably had generic turrets. But, I've seen 2 K and an I walk through on my 3 x 4 and melt

I don't have enough experience with terran weapons to comment definitively unfortunately.

Are you running mods to increase the threat? I have seen multiple K's get evaporated by these defence platforms.

@@FrancisJohnYT nope vanilla. Somereason game just desided to send constany stream of fighters even skipping 100 l towers. After fixing and giving trade ship has been ok

Basically they sniped the flanks off

Replace flak with medium beams, they have less dps but almost no chances of friendly fire. Could add couple of bridge modules with large beams

You built plasma turrets on the platforms and they actually got built? Double check to make sure the necessary components were delivered. I had issues in the past when I did not use the closed loop system, the turrets required components that were not available within range so the turrets never got built until I manually did a cargo run.

The Admin Building allows you to claim a sector as your own assuming no other faction has buildings left there.

Yeah.... X4 has a bit of a learning curve alright.

I believe the AI only responds to stations being built once the builder is assigned. You can collect the build resources and once you have them, then assign the builder - which can be much quicker - especially if you're not abusing the cheese "closed loop" system like being done here.

As Ian Williams said, having some freighters on standby holding most of the cargo, getting the platforms up and ready is a lot faster. If you have the money; have a couple destroyers, each with a small fighter contingent, to defend the plot(s). Unless the Xenon come through with a huge fleet of I and K (the most I've seen in one attack was 4 I, three K and a whole bunch of frigates and fighters. My 4 Odyseus, each with 5 fighters on intercept orders, made metallic swiss cheese out them in no time. I did pilot one of the Destroyers, not sure if that was a benefit or a detriment, honestly), two or three destroyers with a nice loadout should be sufficient

@@salemprompthous3820 Will try that