X4 Foundations Fleet Management Guide - Attack Stations, OOS, In Sector 

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Wow, never knew about the +27 rep teleport before, and I have played this game for well over 200 hrs. Some really good tips in these videos.

I really wish they'd add an "attack from maximum range" function.

I got into x4 yesterday (After refunding it twice the same day) and i finally got the hang of it. i got plans. Thanks to your videos i finally have clue in what i could do. I even went all in and bought the 3 dlcs.

This is a must watch for beginners, I learned most of this the hard way.

About attacking a station. There are most effective type of attack command. All that u need its in command list (right window) change target from station to any closer part of station to yours ships (rMouse in left window stations parts list). So your destroers will stop at 10-8km to enemy module and will never trying to go closer to center of station

Finally, a RU-vidr who actually knows how to play. Good video good Sir, I learnt a lot, Thanks!

Great guide on how to attack stations! A lot of things that I did not knew so far. I will be looking at your other guides as well.

I'd love to see an X game with fleet movement controls like Homeworld

I kinda did it like you without knowing, but this is much easier. I usually fiddle them manually in place with move commands, so that they are in range (main guns and plasma turrets) and then give the order command. Most of the times they do what you would expect. Some times they fly in and get damage. With a lot of micro management, you can get all the guns firing. Rattlesnake is almost impossible, due to short range of main guns. In general I had best results attacking from above, but that is very fiddly to achieve. Your approach is much easier. Thank you for that.

I've made the experinse, that ships with high level pilots (5 stars), stay at maximum range of there guns, even if you give an attack command.

Hey Captain Collins, couple of things... I recently got back into X4 for the first time since 4.0 and a few things have definitely changed, most of which you covered in more recent videos and I thank you for that! - Can you make a new video that is the exact same topic as this video but for version 6.20? I sent a Syn and two Osaka destroyers in a fleet to attack a Xenon Defence Platform recently and they used the maximum range of their guns which left their turrets free to defend against fighters. No more micro managing those buggers to stop them getting spanked by the defence turrets! - I made a poor financial decision and I'm blaming you. Bought a Thrustmaster T16000M and throttle combination. I'm terrible with it, but it's bloody good fun :) for anyone who is on the fence about getting a stick, I've played a bit of X4 and a bit of War Thunder and it's very cool.

You just made this game about 83.025% more enjoyable then it was for me. Thanks! ! Would love to see a guide just on Camera controls.. so much cool stuff going on and most times I can't figure out the controls fast enough to catch the action. F3, 5, minus key, minus key, 7 F3 again, plus plus plus!, oh wait.. no..that's F2 if I want to follow.. etc etc etc. Anyways, Good Job Cap'n. Subscribed!

Oh, man! THAT - IS -AWESOME! From several kinds of "sub-strategies" I´ve tried, no one was even close to te effectiveness of that fleet management regarding the base attack. And, regarding the question "to be or no to be in the same sector", I was always suspecting that something like that COULD make difference, but have never remembered to try it myself. Well, as we can see, just like in many companies in real life, the absence of the boss might, some times, be better for the efficiency of the team ;-D . Thank you, very much!

there is so much room to make this game better, i like it, but it is realy hart to learn and complicate just to move a ship a bit. They just need a command to stay at max range of their weapons a that cant be so hard to implement

Thanx for this I'm surprised that I was ignorant of this after so many days of time

Hi Cap, One thing I would very like to see is simple set up for beginning players for escorting your Miners; this does not appear to be nearly as simple as it should be from what I have read online. There seems to be no command that tells the Miner/Commander do not out run his escorts. I am just starting out and only have about 8 ships, but the KK have already made an appearance and took out my first miner. . BB re: Ok been playing about a month more, and this is for new players in early game. Use repeat orders and have your miner working a small patch in a sector; much more controlled than "Auto mine." then of course have them sell to a nearby, refinery. It can even be one sector over. Now set your escort to protect position, and center protect position on the same point as your miners working field. Now if your miner is attacked it should be very near its escort, and you most likely will not have to micro there response, but even if you do they will be quite close to hand and easily overtake the bad guys.

I will recommend for fighting larger stations a swarm of small ships and then use a direct attack command on my capital ships, this way you distract enemy large turrets and capital ships are mostly safe to charge into the station....still you are going to have some losses in most cases!

I'm glad they added in coordinated attack, it would take so long to destroy stations with only turrets.

Thanks so much for the video, really helpful stuff! Personally I love keeping my mining and industry stations Out of Sector. Out of Sector ships can dock much faster since they don't have to follow In Sector flying, on the map sometimes I see my capital ship miners docking at 4 km/s full travel speed lol!

Finally i know how to attack station. My own attacks on stations were allways a mess :)

thanks again for another awesome video (even though this was from a few months ago.) One thing I saw though is that the Paranid L Plasma turrets are actually a bit better than their Argon variants with the slightly better range, damage, fire rate, and projectile speed. The only area where the Argon turrets are better is rotation speed, which doesn't matter much for Plasma. Not sure if you are aware of that fact now.

Learned something here, thx captain!

This... This is what I was looking for this whole time. Time to grind out the last few standing points with Argon and go ham.

Small tip to you my friend. Get flak turrets on your corvettes then watch the xenon fighters die quick.

I have been binging your videos, great stuff!

Thanks for your tips for fleet management Captain. Only thing that isnt right for me is how you need to do lots of mircromanagement to attack stations with capital ships, your tactic is more like a workaround for the messy AI attack command for capital ships that Egosoft have right now. Capital ships with a direct attack command will use main guns but wont regard friendly fire, will sometimes charge againts a whole defend battery suffering a horrible death or take ages to complete their mission if the combat ship is a XL capital ship for instance.

Absolutely brilliant. THANKS THANKS THANKS. Love from New Zealand❤

Once again excellent information!

Use dumpbfire MK2 or Railguns for Out of sector Fights If you have the Money. They really kick in Mass for everything If you selects your tagets one by one.

1:12 or at your remote command post in the Time's Square Applebees

Some good tips but I think it's actually a bad idea to set fleets to 'attack all enemies'. AI will attempt to put ships into weapon range for all their weapons, including M sized weapons with a range of 2km. That's no good against stations. I've actually found if you just set them to 'missile defence' or if OOS set it to 'attack all fighters'. AI will pull up to the station just close enough for their main battery which is too far away for stations to attack them rather than for all their M guns which depending, can be very close and dangerous. I haven't lost any destroyers to the AI getting to close since doing this whereas before when I was setting it to 'attack all enemies', seemed like 50/50 chance. Otherwise good video and helpful even in 2023. Might be worthy of an updated one sometime since fleets in general have been revamped with 6.0. See ya!

"Captain of a few ships." I'm pretty sure that'll be what you call an Admiral

I wish there were EvE Online Esque commands etc, which I think would not be too hard to implement. For example, Circle X target, at X Distance, even if they just made it for station stationary targets to make coding easier?.... it would work perfectly for turrets, not super time consuming for them, or need to implement an entire overhaul (I assume).... (Idea> Repeat Orders> make a Circle of (fly to orders) Just outside of station turrets around the station perimiter, like in EvE) I will try this tonight lol.

I really would like to get into scripting with this game. Wouldn't it be cool, to have a command to let the capital ships circle stations just in range of their weapons set to Attack Large Ships? Time for Falkland war in space, I'd say!

you need to try Rise of the Ossian Raider with VRO, if set to hard those guys will wipe the galaxy, you can even set it to insane when ready.

Thank you for makeing this video these things have really bin confusing me, now i understand it better :) Have a nice day and keep up the good work :p

i really dig, the game.. one thing that i wish the game have tho is more immersive hud. the same problem i have with Elite is that all the cockpit essentially are the same

Since we got local auto trade it would be great in a future update we got a command called something like station seige. Where the ai will fly the ships to a distance of 8km from the station.

Commanding more than one ship makes you an Admiral.

The big problem with assigning to a commander is that if the wingmen are getting shot they are not going to retaliate, they wont defend themselves and will just keep flying in formation to death. that is something that urgently needs a change, a commander would not ignore his wingmen getting shot and his wingmen would not allow anyone to shoot at them freely just for following orders.. i have better time having everything unassigned so that everyone defends themselves if shot at any time.

Captain as is Commander are both a rank and a postion. Based on circumstance's, most any rank can for what ever reason become the in the postion of commanding aka COMMANDER aka CAPTAIN of a ship. Rising to the RANK of either takes years.

Captain really helpful video thanks! One question: at 13:17 you say you want to approach stations in a line and recommend using the circle formation. Why not line abreast?

Is there somewhere that describes what the commands actually do? I thought patrol was like them patroling inside a sector, I just learned through context here in the video that it's between multiple sectors. You'd mentioned how to enable police but I have no idea what it does, just like the formations. I get a vague idea of what the formation does but, like circle. I read in a post that someone uses that one and it's a vertical circle. OOOh! It's vertical. I didn't know that. Which ones are on the vert. plane, which are on the horizontal? I've been searching around for these answers but I haven't found a good place that lays it out. If I've missed something obvious (which, lets face it, is entirely possible) if someone could point it out, I would be greatly appreciative.

There is a really easy way of dealing with stations via the “attack” order It’s called “a lot of rattlesnakes”

When you say policing only works when you own the sector... i have not tried, but it stands to reason if you have a faction police license it should work there too.

Thanks for the video.

Hi Cap. Is there an Update on this Video? Recently I attacked Stations with an direct "Attack" command (about 10 rattlesnakes in a fleet). It was interesting they don't charged into that Station. All of them stayed safe in max range of their Main Battery Weapons. It was really fun. I was able to set about 20attack orders and go afk... They destroyed all 20 stations without any loss. Playing on 4.0 Beta Build atm. I was OOS the whole time See ya

After almost a year of playing X4, I've come to the conclusion that if one eventually accumulates a large enough fleet. They no longer in a sence can play the game. It becomes entirely a management issue. I've since cut my fleet by 95% and I'm back to being a basic owner operator of a small company of ships and crews. I am hoping that someday, X4 if they can manage how to keep out griefer's, can implement a multiplay system. I'd even be willing to pay a small subscription price. There will always be those gamers who want to be in a sense larger corporate owner's of large fleets. And having small owner operators to do subcontracting in a sense whould fit right in. It took almost a year, but I finally realized I more of a grunt than an Admiral. I enjoy playing the game, not managing it.

Hello, Is there any news regarding fleet command one year after this video? some improvments? Maybe it will be good to plan on another video.

I don't understand how to avoid massive clutter and LONG lists in your property screen.. I seem to have no way of "grouping" my Autotraders unless I tell them to mimic, which I don't want to do because they operate in different areas and trade different goods, so they clutter.. and my fleets of other ships are similar in that they have slightly different areas of operation. I desperately want to group similar "functions" such as "Traders" to reduce the clutter but don't see how ? This has been a major setback for me to play X4 since it came out.. Any suggestions?

Hi Captain Collins, great series of x4 videos thank you. I can't find the link to reddit that you mentioned about destroying stations. Could you post it again please?

When you say they only do damage when facing the opponents, that does not seem to take into account that turrets rotate and fires independently on targets(dependent on the turret setting).

Lot of good advices here, thank you very much. I was so disappointed to set all my ships on attack and see them all die facing the station they were shooting at... I subscribe :)... But if you have advices to find good pilots or make them three stars faster (still don't have autotrade because all my freighters pilots are two stars max and seem to stay there, very painful to transfer wares where they need to be :( )... The only pilot that reached three stars is the one in the ship I fly myself.

Very helpful! Do you recall the loadout you used for those Nemisis'?

13:25 Heheh X4-mation...

How can I know the numbers ? for example my Raptor with 30 Ares class fighters against some xenos on the map - how can I know who is stronger that I can decide about jumping In/Out sector ?

I’ve given up on pushing with my fleet. Now I just roll in with my sin and osaka on follow park the fleet and fly back to it if I get in trouble. My syn with plasma shreds k’s

I was hoping this video would provide details on how to form fleets and the UI commands. Apparently I was wrong. I still have no clue how to form a wing or fleet. How do you claim a sector also

I don't understand, I did exactly the same thing as you did. The moment I set remove orders for the destroyers after fly to they always seem to drift for some reason, sometimes with their ass towards the station so they can't fire at all. The ''attack capital ships'' on L turrets don't work for all ships, some just stand there towards the station and do nothing...

when fighting stations i just get a pulsar with the 6 paranid energy beam anti modules weapon.. it sherds galv turrets in seconds and galv are down, cap ships finish them off without a scratch.

"If you have capital ships, go out of sector to deal with smaller ships" That sentence describes the game perfectly. No point defense btw ? The AI is just painful. 3 years after release, they haven't done shit to improve the combat AI.

How do you get that camera view in third person with HUD elements, looks great for fleet management

Hey Captain, really great and informative guide. As one of the previews writer says, i cant see the reddit link. I have a question, when i set a "fly to" command to a enemy Station, the AI dont fly in a straight way, everytime it tries to fly arround it. The Fleet consists of three Rattlesnakes and one "Big Space Bus"

is there a reason why my fleets wont leave point guard? (new to the game) but thanks for the many tips you've given me

What witchcraft is this? I tell my fleet to getting formation and they don’t do shit. They sit there and just follow me around at random distances.

OOS/IS combat has been a thing in pretty much every X game, but in X4, it feels like it's completely broken. From what I've seen, it seems the devs are ok with the current state? :(

Is there an option to tell your ships to attack specific subtargets? I want to use bombers, that take out capital weapons of enemy ships specifically, can I do that without hopping into the cockpit and steering myself?

I don’t see the Reddit link?

How do I highlight multiple units to move them at the same time?

I tried attacking stations in sector with three Asgard's and the two others just sat doing nothing.

Aye Cap'n! Had a strange thing occur in my game. Im clearing out Xenon stations in Tharka's Cascade (North of Hatikvah's Choice) with 6 destroyers OOS as Im building and defending a new defense base in Family Zhin (in sector). The solar power station I was attacking turned blue when the hull was at 57% and my destroyers stopped firing at it. Says the owner is ??? and a xenon S was still parked there and marked in red. Weird. Have you seen this before? Is it ok to destroy without annoying allies? Out of curiosity have you built a L ship builder in your game? Ive given up on the idea on building it at my PHQ because if the demand for L ships is high there is no way I can supply both the wharf and shipyard unless I build another 40 modules... I need to build another shipyard hah!

Thank you for advice what are exploits to avoid. Out of sector is mechanism to optimize game to be able to run on current computers. Exploiting it is cheating.

Great advice, Im about 60hrs in my 1st playthru (I played X3 1000hrs!) and have just bought 2 argon destroyers as my Paranid rep isnt high enough yet (@16, HOP 19). I bought them just so I could build a defense platform in Hatovic (next to Argon Prime where the Xenon come) near the east gate without getting destroyed. I am planning on pulling the destroyers back when the platform is operational and setting it to protect station with a single nem protecting one of the destroyers - I was hoping this would be good enough for OOS defense. What would be the best way to do this? I am also about to invest in shipbuilding blueprints so I can build up my fleet free of charge... What modules do I need? Just the manufacturing ones right? Also what do administration buildings have in defense? I noticed that I couldnt put turrets and shields so I didnt bother but it occurred to me after they might have defense drones. Do they? Oh and 1 other question: How the hell do you pause the game? I tried looking in key bindings but cant find it.

Hi love you vids, just got back in to the game after patch 5.0. I am still having a problem with a argon mission, aquire a station engineer rank 3, now I have one gone to the station for dilvery but no progression. Am I missing something?

seems like it doesn't work with phoenixes and its turrets behind its front 'flower', everytime learning smth new heh

Anyway to remove the "press F1" prompt? My immersion!

I've been combing over your material to find the best place to ask this question, and I really like how active you are with your community. I've been having problems with ship pathing. I was planning a large scale attack on a sector, but for some reason, my AI takes the most backwards path to the target location. I even brought them as close as I could to a neighboring sector. Most of my ships still turn around and try to fly all the way around to enter into the other side of the target even though they are right next to a Jumpgate, and that pathing goes through Xenon territory. Do you have any suggestions or perhaps, like I've read on a few forums, this is a common place thing to happen in X4?

The game is awesome however it becomes almost unplayable when you get some bigger ships and want to put them into fleets. If the lead ship stops then the other ships stops aswell even if they are miles away from the lead ship. It is one thing if they dont stay in formation but they cant even follow eatch other from point A to B.

All this just to have an AI stay at a certain range of a station... It's ridiculous..

I Enjoy the attack Station Button too much though lol

Love your videos man, thank you :D

Is this still up to date as of kindom End?

This seams like a bit of an exploit. It is obviously a valid tactic however a bit boring in my opinion. Could a squadron of fighters be deployed to take the turrets out before moving the capital ships in to finish the job ?

You mentioned a Reddit link?

Functional AI would be boring. Complicated workarounds make us feel smart. Egosoft hacked our brains.

My game doesn't act anything like this. You form a fleet, tell them to kill something, in sector or out, it could be ONE xenon fighter, and a whole wing of nemesis can't kill it even within 2 to 5 minutes. A few Xenon fighters takes 20 or more drones like ten minutes to kill.......Literally. I form a fleet of capital ships, send them in to fight a Xenon K, they just run right up to it and all die, literally the entire fleet, a carrier, two destroyers, auxiliary, literally all dead to one Xenon K because they act like retards. This game is crazy bad with AI/Fuzzy logic....

Our people get shy when we look at them doing their work and get nervous, so they behave poorly, that's why. Like at work, when the boos comes everyone will work with a stick in their butts.

It's too bad you can't use the main guns - especially with TER destroyers

These videos are helpful, I just really wish there was no music, it is distracting from your explanation and it gets really repetitive and fatiguing after a couple videos. Its a common mistake for instructional videos.

This video purely sums up why combat really sucks in the game. Everything else tries to immerse you, but you have to game the system for effective combat t.t

How do you get wealthy enough in this damn game to afford a fleet!?

It's absolutely ridiculous that your big ships can't use their best weapons in sector, because the combat AI was programed by an idiot. This is a great game in some ways, and just inexcusably terrible in others.

MANY thank for explanation. It seems like game ui was created by deep autist. Absolute not intuitive interface

around 7:50 in video, you actually say that leaving the area is better for the game? hmmmm, then I would leave the game, then I won! stupid game by the way, full of silly bugs and yet they implant another scenic route to the game, so there is more things that go wrong.... I really do not understand why they do this, fix the damn game and not make things more complicated.... read the forum EGOSOFT!

Ксенонская станция просто погибла радм гайда(((