Starting Over
Ugh. As the title suggests, I’ve started over my X4 run. For just one reason: To remove the Universe Expansion mod, X4RSGE (or X4 Realspace Galaxy Expansion).
For anyone who may come by in future, wondering to themselves if they should use the XRSGE or not, let me answer simply: No. Although! If you wish to use the ‘Stars’ texture replacement component alone for the better-looking starfield, nebula and planets — you can. It has no reliance on XRSGE to work.
The main irritants I found were:
- Glitchy connections between systems — sometimes requiring getting up and allowing an NPC pilot to take your ship through the gates if you hadn’t yet explore the other side.
- Terran1 start the game without a functioning economy — I noticed right away the station situation was, shall we say, minimal. What I didn’t appreciate until a bit later is that it was actively broken. There was an insufficient (if not zero!) supply of Energy Cells, the base product for almost everything else. With the greatly increased distance between systems, no-one was in a hurry to bring supply in to meet this demand, either. Being such a ‘basic’ resource, their maximum price per unit is very low.
- The Moon’s system was broken — Entering the system resulted in pure black. Not the normal black of the darkness of space, just… Nothing out there whatsoever. The first time I entered, I had to reload the game entirely to a point prior to entering.
- Loading the game took, literally, 10+ minutes — the notes on the Galaxy Remake STARS plus XRSGE page suggest this should only happen for universe generation (i.e., starting a new game). But this was not my experience. It was every game load. And yes, this is with the game, mods and saves on an SSD (Well, M2 drive). System specs are linked under the next bullet point.
- Game performance was greatly reduced, even before the game had much going on to simulate — although I didn’t appreciate this one so much until after I’d restarted, truth be told. The difference in smoothness was quite stark. If you’re curious, my system specs are here.
Post restart, I’ve completed what I would consider the introduction mission sequence for the Terran Protectorate, meaning I have completed the Defense of Sol mission (and achievement).
From there, I started the next big questline, to infiltrate the Segaris Pioneers — another Terran faction, and see what they were up to. They had quite a significant research project underway, and… Well.
I don’t want to spoil too much, and I don’t know if there are alternate outcomes anywho — but I ended up zapped across the universe, with a long journey home through space I possessed no charts for.
I’m still on that journey, albeit now joined by a second ship and captain that I can remotely command and… a Headquarters. Not a very good HQ yet. It’s not even possible for non-construction ships to dock or otherwise interact meaningfully with it yet. But! I’ve managed to locate a builder to bring the supplies it needs, and I had the necessary credits on hand to purchase said supplies.
So now it’s just a waiting game for the resources to turn up and construction to complete. Then I’ll be able to perhaps start a bit of trade flowing through it! :D
This was posted during Blaugust 2022, the annual blogging event hosted by Belghast. Blaugust is an event aiming to welcome new blogger blood into the fold and revitalise those who’ve been at it a little longer.
The Blaugust Discord is still available to join in year-round!
