[FEEDBACK] Existential Crisis

[xant]

Ok now I understand, and I agree too. But can we agree that saying its ruining our game is a bit of an exhaggeration?

I don't know about your game, but it certainly ruins mine. Not by inflicting heavy losses, mind you, or by destroying vital infrastructure. It ruins my game by forcing me into this exceedingly annoying chain of events. Then it's wave after wave, and I can't go and do something else for more than 30 min, because that's when the next wave hits.

The alternative is to give in to blackmail and pay a fortune. Can I afford it? Yes, I can. I could also afford deleting half my ships and stations. It's not the issue if I can afford it or not, it's that I don't enjoy this kind of deal one bit. I worked for that money, so why should I spend it for blackmail?

I spend thousands of hours building up everything and earning my money, I play the game for the economy and logistics, watching my ships flying around, working off their orders, everything works like clockwork. I enjoy the game for being a true simulation, for not letting the AI cheat up stations and resources and ships.

That's why forcing me into hour-long combat against cheaply spawned ships, or alternatively robbing me at gunpoint, really sours my enjoyment of the entire game. To the point that I now reverted back to 6.20, after Beta 2 and 3 didn't address the issue sufficiently. I have tested the feature and given my feedback, but I can't find it in me to put up with such a badly thought out mechanic any longer.

What else would you call it, when a game mechanic kills the entire joy and makes you not play the game? What else is it, than ruining my game? It might not be as bad for you as it is for me, and that's fine. But for me it is bad, and is in no way, shape, or form an exaggeration. I mean every word of what I said.

[Newinger]

Once again I'd like to say that I really want a global "on/off" switch in the game settings, without paying money or anything else.

I really just don't want this new game rule.

Make it part of the startup screen, as other games with endgame crisises would do it.

[CBJ]

Please stick to direct feedback on the game feature. This is not a general discussion forum, and definitely not the place for arguing. See the forum rules.

[xant]

It's this endgame monotony that the existential crisis ought to target, in my opinion. And leaving you alone in your cage is probably the worst thing they can do.

I fully understand where you're coming from, and I know you only mean well. But a saying comes to mind, maybe you know it: the way to hell is paved with good intentions. You make a grave mistake too many others also do with a passion: telling others what is fun, telling them what they do isn't fun, and enforcing your definition of fun on them. Because trust me bro, I know better than you, I'll liberate you from your mental cage (your choice of words, the mental cage)! Don't you find that a little bit arrogant maybe?

One man's monotony is another's fun and relaxation. You have no right to call my game ruined, no more than I have the right to call your game, your style of playing X4 ruined, or faulty, or flawed, or boring, or whatever. That's the entire point of a sandbox, it is what we want it to be. The devs provide the framework, they don't force anything down our throats. Until now, that is.

My problem isn't that the crisis exists, ill conceived as I find it. My problem is that I have no viable choice here to either engage with it, or not. And no, blackmail is NOT an option. The moment they put a gun to my head and demand money, threatening me with an annoying event lasting for hours, is the moment I was already robbed of a choice.

I'm fine with it being there, as an option, like an optional option. Truly optional. Optional as in it doesn't start when I don't click the button. If someone then goes ahead and wants to spawn in hundreds of hostile overpowered ships, to shake the universe up? Be my guest, to each their own. I'll never tell you that you can't have fun with it.

But don't tell me what I should consider fun, what's allegedly good for me and what isn't, and don't impose your definition of fun on me and my game, telling me it's boring and ruined otherwise. It's not, for me it was perfect the way it was. Just make it optional, truly optional, and I'm happy.

Personally, I won't use it if it stays even remotely the way it is now. Others will, and they'll have fun with it, maybe. Or not, not by beer anyway. Isn't that the ideal state of things, making both sides happy? As it is, it makes me unhappy to a degree that I lose interest in the game. There are many other games, many of them good at what they do. Where I stand, I'm not in a cage, I have total freedom of choice. I play X4 to relax, that's my choice.

To improve the entire mechanic, even if stays the way it is, I'd give it the following structure:

- Reaching 500M in military assets triggers Boso Ta contacting the player
- You can talk with him, or choose not to
-- Not talking -> he waits, unlimited time (as with most other quests)
-- Talking -> he tells you about suspicious Xenon/Kha'ak activity, you can either investigate it as specific coordinates, or tell him "not now"
--- Choosing to investigate triggers the events
--- NOW you have the choice to pay 500M to skip it, 10M to delay, or start immediately

Doing it like that gives you enough warning, and you can opt out and do it at some point later. Then both sides have what they want, without any side being forced into anything. Just like all other main plots you have with Dal Busta. I find that the superior approach. It is a sandbox, after all.

Although I'd like to repeat that spawning ships does break the simulation. I'd find it infinitely better to design a challenge around the simulation, not by breaking it so blatantly.

[StormHawk]

Here are my thoughts on the crisis so far:

First of all: it is a start, but nothing more.
When the crisis began the fleets were pretty small and build up as waves.
After wave 10 it was getting veeeeeerrrry boring. Nothing new, nothing special.
This point was mentioned before.

What me bothered the most: i was settled in boron space, asteroid beld and 2nd contact. The capitals were not able to keep up jumping from crisis to crisis.
-> I had to build up 600 s-ships to nuke the xenon down.
-> the 600 shpis (even 300) completly nuked my fps in sector. Down to 5-10fps max. So no super-dopamin-pump-epic-space-battle. I would not even call it a slide show
-> so i have to switch out-of-sector in Map View
-> Watching fighters on the map, jumping for hours is not fun. But you have no other option
-> combined with the fact, that x4 still is not able to use multiple cpus, it was a hour long horror show.


In the beginning of the crisis, i was frightened, i was exaggerated, it was fun
in the middle of the crisis, it was boring and it started to be depressing.
In the end, it was depressing as hell. Working hours of hours through a lag fest. I just wanted to uninstall x4 in the 2nd last wave because it did not end.

and btw: i have a 3800X CPU and and Nvidia 2080, 32GB RAM. This setup should be easy to handle x4 if it was programmed correctly.


What went wrong, what could be done better:
- Change the mechanics so the Capital ships can keep up. Make Boso predict the spawns earlier. Make the jumps between the crisis sector smaller. Don't FORCE the player to use mechanics (=fighters) that show the MAJOR DOWNSIDE of X4 (bad at using multiple CPUs).
- Add a logical spawn point. Jump in System. Kill Xenon (<-- which are a joke compared to the Khaak Destroyers) and wait until Khaak spawn on top of you. (yeah, no suprise here).

For me, i will not play the crisis ever again in this format. Not fun, not even a crisis. Its just an x4 lag fest as hell in the current state.

Best Regards,
Falkner

[SpaceCadet11864]

Just finished it. After the long session I had chasing down ravagers, I decided to ignore the crisis - I figured, if it goes real bad, I can always load a save right before I committed and pay the 500m. There were two more incursions - I just let them do there thing.. AS soon as Igot the warning I ordered everyone to stay out of the sector, and even tore down the stations I had in them. This was to just make sure I didnt have ships still going in there to trade. The stations weren't really important either, I really over-built this playthrough and made way too much stuff anyway and my "empire" if you could call it that, was hard to manage with lots of stations full on cargo and traders not finding trades. So yeah those stations are gone now and now I dont have traders being stuck so I guess that's a win?

Then I got a message to the final step, did that and now it's over and achievement accomplished.

They killed far more npc stations than mine, and a few invasions got outright shut down when they tried it on ones with a lot of defenses.
Also there was at least one that was in a sector where I had no stations, so there's that.

WEll after the crisis I did run into a sector that had a bunch of KHK And a single ravager, must be a remnant. I just threw a bunch of ships at it until it died.

So yeah, I think I actually ignored the majority of fights. I know I ignored a few of the beginning ones, then defended a couple sectors, then just ignored it entirely until Boso Ta found a way to stop it. I lost 9 stations in total, all of which were inconsequential as they were not functioning properly and had no defenses. More important stations with defenses had no problem holding them off while I ignored it.

[RubyRezal]

I failed my first Xenon incursion because both of my big military fleets were far from the incursion point when the notification came and the incursion began. My fleets were in The Void and Hatikvah's Choice I, the incursion spawned in Grand Exchange.

There was not enough time to move my fleets or build one at HQ. There needs to be more time to prepare and move all these slow L and XL ships around the galaxy.

[RubyRezal]

now a second incursion has spawned before my fleets even reached the first sector I was tasked with defending. The Xenon are still wandering around in Grand Exchange. Also, where are the allies who were supposed to show up to help? Sector security doesn't cut it.

[LameFox]

I failed my first Xenon incursion because both of my big military fleets were far from the incursion point when the notification came and the incursion began. My fleets were in The Void and Hatikvah's Choice I, the incursion spawned in Grand Exchange.

There was not enough time to move my fleets or build one at HQ. There needs to be more time to prepare and move all these slow L and XL ships around the galaxy.

The time was super short for me, too. I had ships that only needed to go *2 jumps* from Silent Witness to Windfall, and they still arrived late. Fleets and especially fleets containing capitals just don't traverse gates fast enough for that.

[Bis]

Disclaimer, I gave up after a few "waves", I simply didn't have the willpower to push though it, it's boring and not very "crisisy" at all. If there is more to it then you can disregard pieces of my criticism.

So, a mid game save, IGT 4 days in, going on since ToA, pirate start, started playing beta branch after beta 3 dropped
Every sector uncovered and scouted, my main assets are in Avarice with a few minor and major stations spread around all over, 5B worth of stations.
My fleets are a few raptor swarms with Shihs, a few Tokyos, several captured Asgards, 2 "fast-response" paranid carriers and a fully modded Erlking, totalling 1,2B.

Crisis triggered a bit after an hour of booting up the save. It spawned a ravager and a few xenon capitals in sector i had no stations, but had a strong military presence (Family Kritt, containing xenon at the gates)
Unfortunately for the ravager it spawned just a few kilometers from my Erlking and it was obliterated in seconds. I didn't even get a good look at it. I mopped the rest of the xenos, ignored Boso asking me to come see him to see what happuns. 20 minute timer elapsed, a few xenon ships spawned in the same sector again, they got mopped in seconds again.
Then the following loop started happening again and again:
"Enemy spotted in sector X! You need to go there early to catch them jumping in!"
I go there, fly over the sector, find nothing, suddenly they spawn in what feels like previously empty space and Boso yells at me again, i mop the floor with them. Sometimes Boso yells "you were too late" and nothing happens, xenon spawn in and just stand there menacingly. Out of the sectors chosen there was only one that I had stations built in, others seem to be picked based on my military presence.
Loop repeats. Every time it's just 3K + I. I have not seen the ravager again. I didn't see any khaak after the initial encounter for that matter.
After 6 or 7 times i give up and turn off the game, it's boring. I feel lost, I don't know if i'm progressing the event, failing the event or what not. Do I need to be early in finding xenon, or do I need to destroy them quickly after they spawn? Unclear.

Curiously, one of the sectors chosen was Atiya's Misfortune, while it was under xenon control, shipyard and all. Boso, why are you declaring 3Ks in a xenon sector an emergency?!

Overall, the crisis has been extremely dissapointing so far. You seem to have completely missed the mark on what the "existential" part of the crisis mean.
Let's compare to Stellaris [I have recently completed a max difficulty (x25 all 3 crises ironman on Grand Admiral) run there, I feel like am qualified to review it]:
In Stellaris, the point of the Crisis is to topple the balance. In most 4X/grand strategy games, a run that went on for long enough would end in a stalemate between giant empires or blocks, with hardly anything happening. A crisis isn't there to annoy a single player, it's there to rip the galaxy, taking it's own territory from everyone else and forcing the players to cooperate or at least hold off their squabbles, it should be a tide that swoops over the galaxy. Any crisis in Stellaris can paint the map in it's color, and after (if) it's defeated players are left with an opportunity to consolidate former crisis territories under their own banners, effectively ending the stalemate. [x25 is a slog though, and disruptor corvettes are basically a cheat code]
Now let's compare it to the "crisis" in X4: a few ships in jump in <randomly>, destroy nothing or at best a station if they happen to jump on one, pick another sector, repeat. Why is the "crisis" focused solely on the player, undermining the whole point of it being a kingmaker? I understand that X4 is a sandbox and not a map coloring book like paradox games tend to be, but i feel like it needs to be changed somehow.

So, how can you fix it? Honestly, no idea. I'd say hold it off until actual late-game [locking it behind completing major plots or your first terraforming? The Xenon are terraformers after all, would be funny it that triggered them], upping the scale and frequency of the attacks, making them attack anyone not just the player. Let them be the red/purple tide they are meant to be. Also, I've read that people really hate losing stations, maybe decrease the build times/let us use more drones as compensation? Crisis *should* destroy stuff, don't let slow build times ruin it.

[mediacenter]

i dont like it

first, this is a sandbox game, every other major and minor change in the universe are triggered by player choiche
you dont want to get involved in political quest? you can do it, you dont want to terraform? you can do it (thank god), you dont want to research and leave that squid forever alone? you can do it

for some reason i have to deal with the crysis no matter what, at least the first wawe, and then i can choose:

pay 500 mil and get rid of the quest entirely = this is pure madness, why do i have to deprive myself of an interesting quest just becouse the dev decided it was time
pay 10 milion to the khaak mafia every now and then = i have to return to this freaking squid every time and pay a ransom for letting me play the game the way i like, thats very dumb
play the mission becouse.........


second point
WHY? why they targeted me and only me
in my game im the only one that havent shoot a single shot to a xenon station nor conquered any xenon sector or destroyed any khaak installation, but for some reason i have to deal with the crysis
i dont mind really if the ai dont blatantly cheat its position and can one shot your assets
thats not fun for me, i like things to be difficult but spawning ships on top of you and you cant really defend yourself its poor design


so what im asking is, make the mission optional, like really optional
people that want to fight immediately still get the random spwan location and fun, people that is not interested (yet) can explore it later
if leave like it is now, let the spawn on you less ridicolus


i hope i make myself clear, english is not my native language
i have more to say but i cant really explain myself

[Axeface]

Heres my feedback for what its worth now that I've completed the full crisis. I'll preface this by saying I'm very perplexed by many of the replies here regarding things like difficulty or time to react. Again, it's like I'm playing a different game.

Overall, I tend to agree with the sentiment that it all feels artificial and I would prefer something different. I need more time to digest, but I'm not sure how this feature fits into the game as a whole and I don't think I would trigger it again, either intentionally or unintentionally.
Some of my feedback is not so much about the crisis itself but rather about further issues with the game that the crisis highlighted.

Full disclosure about my save and how I approached this.
My game was started as a custom game during 6.0 (I think) where I gave myself my assets from another much older save - I did this because I wanted a fresh bugless game with 6.0 but wanted to continue with the same character and assets/plot completion as before. Perhaps this is why I had to build 30 Asgards to get it to trigger? My game is lightly modded - a couple of ships (Kea, Cyclops), some visual mods (Neutral component tints across the board, superhighway objects removed) and a couple of QoL mods (reputation ticker changes, no explosion damage).

The fleet I used were 3 Phoenix E's and 12 Peregrines and 4 Keas. They all have green weapon and engine mods and the purple mass chassis mod. 8 Peregrines are Beam and terran pulse anti-fighter and 4 are Flak, Muon and Ion Blaster for general use. 2 Phoenix's are Plasma/Flak for anti capital work and 1 is Beam for mopping up fighters. The Phoenixes are fast at like 350m/s, split engines.
I did the vast majority of the fights in low attention as I am used to doing against Xenon as high attention is just a death sentence for so many ships. As for save scumming I think I reloaded twice due to one of the missions ending prematurely.



Bugs and other issues
- Is being in high attention and close enough to spot the Forager a prerequisite for getting the Kha'ak to spawn in subsequent events? I did many crisis events before eventually flying close to the I and getting Boso's reaction. If you don't approach the I do the Kha'ak never spawn? If this is the case perhaps add another voice line to the 2nd or 3rd event telling the player to approach the I or remove the prerequisite to be in high attention entirely.
- Boso says the same line about Presidents End after each attack, repeated dialogue is a bit unpleasant.
- Boso says the Kha'ak have stopped attacking even when the attack only involved the Xenon fleet.
- Some crisis missions failed even though I was actively attacking the spawns.
- Some crisis missions succeeded before the spawns had been defeated.
- The achievement to kill a Ravager is not unlocking despite killing dozens (and 4 personally in high attention).
- Boso repeated the line "We have Kha'ak jumping into the system" several times on one of the attacks.
- Some Xenon ships are spawning without a full loadout? I saw some I's with only 2 gravitons in the rows of 4 on top for example.



My general opinions
- The initial first attack was very sudden and buggy, I was in SETA and I missed a line or 2 from Boso. Almost before he could stop talking he told me that local forces had already dealt with the problem, even though the sector was mine and none of my ships had attacked anything yet - there were many Kha'ak wrecks but it was not my ships or stations that destroyed them. Then the Xenon fleet arrived and one of my stations with 20 L Plasma killed them all, losing 1 storage module.
- I dont think this crisis is an existential threat, it is not anywhere near dangerous enough to be that. In total the universe lost some ships, 3 npc stations (one of which I intentionally lead the Kha'ak Ravager too) and 2 of my gunboats. Players that trigger this have a lot of power and credits probably mean nothing to them - it is more of a distraction. I wasnt really able to concentrate on anything else while it was happening and as we dont get any kind of reward or change to the universe it feels like wasted time. I don't think I would intentionally trigger something that leads to no change in the universe, no reward and takes my almost undivided attention for significant time.
- The entire thing took me 2 or 3 nights to complete, probably about 12 hours of play - I feel like this might be a bit too long? I completed around 10 events.
- The S and M waves are just afterthoughts for my ships to clean up once the Ravagers are down. No amount of them seem to do any damage (OOS, IS is entirely different of course. This disparity is a game-wide problem and should be high priority to work on imo).
- The dangerous Ravager was refreshing to command my ships against - I had to use my M ships carefully and maneuver my destroyers manually at times. Its a very cool ship and well balanced.
- I like how I had to move ships around the universe. My ships reached all target sectors before any real damage was done on all occasions. For example, I had to move my Phoenixes from Silent Witness I to Reflected Stars and I got there fine. With hindsight I would prepare by moving some fleets around in different strategic positions ready to pounce making it even easier, perhaps too easy. So there is no problem there, feels good.
- The way the crisis ends is odd, imo. Why can't I destroy it? Why are the factions not reacting to such a huge development? This part in particular made me feel like egosoft has not dedicated enough resources to develop this feature.
- The balance for avoiding or stopping the crisis is fine - 500m is pocket change for people that can trigger it. I have 12 billion in the bank and had to build 30 Asgards to get it to trigger.
- I hate bloat and tend to have small efficient empires - I doubt I'de ever have the amount of ships needed to trigger this anyway.
- I have often asked for 'dynamic' missions to be added to this game, for example ships under attack sometimes generating an escort mission. I think that this is a pretty big opportunity to generate dynamic defence missions from the factions where the attack is happening to add some kind of reward for doing this.
- I would like to see the Ravager appear outside of the crisis events. Its a shame I may never see it again.
- The voice filter when boso says "The CPU ship seems to have entered some kind of hibernation state" is different. I just wanted to say that that line sounds awesome. It sounds robotic in a way that implies it's a computer translating Boso's speech, really really love how that line sounded.
- Side note. Please, I don't think you need to change how Kha'ak is pronounced.
- Boso's voice is great. Not as a replacement for actual Boso specifically, he is great too but as a proof of concept. It is AI right? This is exciting to me because I would hope that it would mean more voicing, more variety of voicing and higher average quality overall. I stand corrected if it isnt AI but I'm 98% sure it is.



Suggestions for changes
I will post a suggestion for a full rework elsewhere when I've had time to think it through properly, but if this is what we are going to get my immediate suggestions would be...
- A single Ravager and the assorted S and M's isnt really a threat to the player, even in high attention, but 2 or 3 of them at once is. The Ravagers themselves seem to work as individual units and get seperated. Grouping them into fleets to make them stay together and in formation would significantly increase the challenge.
Of course, there are other deeper mechanics in the game that are helping the player here - such as the AI not targeting destroyer main batteries. The Ravager makes short work of my turrets but cant take out my main batteries, so it gets easily defeated.
- I'm not sure I like the Kha'ak spawning on top of assets - not sure I ever have. To be clear it's not about difficulty or control, it's already not hard enough imo. I think perhaps that a much more obvious location for them to jump in might be more fun. For example a huge very visible and huge anomaly as the entry point.
I will post a much larger suggestion for an entire rework on the main forum (an idea i've posted before, but I will reiterate and expand upon it).



Overall TLDR bulletpoints
- Not sure I like this and I probably wouldnt trigger it again.
- I would like something less artificial and more systemic.
- Once it ends the player is left with nothing to show for it.
- It isnt enough of a challenge if the intention is to really pressure the player and the universe as a whole.

[SpaceCadet11864]

So even though I've completed the crisis, and there is no mission for it anymore, I am getting messages from Boso Ta about the CPU ship.

1. "Darn the cpu ship is gone, it will take me time to find it"
2. ~after several minutes I think
3. "I have found the CPU ship again"
4. after a few mins
5. repeats step #1 above


This has happened 3 times so far. I don't have a mission on this, so not sure what is going on.

[1eskimo]

The beta 4 xenon incursion waves appear to consist of an I, 3 Ks, and supporting small craft. I've not seen any Ka'aak ships in these over three iterations within beta 4. A player piloted Asgard and a small wing of fighters is enough to clean these incursions up with ease. The challenge appears to be system response and distributing fleets widely enough to cover from the Xenon raids. This may be a bit too elementary for an end game crisis considering the defense provided by the Vigor syndicate at the end of the Avarice storyline will quickly dispatch a lone Asgard. I recommend increasing the number of supporting vessels accompanying the xenon capital ships if an increase in overall difficulty is decided upon.

[Zloth2]

- The balance for avoiding or stopping the crisis is fine - 500m is pocket change for people that can trigger it.

According to the initial post, this can trigger with just half a billion in assets. We're coming in with existing empires, but I would expect most future players will have far smaller pockets.

[Axeface]

- The balance for avoiding or stopping the crisis is fine - 500m is pocket change for people that can trigger it.

According to the initial post, this can trigger with just half a billion in assets. We're coming in with existing empires, but I would expect most future players will have far smaller pockets.

It's half a billion in built military assets isnt it?

[Zloth2]

- The balance for avoiding or stopping the crisis is fine - 500m is pocket change for people that can trigger it.

According to the initial post, this can trigger with just half a billion in assets. We're coming in with existing empires, but I would expect most future players will have far smaller pockets.

It's half a billion in built military assets isnt it?

Nope. Not unless a change was made that I missed in the patch notes.

Crisis triggers upon reaching around half a billion in assets, most of which should be military. This is based on construction cost, so not the monetary value you see in the Empire Menu.

I presume those 30 Asgards were balancing out a lot of trade-oriented stations and their support ships.

[EGO_Aut]

Finally, after 21 crises that felt like they were getting harder and longer, I did it.
What I would like to have changed Version: 7.00 Beta 3 + Beta 4 HF1

Goals of the crisis:
1. Optionally, by accepting a storyline or as a station mission.
2. To save the sector from destruction by Khaak and/or Xenon, or NOT!
3. The possibility of resettling the Xenon, at least in their home sectors, should be a gaming option.
4. Big real and demanding finale with CPU ship, M0 and Xenon Hub
5. Better loot/yasur as a reward?
6. Play through the Crisis Story multiple times if necessary.

What can be done better:
1. The ending with the CPU ship was boring, more needs to happen.
2. There are no instructions like, sit in your spacesuit and analyze the Khaak's main weapon, or anything like that. Simply sit in the Asgard and wait until the enemies are dead is not difficult.
3. Nerf the main weapon of the Khaak Destroyers - in return also that of the Asgard!
4. Even non-DLC owners, i.e. those of the base game, should be able to handle the crisis - currently hardly/not possible with the standard destroyer. After several attempts, frustrated, I picked up the Asgard.
5. Tell the story a little more and integrate missions with more variation - so don't JUST focus primarily on the player. Also decimate former xenon sectors and “too” strong factions....
6. Player Behavior Fleets are still in need of improvement.


Bugs:
1. I had several crises without Khaak (not tested with Beta 4 HF1)
2. OOS, or watching from a distance mission failed (not tested with Beta 4 HF1)
3. Ship's speed changes when I open the map even though "engines stop" - Still a bug !!
4. When taking over the captain position, the autopilot is active (not tested with Beta 4 HF1)
5. Main weapon use of the fleet destroyer - possibly a little better, especially if the destroyer is not in the fleet/or an attack order is given directly. (not tested with Beta 4 HF1)
6. Landing S + M ships on carriers (not tested with Beta 4 HF1)
7. Clumping of destroyers (not tested with Beta 4 HF1)
8. Update enemy position when attacking (not tested with Beta 4 HF1)
9. The first shot always fails - mass drivers are useless (not tested with Beta 4 HF1)

My Crisis Sectors:
1 Mercury
2 Second Contact II - Flashpoint
3 Trinity Sactum III
4 Rolks Demise
5 Scaleplate Green
6 Lasting Vengeance
7 Hewas Twins I
8 Family Zhin
9 Profit Center Alpha
10 Heat of Acremony
11 Grand Exchange I
12 Earth
13 The Void
14 Holy Vision
15 Saturn 2
16 Asteroid belt
17 Oortsche Cloud
18 Dukes Awakening VI (?) - Herzogs Erwachen VI
19 Neptune
20 Uranus
21 CPU Ship Finale

YT Video of the Last-CPU Ship Crisis mission

PS: POOR NON DLC (Asgard/Erlking) OWNERS I dont know if i would play it without named ships

[Starlight_Corporation]

PS: POOR NON DLC (Asgard/Erlking) OWNERS I dont know if i would play it without named ships

Been tackling the crisis event with mainly Raptors & they've been a good choice too. I do agree that people without DLC's (or only Boron DLC added?) are screwed, vanilla ships pack too little firepower & the few times I used the Raptors as carriers, the fighters get burned hard so carrier isn't really an option for the Crisis (except to take out the Xenon capitals).
Erlking is indeed a near must-have for the crisis I feel, its speed means it can intervene in almost every crisis if you assign a high skilled pilot to it & let them fly to the attacked sectors.


Feedback about the crisis:

- Khaak ravager is a dangerous ship, but with a good counter. Ride in fast & get close & it will have trouble using the main weapon. Bring enough firepower. Stay at range & it will have a much easier time using it (they seem to have good turnrates).

- Beta 2 enemy threat was good, lots of enemies to fight in each wave. Currently they seem to be absent/very minimal, adding to the boredom. Suggestion would be to reduce the number of waves instead of reducing enemies per wave. Exhaustion of fighting them is mainly due to the waves. You beat them down & here they come again. Few times is OK, it is supposed to be a threat after all, feel reducing the number of waves would help against the exhaust/tired feeling of fighting them. If the waves are kept as is, could there be some indicator on how long or how far you're along? 20% 75% Could help address it too, knowing you're halfway there.

- Enemies no longer seem target your assets specifically in-sector in beta 4 (hard to tell due to low number, but they've been attacking NPC stuff too); They still spawn in sectors you got plenty of assets in, which I am fine with, means military assets are always close-by.

- Delay option is great, pay 10 mill, you get a wait-time of 20 hours, plenty of time to ramp up military production & send military ships to safeguard your assets for the upcoming attacks.

- Would like to see more player agency for crisis start. Perhaps the first attack would only start after you spoke to Boso-Ta about it. Currently it can trigger in the middle of something (plot mission, organizing stuff in your economy, doing a military op, etc) & then you only got either 30 min to finish it off before triggering the crisis, often forcing a major interruption of whatever you're doing. Delaying the first attack till after you spoke to Boso-Ta could help in this regard.

[flywlyx]

3. Nerf the main weapon of the Khaak Destroyers - in return also that of the Asgard!
4. Even non-DLC owners, i.e. those of the base game, should be able to handle the crisis - currently hardly/not possible with the standard destroyer. After several attempts, frustrated, I picked up the Asgard.

I would suggest 40+ M fighters to deal with the crisis, they are almost immune to Ravager's turrets in OOS and could easily handle all the enemy.
Or, if you want to handle the Ravager by destroyers, it is better to pilot the destroyer yourself:https://youtu.be/8Ac9N5-pLf8
AI is not able to handle close targets with the main weapon, so getting close will solve the problem.