X4 Foundations: Building Your First Station Guide

Learning how to build and use stations isn't the easiest but once you've understand how it works you'll really start to appreciate these credit printing machines. This guide for X4: Foundations 4.0 will try to help you get over that learning hump and put you on your first steps to building your empire.

0:00 Intro
0:41 Blueprints, Workers, and Managers
2:02 Using the Station Builder
3:57 Claiming a Plot
4:17 Self Sustaining Silicon Station
5:23 Self Sustaining Hull Parts Station
6:10 Dependent Advanced Electronics Station
7:02 Station Miners
8:11 Terran Peculiarities
9:13 Trading Stations and Trade Rules
11:36 Repeat Orders
13:04 Claiming Profits
13:54 Fly Safe! o7

Closed Captions available.

X4: Foundations is the latest title in the popular X series of space simulation / sandbox games, played as action games from a first-person perspective in a living breathing universe, with TRADE FIGHT BUILD THINK as the common tag-line. X4: Foundations is unique in its depth, simulating an entire universe of NPC ships and stations, forming a realistic economy. It consists of a huge universe, simulated from the bottom up. Hundreds of stations, and thousands of ships, trade goods among themselves. Prices change based on supply and demand; resources are mined and processed in several stages. This economy is linked directly to the simulation of major conflicts in a universe with dynamically-acting factions. Every player decision can dramatically change the future of the game universe. Step in and live your very own space adventure!

#x4foundations

[ZlothZloth]

Good video! Some notes:

The pre-sets didn't get covered. Those are a quick way to set up turrets on a station part (defense modules, production modules, and storage modules get them). If you request a high setting, the part will be bristling with expensive turrets and shields. If you notice some turrets not get populated, that's because the game believes that turret won't be able to shoot very well because it's close to some other station part(s).

Doing a dock (not a pier!) first is a very good idea because that's where all the "station stuff" goes. The manager's office, the security terminals, the bar, even the science room in the HQ are all located in that first dock. Once the dock is built, you can assign a manager to the station. Then you can hand a lot of money to the manager and the manager can buy the parts to finish building the station! If you plan on supplying all the parts yourself and you don't care about what the station builds while it is building, then do the dock whenever you like.

If you don't care much how your station looks, you can use the randomizer to design the station quickly. Just put the production modules, docks, storage, and defenses anywhere - even floating in space. Don't bother with the little connector parts. Then click the dice button at the top. After a brief pause, the game will put them all together as a station. It will even add those fiddly connection parts as needed. (Don't expect it to stick to one race's connectors, though.)

I think Terran energy panels are changing their costs in 4.1, too.

Oh, and that (very excellent) station building web page has an especially handy feature called autofill. Try this: for the first module, add two claytronics modules. Now click the autofill. Poof! All the production modules needed to support your two claytronics modules are added in! It assumes 0 work force but it's hugely handy.

[josephmcgee]

I have hundreds of hours in this game and had no idea you could right click a sector to buy in / sell in... mind blown.

[firecopscott]

I know I'm necroing this, but I wanted to pop in and let you know that I not only enjoy your content, but I truly appreciate your deliberate delivery. Well done!

[loopuleasa]

that trade explanation at min 11:00 onwards is phenomenal

[warmachine]

I've been binging videos and that station calculator is mental and exactly what I've been searching for. Holy smokes. Also the notion about doing repeat trades to whole sectors is mindblowing.

[SayLess_Gaming]

As a recent returning player, I've always struggled abit with micro management of own trade stations and this was extremely useful 👍 thanks!

[RevengA]

Even me as a veteran since X2 you can teach a lot of stuff in your videos in a very understandable way. Thank you very much for providing us all those information. Best guides for X4 on YT! <3

[teddp]

Wow just wow man you talk very nicely and rather slowly and yet you packed so much information per second that I had to re-watch the video in total and in parts at least 20 times and I'ml sure I still didn't get everything. Great video great information, perfect, thank you.

[StraightcheD]

Thanks, you're good at this. Articulate and on point, easy to listen to.

[joshuarcherry]

I'm a couple years late to the party but I just got X4 and this is still useful and relevant. Thanks!

[IAmFirstborne]

I have been playing this game for quite a while now... yet I no matter how much time has passed, I am still learning new things. I learned quite a bit from this video alone, but the comments below also taught me a few things. This game is deep.

[bilibistrox]

My head hurts, my eyes cry, my brain has lag😢. I need full academy courses to just understand the very basics. These also proves me that i am not the inteligent veteran gamer i considered myselfe to be, before i installed X4. Ty for the tutorial !

[howarc]

I have well into the 1k hours in this game (which would be like ~500 hours actually playing) but I'm still here watching this video because your cadence and voice is so relaxing XD

[JulianAdolph]

best guide for beginners on stations I have found so far. Really good video. Thank you!

[TwstedTV]

OMG Sooo useful.... Best video ever. Very well spoken, Articulate and to the point, easy to listen to as well. Been looking for this for a while now. thanks :)

[harryhoudini]

Thank you for you job man, you are really saving much of our time that we would normally spend on thinking how things works. Love ya! ❤

[borisbojic]

Perfect! And finally some example production factories! 🙌👌

[smoerble]

Late joined the game. Figured out half of the stuff myself, but your video showed a lot things i missed. Many thanks, great job!

[martinwakelin]

This. Is. Amazing. All the help ive ever been looking for. Thank you!

[reljamrkic]

Actually there are two workarounds for 2 types of mineral and/or gas refineries. You basically explained them at the end of your video.

First one is "repeat orders" option which you will need to set up for every individual miner and not assign them to the station rather to force them to sell to that station. With repeat orders you can even have miners mine in one sector and sell in a different sector constantly regardless of the captain's piloting rank or you can have a convoy constantly delivering medical supplies from a station in one sector to a station in a different sector. "Repeat orders" is also an efficient way to force your miners to mine in The Void, just make sure to have them dock before you need to go into that sector since hazard areas do not damage your ships only OOS. I still use this method to supply my "The Void" Computronic Subtrate factory with raw materials.

The second option is to build a Trade Hub and have all miners sell to a trade hub then traders assigned to that trade hub will distribute the wares to your stations which need the resources, just need to limit the trade to yourself only and adjust buy/sell prices. Second option will allow yourself to make refineries and production stations with no need to assign miners to those stations, just traders. Trade Hub is just a couple of docks, 2 piers and tons of storage containers. If you have a 5 star manager, assigned traders to your Trade Hub will supply all your stations with production resources no matter where those stations are.