X4 Foundations: How to get Easy(er) Autotrade Captains Guide

How to get your captains to rank 3 stars so you can unlock the auto trade behavior in X4: Foundations 4.0. Includes a quick review of the Cormorant, the toughest medium trader in the galaxy to protect those valuable captains from Xenon and pirate raiders. Using seminars is the quickest way to rank up a pilot, but you first need to know how to get access to them as buying from traders will only get you so far.

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

[nahco]

As for getting a pilot's morale up... I've found the technique quite helpful where I stand behind them, look over their shoulder, and lightly tap my foot in that **particularly** annoying fashion. Seriously though, the captains of my personal ships tend to absolutely skyrocket in morale, because they usually are on duty.

[Maxamar]

Thanks, you are the first YT'er that actually speak slowly clearly and gets straight to the point doing X4. have a sub

[Pityuu]

Pro tip: if all is lost and the ship is about to be destroyed, you can simply order the pilot (and in fact any crew) to simply go and work somewhere else. They'll then grab their escape pods and make their way to their new employment location. The pods hardly ever get shot at, as the enemies will keep focusing on destroying the now empty ship.
You can do this from player > personnel or ship > crew menu, or just right click another ship and "Transfer crew with".
You can also sell the now empty ship to another faction before it gets destroyed. You won't get much for a badly damaged ship but it's more than nothing so why not. If you sell it to a faction that has allies nearby this will also make them aggro the attackers, sweet sweet revenge.

[WildHorseProductions]

Arbiter : "Were It So Easy." Great tips btw. Just getting back into X4 after a decade almost from X3 TC

[herbertpocket]

Awesome video! I didn’t know that’s how pilots rank up!

[majorplothole]

thanks for this information. been playing for a while, still didn't understand anything about auto trading pilots though. this has been very helpful.

[Josivis]

My scout went from 2 to 4 star pilot by trying to transfer goods from PHQ to build storage took 30 min.
Transfering goods before removing my small storage replacing it with large storage.

[Ficus]

Great video! While the X community is pretty niche, I think you've got great pacing and have a good mix of information and a little humor. Keep it up! Subscriber 297 :)

[davecrupel]

0:08
"Were it so easy"
-Arbiter.

[beafcake]

actual help, thank you. if i search on reddit they tell me to mod the game. again thank you very much

[drsupergood]

Auto miners do now need skilled captains. The information in this video might not be relevant anymore. Mostly you want to use trade stations (a skilled manager) for trade ships. Main reason you want skilled pilots now is Silicon mining.

Traders that sell 1 -> 2 star seminars are rolled when the trader is rolled which is every time the trader enters high attention. It is not at all based on game seed and will change every time you revisit a station.

I am not sure that the player can be in a guild with all the factions at the same time. Some like ARG vs ZYA seem mutually exclusive like you have to pick a side. Others like those involving HOP are not so you are free to choose all sides for the largest selection choice.

ALI do have a representative. They sell the unique Nodan ship.

Easiest way to get high rank pilots is to use construction ships to level morale as service crew, then shove them 100 at a time into your HQ when terraforming a planet you built a flight school on. This lets you level up 100 pilots to 4 stars very easily and cheaply. You can even do this at the same time as you raise their boarding skill using martial arts school if you want. 5 star pilots are more tricky as they need to be trained at the flight school individually, which makes them very micro intensive. You can perform both individual and group trainings asynchronously but the group and individual are shared between both flight school and the martial arts school.

[masterofthedeathwing]

ive tried saving a bit of extra money to make all my miners faster with better drills, hopefully the increased speed and drilling speed will increase turn around. hopefully someone levels up faster. i got the callisto sentinel straight away, through the havitkah? quest and i put a captain on it and got him trading medical supplies. any time he stops i send him to second contact and do the same there, till theres no trades left then i send him back onto argon prime. pretty crap money, but hes improving rep fast and occasionally he does an ok trade.

[Koshea]

You use combat engines on your cormorant, maybe a video comparing the different M sized engines types and race variations would be useful. I have always used travel engines on mine.

[Josivis]

4:02 that is why When I hear my ship is being attacked I pause and determine if fleeing will save my ship if not I drop all inventory into a lockbox transfer all crew to a nearby troop carrier like shukaku and choose a fighter to house my pilot as service crew, then leave the ship to be destroyed of I'm licky the enimy looses interest and my ship survives.

[drakekay]

I love your style.... :D Do you write your scripts or improve on the mic?

[HisMagnificence]

My personal pilot is doing pretty well because they share in my dream of Total Teladi Death and sometimes I let them kill the freighters and fighters.

[edwardecl]

I also only hire pilots less than 1 star then train them up to 2/3 and give them 2 seminars, then you can either do guild missions for 2 star, or you can dump them in a combat ship and get them to kill enemies for the last 1/3 of a star.

Also if you have the split faction open to you, get Boa's, fastest trade ship can outrun most things.

Don't even bother trying to level pilots to 3 star with trade of mining, the chance of levelling after about 2 stars is so low it's pointless. The game is written to give you a chance of levelling based on if the trade was "good" low buying price / high selling price for a ware (not the total sold). Mining gives you 2 chances, 1 for filling the cargo and a bonus for filling cargo to 50% in one pickup, and I guess a possible 50% again but that's unlikely.

Also here is the number of interactions (on average) a pilot needs to do to level for mining and trading...
9 for a 1 star
110 for a 2 star
1, 382 for a 3 star
17, 378 for a 4 star
218, 568 for a 5 star

Good luck getting a 5 star 🙃

[Meta_Mage]

I've got a question, why not recommend the Boa as an autotrader instead? It's so fast. It can run away from any threat.

[drakedge]

I would love to see your takes on 6.20 +

[davidyoudontcare]

you missed to explain how i get from the guilde missions to actually buying the piloting semiars.