Bang For Your Buck: Capital Ship Cost-Effectiveness in X4 v7.1

In this video, Captain Snuggles attempts to quantify some old-school knowledge about the most cost-effective ships in the X4 universe.

00:00 Intro
01:29 Background
03:59 IMPORTANT: 7.0/7.1 Changes
04:50 Test Setup
06:54 Overall Results
08:18 Footage & Commentary
17:36 Detailed Test Setup
18:47 Detailed Results
20:02 Takeaways & Caveats
22:47 Bugs in 7.1 HF3
23:50 Conclusion

[CptSnuggles]

FAQ
Q: How do these results compare to player-piloted ships?
A: They don't. Player ships can't be tested in this manner. Your personal flying style and skill level will determine which one is most effective in your hands.

Q: Isn't it harder to manage large groups of ships?
A: Yes, somewhat. The minimum number of inputs (clicks + key presses) required to complete this test, replace losses, repair, and rearm is: 104 for fighters, 88 for carriers, 68 for destroyers, and 64 for battleships. That's using the featured compositions, my key bindings, and my command style.

Q: How are the results affected by micromanaging ships during combat?
A: That isn't testable in any statistically meaningful way. In general, micromanaging capitals is mechanically easier (fewer ships = fewer inputs), but micromanaging fighters is more effective (faster responses to commands).

Q: What about mixed fleets of carriers, fighters, and destroyers/battleships?
A: I tested them briefly and they seemed to be intermediate between the carrier and destroyer results, but closer to the destroyer side. They are still my personal favorite type of fleet composition.

Q: How dare you say that fighters are good for station assaults?!
A: I didn't.

[BauNRD]

What really grinds my gears is, that having a huge fighter-dominant fleet in vanilla is micromanaging hell.

[ВячеславФролов-дя]

Personally, carriers are worth the money instead of a fighter swarm in two situations:
1. Sector patrol. Pure fighters will suffer the attrition over time, but with a carrier attrition rate drops significantly
2. Player piloting. You can land your fighters and pull them through an enemy sector using travel drive, and undock them only at the final strategic destination

[Nurskul]

I am still pretty new to the game. I’ve played maybe 200+ hours and just have been trying to make a steady stream of money the TEL way. I’ve watched video after video about this game and honestly, it’s a lot. I just finally built my first Asgard. I really do appreciate your videos and others explaining the game.

[Diarmuhnd]

For SCIENCE !
Seriously now, thanks for the informative X4 guides.

[herrvorragend]

Playing for 1200+ hours and only now test out carriers...The burst firing of my modded PAR plasma syns never let me down so far. Ks drop in less than 10s, I-class need 20s
On my first playthrough i cleared all xenon sectors needed for that yaki mission only using 1 syn and 2 osakas for flak cover...no losses.
I think thats my problem here: being ok with losing ships/fighters. Up til now i could not stand losing ships while achieving my goals. Destroyers and Asgaards (+earlking) did it for me on every of my 4 playthroughs

Going for Shih fighter production in my new avarice facility next and try your proposal out now, though. Thx for the advice❤

[blackfalcon]

Talking about new players, I just picked up X4. I have about 2000 hours on X3 back from 2006 to 2010 because my first laptop was a MacBook and that was one of the only games I could find for Mac back in the day

[rrad]

Thank you. I appreciate these as both informative and entertaining videos. Look forward to the next one.

[RadiantCrowns]

Never heard of or seen this game before but I got recommended it and watch the entire video even tho idk whats going on

[Vyseroy]

Great video! Very helpful! Recently gotten back into X4 after taking a long break and really got stuck back into it (many many hours over the past 2 weeks!). Thanks for the tips!

[notwhatitwasbefore]

Thank you for the interesting and usefull data.

I typically don't get involoved in the larger scale fights until I'm able to mass produce my own capital ship fleets so efficiency and effectiveness are not really as important at that point but its nice to know. My normall clear out the xenon sectors force is 1-2 full carriers and ~35 destroyers, I do nearly no micro and instead just focus on snowballing that force with reinforcements, I don't care about losses or put too much focus in to min maxing loadouts because quantity has a quality all its own. losing 5-10 destroyers per sector is totally acceptable but next time I play I'll try some min max carriers as that seems like it would be a little faster to get done. thanks

[helGnT]

Opened my eyes. Thank you! And thank you for all the awesome vids

[Wracehawk]

Really really good video and you did a very nice analysis! Thanks for the insights!

[ajm]

So many blast mortars, so few pulse lasers.

I guess it makes sense since you have the station assault in there, but I'm a little surprised that you didn't have trouble with the defense drones.

[isaacdoggart]

I honestly don't know how you make carriers work for station destruction, whenever I do it I watch as the carrier travel drives straight into the station graviton guns and dies and then even with attack turrets on I lose 40-50 fighters to the positrons.

[realcite]

Your videos are very nice too watch, nicely produced and I like your narrative style. Also, I would love if you'd make a video about missiles and torpedoes, especially after 7.0.

[egoaut]

Good video, I admire your frustration resistance. I'm having problems at the moment, especially with M and stripping squads on carriers. 🥴

Btw anyone who has ever flown from Earth with an S/M squad to another system knows how important carriers are. The police are particularly annoying.😂

[Zartren]

In low attention combat, I used to need two fleets: a carrier group to take on Xenon ships, and a battle group of battleship and destroyers to take on a defense platform. The logic behind the carrier group has been well explained here. I usually bother with a carrier for repairs and resupply for long campaigns taking over multiple Xenon sectors. But whenever I sent the fighters against a station, I would lose too many to make the campaign viable. I would need to rebuild the fighters, reassign to the carrier group and wait for their arrival. High attention combat seems to work much, much better here. A battleship and destroyers group worked well against the stations, generally surviving much better, meaning I could generally complete a campaign with the starting fleet. They do require some attention to make sure the destroyers didn't get themselves too close to Xenon turrets when repositioning, but nothing close to rebuilding a fleet worth of fighters.

[kazzsaru]

On a fair flipside, the most popular overhaul mod for X4 Foundations, Variety and Rebalance Overhaul, flips the script entirely that fighters are vulnerable to larger ship anti-fighter countermeasures and weapons, and I can see the argument working in this case that fighters would be a pointless waste of money outside of the far more situational use they see in the mod.

[pyrphoros]

With active managment i find that destroyers suffer far less attrition compared to fighters.
I constantly lost fighters in stupid ways because they overcommitted or stoped to recalculate their next action in front of enemy guns.

I only recently started with the game, but with a fair easy to get destroyer setup (1x Syn form questline, 2x Behemoth requesitioned from Scale Plate, 1x Orca) i was able to take down several Xenon sectors without any loses. Just make sure they stay close together, line them up on the closest enemy approaching and have them concentrate fire.
Fighting an enemy station and fleet at once is suprisingly an advantage. I normaly get the station beween me and the Xenon fleet.
The attack command on the station makes it easier to lock the destroyers in place and the AI is realy bad at manouvering around the station making it easier to separate and defeat them in detail.
Also about cost effectiveness: Aux ships with consumable spam. Setting down 100 laser turrets cost the same as 1, 5 fighters and screen against any fighers. Aux ship can also carry 100 drones ... but their AI is iffy.

Destroyer combat can be made without losses, but requires constant attention and minute adjustments to positioning.
In the very late game a fighter spam might be better, but getting into the midgame and clearing out the first few Xenon sectors can be more effectivly done with destroyers.

Kha'ak should allways be engaged with destroyers. They hardcounter fighters but can not harm destroyers.