Captain Snuggles, as a returning player that feels pretty overwhelmed right now, I would love to see some of your raw gameplay. As I'm sure you are aware, the X4 content on UA-cam is a virtual desert with little solid gameplay (and decent commentary) that gives new and returning players the opportunity to emulate and employ strategies used by more seasoned players. I wish you luck on your journey to create great content!
If only! I haven't had time to play X4 for fun in several months. I'll probably start an actual playthrough once 7.5 fully releases, and I'll see about posting some gameplay from that. In the meantime, Perun Gaming has a very popular playthrough in which he explains and analyzes things nicely, so if you enjoy my videos, you'll probably enjoy his as well.
I like the Guppy. It's affordable pretty early on, agile and fast enough to be a player's main ship, and quite versatile in what it can do in combat. You can engage in small to medium brawls with it using the group of fighters you'll passively accumulate over the course of the early game, or even 1v1 a K since it can pack quite a large number of Dumbfire turrets for its size and is hilariously tanky. Once you move on to another main ship you can then assign a wing or two to it and use it as a budget patrol carrier. It's also cute :3
Guppies form the backbone of any patrol fleet I assemble, they are small and fast enough to work as patrol and QRF ships, but cheap enough that late game you can group them with fleet carriers as a back up fighter force or dedicated bomber task group.
I've specifically been looking for mods that added more L-class carriers since I got hooked on the Guppy. I only found one, sadly, but it's Terran and looks nice and those guys with their slow-ass fighters definitely need them. I even wish the ship was fully adopted into the vanilla game. The mod's lore is on point with it being a repurposed mining ship as a fast fighter support carrier meant for the Militia, while the Protectorate proper doesn't need nor does it want to focus on S-class deployment.
Thanks for this! To those who have not experienced carriers yet, there is a HUGE Absolute difference between these carriers. This video breaks down those differences in terms of shipped deployment and mentions other considerations as well. Shark, baby, all day long! Not only does it excel in carrier operations, it can tank for you with its amazing shield and hull capacity. I cannot tell you what a joy and relief. It is to never worry about any of my sharks dying in a position defense. Exact opposite experience with the raptor. When I got my hands on those, I thought I was in business! Such an exciting design, I love flying in and out of it, and the thing is HIDEOUSLY well armed. But the sucker performs terribly, and dies way too easily. Raptor has got to be the most disappointing ship for me in the game. I feel like I have to protect them like little babies.
Shark have instant travel drive, launch tubes and can bring 80 S friends if you use the ocuppy the landing pads trick (64 fighters for normal capacity), its turrets are there...just to be , Raptor have 98 M flak turrets, and can bring 100 S friends with its normal capacity. Prior to beta, my choice would be the "fire works factory" Raptor, but in beta, with fighters really liking to collide and/or get stuck in the geometry of its "mouth", I guess the Shark is in.
@@marvinehre9770 It is a good carrier, and it is the real fast response carrier in the game with instant drive. I only place it second in my preferences because of my gameplay choices. For example, my boron fleets must use boron ships, and my choice for fighters are Mako for interceptors and torpedo Irukandji for bombers, so specialised roles. With the Raptor I use only Chimeras, with both interceptors and bombers using 4 Thermal and 1 smart missile launcher for interceptors and 1 torpedo launcher for bombers, so I have interceptors that can bombard, and bombers that can intercep, and when I activate Position Defence, I have 100 fighters that will engage all types of targets, from S to XL. But that is just my gameplay choice, If I were to put 40 Chimera interceptors and 40 Chimera bombers on a Shark, I would achieve the same capability with Position Defence, losing only 20 fighters, and keeping all the Shark advantages, and they are really solid advantages.
The Raptor perfectly embodies Split design philosophy. It doesn't care about fighter deployment or retrieval speed because its operators only ever plan to use it offensively
Great video, I'm pretty new to X4 and looking to buy my first carrier, it was very helpful :) Now I'm curious: How would things behave out of sector? What the Raptor might excel at is carrying lots of miners to get protectyon, since it can take the most miners per trip :D
Ive always preferred the shark based on how the ship has felt to use, and this confirms why, also because the shark has basically impenetrable shields with basically the best combat mobility.
16 secons in. After the patch, shark. Before the patch .. shark or guppy. Will edit after watching :D EDIT: after finishing the vid I agree with everything but am a bit surprised as my own playthrough showed considerably smoother flight paths for S ships after the patch. M ships - I just teleport OOS for a minute 😅 both patch and no patch
@CptSnuggles07 (read edit too) Tokyo, shark and raptor. I literally flew in formation with the raptor ships. BUT this IS X4 so may not be the case most of the times. The order for the ships was "collect drops" where there were none so they returned on their own. Maybe that influencd it too. One of my fav things in x4 was always to be on the deck of a carrier during operations and this time it just felt a bit better. XL and L ships are now a bit more agile as well. Edit: maybe the pilots were experienced and that made a difference because it was an old save and most pilots were at least 3 stars
@@-drey Interesting. I didn't re-test the Tokyo, but the Shark and Raptor were both significantly worse at everything in 7.5, aside from M deployment on the Shark, which was unchanged. 3-star fighter pilots in both 7.1 and 7.5. I'll be keeping a close eye on it as the beta progresses and will keep y'all updated on my test results.
The Galactica does, of course! (yes there are two mods, however after using both, the Battlestar Galactica mod version is truer to scale, and has much better model boundaries than the Ossian Raider version).
Knew the Shark was great but I didn't notice it has 4 launch tubes, so I've been fielding mostly Colossus Vanguards as fleet carriers so far. I guess I can switch to fielding 100% sharks now.
Hi cap, great video, thanks. I generally use Colossus Vs or Raptors as Fleet carriers, and I find the Zeus E operates really well in an escort carrier role. I notice you didn't include the Xenon H. I'm currently experimenting with it and find it works well as a small escort carrier, or area denial unit with a couple of destroyer escorts.
The H is technically a destroyer, so I didn't include it here. I have a video on it from back when it first released, and I do think it's interesting as a hybrid carrier or drone carrier, although generally I hate using single-dock ships in any type of carrier role.
And here i am just placing an Aux in every sector i got a fleet operating. That one Aux is servicing a couple hundred fighters. Imo, carry capacity is irrelevant because: Fighters are faster than any capital ship. Keeping them docked and then launching reduces readiness, it takes longer for them to reach their target destination, or start fighting. Ships only do dock for repairs, aside from that everything always stays out in space, ready for combat or movement. The aux or carrier is simply placed some distance away, behind the frontline in a secure location.ion. Though, seeing a carrier launch its fighter swarm is pretty cool. And the rule of cool usually wins. Especially in a singleplayer game.
High carrying capacity is nice for blockade running. Break through the defenses with the carrier, then deploy fighters behind enemy lines. Reduces attrition of stray fighters getting picked off in transit. Generally though, I agree, carrying capacity hasn't been really critical since Position Defense was introduced.
I'm honestly surprised the Tokyo didn't do better... I've been using it as my "main" carrier for a while and it doesn't "feel" that bad in gameplay (other than the price tag and 1 medium dock). I know everybody loves the Shark and Raptor... which makes me want to be contrarian. :P
Highlights of the beta so far are: Vanguard/Sentinel variants now have the same capacity as the E variants, Zeus E was given 8 extra internal storage for S ships, Condor was nerfed to 24 internal storage, the same as the Zeus now, The tokyo's S capacity was buffed to 72, and both the tokyo and raptor's M capacity were nerfed to 4
The Condor nerf is rude, but everything else makes sense. Looking forward to testing the changes after Egosoft makes a few rounds of improvements to the beta AI.
@@CptSnuggles07 yeah, personally i think the condor should have the same capacity as the colossus E. would still probably end up being the worst carrier but it would only be slightly worse
i look at these results and conclude Guppies are best used in small packs with larger flights of fighters for maintenance duties of the combat swarm. Because they are fast, and have excellent maintenance capacity for their little friends, and are cheap. launch time isn't particularly relevant when your limiting agent becomes rate of input when throughput is the target.
Good old Colossus Sentinel. Nice shield, launch tubes, more docks than "E", more agile as Raptor,.....with some mods faster as "K" and bigger shield... Sentinel>Vanguard because of HP/Speed. Btw supply ship...Teladi is a real good one, and has a nice ring.
I'm basically brand new to the game. The first fleet setup i was introduced to was with a Col Sent. Wasn't sure why they didn't make the cut for testing.
There wasn't really a "cut" to be made; there's no point testing both the Sentinel and the Vanguard variants because they share the same models and will therefore have the same performance in this test, aside from mobility. Welcome to X4!
@@CptSnuggles07 Thank you for the welcome and info. It wasn't until this video that I realized there were differences in the models for the E's and wasn't sure if there may have been something the game stats don't show to differ the V and S as well.
@@Vormehk, In simple terms, Sentinel has +10% hull but is -5% slower against Vanguards. Until beta 7.5, when the boost mechanics changed, there was (in my opinion) an advantage for Sentinels as long as they were at least as fast as K.
The Tokyo was always kinda disappointing because it looks so great, but its so not as good as it should be. It's like they decided too much of the Terran stuff was great, so they made the Tokyo below average. I still feel it should have a 'niche' advantage. Sure, the Shark can have the most strike craft and the Raptor the most guns, so make the Tokyo the most agile for deployment! Give it 20 launch bays, battlestar style. If it could quickly deploy and pack up just as fast, it would more closely align with Terran drives and doctrine of being able to hop around from point-to-point in a hurry.
The Beta 7.5 Tokyo carries up to 90 S ships (+32) and 5 M ships (-6), and its mobility has been reduced even farther below that of the other carriers - considerably worse than the Raptor now, at least on paper. So it is moving into a more distinct niche, although I don't know yet whether I'd call it an improvement overall.
@@CptSnuggles07 I don't know if that is a niche, more of a nerf. If they want it to be a mega carrier but slow as molasses, give it a bonkers fighter load. 90 isn't bonkers enough to make up for it's price and downsides, even if I ignore the standard Terran ship price premium.
The issue is Destroyers don't actually function as cruisers or destroyers. Destroyers are siege ships, the only reason to bring up a fleet of Destroyers is to siege down a station, and even then you need to keep an eye on them to stop one or two from just flying into the station. Still, even then they are better than losting 2 fleets if fighters trying to take down a Xenon station, even with Torpedos and missiles.
One of the high points of X4 for me was the fact that the flight model was not realistic and a pain in the butt to deal with. If I want realism I would go play a space flight sim. This move to make things more difficult is a big ole "We don't need casuals playing our game." statement. I sincerely hope there is an option to leave things as they are since it was not broken to begin with.
I also liked the "arcade" feel of X4 spaceflight and thought it fit the universe well. I'm still trying to keep an open mind about the changes though, at least until I've finished my testing.
Using it. The M frigates still have only 1 dock and 1 storage capacity for S but at least they can repair and supply a wing of S. I feel this bridges a gap for the early game.
Captain Snuggles, as a returning player that feels pretty overwhelmed right now, I would love to see some of your raw gameplay. As I'm sure you are aware, the X4 content on UA-cam is a virtual desert with little solid gameplay (and decent commentary) that gives new and returning players the opportunity to emulate and employ strategies used by more seasoned players. I wish you luck on your journey to create great content!
If only! I haven't had time to play X4 for fun in several months. I'll probably start an actual playthrough once 7.5 fully releases, and I'll see about posting some gameplay from that. In the meantime, Perun Gaming has a very popular playthrough in which he explains and analyzes things nicely, so if you enjoy my videos, you'll probably enjoy his as well.
Check ragnos28 for combat. A lot of simulation for all races, mixed and purist fleets.
Search for captain Collins he has a vast amount of X4 content and if you want to see gameplay he also has a twitch account by the same name.
I like the Guppy. It's affordable pretty early on, agile and fast enough to be a player's main ship, and quite versatile in what it can do in combat. You can engage in small to medium brawls with it using the group of fighters you'll passively accumulate over the course of the early game, or even 1v1 a K since it can pack quite a large number of Dumbfire turrets for its size and is hilariously tanky. Once you move on to another main ship you can then assign a wing or two to it and use it as a budget patrol carrier. It's also cute :3
Guppies form the backbone of any patrol fleet I assemble, they are small and fast enough to work as patrol and QRF ships, but cheap enough that late game you can group them with fleet carriers as a back up fighter force or dedicated bomber task group.
I've specifically been looking for mods that added more L-class carriers since I got hooked on the Guppy. I only found one, sadly, but it's Terran and looks nice and those guys with their slow-ass fighters definitely need them.
I even wish the ship was fully adopted into the vanilla game. The mod's lore is on point with it being a repurposed mining ship as a fast fighter support carrier meant for the Militia, while the Protectorate proper doesn't need nor does it want to focus on S-class deployment.
Thanks for this! To those who have not experienced carriers yet, there is a HUGE Absolute difference between these carriers. This video breaks down those differences in terms of shipped deployment and mentions other considerations as well.
Shark, baby, all day long! Not only does it excel in carrier operations, it can tank for you with its amazing shield and hull capacity. I cannot tell you what a joy and relief. It is to never worry about any of my sharks dying in a position defense.
Exact opposite experience with the raptor. When I got my hands on those, I thought I was in business! Such an exciting design, I love flying in and out of it, and the thing is HIDEOUSLY well armed. But the sucker performs terribly, and dies way too easily. Raptor has got to be the most disappointing ship for me in the game. I feel like I have to protect them like little babies.
Shark have instant travel drive, launch tubes and can bring 80 S friends if you use the ocuppy the landing pads trick (64 fighters for normal capacity), its turrets are there...just to be , Raptor have 98 M flak turrets, and can bring 100 S friends with its normal capacity.
Prior to beta, my choice would be the "fire works factory" Raptor, but in beta, with fighters really liking to collide and/or get stuck in the geometry of its "mouth", I guess the Shark is in.
After the Boron dlc, I preferred the Shark, due to its Fighter starting and landing speed.
@@marvinehre9770 It is a good carrier, and it is the real fast response carrier in the game with instant drive.
I only place it second in my preferences because of my gameplay choices. For example, my boron fleets must use boron ships, and my choice for fighters are Mako for interceptors and torpedo Irukandji for bombers, so specialised roles. With the Raptor I use only Chimeras, with both interceptors and bombers using 4 Thermal and 1 smart missile launcher for interceptors and 1 torpedo launcher for bombers, so I have interceptors that can bombard, and bombers that can intercep, and when I activate Position Defence, I have 100 fighters that will engage all types of targets, from S to XL.
But that is just my gameplay choice, If I were to put 40 Chimera interceptors and 40 Chimera bombers on a Shark, I would achieve the same capability with Position Defence, losing only 20 fighters, and keeping all the Shark advantages, and they are really solid advantages.
Jank o’clock.. that part was funny with the fighters in that hanger. Should report that to egosoft with that video part.
The Raptor perfectly embodies Split design philosophy. It doesn't care about fighter deployment or retrieval speed because its operators only ever plan to use it offensively
Tokyo and Raptor is my favorites carriers.
this game is outstanding!
Great video, I'm pretty new to X4 and looking to buy my first carrier, it was very helpful :)
Now I'm curious: How would things behave out of sector?
What the Raptor might excel at is carrying lots of miners to get protectyon, since it can take the most miners per trip :D
Ive always preferred the shark based on how the ship has felt to use, and this confirms why, also because the shark has basically impenetrable shields with basically the best combat mobility.
16 secons in. After the patch, shark. Before the patch .. shark or guppy. Will edit after watching :D
EDIT: after finishing the vid I agree with everything but am a bit surprised as my own playthrough showed considerably smoother flight paths for S ships after the patch. M ships - I just teleport OOS for a minute 😅 both patch and no patch
Which carrier were you using that had better S flight paths?
@CptSnuggles07 (read edit too) Tokyo, shark and raptor. I literally flew in formation with the raptor ships. BUT this IS X4 so may not be the case most of the times. The order for the ships was "collect drops" where there were none so they returned on their own. Maybe that influencd it too.
One of my fav things in x4 was always to be on the deck of a carrier during operations and this time it just felt a bit better. XL and L ships are now a bit more agile as well.
Edit: maybe the pilots were experienced and that made a difference because it was an old save and most pilots were at least 3 stars
@@-drey Interesting. I didn't re-test the Tokyo, but the Shark and Raptor were both significantly worse at everything in 7.5, aside from M deployment on the Shark, which was unchanged. 3-star fighter pilots in both 7.1 and 7.5. I'll be keeping a close eye on it as the beta progresses and will keep y'all updated on my test results.
'ate Raptors, 'ate split, luv me Shark, simple as.
Please share your results with the devs on the official forum regarding the Beta. Good feedback is needed so we don't end up with a mess.
The Galactica does, of course! (yes there are two mods, however after using both, the Battlestar Galactica mod version is truer to scale, and has much better model boundaries than the Ossian Raider version).
Knew the Shark was great but I didn't notice it has 4 launch tubes, so I've been fielding mostly Colossus Vanguards as fleet carriers so far.
I guess I can switch to fielding 100% sharks now.
Hi cap, great video, thanks. I generally use Colossus Vs or Raptors as Fleet carriers, and I find the Zeus E operates really well in an escort carrier role.
I notice you didn't include the Xenon H. I'm currently experimenting with it and find it works well as a small escort carrier, or area denial unit with a couple of destroyer escorts.
The H is technically a destroyer, so I didn't include it here. I have a video on it from back when it first released, and I do think it's interesting as a hybrid carrier or drone carrier, although generally I hate using single-dock ships in any type of carrier role.
And here i am just placing an Aux in every sector i got a fleet operating.
That one Aux is servicing a couple hundred fighters.
Imo, carry capacity is irrelevant because:
Fighters are faster than any capital ship. Keeping them docked and then launching reduces readiness, it takes longer for them to reach their target destination, or start fighting.
Ships only do dock for repairs, aside from that everything always stays out in space, ready for combat or movement.
The aux or carrier is simply placed some distance away, behind the frontline in a secure location.ion.
Though, seeing a carrier launch its fighter swarm is pretty cool. And the rule of cool usually wins. Especially in a singleplayer game.
Really try out position defence. You can assign lots of fighters to cover 2.3...4 gates. Even M Ships and they just go home for repair.
High carrying capacity is nice for blockade running. Break through the defenses with the carrier, then deploy fighters behind enemy lines. Reduces attrition of stray fighters getting picked off in transit. Generally though, I agree, carrying capacity hasn't been really critical since Position Defense was introduced.
I'm honestly surprised the Tokyo didn't do better... I've been using it as my "main" carrier for a while and it doesn't "feel" that bad in gameplay (other than the price tag and 1 medium dock). I know everybody loves the Shark and Raptor... which makes me want to be contrarian. :P
I generally use the Raptor for sector defense with position defense orders, or in major OOS battles. Personally, I prefer the Shark.
Highlights of the beta so far are: Vanguard/Sentinel variants now have the same capacity as the E variants, Zeus E was given 8 extra internal storage for S ships, Condor was nerfed to 24 internal storage, the same as the Zeus now, The tokyo's S capacity was buffed to 72, and both the tokyo and raptor's M capacity were nerfed to 4
The Condor nerf is rude, but everything else makes sense. Looking forward to testing the changes after Egosoft makes a few rounds of improvements to the beta AI.
@@CptSnuggles07 yeah, personally i think the condor should have the same capacity as the colossus E. would still probably end up being the worst carrier but it would only be slightly worse
Guppy is basically the best "destroyer" in the game =)
i look at these results and conclude Guppies are best used in small packs with larger flights of fighters for maintenance duties of the combat swarm.
Because they are fast, and have excellent maintenance capacity for their little friends, and are cheap. launch time isn't particularly relevant when your limiting agent becomes rate of input when throughput is the target.
Good old Colossus Sentinel.
Nice shield, launch tubes, more docks than "E", more agile as Raptor,.....with some mods faster as "K" and bigger shield...
Sentinel>Vanguard because of HP/Speed.
Btw supply ship...Teladi is a real good one, and has a nice ring.
I'm basically brand new to the game. The first fleet setup i was introduced to was with a Col Sent. Wasn't sure why they didn't make the cut for testing.
There wasn't really a "cut" to be made; there's no point testing both the Sentinel and the Vanguard variants because they share the same models and will therefore have the same performance in this test, aside from mobility. Welcome to X4!
@@CptSnuggles07 Thank you for the welcome and info. It wasn't until this video that I realized there were differences in the models for the E's and wasn't sure if there may have been something the game stats don't show to differ the V and S as well.
@@Vormehk, In simple terms, Sentinel has +10% hull but is -5% slower against Vanguards. Until beta 7.5, when the boost mechanics changed, there was (in my opinion) an advantage for Sentinels as long as they were at least as fast as K.
The Tokyo was always kinda disappointing because it looks so great, but its so not as good as it should be. It's like they decided too much of the Terran stuff was great, so they made the Tokyo below average.
I still feel it should have a 'niche' advantage. Sure, the Shark can have the most strike craft and the Raptor the most guns, so make the Tokyo the most agile for deployment! Give it 20 launch bays, battlestar style. If it could quickly deploy and pack up just as fast, it would more closely align with Terran drives and doctrine of being able to hop around from point-to-point in a hurry.
The Beta 7.5 Tokyo carries up to 90 S ships (+32) and 5 M ships (-6), and its mobility has been reduced even farther below that of the other carriers - considerably worse than the Raptor now, at least on paper. So it is moving into a more distinct niche, although I don't know yet whether I'd call it an improvement overall.
@@CptSnuggles07 I don't know if that is a niche, more of a nerf.
If they want it to be a mega carrier but slow as molasses, give it a bonkers fighter load. 90 isn't bonkers enough to make up for it's price and downsides, even if I ignore the standard Terran ship price premium.
Will you make a discord at some point? will you start streaming?
I've thought about streaming some of my tests. Could be fun. Need to look into it a bit more. I haven't considered Discord at all.
Hope they add Xenon carriers.
Biggest mistake i made was having a destroyer fleet. Its absolutely useless. I hope the new flight models fix this
The issue is Destroyers don't actually function as cruisers or destroyers. Destroyers are siege ships, the only reason to bring up a fleet of Destroyers is to siege down a station, and even then you need to keep an eye on them to stop one or two from just flying into the station. Still, even then they are better than losting 2 fleets if fighters trying to take down a Xenon station, even with Torpedos and missiles.
Okay, but which carrier is the prettiest? This requires more testing. (It's the Shark).
So the colossus is the best, cheapest, sexiest and carrierest of all carriers, as I already knew.
Still sees the Colossus storing all its ship in its dong, I'd rather use something else.
@@FortuneHunters dumping your load fast is, in this case, a good thing at least
Any answer other than raptor is wrong...
One of the high points of X4 for me was the fact that the flight model was not realistic and a pain in the butt to deal with. If I want realism I would go play a space flight sim. This move to make things more difficult is a big ole "We don't need casuals playing our game." statement. I sincerely hope there is an option to leave things as they are since it was not broken to begin with.
When I want realistic spaceflight then I play Kerbal Space Program. The kind of dogfight combat just isn't realistic in space!
@@DrAHorn it just makes the game harder.
I also liked the "arcade" feel of X4 spaceflight and thought it fit the universe well. I'm still trying to keep an open mind about the changes though, at least until I've finished my testing.
There is mod for making some M ships carrier. Never tried.
Using it. The M frigates still have only 1 dock and 1 storage capacity for S but at least they can repair and supply a wing of S. I feel this bridges a gap for the early game.