X4 Foundations 9.00 "Empire Update" Public Beta is Now Live!

We're thrilled to kick off the Public Beta for the X4: Foundations "Empire Update" (9.00)! This free major update includes numerous features and reworks that influence how you engage with combat, strategy, and the economy.

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The Empire Update includes a balance pass across hundreds of weapons, ships, and shields, alongside sweeping improvements to combat that will put your piloting skills to the test. Combined with other AI improvements, combat will be more dynamic, challenging, and rewarding.

In addition to the comprehensive under-the-hood combat improvements, we've also implemented a highly-requested Priority Orders feature to rapidly issue orders - all the better to smoothly manage your fleet in the midst of the Empire Update's more challenging combat! Not only that, but a new asset pipeline has allowed us to improve the ship visuals and increase loadout variety in update 9.00.

Several impactful non-combat features are arriving with this update: Kha'ak ships can now be recycled into a versatile new ware that adds an additional layer to the economy, while a significant overhaul of the resource area system changes the way new resources emerge after a resource area has been depleted.

This update also includes a new Ship Showroom station module for collectors, upgrades to the UI and map menu, more elaborate NPC stations emphasising faction identity, and more.

Find more details and a full changelog in this news post, and join our Public Beta to experience the update for yourself.

The Empire Update (9.00) is still a work in progress and 9.00 Beta 1 represents the first iteration of several larger gameplay changes that will continue to evolve throughout the Public Beta phase. This update introduces deep systemic changes affecting combat, strategy, and economic gameplay, and may encourage players - especially long-time pilots - to rethink familiar approaches. Development does not stop with the start of the Public Beta; your feedback plays an important role as we continue refining and balancing these systems ahead of the final release. We invite you to share your thoughts in the Public Beta Feedback forum and help us shape the update together. Thank you for your continued support!

How Do I Take Part in the Public Beta?
Every player who owns X4: Foundations has the opportunity to download the new 9.00 Public Beta version. In order to ensure that beta participants are aware of the risks and rules involved, we ask all interested players to visit our forum, where they will find the rules and disclaimers, as well as practical instructions for participating in the beta. Follow this link to our forum - no registration required - to find the relevant information.

Combat Mechanics

The biggest changes to the combat system lie under the hood. We have painstakingly worked through a number of minor weapon aiming issues. Each improvement is relatively small by itself, but the compounded effect of this effort should have a significant positive impact on the feel and outcome of combat:

• Turret accuracy has been vastly improved.
• Destroyers make more use of their main batteries, while also benefiting from steering and turret improvements.
• AI pilot aiming is now more organic. Depending on the skill of the pilot, evasive manoeuvres and strafing are more effective at throwing off their aim.

Update 9.00 also includes a host of more obvious combat features:

• Ships can now have a weapon heat factor; ships with many guns may, for example, overheat faster.
• Similarly, ships can now have shield modifiers for higher capacity or recharge rate.
• The main statistics for engines, shields, and weapons are now shown in the ship loadout screen.
• Torpedoes can now be targeted, and missile interception has generally improved.
• Ammunition reloading is now shown on the HUD.

Capital Ship Movement

In addition to the weapon aiming improvements in 9.00, we've invested a similar effort into reworking capital ship movement. Combined, these changes greatly influence their combat performance. Head to the Egosoft forum for a specific test request on this topic.

Ship Rebalancing

We are changing both the physical size of weapons on S and M ships, and the rules by which they are connected. This will not just improve the visuals, but also allow us to adjust weapon compatibility. The most important effect of this is that newer ships will be able to use older weapons, and older ships will be able to use newer weapons. Head to the Egosoft forum for a specific test request on this topic.

This update includes a full rebalancing of more than 200 weapons and turrets, over 90 shields, and many of our more than 200 ships. Here, the goal is to fix inconsistencies, add more tactical depth, and distribute strengths and weaknesses more intuitively:

• Prices will better reflect the quality level of ships and equipment.
• Large ships are not as vulnerable to small weaponry.
• Heavily armoured and shielded ships are a more viable option.
• Turrets are more varied from faction to faction.

Improved Target Selection for Surface Elements

From 9.00 Beta 1, selecting a capital ship or station will target the object itself first - regardless of whether you click on the hull or structure, a surface element, or the target rectangle. Once the object is selected, you can then click on individual surface elements to target them specifically. This change introduces a clearer selection hierarchy intended to make targeting more consistent.

Kha'ak Recycling

With 9.00, S and M Kha'ak wrecks can now be recycled. The new recycling loop leads to the production of Allographyne, a transmutable ware that can be used in ship production and equipment. When present, Allographyne transmutes to replace any wares that are not in stock, allowing alternative ways to manage shortages.

Allographyne production requires Nividium, creating an increased demand for Nividium and opening up new trade opportunities, especially for mining entrepreneurs. Some NPC factions across the gate network will construct specialised recycling stations to utilise this new resource. Head to the Egosoft forum for a specific test request on this topic.

Ship Visual / Modular Changes

Engines and shields are now a part of ship models for S and M ships, improving the overall appearance of individual ships and greatly increasing the variety of modules that those ships can equip. Although this equipment no longer affects these ships' appearance, this change allows us to have more deliberate and consistent visual identities across the ship roster.

All S and M ships (prior to Kingdom End) have also received a facelift to hardpoint locations, allowing, for example, Boron and Commonwealth ships to equip each other's modules and to equip smaller weapons/turrets. As part of this effort, all medium-sized turrets used by M ships have been rebuilt from scratch.

Priority Orders

Priority Orders are a new feature based on player requests for more immediate, "RTS"-style orders that can be issued rapidly in fast-paced scenarios. Priority Orders will always be carried out before normal ones, which means that the days of manually adjusting the order list whenever you want a ship to do something immediately are finally over!

Players can give and queue orders from the map using + , or they can issue Priority Orders using + or queue Priority Orders with + + , either on their own or in combination with one another.

These modifiers can be used to set waypoints on the map or to queue/priority-queue all kinds of orders in the Order Menu. Want to quickly repair a ship, pick up a lockbox, or attack a specific target without messing with your elaborate order queue? Now you can.

This comes with a change to the behaviour of the order menu: it will now overwrite any queued orders if no modifier key is used. Players can optionally invert this menu behaviour to avoid accidentally overwriting their order queues if they prefer the previous behaviour.

Ship Showroom Module

Update 9.00 introduces a new station module: the Ship Showroom. This module can be used to stylishly store and display your favourite ships. Depending on which Ship Showroom module you build, either S-sized ships only, or both S and and M-sized ships, can be displayed. Simply dock a ship yourself, or order one of your pilots to do so, and the ship will remain displayed on the pad indefinitely.

One or more Ship Showrooms can be attached to an existing player-owned station, or the module can be used on its own to create a separate Showroom station. Prolific ship collectors may even want to construct a showroom complex, consisting of several Ship Showroom modules, to admire their armada of acquisitions.

It's worth noting that if a Ship Showroom module is destroyed or deconstructed, any displayed ships will be lost.

UI / Map Menu Changes

Along with some general changes to the visual style that have been propagated to all areas of the game, we have focused on bringing more specific changes to the map screen menus. These adjustments to the layout, and how certain information is presented, are focused on improving readability, but the structure of the information presented has remained largely the same.

We will be taking on board feedback that we receive on these changes to feed into the next iteration, not only for the map screen but also for other menus, in future updates. Head to the Egosoft forum for a specific test request on this topic.

Better NPC Station Designs

In previous updates, we allowed NPC factions to construct larger stations. In this update, we are extending this functionality by enabling faction AI to utilise, and expand upon, predefined station construction plans. Stations based on these construction plans will be more visually coherent and elaborate than those generated by the standard construction method, and allow our designers to more clearly express each faction's distinct design philosophy and visual identity.

Mining Region Overhaul

We've completely overhauled the way resource areas are managed, to make them more efficient in terms of performance and memory, as well as providing us with better control over resource distribution and you with more compelling gameplay.

The distribution of resources within a region is now handled differently, with resources being localised rather than spread across the entire region. And when a given resource area is depleted, new resources may emerge at a different location within the region. This results in a new dynamic for mining operations, in which resource areas will need to be found before they can be exploited, and resulting in much greater fluctuation in resource availability as miners look for efficient mining locations.

X4 9.00 Public Beta 1 Changelog:

• New Feature: Priority Order system.
• New Feature: Travel Drive Stability system.
• New Feature: Major rebalancing of weapons and missiles.
• New Feature: Dedicated missile launcher slots on some S/M ships.
• New Feature: Most equipment now interchangeable between S/M ships of all commonwealth races.
• New Feature: Resource distribution overhaul for improved prospecting and mining.
• New Feature: Kha'ak wreck processing, providing new transmutable resource called Allographyne.
• New Feature: Ship Showroom station module to show off your prized possessions.
• New Feature: Refreshed UI visuals.
• Added heat generation and shield modifiers to certain ship hulls.
• Added limited blueprints for certain unique ships to allow them to be rebuilt if lost.
• Added option to hand over fleets and stations to Mission Briefing for relevant missions.
• Added station plot management to Station Build menu.
• Added links to entries and production module info from ware pages in Encyclopedia.
• Added controller shoulder button support to Crafting menu.
• Added overview of items in Safe Deposit Storage to Player Inventory menu.
• Added ship stance descriptions to Ship Interactions menu.
• Added equipment details to Ship Build and Upgrade menus.
• Added Boost Acceleration Multiplier to Encyclopedia engine entries.
• Added option to set camera to not rotate with object in external view.
• Added target elements for torpedoes.
• Added ammo clip reload information to weapon HUD.
• Added braking distance hints to Velocity Indicator.
• Added Comm and Info keyboard shortcuts for surface elements.
• Added alternative way to earn What is Best in Life achievement through Diplomatic Interference.
• Added sound effect for highlighting options in dropdowns.
• Added input hint bar.
• Added support for AMD FSR frame generation.
• Added native Wayland support for Linux.
• Removed ability to pick up incompatible missiles.
• Removed some overgrown plants in faction representative offices.
• Improved mission offer selection on stations to better match station type.
• Improved weapon and turret aim prediction.
• Improved accuracy of Boson Lance, Mass Driver and similar weapons.
• Improved accuracy of beam turrets when defending against missiles.
• Improved capital ship movement and alignment with non-station attack targets.
• Improved capital ship combat movement against stations.
• Improved capital ship avoidance of station turret range.
• Improved efficiency of S/M fighter attack runs against capital ship targets.
• Improved phased docking of fighter wings subordinate on carriers.
• Improved distribution of fleet members when attacking multiple targets.
• Improved Explore order for multiple ships exploring same sector.
• Improved tug behavior if scrap gets destroyed while tug is on way to collect it.
• Improved ship behaviour to avoid destroying capital ships they are attempting to disable.
• Improved Attack capital ships first, Attack fighters first, and Shoot missiles first turret modes.
• Improved combat behavior of fighters armed with slow-firing weapons
• Improved fighter usage of torpedoes in combat.
• Improved balancing of number of crew bailing out of destroyed player-owned ships.
• Improved station defence drone usage.
• Improved Kha'ak station structure for better destruction gameplay.
• Improved lighting and door aperture in transporter room.
• Improved Fast Travel menu by highlighting mission targets..
• Improved mouse-over texts for Automatic Buy/Sell amounts in Logical Station Overview menu.
• Improved visual appearance and layout of transaction log.
• Improved Encyclopedia search by auto-selecting first result.
• Improved Encyclopedia navigation with links in detail panel.
• Improved capital ship and surface element selection in HUD.
• Improved controller support in Plot Management menu.
• Improved gate event horizon effect.
• Improved boost effect.
• Improved Travel Drive exhaust effect.
• Improved identifiability of engine exhaust colour.
• Improved visual consistency of weapon effects.
• Improved explosion for Kha'ak installations.
• Improved clarity of background stars.
• Improved support for wider range of Linux configurations with newer SDL version.
• Fixed player's wing-mate in Terran Cadet gamestart speaking on entry into Venus sector despite not accompanying player.
• Fixed subscription missions sometimes aborting on activation.
• Fixed Destroy on Sight missions sometimes aborting immediately after accepting them.
• Fixed station construction mission description sometimes incorrectly being written from Terran Protectorate perspective.
• Fixed mission objective not progressing after destruction of Ravenous Wight during Fires of Fate mission of Split story.
• Fixed guidance to ship console on carrier dock in The High Road mission sometimes not working correctly.
• Fixed incorrect mission guidance during Tomb of Patriarchs mission of Split story.
• Fixed Diplomatic Outpost getting stuck if station is destroyed before completion of Teladi Space mission of Queen's Herald story.
• Fixed story not progressing if Teladi ship is destroyed by someone other than player in Tangling with the Teladi mission of Pirate Crew story.
• Fixed Yaki Pirate Base in Yaki Investigation story respawning without Wharf module when destroyed.
• Fixed Yaki Pirate Base in Yaki Investigation story potentially being destroyed before player able to decide whether to attack.
• Fixed player Headquarters spawning second time under certain circumstances.
• Fixed incorrect licence requirement for TEL Phoenix Main Battery.
• Fixed autopilot exiting Superhighways at very high speed.
• Fixed autopilot flying into stations under certain circumstances.
• Fixed ships not avoiding stations when approaching gate under certain circumstances.
• Fixed ships moving faster on highways when framerate is lower.
• Fixed subordinates not seeking urgent repairs when they should.
• Fixed subordinates ordered to attack sometimes ignoring blacklists.
• Fixed subordinates ordered to attack by intermediate commanders not trying to stay close to their fleet.
• Fixed subordinates ordered to attack by their commander pursuing past point at which they can see their target.
• Fixed attacking and disabling behaviour getting mixed up when commander and subordinates attacking different targets.
• Fixed boarding ships equipped with powerful turrets sometimes not firing at target that is being boarded.
• Fixed boarding participants assigned to Attack escorts potentially attacking boarding target when escorts are present.
• Fixed guided missile launchers sometimes not firing when they could.
• Fixed capital ships attacking stations not properly orientating themselves towards target.
• Fixed player flying capital ships not being able to auto-aim at other capital ships.
• Fixed ships firing on neutral targets that were once hostile.
• Fixed friendly fire between NPC factions escalating into open conflict.
• Fixed turrets starting to fire before being fully deployed.
• Fixed mining capital ships sometimes stopping firing with turrets.
• Fixed tugs sometimes not being able to move to wrecks they want to collect.
• Fixed ships with Revisit known stations order visiting locations with only hostile stations.
• Fixed tugs assigned to salvage for stations that can't process scrap staying in their command hierarchy.
• Fixed ship appearing to be outside highway after entering while on autopilot.
• Fixed repair drones gaining high velocities after loading savegames.
• Fixed defence drones in formation not firing on commander's large target.
• Fixed drones sometimes not being stored on docking.
• Fixed distress drones moving very slowly.
• Fixed ships sometimes facing downwards while waiting for docks to become free.
• Fixed changes to AutoTrade ware baskets not taking effect immediately.
• Fixed certain capital ships engines not damaging smaller ships in exhaust flames.
• Fixed recycling of modules sometimes repeating part of process if neighbouring modules were also wrecked.
• Fixed excessively sturdy hull on Kha'ak weapon platforms.
• Fixed asteroid disappearing when destroying specific Xenon station.
• Fixed offset wreck on small Split solid storage module.
• Fixed inconsistent faction relation checks for Teleport option under certain circumstances.
• Fixed active pilot characters appearing idle when player starts conversation.
• Fixed station module loadouts getting lost when shuffling station plans.
• Fixed menus not scrolling correctly under certain circumstances.
• Fixed Property Owned menu becoming unresponsive under certain circumstances.
• Fixed Mission Offers menu not working under certain circumstances.
• Fixed Hire for building option being available on enemy Builders while using cover.
• Fixed incorrect sustained damage calculation for charging weapons.
• Fixed incorrect time to overheat calculation for beam weapons.
• Fixed Wide Area Sensor Array Encyclopedia entry remaining unread after being viewed.
• Fixed missing Check Engine light when being attacked while flying cloaked Envoy.
• Fixed targeting circle being incorrectly positioned for Boson Lance, Mass Driver and similar weapons.
• Fixed targeted HUD elements not being visible after losing target under certain circumstances.
• Fixed HUD not showing last 10% of shield energy.
• Fixed ship mode input feedback in Map while not controlling ship.
• Fixed objects such as nav beacons revealing nearby ships on map.
• Fixed missing Crew Information updates in Map menu under certain circumstances.
• Fixed Timeline cutscenes getting stuck in Map menu under certain circumstances.
• Fixed controller mouse-over texts getting stuck under certain circumstances.
• Fixed modules sometimes not being clickable in station editor.
• Fixed not being able to remove Construction Drones after removing all Build modules from station.
• Fixed menu crash when expanding storage node in Logical Station Overview under certain circumstances.
• Fixed bullets appearing far ahead of player weapons when firing at high speed.
• Fixed certain lockboxes not rotating around center of mass.
• Fixed small texturing errors in Odachi.
• Fixed PE wreck showing low resolution surface.
• Fixed flickering surface near XS hatch in PE.
• Fixed missing visual connectors on Envoy wings.
• Fixed cargo tube not connecting properly on Manorina's hull.
• Fixed cargo tube dragging player into geometry.
• Fixed headlights on Kuraokami and Nemesis not turning off while docked.
• Fixed missing lights on Phoenix E.
• Fixed chair flickering in Boron ships.
• Fixed incorrect docking hologram visuals for certain ships.
• Fixed ship engine sound oscillations on ships being flown by NPC pilots.
• Fixed confusing notification sounds playing when any player-owned ship comes near data vault or lockbox.
• Fixed Explorer achievement not unlocking in some cases when not all of sectors were discovered by player themselves.
• Fixed hang on startup under Linux with non-Steam executable.
• Fixed several causes of crashes.