We independently assess all our recommendations. Purchases through our links may earn us a commission.X4: Foundations drops you into a sprawling, complicated space sim that can feel like a lot, especially if you’re new and just figuring out how things work. You’ll have to juggle everything from piloting ships and trading, to running entire fleets and building stations. It’s a lot, honestly, but it’s also what makes the game so rewarding.
If you start learning the basics early, you’ll find that the brutal learning curve softens into a series of steps you can actually handle—and that’s how you end up ruling the stars. Once you get your head around things like travel modes, scanning, and the basic economy, you’ll move from flying a dinky fighter to managing fleets and building massive stations. X4 really rewards careful learning and a bit of patience over just rushing in and winging it.
1) Complete the in-game tutorials by pressing H to understand core mechanics early
Seriously, just hit H and go through the tutorials right away. X4 Foundations throws a wall of info at you, and if you’re not careful, it’s easy to get lost.
The tutorials walk you through the basics: controls, getting around, and the main mechanics, step by step.
Taking the time to read the tutorials helps you make sense of all the complex stuff without getting swamped. This game hides a lot of options and features behind layers of menus and jargon.
If you skip the tutorials, you’ll probably get stuck on simple stuff later. It’s just not worth the headache.
H opens the tutorial menu wherever you are, so you can always pop back in if you forget something.
Each tutorial zeroes in on a specific part of the game—like flying, trading, or exploring.
Getting through the tutorials before diving in for real will save you a ton of time (and frustration). You’ll feel a lot more comfortable with the game’s weirdness after a bit of prep.
Every lesson builds on the last, so you’ll pick up new stuff without feeling like you’re drowning. It’s a bit like learning to ride a bike, honestly.
2) Use travel mode (Shift+1) for fast and safe navigation across sectors
Travel mode basically lets your ship engines hit the gas for real. Just press Shift+1 and your ship flips into travel mode, so you can zip across huge distances way faster than normal.
You get crazy high speeds and decent acceleration, but your ship won’t turn as well. It’s a trade-off, but for covering ground between stations and sectors, it’s a lifesaver.
You can’t run travel mode and other ship modes at the same time. There are four ship modes, and you’ll need to swap between them with Shift+number combos.
Travel acceleration is what gets you up to max speed quickly. Combat engines cut down the charge time for travel mode, but Terran engines, in particular, are really good at accelerating.
If you toggle flight assist while in travel mode, you can do these slick drifting maneuvers—changing direction while keeping your speed. It’s a neat trick for dodging stuff or just showing off.
Fast ships plus travel mode means you’ll be zipping all over the map. When you start spreading your ships across sectors, travel mode makes your whole network a lot more efficient.
3) Start by focusing on trading and resource gathering to build your initial capital.
Trading is honestly the backbone of your early game in X4. Start with a small trading ship and mess around with buying low, selling high—basic supply and demand stuff across different sectors.
Drop resource probes in sectors to build out your info network. You’ll spot good deals and profitable routes a lot easier with some data to back you up.
Manual trading is the best way to learn at first. You’ll see how prices shift and which goods are always in demand in certain spots.
Throwing down satellites near stations means you can keep tabs on prices and stock from the map. Super handy for tracking high-demand goods and reliable suppliers.
Stations make the real money once you’ve got the cash to invest, but trading is how you get there in the first place.
Auto-trading unlocks once your captains get better. Then your ships will go make money for you while you focus on bigger stuff.
Mining pairs well with trading. Both bring in steady cash, and over time, those profits start to snowball.
One incredible way to make money somewhat early is to trade in advanced satellites. Once you have a bit of money to work with and some of the sectors revealed, you can find a station selling advanced satellites for something like 40K credits a pop and then a second station selling them at 70K. That’s a margin of 30K which means, if you have a capacity for 100 satellites, you’re looking at a 3 million credit profit if you fill up your hold every trip.
4) Start using L-sized miners as soon as you can afford to
Once you can afford L sized miners, start producing those and less M or S-miners until you’re eventually only using L-miners.
As your systems and trading routes get busier, they will start to attract the attention of Kha’ak and you’ll start losing small and medium miners left and right.
But, your L-miners can breeze through any Kha’ak incursion if they’ve got the shields for it.
For your fleet of L-miners, the Kha’ak will be no more than a minor nuisance and you’ll be able to significantly reduce ship losses.
5) Construct efficient factory lines to maximize ship production and resource output.
Building good production chains is all about planning out your module ratios and making sure resources flow smoothly. I’d recommend using production calculators or station planners to sketch things out before you start slapping down modules.
Every factory needs energy cells. Without enough power, your production lines grind to a halt—so don’t skimp on energy generation.
Production chains run from raw materials to finished goods. Water goes into food, ore and silicon feed advanced materials, and those all end up as ship parts eventually.
Container storage is a surprisingly big deal. If you run out, your whole factory can stall because products can’t move along the chain.
Building ships takes a bunch of different components: hull parts, engines, weapons, the works. Adding energy cell and computronic substrate production helps you make self-sufficient shipyards.
If you want to keep your parts for your own ships, restrict faction trade so outsiders can’t buy up your output. That way, you’re not left short when it’s time to build.
Assign a few traders (three is usually enough) to each station. They’ll keep your modules stocked and things humming along.
6) Regularly upgrade your ship’s modules for better combat and travel performance.
Keep an eye on your ship’s modules—upgrading them regularly really pays off in X4. You can buy upgrades at equipment docks or wharfs all over the map.
Engines make the biggest difference. Travel engines boost your speed for getting around, while combat engines help you dodge and fight. All-rounders are, well, a bit of both.
Don’t sleep on shields and weapons, either. Better shields tank more hits and recharge faster, and upgraded weapons hit harder and usually have better range or accuracy.
The Polisher mod is a personal favorite—it’s a green chassis upgrade that cuts drag and boosts speed and turning. Makes a real difference.
Save your ship loadouts when you find a setup you like. It makes buying or upgrading similar ships way less of a hassle.
Faction-locked gear is usually the best, but you’ll need to make nice with specific groups to unlock it. Worth it if you want the top-tier stuff.
7) Take advantage of scan modes (Shift+2 and long-range scan) to discover hidden stations and anomalies.
X4 gives you two scanning modes, each with its own job. Short-range scan (Shift+2) is for nearby stuff, and long-range scan (Shift+3) is for finding things farther out.
Long-range scan is your tool for sniffing out stations, anomalies, lock boxes, and wrecks. Hold the secondary fire button for up to two seconds to blast out a scan burst.
The longer you hold (up to two seconds), the farther your scan goes. But if you hold it too long, you’ll mess up the scan. Timing is everything. Hold close to two seconds for max range.
Big stuff like stations and gates show up within 200 km, as long as they’re not way above or below you. The scan covers about 45 degrees up and down from your ship’s plane.
Smaller things—lockboxes, anomalies—have a 50 km detection range. Some of these can be pretty valuable if you’re lucky.
You can only use one ship mode at a time, so you’ll have to turn one off before switching to another. It’s a little clunky, but you get used to it.
8) Manage your economy carefully; ship construction requires materials produced by your factories.
Your shipbuilding dreams live or die by your supply chains. X4’s economy is all about turning raw stuff into finished goods over several steps.
You’ll need to set up factories that actually make the parts before you go wild building ships. Ore and hydrogen get refined into metals and antimatter, which then become engine parts and other essentials.
It’s better to build specialized stations that feed each other than to try for one giant, do-it-all factory. That way, you keep your resources flowing and avoid annoying bottlenecks.
Shipyards constantly need resources. If you don’t keep your supply lines running, your construction projects just stall out—and so does your profit.
Start small, building up your production chain one step at a time. Work from refined materials up through intermediate products, and by the time you’re ready for shipyards, you’ll actually have what you need on hand.
9) Use gentle nudges to slow down fast-spinning lockboxes to gain access.
Fast-spinning lockboxes can be a real headache in X4 Foundations. The way they whip around makes picking off individual locks with your usual weapons almost impossible sometimes.
Instead, you can bump the rotating lockboxes with your ship’s nose to knock down their spinning speed. It’s a bit nerve-wracking—you’ve gotta ease in and avoid smashing the thing to bits.
This nudging trick relies on barely touching the lockbox, just enough to slow it down. A few tiny bumps usually work better than one big hit, at least in my experience.
Once it’s spinning slower, hop out and use your spacesuit’s hand laser. The suit laser’s way more precise for picking off locks than your ship’s guns ever will be.
If you ding the lockbox while nudging, you can fix it up with your repair laser before you go back to cracking it open. That way, you don’t accidentally blow it up and lose the loot.
This method especially helps with spherical lockboxes with lots of locks—those things spin like crazy compared to the boring rectangular ones. Honestly, patience and a gentle touch go a long way here.
10) Transition from piloting a fighter to managing fleets and commanding stations as you progress
X4 lets you start as a lone fighter pilot and eventually run a sprawling empire, command fleets, and build massive stations. That shift is really the heart of the game.
You kick things off flying just one ship, doing all the fighting, trading, and exploring yourself from the cockpit. It’s hands-on, for sure.
As you build up money, you buy more ships. Using the fleet management system, you can customize and boss around a whole bunch of vessels at once.
Setting up fleet commands and default behaviors isn’t as simple as it sounds. You’ve gotta tweak each ship’s settings before assigning them to a fleet, or things get messy fast when combat breaks out.
Each ship needs a proper crew too. Captains take over when you’re not flying directly, while service crew and marines handle the grunt work and special stuff.
Eventually, you’ll get into station building—designing and constructing these gigantic installations that rake in passive income and keep your fleets ticking in different sectors.
Honestly, making that leap from pilot to manager means learning new menus and getting comfortable delegating. It’s not about twitch reflexes anymore.
Understanding Economy and Trade in X4 Foundations
X4: Foundations has a wild, living economy—thousands of ships and stations trading, mining, and building stuff in real time. If you want to make it big, you’ll need to juggle resources and set up production chains that actually respond when the market shifts.
Optimizing Resource Flow
You’ve gotta set up smart trade routes between your factories and the places that need your goods. The AI traders will try to fill gaps on their own, but honestly, you’ll usually get better results if you step in and do it yourself.
Station Placement is huge for resource flow. Stick your factories near the raw materials—less time wasted hauling stuff around, right? If you can, connect your mining outposts straight to refineries in the same sector. Feels obvious, but it’s easy to mess up.
Trade rules in the Global Orders menu let you control who can buy from your stations. If you set it to “Trade only with my faction,” you can stop rivals from snapping up your important resources.
Storage management can get annoying. When your warehouses fill up, everything just… stops. So, keep an eye on your storage and expand it before you hit a wall.
The trade menu lets you shift goods directly between ships and stations. Sometimes you’ve just gotta jump in and move stuff yourself to fix shortages or balance out your inventory.
Supply Chain Management
To keep your supply chains humming, you need to know which factories eat what, and how fast. Every production line chews through specific resources and spits out products at set ratios.
Production Monitoring means watching your resource levels and seeing what’s always running low. You can check stock and production status right from the station panels. Figure out what keeps bottlenecking you.
Crew skills and morale actually matter for your automated traders. Better pilots finish trade runs faster and don’t make as many boneheaded buying decisions.
Demand Analysis is all about watching market prices. High prices? That’s a shortage you can exploit. Low prices? Probably too much supply—maybe avoid flooding that market.
Your station managers will go out and buy what they need, but you can always override them—set specific suppliers or tweak prices if you want to steer things yourself.
Advanced Combat Strategies
If you want to survive X4’s combat, you’ll need tight fleet coordination and the right weapons. Players who get good at strafing and picking the right loadout always seem to come out on top.
AI Fleet Management
When you attack stations with AI fleets, you need to pay attention to engagement range and how you line things up. Don’t just give a general attack order—ships do better when you assign them specific roles.
Escort formations really shine for guarding your big ships. Fighters should stick close, while your heavier ships lay down cover fire from a bit farther out.
Set individual ship behavior in the fleet interface. Heavy fighters do well on aggressive mode; support ships with repair gear are safer on defensive. It’s not a one-size-fits-all thing.
Fleet composition makes a big difference in tough battles. A mix of interceptors, bombers, and support ships almost always beats a fleet of just one ship type.
Good comms matter too. Ships with long-range scanners should call out targets to the rest of the fleet before you all dive in. Otherwise, it’s chaos.
Weapon Loadout Optimization
Pick weapons based on what you’re fighting and how far away you’ll be. Pulse lasers shred fighters, while plasma cannons are perfect for tearing up capital ships.
Energy management gets tricky in long fights. Mix high-damage guns with something more efficient so you don’t run dry mid-battle.
Turret placement really affects your defense. If you mix point-defense with anti-capital turrets, you’ll be ready for almost anything.
Some weapons punch through shields better than others. Particle guns ignore shields but don’t hit hulls as hard as kinetic weapons. It’s a tradeoff.
If you’re using ammo-based guns, keep your supply lines sorted for long campaigns. Energy weapons don’t need ammo but tend to overheat faster, which can be a pain.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can players efficiently earn credits in the early stages of X4: Foundations?
Trading and resource gathering are your bread and butter early on. Find stations with mismatched supply and demand, and run goods between them for steady profits.
Mining’s a safe bet too. Just some basic gear and you can haul in ice or ore for reliable cash. Way less risky than fighting pirates right off the bat.
Running missions gives you a quick cash boost and helps with faction standings. Guild missions usually pay better than random ones, plus you build good relationships with the big players.
What strategies should be used for station placement and territory control in X4: Foundations?
When you’re picking station sites, look for places with lots of resources nearby—asteroid fields are gold for manufacturing.
Don’t build expensive stations in dangerous areas. If pirates or hostile factions are active, you’re just asking for trouble. Build them somewhere where you can rely on AI factions patrolling and keeping things safe while you build up that initial economy.
Proximity to highways matters too. Stations near main travel routes get more visitors and trade, which means more profit and easier logistics.
What is the best approach to ship selection and fleet management for new players in X4: Foundations?
Start with small and medium ships—they give you the best bang for your buck. They’re cheap to run and can handle most roles you’ll need early on.
Building ships now needs construction materials, so having efficient factories is a must if you want to expand your fleet faster than the competition.
Mix up your fleet—combat ships, miners, traders, scouts. Pure combat fleets look cool but get stuck when you need to do anything else.
How does one effectively progress through the game’s storyline and missions?
Missions in X4 come in all shapes and sizes—combat, delivery, building. You’ll want to keep your ships upgraded so you’re not caught off guard by a tough mission.
Faction reputation opens up more and better missions, plus new storyline paths. Try to keep on good terms with the major groups for the best rewards.
Don’t forget to upgrade your gear as missions ramp up. Better guns, shields, and engines make the difference when things get hairy.
Are there any specific tips for optimizing trade and economy management in X4: Foundations?
If you want your factories to churn out resources and ships at a decent clip, focus on building efficient production lines across your stations. I’d recommend checking out the Station Planner. It’s going to be very useful on your quest for economic domination.
Creating dedicated mining hubs in resource-rich systems is a solid strategy. You simply build it out with enough solid and liquid storage modules and then assign miners to it.
Once you’re ready to start shipping out these resources, build some more miners but this time, assign them to trade. That way, they’ll start shipping these raw resources out to the nearby factories that need them. (Regular freight vessels cannot carry raw resources).
You’ve got to wrap your head around how resources flow between your stations if you want a smooth supply chain. Make sure your raw material producers link up with your manufacturing facilities efficiently, otherwise, you’ll waste time (and credits) on unnecessary hauling and delays.
