I was eager for the second expansion set of #x4foundations “Cradle Of Humanity” since I enjoyed the Split Vendetta expansion a lot. Sunk many nights into this sandbox so I pre-ordered the DLC on GOG (Good Old Games) and watched that countdown to release ticking down. Oh boy, was I disappointed when the timer reached zero and I got nothing while people who bought on Steam already enjoyed the DLC. As usual GOG leaves Linux players standing in the rain so I called it a day and checked again on the next day when I was presented with this:

So apparently they finally managed to roll out version 4.0 of the main game but missed the first DLC Split Vendetta. What could possibly go wrong. Cradle Of Humanity is still nowhere to be seen. This didn’t change until now, one day after release and the time of writing of this article. Oh GOG, I am so done with this. And I even expected this, joking around weeks before the release date that this will be two weeks later for GOG users. Again.

Curiously I checked the Downloads for Windows next and guess what: The DLCs were all there and also on version 4.0!

So I did what every Linux tinkerer would do. I checked out what is really in the DLC files by extracting the contents using innoextract. To my delight I could not find anything operating system related in there so I threw all the Windows DLCs into my version 4.0 base game folder and extracted both DLCs.

The required files are:

• setup_x4_cradle_of_humanity_4.00_(64bit)(45636)-1.bin
• setup_x4_cradle_of_humanity_4.00(64bit)(45636).exe
• setup_x4_split_vendetta_4.00(64bit)(45636)-1.bin
• setup_x4_split_vendetta_4.00(64bit)_(45636).exe

cd /games/linux/X4_Foundations/game
innoextract --exclude-temp --extract setup_x4_split_vendetta_4.00_\(64bit\)_\(45636\).exe 
innoextract --exclude-temp --extract setup_x4_cradle_of_humanity_4.00_\(64bit\)_\(45636\).exe

When I run the game now I found both DLCs registered in the Extensions menu and could start a new game as Terrain fraction. Whop whop, here we go.

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No, I will never buy a recent game on GOG again. Especially not as pre-order. I wish I could migrate this to my Steam account. This is the DRM free revolution. As usual, the joke is on the paying customer.

Things were going smooth for a while. The pirates didn’t stop harassing my ships so I decided for drastic action. We slacked their station in the system.

That sure put a damper on their actions in the sectors nearby. Surviving ships were hunted down, boarded and taken over. It was glorious. The fleet was unstoppable for a while and with each carefully picked battle it grew.

Gate duty helped to train the fleet further and a lot of sweet loot to improve and modify ships further could be collected.

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The highlight was two Xenon K jumping into the sector to be annihilated by my fleet of two destroyers, plenty of small fighters and an auxiliary ship used as bullet sponge.

This was when I decided to contact the Split while extending my mining business all over the galaxy big time. I started with a bad reputation towards Split – that’s kinda default for most races in the X4 universe – so I had a hard time to make them like me… somewhat. This was mostly achieved by destroying enemy ships near to their stations.

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Meanwhile I bought several Magnetar mining ships so keep the needed raw materials on my prospering stations coming. Everything was going nicely and I decided to claim the sector Heretics End.

While I was busy building my stations to do so my new not-exactly-enemies decided to go to battle in freakin Argon Prime. Four Rattle Snake destroyers went basically unchallenged into the Argon heart and took out the Wharf. I didn’t want to interference since I just made not-exactly-enemy with the Split. From here it went downhill fast. Almost all of Argon Prime was wiped out – and I had bought most of my ships there. This! Hurt! Business!

I had not much time to mourn though. While I was busy with my new stations in Heretics End I was ended by a very surprising Xenon attack myself. First two more K ships showed up that I hardly managed to destroy – especially since most of my fleet was busy rescuing some Teladi trading station from another K.

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While I was busy counting my losses _it_ showed up. The worst nightmare X4 has to offer: The Xenon Branch 9 Destroyer I entered the sector and all I had to offer were two half built stations, some Interceptors and my badly damaged Argon Behemoth destroyer.

I tried to keep my distance while waiting for my fleet to arrive. This worked for a while but it eventually was going to destroy my station so I tried to get into it’s blind spot. That was my last stand. Out of mines and turrets, low on interceptors and badly damaged my destroyer went down with me on the bridge.

I accept this glorious defeat – for now 😀

I wonder for a suited format for a series of log entries for my X4 adventures. Mayhap I should simply edit and append as the story [of my sandbox] unfolds.

Spent most of the day hunting pirates that seem to develop a taste for my ships. The salvaged Cerberus Vanguard is a huge help with this and whenever a pirate surrenders my own support fleet of Minotaur grows. Did I mention that I just love the design of this ship? It’s such a great all-round asset that can even haul some cargo on occasion or act as small carrier.

I also stumbled over another really tiny vault. Took some time to unlock all it’s secrets but I’m starting to get the hang of it.

Talking about raiding I had some notable encounters as well. A Raider tried to steal from the current head quarter. That was a mighty stupid idea and the Raider was toast before I even got close to it.

And another had the nerve to attack my medium freighters during their duty of making profit. When I finally had enough I called in the fleet and together we started a boarding operation. That was a long and ugly fight mostly because due to a bunch of Xen fighters trashing our party. Lost one small heavy fighter and 45 marines but in the end the ship was ours. Good thing the Cerberus brought a repair drone along to fix the busted engines, by the way.

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I also identified a choking point in Napileos’ Fortune VI where a lot of the pirate traffic seems to originate. It’s an empty and unclaimed sector so I started building an Administrative Center here hoping to get this pest under control.

I wonder if it makes sense to start more stations here, because a lot of other huge stations are within 4 sectors of this – the typical maximum distance for auto traders to go – and a lot of traffic is passing through this already.

Oh yeah – and I finally got all the parts to assemble the SINZA device. It’s IMHO not really obvious that it simply activated with Shift+4 because I tried to install it as modification or ship drive first.