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Greetings, Members of the X-Community!

X-Tra Poll #3 is still ongoing, and we will let it run its course. Starting Poll #4 early is a deliberate choice.

The last poll has concluded and we've received some insane numbers on your playtime.
Thank you for voting, especially if you took the liberty to voice your opinion and gave us feedback!

The next poll is: “Which is your favourite race of the playable races?”
Note: We are interested to know if there is a race whose values and design you identify with during your play sessions. For example, do you tend to favor a particular when race starting out, to help out if they're in dire need, or if you just like the design of a particular race?




How does the Poll work?
Every two weeks, we’ll be rolling out polls in the forum where you can weigh in on crucial aspects of our games. Your votes will play a key role in helping us gather valuable insights to shape the future of our games!

But hold on, there’s more! Beyond just data collection, we’re keen on fostering discussions and hearing your thoughts. Alongside each poll, there’s a dedicated discussion thread going on where you can share your insights, ideas, and feedback related to the poll topic. It’s not only a great way to engage with fellow gamers but also an opportunity for us to gather additional valuable input.

However, it’s important to note that while we value your input, the results of the polls won’t necessarily guarantee implementation or consideration.
These polls are primarily for fun and data gathering.

So, get ready to have your voice heard in The X-tra Polls! Let’s shape our beloved X-Universe together!



Previous Polls:
Poll #3: How long have you been playing your current savegame?
Poll #2: Which phase do you enjoy the most in X4: Foundations?
Poll #1: In your opinion, which X4: Foundations expansion was the most worthwhile?

Without a shadow of doubt BORON!
Long live Queen Polypheides and may her tentacles always be supple.

They are the most alien of aliens to me, and intriguing.
Their eloquence, grace, manners and love of science endear me to them, and they are just really cute.
Plus after my own heart they dont really like wars and respect all forms of life (even Kha'ak).
Ship and station designs are excellent too.

Edit: Got to say though I pretty much like all of the races and their own traits, Teladi sleezy money grubbing character really fits them, Paraniid Holier than thou attitudes are sometimes very comical.

Has to be boron for me, always has been - I have to confess that I miss their eye stalks and cute german accents from x3, I wish they had kept those 2 things specifically as it gave them a unique vibe. I feel a bit less fond of them in x4 and actually end up playing Teladi all the time or sometimes Paranid (the space xenophobe is a cool concept for a playthrough). One other reason I'm having trouble getting into boron in x4 is the fighter spam meta for them, I've never been a player to use that, for both performance and personal preference reasons.

I have a thing for underdogs and I also almost never play humans in any game that has aliens or other races, so I naturally fell into the Boron as a player.

I love all of the races though for their own merits, I'de like to say.

Hard choice for me between Terrans & Split.
Terrans got a beautiful home system (always a joy to travel through it) & their ship/station designs are great too.
Split got great aggressive ships & their jagged station module design also stands out. They got some great looking systems too (Zyarth's Dominion sectors are awesome). What completes it is the fact that their aggression isn't just for show. The Split are attacked from all sides from the start, mainly by the Xenon, but also the Argon (and Boron if you unlocked the gate). So if you go Split, you go for fighting from the get-go & not just shoot up some hostiles, but fighting for their survival, to secure their systems & drive back their enemies.

Hence voted Split.

My gut response was the Paranid. Their character design in X4 is exceptional, its just the right amount of alien while still being familiar and humanoid. Their 3 eyes and leg joint structure are simple but distinct and I think it does well to set them apart from the other species. Additionally, the cultural aspects of the Paranid are one of the most fleshed out of the non-human factions which also makes them quite compelling, their main plot in X4 really brought a lot of depth that the prior games were lacking. Of particular note is how Kromancketslat is treated differently with his missing eye and I wish that there was a bit of an explanation of Numanckaret's backstory with regard to his occular implant and how he might've had a different experience to Kromancketslat.

All in all the Paranid are pretty cool and their ships are nice as well.

Borons! Although will happily play with any of the races (they're all good in their own ways) & generally aim to use a different race's ships, equipment, station modules, etc in each playthrough. Nevertheless, if I had to pick a single race as my favourite it would undoubtedly be the Borons. Has been that way since the first game I played in the series (X2). Absolutely adored the Hydra in that game by the way. Have always found them to be one of the more interesting races due to how their ships are balanced - generally good stats for everything except guns. Makes them a solid choice for commercial shipping & an 'interesting' one for warships. Their aesthetics have also been a strong incentive for me to use their ships. Although in that regard always preferred the spiky mutant fish of X2, rather than the bloated whales in X3, so very grateful that X4's version of Boron ships has more in common with the former.

I have not yet played any of the Boron content, but out of all the stuff I played the Split absolutely take the cake. The design language, aesthetics and ship balance is consistently amazing and assuming you can keep the Xenons at bay setting up a solid economy in ZYA space is pretty easy with short logistics even without any highways. FRF space is more challenging due to much poorer availability of raw resources.

Terrans would be second, but I don't like the much simplified economy that much. The Commonwealth economy loop is more engaging for me because it gives me more things to do. Terran design language and aesthetics are pretty damn nice, but ship balance is a bit whack and the native turret options are too limited unless you intend to dip into Commonwealth tech on top, something I don't like for both roleplay reasons (I like to keep to faction specific gear as much as I can) and because if you intend to manufacture your own stuff in wharfs and shipyards means you essentially have to set up two entire independent economies and both of which compete for the same raw resources.

Paranid would be third place with more or less the same pro arguments as for the Split, just that I don't like it quite as much as the latter.

Argon would be nice, but they're sorely lacking any good M sized ships to use as a playership which is a major drawback for me personally (given the roleplay aspect of trying to stick to faction specific stuff).

The Teladi are allround rather solid, but the combat ship balance is decidely the antithesis of how I like to play with them. Too slow, too clunky, just not fun to fly and fight.

VIG/RIP have excellent fighters (well, the Shih) and their unique closed loop which can be a nice thing to set up on the side in sectors with lots of sunlight, but scales incredibly poorly outside the Avarice sectors. Zero M combat ships (outside the yacht you can get later) and only the hybrid destroyer/freighter plus solid miner as L ships make it a very minimalist faction. I had hoped for more pirate gameplay, black market economies and the likes in the DLC. The Erlking and Shih however make it well worth visiting.

Borons do look promising from everything I've seen, though I can already tell that I don't like how secluded they are from the rest of the galaxy. Whilst making sense in lore, it should provide a rather distinct bottleneck in the game loop when trying to interact with the wider galaxy and the different factions.



If I may add a suggestion that would help making factions more unique in how they play: introduce faction specific turrets that can only be mounted on their respective faction's ship designs. There is precedent with the High Energy weapons that can only be installed on Terran ships aswell as the Borons only being capable of using Boron equipment and many factions do have interesting weapons that would make for strong an unique turret options. Things like the PAR Mass Driver, SPL Boson Lance and TER Meson Stream would make for precise longrange, high damage, slow reload L turrets. The TEL Muon Charger might be an interesting TEL/MIN L siege turret with a few tweaks (largely working around the charge up to make it work as an automated turret), whereas weapons like the SPL Neutron Gatling (if tweaked to be a smidgeon less inaccurate), HOP/MIN Blast Mortars and TER Proton Barrage would make for excellent M turret alternatives.

My choice is Split and more precisely old split (before 4.x). I really liked their design and gathered lots since I realized their design was changed in 4.x.
If going more recent version (5.x) then I would say Yaki. They look weird but concidering their background it gives justification.

Definitely the Split; they initially need so much help to survive their own internal feuds and the attacks of hostile neighbours and Xenon. Once safely established though (and post Split plot decisions) they are so much fun to role-play in mid to late game. Also their ships seem to fill all my needs for fast trade and supply runs, and for hard-hitting combat when needed. They make fine marines too.

Terran. It would be the Boron if their interiors were more in depth and their suits were more space squid and less minion shaped (e.g. sort of like in the timeline slides).

For me, ever since X-BTF and X3:TC it was always Terran - who else is gona save the galaxy from Xenon?
Specifically Terran main (USC, ATF, Protectorate) not sides (e.g. Pioneers).



2nd place our r*tarder cousins - Argons, for their bulky and jack-of-all-trades ships and territory in the center of galaxy.
3rd Place - Split, coz a lot of dakka is often the right answer (for everything else, Asgard beam as ultimate problem solver) and I like their territory (whole Northern part of the galaxy from Split DLC is my favorite).
4th Place - Boron, for sleek looking ships and somehow powerful weapons (pulse railguns)
5th Place - Teladi (especially with their more industrial looking ships in 7.0).
6th Place - Paranid - r*tarder like Argon, plus very smug , nice looking ships though
7th Place - Pirates - coz you can't be fully independent and obtain ship roduction, ships blueprints and weapons blueprints, if we would have reverse engineering then they would jump to 2nd place.

Thematically I like pirates the most, but mechanically that whole playstyle feels very unimpressive.

In terms of complete factions I like the Argon most overall, but they have some weak points stylistically (those tube freighters). They also seem to have the least impressive military ships in pretty much any category, so I really just use them for the looks.

Terran are a close second. Their economy is less tedious to set up because I don't have to plan out so much stuff, and their ships being well protected makes them less frustrating in AI hands. They're also, still, the only ones with a real battleship. The low weapon variety does get a bit boring though with a pure Terran run.

Split come next just because thematically I like their ships and weapons. I rarely play pure Split tech though because it's, well, not very good. Their ships are expensive, and relying on a strong hull doesn't really work well mechanically in X4. The AI also makes poor use of speed compared to shields, and in some respects they feel left behind by newer races in both speed and firepower which was really all they had.

The others, I really only use a few ships here and there.

I have to go for Teladi, I like a lot of the lore about them - the speech they have from birth, the long lives that never end in what we would call "old age" and the perspective that gives them on the jumpgate situation - I just wish we got to see more of that explored in the games.

However, I like all the races, and X4 does a good job of exploring the different races' identity.

Boron all the way!

But a bit sad for Teladi, they deserve more love.

I like all of them.

They have all been written and depicted in such a way that none of them feel out of place.

in X3, my favourites were the Terrans/ATF. The ATF designs in particular looked awesome and menacing at the same time.
In X4, my favourites are the Split and Boron. Aesthetically they both stand out well above the rest (massive change from being the ugliest in X3). The Boron have the best story, whilst the Split always seem to do poorly so I always feel compelled to bail them out, spending a playthrough and a half mostly in their space getting them back on their feet. Apart from the Avarice factions, the one I interact with the least is the Teladi. This is probably because they're neutral with everybody. I only go to them for extra resources. SCA is a deterrent for me investing significantly in their space.

Hmmm, I'm not even sure how I want to judge, there are so many factors!

Ship looks: Paranid
Character looks: Pirates (Yaki would look at home in Cyberpunk and other races trying to dress like pirates are funny)
Station parts: Boron
Interestingness (that's a word now): Kha'ak, but they aren't on the list. The Riptide/Vigour interaction is great, and they both count as 'pirate,' so I'll give it to the pirates again.
Music: Boron
Characters: Boron

Sorry, I'm not into species, so I say Goner (for the awesome firepower of Ranger).

Disclaimer: Terran taste better dead.

As the player character for my playthroughs? Teladi - Fitting as I go heavily into the economy sim side, and the teladi start (of non-custom starts) is easily the best for just jumping right into that.
I also like the boron though

For ship design, its a big mix on both gameplay and aesthetics, but I'm partial to a lot of boron, terran, split, and teladi designs for various roles

Kind of reminds me of ancient times when I witnessed the utterance of

I love fantasy games. My favorite class is human fighter. ...

Sadly I con only choose one. I really love all of the races and their actual ship/station design. So I have to give my point to the Boron for their colorful and cheerfull language.