Patch basis: 9.00, the “Empire Update”, released 10 June 2026. Written 2026-08-23. Base game assumed — expansion-only starts are flagged as such.
Short answer: pick a start that hands you a fighter and nothing else if you want the game to teach you, and a start that hands you a freighter and credits if you want to skip the part where you are poor. Everything else — faction, home sector, story access — matters far less on a first playthrough than that one axis, because you can fly anywhere in the gate network from any start and every plot is reachable later.
The reason nobody gives you a start name as an answer is that the list in your New Game menu is not the same as the list in someone else’s. X4 has shipped seven paid expansions, and several of them add their own starts. A recommendation that names a start is silently a recommendation to buy something. So this page sorts starts by archetype instead, and then tells you how to read your own menu.
The archetype matrix
Match the row to what you want your first three hours to feel like.
| Start archetype | What it hands you | What it forces you to learn first | Good first start if | Bad first start if |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bare fighter | One S-class ship, minimal credits, no property | Flying, docking, combat, and earning your first ship — in that order | You want the game to teach you in the intended order and you do not mind being broke | You already know you dislike dogfighting; you will spend hours doing the part you like least |
| Trader / freighter | A cargo ship and working capital | The trade menu, the map’s price view, and buy-low-sell-high loops | You are here for the economy game and want to reach your first automated trader quickly | You have never flown the ship at all — the trade UI is a lot to meet cold |
| Established / wealthy | Multiple ships, sometimes property, large credits | Fleet and property management, immediately | This is your second playthrough, or you have played another X game | It is your first hour ever — you will be handed menus you have no context for |
| Story-anchored | A scripted opening that puts you into a specific plot chain | Following mission markers while the systems arrive one at a time | You want structure and a reason to be somewhere | You want to ignore plots and build an empire; the opening will pull against you |
| Custom gamestart | Whatever you configure | Nothing — it assumes you already know what to configure | You know exactly what you want to skip | Anything else. You cannot configure past a game you have not played |
Note the last two columns. Most start advice only tells you what a start gives you. The column that actually decides your first evening is the one about what it forces you to learn, because X4’s difficulty is not combat difficulty — it is interface surface area, delivered all at once.
Read your own menu before you commit
Do this in the New Game screen, before clicking anything. It takes two minutes and it is the only way to get an accurate answer for your install.
- Open the start list and read the ownership line on each entry. If a start is greyed out or tagged with an expansion name, it is not base game. Ignore it for now — buying an expansion to fix a first playthrough is the wrong order.
- For each available start, check the property summary: how many ships, and what class? One S-class ship means bare fighter. A single M-class hauler means trader. Anything with more than two ships is an established start regardless of what it is called.
- Check whether the start places you inside a faction’s home space or on a frontier. Frontier starts are more interesting and much less forgiving, because the nearest shipyard is further away than you think.
- If two starts look equivalent, take the one closer to a faction’s core sectors. Density of stations is density of missions, trade options, and repairs.
What actually does not matter yet
- Faction reputation you start with. It moves fast in either direction once you are flying missions. A start that begins you at neutral everywhere is not a handicap.
- The ship model you get. Every starting ship is replaceable within a few hours, and after the 9.00 rebalance most S and M equipment is interchangeable between Commonwealth races anyway, so your loadout options are wider than the hull suggests.
- Difficulty of the sector. You can leave. The gate network is open from minute one.
What does matter, and it is not on the menu
Two things decide whether your first playthrough sticks, and neither is a start choice:
Whether you pick one income source and stay on it. New players commonly try trading, mining and combat in the same session, get mediocre at all three, and conclude the game is slow. It is not slow, it is wide. Decide first: see trade, mine, or fight first for the actual comparison.
Whether you automate too early. A start that hands you three ships tempts you into fleet management before you understand what an order queue does. The trigger for automating is a specific one, not a credit total — when to start using managers has it.
Version caveats worth knowing on a fresh start
9.00 changed things that older beginner guides still describe the old way:
| Old advice you will still find | Status under 9.00 |
|---|---|
| “Spam resource probes to raise mining yield” | Obsolete. Egosoft’s 9.00 changelog lists the removal of resource probes’ effect on mining efficiency; probes now indicate where miners should focus |
| “Queue every order in advance from the map” | Still works, but 9.00 added a Priority Order system that overrides existing orders immediately — worth learning early rather than late |
| “Resources sit in fixed spots per sector” | Changed. 9.00 overhauled resource distribution so resources are localised and must be found, and depleted areas can re-emerge elsewhere |
I have not verified exact yields, probe ranges, or credit values for any start, so none appear above. If you want numbers, read them out of your own Encyclopedia — that is also how the weapon time-to-kill work on this site is built, and for the same reason.
Sources
- X4: Foundations 9.00 “Empire Update” is Out Now! — Egosoft via Steam, 10 June 2026. Source for the 9.00 release date, Priority Orders, the resource distribution overhaul, the removal of resource probe mining-efficiency effects, and cross-race S/M equipment interchangeability.
- X4: Foundations on Steam — base game release date, 30 November 2018.
- Steam appdetails for appid 392160 — machine-readable DLC list used to confirm that seven paid expansions exist and that start availability therefore varies per install.
