X4 Foundations: How to get the Erlking

The Erlking is a one of a kind ship in the X4 Foundations universe – you can not buy it anywhere and you can only get one ship of this type. It is a very large battleship, that can easily clear an entire Xenon sector all by itself.

Its main gun is not as powerful as the Asgaard (the other battleship you can get in X4) but what makes the Earlking a very nice player ship is the speed: My modded Earling has a speed of 522 m/s and a travel speed of 17,230 m/s (!), which makes it great for quickly interdicting hostiles. 

It got plenty of turrets for killing fighers and also some powerful turrets that will assist in quickly taking down enemy destroyers. However, killing a station with the Erlking takes some time but is doable.

The only drawbacks is 1) a very slow turning rate and 2) the main gun being slow to fire and must be charged and does not deal as much damage as you would expect for a large battleship. However, the turrets will assist in quickly taking down enemy destroyers so it is not that big of a deal.

Reklame:

Step 1: Locating the Earlking

The wreck of the Erlking can be located in sector Windfall III The Hoard near the VIG Keepsafe station. In order to get the Erlking for yourself you simply need to board it with some marines and claim it for yourself. 

Warning: If you fly too close to the Erlking, you will get a warning from the nearby VIG Keepsafe station – if you do not turn around quickly, a large number of fighters will turn hostile. For this reason I recommend you stay away and let your other ships do all the work – this will not trigger a response from VIG as long as you stay away until the ship has left VIG space.

Step 2: Claiming the Earlking

My boarding party consists of 5 Minotaur Raider with 15 marines in each ship + 2 Shuyaku Vanguard with 200 marines in each ship.

The Minotaurs are equipped with Argon Ion Blaster Mk2 – these are great for taking the shield down but do little hull damage. 

Before starting the boarding operation make sure to make to SAVE the current game in case your boarding attempt end with the ship being destroyed.

Start by taking out the turrets and the shield of the Erlking, then order your marines to board the ship. Make sure to disable your turrets to avoid damaging the hull of the Erlking too much. 

If your marines are successfull,  you should order one of your more experienced crew to become captain of the Erlking – if the captain has enough experience, he will start repairing the ship right away.

Order the Erlking to fly to a safe sector before you come aboard – otherwise it will trigger the local VIG ships to become hostile. 

Step 3: Finding the blueprints

The Erlking requires five special blueprints for the engines, shield, M/L turrets and main weapons. 

The blueprints are located in datapoints that spawn at random positions in the sectors six Windfall and Avarice sectors. In my current game I found three datapoints in Windfall III The Hoard and two in Avarice V Dead End.

You can find the datavaults by flying around using the long range scanner, however, this takes a while. You can also order some of your ships to place advanced satellites all over these sectors while you are doing other stuff and then come back after the datavaults have been located. Fly near the datavault, jump into your space suit and use your repair lacer at the red locks to unlock the datavault and then locate the container with the blueprint,

Step 4: Repairing the ship

Final step is to build your own Shipyard, where you can repair the Erlking and install the missing equipment using your new blueprints. 

Notice that the blueprint for a XL Ship Fabrication Bay cost 247.906.351 credits so even though you can board and capture the Erlking early game, it will require some game time to get enough credits to build the shipyard and install the special equipment.

Step 5: Ship Modifications (Optional)

The Erlking is a fantastic player ship and for this reason I recommend you save your Exceptional Quality ship modifications for this ship. 

I have installed the following modifications:

  • Chassis: Nanotube (Mass Mod)
  • Erlking Main Battery: Annihilator (Damage Mod)
  • Chassis Shield Generators: Traction (Recharge Rate Mod)
  • Erlking XL Engine: Whirlygig (Rotation Thrust Mod)