Make the Y Axis Great Again!

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Falcrack
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Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by Falcrack » Sat, 15. Dec 18, 03:46

First let me define what the X, Y and Z axes are. If you are looking straight down on the map, the X axis is the axis that runs left and right across the screen, the Z axis is the axis that runs up and down across the screen, and the Y axis would run towards you or away from you. Basically the map depth. This game is woefully short on option to manipulate orders on the Y axis, or to have a sense of depth.

In X4, I don’t see a good way to generate waypoints along the Y axis. When I put down a “Fly to” waypoint, I can place it anywhere along the X and Z axis, but it will always stubbornly remain at position 0 along the Y axis. The only way it can be otherwise is if I am generating a waypoint to some object already up or down along the Y axis. If the map is placed on it's side, dragging a waypoint up or down may "seem" like it is moving it up and down, when in reality it is just moving along the flat x and z plane.

What I would propose, is that after placing a waypoint along the X and Z axis, we could drag the waypoint up or down along the Y axis, perhaps by pressing some key like “Shift” while dragging the waypoint, which would allow the waypoint to be dragged up or down along the Y axis. This would be like it is in Homeworld. It is really quite annoying this wasn't in here from the start.

Another way to make the Y axis more useful would be the ability to move the entire map plane up or down along the Y axis. Currently, the map plane is stuck at position 0 along the Y axis, but if we could move it up to, for example, 40 km up along the Y axis, then all future waypoints generated would be at that altitude. We could have a hotkey which raises the map plane, a hotkey which lowers the map plane, and a hotkey which resets the map plane to position 0 along the Y axis. This map plane altitude could be set on a per sector basis. You might be able to have the option for the plane altitude to track with a selected ship. There are a lot of ways this could be made to work. It might be a little confusing for some players at first, but the versatility this would provide once learned would be phenomenal.

Being able to adjust the map plane up or down would help us better visualize which areas we have explored. If we are flying well above the map plane, currently the map shows that we have explored the map in a certain radius around the ship, when in fact we could be missing stations or objects that within the “revealed” area which are far above or below us. If there were resource areas which only extend maybe 10 km up, then by raising the map plane 20 km up, those resource areas would disappear from the map, and reappear if you lowered it again. Areas in which the map fog had been cleared, perhaps at position 0 along the Y axis, would shrink and become unexplored again as you raised the map plane to up to 60 km up, for example. This would give our map true functionality in the 3D environment of space, instead of pretending that it is a pseudo 2D environment.

X3 had the ability to manipulate orders on all 3 axes, please, please, please devs, let us have the option to freely generate orders in all 3 axes for X4 as well!!!!!!

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Val Comdriver
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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by Val Comdriver » Thu, 20. Dec 18, 10:28

I'm totally agree with this. Ability to give commands in all 3 planes is a must have.

Just one of many cases when that option really helps: I was exploring space with me flying by every sector with long range scanner and then remote commanded scout ship using "fly to" for unknown stations. Sometimes the ship can "open" all that space around a station on the map but not the station itself because it is located much higher/lower by Y axis. That's really great what stations aren't located in same plane and what they do use all available axes but having to explore them all manually can be quite boring.
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LameFox
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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by LameFox » Thu, 20. Dec 18, 10:31

+1

I seriously hope this is just an unfinished feature, because I will be very disappointed if someone decided to leave it out on purpose. I mean, come on, Homeworld solved this problem forever ago.
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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by SadMonk » Thu, 20. Dec 18, 15:29

I agree! I do the long range scanner thing too, where I have a second, faster ship around that I order to place satellites next to the stations. I was pretty stumped when I noticed that I had satellites directly next to "?" icons until I noticed that those Stations were quite high above or below the ecliptic. I intuitively tried the Homeworld-Controls to see if I can order the ship to fly up or down, but unfortunately, it didn't work.

It would even be sufficient for me if there was some kind of "check out..." command you can place on "?" symbols, although a "Put satellite in vicinity of..." would be the cherry on top :mrgreen:

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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by gazbags66 » Wed, 15. Jul 20, 07:46

I've been struggling with the Y axis for a while now, especially whilst I am trying to arrange a fleet of destroyers to sit line abreast or line astern by an Xenon defense station close enough for their large plasmas but out of reach of the station's defense weaponry. However, this station is way down the y axis.

So, I thought am I missing something as putting the map on its side allows me to access the y axis, but it is hit or miss where the waypoint is on the x or z axis. I then did a search and found this post which is nearly 18 months old.

Please can Egosoft make assigning waypoints on the y axis a lot simpler? Maybe once the map is flat on the y axis, any waypoint will be on that axis. And, whilst on the y axis, can we have two extra keys to move the map around on the keyboard please? Eg, W and Z to move the view up and down the y axis, A and S to move side to side, and T and G (maybe) to go forward and back? Also, is it possible to have a map mode that shows the co-ordinates where the mouse pointer is so you get a better understanding where you are actually pointing to or where other things are in relation to the pointer.

Or is this a sign that the game AI knows how hard it is to create waypoints on the y axis and then build stations on it for extra protection :mrgreen: ?

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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by Imperial Good » Wed, 15. Jul 20, 10:41

One can move most orders on the map after they are placed. As such one can get the correct Y axis value and then move it to the desired X/Z position. Like wise one can get the correct X/Z position and then adjust it to the desired Y.

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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by dtpsprt » Wed, 15. Jul 20, 11:27

Imperial Good wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 10:41
One can move most orders on the map after they are placed. As such one can get the correct Y axis value and then move it to the desired X/Z position. Like wise one can get the correct X/Z position and then adjust it to the desired Y.
That is in theory only, when you move the point "face down" (you have set the Y and adjusting the X,Z) it actually loses Y if not completely at least a lot... that is because there is no such thing as a totally straight moving hand... and side variations will shift the Y. The same goes if you fix X,Z first and you try to "raise" or "lower" the point. you loose a lot of your previous X,Z positioning) This is the reason I made the "wish" in my post for numerical coordinates... Or, at least, allow us to put a "follow guideline" command to our owned ships, since the waypoints for missions are rarely on the ecliptic (why should they be? Even by X Universe lore, since X2, the races had moved their gates out of the cardinal points, sideways or vertically or both so that they would not be easily found and exploited by their enemies).

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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by jlehtone » Wed, 15. Jul 20, 11:30

The default map view is to see XZ-plane (along Y).
X2/3 had "Ins" key to switch to see the XY-plane (along Z). A 90 degree rotation around X.

X4 has (almost) free rotation. Is there input to "snap" to XY-plane view?
(Wait! Does that "Shift+rotation" work on map too and not just with station modules in a plot?)


Is there a setting to adjust the fustrum of the map view?
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dtpsprt
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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by dtpsprt » Wed, 15. Jul 20, 11:35

jlehtone wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 11:30
The default map view is to see XZ-plane (along Y).
X2/3 had "Ins" key to switch to see the XY-plane (along Z). A 90 degree rotation around X.

X4 has (almost) free rotation. Is there input to "snap" to XY-plane view?
(Wait! Does that "Shift+rotation" work on map too and not just with station modules in a plot?)


Is there a setting to adjust the fustrum of the map view?
Still, the problem remains on what happens to the waypoints you set for your NPC piloted ships...

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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by jlehtone » Wed, 15. Jul 20, 12:53

Thing is, if you can look orthogonal to XZ (or XY) plane, then the 2D translations modify only two coordinates, X and Z (or X and Y).
This already happens with unrotated map (but the Y has to be initialized with something; 0).

If we can't rotate view to exact orthogonal to XY (or YZ), then the 2D translation (actually 3D, but third direction gets no changes) unavoidably modifies all three X, Y, and Z.

Messing up two out of three is way more precise than messing up all three simultaneously. :roll:
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Imperial Good
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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by Imperial Good » Wed, 15. Jul 20, 13:22

The error this introduces is at most a few km. With minimal effort I can get a ship waypoint inside a station plot even if the station is at an extreme Y.

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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by capitalduty » Wed, 15. Jul 20, 14:27

Imperial Good wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 13:22
The error this introduces is at most a few km. With minimal effort I can get a ship waypoint inside a station plot even if the station is at an extreme Y.
Lol a few Km of error...as engineer this could be a offensive statement! 😂

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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by dtpsprt » Wed, 15. Jul 20, 14:45

Imperial Good wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 13:22
The error this introduces is at most a few km. With minimal effort I can get a ship waypoint inside a station plot even if the station is at an extreme Y.
Then Egosoft should make the placement points in missions a "few" km bigger than the 2 km they are now... Are you serious? Who would want to put a ship inside a plot? To send it to a certain position with a radius of 2 KM (which means the 4 KM max are only bang centre) you have to work for minutes every time for something so simple (and repeating) and even then you may not get it. Or, to put it even simpler, 1 out of 3 times you tell an NPC to put a satellite in front of a Gate (or highway) it gets placed outside... What do you have to do then? Either tell the NPC to pick it up and select a new placement (in this case magnification is your enemy, not friend) or teleport and take control and put it yourself, then go back to what you have been doing... These missions are not well paid but, supposedly, they are easy and they do count their bit when you are working your rep with a faction...

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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by ubuntufreakdragon » Wed, 15. Jul 20, 15:26

What I don't like about this coordinate system is this:
It's a left-handed coordinate system all standard library functions are defined for right-handed coordinate systems.
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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by Imperial Good » Wed, 15. Jul 20, 17:24

capitalduty wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 14:27
Lol a few Km of error...as engineer this could be a offensive statement!
Well it is roughly 0.1 seconds of travel for some ships. Manually flying them that accurate is hard.
dtpsprt wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 14:45
Then Egosoft should make the placement points in missions a "few" km bigger than the 2 km they are now... Are you serious?
The fleet gather points are roughly 10km or larger. If the placement point for a specific mission is too small then consider reporting that.
dtpsprt wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 14:45
Who would want to put a ship inside a plot?
That is the easiest way to discover NPC stations. Open map view. Click in sector area. Change to plot view. Mentally note the positions of the undiscovered stations by looking at their plot. Change back to property list. Select the scout ship. Order move to roughly near the station plot. Change back to plot view and see where adjustments are needed. Make adjustments in the appropriate axis. Keep iterating until close enough. Takes roughly 10 seconds to get close if one knows what they are doing. Within 30 seconds one can likely have sub km accuracy.
dtpsprt wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 14:45
1 out of 3 times you tell an NPC to put a satellite in front of a Gate (or highway) it gets placed outside...
There was a now fixed bug where they would deploy at speed resulting in the deployable drifting away for potentially dozens of kilometres before it loses momentum. This has now been fixed with ships coming to a stop before deploying.

The other cause is by the player entering the sector nearby. When collision gets enabled the objects can end up displaced by significant distances (hundreds of km for fleets in older versions) to avoid intersecting with other objects. This applies to deployables as well.

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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by LennStar » Wed, 15. Jul 20, 20:58

I guess the easiest way would be to to press e.g. shift to switch to Y-mode (mouse movement does no longer change X/Z but only Y).

I think Homeland did this? I definitely had it in at least one game.
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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by Nort The Fragrent » Thu, 16. Jul 20, 06:43

Y Oh Y, is the Y not the Z?

We operate mainly in our 3D world with X and Y being the flat plane.
And the Z is the vertical.

Yet X4 wobbles to have the Y as the Z. Um!

The game is fundamentally a 2D flat Plane game as far as the map and stations go.

Just turn the map over to see how much is on the flat plane.

All my stations are up or down from the standard game plane, thus elude so many of the baddies. Who remain for the most part on the game flat plane.

And those hexagons are 2D !
3D ? Space !

As the map is usable as a 3D orientation, then why is it not more 3D representative of where sectors are in relation to each other. Not just in a 2D format.
I know it generates a lot more work for the poor handcuffed developers who operate under strict oppressive conditions in the Es camp. But you would think they could break free once in a while and do something naughty, like make the Map ( sectors ) 3D.

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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by dtpsprt » Thu, 16. Jul 20, 08:57

Imperial Good wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 17:24
capitalduty wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 14:27
Lol a few Km of error...as engineer this could be a offensive statement!
Well it is roughly 0.1 seconds of travel for some ships. Manually flying them that accurate is hard.
We are not talking manually here. It is ludicrous to believe that the computer (AI) has the same limitations as we mere humans, don't you think?
Imperial Good wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 17:24
dtpsprt wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 14:45
Then Egosoft should make the placement points in missions a "few" km bigger than the 2 km they are now... Are you serious?
The fleet gather points are roughly 10km or larger. If the placement point for a specific mission is too small then consider reporting that.
It would make these missions impossible to finish cause you would need to put the fleet inside the "point", I was speaking more about "Ship attainment" missions (extremely profitable, try them some time) where it is only 2 Km to place the ship and, of course, it is off the ecliptic... For (not Imperial) God's shake!!!
Imperial Good wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 17:24
dtpsprt wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 14:45
Who would want to put a ship inside a plot?
That is the easiest way to discover NPC stations. Open map view. Click in sector area. Change to plot view. Mentally note the positions of the undiscovered stations by looking at their plot. Change back to property list. Select the scout ship. Order move to roughly near the station plot. Change back to plot view and see where adjustments are needed. Make adjustments in the appropriate axis. Keep iterating until close enough. Takes roughly 10 seconds to get close if one knows what they are doing. Within 30 seconds one can likely have sub km accuracy.
Seriously the easiest? OK, it is in the eye of the beholder... then usually these plots are at least 4X4X4 Km right? that is 2 times more than the 2Km radius, especially since the plots are SQUARE, that means that the distance from the center of an ending point is about 1.5 times 2 Km (my good old friend Pythagoras agrees) and we are not talking about all the places of the surrounding cube that the enclosed sphere leaves out (2 Km radius versus 4 Km cube with the same centre means that we have a sphere enclosed in a cube, Cube's Volume is 4X4X4 = 64 km cubed, the sphere is a mere 2X3.14X8 = roughly 50 Km cubed... see any difference?)
dtpsprt wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 14:45
Imperial Good wrote:
Wed, 15. Jul 20, 17:24
1 out of 3 times you tell an NPC to put a satellite in front of a Gate (or highway) it gets placed outside...
There was a now fixed bug where they would deploy at speed resulting in the deployable drifting away for potentially dozens of kilometres before it loses momentum. This has now been fixed with ships coming to a stop before deploying.

The other cause is by the player entering the sector nearby. When collision gets enabled the objects can end up displaced by significant distances (hundreds of km for fleets in older versions) to avoid intersecting with other objects. This applies to deployables as well.
Ohhh I am not talking about them deploying while still moving they stop alright... it's just these missing Km of volume... (see above)

EDIT: BTW Euclidian geometry has always been my forte at school... tuition fees waved for devs that care.... or graphic designers that do NOT put bad cartoons as human beings, the ones who do will have to pay...

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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by Imperial Good » Thu, 16. Jul 20, 22:53

dtpsprt wrote:
Thu, 16. Jul 20, 08:57
(extremely profitable, try them some time)
I admit I do not do the single ship delivery missions. Since the money they offer is usually not worth my time. I run the player so that after 8 hours odd I am making 40M+ per hour without manual input. Once all the factories are built after 48 hours odd that is many hundred million per hour. Hence a mission for a couple of million (fleet delivery mission) is not really worth my time.
dtpsprt wrote:
Thu, 16. Jul 20, 08:57
then usually these plots are at least 4X4X4 Km right? that is 2 times more than the 2Km radius, especially since the plots are SQUARE, that means that the distance from the center of an ending point is about 1.5 times 2 Km (my good old friend Pythagoras agrees) and we are not talking about all the places of the surrounding cube that the enclosed sphere leaves out (2 Km radius versus 4 Km cube with the same centre means that we have a sphere enclosed in a cube, Cube's Volume is 4X4X4 = 64 km cubed, the sphere is a mere 2X3.14X8 = roughly 50 Km cubed... see any difference?)
Yeh still I get it reliably inside the plot. Maybe the accuracy is better than 2km radius but that was a very rough estimate for doing it in a couple of seconds without any mark when actually issuing the order to perform real-time adjustments. With the mission objective in the map view it is pretty easy to do thanks to real time feedback compared with plots which can only be seen in plot view where orders cannot be issued.

Of course you could provide an unmodified save for people to try ordering a ship (already made in save) to fly to the delivery site for a mission. I would happily video the results.

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Re: Make the Y Axis Great Again!

Post by dtpsprt » Fri, 17. Jul 20, 00:57

Imperial Good wrote:
Thu, 16. Jul 20, 22:53
Of course you could provide an unmodified save for people to try ordering a ship (already made in save) to fly to the delivery site for a mission. I would happily video the results.
Will do... Just as soon as I get rep 10+ with Teladi again (right now I have lots of saves but not one at that specific point, or with that specific mission). Hope you try it.

EDIT: Once you have found the ALI Warf, they offer 1.5 mill for a Vulture Vanguard (besides other "benefits" like moding parts, 2* plus seminars etc) that you get there (at minimum spec) for something like 300K. That's 1 mil+ for the 10 sec it will take you to give the order, some 30 sec watching it's progress and (according to you) 10-20 sec to give it it's navigation orders to the delivery point. That's 1 min in total = 60 mil per hour!!! Beats building some 5-10 stations to get the 40 mil per hour (not to mention their construction cost, initial baby siting etc). Or you can use such missions to "fund" your station building, especially since the Teladi rep of 10 is easily obtainable in 2 hours or so...

Of course you are a "builder", I am more of a "gypsy"... everyone has his/hers own playstyle. I believe that both (and even more than these two) should be accommodated and not "force" everyone in a specific route. BTW I just finished the Revenge part in my new Split playthrough (Fires of Defeat) without firing A SINGLE shot in anger against the ZYA (can't say the same about the Xenon though)

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