Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

[-=SiR KiLLaLoT=-]

Can Egosoft please remove this mechanic from the game, or at least make it optional? It is the one thing that I hate the most about X4, where I am just cruising along and enemies are randomly warped to points along my path. Constantly interrupting the nice, chill music with the crap, frantic combat music. Killing me when I investigate data vaults. Giving me combat opportunities when I want none. Seriously, if I want combat opportunities, I know where to go.

There is a mod that disables this game mechanic, and I find the game 1000% more enjoyable with it. But I am trying to be a good little boy and play the vanilla version of the game right now, so that I can post bug reports for the 2.5 beta, and also have access to ventures. I cannot understate how much I hate this particular feature of X4.

Well! I play a lot from the map and I often keep the S.E.T.A. for a long time. It happens that in the depths of space some Xenon ships come out to attack me. I agree with you on the implementation of an option that can disable encounter music but, I would like another option that gives me the chance to hear encounter music while the game is backgrounded, to be able to get back to it while I was browsing the internet and I am attacked by the Xenon ships: D

(sorry for google traslation)

[lostboron]

I have started reading this long thread, but let me give an account of my experience before I knew how encounters are working.
I have patiently suffered many bugs since I started the game (I played for 50 hours with vanilla). Plenty of crashes and clipping. But I kept enduring because I played X3 for so long before and I knew it might take some time before I enjoy it.

I was trying to explore an asteroid field in a settled sector, which looked very safe. Every minute a new xenon/khaak/pirate spawned near me and attacked me. I kept destroying them and exploring, but after an hour I realized that I had not had a single full minute to do what I wanted to do in the first place: look at the asteroids. And the battle music was getting on my nerves. Eventually, a khaak, 2 xenons and 2 pirates poped up and moved towards me at the same time, with each pirate asking me to drop the cargo. If these had not just suddenly spawned out of nowhere, why were they not busy killing each other before I arrived ? And how could they just appear without any jump drive in the universe ? My logical conclusion was that these ships were being artificially spawned at a crazy rate for not reason, ruining any chance of enjoying the game.
So now I know that most of them are actually "warped". The only difference it makes for me is that some day I might wonder where all the xenon are gone, since I never really attacked them.

I don't mind random encounters, but they should be 100x less frequent. I don't care if ships are spawned or warped, since in practice I can't tell the difference. As it is, I'm just going to shelve this game.

[AquilaRossa]

I have the mod to turn them off. I like the game more now. There are so many Xenon zooming around it's plenty to keep you busy if you want to fight. In my first serious play through I am finally getting on top of blocking the gates with defence platforms and stopping the build up of I and K destroyers. I worked out yesterday how to kill a K and got an I today. They just keep coming. It's good though because it's the Xenon relentless AI and makes sense. Plonking scripted groups in front of you just because you happen to be heading that way does not. It goes against the everything is built from a real economy. Khark are an exception, but they can be found if you want them, so no need to script them in.
p.s. I just saw HOP line up over 10 destroyers and head into Faulty Logic. I was busy defending my platform in Company pride, so could not go and rubber neck, but it looks like organised defence and assaults do actually happen. I was starting to wonder if they just feed fighters non stop to Ks like lambs to slaughter.
My FPS issues are still there, but only around my largest stations really. I have been too busy fighting to hang out at stations. Ignore those Xenon and you will find Teladi sectors overrun with destroyer and the trading posts getting destroyed etc. Good for the Clyaytronics business perhaps. Much profits.
p.p.s. It's nice to find that blind spot and kill a K, but it does become a chore. Maybe the Xenon need a modernized version with a couple of turrets on top. Call it Special K or something. 24 Perseus with beam weapons can handle one though. Just lose a few and have to watch over them and send them for repairs. It would be nice if station managers had brains enough to handle that for me.

[wwdragon]

I think the best way to fix this is to make it a gameplay menu config option.

That way everyone can get what they want here.

[tomchk]

I think the best way to fix this is to make it a gameplay menu config option.

That way everyone can get what they want here.

Agreed! Any chance we will get this soon, devs?

[AquilaRossa]

I think the best way to fix this is to make it a gameplay menu config option.

That way everyone can get what they want here.

I agree. Same with highways. That way we do not have to use the mods and the devs can have our game saves and dxdiag to see why a massive universe slows down on two cores

[sd_jasper]

In order to get this topic back on to things that might actually happen...

What's not up for discussion?

• Having nothing happen at all when you fly out into empty space, and just relying on random chance, would make exploration largely pointless, so we're not going to do that.
• Making it all optional does not solve the problem (for reasons I have explained in detail before) so that's not likely to happen either.
• Having things just spawn is possible, and will continue to happen for Kha'ak ships, for example, but not desirable in the majority of cases for the reasons set out above.

What points are very much worth discussing?

• What kinds of encounters could occur that would make exploration more varied and interesting?
• Have we got the frequency of such encounters right, and could we improve the locations and circumstances in which they do or don't happen?

What I'd like to see are:
1 ) Limit ship encounters to Kha'ak, Xenon (maybe a lost or erratic ships), and maybe some pirates/smugglers hiding out. Also decrease the frequency of these.
2 ) Lockboxes.
3 ) Damaged abandoned ships, some trapped with mines. Minimal loadout in order to not mess with the economy that much.
4 ) Large wrecks that can be explored in the space suit. A few crates in there with some decent rewards would be nice.
5 ) Data Vaults, or something like them. With the explore and power-up game play. Maybe expanded to use bombs as well.
6 ) Abandoned stations / ruined capital ships. This might be a bit much, but having something you can land on and explore on foot might be interesting.
7 ) Astroids with rare crystals, or that contain something inside.
8 ) Destroyed stations that can be scanned for a chance at blueprints.
9 ) "Message in a bottle". This could be combined with some of the others. Have a bit of lore or story added to exploration by finding messages left behind. These could be quest related, or just background color for the game.

That's it for now. I might come up with a few more later.

[tomchk]

In order to get this topic back on to things that might actually happen...
What I'd like to see are:
1 ) Limit ship encounters to Kha'ak, Xenon (maybe a lost or erratic ships), and maybe some pirates/smugglers hiding out. Also decrease the frequency of these.
2 ) Lockboxes.
3 ) Damaged abandoned ships, some trapped with mines. Minimal loadout in order to not mess with the economy that much.
4 ) Large wrecks that can be explored in the space suit. A few crates in there with some decent rewards would be nice.
5 ) Data Vaults, or something like them. With the explore and power-up game play. Maybe expanded to use bombs as well.
6 ) Abandoned stations / ruined capital ships. This might be a bit much, but having something you can land on and explore on foot might be interesting.
7 ) Astroids with rare crystals, or that contain something inside.
8 ) Destroyed stations that can be scanned for a chance at blueprints.
9 ) "Message in a bottle". This could be combined with some of the others. Have a bit of lore or story added to exploration by finding messages left behind. These could be quest related, or just background color for the game.

I hadn't seen that dev quote, which is unfortunate if it means the devs refuse to ever let us opt out of artificially relocated ships in vanilla. If he meant they won't make *all* exploration-type content optional, that I understand. Regardless, I think your ideas are great, and they certainly would be a huge improvement over what we have. Thanks!

[Axeface]

1 ) Limit ship encounters to Kha'ak, Xenon (maybe a lost or erratic ships), and maybe some pirates/smugglers hiding out. Also decrease the frequency of these.
2 ) Lockboxes.
3 ) Damaged abandoned ships, some trapped with mines. Minimal loadout in order to not mess with the economy that much.
4 ) Large wrecks that can be explored in the space suit. A few crates in there with some decent rewards would be nice.
5 ) Data Vaults, or something like them. With the explore and power-up game play. Maybe expanded to use bombs as well.
6 ) Abandoned stations / ruined capital ships. This might be a bit much, but having something you can land on and explore on foot might be interesting.
7 ) Astroids with rare crystals, or that contain something inside.
8 ) Destroyed stations that can be scanned for a chance at blueprints.
9 ) "Message in a bottle". This could be combined with some of the others. Have a bit of lore or story added to exploration by finding messages left behind. These could be quest related, or just background color for the game.

I came here to write some more ideas about the encounters but you've already mentioned some of them here.

1. Asteroid/asteroid field encounters. I think new huge asteroid models with cave and tunnel systems inside of them could be a lot of fun - inside they could have crystals, lockboxes and even be traps (you fly inside a large portion of the tunnels and some kha'ak or pirates activate). There could even be functioning pirate hideaways that we can 'dock' with in a space suit? Player could dock and find no one home... have some items to plunder inside (on foot). Some of the interiors could be large enough for ships, others not. This should be very, very rare.
Using the long range scanner to make these types of encounters more interesting would be great... eg, player in deep space does a long range scan and gets a new type of feedback ping, effectively you could allow the player to occasionally 'spawn' these encounters by using the scanner (would it be possible to make chasing these special pings more difficult than the current ones? perhaps multiple pings?).

2. New ship wrecks could be added that are not as messy as the ones we currently have (very messy polygons and collision on the current ones, would like to see this improved too) - such as an Atlas that is largely intact but with a large gaping hole in the side of it. Some corridors could be added allowing us to get a glimpse of what the interior of large ships might be like outisde of the bridge. Could be boxes or scanning rewards from these wrecks.
I would also love to explore one of those 'Teladi rammed a Xenon I' models in a space suit... could even spawn a mission to send word back to the Teladi of the lost crew or something.

3. Missions. Ide like to see missions added to ships in general (especially distress calls from actual civilian ships that are under attack), and the encounters could take advantage of this. Mission types from encountered ships could be things like 'Medical Emergency. Dock with L freighter and transport crew member to nearest station', 'SOS. Science vessel got lost going through an anomoly and is under attack by Kha'ak (Killing Kha'ak automatically triggers the ship to hail the player and offer a reward), 'Component needed! A ship requires a specific ware or component to repair its engines'.

4. Larger groups of Kha'ak near pockets of nvidium asteroids (and expand the Kha'ak please! capital ships) could be an encounter too. If the player manages to destroy them there could be rewards and things to collect in the asteroid field.

ALL of these ideas I think should occur in deep, deep space, far from other stations or npc ships.

[tomchk]

1. Asteroid/asteroid field encounters. I think new huge asteroid models with cave and tunnel systems inside of them could be a lot of fun - inside they could have crystals, lockboxes and even be traps (you fly inside a large portion of the tunnels and some kha'ak or pirates activate). There could even be functioning pirate hideaways that we can 'dock' with in a space suit? Some of the interiors could be large enough for ships, others not. This should be very, very rare.
Using the long range scanner to make these types of encounters more interesting would be great... eg, player in deep space does a long range scan and gets a new type of feedback ping, effectively you could allow the player to occasionally 'spawn' these encounters by using the scanner (would it be possible to make chasing these special pings more difficult than the current ones? perhaps multiple pings?).

2. New ship wrecks could be added that are not as messy as the ones we currently have (very messy polygons and collision on the current ones, would like to see this improved too) - such as an Atlas that is largely intact but with a large gaping hole in the side of it. Some corridors could be added allowing us to get a glimpse of what the interior of large ships might be like outisde of the bridge. Could be boxes or scanning rewards from these wrecks.

3. Missions. Ide like to see missions added to ships in general (especially distress calls from actual civilian ships that are under attack), and the encounters could take advantage of this. Mission types from encountered ships could be things like 'Medical Emergency. Dock with L freighter and transport crew member to nearest station', 'SOS. Science vessel got lost going through an anomoly and is under attack by Kha'ak (Killing Kha'ak automatically triggers the ship to hail the player and offer a reward), 'Component needed! A ship requires a specific ware or component to repair its engines'.

ALL of these ideas I think should occur in deep, deep space, far from other stations or npc ships.

Your ideas sound amazing, too. Thanks! One I might add is "small" spaceship parts floating around, like weapons if possible, as might happen in an actual explosion in space (e.g., pieces of a ship might end up incredibly far away from the explosion--yes, I know the game is not physically realistic in tons of ways, but this is just an explanation). The little "loot" items we currently see from wrecks might also be cool.

PS: I recall Egosoft implemented these awesome "Ship in Distress (HoL DLC only)" emergent missions in X:R (see https://www.egosoft.com:8444/confluence ... c+missions). Your #3 could be a lot like that and possibly ported. Thoughts, devs?

[Axeface]

PS: I recall Egosoft implemented these awesome "Ship in Distress (HoL DLC only)" emergent missions in X:R (see https://www.egosoft.com:8444/confluence ... c+missions). Your #3 could be a lot like that and possibly ported. Thoughts, devs?

They did yeh, they were cool but I think they are just spawned? I'de like to see it be more 'dynamic' where if we are flying near a ship that is under attack its possible that a mission will spawn on them. Other things like escort missions too.
Trying to head to those ones in Rebirth in time was quite exciting though... could have both types.


On another note. I think a lot of the ships we see, even in populated areas or near stations are actually encounters, right? Like a LOT of them.

[tomchk]

They did yeh, they were cool but I think they are just spawned? I'de like to see it be more 'dynamic' where if we are flying near a ship that is under attack its possible that a mission will spawn on them. Other things like escort missions too.
Trying to head to those ones in Rebirth in time was quite exciting though... could have both types.

If they can implement combat missions that generate based on actual attacks, that would be awesome. Given how few combat missions exist in 2.5 (for good reason--I don't want the fake/spawned combat missions of old back), I bet you they have been working on something like this! It would be great to hear them hint that we are correct/close...

[tomchk]

On another note. I think a lot of the ships we see, even in populated areas or near stations are actually encounters, right? Like a LOT of them.

That hasn't been my sense, but I haven't looked closely. I certainly hope not...

[Axeface]

They did yeh, they were cool but I think they are just spawned? I'de like to see it be more 'dynamic' where if we are flying near a ship that is under attack its possible that a mission will spawn on them. Other things like escort missions too.
Trying to head to those ones in Rebirth in time was quite exciting though... could have both types.

If they can implement combat missions that generate based on actual attacks, that would be awesome. Given how few combat missions exist in 2.5 (for good reason--I don't want the fake/spawned combat missions of old back), I bet you they have been working on something like this! It would be great to hear them hint that we are correct/close...

Yeh it would solve the 'no combat missions problem' - players could head to more dangerous sectors and look for ships to help.

[tomchk]

Yeh it would solve the 'no combat missions problem' - players could head to more dangerous sectors and look for ships to help.

The devs might argue that we already have reputation and monetary rewards for attacking aggressors, but missions (or at least bounties) really would be another step up. Litcube's Universe had bounties, but I don't know how "real" they were. I don't think they were just spawned.

[AquilaRossa]

The maker of mod that removes them has a strong argument against encounters I think. It treats the player differently to NPCs and is too blatantly spawned. I can send an NPC to explore who will not face encounters. I will tend explore most sectors myself though because I do not trust explores not to mess up my map and I like using that long range scan thing. It gives me something to do while I am waiting for builds etc -- as does fighting at Xenon gates and collecting mod parts. With encounters active I see a new bunch of enemies spawn in front of me every 100km or so using my scanner. It is so predictable and immersion breaking. It does not add to the game, but it does add to my annoyance.

The other thing I get rid of is highways. I enjoyed them at first and wondered why so many want them gone. It did not take long to understand why. The just get in the way during combat and stuff. They also break the feel of the game in a way. Going gate to gate is the thing for long time X players. The result removing them is that Xenon do not stick to highways like they usually do and you will find them in areas you do not usually. That adds a randomness to the game and makes exploring a little more dangerous in some sectors at least. X3R I remember it was pirates in Teladi space that were the thing that worried me when exploring early game. They would be molesting the trade routes. Not sitting idle and guaranteed to be hiding in deep space in the very direction the player happens to be going.

It looks like Ego do not like the idea of making highways or encounters optional, even though modders proved it is very easy to do and It seems to be a feature that will be used based on how many downloads of the mods there are. A my way, or the highway approach as is their prerogative. They would rather annoy me with completely predictable spawns to keep exploring interesting? That does not make sense. If removing them affected balance then i would understand.

Straying off topic, but another optional feature i would like is to be able to import my property from my old game into a fresh game start. In X3 and now games end because computers can not not process the growth of objects in the game etc. I start a fresh game to get my FPS back up and think 'gawd, i have to do all that over again'. It's why many players have resorted to the cheat module or custom game starts. So they can start a fresh game where they left off.

[tomchk]

My sense was that the devs aren’t willing to remove or make optional *all* “encounters”, but I think they define “encounters” differently than that mod or many of us. I think their definition includes things like wrecks, lock boxes, data vaults, etc.

I seriously doubt they’ll do anything to make highways optional, but they seem willing to at least change the “warped in NPC ship encounters” that we generally seem to mean by “encounters”.

Because testing can become more complex when more options are added, they seem very resistant to making things optional. Still, hopefully they will change those warped in ship encounters given how many of us find it obnoxious (they may have been changing it already—I haven’t monitored it).

I could be wrong, of course.

[AquilaRossa]

My sense was that the devs aren’t willing to remove or make optional *all* “encounters”, but I think they define “encounters” differently than that mod or many of us. I think their definition includes things like wrecks, lock boxes, data vaults, etc.

Good point. But then i wonder why it is so easy for the modder to remove the meh enemy group right in front of me encounters thing and not affect all the interesting other stuff that appears. Tbh, I wonder if somebody at Egosoft decides stuff for the game and then will not backtrack due to Ego or something. That said, I like the game overall. It's only because I like it that these issues with it matter more to me.

[sd_jasper]

Here are some ideas for missions from random encounters:

• FedEx missions. Find a McGuffin and a note to deliver (on wreak or a beacon).
• Recovery missions. Final log on a destroyed ship to recover rare item from pirates that took it.
• Taxi missions. Survivor stranded in space needing a ride home.
• Escort mission. Ship need escort back.*

*Not sure if I actually like this idea, as it would require the player to stop their exploring and deal with it right away.

[KingLetho]

Wow, there are many great ideas for implementing encounter missions in this topic

My "problem" with the current encounter system is the fact that they are not presented as missions but ships that just appear randomly.
When being miles away from the center of a sector and I find a ship there I'm asking myself "What is it doing here?"
I start following ships, wondering if they are travelling to some far-away station, a damaged ship, a pirate station, an asteroid field with resources, or any point of interest really. Currently, non of that is the case, and that's what breaks immersion for me.

You [guys at Egosoft] say, that you want players to go out there, explore. And that's great! I want it to! ...But

It is hard to find something of interest.
Finding interesting spots to investigate based on visual indications is one thing but flying ages in a line just to hope that something pops up that is way out of view or scan ping range, well... Exploring is one thing but without any hints it is very hard to do (-> as in less "luck" and more "think").
Maybe in the form of a visual indication (Astro in background), a riddle, random com chatter, or a treasure map that can be found in a container or bought from NPCs. Space is vast and just randomly flying around nowhere hoping to find something gets dull quite fast.
Encounters ARE the solution to it, but I think that you should take away some form or randomness and add some more logic to it, for example:
if resources_nearby > 10 then spawn minership.moveTo(closest_resource) -> This way I can make use of the ship you spawn into my way.

The following things could be spawned in addition to NPC ships that lead you to to the "place of interest" if I follow them:

Spoiler

Show

Mostly copied from various posts in this topic:
- A random (temporary) anomaly/rift that randomly teleports you to another anomaly
- If resources (nebula/asteroid) is within range X, have ships fly towards it
- Distress signals: a ship that needs repair, or is under attack by Khaak/Xenon/Pirates/Faction. Fly to point in space - do you help or hinder?
- Salvage: Random abandoned (small ship) wrecks with a little loot and/or pirates
- (Guarded) big wrecks that contain money or even maybe rare ship enhancements
- Heavily damaged ships that are either fleeing from pirates or are in need of repairs
- Lock boxes: I.e. prospector NPCs, so either an encounter to fight them for the box, or fight pirates for the box "You found our stash!". Or Prospector fighting pirates over a box, can I swoop in under their noses and claim it myself and escape?
- A deep space science/cartographer ship that probes stuff - and potentially offers a mission to scan certain points/anomalies in space around (with a chance of Khaak appearing )
- Scouting Missions offered by a ship out there - We have reports of Khaak/Xenon/Pirates in this area, go check it out - minor reward for scouting
- A ship with broken nav computer - "guard me back!"
- A super-rare encounter that spawns a ship that can only be captured that way (Arawn-style back in the X3 days)
- Smuggler convoys: using anomalies to try and get goods from A to B...or at least have them avoid the highways. Maybe even have them meet traders that pick up the illegal goods in the middle of nowhere.
- Disabled ships: Need crew transport to nearest station or a specific component to fix ship
- Science/exploration vessel needs food delivery
- Specific NPC wants transport off ship and to a specific location because of personal emergency.
- Astroids with rare crystals, or that contain something inside.
- Destroyed stations that can be scanned for a chance at blueprints.
- "Message in a bottle". This could be combined with some of the others. Have a bit of lore or story added to exploration by finding messages left behind. These could be quest related, or just background color for the game.
- Many more of the great ideas that have been posted in this thread!

(In my opinion) more mission-style encounters are the way to go.
Encounters are great but in the current form of implementation they rather break immersion than generate it.
The frequency in general should be significantly lower - space IS vast after all and if an encounter happens it's all the more exciting.