Heed this oh ye Boron Lovers...

[dtpsprt]

So... No Boron whatsoever, judging by Bernd's answer to Captain Collins' question (asked by the public in capital letters from what Cpt Collins said).
To be precise the answer was:

WHO ARE THE BORONS (capitals used to indicate the loud response)...

[Newinger]

So... No Boron whatsoever, judging by Bernd's answer to Captain Collins' question (asked by the public in capital letters from what Cpt Collins said).
To be precise the answer was:

WHO ARE THE BORONS (capitals used to indicate the loud response)...

That was just a self-ironic beginning of his answer. In fact he said that due to Borons being water based life forms it is hard to integrate them in the same way as other species, but they are discussing ideas.

I can imagine it could indeed be difficult simply because they can't simply reuse the existing assets. Well of course one could force a Boron into some awkward humanoid space suit, allowing them to walk on non-Boron stations. But what about players entering Boron ships? Then the player would need a way to move inside a water environment. Or they say "well, Boron adapted humanoid ship styles even if that's very unnatural for them". But I guess that would be considered as a very lazy solution by many.

[dtpsprt]

So... No Boron whatsoever, judging by Bernd's answer to Captain Collins' question (asked by the public in capital letters from what Cpt Collins said).
To be precise the answer was:

WHO ARE THE BORONS (capitals used to indicate the loud response)...

That was just a self-ironic beginning of his answer. In fact he said that due to Borons being water based life forms it is hard to integrate them in the same way as other species, but they are discussing ideas.

I can imagine it could indeed be difficult simply because they can't simply reuse the existing assets. Well of course one could force a Boron into some awkward humanoid space suit, allowing them to walk on non-Boron stations. But what about players entering Boron ships? Then the player would need a way to move inside a water environment. Or they say "well, Boron adapted humanoid ship styles even if that's very unnatural for them". But I guess that would be considered as a very lazy solution by many.

I don't think it was so self ironic... maybe taking out the self would be more apt IMHO. The fact is that if they wanted to see what users think about the Borons and how they might (just might) be implemented there are more than 3 6+ pages threads in the forum... They could even make a "survey" like they did with mining... My guess is that Egosoft is sick and tired of people asking about the Borons when they have very little appetite to go that way...

[mr.WHO]

You are overthinking it - Boron ship must me usable by everyone, and every ship need to be usable by Borons.
NPC logic must be the same for NPC as well as for player character (if player is Boron).

Therefore the only logical way would be for borons to walk in water exosuits which means simply adding Boron NPC models.
No special mechanics, no water filled interiors or ships.

This makes Boron DLC "normal" and doable as DLC3.

If Borons will not be DLC3 people will riot as adding Borons is a must for X4 to be full sucessor of X3.

[NightmareNight91]

Or we could ditch the whole water filled ships and stations as it was a dumb idea to begin with.

There is already a floating suit in the tineline picture of a boron, as this is a sci-fi game that isnt exactly "realistic" in most areas, we could simply say that boron scientists adapted there ships and public areas of station to be suitable for humanoid races due to there friendship with the argon. This way we could have another fun and unique race in X4 to play with.

The above paragraph was merely an idea, we could literally just make up any reason for it to work. I dont see how it could be any harder than adding the split to the game. The boron wouldnt look any more out of place than the paranid, who kinda just float and have there hands touching nothing in the pilot seat. Or the argon with there hands in there lap while in a dogfight, etc,etc.

[Roeleveld]

You are overthinking it - Boron ship must me usable by everyone, and every ship need to be usable by Borons.
NPC logic must be the same for NPC as well as for player character (if player is Boron).

Therefore the only logical way would be for borons to walk in water exosuits which means simply adding Boron NPC models.
No special mechanics, no water filled interiors or ships.

This makes Boron DLC "normal" and doable as DLC3.

If Borons will not be DLC3 people will riot as adding Borons is a must for X4 to be full sucessor of X3.

I agree, Borons would wear a space suit. And how did Boso Ta get on that transport ship in the PHQ plotline? He must have a way to travel, otherwise it would be really easy to keep him locked up.

I would expect the ships to be air-filled with the Borons wearing suits. Space stations would have sections that are water filled, but as we can't go to all the modules, that could easily be hidden. How else would the Boron manage to travel and trade with other species from Xbtf onwards?

I think the Borons should be introduced or the whole Boso Ta storyline is extremely sad.

[aurumgallente]

The real reason for it is money. Many players admitted in the past design of boron ships and stations in X3 as awful and/or primitive and weak. Most of X4 players did not play X2 where borons were unique and interesting, but played X3 where borons were losers. Egosoft thinks boron DLC would not make sufficient profit to work on it and DLC will not bring many new players who would have to buy base game to interact with borons. That's why Egosoft decided to make Split and Terran DLC first, it's more lucrative.
Making borons in humanoid exoskeletons is not a problem at all, there is a risk Boron DLC will not be profitable. Success of boron DLC is moot and requires exceptional skills of artists, it is cheaper to make something else instead of race that has such reputation.
Personally I will port boron X2 ships to X4 because I like it but I can't say the same about rest of the players and I don't have to pay salary to my employees (I don't have any but Egosoft does) so I free to work on what I want.

[Newinger]

Personally I will port boron X2 ships to X4 because I like it

Do you already know to which faction you will give these? (And could you make it an optional addon to your X2 ships mod? I am afraid I might find it immersion breaking if I could buy a Boron ship on a Argon or Split or Paranid shipyard, whereas your other conversions make sense to be bought there, I use all the time).

[Roeleveld]

The real reason for it is money. Many players admitted in the past design of boron ships and stations in X3 as awful and/or primitive and weak. Most of X4 players did not play X2 where borons were unique and interesting, but played X3 where borons were losers. Egosoft thinks boron DLC would not make sufficient profit to work on it and DLC will not bring many new players who would have to buy base game to interact with borons. That's why Egosoft decided to make Split and Terran DLC first, it's more lucrative.
Making borons in humanoid exoskeletons is not a problem at all, there is a risk Boron DLC will not be profitable. Success of boron DLC is moot and requires exceptional skills of artists, it is cheaper to make something else instead of race that has such reputation.
Personally I will port boron X2 ships to X4 because I like it but I can't say the same about rest of the players and I don't have to pay salary to my employees (I don't have any but Egosoft does) so I free to work on what I want.

I'm willing to pre-order a Boron DLC. (Would be the first time I pre-order anything)

[aurumgallente]

Do you already know to which faction you will give these? (And could you make it an optional addon to your X2 ships mod? I am afraid I might find it immersion breaking if I could buy a Boron ship on a Argon or Split or Paranid shipyard, whereas your other conversions make sense to be bought there, I use all the time).

I will add it to ALI wharfs and shipyards and ships will be usable by argon/ANT faction a little bit, like 1 boron ship per 100 argon native ships. It's not immersion breaking, argon and boron races had very tight connection and X2 boron ships are based on old argon technologies and hull parts provided by humans and X2 boron military ships were to be support fleet for argon forces, so it's OK if in rare occasions human pilots will use green ships.

[NightmareNight91]

Ill pay 200$ for a boron dlc if it helps, hell, do a kickstarter or gofundme for it...

[BigBANGtheory]

I could live without full Boron race being added but it would be a shame, either way I don't think Bernd committed one way or another.

I think what will be interesting is if Cradle of Humanity gives us a bit more Boron something in the story, events, plot etc which would be a good sign for DLC 3.

Either way if Borons do come later on they are likely to get the best treatment because Split Vendetta had a noticeable uplift in quality (my opinion) and its looking like that for the Terrans too.

[mr.WHO]

Lets be honest - Egosoft is not capable of doing "fancy Borons", if they cut corners on something like Construction Ship.

"Water Borons" would require adjustments to all existing ships, interior logic, NPC logic and animation as well as changes to FPP walking logic (if player is Boron).
Honestly this is huge amount of work and it would be much simplier and safer, to just put Borons in walking exosuit and call it a day.

I'd rather have walking Borons as DLC3 than anything else, simply for completion sake, as otherwise it will never be a full sucessor to X3.
As a token to "Water Boron" they could simply make fancy Boron habitation module with visible water tanks and swimming Boron siluettes.

[Jeraal]

This is one of the reasons I don't like space legs in the X universe. We don't have the Boron because of difficulty in designing them for the walking around portion of the game. Other reasons being that some activities require us to walk.

[mr.WHO]

This is one of the reasons I don't like space legs in the X universe. We don't have the Boron because of difficulty in designing them for the walking around portion of the game. Other reasons being that some activities require us to walk.

Thank Star Citizen for this crap - now every space game need space legs. Elite Dangerous will have space legs added to the game as well.

In X4 I like sitting on ship bridge or walking in S/M wharf hangar, but honestly this don't add much to the game, gameplay wise.

[NightmareNight91]

This is one of the reasons I don't like space legs in the X universe. We don't have the Boron because of difficulty in designing them for the walking around portion of the game. Other reasons being that some activities require us to walk.

Thank Star Citizen for this crap - now every space game need space legs. Elite Dangerous will have space legs added to the game as well.

In X4 I like sitting on ship bridge or walking in S/M wharf hangar, but honestly this don't add much to the game, gameplay wise.

I would trade all my ships/packages in Star Citizen for a Boron DLC lol...

[Tomonor]

If spacelegs weren't part of X4, it would be just a glorified X3, and it would be extremely disappointing to see X4 without spacelegs after XRebirth had it.

[dtpsprt]

If spacelegs weren't part of X4, it would be just a glorified X3, and it would be extremely disappointing to see X4 without spacelegs after XRebirth had it.

Actually "spacelegs" was the most irritating feature of X Rebirth (once I managed 10h of being on station against 3 h of flight!!!) asking the same questions, getting the same answers and "playing" the same minigame time after time... I suppose it is the reason why there are only the copy/paste docks and these copy/paste corridors and rooms in X4. I wouldn't mind them being totally erased from existence... maybe a separate game (more X Rebirth oriented) called "X Space Station" and another called "X Space Builder" would let the spacewalkers and lego/economy maniacs have their fill and leave the rest of us enjoy space flight, great ships, good AI and lots of stuff to blow around!!!

EDIT: and interesting story plots too...

[Axeface]

The real reason for it is money. Many players admitted in the past design of boron ships and stations in X3 as awful and/or primitive and weak. Most of X4 players did not play X2 where borons were unique and interesting, but played X3 where borons were losers.

Even if that were true, you do understand the value of having a race in the game that a player doesnt like right? I dont think you are right and I dont think boron are unpopular, I just think they arnt the terrans or split which are player favourites (terrans because 'muh proper humans' and split because 'GUNS and speed'. I would argue boron ships are as popular as paranid ships and perhaps even as popular as teladi ships.
I loved that the split got added because I love to hate them. They are almost always an adversary in my games, this has massive value. I often see people joke about wiping out the boron, this is important.

Will a Boron DLC sell? In the case of X4 and with the amazing opportunity to re-imagine the boron ship design and overall aesthetics (lots of options here and they could look AWESOME, eg no more obvious whales and rays), I think it actually will sell well especially if it perhaps comes with another smaller faction just like the terran one will (I think a kha'ak faction would be great for this). I am certainly passionate about wanting it.

Actually "spacelegs" was the most irritating feature of X Rebirth (once I managed 10h of being on station against 3 h of flight!!!) asking the same questions, getting the same answers and "playing" the same minigame time after time...

This is a good example of why you need to be careful listening to feedback. You say spacelegs was the most irritating feature, but then point to the immensely repetitive minigame and voice overs as the reason for hating spacelegs. The spacelegs were not the problem in rebirth, and neither were the stations, it was just like you said, the repetitive way we had to interact with npcs and the obnoxiously repetitive talking points, the npc models and animations were far worse and much less varied than they are now too.


I personally would have preferred if the lessons from rebirth were learnt and the interaction options were expanded and made better rather than streamlining it so much. I do also wonder however what X4 would be like without spacelegs - if when we docked we were just shown a nice camera view of our ship, with options of places to 'go', switching the camera to a trader or whatever rather than actually running around.

In Rebirth I loved it (I got rebirth in like 2.0 were it was no longer necessary to spend time on stations) because my reasons for going there were my own and there were some things you could still gain while walking around that wernt forced upon you (with a few exceptions like plots). In X4 however, the interaction options and reasons to be walking around are lessened, so the value is diminished and it feels a lot more like a wasted feature.
You know, walking on a xenon station in rebirth, I thought it was freaking brilliant. I also absolutely loved going into far off parts of stations like refineries (I think a tiny % of players have ever even seen these places), but there was little to do. SO yeh, the little to do or accomplish issues was the problem, not the stations themselves or spacelegs as a feature, imo. Look at a game like mount and blade, which is actually incredibly similar to X4 in a gameplay sense. The towns and villages are like the stations in rebirth or x4, theres just more to do - no one hates them.

[chew-ie]

The real reason for it is money. Many players admitted in the past design of boron ships and stations in X3 as awful and/or primitive and weak. Most of X4 players did not play X2 where borons were unique and interesting, but played X3 where borons were losers.

Even if that were true, you do understand the value of having a race in the game that a player doesnt like right? I dont think you are right, I dont think boron are unpopular, I just think they arnt the terrans or split which are player favourites (terrans because 'muh proper humans' and split because 'GUNS and speed'. I would argue boron ships are as popular as paranid ships, perhaps even as popular as teladi ships.
I loved that the split got added because I love to hate them. They are almost always an adversary in my games, this has massive value. I often see people joke about wiping out the boron - this has huge value.

I'd second that - Borons have those HUGE organic ships with the best shield generator technology (only rivaled by the terrans). They are a very defensive race with their own unique tech (ion weapons) which has their place in a proper X game. While they might feel weak to unexperienced players, their main attack ships pack enough fire- and staying power to be taken serious.

Their character brings a lot to the table for plots and the overall feeling of the X universe. It's no coincidence that some of the most funny plot moments are tailored around Borons. Even shooting at them as pirates is hilarious.

Also, there is Kingdom End. N'uff said.

We have to bring them back!