Does HAT actually even have their own ships/fleet?

[Midnitewolf]

I was just sitting here thinking that I don't think I can recall seeing even one HAT ships in the game ever. Do they actually have a fleet or produce any ships?

[Fenris321]

Now that you mention it, you got me thinking. I just looked at the transaction logs for all my stations, going back 12 hours, and didn't see a single sale to HAT even though one of the stations is in Argon Prime, so close by.

I looked in Hatikvah's Choice I and III and did see a single HAT Crane Mineral miner in number III. I don't have great satellite coverage in HC III, so there could be many more.

[al_dude]

HAT ships are mainly L miners. For some players, those L miners are a good source of income.

Other than that, I do not believe they operate a fleet of their own.

[Imperial Good]

If you play the HAT related storyline some of it is made more clear.

Spoiler

Show

By the end of it they pretty much surrender themselves to the Argon Federation who is meant to have impounded most of their assets. I think this also means that from that point on ARG is meant to be servicing their stations.

The lack of such assets before doing the HAT storyline is another issue. Likely done on purpose to limit their economic significance so that after the storyline there is no major economic consequences.

[al_dude]

There was one time HAT had a mission to build a defense station in Noplieos' fortune VI.

I really should have done that. Saw that mission only once.

[SwizzleStick86]

What would happen if you took a station building mission for them, but included a warf in the station on your own? Would they use it?

[Raptor34]

What would happen if you took a station building mission for them, but included a warf in the station on your own? Would they use it?

I mean they don't even buy from mine.
But last I asked apparently its no. Think you can buy their ships though, only unique one is Minotaur Raider.

[SwizzleStick86]

Oh ok

[mr.WHO]

I build HAT wharf and shipyard via stationbuilding mission and I have plenty of HAT miners and freighters in my game.

[blackice7777]

What would happen if you took a station building mission for them, but included a warf in the station on your own? Would they use it?

Yes, they will actively use it. I provided a huge warf (the same as mine) to Teladi in Profit Center Alpha. When the construction was close to finish I set the ship seller and added several defence modules to comply with requirements. After completion, they took over the station, set their own manager and for now they build ships non-stop (apparently in facing the xenons threat). I would say, that they manage warf very effectively in terms of feeding it with resources. I saw they started to use big fleets with carier, destroyers and supply ship I've never seen before.

Now, I'm building the smaller warf for HAT in Silent Witness XI, but this time, I've included the adminstrative center. I think, that after completion the sector shuold be climed by HAT. Will see.
And moreover, in Silent Witness XII, I'm building warf for pirates (was lucky to get building mission from pirates), becasue I would like to have more stonger pirates in my game. And gain this warf includes admin center, so pirates will have their own sector .

Also, I'm looking for building mission from Yaki, but they keep silence.

[grapedog]

What would happen if you took a station building mission for them, but included a warf in the station on your own? Would they use it?

Yes, they will actively use it. I provided a huge warf (the same as mine) to Teladi in Profit Center Alpha. When the construction was close to finish I set the ship seller and added several defence modules to comply with requirements. After completion, they took over the station, set their own manager and for now they build ships non-stop (apparently in facing the xenons threat). I would say, that they manage warf very effectively in terms of feeding it with resources. I saw they started to use big fleets with carier, destroyers and supply ship I've never seen before.

Now, I'm building the smaller warf for HAT in Silent Witness XI, but this time, I've included the adminstrative center. I think, that after completion the sector shuold be climed by HAT. Will see.
And moreover, in Silent Witness XII, I'm building warf for pirates (was lucky to get building mission from pirates), becasue I would like to have more stonger pirates in my game. And gain this warf includes admin center, so pirates will have their own sector .

Also, I'm looking for building mission from Yaki, but they keep silence.

The yaki cannot claim a sector sadly, i tried this already for them in savage spur, adding a wharf with a build mission, took out the other factions admin buildings, didn't work..

I don't think sca can either.

[Fenris321]

What would happen if you took a station building mission for them, but included a warf in the station on your own? Would they use it?

Yes, they will actively use it. I provided a huge warf (the same as mine) to Teladi in Profit Center Alpha. When the construction was close to finish I set the ship seller and added several defence modules to comply with requirements. After completion, they took over the station, set their own manager and for now they build ships non-stop (apparently in facing the xenons threat). I would say, that they manage warf very effectively in terms of feeding it with resources. I saw they started to use big fleets with carier, destroyers and supply ship I've never seen before.

Now, I'm building the smaller warf for HAT in Silent Witness XI, but this time, I've included the adminstrative center. I think, that after completion the sector shuold be climed by HAT. Will see.
And moreover, in Silent Witness XII, I'm building warf for pirates (was lucky to get building mission from pirates), becasue I would like to have more stonger pirates in my game. And gain this warf includes admin center, so pirates will have their own sector .

Also, I'm looking for building mission from Yaki, but they keep silence.

The yaki cannot claim a sector sadly, i tried this already for them in savage spur, adding a wharf with a build mission, took out the other factions admin buildings, didn't work..

I don't think sca can either.

I'm wondering about a cheat menu mod. I remember the one in Albion Prelude would let you change the ownership of ships and if I remember correctly stations to another faction. So I'm wondering if an Admin Center was built in a sector would the cheat menu for X4 let you transfer ownership to the Yaki and if that would actually do anything. I don't plan on trying, tbh sounds like too much work That and I don't plan on using a cheat menu unless it's to set up a certain scenario for a new start, then uninstall it.

[Midnitewolf]

If you play the HAT related storyline some of it is made more clear.

Spoiler

Show

By the end of it they pretty much surrender themselves to the Argon Federation who is meant to have impounded most of their assets. I think this also means that from that point on ARG is meant to be servicing their stations.

The lack of such assets before doing the HAT storyline is another issue. Likely done on purpose to limit their economic significance so that after the storyline there is no major economic consequences.

Ahh that infamous "Story" that ruins so, so much of any sort of emerging "Sandbox" type of gameplay. Why can't I "join" them and turn them into an amazing galaxy spanning faction but nope....we got to have story in our 'Sandbox".

[Imperial Good]

Ahh that infamous "Story" that ruins so, so much of any sort of emerging "Sandbox" type of gameplay. Why can't I "join" them and turn them into an amazing galaxy spanning faction but nope....we got to have story in our 'Sandbox".

Because that would conflict with some of the other storylines and require an impossible amount of work from story writers and scripters.

Personally the bigger question I have is why HAT still exists as a separate, degenerate, faction after that storyline. After that storyline they could just merge them into ARG and players would likely not notice a difference to the universe. The HAT representative (for the Minotaur Raider blueprints, e.t.c.) could be retained but with ownership converted to ARG and the more illegal aspects given to SCA.

[Raptor34]

Ahh that infamous "Story" that ruins so, so much of any sort of emerging "Sandbox" type of gameplay. Why can't I "join" them and turn them into an amazing galaxy spanning faction but nope....we got to have story in our 'Sandbox".

Because that would conflict with some of the other storylines and require an impossible amount of work from story writers and scripters.

Personally the bigger question I have is why HAT still exists as a separate, degenerate, faction after that storyline. After that storyline they could just merge them into ARG and players would likely not notice a difference to the universe. The HAT representative (for the Minotaur Raider blueprints, e.t.c.) could be retained but with ownership converted to ARG and the more illegal aspects given to SCA.

They are useful as a buffer between ARG/ZYA. Which could be good or bad depending on what you want.

[Wraith_Magus]

Ahh that infamous "Story" that ruins so, so much of any sort of emerging "Sandbox" type of gameplay. Why can't I "join" them and turn them into an amazing galaxy spanning faction but nope....we got to have story in our 'Sandbox".

Because that would conflict with some of the other storylines and require an impossible amount of work from story writers and scripters.

Personally the bigger question I have is why HAT still exists as a separate, degenerate, faction after that storyline. After that storyline they could just merge them into ARG and players would likely not notice a difference to the universe. The HAT representative (for the Minotaur Raider blueprints, e.t.c.) could be retained but with ownership converted to ARG and the more illegal aspects given to SCA.

I think that Midnitewolf is hinting at something different than what you're presuming.

I rather agree with the notion that a linear story of any kind tends to conflict with a true sandbox, so all vestiges of linear storytelling outside of maybe some opening segments just to get new players' feet wet should go entirely. Then, you don't have a story to require impossible amounts of work from your story writers, and there don't need to be any concessions to the story from gameplay.

I mean, that's more-or-less what X4 has been doing with its story, anyway, compared to earlier games. X4 definitely worked to try to embrace a dynamic storytelling system where you can ally with most of the factions with a few obvious exceptions if you so chose, and it was advertised on letting you pick your own path with a story that adapts to your choices and such and such.

Now, they could go further down the rabbit hole of emergent storytelling, and do Dwarf Fortress-like work to try to make AI characters that try to respond to what actions the player takes or what missions they take in more ways than the game currently does. I.E. recognize the player as basically playing all sides and not fully trusting them, or taking them as a pacifist if they tend to take trade missions and not combat missions, especially if it involves working for both sides of factions at war, or even having missions that chain together more naturally, like building a defense station, then trying to keep it surrounded with laser towers and stocked with more materials. One of the things from X3: AP I thought was a big fumble was that they had these companies that didn't really exist in a stock market where you could never fail to make money because the companies couldn't go bankrupt, but you could have mini-companies in X4 (part of larger factions) that have their own little directors that have their own goals and individual bank accounts and assets, and one getting wiped out (either by player action or inaction, including just going bankrupt because pirates keep looting their freighters) would lead to another random personality spawning. If these are the ones generating missions due to some script of priorities, players would likewise be able to eventually create their own emergent story of a relation with some of these procedural companies.

Emergent storytelling through procedural elements is certainly hard and largely unexplored waters, and doesn't go well with full voice acting, but it suits a sandbox a lot better than scripted linear plots that don't care who you are or what you've done or what reasons the player had for doing them. I still find it funny if I put off stuff like Operation Final Fury or the main Argon-side war plot in X3 AP or X4's Solborn stuff where they treat me like a rookie who has to prove himself when I show up to boot camp as an admiral with my own carrier and an escort of a few destroyers.

[Imperial Good]

Many people are happy with the storylines that are now in X4. They even complained about the lack of such storylines back when X4 released and the HQ storyline was the only storyline for the player. To me this very much looks like a case of not being able to please all the people all the time.

As well as HAT needing a little more (or less) economic presence, MIN and ALI also need to be expanded. Outside of some story elements and acting as a neutral shipyard ALI really does not seem to do anything. MIN technically polices all TEL space making it a major faction, but due to its lack of presence it is very difficult/annoying for the player to gain reputation with them as simply shooting ships in the sectors they police does not give reputation.

ALI really should get a storyline justifying its existence, possibly with repeatable missions or even unique mechanics. MIN needs its own guilds such as "Ministry Vs. Xenon" and "Ministry Vs. Pirates" which offer MIN missions to complete for reputation.

[slober]

Personally the bigger question I have is why HAT still exists as a separate, degenerate, faction after that storyline. After that storyline they could just merge them into ARG and players would likely not notice a difference to the universe. The HAT representative (for the Minotaur Raider blueprints, e.t.c.) could be retained but with ownership converted to ARG and the more illegal aspects given to SCA.

Maybe Egosoft doesn't`t know what to do with Free Ports?

But the idea is nice. Egosoft could add some changes to HAT storyline. Something like:
SCA because of conflict could take all illegal stations from HAT and ARG could take all legal stations (only inside ARG/ANT sectors. To avoid situation when we afraid to kill ARG stations in Nopileus Fortune)
Illegal station what become SCA in ARG sectors could be destroyed by ARG what is a good action and fun for storyline and new SCA Free Port can be rebuild in new area.
Nice finish of the HAT story

[Midnitewolf]

Ahh that infamous "Story" that ruins so, so much of any sort of emerging "Sandbox" type of gameplay. Why can't I "join" them and turn them into an amazing galaxy spanning faction but nope....we got to have story in our 'Sandbox".

Because that would conflict with some of the other storylines and require an impossible amount of work from story writers and scripters.

Personally the bigger question I have is why HAT still exists as a separate, degenerate, faction after that storyline. After that storyline they could just merge them into ARG and players would likely not notice a difference to the universe. The HAT representative (for the Minotaur Raider blueprints, e.t.c.) could be retained but with ownership converted to ARG and the more illegal aspects given to SCA.

I think that Midnitewolf is hinting at something different than what you're presuming.

I rather agree with the notion that a linear story of any kind tends to conflict with a true sandbox, so all vestiges of linear storytelling outside of maybe some opening segments just to get new players' feet wet should go entirely. Then, you don't have a story to require impossible amounts of work from your story writers, and there don't need to be any concessions to the story from gameplay.

I mean, that's more-or-less what X4 has been doing with its story, anyway, compared to earlier games. X4 definitely worked to try to embrace a dynamic storytelling system where you can ally with most of the factions with a few obvious exceptions if you so chose, and it was advertised on letting you pick your own path with a story that adapts to your choices and such and such.

Now, they could go further down the rabbit hole of emergent storytelling, and do Dwarf Fortress-like work to try to make AI characters that try to respond to what actions the player takes or what missions they take in more ways than the game currently does. I.E. recognize the player as basically playing all sides and not fully trusting them, or taking them as a pacifist if they tend to take trade missions and not combat missions, especially if it involves working for both sides of factions at war, or even having missions that chain together more naturally, like building a defense station, then trying to keep it surrounded with laser towers and stocked with more materials. One of the things from X3: AP I thought was a big fumble was that they had these companies that didn't really exist in a stock market where you could never fail to make money because the companies couldn't go bankrupt, but you could have mini-companies in X4 (part of larger factions) that have their own little directors that have their own goals and individual bank accounts and assets, and one getting wiped out (either by player action or inaction, including just going bankrupt because pirates keep looting their freighters) would lead to another random personality spawning. If these are the ones generating missions due to some script of priorities, players would likewise be able to eventually create their own emergent story of a relation with some of these procedural companies.

Emergent storytelling through procedural elements is certainly hard and largely unexplored waters, and doesn't go well with full voice acting, but it suits a sandbox a lot better than scripted linear plots that don't care who you are or what you've done or what reasons the player had for doing them. I still find it funny if I put off stuff like Operation Final Fury or the main Argon-side war plot in X3 AP or X4's Solborn stuff where they treat me like a rookie who has to prove himself when I show up to boot camp as an admiral with my own carrier and an escort of a few destroyers.

Yeah you get what I mean. In a true sandbox aside from some background there is no lore or story to hold you back. Basically you create the story. For example, the reason I bought the game was because I heard the game was a sandbox and was reading on the COH DLC stuff. This was all before owning the game by the way but after looking at the lore behind the Terran Protectorate, I thought it would be damn cool to play as an Xenophobic Terra bent on "cleansing" the galaxy of Aliens. I figured I would literally join TER and then shape things so that we went to war with all the Alien races, TEL,PAR and SPLIT and my end game would be their elimination from the game.

However, STORY ruined that because there is no way to shape things in that direction. To my knowledge you can only go to war with fellow humans and Xenon as TER. Also the entire TER story is scripted for me and I have to play it out there way.

So basically most of the freedom I was expecting doesn't exist because Egosoft wore so much story into the game which means for all intents and purposes, X4 isn't a sandbox. It could be, it has just about everything it needs....EXCEPT....a sandbox mode that operates sans story, with dynamic wars and conflicts, meaningful territory control and diplomacy. X4 would be the absolute best Sandbox game of all times if it just had those 3 things added.

[Wraith_Magus]

Many people are happy with the storylines that are now in X4. They even complained about the lack of such storylines back when X4 released and the HQ storyline was the only storyline for the player. To me this very much looks like a case of not being able to please all the people all the time.

I think that's more a case of the fairly limited procedural content basically just being to generate missions with a few pre-scripted lines of justification (some of which are pretty amusing to read the first time), but no actually sense that it's any kind of story, and not enough meat on the simulationist bones to make someone feel like it could be made into one.

Again, as someone who plays Dwarf Fortress, procedural content is the sort of thing where it only pays off when you put an awful lot of time and effort into it, but it can pay off big when it does.

Cacame Awemedinade, the (genetically) elven king of the dwarves or The Legend of Boatmurdered are good examples of how procedural content can turn into stories if you give the players enough interconnected story beats to work with in weaving together a coherent narrative.

Even in X4 as it is now, players like to mention that they're "at war with Scale Plate Pact" because of the plunderers that rob their stations, and their swearing revenge (even if the computer can't recognize it) by boarding every plunderer they can find. (It's actually what I go up to, myself.) This very much does not feel recognized by the game, however, which is somewhat amusing at first, like you're getting away with something, but it can make the game feel hollow and plasticky after enough time passes and nothing really changes.

The simulationist nature of X lends itself well to that kind of storytelling, but Egosoft isn't willing to commit to a proper emergent narrative system through procedural storytelling, instead insisting on having linear, scripted events. (I think it's a lack of imagination, honestly, not being willing to let go of traditional media methods of storytelling.) (That said, I do appreciate that the X4 plots are, besides the PHQ plot, mostly something you can put off and not feel ripped off over, or even ignore entirely for most of your game. It also has branching endings for if you want to create a galaxy at war or at peace, which is nice, but not quite as nice as some sort of ongoing diplomacy mechanic like in a Paradox game. PHQ is really a letdown, however, because it gates off so many major game features behind its plot that you feel forced to do it immediately, or like an idiot if you hadn't done it immediately in your first playthrough, and like you had been completely wasting your time trying to do something silly like enjoy a sandbox as a sandbox instead of doing your plot chores like the game devs told you to. At least they concentrated all the stupidly over-generous plot stuff into the earliest parts.)

I mean, the one thing that really stands out to me as being a clear and obvious improvement in X4 over X3 is the player's ability to actually change the galaxy in some meaningful way beyond simply making money and putting their stuff down in it. You made all this money and jumped from nobody to trillionaire, but nobody cared. You can invade and genocide the entire Argon race, and they'll just respawn. For that matter, I would get through the war plot in X3: AP by destroying one terran ship at a time before letting my reputation recover until I cleared the minimum required number of kills to advance the story without the Terrans ever actually recognizing me as an enemy combatant no matter how many of their Asgards I boarded.

There's a clear attempt at being an immersive sim with the woefully under-developed platform mode, but there's too little content there to let it have any meaning, and it just becomes a chore to be on foot. I also think voice acting holds the game back, because Egosoft clearly doesn't have the budget for an expansive voice acting cast or enough voiced lines to make dialogue, especially those awful combat "banter" where people just shout "I'm going to close your account!" "Pathetic!" "You're just silly" over and over on a loop until you just go somewhere else to make the voices stop...

I've also played some 2d smaller-budget space games (the combat in 2d, I should note, keeps me from ever fully enjoying such things), and they'll make the game into a full-on RTS/4X game where all the races you randomly selected will spawn in at gamestart and try to conquer their own chunk of galaxy with dynamic 4X-style diplomacy, even as it then dumps you in the game with one fighter or freighter to play a sandbox game. Not even the factions in the game are set in stone, the sector maps are randomized each game and you can mod your own factions in at that.

(I do have to say I like the encyclopedia entries for all the sectors, though. Not being voiced, they can also have a lot of text relatively cheaply. I think it might not be a bad idea to have an X game where there is a larger pool of possible sectors that could be added into the game, but where the gate network itself is randomized at the start so that you have to actually explore the network every game, not just your first time.)

And again, I think one of the better ideas X: Rebirth had was stepping back a bit from race-empires and having more small companies as factions. You could have a few monolithic race-empires like the Paranid pontifex, and some standing goals that those represent, but also lots of smaller companies that are procedurally generated and have procedural goals and personalities and roles in the galaxy and relations with the player that develop. (I mean, you could even have some outright corporate takeovers of other companies, either a friendly incorporation of all of an NPC faction's assets into your own buyout or a full-on corporate takeover attempt.) The mechanics of the game then tell the story.

Yeah, in any long-running series with changes between games, there are going to be some people who miss the old linear style of storytelling. The Fallout franchise in particular has a broken base because not only are there the Fallout 1/2/Tactics fans who only wanted more tactical RPG, there are now Fallout 3 fans that hate how Fallout 4 "dumbed the RPG down", and now there are Fallout 76 fans that don't even like RPGs and there are three or four different camps of "fanbase" for different parts of the same "franchise" that will never be satisfied with the same game. (Sonic is also a notable offender in that regard, thanks to the wild swings in genre Sonic had after going 3d.) But at the same time, I think that embracing the sandbox is what suits the X series best, and a lot of people who want "more plot" are people who would enjoy having a game where they could create their own personal story out of what the game gives them, but just haven't had that experience in a game before, since only the really indie side of gaming tries to experiment with it.