Does HAT actually even have their own ships/fleet?

[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.

[Midnitewolf]

Totally agree Wrath_Magus. However the thing is, you really don't didn't emergent narrative. You just need the game mechanisms that allow the player to create his own emergent narrative. I play Bannerlord for example and while it has its own issues it is very similar to X4 in a lot of ways. However where it is different, aside from it being a medieval empire simulator, is that it doesn't really force a story down your throat and lets you decide which direction you want to go. For example, my favorite playthrough in Bannerlord is to work my way up to being invited to be a vassal of one of the factions kings or queens than help them to grow their kingdom. You can't do that in X4.

To kind of list many of the the things you have there than you don't have in X4:

-Dynamic Wars
-Diplomacy including war and peace negotiations
-Join Kingdom mechanics
-Betray Kingdom mechanics
-Create your own Kingdom mechanics
-Conquest mechanics
-Meaningful Territory Control


Also the second you join or create a kingdom, your in the mix. You can be attacked without Warning and you have to react to the situation whether you are ready for it or not.

This allow for the player to create emergent narrative. For example, in several runthroughs I have betrayed my King because of silly stuff like him not giving me enough territories after battle or the AI not responding to raids on my villages fast enough. Those weren't scripted events, they were just random things that happened in my game that let my own personal imagination come into play that drastically changed the course of my gameplay experinence.

You just can't do that in X4 becasue the wars are scripted events and even with the story, if your playing at being a Terran Cadet, your not treated as being part of the Terran Protectorate, ever so your not really part of anything. Your holding are never going to be randomly attacked by any one just because they want your territory. Just keep relations up and your good. Territory control just means a green boarder on the sector, yay me. You just so looked down in X4 that you have to work really, REALLY hard to create your own emergent narrative aside from a very narrow scope of choices like fighting off the Xenon. Your never going to "live" in a galaxy where Terra decides to eradicates all Aliens, it is just 100% off the table.

So yeah, you don't need story or narrative, except maybe some background to build upon. The story or narrative comes from the players themselves.....if you let them.

[grapedog]

Maybe i am in the minority, but i like being able to choose which factions fight, or don't fight. I wish there were more options to setup who you want warring though. But overall im ok with the current options.

[Midnitewolf]

Maybe i am in the minority, but i like being able to choose which factions fight, or don't fight. I wish there were more options to setup who you want warring though. But overall im ok with the current options.

I think there is a place for both. For example, that game Bannerlord I mentioned, has a Story Mode and a Sandbox Mode. If you don't want anything to do with Story, you just play in Sandbox mode, same thing could happen here in X4. I mean there is no need to reinvent the wheel with X4 because the vast, vast majority of what it needs to be a good Sandbox is already built in and it would be a shame to let all that story content go to waste.

So what they need to do is create a DLC adding in the missing Sandbox elements I mentioned above and maybe call it "X4: Foundations - Empires" or something. I know I would pay full price for that. I would even be more willing to pay full price if they re-worked the UI and command structure and added a ton of the QoL features you can only get in mods right now and added that as part of the content too.

[aquatica]

Wasn't there a "No Story"-mode for at least X2? Maybe even X3: TC? That was real sandbox. Ofcourse what you could do was limited, but the idea isn't too far away.

[Wraith_Magus]

Wasn't there a "No Story"-mode for at least X2? Maybe even X3: TC? That was real sandbox. Ofcourse what you could do was limited, but the idea isn't too far away.

While true, there's a difference between having a game that is set up to be reactive to the player and have mechanics that allow for the player to tell their own story and literally just a game with a linear story mode (and therefore has those mechanics missing) that just has the story turned off.

That's, again, why I think that when people talk about a sandbox game not having a linear plot, there's a false dichotomy drawn by people who think the only alternative to a voice acted linear plot is the exact same game with no plots at all. The alternative that's not being considered is a game where all the effort that went into a scripted linear plot was instead put into creating procedural storybuilding elements, such as, say, a diplomacy system where players could influence the relations between other factions, the way that grapedog mentioned. If you have, for example, repeatable missions where you could worsen or improve relations between ANT and ARG instead of a single scripted sequence which can either set the factions against one another forever or keep them unified forever, you could allow the game to react more dynamically to what the player feels like playing at the moment. You could also have in-game events that trigger this as part of the emergent narrative, like ANT starting to get more belligerent if, like in my game, they start really kicking XEN and HOP ass and expanding quite a bit while ARG does nothing, and ANT wants to become a senior partner rather than the junior one, causing factional friction. You could have the HOP-PAR war die down some if for some reason either paranid faction starts really getting eaten by XEN, and they temporarily shelve their mutual differences for species survival.

You could then add these sorts of conditions in as all-text parts of the news crawlers, or put them up in a news section of the map menu, or have news broadcasts on televisions on docks, station bars, and possibly even cap ship crew quarters/rec rooms/bars (please add internal rooms to larger ships, Egosoft). The talking head on the news would then rattle off the state of relations between different factions as the news, and could give detailed reasons why specific faction relations go up or down. (Again, you might do something like sabotage/hacking/boarding/destruction of ships/stations while trying to make it look like you belonged to another faction to deliberately worsen faction relations, so the news might play the false story you cooked up, instead, which I'm sure would get a chuckle from some players.)

Likewise, most missions are just sort of randomly spawning ad infinitum. I frequently get faction missions that ask me to do something like prospect for silicon in the same sector over and over again. And I mean, four sub-missions where they ask me to find the same materials in the same two sectors, so I'm literally just telling my ship to pick up the old resource probe and putting it back down on the exact same spot. It's just an arbitrary hoop to jump through which I do because Egosoft decided to add a bunch of materials I can only get through repeating quests and these are by far the easiest to spam. (Provided it doesn't ask for the impossible, like finding .4 ore density in Second Contact 2, which has one spot with 28 ore density that is always mined out to 0.01 density and nothing else going above .2 ore density to probe...) It would be a lot better for gameplay immersion and storytelling if, instead of just spamming the same mission types blindly, more missions could actually state in their descriptions that these missions are being given as part of a situation in the simulation of the digital nation to address an actual shortage. For example, I saw a mission that said "Hey, we've been short on shield components in the whole faction for a while, build us a shield component factory, and we'll pay you 12 mil." A part of the problem with the current way the game works is that even when there are missions that work like this, it's hard to tell the "reacting to actual needs of a faction" missions apart from "infinitely spammed busywork" missions, so actually explaining in mission descriptions why these missions are being given out would help greatly with this.

[Sanshy]

Actually it is a sandbox ...

those side quests are not mandatory and can be totally ignored.
The HAT are very insignificant before and after the HAT plot...

I also tried to give them a new system claimed and with a warf via a building mission but they never produced anything with it.

Same apply with the split and paranid plot ... you can ignore it or do the level 1 or level 2 or level 3 of the plot at the end with each level changing the situation progressively and you can stop when you are satisfied or go to the end or skip totally.

I do agree that a bigger control on who fight who and on what level of aggressiveness would be a very nice add on into the game tho.

The game is still offering a far better experience then previous X series ...

The khaak are also a bit pale .

[Midnitewolf]

Actually it is a sandbox ...

those side quests are not mandatory and can be totally ignored.
The HAT are very insignificant before and after the HAT plot...

I also tried to give them a new system claimed and with a warf via a building mission but they never produced anything with it.

Same apply with the split and paranid plot ... you can ignore it or do the level 1 or level 2 or level 3 of the plot at the end with each level changing the situation progressively and you can stop when you are satisfied or go to the end or skip totally.

I do agree that a bigger control on who fight who and on what level of aggressiveness would be a very nice add on into the game tho.

The game is still offering a far better experience then previous X series ...

The khaak are also a bit pale .

I just came back to this thread to report that my experiment with HAT went the opposite direction. I built them a complete Wharf and Shipyard and boy have they stepped up to the plate. They have built up Hatikvah's Choice big time and are up to 28 stations and they are patrolling it with Destroyers. I counted 6 destroyers, about 8-10 M ships and at least two dozen fighters operated by HAT currently. I wasn't even paying attention until I saw a message that HAT had tried to push the Xenon out of Trarka's Cascade XV.

Playing a modded game obviously or else I couldn't give them a Shipyard/Wharf but it is cool to see that when I gave them support they took it and run with it despite how their story is apparently supposed to go. Now this feels like a sandbox.

As far as X4 being a true sandbox, I still disagree. It has many sandbox qualities to it, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't really have the mechanics and tools required for a player to create his own story and that is why it is not a full sandbox.

For example. When I just recently bought the game, about a week before COH released actually. I was hyped up because of the way the Terran's didn't seem to get along with anyone. The story I had dreamed up in my head for my first playthrough was a Xenophobic Terra bent on galaxy domination. They were going to eradicate all those nasty Teladi, Paranids and Split from the Galaxy and those exile humans of ANT and ARG had better toe the party line or else. Of course this was before I had even bought the game or knew anything about it but since everyone considered it a "Sandbox" there should be no reason why the player can't make this story happen and I guess that is my point. There isn't any sort of mechanism in the Vanilla game that would ever allow me to bring Terra into conflict with the Teladi, Paranid or Split. I also can't ever actually be a part of the Terran Protectorate. I mean the story makes it out like I am part of it, but my faction is always treated as a separate faction to the point where Terran Protectorate ships will open fire on me if so stray fire accidently contacts their shields. This is why the game IS NOT a sandbox.

[Ezarkal]

Playing a modded game obviously or else I couldn't give them a Shipyard/Wharf but it is cool to see that when I gave them support they took it and run with it despite how their story is apparently supposed to go. Now this feels like a sandbox.

You can, though.
HAT will offer a station building mission every now and then. Nothing prevents you from adding a shipyard to it.

[chip56]

Playing a modded game obviously or else I couldn't give them a Shipyard/Wharf but it is cool to see that when I gave them support they took it and run with it despite how their story is apparently supposed to go. Now this feels like a sandbox.

What mod do you use to handover stations to other factions?

[Midnitewolf]

Playing a modded game obviously or else I couldn't give them a Shipyard/Wharf but it is cool to see that when I gave them support they took it and run with it despite how their story is apparently supposed to go. Now this feels like a sandbox.

What mod do you use to handover stations to other factions?

Recycle Ships and Stations. I think it is only available on Nexus. It lets you sell stations to NPC factions. It also lets you scrap a station you might no longer be using and get some of the value back out of it. You can also recycle ships for a change to get the blueprint for the ship and/or its equipped items. I tend to use the sell stations option quite a bit and use it to help out other factions being overrun by Xenon. Basically I build a gate defense platform and then "Sell" it to the NPC faction that controls that sector. I technically don't have to sell it and could keep control but for roleplay reasons I sell them and let the NPC's fate he in their own hands. They can maintain, repair and protect the defense platform or not, it is completely up to them.

[chip56]

Recycle Ships and Stations. I think it is only available on Nexus. It lets you sell stations to NPC factions. It also lets you scrap a station you might no longer be using and get some of the value back out of it. You can also recycle ships for a change to get the blueprint for the ship and/or its equipped items. I tend to use the sell stations option quite a bit and use it to help out other factions being overrun by Xenon. Basically I build a gate defense platform and then "Sell" it to the NPC faction that controls that sector. I technically don't have to sell it and could keep control but for roleplay reasons I sell them and let the NPC's fate he in their own hands. They can maintain, repair and protect the defense platform or not, it is completely up to them.

Thanks, gonna give that mod a try

[flatbush71]

HAT is my favorite faction.
I "gave them " a lot of ships after the mission
And they went to town with them !!
Very cool indeed.
So did the ALI as well
(Buy from the BAD, sell to the GOOD )

[rudi_pioneer]

Maybe i am in the minority, but i like being able to choose which factions fight, or don't fight. I wish there were more options to setup who you want warring though. But overall im ok with the current options.

I often end up editing my save games to change relations to match where my game is. Last one had alliance of convenience between Terrans and Paranid, which grew to them owning most of the universe. It would be awesome to have more official way to change or nudge relations. (stories work well, but it's bit limited) Like, imagine how fun would it be to role-play PIO's revolution when they realize TER are sabotaging the research, etc.

[flatbush71]

role-play PIO's revolution when they realize TER are sabotaging the research

Great idea !

[Midnitewolf]

Maybe i am in the minority, but i like being able to choose which factions fight, or don't fight. I wish there were more options to setup who you want warring though. But overall im ok with the current options.

I often end up editing my save games to change relations to match where my game is. Last one had alliance of convenience between Terrans and Paranid, which grew to them owning most of the universe. It would be awesome to have more official way to change or nudge relations. (stories work well, but it's bit limited) Like, imagine how fun would it be to role-play PIO's revolution when they realize TER are sabotaging the research, etc.

I agree 100%. I really hate having to "Cheat" to actually have a fun run through. II keep saying that if they would just add a few more thing to their game, they would have the ultimate space empire building game. Right not it is just missing a few elements that would make it into full 4x game except in this 4x game you would have the ability to ump into a fighter or take command of a fleet from the bridge in first person. It would be the only game of its kind and give rise to its one genre....if only they would take those few extra steps to add in Diplomacy and meaningful territory control. So, SO close to perfect and yet so far away at the same time.