[MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

The place to discuss scripting and game modifications for X4: Foundations.

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Unbekanntes Feindschiff
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[MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Unbekanntes Feindschiff » Sun, 14. Jul 19, 01:16

X4: Commonwealth no More
X4: Commonwealth no More(X4:CnM for short) is an in-development total conversion mod for X4: Foundations set in a universe resembling more the X3 universe than the vanilla X4 universe. The lore of the CnM-universe is consistent with the lore of the stamdard universe up until the point of the gate shutdown. In the CnM-universe, the gate shutdown did not absolutely shut down every gate in existence, but only divided the universe into many small isolated clusters. Eventually many of the gates reconnected in a similar fashion to what they were prior to the shutdown, but decades of complete independence made many factions not re-join the faction there were part of prior to the gate shutdown. Of course all of that sudden change with many new factions doesn't just come without conflict. While in some places some strong pirate factions emerged who are now having border-skirmishes with the local police, in other places some factions are having an all-out war, all of that with the ever-looming presence of the Xenon. The Commonwealth of Planets which used to keep the peace in the universe is a distant memory at best.

Progress on this Mod will be slow as I do have a job.

Features:
  • A new, large universe heavily inspired by the X3 universe (184 sectors) with lots of trade opportunities as well as conflict
  • Encounters removed
  • Game progression rebalance (currently mostly means highly increased ship prices to avoid getting many ships too quickly and then wondering where all the content in this game is)
  • Many new factions
  • Due to the way the universe is set up, there are actually safe areas of space and less safe areas unlike the vanilla game where you can get Xenon spawned on you anywhere
  • Pirate Factions which have an actual industry and control territory (only some major ones)
  • Combat Rebalance which generally makes combat last much longer.
Planned: (NOT implemented yet!):
  • Major rebalance of ships and economy as well as further combat rebalancing
  • New Weapons inspired by the X3 weaponry (I want a HEPT and not an Ion blaster :P )
  • Mission Rebalance (plans might be dropped depending on the vanilla mission changes coming in 3.0)
Things I would like to do, but lack the ressources/knowledge:
  • New ships (I simply am no artist)
Background Story:
If you would like to know more about the background story of Commonwealth no More, please read the spoiler. I do not want to ruin exploration experience.
Spoiler
Show
The Omicron Conflict:
At the point where the jump gates shut down, the Argon Federation was waging a bloody, stalling conflict against the Terran State. After the shutdown, the Argon militaryin the omicron cluster seized power, declared martial law and after some time formally formed the Argon Vanguard State, a military dictatorship with the goal to achieve victory over the Terrans by any means necessary. As military commanders are, the AVS government didn't really think that the life of the individual mattered in the big picture. While they managed to achieve some impressing victories in the defence of Omicron Lyrae and even managed to reconquer Circle of Labour, these victories came at a heavy price for the civilian populace as they made use of quite aggressive conscription and just to send these people out in poorly equipped ships as cannon fodder for the Terran weapons which had fairly low rates of fire.
Eventually many people got fed up and demanded change. The respond of the AVS was installation of a secret police to crack down on dissidents. Things blew over after a small AVS fleet destroyed a makeshift station of draft dodgers in Nyana's Hideout and violent protests erupted in the systems on the front who until then had to carry the burden of the war. These protests quickly turned into a revolution which proclaimed the Omicron Free Republic, a nation upholding individual rights and republicanism as a direct counterpoint to the AVS' totalitarianism. Not even a day after their rebellion and declaration of independence, a terran communique reached the provisional government of the OFR in which the Terran government offered a seperate white peace with the OFR and in case that offer would be accepted, went as far to offer an alliance to them on the condition that the OFR were to outlaw AGI technology. The OFR provisional government immediately accepted both Terran offers and united coordinated maneuvers between the OFR and the Terrans managed to push back the AVS. Things began to look up in the OFR and elections were held only 3 months after the declaration of independence while the AVS seemed back to the wall. Then something happened nobody would've expected: The jump gates reconnected and it didn't take long for the first shipments of military aid from Argon Prime to arrive in AVS space while the OFR was now faced with the sudden threat of the Xenon. Between the Xenon and the AVS, the OFR is in a precarious situation despite their alliance with Earth

The Paranid Civil War:
When the jump gates shut down, things weren't easy in the eastern Paranid sectors as these sectors included the ones where the "Unholy" - Paranids with birth defects like having just 2 eyes - were sent to live as well as the Duke's Buccaneers operating quite a lot in the region. It didn't take long until the people there realized that they need to change the very construct of their society to not fall into complete chaos. Respecting many demands and wishes both from the Unholy as well as - to a much lesser extent - the Duke's Buccaneers a new Paranid society was forged and from the ashes of old rose the Holy Order of the Pontifex, which in general takes a much more egalitarian and pragmatic approach internally. Nationalism is still strong within the Holy Order however and so outsiders are still treated as lesser creatures, some say even more so than in the old Godrealm. When the gates reconnected, it didn't take long for these two quite different Paranid cultures to clash and smaller skirmishes ensues quickly. The Pontifex of the Godrealm - seeing his position threatened - negotiated a formal alliance with the Argon Federation. The declaration of war by the Holy Order, who saw the Godrealm allying with the Argon Federation - the old Nemesis of the Paranid - as a betrayal of the Paranid race, followed days later. As the Holy Order was unable to stand against the combined might of the Godrealm and Argon Federation, they had to turn to the Duke's Buccaneers which gladly helped against a Godrealm they deemed corrupt and turned out as a quite useful ally as they could get to places and do things the Holy Order couldn't. Allying with the Duke's Buccaneers certainly didn't do the public image of the Holy Order much good though.

The Split Split and divided Borons:
Not all races did completely spiral into civil war on the gates reconnecting. Most Split Clans for example quickly submitted to the rule of the family Rhonkar again. Most, not all... The Family Rhy defied the Family Rhonkar and declared an open rebellion against them.
The Borons on the other hand, while the splinter-factions would not rejoin the Kingdom in Kingdom End under its current king Rolk Na, the Free Boron Republic and the Lucky Planets Council are all on friendly terms with each other. Same cannot be set about the Boron Empire however. At the moment the jumpgates shut down, the then-princess Menelaus was currently on a visit to queen's harbour. The Borons there - without any kind of government - chose to make her regent. Over time some imperial personality cult formed around her and as the first constitution was drafted, it quickly became evident that it wouldn't be a parliamential monarchy like the old Queen-/Kingdom, but an absolute monarchy. After the jump gates having reconnected the newfound Boron imperialism in the southeast is a thorn in the eye of the Teladi who see them as a possible threat to profit which is why the Teladi are rumored to be funding criminal operations there.
After the gate reconnection the Family Rhy also saw the Free Boron Republic as easy prey and began an invasion of the completely unprepared Borons. In their desperation and inability to defend themselves, they turned to the Holy Order who offered them help against the Family Rhy if they in turn would officially join the war on the Godrealm. Out of options, the Borons reluctantly agreed which made the FBR a de-facto dependency of the Holy Order.

The Pirates with an economy:
When the gates shut down, some outlaw sectors were completely disconnected from civilised space. Due to that a loot-based economy was no longer sustainable as there was nobody left to loot and plunder. The pirate clans there faced a difficult choice: Either turn on each other in a bloody conflict that may get everybody killed or alternatively attempt to build up an own, basic economy at the risk of the other clans just coming and taking it from you. Surprisingly, many clans chose the second option and so when the gates reconnected, many factions didn't find sectors lying in disarray as they suspected, but sectors controlled by pirate factions stronger than ever.
Known Issues:
  • Borons, Split and Terrans are using Argon ships and equipment
  • Faction representatives are not set up. Every game start gives you module hacking tech though, so you just have to hack for the modules
  • Outlaws may disguise themselves as a faction from the vanilla game.
  • The first few minutes of the game may have especially poor performance
  • Terran Sectors have no work done to them whatsoever
  • The Split Male model does not work properly. Therefore all Split are female for now
  • Terrans, Split and Borons have no Habitats, causing their factories to operate at a lower efficiency
  • Initial setup spawns some Argon production modules for Teladi instead of their own Teladianium-based ones
  • License names are place holders
  • Omicron Lyrae's sector name is not spoken
  • Used actual strings in the XML files for now instead of using Text IDs and having respective t-files to make things more readable for me
  • Boron NPCs are clipping through the floor (you only see their head popping out)
Version History:
  • Alpha 1 "Here Goes Nothing"
  • Alpha 2 "Xenon Conflict"
  • Alpha 3 "Old Trifecta" Last version without DLC requirement
Disclaimer: You are downloading an early in-development version of the mod. There are a bunch of issues and bugs and lots of errors in the debug log (please don't look there). Due to the increased galaxy size, running this mod has much higher system requirements than the vanilla game. You may be stuck on a black screen upon starting/loading a game. If that is the case, wait a minute and the game should fade in. Gameplay may be a little choppy in the first couple of minutes after starting a new game as the game tries to process things regarding the vanilla universe which are obviously broken now(e.g. attempting to place data vaults)

Image

If you would like to help out or have feedback of any kind, feel free to post it
Last edited by Unbekanntes Feindschiff on Tue, 14. Apr 20, 21:26, edited 4 times in total.
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Unbekanntes Feindschiff
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Unbekanntes Feindschiff » Sun, 14. Jul 19, 01:17

reserved
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Unbekanntes Feindschiff
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Unbekanntes Feindschiff » Sun, 14. Jul 19, 01:17

reserved
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Taylor2008
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Taylor2008 » Sun, 14. Jul 19, 01:26

Cool.
Will try...

teleportationwars
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by teleportationwars » Sun, 14. Jul 19, 02:34

Wow! Awesome to see someone else with a big project. Are you using a tool to generate any of the files? At first glance, you will want to lower your jobs quotas and you can move around the sectors in the clusters to get a better visual effect.

Unbekanntes Feindschiff
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Unbekanntes Feindschiff » Sun, 14. Jul 19, 10:59

teleportationwars wrote:
Sun, 14. Jul 19, 02:34
Wow! Awesome to see someone else with a big project. Are you using a tool to generate any of the files? At first glance, you will want to lower your jobs quotas and you can move around the sectors in the clusters to get a better visual effect.
I wrote my own tool which provides a graphical Galaxy Editor as well as Faction Editor which generates the map files (galaxy.xml, clusters.xml, sectors.xml, zones.xml) as well as the factions.xml, jobs.xml and god.xml. The tool is more about creating some files to get you started (and creating the galaxy automatically as doing that by hand is a pita) and not a fully fleshed tool by any means which is why I didn't release it to the public (neither in binary nor in source form)
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Rieper87
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Rieper87 » Wed, 31. Jul 19, 16:42

Hey

wie kommst voran?

Hört sich sehr interessant an dein vorhaben :D.

gibst in deinem Mod eigentlich Highways?

lg

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Bill Modi
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Bill Modi » Fri, 2. Aug 19, 12:08

Hello, I saw your mod and message saying you are looking for help with adding new stuff. I'm a student in 3D art in New Zealand and would like to join a modding team !

I'm starting to gather some of my art and setting up an art station if you want to have a look

https://www.artstation.com/sioumanain

XTC0R
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by XTC0R » Fri, 2. Aug 19, 15:13

Thanks for starting such a big project. It also seems you will get some help for the design :)

Your mod is about 800 MB mainly because of the sound files in the zip file. What did you change regarding sound? I could not find anything in the features log.

Sevanje
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Sevanje » Tue, 6. Aug 19, 17:09

Whoa, somebody started it, the most needed mod of them all. This is exactly what X4 needs. I will be keeping my presence steady in here.

Unbekanntes Feindschiff
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Unbekanntes Feindschiff » Wed, 7. Aug 19, 19:50

To give a quick update: The Mod is now also availiable on the Steam Workshop if you would rather get it from there.

Also, Alpha 2 will focus on general equipment and combat rebalancing. NPCs won't just boost away in combat only to then turn around and reengage you. They will instead now attempt to perform evasive maneuvers on hit (their behavior is chance-based in vanilla). New and rebalanced shields will be introduced which will (with a certain amount of money of course) allow you to make make your fighter craft feel much more sturdy. These shields are also no longer racialized. Plan is to also bring in new and rebalanced weapon systems in Alpha 2, yet no work has been done regarding them yet.

In addition, since the Split Vendetta DLC has now been publically announced, I just want to inform you that starting with Alpha 3, Commonwealth no More will require the Split Vendetta DLC as it will use the ships and character models (hopefully. Please, EGOSOFT. Don't leave us stuck with these hideous-looking Split females we currently have)
Rieper87 wrote:
Wed, 31. Jul 19, 16:42
wie kommst voran?
Slow, but steady. See above :P
Rieper87 wrote:
Wed, 31. Jul 19, 16:42
gibst in deinem Mod eigentlich Highways?
No, I didn't really like the way highways are done in X4 and they are also quite a pain to do, so having highways would just be a bunch of work for - in my opinion - little benefit.
XTC0R wrote:
Fri, 2. Aug 19, 15:13
Your mod is about 800 MB mainly because of the sound files in the zip file. What did you change regarding sound? I could not find anything in the features log.
Sector music, Each race now has a music pool out of which music is selected randomly to play in their space, so in Paranid space you will hear completely different tracks than in Argon space where you again will hear different tracks than in pirate space.
The one linked here actually has some raw wavesounds while the Steam Workshop version has everything (including what was originally an MP3) reencoded to OGG Vorbis to cut down in size to meet with the Steam workshop's size requirement (@EGOSOFT would be nice to know what you actually set as the workship item filesize restriction, I had to guesstimate)
Sevanje wrote:
Tue, 6. Aug 19, 17:09
Whoa, somebody started it, the most needed mod of them all. This is exactly what X4 needs. I will be keeping my presence steady in here.
Thanks for the positive feedback :)
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Perkel
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Perkel » Wed, 14. Aug 19, 11:12

Whoa mate. This looks fantastic. More factions who fight each other and more sectors is exactly what game needs.

Speaking of ships, naturally making for each faction individual ship makes no sense so imho this is how this problem could be addressed.


Rather than faction specific ships tie ships to corporations. Those corporations then can outfit differently ships for each faction as each faction will want different setups. In case of 3D models this gives you easy way to barely modify ships and still make them a bit different looking. Like for example clone engine and give engine different hue and different stats, redo a bit textures and maybe add small 3D objects on ship hull etc.

So for example argons and terrans will be buying mostly the same ships because of gate shutdown left them stranded from their home worlds and now like in X-rebirth corporations take main role as industry makers and ship builders (this was one of few aspects i really liked about X-rebirth) but that doesn't exclude for example other faction to use part of typical argon setup for some of their ships.

Then once mod progresses in future you will be just swapping models for new.

Either way hope you will have a lot of motivation and a lot of time because i love premise of this mod.
Hopefully you will also find people to help you with this mod so we can have our Litecube/X-tended of X4 and your mod seems to be biggest candidate for that.

Lone_Wolf_3115
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Lone_Wolf_3115 » Fri, 30. Aug 19, 14:46

From the OP: "Things I would like to do, but lack the ressources/knowledge:
New ships (I simply am no artist)"

There are Several Ship Mods out there which work well with Vanilla X4. (Stardust is one I would Love to see in here)
Perhaps if an Outreach was made to those Mod Developers, they could be Merged with this Mod.

I Love the Idea of X4 with The X3 Map, (The Vanilla X4 Map is SO Small), but by Leaving other thing out, it develops some shortages.

Thanks for the Hard Work to Create This Mod.

Crekkan
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Crekkan » Sun, 20. Oct 19, 23:47

Hey man, this looks super freaking interesting and well thought out. I think this would have been a better direction for Egosoft to take honestly; returning the original sectors to a point, maybe with some different/new connections, but balkanising faction ownership would have been neat. I would like to see some highway systems in place for 'core sectors', but understand if it's not to your flavour or possible right now with your modding tools or whatever. I've only booted up the mod for a few minutes around the Argon Prime core sectors, but it might be a nice idea to mimic the gate layout more closely to X3 and continue that kind of vibrant colour pallet of X2 with the sectors (i.e. a bluer The Wall). Again, if it's just a matter of tools or still learning how to mod I'd understand if that's not possible right now. I don't know how to mod the game myself X)

I am kinda interested in helping out with writing out your lore and storyline by the way, even developing it perhaps. Factions still need descriptions in the encyclopedia as well as the systems, so maybe I could try and get to work on that? At least the factions first. I don't know how to do the modding myself but I could at least write the text of course for you to then implement. I can link my 'credentials' in messages.

Unbekanntes Feindschiff
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Unbekanntes Feindschiff » Sun, 3. Nov 19, 00:54

Good evening,

I am pleased to announce the release of X4: Commonwealth no More Alpha 2, nicknamed "Xenon Conflict". I focused primarily on combat rebalance as well as rooting out some of the glaring issues which were present in Alpha1. Ships are, generally speaking much more tanky now which in turn will make combat last a lot longer. The only ones who are unchanged there are the Xenon whose strength will lie in their numbers (and they will have a lot of ships to unleash at the other factions). It is in my opinion quite fun now to join a big battle, should you come across one and usually it will take a bit of time until it is actually over. In addition, ships will no longer be able to mount every piece of equipment for their size, instead there are now a few restrictions in place for S-ships. Sadly the UI doesn't allow to show this, so I kept the restrictions to a minimum. Generally speaking: Only fighters will be able to mount the 25MJ shield and only the Paranid Theseus as well as the Teladi Buzzard will be able to mount the 50MJ shield. This change also made me decrease small and medium freighter, miner and scout prices across the board as they are no longer rivaling their combat-dedicated counterparts in combat power. Sadly one of the things I had originally planned which is Ship Macros for Borons, Split and Terrans (still using Argon geometry though) didn't make it in and I am not 100% sure whether or not I will be doing that before or after Split Vendetta (as afterwards saves me the time of doing them for the Split).

Another focus was of course addressing much of the issues Alpha 1 had. Those who played it will be pleased to know that performance in Alpha 2 will be better. There will also be less pirates at random positions, most factions now have unique icons (mostly ripped straight from X Rebirth), factions will properly invade, etc, etc. Unlike Alpha 1 which was primarily there to gather feedback on the general idea and not to be seriously played for a prolonged time, I am of the opinion that Alpha 2 is properly playable and fun if you can look over the fact that the mod is unfinished and unpolished.

Changelog:
  • Temporarily disabled generation of male Split NPCs as these were causing issues. All Split ships should now be functional
  • Removed most jobs and stations for the Split families loyal to the Great Patriarchate. This was mostly done to combat ship spam to increase performance. The Great Patriarchate of course still has its ships and stations
  • Fixed Faction AI setup, so the factions will now actually prepare invasions, deploy satellite networks, lay minefields, etc.
  • Added missing Wharf and Shipyard to Argon Prime
  • Added icons to some factions
  • When starting out as a fighter loyal to the Godrealm, the Argon Federation will no longer hate you for no reason.
  • Added combat music from X2
  • Replaced all shields with new, rebalanced ones
  • Combat got rebalanced and will now generally take longer
  • Fixed some Teladi sectors not belonging to the Teladi (please notify me if you see ownerless sectors)
  • Generally reduced the number of Pillagers and made them more local to their area of space (you should no longer see a ship of the Trantor Mousers raiding Ianamus Zura)
  • Various fixes which I cannot remember right now
I hope you'll enjoy it and feedback is of course always welcome.
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tomchk
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by tomchk » Thu, 7. Nov 19, 18:41

Awesome work, I'll have to try this on a separate install.
Care to see what I've been creating? https://www.youtube.com/user/ytubrute

birdtable
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by birdtable » Fri, 7. Feb 20, 20:42

Installed mod this morning after breakfast for a quick look, 9 hrs later I have just saved and exited..... Totally engrossed in the whole experience. Had very few and minor graphical glitches ( combat is excellent ).... I assume you are waiting for the 3.0 update so will ask if save compatible or not ? , no issue just a change in play style.
Is/will there be a HQ, research for blueprints .. ?

EDIT. Sorted … Hacking gets around that problem.... already got some blueprints.

A very well balanced and greatly enjoyed experience.... :)
Last edited by birdtable on Sat, 8. Feb 20, 16:52, edited 2 times in total.

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Shuulo
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Shuulo » Sat, 8. Feb 20, 02:10

Unbekanntes Feindschiff wrote:
Sun, 14. Jul 19, 01:16
[*] New Weapons inspired by the X3 weaponry (I want a HEPT and not an Ion blaster :P )
You can grab one in my VRO mod if you want, I got them back in, as well as PBE, ISR, CIG and few others from X3.

Unbekanntes Feindschiff
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by Unbekanntes Feindschiff » Sun, 9. Feb 20, 21:28

Shuulo wrote:
Sat, 8. Feb 20, 02:10
Unbekanntes Feindschiff wrote:
Sun, 14. Jul 19, 01:16
[*] New Weapons inspired by the X3 weaponry (I want a HEPT and not an Ion blaster :P )
You can grab one in my VRO mod if you want, I got them back in, as well as PBE, ISR, CIG and few others from X3.
Thank you very much. Will definetely do (tweaking numbers of course).

On that note: Your mod seems to have grown quite a bit compared to the last time I took a look at it. Great work there.
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birdtable
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Re: [MOD][WIP] X4: Commonwealth no More

Post by birdtable » Mon, 17. Feb 20, 18:54

Well "things" have started to break down ,,, log off and reload to keep "things" ticking along... really looking forward to 3.0 update. Using sector satellites mod to minimise traffic displays by placing on outer reaches of sectors and adv sats only at points of real interest. Have you considered exchanging inhabited sectors for empty unexplored ones, would help setup proper bases to work from, my little dynasty has become quite fragmented... Still the best mod since the days of X3.

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