Teleportation

[-Dna-]

Sure it is! It has been biggerized by removing Jump Drives! In fact, if you want to make it even bigger, all you have to do is remove another Jump Drive!

Galaxy - Jump Drive = Galaxy + Bigger

Of course, they wouldn't dare to make it even biggerer by removing movement keys. BIGGEREST GALAXY EVAR!

Please don't try to suggest to just slow down the ships...

[PabloRSA]

How about a UFJD, with a long charge time, have to divert all shield power to jump and making you vunrable so its not worth it in battle and you can end up in a random part of the map, hell even 2km away from your start position. Or you can say in that general area + or - 50km.
You can get rid of fuel needs as it draws power from the shield generators
Say a full 60 second real life charge time with no seta.


Could also do a plot mission where you end up in the hub which has been reset and connects to all the core xenon sectors and inside is a xenon CPU/factory churing out ships.
Gong back to my original thought, xenon ore collectors going back a forth, this way xenon have an economy as such so they produce ships based on the ore they collect.

[Morkonan]

Sure it is! It has been biggerized by removing Jump Drives! In fact, if you want to make it even bigger, all you have to do is remove another Jump Drive!

Galaxy - Jump Drive = Galaxy + Bigger

Of course, they wouldn't dare to make it even biggerer by removing movement keys. BIGGEREST GALAXY EVAR!

Please don't try to suggest to just slow down the ships...

Why not? That is, effectively, what we're talking about, right?

Biggerer = Greater travel time

That's the operator being applied here, methinks. Oh, and I'm not so silly as to suggest that making the ships slower is a good idea. Instead, making them not move at all would be the bestest idea ever! THAT's how you maximize design, ladies and Borons! You want biggerer galaxies? No movement at all! SOLVED!

It'd be yuuuuuge!

[JoeVN09]

I confess to being enamoured with the Jumpdrive. I love fitting out trade fleets with individual ones so they can bypass huge swathes of space as an obstacle to profitability. I like being able to jump in my ragtag combat fleet to help me out whenever and wherever I need it, in a few seconds' notice. I love being able to shop for the best ships at various shipyards no matter how remote they are. Maybe that's part of the problem. The entire metagame of X3 revolved around the use of the JD. The AI used it extensively; it was available to the player at an early stage and pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things.

It seems that Egosoft are serious about limiting easy traversal of the universe this time around. If X4 is built from the ground up without the Jumpdrive, I'm optimistic that instead of hampering the player its absence will incentivise new types of gameplay; emphasising forward planning, spatial management and maybe cool stuff like manipulating trade routes. At the very least it will lend credibility to the living economy, as we'll know the AI isn't cheating and just spawning stuff into existence like ti used to. In that case, setting up teleportation as some kind of late-game research option rather than simply increasing the JD's pricetag is the more sensible option. That would simply make it useless at any great scale. We don't yet know the full extent of what teleportation can do, and might find that it can fulfil a number of JD functions and more.

[Graaf]

We don't yet know the full extent of what teleportation can do, and might find that it can fulfil a number of JD functions and more.

From what we learned thus far it fulfils no function at all. It will be a useless feature.

[vkerinav]

Why not? That is, effectively, what we're talking about, right?

Biggerer = Greater travel time

That's the operator being applied here, methinks. Oh, and I'm not so silly as to suggest that making the ships slower is a good idea. Instead, making them not move at all would be the bestest idea ever! THAT's how you maximize design, ladies and Borons! You want biggerer galaxies? No movement at all! SOLVED!

It'd be yuuuuuge!

That's a brilliant idea. And hey, if it doesn't work out, modders will fix it.

[Sandalpocalypse]

We don't yet know the full extent of what teleportation can do, and might find that it can fulfil a number of JD functions and more.

From what we learned thus far it fulfils no function at all. It will be a useless feature.

i understand not liking teleportation as a replacement of JD, but don't say things that are just false.

Why not? That is, effectively, what we're talking about, right?

Biggerer = Greater travel time

That's the operator being applied here, methinks. Oh, and I'm not so silly as to suggest that making the ships slower is a good idea. Instead, making them not move at all would be the bestest idea ever! THAT's how you maximize design, ladies and Borons! You want biggerer galaxies? No movement at all! SOLVED!

It'd be yuuuuuge!

I'm not sure why you are getting all sarcastic. Lowering travel speed does make the galaxy bigger as a gameplay space. Neither bigger nor smaller is necessarily better; Travel speed/ability VS map size is an extremely low level and highly important game design decision. There's a lot of ways you can argue it, and you can have fast travel, no fast travel, fast travel with limitations, etc. Your comment is more like telling someone on a diet that 'why don't you just eat no food at all! SOLVED!'. It's nonsensical. People have to eat; travel speed has to be somewhere between none and infinity. X3 has very fast travel for player assets, and there's a lot of room between where it is and 'too damn slow'.

Bear in mind that entirely separate from the jump drive there's the drastic increase in effective sector size, even moreso than XR in terms of gameplay-space. That is somewhat countervailed by the presumed widespread availability of boosters, but irregardless of jumpdrive/teleportation its an enormously bigger play area with much lower relative ship speeds.

[Graaf]

We don't yet know the full extent of what teleportation can do, and might find that it can fulfil a number of JD functions and more.

From what we learned thus far it fulfils no function at all. It will be a useless feature.

i understand not liking teleportation as a replacement of JD, but don't say things that are just false.

But it's not a replacement. The JD has but one function. The TP doesn't serve the same function.

They finally listen to us so we can choose which ship we use as a personal vessel. But when another ship needs our help, we can't bring it with us?

[Morkonan]

I'm not sure why you are getting all sarcastic. Lowering travel speed does make the galaxy bigger as a gameplay space. Neither bigger nor smaller is necessarily better; Travel speed/ability VS map size is an extremely low level and highly important game design decision. ...

"Neither bigger nor small er is necessarily better."

That's absolutely true.

"The jump-drive makes the galaxy seem smaller"

THAT's the argument being put forward by many, including the developers.

Do you see the problem?

"Bigness" is not a game asset. It is not "content." By itself, it's no better for any game than walking into someone's game-room and removing the movement keys from their keyboard.

Are there "low level" things that various "size" or "time" related game elements dictate? Absofrigginlutely. "Pace" is probably the largest one, whether it's a player's progression through the game's content, in the case of a "walking simulator" or their ability to accomplish things that rely on proximity in time or space.

But biggerness isn't content. Biggerness isn't anything at all.

How "big" are the sectors going to be? "Bigger" than the ones in X3TC?

The sectors in X3TC were yuuuuge. There was a large amount of space in those sectors. (I forget the max size atm) And, if you started at one point and just kept flying, eventually you'd encounter a "wrap around effect."

But the "content" was generally right there in the "middle" - The "size" of the sector didn't necessarily do anything at all and it certainly did not have a great deal of game influence. (Aside from SETA abusers, most people probably never flew far from a standard elevation from the ecliptic.)

So, what does one do when deciding "what's important" in a game? What's the decision tree, here? Does the jump-drive cause scaling or pace issues? OK, let''s say it does, for the sake of argument.

When you break something in order to fix it, you have left the path of wisdom.

So, after a cup of coffee over a boardroom table, people decide to remove the jump-drive because a game asset, which does stuffs, which is a "tool" the player can use to affect gameplay, threatens a game's... bigness.

Bigness that does not, itself, do anything.

I would say that the feeling of "size", itself, is certainly important. It's part of the thematic flavor of a game. "It's a big, scary, universe out there and strange things may be lurking in the dark." OK, fine, that's a very good undercurrent of mystery and danger one can draw on to spice up some pretty cool game elements, right?

"BIGNESS - The Game"

Day 1 - Wow, this is a huge galaxy. There's probably a bunch of stuff hidden outside of my sensor range. I can't see anything but this tiny bit of the map, but I'm sure the Shadow of War holds hidden dangers. I successfully traded some e-cells and finally got enough to finish outfitting my starting ship. I can go a little bit faster, now, so it takes me less parsecs to make the Kessel Run...

Day 589 - Friggin dreadnaught in Kessel sector is broke, again. I'm all the way over in Freedomland sector, trading beer and firearms to the natives and there's three darn Xenon migrations going on that I have to deal with. The Paranids aren't happy with the foot-cream I sold them and are threatening war. Who the heck knew they didn't have feet? Then, I've got five complexes I've got to finish, but all my assets are tied up in rebuilding my assault fleet from the last fiasco with the Xenon. Screw it, I am not going to fly all the way over there to babysit that dreadnaught - It'll just have to die.

Between Day 1 in Bigness Game and Day 589, I progressed from being amazed at how far apart stations were and how big the sector was to, at Day 589, where my gameplay concerns and experiences grew to be entirely different. And, since someone thought uninstalling my jumpdrive was "A Good Idea", now the whole idea of "yuuugeness for its own sake" is a frustrating liability that I can not overcome, no matter how uber-awesome my asset list is.

Was X3TC too "small?" Did the jumpdrive ruin its bigness? No. My gameplay experience grew. I progressed through the game and my gameplay evolved. When I was a noob, I thought like a noob, I acted like a noob, I posted like a noob, but when I progressed into veteranhood, noobness things no longer concerned me. Yes, the galaxy was still "large", but I had managed, through hard work, to progress to the point where I could cover the galaxy, from one side to the other, in three or four jumps.

I accomplished evolving my game to the point where the Bigness didn't have as much of an impact anymore. That is as it should be. If "Bigness" was always continued in all aspects of play an X3TC sort of game, it would go from being a positive thematic asset to one that only serves to frustrate the player.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

[Edit]
In Rebirth there are a number of ways to travel around the universe.
Admittedly big ships did have jump drives and friendly ships could be used as taxis. In about 500 (of 1300 total) hours of play where I owned a jump drive I only used it twice.

If you were building in Devries then you had to plan ahead and ensure you had the required defences before building stations. Especially on harder difficulty levels. Not having a personal jump drive meant using more THINK.

[gbjbaanb]

I'm convinced by Morkonan's argument there. The game progresses and our need for a JD will progress too. I imagine an update will have it back in, just like Rebirth refused to have either SETA or JDs... at first.

As for space's bigness... it'll take us 4000 years to get to our nearest star. That'd make for truly... something... gameplay. Life's too short for artificially induced grind just to satisfy a game designer's misplaced desire for excessive realism.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

As far as I am aware the developer was responding to the players.

A number of whom over the years have always wanted to have larger areas of
space available.

This is not just the developer making this decision based on a whim but on player feedback.

However maybe players ought to THINK a little more about what it is they really want and how they express that desire.

A simple "Make Space Bigger" may not have the consequences the player actually wanted. As their dream might also include do X, Y and Z to make this huge space more interesting. Where X, Y and Z where never expressed as part of the original request.

[CBJ]

I'd just like to remind people that this is not just about "making space bigger". As explained in detail here it's also about creating opportunities for more tactical gameplay and more variation in the universe, which are too easily bypassed with the aid of a jumpdrive.

[Morkonan]

As far as I am aware the developer was responding to the players..

"I only ever fly my favorite ship and flying other ships is stupid, especially the big slow stupid ones that are stupid to fly" said a bunch of loud gamers, once. That turned out great, right?

I'd just like to remind people that this is not just about "making space bigger". As explained in detail here it's also about creating opportunities for more tactical gameplay and more variation in the universe, which are too easily bypassed with the aid of a jumpdrive.

OK, then let's take on that discussion! Let's investigate it and see what's meritorious about it.

What is a sandbox game?

Is a sandbox game "You must experience the content that we put in front of you?" No, that's a movie. Sandbox games are all about giving the player an environment in which to play and providing them with tools in order for them to play the experience they want to play in that setting.

Are you allowed to "bypass" content in a sandbox game? (Understand, I'm not picking on your quotes, just using them for a jumping-off point, pun intended. )

A studio develops and creates the sandbox game and all it's mechanical elements, but it's the player that creates the "gaming experience" of it. "Mastery" of the game, exploring its nooks and crannies to the fullest, is generally the goal of the gamer, but many also target just one "experience" in their play-through. And, a sandbox game, a truly good one, lends itself to multiple play-throughs, with multiple opportunities for truly unique experiences.

"Bypassing" anything in a sandbox game is traditionally a decision made by the player. And, if content is sufficiently interesting and enjoyable, the player is going to seek that out on purpose.

Truthfully, I know little about X4. It's not in the wild, yet, so there's little reason for me to say any of my opinions are based on "fact" and certainly no reason to think that development might yield a product I can accurately imagine, today. So, all this is just speculative griping and I could have my "jump-driveless X4 gaming experience" and end up loving the heck out of it. (I'm pretty sure I'll really enjoy X4, no matter all this stuff, just so long as it's sufficiently like X3TC.)

But, for something so intimately tied with my X3TC experience of jump-drives, I can't see logical paths to a credible argument based on what we've read/heard so far. As they're just loose statements, with little in the way of gameplay facts in support of them, they have huge, generic, faults. They are not logical on their face due to a lack of detailed information, which we will not get access to until release day. So, I can't accept them as they stand without a suitably convincing argument that, ironically enough, will have to also be based on "non-facts" and just as general statements focused on general gaming mechanics.

I also worry that taking such a pervasive game-mechanic and dramatically altering it by removing it, completely, runs the very same risk that caused me to not purchase X:R. I wanted to fly whatever ship I wanted to fly, not via some "drone" thingie, but by actually "being in the ship" and X:R wouldn't let me do that. Why? Well, it seems that it was because a loud group of fans said that flying large ships was stupid and nobody flew multiple ships, anyway. Then, someone got the bright idea of naming the player's ship "The Skunk."

Naming the player's ship for them with a name that immediately evokes negative imagery... in a "sandbox game." Brilliant choice!

The sarcasm intended as it should be clear that keeping a good focus on providing the intended experience to the consumer is critical whenever one designs something, else why call it "design" to begin with?

Note: IF, and this bit is critically important, X:R had been billed as a more intimate, roleplaying, storyplaying, gaming experience than previous X games and if it had been more narrowly focused, then it being "different" than previous titles would not have been an issue for me. BUT, that's not how it was presented. X4 is, by its title, a continuation of the traditional, sandbox, X-game experience. It's not X-5, it's "X:4." As a fan, I expect certain things from it that resemble my X3 experience.

PS- I genuinely "like" Egosoft for a wide variety of reasons and would happily buy them a pizza-banquet to show my support. When X4 comes out, and if it's not a game I want to play, I'll buy another copy of X3TC/AP. But, it'll be the last time I do that, as X5/6 or X:Something better be worth buying.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

@Morkonan

Well, it seems that it was because a loud group of fans said that flying large ships was stupid and nobody flew multiple ships, anyway.

From what I recall we were told by Egosoft that there would be only one flyable ship. That this was a reboot of the series and would mirror XBTF.

There followed an impassioned debate over this issue. However I am not aware that the restriction was as a result of fans asking for this.

[CBJ]

However I am not aware that the restriction was as a result of fans asking for this.

Indeed it was not. That was a tough decision taken out of necessity, not as a response to requests. It will be a great relief to the developers, not just to the players, to be able to lift that restriction in X4. But let's not drag this thread off-topic, eh?

[Graaf]

it's also about creating opportunities for more tactical gameplay

Using the jumpdrive is a tactic on its own. Removal of the JD is diminishing the amount of tactics we can deploy.

and more variation in the universe

Removal of the JD gives more variation in the Universe? You have to explain this one, because it makes no sense.

which are too easily bypassed with the aid of a jumpdrive.

Isn't it our choice if we want to bypass something? It is a sandbox, isn't it?

That this was a reboot of the series and would mirror XBTF.

IIRC this was never said by Egosoft. This is a community response for defending the 1 ship limitation.

[Morkonan]

@Morkonan

Well, it seems that it was because a loud group of fans said that flying large ships was stupid and nobody flew multiple ships, anyway.

From what I recall we were told by Egosoft that there would be only one flyable ship. That this was a reboot of the series and would mirror XBTF.

There followed an impassioned debate over this issue. However I am not aware that the restriction was as a result of fans asking for this.

Hmmm... I had thought that it was, at least in a great part. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I had thought that, at the very least, this was one of the reasons that the decision was made or that it was justified.

In any event, it was obviously a mistake. ("Obviously", perhaps only to me. )

I won't belabor the whole point of jump-drives and "bigness." I do, however, want to sum up the foundation of my argument against this particular idea:

A game that is truly "big" in a positive way takes place in a finite space where continued exploration by the player, in a variety of forms, results in the game becoming... bigger.

There's more to the feeling of "bigness" and depth and "the unknown" than just distance, space, or the fog of war. A game with the setting of a giant galaxy that is ginormous in "distances" is relatively small if there's only a handful of other game elements for the player to discover.

But, a game that takes place in a smaller setting, like a small town, can be truly "large" if there are fifty different factions, many of them hidden with secretive storylines, hundreds of characters, thousands of items and an almost infinite combination of them being possible, with dozens of main story quests and an equal or greater number of smaller, yet interesting, side-quests and adventures in unique locations.

"Depth" is a greater, more valued, attribute in a game than "space." Reducing depth in order to increase space is nonsensical without sufficient, salient, justification. (Justification that won't really be available for examination until the finish product is revealed.)

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

@Morkonan

Just read the comment by CBJ at the top of the page.

As far as I am concerned the jump drive turned X3 into a collection of rectangular prisms.

Once obtained a lot of the sectors became irrelevant, (for me) there was very little reason to enter a lot of sectors, very little reason to fly through them to see what if anything has changed since I had last been there.

I never really felt that space was big, just a collection of "Sky Boxes."

With Rebirth and the different layout of space, plus the fact you could boost or travel through highways to get to a destination actually did make it seem bigger to me. It also seemed more "real," going from a sector near a planet to another in an asteroid field in the same solar system made the whole thing more cohesive.

I never missed the jump drive, even after it was introduced and I got one, I only used it twice. The first time was to see what it was like, and the second was to try to rescue a ship, which proved useless because it was keyed to beacons and did not allow me to get to my destination in time.

There where factions in Rebirth and they did occasionally end up having fights which I have witnessed.

[Graaf]

As far as I am concerned the jump drive turned X3 into a collection of rectangular prisms.

Once obtained a lot of the sectors became irrelevant, (for me) there was very little reason to enter a lot of sectors, very little reason to fly through them to see what if anything has changed since I had last been there.

And exactly what is going to be the difference with the transporter?