Research... Anything else aside from teleportation?

[Vandragorax]

Oh and finally, I disagree with whoever was posting saying it's interesting to have "shields mk2", "shields mk3" etc. as upgrades through research. This sort of thing is very boring in a game, like having "+5% shield strength" or "+10% laser power" it's just a boring power-creep that does nothing interesting. Real interesting technologies like Teleportation, which add a new dynamic to your interaction with the game, your fleets, and your empire are interesting

the problem with that is that the interesting new stuff is inevitably exhausted at some point. or can you come up with enough unique Ideas to fill a total gameplay time of lets say 100 hours? (which is not that much in X).

also when i described my approach (which you obviously refer to) i also said that tech levels are just used internally for the game to keep track of the progress, its not something directly exposed to the player. He will only see Infos like "Target Ship has the most modern tech available and was Upgraded just a few hors ago" versus "Target Ship uses outdated Tech and was never upgraded in any way". Both Infos can refer to the same Ship Class, and the capabilities of both are vastly diffrent.


Regarding your Idea: X is not an Text Adventure. (well, at least its not intended as such), so a bit more than just two sentences is needed to turn this into a really useable idea in my opinion. You have stopped before even starting with the real task...
Or would you be satisfied if you fly through empty space and at some point randomly get the message you posted written into your Logbook, a few millions from your account Vanish and you suddenly have SpacePizza in your Inventory?

Please don't take my example as Gospel, it was only a very high-level example of what it could be like lol, like a synopsis for a book. I certainly haven't sat down and drafted out an entire storyline to cover the intended use of a teleporter in the game xD

And I do not believe for one second that everything in the game has to 'last for hundreds of hours' as you state. It's perfectly possible to have an end-game technology gameplay element whereby it takes some amount of time to research and develop a handful of technologies, they don't have to go on and on endlessly or something with no end in sight.

I'd be happy to have teleportation and maybe one or two other really nice solid gameplay boosting research/technologies available rather than a hundred hours of "+5 to shield power" which would get super boring very quickly and feel like a complete grind fest, also making you feel extra weak until you've jumped through every hoop to max all the stats. That was my main point.

[UniTrader]

I'd be happy to have teleportation and maybe one or two other really nice solid gameplay boosting research/technologies available rather than a hundred hours of "+5 to shield power" which would get super boring very quickly and feel like a complete grind fest, also making you feel extra weak until you've jumped through every hoop to max all the stats. That was my main point.

i am pretty sure i explained it, but here for you once more eplicitly: the player will not see such things as "+5 Shield power" and also it wont be magically applied to all Ships when done (but the upgrades will gradually happen automatically during Shipyard Visists for repairs for example). in fact the Player wont know that one more research step is done except he explicitly checks for it (and in the short term its also irrelevant, hence the only small stat increases).
You also missed the other Point of my idea: there is no way to max out the stats, because its aimed to go on infinietly (ok, didnt say that directly, but meh..). But it will expotentially get more expensive and need more time the more ahead of your Research Competitors you are. on the other hand if you are behind with something you can catch up quickly and cheap. because the cost and time of the research steps depends on where you are compared to the other researching factions (a tech step done by all others is basically free to also take for you too). Also he research goal is decided automatically with my idea so you dont have to pick a new goal when a step is done. you can give Priorities though, so for example your Weapons will always be better than the weapons of the others (with enough ressources ofc), but this will delay your Shields research. depending on how much ressources you constantly pour into research they might also be better than the competition, but this requires far more ressources than staying ahead in one field. More likely they will be roughly at the same level as the others.

Also unique stuff in addition to it is certainly good, but this uniques are better wrapped in a Story Plot or Exploration or something like that than just researching (in the sense of pouring ressources into a station either by building it or by delivering ressources to it)

[Kevin2202]

I for one would like to see a really grand research. X3 was a huge game and hopefully X4 is more rich and bigger.

I would like to see industry-related research to improve efficiency in production or improving on the products the player focuses on manufacturing.

I would like to see technologies that can make a huge difference in gameplay, like a new FTL drive, consequently leading (ultimately) to warp drive. Another would be techs that would unlock certain locked features in the game that would help players have better time with things. Teleportation would make it easy for players to jump from ship to ship but there should be things for merchants and pirates as well, and for weapon systems too.

Also, it seems like Egosoft is putting too much emphasis on "teleportation" on its feature introduction.