X4 API extensions

[Fleabum]

Are there any plans to add API extensions to X4 so data can be sent and received to the game by external applications?

Reasoning :- I would love to develop an configurable Android companion app for tablets and phones that players could use to display ingame information, possibly maps, target information, ship information, trading information. Could even be expanded to have external controls and commands, so you could just touch your tablet to execute ingame commands.

Thanks.

Regards
Flea

[adeine]

This has come up before when discussing similar ideas:

Slightly different take on this, with interesting possibilities: What if instead of sinking resources into implementing anything remotely this complex, Egosoft just implemented an API to communicate with the game as it is running, able to inject commands? It'd kind of be like msci via command line. Wink

This would allow intrepid modders to elegantly create, say, a mobile or browser based app or widget to control your empire while you're doing something else (with the game running in the background on your machine). Or what about importing external data into your game (internet/player community based stock market?). Or, be extra crazy and try and implement some sort of syncing/limited multiplayer as described in this thread on their own.

It could really take modding to the next level.

most of those things you suggest could already be done in X3. There was infact a mod available that allowed you to control your empire remotely via a web browser.

Proper player on player combat was not really possible though.

Oh, they can definitely be done, even if there is no or little support for it in the game. The problem is that such solutions are inherently clunky and limited, basically: run an external script to input button presses, read the screen and/or communicate with via log files (like the mod you mentioned) through an ingame script, that sort of thing.

If there were a native API to interface with the game it'd be just as straightforward as writing a local mod for the game. Not just for online functionality, but basically being able to write any plugin for the game. 'Infinite' dynamic universe powered by a deep neural network (with hilarious results)? Check.

Mentioned it before, but what they really should do is implement an outward facing API for X4.

Egosoft making an app would unnecessarily dilute their development time, and I don't think it should be baked into the game or designed around being played this way to begin with.

However, this is something that could be a great community mod. If there's an easy way to send commands to a running instance of X4 and retrieve information about its game state, I'm sure we would see this feature and more in no time.

No response and has not been mentioned so probably safe to assume this is not actively planned at the moment. Still think this would be a killer feature for X4 to support.