X4 done right EGOSOFT PLEASE READ

[Miniding]

Anyway, this thread was neither to talk about what is or is not in Elite Dangerous nor if it would become a monthly billing game....

The thread was to tell what should be in next opus Ego evoqued lately...

[Alan Phipps]

My sandbox number one must-have is a sense of wonder when exploring. The 'Wow!' factor if you will. You must come across the unexpected when you wander and not just more and more of the same with cosmetic differences and a little RNG factor thrown in.

There are some really nice 'special' station models in X-R but at the end of the day they just act like all other run-of-the-mill production stations and you soon barely glance at them in passing. Where are the special stories, the special ships/stations/colonies, the mysterious encounters and the special objects that actually lead the player to go off and do something entirely different for a while? (Example - why can't we get the DeVries broken habitats repaired if we want? Or even the Reiver Way Stations should we desire to?)

Turning to player 'gameplay style and choice':

On the constructions side, where are the modular ships we can design and build using basic elements to meet our own specifications? There are already so-called BTO shipyards after all. (Enveloping design limitations apply obviously.)

Similarly why can't we mix and match a wide choice of different production, defence and efficiency modules into our player stations to meet a local demand or circumstance rather than have to choose from fixed subsets of rigid template stations that nearly always create more local trade and economy problems than they resolve?

I think such an approach with more freedom and less leading by the nose could help with the middle and late game playability and even the more general replayability of this type of game.

[ezra-r]

I'm glad to see this thread is still kicking. I'm an avid EVE player and every now and then I get so tired of the BS in that game that I come back to these forums to see if anything is new.

Well word on the street is Egosoft has officially said they are in production of a new X title.

I hope they have taken this post to heart, and looked at everything within it. There are a few other threads I have made concerning content within X. One of the foremost being some sort of endgame content, or dynamic sandboxing. The things we do should change more than just our wallet. There could be shifts in region control, varying strengths of the given navy fleets of the different factions, the sudden need for certain resources, even the ability to permenantly knock out gates or stations. The game world should change due to our actions. Not be a static template for endless NPC respawns.

There could be missions granted by navy forces you have good standings with. These missions should be endgame-esque and really reinforce who rules the sector, or even the galaxy.

The changes I mentioned should be coupled with a few improvements to industry. A person could be very creative in this department. The player could be able to build their own ships, granted their standings are high enough with the locals to deploy that type of station. And even if it is, your production could be limited to very small ships or fighters, until your standings are high enough to build a better station, one that can build bigger ships.

The player should have a better reason to set up a massive trade network. It should be there to fund his own armada. Many players go this route and start popping out fittings meant for capital ships. However in previous X titles the industrial game kindof ends there. You can only deploy so many stations and make so much money before the sandbox becomes stale. If you take what we have been given up to this point and then add on to that, using new end game style of content, then being an empire tycoon would have much more gravity than it does now.

If the concept of dynamic sandboxing actually makes it into reality, then even the empire tycoon would have to build many support fleets and even occasionally manually engage an invading force. As your empire grows, so does the threat of an incursion spawned by the NPC's. Enemy factions could just so happen to try and invade (and take over) a system which your station just happens to be in. So you send in your own forces, along with the navy fleets of your friendly factions. This would make running an empire much more dangerous. Especially in the fringe systems of heavily policed zones.

And one more big point with the dynamic sandbox experience I'm trying to relay here. It would scale with player progression. Sure, at the start there is not much happening. Then you start to build a couple of stations, and a while later you are flying through a system that's been flagged as a system under incursion. Or you run a few dozen random missions, and suddenly you happen to pull one where they want you to help repel an incursion. Add to that getting into a bigger ship, and the frequency of repelling an incursion increases. What I'm saying here, is there would be a global threat to the player. A growing one. And it's not just the random xenon/khaak attacks. It's actual factions, using their navy to crush and overtake a system. A system which would then permenantly become their own. In this sense, the player could potentially "loose" the game if enough time goes by (and we are talking about a LONG time here) without doing anything to intervene. Or, the player could ally themselves with that faction and reap the rewards.

What I'm getting at here is, it's not just the mechanics of the game that needs changing. Sure there could be better UI's and smarter trade vessels, or the ability to produce this or that. But overall, there needs to be something to *do* in the end, when all that fortune/power has been amassed. There needs to be a very solid reason for the player choosing to continue on. And that reason should be engaging, dangerous, profitable, and most of all, FUN.

So to re-iterate this one more time. Dynamic Sandboxing. Make the world alive. Living, moving, changing, reacting to the players decisions. Make sovereignties change hands. Make the NPC a lot more oppressive. Give the player missions fit for the end game content. And I don't mean storyline missions like the Hub. I mean missions that are reactive to what the world is doing. For exmpale you could be pinged with an incoming message from an admiral, offering a mission to defend a sector that's under incursion threat. Or a message from the same admiral saying they are in dire need of resources to their efforts. Building X Y Z stations in A B C sector would improve their production rates. Of course, turning down the missions could have dire consequences later on to the player. Alternatively, accepting and completing the mission could come with a massive reward.

Whether it's trading or combat. make all player actions have a marked influence on the world around them. Kill a handful of fighters via regular missions? Now that frigate that's supporting the capital ship is undefended and the faction navy can go there and take out that frig, aiding in their efforts, or even give you a special mission to do the same. Got a handful of factories in a certain sector? now your influence is high enough to start building more complicated items, such as ships or weapons as a part of funding a naval effort to defend a zone.

Sorry if this got a little carried away. I literally just read that the new X title is under development. I'm just trying to give you more ideas to work on. This isn't just a hope for a thing either. This lack of a dynamic environment is literally what killed the X titles for me. LitCube made an amazing mod, and is very difficult, and is very close to what I'm getting at here, but it's still not really what I'm talking about here.

So thank you Egosoft. Many have turned their backs on you. I haven't. I believe that you can do this, and break new ground in the space simulator genre. I would be willing to pay over $100 for "X Done Right". Hands down, no questions asked. You would be lord of the land. All the other studio's would be holding the new X title as an idol of perfection. You guys are so close to it, I can feel it coming on. Continue doing what you are doing, and make this next title AMAZING.

I have read your post with much attention, I like your ideas.

The one about navy forces giving you special end game missions made me wonder. Why on Earth PMC does not have a special super secret sector/zone somewhere far away with secret facilities and lots of experimental goodies for us to find, pry, get access to, and so on and on

Same could be said about the Argon government to finish with the Xenon threat and so on..

I certainly hope as you say, Egosoft can take an implement some of these ideas.

[BattleXer]

What I'm getting at here is, it's not just the mechanics of the game that needs changing. Sure there could be better UI's and smarter trade vessels, or the ability to produce this or that. But overall, there needs to be something to *do* in the end, when all that fortune/power has been amassed. There needs to be a very solid reason for the player choosing to continue on. And that reason should be engaging, dangerous, profitable, and most of all, FUN.

I couldn't agree more with this. I found it very sobering that after spending hundreds of hours of building an empire in X3/AP, gathering a powerful fleet and building factories to supply this fleet, there was nowhere for it to go. There was no point in invading and taking over whole sectors, because GOD would always replace any destroyed infrastructure.

If it was possible to declare war on any/all of the factions in the universe, destroy them, and replace/capture their infrastructure and use it to trade with the rest of the universe, that would provide an immense incentive to keep on playing long after the thrill of building your first station has worn off.

Obviously, as previously mentioned in this thread, this would require robust systems within the game to make empire management possible and enjoyable.

But one can only hope, I suppose...

[Bandus]

Well word on the street is Egosoft has officially said they are in production of a new X title.

Is this officially official somewhere or just speculation still? Definitely eager to move past the XR stuff and see how that goes...

[BigBANGtheory]

I couldn't agree more with this. I found it very sobering that after spending hundreds of hours of building an empire in X3/AP, gathering a powerful fleet and building factories to supply this fleet, there was nowhere for it to go. There was no point in invading and taking over whole sectors, because GOD would always replace any destroyed infrastructure.

If it was possible to declare war on any/all of the factions in the universe, destroy them, and replace/capture their infrastructure and use it to trade with the rest of the universe, that would provide an immense incentive to keep on playing long after the thrill of building your first station has worn off.

Obviously, as previously mentioned in this thread, this would require robust systems within the game to make empire management possible and enjoyable.

But one can only hope, I suppose...

Bernd said on Reddit before XR was released that they would consider adding strategic gameplay into X Universe in the future i.e. if the player feedback was there.

So... feeback back ask for it if you want to see it.

Personally I think the game supporting M0 class dreadnought class (perhaps even planet killers), is a good way to go about it becuase it introduces diplomacy for non-aggressives players/AI factions and fear/motivation for aggressive players.

[Spacefuelcomplex]

5 to 6 years before we get a glimpse of x4 or will it be sooner?

[Lord Dakier]

I'm currently heavily playing Metal Gear Solid The Phantom Pain. For those not in the new your base captures enemy combatants, mercs, scientists and employs them. There are many different departments for these people to work in and although tedious it can be micro-managed, but also auto-assigned for the more lazy folk like myself. All these staff members have stats and some have unique abilities.

My point being is that this is the system that should be incorporated in X4. I should be able to employ literally thousands of people to help my company whether it be military, economical or political. I would love to see my rookie pilot level up as he gains kills where he could one day become fleet commander. Similarly to Football Manager where every player has a current ability rating and a potential ability staff should be operated in such a way.

[BigBANGtheory]

I would love to see my rookie pilot level up as he gains kills where he could one day become fleet commander. Similarly to Football Manager where every player has a current ability rating and a potential ability staff should be operated in such a way.

I would just like to see evidence of fleet command, one which embraces the gameplay instead of trying to work around it like it was a problem to avoid.

[surferx]

I don't know, I just checked the Elite: Dangerous website, these new Expansions they're adding 'Power Play' in particular sounds really interesting.
The ability to help powerful figures in politics in the Empire, Federation, Independent, Alliance sectors etc. to expand their territory with 20 People something like 50 to be added sounds really interesting.

If it had X:Rebirths Empire Building ability then it would be game over for Egosoft as you could challenge other factions for supremacy of Space.

I'm not so sure about this. The X3 series had a few majour things going for them that elite dangerous will never top:

1) no monthly subscriptions
2) the ability to own and manage several fleets
3) the ability to fly *ANY* ship, including capitals
4) A rich universe full of life, however X3's "life" was very static and doesn't really mean a whole lot to the player
5) it's more than just trading. X3 was an empire management game with the ability to build stations and automated merchant ships. It would be pretty hard to top this. Egosoft NAILED the empire management in their games
6) This isn't WoW vs every-other-mmo. X3 is a single player game with no risk of being ganked by a complete douchebag looking to ruin your experience. X3 is a very complex title with a lot to do and see and there's something to be said about being able to fire it up and just relax with your own methods. You are comparing an MMO to a single player experience. There's no comparison. There's no "X3 Killer". X3 isn't an MMO. It's a title you buy ONCE and then you have it. Unlike Elite: Dangerous where you spend $120 on the game and then pay monthly to play.

#6) is the reason I have/will never play anything but single player. And I don't think Egosoft is going there. I don't see them branching out next time, but actually returning to more of the mainstream type of X game.
Yes it should be X4.
#2) & 3)

[BigBANGtheory]

ED you don't pay monthly and can drop in and out of Single Player / Multi-Player as soon and you dock Granted ED can be expensive if you didn't buy the lifetime expansion pass because the base title is lacking in many areas and feels incomplete. Sorry to drift off topic a bit there but it is important to gets the facts right.

Egosoft has been quite fortunate imho that ED has not ventured or expressed an interest in diving into 4x empire building gameplay which leaves X Universe in a good position to co-exisit with the likes of ED and SC. It has in many ways a stronger formula if Egosoft can execute on the vision one which is a bit vague atm.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Some possibly sensible ideas for new elements in the next game.

1) Cattle rustling.
2) Strolling among the Argnu cows or walking across the fields.
3) Stealing weed plants.
4) Being arrested for stealing from lockers.
5) If we can fly multiple ships then hacking and stealing small ships from stations.
6) If they ever have a carrier for small ships then hacking and stealing ships from carriers.
7) Bribing the police to ignore all of my illegal goods.
Riding on a lift or train on the outside of the station.
9) Having docking for small ships to allow them to be repaired by station engineers.
10) Docking cradles for larger ships so that I don't have to leave them drifting in space.
11) Pickpocketing station personnel.
12) Space version of Gwent (as in Witcher 3)
13) Fluffy dice
14) A new credible enemy

That's enough for now

[Silla]

.....

Turning to player 'gameplay style and choice':

On the constructions side, where are the modular ships we can design and build using basic elements to meet our own specifications? There are already so-called BTO shipyards after all. (Enveloping design limitations apply obviously.)

Similarly why can't we mix and match a wide choice of different production, defence and efficiency modules into our player stations to meet a local demand or circumstance rather than have to choose from fixed subsets of rigid template stations that nearly always create more local trade and economy problems than they resolve?

I think such an approach with more freedom and less leading by the nose could help with the middle and late game playability and even the more general replayability of this type of game.

I very much agree with you on all what you said. To "solve" some of the problems with economy (as I see it) I proposed a very rough 4- step plan on the german board.

1) Introducing population as key element. With population in place you can create multiple types of consumers. An economy builded arround it works bottom up instead vice versa when having one or two main high tec consumers at top that all the economy is aimed at. Secondly population can directly used to influence local economy performance in multiple ways.
2)A multilayer economy of different complexity. An economy will be allowed to develope through this in complexity upwards or downwards. Secondly as layers only overlap towards increasing complexity the stability need that you have for only one kind of economy system doesnt needs to be enforced strictly and in return allow a far more dynamic gameplay economy vice. Also pirats would have their own economy.
3) Stations should be thought of as workplace rather than just a production unit. Most production cycles that can be done inside a normal housing do not require a special type of complex inside a station. Instead modular workshops are introduced that can be restructured depending on the economys need. Signboards at the outside are for identification by the player. This also means you wont need a station to do some business, instead you can rent a workspace hire workers and build a workshop of your need. The same goes for possible AI setting up their own shops.
[ external image ]
4) AI that stimulates the marked and is an opponend or partner.

In additon to this I proposed the idea of indiviualised products. Additionaly to the price other indicators of a product can influence buyers bahavior. For example quality, durability, inovation .... . This will allow other mechanics to compete on a changing marked besides the idea of looking where there are productions gabs. Secondly it could influence endproducts behavior, especially for ships. A ship with an engine part made of top quality components would simply fly faster or turn better. But this would as well be true for any product produced on subproducts.

...Well maybe some ideas will be heard of by EGO who knows communication is very rare.

[-Skipp-]

I'd like to add one more thing to the list - and that's is a solid current-gen engine that runs the game.

Now, I'm not a game-developer but I know how a big variety of games running on different Direct-X generation engines perform on my PC.

i7-4770k, 16GB DDR3, MSI GTX970 gaming edition with 4gb VRAM.

Now, this build eats every single brand new game on max details without even getting a random hickup, BUT it usually has variable framerates on games running standard DX9 engines. If I understood correctly X:R is based on a DX9 engine which has problems when it comes to rendering a lot of details and SFX. A simple way to prove this is the fact that i have exactly the same FPS in X:R with everything on minimum, and everything maxed out. I only get maybe 5FPS less in high-density systems.

Guild Wars 2 is the prime example of this. I know it's a totally different type of game but the same rules apply. I played tons of MMOs and lots of them look MUCH better and the performance is rock solid unlike the FPS drops from solid 60 to low 20-s on a simple camera rotate you get in Guild Wars 2 all the time. That's just unexceptable and it only has it's out-of-date engine to blame.

Now, if I understood correctly from the latest videos posted, Egosoft is working on a new game based on the X:R engine. I reeeeeeally hope it was modified to run on DX11 or DX12. Remember that DX12 gives you tons of performance boost by default because it uses your system resources in a different way - especially when it comes to laptops and intel i-series procesors with integrated GPUs.

[Nanook]

As stated many, many times over the years, the X games, and that includes Rebirth, are not graphics-bound games. If you have a decent video card, you'll be able to run the game just fine, graphics-wise. The game is mostly CPU- and memory-bound, having to run a multitude of scripts concurrently, for nearly every object in the game, whether the player is around or not. The universe is in constant motion, and most of that motion takes place outside of the player's immediate view, meaning it doesn't get rendered. In short, it doesn't really matter that much which flavor of DX, OpenGL or whatever, it uses. Above a certain graphics card level, most of any decrease in framerate is due to non-graphics processes.

[-Skipp-]

having to run a multitude of scripts concurrently, for nearly every object in the game, whether the player is around or not. The universe is in constant motion, and most of that motion takes place outside of the player's immediate view

And this is exactly why i love it - it has that MMO feel to it since stuff happens around you even if you're not there.

I know about the CPU thing and that's why I don't expect any issues since I have pretty much a top-of-the-line CPU. And when I see a drastical decrese in FPS, I really can't be expected to have a more powerful rig than the one I already own.

Then again - I did notice how a game restart brings the performance up by quite a lot. Especially when I've been flying around for a few hours.

Also - feel free to take my performance nagging with a bit of reserve - I'm used to locked 60FPS and when i see it dropping down to 30ish I consider it a bad thing, while some people are lucky to even have 30fps and consider it very much playable

[spankahontis]

I don't know, I just checked the Elite: Dangerous website, these new Expansions they're adding 'Power Play' in particular sounds really interesting.
The ability to help powerful figures in politics in the Empire, Federation, Independent, Alliance sectors etc. to expand their territory with 20 People something like 50 to be added sounds really interesting.

If it had X:Rebirths Empire Building ability then it would be game over for Egosoft as you could challenge other factions for supremacy of Space.

I'm not so sure about this. The X3 series had a few majour things going for them that elite dangerous will never top:

1) no monthly subscriptions
2) the ability to own and manage several fleets
3) the ability to fly *ANY* ship, including capitals
4) A rich universe full of life, however X3's "life" was very static and doesn't really mean a whole lot to the player
5) it's more than just trading. X3 was an empire management game with the ability to build stations and automated merchant ships. It would be pretty hard to top this. Egosoft NAILED the empire management in their games
6) This isn't WoW vs every-other-mmo. X3 is a single player game with no risk of being ganked by a complete douchebag looking to ruin your experience. X3 is a very complex title with a lot to do and see and there's something to be said about being able to fire it up and just relax with your own methods. You are comparing an MMO to a single player experience. There's no comparison. There's no "X3 Killer". X3 isn't an MMO. It's a title you buy ONCE and then you have it. Unlike Elite: Dangerous where you spend $120 on the game and then pay monthly to play.

Didn't realise till I did some research that they're scrapping the single-player promise.
Guess that would make Empire Building pretty tough even if they did have those options available.

Big mistake on Braben's part. I'm not a MMO/Multi-Player person.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

I once new a guy who worked for Intel. His advice for speeding up a slow computer, "buy more memory".

This admittedly was many years ago, however I think this still holds true.

The slowest component in any system is still the hard drive. I saw a post on here from someone who was using 16GB of RAM, and the game was now running very well for them. I would also suggest getting SSD.

Makes everything run faster.

[Rickjames125]

Personally, and im not sure if this was mentioned, I believe egosoft should add mechanics to the game that allow the player to create their own faction such as a PMC, a regular trading corporation, a pirate faction, etc. What frustrated me so much about x3 was that you could control all these assets but you could never have a say or really change anything in the galaxy when it came to politics or anything like that, regardless of how much power the player had. This somewhat goes along with the fleet mechanics. I want to be able to have a sprawling empire that can take over sectors, wage wars against other races (or fight wars with them as a pmc) that change the galaxy and all the politics surrounding its inhabitants. Manufacturing my own ships and weapons to support my companies interests and security and feel like i can make a change and do something awesome instead of GoD rebuilding what ive destroyed and many mods have been made for previous games to help these aspects but i still feel like that should be in the base game and simplified or atleast intuitive to manage through the UI. On a side note, itd be really cool to have a system to manufacture ships like a production line, all based on templates of what you want produced. Even setup a way to allow modders to have custom sets of ships compatible with the same mechanic. All in all i feel that there really is a lack of things to do late game and the potential the series has with the additions im suggesting could make it a blast and a true space simulation.

[Xan0010]

Things Id like for the next X game:

- gathering feedback from the community (steam early access)

- female protagonist or at least an option

- managers that buy ships on their own if they are needed or if they have been destroyed previously if you give them the money to do that

- carrier captains that order and outfit fighter ships and add them to their carrier ships if you specify how they should do that

- the old industrial looking teladi ships

- the old edged+cubic looking xenon ships

- boardable xenon ships

- all of the old weapons from previus x games and all with alpha / beta / gamma versions

- the old split character look (non-asian)

- teladi look is fine thank you!

- Boron, Paranid, Yaki, Goner