Will we be able to navigate large capital ships by ourselves in X4?

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razor202
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Will we be able to navigate large capital ships by ourselves in X4?

Post by razor202 » Sat, 8. Apr 17, 15:39

Now that Bernd has confirmed that in X4 we can fly different ships, will they include the capital ships? :D

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Earth Ultimatum IV.
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Post by Earth Ultimatum IV. » Sat, 8. Apr 17, 17:06

Would rather control them from the bridge (RTS style), but smaller stuff (Balor sized) would be welcome to pilot.

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Nikola515
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Post by Nikola515 » Sat, 8. Apr 17, 19:31

X4 will be limited to only M/S ships as far as we know.....

@ Earth

With Ego retarded pathfinding AI even RTS UI would be bad idea..... Only direct control would make capital ships useful in my opinion.
It's not world hunger because we can't feed poor,it's because there will never be enough to feed the rich .....

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mr.WHO
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Post by mr.WHO » Sun, 9. Apr 17, 09:28

Nikola515 wrote: With Ego retarded pathfinding AI even RTS UI would be bad idea..... Only direct control would make capital ships useful in my opinion.
No it wouldn't - we would be back to square one with X2/X3 where capship piloted by player could just fight the entire hostile fleet on it's own.

What is so appealing in piloting capship anyway? They are slow an clumsy anyway, so sitting inside them and giving RTS ommands is much better way to spend your time while your "taxi" fly from point A to point B.

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Post by Paladin-Solo » Sun, 9. Apr 17, 14:01

mr.WHO wrote:
Nikola515 wrote: With Ego retarded pathfinding AI even RTS UI would be bad idea..... Only direct control would make capital ships useful in my opinion.
No it wouldn't - we would be back to square one with X2/X3 where capship piloted by player could just fight the entire hostile fleet on it's own.

What is so appealing in piloting capship anyway? They are slow an clumsy anyway, so sitting inside them and giving RTS ommands is much better way to spend your time while your "taxi" fly from point A to point B.
The only reason you could fight the entire hostile fleet on its own was because the player could circle strafe, and the appeal to piloting capships is it took you dozens of hours to get one you damn well better be able to use it. X-Rebirth is trash cause they lock you out of controlling other ships, among other problems obviously, but making that same mistake twice is a bad idea. Besides its not like you're forced to control them, if you don't want to do it don't do it, its a single player game for crying out loud.

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Post by Meme Turtle » Sun, 9. Apr 17, 17:30

Paladin-Solo wrote:
mr.WHO wrote:
Nikola515 wrote: With Ego retarded pathfinding AI even RTS UI would be bad idea..... Only direct control would make capital ships useful in my opinion.
No it wouldn't - we would be back to square one with X2/X3 where capship piloted by player could just fight the entire hostile fleet on it's own.

What is so appealing in piloting capship anyway? They are slow an clumsy anyway, so sitting inside them and giving RTS ommands is much better way to spend your time while your "taxi" fly from point A to point B.
The only reason you could fight the entire hostile fleet on its own was because the player could circle strafe, and the appeal to piloting capships is it took you dozens of hours to get one you damn well better be able to use it. X-Rebirth is trash cause they lock you out of controlling other ships, among other problems obviously, but making that same mistake twice is a bad idea. Besides its not like you're forced to control them, if you don't want to do it don't do it, its a single player game for crying out loud.
>>> player could circle strafe
Exactly the reason to lock player from direct control of cap ships, so he does not break game balance by using options available only to him.

>>> be able to use it
It still takes hours to get your first capship and you can use it, yet in different ways from previous X titles.

>>> X-Rebirth is trash
The real trash is people who keep going from topic to topic insulting devs and their products.

>>> lock you out of controlling other ships
By the same logic X-BTF/X-Tension, Freelancer, Freespace, any Elite game, Starpoint series and many other space sims are bad because they dont let you control every single ship in the game.


People should realize that for devs to add any feature into the game they have to:
1) Determine if the new feature seamlessly connects with existing features in the game.
2) Determine how much time it is going to take. Time that can be directed to fixing bugs or improving existing features.

X: Rebirth is all about increased detalization and immersion. So devs can not simply attach external camera to where bridge is supposed to be and let player fly cap ship with WASD keys like in X3, as this contradicts the basic concept of the game. And even if there was a screen or console which allowed the player to fly capship, then how would he communicate with DO and engineer(and any other possible personnel) to set targets for turrets, control drones and repair ship? And what if player wants to operate turrets himself? Having flyable capships is not as easy as it may seem and time spent on implementing this feature could be used to improve existing methods of capship control.


With all that said I second the idea of having some form of RTS-like control from capship bridge. Provided lightning is improved and lino's bridge mod is incorporated into the base game, I would like to see something similar to the Flagship game(http://flagshipgame.com/).

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Post by Axeface » Sun, 9. Apr 17, 17:50

I really want to be able to 'command' capitals in X4 too. And I dont agree with egosofts stance that it's boring. I used to to love setting up a capital with flak in the turrets and clearing out a hundred or so xenon fighters from a zone and then destroying a station in my flagship.
There are also games coming out that show that many people dont agree that it's boring too, such as 'dreadnaught' and other games. Star citizen is going to have them too.
I think you should command it though, with the quality of your crew changing how quickly they react to your orders.

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Post by swatti » Sun, 9. Apr 17, 18:24

To me and i dare say for lots of others X was the game where you COULD fly the most massive ship yourself.

But as mentioned, in X3 you can molest the mechanics a bit too much.

That said, its not hard to fix those mechanics. But as we know, EGO and fixing... Jeah.

Some form of semi-automatic mode would be welcome. Take controll of guns manually or assign targets for em, turn the ship, controll the speed, etc.
Being able to strafe should be very limited so it wont break the combat.

X4 will make OR break EGO.
One last chance. I dearly hope they listen to the fans and not their own visions alone.

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Axeface
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Post by Axeface » Sun, 9. Apr 17, 18:53

swatti wrote: Being able to strafe should be very limited so it wont break the combat.
I'de argue for capitals not being able to strafe at all, or only a very very slightly as it will help with docking. But just not as a combat mechanic that made it so easy in x3.

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Nikola515
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Post by Nikola515 » Sun, 9. Apr 17, 19:47

mr.WHO wrote:
Nikola515 wrote: With Ego retarded pathfinding AI even RTS UI would be bad idea..... Only direct control would make capital ships useful in my opinion.
No it wouldn't - we would be back to square one with X2/X3 where capship piloted by player could just fight the entire hostile fleet on it's own.

What is so appealing in piloting capship anyway? They are slow an clumsy anyway, so sitting inside them and giving RTS ommands is much better way to spend your time while your "taxi" fly from point A to point B.
And that had nothing to do wiht player pilioting capital ship. Problem is AI couldnt turn cap. ships in order to use its weapons more efficiently. Also aim in all capital ships sucks.... If you use mods that somewhat improve AI and balance weapons cap ships don't become I win ships anymore. As for point A to point B this would work but problem is again pathfinding.... For example we already have something similar in XR when you tell ship to attack other capital ship. It moves from point A to point B and if stations is on the way it will take it almost 30 to 40 minutes to go around it.

I would personally love to see AI where I don't have to pilot cap ships and I could just jump inside turret and target everything (be gunner) but with Egosoft AI this will never happen.
It's not world hunger because we can't feed poor,it's because there will never be enough to feed the rich .....

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mr.WHO
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Post by mr.WHO » Sun, 9. Apr 17, 20:13

Umh guys.... you say you want to fly your capship (and it's turrets) because you spent hours hoarding money for them, but at that point you should be THE CAPTAIN of that ship, not pilot, not gunner, CAPTAIN!

For that we desperately need better AI pathfinding, better capship customization (at least choose what turrets to mount on the hardpoints), RTS commands and the cherry on top - proper capship bridge.

If all above would be implemented for X4 I really don't mind having no direct control over capships, especially if it's carrier where I can jump into my fighter/corvette to go close and personal.

I think Egosoft did well to choose S/M size ships for X4, but I'm still afraid they will mess capship again, especially with retarded pathfinding.

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Nikola515
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Post by Nikola515 » Sun, 9. Apr 17, 20:31

Not everyone wants to be captain ;) I find it boring because you don't do nothing besides bark orders on retarded crew (AI).. Whole point of SANDBOX game is to have freedom to chose what you want to be and what role you want to take. Sometimes I'm in mood to be gunner and sometime navigation officers. I remember in X3 I would sometime roleplay with my M1 as fighter pilot flying from Argon Prime to OL without using jumpdrive trough pirate sectors. Limiting sandbox experience will not make game better but worse and XR is perfect example :(

Edit: I'm not saying that there shouldn't be captain role in game for player but it will be more boring than you think. They should add that role as well as navigator and gunner role (perhaps even engineer role as well).
It's not world hunger because we can't feed poor,it's because there will never be enough to feed the rich .....

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Post by Alandauron » Sun, 9. Apr 17, 22:19

Honestly if they do the flight correctly for the Capships then being the pilot will be boring, making it exciting to pilot a Capship would be making them broken and cause the S/M ships to be even less useful than they are in X: Rebirth.

I understand the appeal to want to fly a big ship that you worked hard to attain, but it's better(IMO) to be able to act as captain instead of pilot. If you're referring to being able to control everything, guns, flight, missiles, etc. in a Capship all at once I feel that would be a bad design choice. A Capship has many detailed systems that require many people to run properly, suddenly giving control to one person and everything just working flawlessly takes more away from the experience than it adds to it.

This is coming from someone who didn't play the games prior to X: Rebirth so many of you will probably tell me I have no idea, etc. That's fine, based off what I have read about the other X games I feel like I came in on the right title for me. Being able to control all systems in a Caphip the same way you do in a fighter just doesn't make sense to me, though I'm not the only one to consider when making choices as a dev.

So lets look at the figures, easiest to compare are X3 and XR. X3 has sold more by about 180,000 units(this is according to steamspy for anyone wondering X3 -- XR). Yet when you look at the amount of TOTAL players XR is definitely higher by almost 50,000. I'm not a statistics guru but what this tells me is that more people picked up X3 over the years and never played it, probably during Steam sales. X: Rebirth on the other hand seems to have appealed to a larger audience than X3. The bad sales for XR could be multiple things, the majority of the reviews I read talked about how XR is a letdown to fans of the franchise, well considering prior to XR the title seems to have been appealing to a smaller "niche" group that's not necessarily a bad thing yet it would impact others that were considering picking it up with all the negative reviews it received. Also X3 has 7 more years that it has been available for sale which on Steam means many Steam sales where people pick up games they would like to play but inevitably will never get around to.

Figures out of the way I personally would love to see you able to control one of many aspects of Capships at a time. You can choose to pilot if you want, but not designate targets, you can choose to designate priority targets, you can jump into the larger cannons and fire directly, or any other individual role on a Capship. Ultimately it comes down to making the game appeal to a wider audience and I must say that I think more people would find the ability to command a ship less boring and more exciting. While it may not appeal to all you have to consider how different people like different aspects of a game. Here lies the challenge of a developer, do they stay loyal to the fans of the franchise that have been around from the start and make a game that continues to appeal to a niche group and limiting possible revenue or do they take a risk and try some things differently hoping to make the fans mostly content but also bringing in new players? Which fans do you listen to?

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Nikola515
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Post by Nikola515 » Sun, 9. Apr 17, 23:25

We wore doing same thing in X3 and i don't see anyone complaining(just piloting ships and turrets would do all the work) :roll: If you don't want to pilot cap. ship you don't have to. There is no reason why other people should be able to pilot them. X4 is not online game so it will not efect anyone in any way ;)

M/S ships are useless do to amount of weapons/damage that capitals are dealing. But than again in real world i don't see rubber gun boat going against battleships and having chance of survival. My point is that this is issue ballance and AI rether than design.
It's not world hunger because we can't feed poor,it's because there will never be enough to feed the rich .....

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Post by Alandauron » Mon, 10. Apr 17, 00:00

Nikola515 wrote:We were doing same thing in X3 and i don't see anyone complaining(just piloting ships and turrets would do all the work) :roll: If you don't want to pilot cap. ship you don't have to. There is no reason why other people shouldn't be able to pilot them. X4 is not online game so it will not efect anyone in any way ;)
I agree, I would love if you can JUST pilot them, so long as you don't have control over everything else. You did miss my point however, I think that if they are done right that piloting a Capship would be the most boring thing to do while "commanding" it. They turn really slow, don't have great acceleration or ability to stop, the only "fun" parts might be ramming into other ships but I don't think they have damage values when colliding with other objects in X: Rebirth(at least it's not noticeable) so I doubt it was in previous games either.

I hope they make it possible to command or pilot, that would be great, but if they cut something out I would prefer it to be the piloting over the potential to command. The fleet AI could use some fine tuning for sure and it would be amazing to see the ability to properly command a wing of fighter craft along with your Capship and it's various systems through a command menu(or set of menus) on the bridge of a Capship. I love the bridge mod for Rebirth, the little screens in front of you with actual game data, would be even better if you were able to click a screen to go into a UI for different aspects of fleet commands.
Nikola515 wrote:M/S ships are useless do to amount of weapons/damage that capitals are dealing. But than again in real world i don't see rubber gun boat going against battleships and having chance of survival. My point is that this is issue ballance and AI rether than design.
LMAO, that is the worst comparison you could use, but that was probably intentional. You do see smaller combat craft going against larger ones, you do see planes being used to attack large ships. The concept of having fighter wings is to focus damage on particular areas and higher maneuverability while in a clash. The Capships can boost and jump, but their acceleration and maneuverability are extremely limited, the small craft are too useless in vanilla Rebirth and I'm just about to a point where I want to try out a mod someone is working on to boost their usefulness. a handful of fighters should lose to a Capship because of the amount of armor and shields to burn through, but as support they should be able to target key systems to give their allied Capship the advantage. I hope X4 takes this in mind.

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Nikola515
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Post by Nikola515 » Mon, 10. Apr 17, 00:46

I agree with you 100% but knowing how ego build their AI in all games this is just wishful thinking :(

Here are some issues that we will have....

1) We will wait for 30 to 40 minutes just to get to target especially if station is in the way(wating to get there will be fun ;) ).
2) When we get there it wont know what to do and it will run around in circles like chicken without head.
3) We will just wish we could could take control of ship and move it right way.

When it comes to S/M ships i agree with you there as well but they need to atack at same time. Current system just sends them on their own and they just get blown away. But if they wait for cap ships to arrive and than attack they would stand chance.

Im just being realistic baced on history of egos AI. All though i would love to see something like this it is just not going happen :( If it does it will probably end up as bad as current AI....
It's not world hunger because we can't feed poor,it's because there will never be enough to feed the rich .....

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Post by Alandauron » Mon, 10. Apr 17, 01:49

Nikola515 wrote:I agree with you 100% but knowing how ego build their AI in all games this is just wishful thinking :(
Well then hopefully if they aren't that great at AI they at least make the AI easy to mod and then I'll set that as my primary focus lol.

Even XR isn't that bad after you learn to work around the issues, but I don't know the history from the previous games since I just started playing EGO games on XR. Hopefully throughout the games they have made progress in regards to the AI pathing, maybe X4 will be the one that impresses us all.

Otherwise It would be nice to be able to just pilot it into the position you want and then fall back to commander mode, if they allow piloting without any other controls then I feel it would be a happy medium. Considering how much has been accomplished through modding I'm hoping they leave things just as open or even work on some actual modding tools for X4.

Now I'm not saying they need to be like Bethesda and make a hollow game with extensive modding tools, I really don't want to see that, or allow modders to fix all their bugs/issues but if it's something they aren't having luck with then modders will normally pick up the slack.

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Post by UniTrader » Mon, 10. Apr 17, 01:51

Just speaking here for myself, please ignore the golden letters :)


well, at least they have the necessary tools to properly Coordinate Stuff in their Scripting Engine now (namely Signals and Events), these are currently un(der)used for this purpose though (but would work great for this, in fact they work too perfectly, had to add some random short delay to the boost/jump start because a frame-perfect sync of that for several ships looks silly)




Regarding the Original Topic: the demand for this cannot be this big. i had suggested a script/mod method which would have enabled this about 3 Years ago now with the note i have no intention to implement it myself but would give all needed Info and knowledge. Zero Resonance to this. Actually implemented and published it a few months ago(ok, maybe a bit sneakingly) out of curiousity and based on feedback i guess there is only one actual user of this. ok-ish for the maybe 4 hours i invested in implementing this, but based on these observations i dont think there is any real demand for direct control of capships.
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Post by Alandauron » Mon, 10. Apr 17, 03:18

As a newcomer to the modding side of the X Universe games I will have to defer to your knowledge on the subject, I know I'm grateful for all the work you and the others have put in and hope to be able to contribute equally at some point. I'm not sure about the demand for piloting the Capships but I imagine most people just learned to deal with and work around the issues but would love if the vanilla game allowed them to pilot to some extent.

You should put up a link for that mod you're talking about as I didn't see it on the Steam workshop. Also am I understanding correctly that the mod allows players to pilot Capships in XR?

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Nikola515
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Post by Nikola515 » Mon, 10. Apr 17, 10:11

I have around 2000h on XR so i have seen everything inside out ;) It is much easier to spot problems and issues late in game... Also i spend same amount of time with X3 games as well. Honestly i wish that they focus more on exploring and end game goals than anything else but this is just me. But giving player more options for gameplay would benefit game instead of limiting it. That's why X3 will always more community favorite than XR ;)

There are some pretty good AI mods that i used..... It makes ships more useful and effective in battle.
It's not world hunger because we can't feed poor,it's because there will never be enough to feed the rich .....

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