X4 - Should we scrap boosters and stick to jump drive?

[RAVEN.myst]

-some stuff-

Fair points - one way to rebalance the jumpdrive overuse is actually easy - you have to power down your ship to use it, and when you come out of jump, you have to power your ship up again.

I like. This also opens up a possibility: the emergency jump. This would be faster and while powered up, but possibly require a special jerry-rig to make it possible (this might be of dubious legality, civilian ships perhaps requiring a somewhat costly black-market modification, while military vessels might get it built in for broader combat capability.) Let's say that the reason for the required power-down is two-fold: firstly, the JD requires huge amounts of energy, thus taxing power-generation (again, military vessels, perhaps not all of them, might carry oversized reactors to help out), and secondly, to protect subsystems tied into the primary power grid. The emergency jump would then run the risk of activating without sufficient power, resulting in the possibility of a misjump - arriving somewhat off-target, or perhaps even greatly off-target or even totally way off base as in wrong sector or even system, or uncharted area (a la UFJD unknown sector, perhaps - though preferably more interesting at least some of the time.) Secondly, because the other systems are not safely isolated and powered down, there is damage incurred to subsystems - for starters, the ship power-up at the other side ALWAYS takes longer, by a variable amount, with the added chance of something going cataclysmically wrong, depending on severity. How to gauge severity? Perhaps how much "strain" he ship is under when undertaking the emergency jump: the more the shields are depleted, the more weapons are firing, the faster the ship is moving - the higher the chance of damage and the more severe the consequences. Main sub-light engines could be offlined or totalled, likewise the JD itself, weapon and/or shield systems could be compromised, and even indirectly powered secondary systems (such as sensors, targeting, comms, etc.) could get broken in the most extreme cases. Oh, how many failures could also depend on "severity.) Worst-case scenarios could include life-support failures, with the need to evacuate the crew until fixed, perhaps. Severity could escalate rapidly or even exponentially, to make emergency jumping a REALLY risky proposition, essentially guaranteeing serious trouble in some situations.

But we do have to realise its a game, and long travel times are boring and unproductive. Sure space is big, and we can recreate that like X3 did with the Terran sectors, a single solar system is many sectors where you can see the ones you've just come from - that gives you the sense of bigness without the 3 months travel time

Indeed - the tricky part is balancing the illusion of vastness against tedium - as you say, it's a game. Unfortunately, we live in an age of chronically impatient ADD - I've always felt rather saddened by how many players modded the game in order to change Terran TOAs into standard gates - talk about killing diversity, and eliminating one of the Terran faction's distinguishing features. Not to mention the obvious unwillingness to adapt to new challenges: "OK, in-sector tactical jumping isn't an option here - need to rethink my tactics." or "I'm trying to blockade-run through core Terran space to get into the Terran backwaters - no longer can I get in target-lock range of the 'gate' on the other side and jump - I need to actually EVADE the local defenses." etc. Yes, Terran space is definitely inconvenient at times - but variety is the spice of life, and I'm not a fan of blandness...

... That would look nice compared to the existing grid of sectors.

Agreed. Look, I'll admit that for a long time I enjoyed the "flat" universe - I simply didn't know any better, really. And I wouldn't call it an outright faux pas in the first place - it had its time, and in its day it was good. As far as I'm concerned, the X-series is sublime, and through most of its history has stood head and shoulders above the rest. Even occasional "competition" never held my attention anywhere near as long as the Xs' depth has. We've simply evolved to expect more, and this is natural. I even confess to having been rather shocked, taken aback, and downright disoriented upon first experiencing Rebirth's universe layout - but I quickly grew to like it (except for its general cramped feel.)

[spankahontis]

I wouldn't want to see the Highways go, simply because it means there will have to be a rewrite of what's already cannon.

A massive chunk of the lore would have to be removed and replaced because people feel inconvenienced.

What should be done is.. We make the Local Highway system accessible for tiny XS Civillian craft only.
They are so small that they can't install a jump drive, they need the highways to travel great distances.

So what can be done is, they shrink them down so they don't burden any vessel larger than a civilian craft.
So if you fly into it? It wont be strong enough to carry you.

So Small and Medium Ships that are also too small to carry Jump Drives, their mode of travel is replaced with boosters capable of taking them to one side of the Sector to the next.
Maybe boosters require fuel? Build a S/M Cell Recharge Facility so the ones that feed the Capital Ships aren't burdened with smaller ships.

Superhighways can be used by everyone except Capital sized ships.


We need to resist the urge to have a jump drive that can take us anywhere we like.
It'll simply ruin the feeling that we are in a vast universe.
That's what I HATED about previous X titles was that you could jump from Argon Prime to Getsu Fumai like it was simply like walking from one room to the next.
You really want that feeling of a great distance without it being TOO distant.

There was a time when playing Skyrim I stopped using Fast Travel and treated everywhere I went like it was a journey, adding mods like Frostfall and iNeed Food, Sleep, Drink made it fun to not use F.T.
If we could manage a formula like that, it could bring the fun into space travel, one where we didn't fast forward everything out of boredom; to me that indicates the games failings if impatience sets in.

[RAVEN.myst]

I wouldn't want to see the Highways go, simply because it means there will have to be a rewrite of what's already cannon.

A massive chunk of the lore would have to be removed and replaced because people feel inconvenienced.

A good point - however, easily circumvented: have them be abandoned (they cause brain cancer or something), and fall into ruin - so historically they were still there, and remnants can be present still (heavily scavenged, of course.)

What should be done is.. We make the Local Highway system accessible for tiny XS Civillian craft only.
They are so small that they can't install a jump drive, they need the highways to travel great distances.

Or this, yes - nice.

We need to resist the urge to have a jump drive that can take us anywhere we like.
It'll simply ruin the feeling that we are in a vast universe.
That's what I HATED about previous X titles was that you could jump from Argon Prime to Getsu Fumai like it was simply like walking from one room to the next.
You really want that feeling of a great distance without it being TOO distant.

I agree, and therein lies the design challenge.

If we could manage a formula like that, it could bring the fun into space travel, one where we didn't fast forward everything out of boredom; to me that indicates the games failings if impatience sets in.

Well said.

[UniTrader]

if i may throw in another Idea:

i would say Keep the Tubes in general, especially in civilized Clusters/Areas (just make the routing of them better - honestly..) but add Boosters to Small and Medium Ships, which are not as steady as the ones for Big Ships - they are only useable for Distances of about 50-70km. This is enough to get from one Zone to another nearby Zone (like going back one Zone along the Path of a Tube) before needing a Cooldown, but not enough to cross the whole Sector with it like Big Ships do.
Of course the Ships should actually use this in their Pathing (eg by going back one Zone using Boosters, or avoid a long detour by using the Booster to the Target Zone from a nearby Zone in the Path).

[RAVEN.myst]

I quite like this, especially

just make the routing of them [tubes] better - honestly..

heheheh, but with a tweak to the notion: such long boosting would have serious impact on combat. However, if medium ships had that sort of intermediate boosting capability (longer than small ships, shorter than capitals - your notion lends itself well to scalability - which in turn makes it make more sense, be more plausible - bionus! ), it would make sense without compromising combat mechanics.

Also, currently S/M boosting depletes shields, so the above with clash with that, unless:
Two distinct types of boosting are implemented, navigational and combat (I suspect you may have been envisioning something along these lines.) Combat boosting would be as it is now - fast, and fairly responsive (immediate) and draining shields. Navigational boosting, however, would take a few seconds to warm up, and be usable only in a straight line, and draw its power from the engine; also, perhaps this would have a lower acceleration factor, to account for the higher efficiency despite lower power usage (not draining shields, but only using propulsion reactor, or whatever...), and perhaps it would have a certain minimum duration/distance (not sure about this, just tossing ideas.)

[Killjaeden]

Its silly to want bigger space, but at the same time implement FTL that relativizes all of the bigger space.

What do you do with all the space in between the distances? Nothing, is the answer. If it has no FTL access you will not use it in any meaningfull way. If there is FTL access, you will use it, but the relative distance is the same due to FTL.

In addition if the travel in FTL does not offer additional worthfull gameplay for the player and for his npc fleet, its just a waste of time.

So you might as well cut "the space in between" out completely - which returns us back to X2 and X3 gate and sector system.

The space isnt smaller that way. You can still fly "out off grid" and build there if you feel the need to.

Adding stuff like cruising mode that is faster than "normal travel" and all that just introduces additional problems too. What if you need to catch somebody? If you go out of cruising mode to engage him, he is faster and pulls away. Means you need to add some silly and illogical way to force him out of cruising mode. Some magical hack-thing that makes his engine switch to another mode... great. Just get rid of that, use normal speed for all ships.

If the "highway system" was just designed for increasing visual traffic density you can still create main travel lanes without giving a speedboost to organize and pack together the traffic - which would help AI too.

[spankahontis]

if i may throw in another Idea:

i would say Keep the Tubes in general, especially in civilized Clusters/Areas (just make the routing of them better - honestly..) but add Boosters to Small and Medium Ships, which are not as steady as the ones for Big Ships - they are only useable for Distances of about 50-70km. This is enough to get from one Zone to another nearby Zone (like going back one Zone along the Path of a Tube) before needing a Cooldown, but not enough to cross the whole Sector with it like Big Ships do.
Of course the Ships should actually use this in their Pathing (eg by going back one Zone using Boosters, or avoid a long detour by using the Booster to the Target Zone from a nearby Zone in the Path).

I think there is no way to remove Highways from the lore, but nothing suggests we can't reduce their size and the devs make it so they don't interfere in the pathfinding of larger vessels.

That's a good idea, a zone to zone booster, that could make Escort missions allot more challenging when they have spent their boosters and need a recharge to which pirate vessels strike and you need to keep them off the ships back so it can boost to the next zone.

I argued in a previous topic that highways are the sign of civilization and should only be seen in Core Systems, border systems should be like the wild west, no highways or rarely few.

I would like to see highway infrastructure building in the next X and the ability to travel to new sectors and connect them to super highways.
To be able to explore a new System and connect the highway network to every planet, gas giant and asteroid field in the System.

I quite like this, especially

just make the routing of them [tubes] better - honestly..

heheheh, but with a tweak to the notion: such long boosting would have serious impact on combat. However, if medium ships had that sort of intermediate boosting capability (longer than small ships, shorter than capitals - your notion lends itself well to scalability - which in turn makes it make more sense, be more plausible - bionus! ), it would make sense without compromising combat mechanics.

Also, currently S/M boosting depletes shields, so the above with clash with that, unless:
Two distinct types of boosting are implemented, navigational and combat (I suspect you may have been envisioning something along these lines.) Combat boosting would be as it is now - fast, and fairly responsive (immediate) and draining shields. Navigational boosting, however, would take a few seconds to warm up, and be usable only in a straight line, and draw its power from the engine; also, perhaps this would have a lower acceleration factor, to account for the higher efficiency despite lower power usage (not draining shields, but only using propulsion reactor, or whatever...), and perhaps it would have a certain minimum duration/distance (not sure about this, just tossing ideas.)

I think that's a great idea, a Civilian Grade Booster which is used by trade ships and require shields to boost them to a zone Vs the much more advanced Military Grade Boosters used by fighters and ships of that class for intercepting a target, less shield drain but cargo capacity suffers.

[RAVEN.myst]

I would like to see highway infrastructure building in the next X ...
To be able to explore a new System and connect the highway network to every planet, gas giant and asteroid field in the System.

Ooo, I REALLY like this idea! To date, the travel infrastructure has been largely a static, hands-off affair, with only really a partial exception in the case of the Xenon Hub, and I think that is a very popular item (I know it's certainly a favourite feature of mine.) Other than that, we got a few plot missions where we are involved in connecting a gate or such, but these have all been scripted with little to nothing in terms of decision-making by the player. In a (very narrow) sense, complex building is essentially infrastructural routing, but the ability to place gates and highways/warp-routes/whatever (after first having to construct them - MAJOR job, it should be, I think, with perhaps even some sort of research aspect - but I digress) would allow a player to lay the "backbone" of a true empire.

(ASIDE: I would consider this level of engineering to be fairly advanced and helluva costly, so a player's empire would most likely start with a number of stations before even the first stretch of "road" was put down in order to improve the efficiency of those extant stations - so in game mechanic terms, they could perhaps convey tangible benefits. If these benefits manifested in an emergent manner, that would be ideal, but even contrived bonuses such as "+X% to production rate", or "-X% to upkeep/running costs" would be an ADEQUATE starting point... And as for player-sponsored gates - that would then likely be a late-game thing - and if the universe design is coherent enough, a savvy player could place gates in order to affect the NPC economies...)

[Killjaeden]

I think there is no way to remove Highways from the lore, but nothing suggests we can't reduce their size and the devs make it so they don't interfere in the pathfinding of larger vessels.
[..]
I argued in a previous topic that highways are the sign of civilization and should only be seen in Core Systems, border systems should be like the wild west, no highways or rarely few.

Didnt they say that X4 does not follow XR plot, story and setting? So it might as well be "before" the introduction of highways, or after their "abandonment"... Though i must admit, realistically they will propably advance the timeline only a bit, to keep the models of XR for the most part.

Having no highways in border systems means these places have to be smaller than core systems. Otherwise you will have excessive travel times. Unless you use a X3-sector-alike system with highways for routes inbetween jumppoints, and have the highways give some quite small boost to regular travelspeed (less than +50% of normal speed) ... Which i would be much in favor off.

If i remember the Terran sectors or the entire universe of the X3TC XTC mod (unfortunately) , which where just way too large... Having some areas that are somewhat far off / isolated and near unclaimed spaces, that is ok. But having only few cores and many large border sectors would be unpleasant.

[spankahontis]

I think there is no way to remove Highways from the lore, but nothing suggests we can't reduce their size and the devs make it so they don't interfere in the pathfinding of larger vessels.
[..]
I argued in a previous topic that highways are the sign of civilization and should only be seen in Core Systems, border systems should be like the wild west, no highways or rarely few.

Didnt they say that X4 does not follow XR plot, story and setting? So it might as well be "before" the introduction of highways, or after their "abandonment"... Though i must admit, realistically they will propably advance the timeline only a bit, to keep the models of XR for the most part.

Having no highways in border systems means these places have to be smaller than core systems. Otherwise you will have excessive travel times. Unless you use a X3-sector-alike system with highways for routes inbetween jumppoints, and have the highways give some quite small boost to regular travelspeed (less than +50% of normal speed) ... Which i would be much in favor off.

If i remember the Terran sectors or the entire universe of the X3TC XTC mod (unfortunately) , which where just way too large... Having some areas that are somewhat far off / isolated and near unclaimed spaces, that is ok. But having only few cores and many large border sectors would be unpleasant.

Plutarch had the technology as does Terracorp in Home of Light, seeing as Home of Light was next door to Argon Prime I would think that the major core systems of Argon space would have the technology via Jonferco.

Split I would agree would probably not have the Highway technology relying on old fashioned methods of space travel, I remember that Split Equipment docks were the only place that you could buy Mk Boosters so I'd say they would veer towards Boosters rather than highways.

The Teladi would want highways to improve their trade routes so there's an amble opportunity to introduce highways to them, to which they start off with pretty much few systems with them.
Paranid or Boron? One of them is coming back, they will want highways so they probably acquired them through diplomacy/espionage, they would have some highways in their core systems.


The Terran homeworld was simply Jumpgates replaced with Hype-space ports.. It really wasn't anything ground breaking in terms of system exploration; I would also agree that having so many sectors didn't work out for the game as if you introduced it to all the major home worlds and beyond, you would be swamped with Sectors, it would get overbearing.
It was simply a spot to fly in every direction leading to nothing which Rebirth needs to get away from that.

It would be good if you could expand on Long Range Scanners to incorporate other things to find like derelict space ships to land on and loot or some kind of anomaly to explore/scan/acquire rare items and trade them with scientists on stations for a cash reward, or even a broken ship marooned in space that needs an Engineer, distress calls etc. Space doesn't have to be Black and boring, things could happen if you explored.
Make NPC's more grateful/interactive when you rescue them, they could join your Faction as paying off a life debt (Especially among Split and Teladi Factions).

Border systems don't have to be small, we could have unexplored Sectors in every direction, custom made with huger nebulas and large asteroid fields to explore.. Heck these New Sectors could have Xenon/Kha'ak hives already settled there, to which you could expand at their expense.
Also places where you can build hyperspace jumpers to send you to these sectors and you build another on the other side and connect them into a super highway.
To explore new regions of space and claim them as your own.

I would like to see highway infrastructure building in the next X ...
To be able to explore a new System and connect the highway network to every planet, gas giant and asteroid field in the System.

Ooo, I REALLY like this idea! To date, the travel infrastructure has been largely a static, hands-off affair, with only really a partial exception in the case of the Xenon Hub, and I think that is a very popular item (I know it's certainly a favourite feature of mine.) Other than that, we got a few plot missions where we are involved in connecting a gate or such, but these have all been scripted with little to nothing in terms of decision-making by the player. In a (very narrow) sense, complex building is essentially infrastructural routing, but the ability to place gates and highways/warp-routes/whatever (after first having to construct them - MAJOR job, it should be, I think, with perhaps even some sort of research aspect - but I digress) would allow a player to lay the "backbone" of a true empire.

(ASIDE: I would consider this level of engineering to be fairly advanced and helluva costly, so a player's empire would most likely start with a number of stations before even the first stretch of "road" was put down in order to improve the efficiency of those extant stations - so in game mechanic terms, they could perhaps convey tangible benefits. If these benefits manifested in an emergent manner, that would be ideal, but even contrived bonuses such as "+X% to production rate", or "-X% to upkeep/running costs" would be an ADEQUATE starting point... And as for player-sponsored gates - that would then likely be a late-game thing - and if the universe design is coherent enough, a savvy player could place gates in order to affect the NPC economies...)

I would like to see that, I did enjoy the Terran Expansion missions where you had to transport and place jumpgates to connect with Aldrin and those other Terran Sectors.

But if the New X Game had say 12-15 Systems to explore, the number of Sector connecting missions could bring countless hours of gameplay simply on the Exploration side of things alone.
Imagine aquiring a mission on the bulletin board or you saw a half build superhighway, you aquire about a job to help them connect to the other side?
They tell you what you need to do, what technology is needed, resources and the right ship to jump you to the new Sector where there could be a CV waiting for your wares.

But beyond those Sectors you could still connect to other Sectors to which you could find anything from new resources to Xenon Outposts.. Clean up the system and claim it as your own.

[Killjaeden]

Plutarch had the technology as does Terracorp[...]

Background is irrelevant for this topic. It must first and foremost offer good gameplay! Sectorsizes and traveltimes have a huge impact on so many aspects of the game...

It would be good if you could expand on Long Range Scanners to incorporate other things to find like derelict space ships to land on and loot [...]

Waste of time. Deepspace things and long range scanning has a cool ring to it but it isnt, if it is not all handcrafted. If it is supposed to be dynamically generated it is incredibly boring gameplay if you actually explore the game concept. Fly around in almost empty space and press button (or not even that) until you find free stuff, but more likely nothing for several hours.

[RAVEN.myst]

Plutarch had the technology as does Terracorp[...]

Background is irrelevant for this topic.

I couldn't disagree more - lore (to me, and no doubt to some, perhaps even many others) is extremely important, as is continuity. The lack of the latter leads to disjointed-feeling "chapters" - and that is, let's be honest here, already bad enough the way EgoSoft craft their main plotlines - since X3TC, there has been nothing but huge gaps between titles, so no need to make this aspect even worse.

It would be good if you could expand on Long Range Scanners to incorporate other things to find like derelict space ships to land on and loot [...]

Waste of time. Deepspace things and long range scanning has a cool ring to it but it isnt, if it is not all handcrafted. If it is supposed to be dynamically generated it is incredibly boring gameplay if you actually explore the game concept. Fly around in almost empty space and press button (or not even that) until you find free stuff, but more likely nothing for several hours.

I can think of at least one way to make it more interesting: following clues, or a bread-crumb trail - and not necessarily linear, ie. not necessarily literally a trail of breadcrumb equivalents leading straight to the "point of interest". A hybrid procedural approach could be used to randomize it somewhat (so, procedural assembly of handcrafted components) - yes, that will never equate to well handcrafted content, but I believe it could be enjoyable if the sites themselves were made interesting enough - a xenomorph-infested space hulk; an abandoned mine with some salvageable equipment and/or minerals; a biotech lab or cloning facility, perhaps with, unbeknownst to the player, a time-limit before the owners return, with whatever consequences that may entail - combat, negotiation, a benevolent alien race willing to share some tech, etc.; a rogue planetoid or comet, either of no import, or rich in something valuable, or with a crashed Voyager-style probe, or perhaps on a collision-course with some settlement or the like, or perhaps forming part of a "hidden" plot and providing some clue to it; a nebula - perhaps rich in something, and/or dangerous, and/or it's a space-dwelling energy-based life form (with perhaps a moral choice - mine it but injure/kill it, or leave it alone and miss out on a big payday or tech advance); an enigmatic asteroid field comprised of unusually shaped rocks and/or with a very anomalous composition, which again could be an element of a plot (or not); a small black hole (can such even exist?) - I'll leave the possibilities to your imagination (assuming it's up to the task); a dark matter cloud; a gravitational or electromagnetic anomaly of some sort; a secret base (limitless possibilities here - storage depots, top secret weapons research labs, illegal tech-labs, black markets, mysterious stations of life forms so alien to us that we can't even fathom the possible purpose - ascension nexus? Consciousness storage facility? Technological afterlife?); communications relays; spy stations; etc etc etc...

OK, as you can see, I could literally keep on going here and build an even taller wall of text, given time and the inclination (but I'd rather get back to playing something instead), so my point here: claiming that creating deep-space content, even procedurally, would be a boring waste of time merely demonstrates either: a failure of imagination, or: total lack of confidence in the creativity of EgoSoft content developers. In the latter case, I'm sure there are plenty of willing volunteers around with creative ideas to submit. However, making it diverse enough to not get repetitive would certainly involve considerable effort, and if done in a totally automated/procedural fashion then yes, I think it would be blandly repetitive. I believe the key is not just in the nature of the site itself, but also in the manner in which it is sought out - yes, just quartering empty space while pushing a scanner button is not the way forward. But then, that also implies a rather static setup - it need not be (especially by implementing a universe model that incorporates motion of celestial bodies and vaguely realistic scales, as no two trips even between the same two points would traverse the same space, AND the random finds would be in motion, too.)

[Killjaeden]

I can think of at least one way to make it more interesting: following clues, or a bread-crumb trail

which compacts the entire deep space thing tremendeously. Because suddenly you know where things are. You are not stumbling on this by accident or because you looked around, you are guided in on it, because you would never be able to find it without this guidance.

If you can just stumble upon these things you mentioned, they wouldnt be in deep space (unless your definition of deep space is very shallow). If they are far out, you would would not find them without beeing guided to them - because space, even in X series, is vast and a miniscule minority will be filled with things you can actually discover -> Chance of accidental discovery goes to 0. The 3rd dimension added compared to "world based" games is the main "problem" here.

I believe it could be enjoyable if the sites themselves were made interesting enough - a xenomorph-infested space hulk; an abandoned mine with some salvageable equipment and/or minerals; a biotech lab or cloning facility, perhaps with, unbeknownst to the player, a time-limit before the owners return, with whatever consequences that may entail - combat, negotiation, [...]

And how many times do you think that will be exciting to repeat each? 3 times? 10 times? And how many of such completely handcrafted events and everything that comes with it (space hulk, bio tech lab, ... who is going to model all that?) do you need to make this non repetitive?

Stellaris has random events that add flavor. There are lots of them. And yet, you will run into the same events after compartively little playtime. Creating such events in stellaris is "cheap" as in little work. Compare that to X series. What you are supposed to see needs to be modelled. And that takes lots of time. Then the attached logic and gameplay needs to be put in place. You can imagine all these things but can Egosoft build enough to make it interesting? No is the answer, because their ressources (time and money) are fairly limited.

What you are describing works for plots yes. It doesnt work as a general sandbox concept. Once you have seen the biolab with the gene army or whatever the 3rd time, it becomes repitious and has nothing to do with exploration anymore. Especially not when you are just guided to this place. Your visit is pre-planned so to speak. It will become as exciting as the "bring back abandoned ship" mission in X3.

it need not be (especially by implementing a universe model that incorporates motion of celestial bodies and vaguely realistic scales, as no two trips even between the same two points would traverse the same space, AND the random finds would be in motion, too.)

And that is supposed to help somebody finding a thing without guidance how? It makes it even harder, because if you deliberately search you can't define one spot you have been at as "search complete", when it's all moving in relation to each other.

[RAVEN.myst]

I can think of at least one way to make it more interesting: following clues, or a bread-crumb trail

which compacts the entire deep space thing tremendeously. Because suddenly you know where things are. You are not stumbling on this by accident or because you looked around, you are guided in on it, because you would never be able to find it without this guidance.

If you can just stumble upon these things you mentioned, they wouldnt be in deep space (unless your definition of deep space is very shallow). If they are far out, you would would not find them without beeing guided to them - because space, even in X series, is vast and a miniscule minority will be filled with things you can actually discover -> Chance of accidental discovery goes to 0. The 3rd dimension added compared to "world based" games is the main "problem" here.

How do you figure that? The trail has to start somewhere - that can be in a clue found randomly in space via scanning, by unearthing something somewhere in amongst ruins or minerals, as a tip earned or purchased from an NPC, as a clue looted from a special enemy - again, the options abound, and INCLUDE some that depend on randomness and the vastness of space - but are not limited to that.

I believe it could be enjoyable if the sites themselves were made interesting enough - a xenomorph-infested space hulk; an abandoned mine with some salvageable equipment and/or minerals; a biotech lab or cloning facility, perhaps with, unbeknownst to the player, a time-limit before the owners return, with whatever consequences that may entail - combat, negotiation, [...]

And how many times do you think that will be exciting to repeat each? 3 times? 10 times? And how many of such completely handcrafted events and everything that comes with it (space hulk, bio tech lab, ... who is going to model all that?) do you need to make this non repetitive?

I'm afraid that it seems you are assuming two things here: 1. that this content would make up a dominant portion of game content - this is NOT what I'm shooting for at all, because then yes, as with any diet consisting mainly of a few things (however tasty), it will get old very quickly; and 2. that these items/sites would be frequent - again, this is NOT my intent at all: these locations or whatever would ideally be quite/very rare, in order to be made more special - overabundance of anything devalues it. We are talking on the level of Easter Eggs of sorts - but not in fixed locations, where the player him/herself needs to play long and well, and not simply look up a walkthrough on the Internet for how to find something. Some of the sites/objects could lead to significant but not pivotal plot developments (ie. no main plot should ever, imo, rely on one of these), and perhaps in a few cases offer alternative solutions to main-plot goals - this would allow for the *possibility* of a seasoned and jaded veteran with multiple playthroughs under his belt, to stumble upon one of these, and be pleasantly surprised by the fact that he/she can now complete the main plot (or more realistically, a section of it) in a completely different manner.

Stellaris has random events that add flavor. There are lots of them. And yet, you will run into the same events after compartively little playtime. Creating such events in stellaris is "cheap" as in little work. Compare that to X series. What you are supposed to see needs to be modelled. And that takes lots of time. Then the attached logic and gameplay needs to be put in place. You can imagine all these things but can Egosoft build enough to make it interesting? No is the answer, because their ressources (time and money) are fairly limited.

To the first part of the above, yes, I understand this, and I've even seen it fail at least once (in Sins of a Solar Empire one of the expansions, something like Stellar Phenomena or the like, added certain randomized effects/events - unfortunately, they were done rather slapdash so they look cheap and nasty, and also they are too "swingy" - the game is meant to be a competitive game in at least some modes of play, so random events that tilt the balance are not desirable; while the second factor isn't really an issue in a 1P sandbox, the former certainly would be, and even more so - we would be quite painfully aware of "cheap and nasty", so definitely effort and care would have to be exercised - it would be a non-trivial task for sure, but I contest the notion that it's *necessarily* absolutely outside the scope of ES's capabilities - that would be quitter talk if it were coming from them, but since we are merely bystanders, I would refer to it as nay-saying (which is negative and non-constructive.) Now, to be realistic: I'm not holding my breath for implementation of the ideas I throw around But I do dare to hope that maybe, just maybe, someone in a decision-making position is intrigued (and gutsy!) enough to run it by the developers, and that they in turn are intrigued (and gutsy!) enough to say "hell, let's try this".

What you are describing works for plots yes. It doesnt work as a general sandbox concept. Once you have seen the biolab with the gene army or whatever the 3rd time, it becomes repitious and has nothing to do with exploration anymore. Especially not when you are just guided to this place. Your visit is pre-planned so to speak. It will become as exciting as the "bring back abandoned ship" mission in X3.

Well, yes and no - as I intimated in my previous post, some of those locations could be results of plots that are randomly or emergently discovered - so, optional side-plots/mini-plots. Integrating them into such would be optimal. Also, as I explained previously in this post, I do not mean for the player to be spammed willy-nilly by these - they should be rare enough to constitute major discoveries, to be considered "special". In the case of plot-involved ones, they could be as rare as "unique" - ie. you will only find one of it in a particular playthrough, though its location will be different each time and (ideally) some details within it are randomly/semi-randomly generated (such as enemy spawn composition, for example - just to keep the player on his/her toes.) Non-plot-tied ones should still, in my opinion, be rare, and ideally not be repeated, though some perhaps once, maybe twice - but as you say, those would be lessened by the repetition, and thus would end up being more minor discoveries. For example, abandoned mines would likely be of the more generic sort for the most part - BUT, how about sometimes combining aspects? So now we have an abandoned mine and, if the player is too perfunctory, misses a perhaps fairly obvious clue that "there is something else here" (WHY was THIS mine abandoned? Was it overrun by those persky xenomorphs? Did it stray too close to a star and get lethally irradiated? Had it been set up in a territorial race's turf and they came and "evicted" the operation? Was the mine a front for some other sort of operation [which, perhaps with a closer inspection, can be found behind a wall in the back room, or whatever] which either terminated, or was exposed? Etc. Etc. Etc...)

Look, I do understand that a lot of the scope of this is likely in the "pipe dream" category - particularly if we look at (and I'm sorry, EgoSoft, I'm not trying to be a dick here, I'm just being honest) how station interiors in Rebirth are implemented. Still, one can dream, yes?

it need not be (especially by implementing a universe model that incorporates motion of celestial bodies and vaguely realistic scales, as no two trips even between the same two points would traverse the same space, AND the random finds would be in motion, too.)

And that is supposed to help somebody finding a thing without guidance how? It makes it even harder, because if you deliberately search you can't define one spot you have been at as "search complete", when it's all moving in relation to each other.

OK, I'm afraid here you are missing the point somewhat, and kinda contradicting yourself: on the one hand you criticize some prior points because they would require tedious thorough examination of vast amounts of space; yet on the other hand you naysay other ideas because they would contract space. Relative motion of celestial bodies combined with vast space obviates both of those: the whole point of rare and remote sites that can be scanned by good fortune or located by following otherwise-acquired clues is that it is NOT about painstakingly scanning each cubic centimetre. In fact, making that an impossible task is a major point in all this, as the vastness of space is such that such a task would be unimaginably impractical. This is where that random generation comes into play - on a given "warp" (or whatever) between two points of significance, there could be an infinitesimally small chance of stumbling on something (adjusted upward by object's mass/volume/energy output) - consider, for example, flying through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter's orbits - the chances of actually hitting something are really really small (asteroid belts in Rebirth, and space games and sci-fi movies etc in general, are routinely depicted as being absurdly dense). However, if you have specialised surveying/exploration sensors, you then increase those odds into the realms of the possible in practical terms. IMPORTANT: The object need not exist in-game until such time as it is "discovered" - the act of observing it successfully causes it to come into existence, so to speak [Hmmm, could name the deep-space sensors the Schrodinger Searchlight, or Quantum Scanner, or something similar] - ie. a successful roll against the sensor's chance of success instantiates the location or the clue that initiates the trail to it. Would quartering every cubic foot of space increase the odds of finding something? Yes, but only insofar as it is leading to more sensor success checks to be rolled - the same effect could be achieved more easily by running up and down the same route and letting the "dice" get rerolled repeatedly (this ONLY makes sense in a dynamically moving universe, though, from a consistency point of view, as otherwise shit is just materialising where it wasn't five minutes ago "I've been driving on this road for 15 years, and never before was that tree there - it wasn't there when I came by this morning either! What's going on here?" Answer: booze! ) This would have the side-effect of not-yet-generated content not consuming system resources - it gets put into memory only when it has been discovered (which I'm sure is how a lot of even permanent content is being handled whenever possible, to conserve RAM.)

There are no absolutes in space, and there is no such thing as a truly "stationary" object - be it in so-called "outer" space or your bathroom cabinet - it is all relative to a particular frame of reference. Therefore, the method of "systematically" searching all of a game's space volume isn't really remotely realistic - it makes more sense to radiate the intensity of search/exploration activities as decaying probability curves radiating from landmarks/points of interest. This is even how such tasks are performed for real: a simple spiral search pattern is initiated usually at a point of highest probability (although sometimes dictated instead by convenience) and expands; every successive "whorl" is longer and thus each revolution takes longer - the farther you get from your landmark, the slower the searching goes. Sometimes the "landmark" is not a point, but a line - say, a road, for instance: if you are looking for derailed trains, you start your search AT the railway track, not 5 miles away. In a vast and mostly empty space, points of reference are even more important, because you don't have an environmental frame of reference. Anyhow, I'm digressing on a wild tangent here - when I started this part, I had some "very important" point to make - I have no idea what it may have been! hahahahah

So, time for me to go actually PLAY something! More fun...
Happy hunting!

[Killjaeden]

My initial statement was (intended to say) that deepspace exploration in a purely sandbox context can not be made fun and engaging. Deepspace exploration as in , using some game mechanic to do it and to do it repeatedly many times at any time the player decides.

You are speaking of plot/sub-plots, easter eggs or other unique one-time-events involving deep space. Two totally different things.
Because this

the whole point of rare and remote sites that can be scanned by good fortune or located by following otherwise-acquired clues is that it is NOT about painstakingly scanning each cubic centimetre.

has nothing to do with "i deliberately decide to search deep space for things, now."

"I've been driving on this road for 15 years, and never before was that tree there - it wasn't there when I came by this morning either! What's going on here?"

When you find objects along your standard routes or very near it, it can't be considered as "deep space". It may originate from deepspace, but you are not in it. While getting to explore objects from deepspace is a nice concept for (again) plots or one-time-events, it doesnt work as sandbox gameplay concept either.

radiating from landmarks/points of interest

Works well in planetary based games, and in densely packed space games, but not in "deep space" that is primarily void of anything. The point here is that in deepspace you can't hide anything in an interesting way like you could on some planetary world. You can only hide it by distance. And it doesnt matter if you hide a crate or a gigantic station. The only difference between both is distance until it can be seen/picked up by scanners.
If you use celestial bodies (or nebulas) as landmarks instead of self-created ones, the "deepspace" suddenly becomes very shallow again - and incompatible to "infinite" sandbox gameplay, because you only have a limited number of celestial bodies, unless your game is No Gameplay Sky.

[spankahontis]

I can think of at least one way to make it more interesting: following clues, or a bread-crumb trail

which compacts the entire deep space thing tremendeously. Because suddenly you know where things are. You are not stumbling on this by accident or because you looked around, you are guided in on it, because you would never be able to find it without this guidance.

If you can just stumble upon these things you mentioned, they wouldnt be in deep space (unless your definition of deep space is very shallow). If they are far out, you would would not find them without beeing guided to them - because space, even in X series, is vast and a miniscule minority will be filled with things you can actually discover -> Chance of accidental discovery goes to 0. The 3rd dimension added compared to "world based" games is the main "problem" here.

It wouldn't be placed customizable, such unique missions would be procedurally generated (which most missions in Rebirth generally are), so Egosoft wouldn't be going crazy on new scripting as allot of what needs to be done is already in the game.
You fly into empty space, a percentage chance of the missions triggering if you long range scan a specific region of space.

OK, I'm afraid here you are missing the point somewhat, and kinda contradicting yourself: on the one hand you criticize some prior points because they would require tedious thorough examination of vast amounts of space; yet on the other hand you naysay other ideas because they would contract space. Relative motion of celestial bodies combined with vast space obviates both of those: the whole point of rare and remote sites that can be scanned by good fortune or located by following otherwise-acquired clues is that it is NOT about painstakingly scanning each cubic centimetre. In fact, making that an impossible task is a major point in all this, as the vastness of space is such that such a task would be unimaginably impractical. This is where that random generation comes into play - on a given "warp" (or whatever) between two points of significance, there could be an infinitesimally small chance of stumbling on something (adjusted upward by object's mass/volume/energy output) - consider, for example, flying through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter's orbits - the chances of actually hitting something are really really small (asteroid belts in Rebirth, and space games and sci-fi movies etc in general, are routinely depicted as being absurdly dense). However, if you have specialised surveying/exploration sensors, you then increase those odds into the realms of the possible in practical terms. IMPORTANT: The object need not exist in-game until such time as it is "discovered" - the act of observing it successfully causes it to come into existence, so to speak [Hmmm, could name the deep-space sensors the Schrodinger Searchlight, or Quantum Scanner, or something similar] - ie. a successful roll against the sensor's chance of success instantiates the location or the clue that initiates the trail to it. Would quartering every cubic foot of space increase the odds of finding something? Yes, but only insofar as it is leading to more sensor success checks to be rolled - the same effect could be achieved more easily by running up and down the same route and letting the "dice" get rerolled repeatedly (this ONLY makes sense in a dynamically moving universe, though, from a consistency point of view, as otherwise shit is just materialising where it wasn't five minutes ago "I've been driving on this road for 15 years, and never before was that tree there - it wasn't there when I came by this morning either! What's going on here?" Answer: booze! ) This would have the side-effect of not-yet-generated content not consuming system resources - it gets put into memory only when it has been discovered (which I'm sure is how a lot of even permanent content is being handled whenever possible, to conserve RAM.)

There are no absolutes in space, and there is no such thing as a truly "stationary" object - be it in so-called "outer" space or your bathroom cabinet - it is all relative to a particular frame of reference. Therefore, the method of "systematically" searching all of a game's space volume isn't really remotely realistic - it makes more sense to radiate the intensity of search/exploration activities as decaying probability curves radiating from landmarks/points of interest. This is even how such tasks are performed for real: a simple spiral search pattern is initiated usually at a point of highest probability (although sometimes dictated instead by convenience) and expands; every successive "whorl" is longer and thus each revolution takes longer - the farther you get from your landmark, the slower the searching goes. Sometimes the "landmark" is not a point, but a line - say, a road, for instance: if you are looking for derailed trains, you start your search AT the railway track, not 5 miles away. In a vast and mostly empty space, points of reference are even more important, because you don't have an environmental frame of reference. Anyhow, I'm digressing on a wild tangent here - when I started this part, I had some "very important" point to make - I have no idea what it may have been! hahahahah

So, time for me to go actually PLAY something! More fun...
Happy hunting!

I've watched enough Universe documentaries to know that Space is full of wonders and scary things that cause massive damage.

- Asteroid field showers (Causing great damage to stations/ships alike)
- Micro Asteroid shower (Like bullets that can decimate ships if you fly into them.)
- Balls of heated plasma coming from stars that can damage shields and systems of a ship.
- Black Holes.
- Mini Black Holes.
- Gravitational anomalies.
- Gas clouds that can be ignited causing massive explosions.

[UniTrader]

I can think of at least one way to make it more interesting: following clues, or a bread-crumb trail

which compacts the entire deep space thing tremendeously. Because suddenly you know where things are. You are not stumbling on this by accident or because you looked around, you are guided in on it, because you would never be able to find it without this guidance.

If you can just stumble upon these things you mentioned, they wouldnt be in deep space (unless your definition of deep space is very shallow). If they are far out, you would would not find them without beeing guided to them - because space, even in X series, is vast and a miniscule minority will be filled with things you can actually discover -> Chance of accidental discovery goes to 0. The 3rd dimension added compared to "world based" games is the main "problem" here.

It wouldn't be placed customizable, such unique missions would be procedurally generated (which most missions in Rebirth generally are), so Egosoft wouldn't be going crazy on new scripting as allot of what needs to be done is already in the game.
You fly into empty space, a percentage chance of the missions triggering if you long range scan a specific region of space.

so basically "fly in a random direction and you will eventually find something"? i dont like that approach. seems too pre-determined that you must find something eventually, even when you just fly straight without any logic or system behind it.
what about placing "Event Points" in the Sectors (randomly shuffled, but consistend within a Savegame), distributed in such a way that you are very unlikely to find any with random Scounting (each is at least 50km away from the closest sign of Civilisation, possibly even in the hundreds), BUT you can buy Sensor Drones which can be sent scouting in your looking Direction. They will give Feedback when they encounter something and then you can have a look yourself what they encountered. Also you can (and should) send off many of them simultaneously to cover a bigger Area/Volume in the same time. Also sucess is not pre-determined but depends on Luck and how good your Search System is. Also allows the Trading with Hints for hidden Stuff (either get Hints where to find Stuff or Trade the Findings of your Drones for a quick Buck if you dont want to spend the time looking after them)

[spankahontis]

I can think of at least one way to make it more interesting: following clues, or a bread-crumb trail

which compacts the entire deep space thing tremendeously. Because suddenly you know where things are. You are not stumbling on this by accident or because you looked around, you are guided in on it, because you would never be able to find it without this guidance.

If you can just stumble upon these things you mentioned, they wouldnt be in deep space (unless your definition of deep space is very shallow). If they are far out, you would would not find them without beeing guided to them - because space, even in X series, is vast and a miniscule minority will be filled with things you can actually discover -> Chance of accidental discovery goes to 0. The 3rd dimension added compared to "world based" games is the main "problem" here.

It wouldn't be placed customizable, such unique missions would be procedurally generated (which most missions in Rebirth generally are), so Egosoft wouldn't be going crazy on new scripting as allot of what needs to be done is already in the game.
You fly into empty space, a percentage chance of the missions triggering if you long range scan a specific region of space.

so basically "fly in a random direction and you will eventually find something"? i dont like that approach. seems too pre-determined that you must find something eventually, even when you just fly straight without any logic or system behind it.
what about placing "Event Points" in the Sectors (randomly shuffled, but consistend within a Savegame), distributed in such a way that you are very unlikely to find any with random Scounting (each is at least 50km away from the closest sign of Civilisation, possibly even in the hundreds), BUT you can buy Sensor Drones which can be sent scouting in your looking Direction. They will give Feedback when they encounter something and then you can have a look yourself what they encountered. Also you can (and should) send off many of them simultaneously to cover a bigger Area/Volume in the same time. Also sucess is not pre-determined but depends on Luck and how good your Search System is. Also allows the Trading with Hints for hidden Stuff (either get Hints where to find Stuff or Trade the Findings of your Drones for a quick Buck if you dont want to spend the time looking after them)

Can do, a placeholder that appears in every empty zone, a percentage chance to trigger an event?

Or better still only certain events trigger per sector.. A system rich in asteroids makes asteroid showers more frequent, unique missions like a damaged ship to rescue, explore, repair/claim?
I liked how you had unique missions in Toride like the distress calls and the Xenon Incursion.. Give Systems unique natural phenomenon and events; it gives each system it's unique personality and for each X Player will draw them to a particular favourite based on their play style?

In a system like DeVries, even markers that cause balls of plasma that can damage ships, like if a hacker ship deactivates capital ships.

Give space natural phenomena, beautiful, but lethal. Capable of shaking up the economy.

I like your idea of trading hints with NPC's.
Or go one further, you encounter NPC's on stations with secrets that can unlock unique missions, imagine the fun you could have if you come across an NPC at a bar who talks about a huge cache of treasure, do a number of random missions or take him along with you to find this treasure?
Or an NPC tells you of a mining complex that is looking for an able pilot to conduct a series of chain missions for a huge reward?
The number of ideas for new missions and more interactivity and roleplay on stations that would actually give you reasons to go on stations would be wide and exciting.

[Lord Crc]

Give space natural phenomena, beautiful, but lethal. Capable of shaking up the economy.

Indeed. The abundance of asteroids in the inner systems in Albion always seemed so off to me. Asteroid mining should be done in the outer systems, with the extra hazards that brings.

[UniTrader]

Can do, a placeholder that appears in every empty zone, a percentage chance to trigger an event?

Or better still only certain events trigger per sector.. A system rich in asteroids makes asteroid showers more frequent, unique missions like a damaged ship to rescue, explore, repair/claim?
I liked how you had unique missions in Toride like the distress calls and the Xenon Incursion.. Give Systems unique natural phenomenon and events; it gives each system it's unique personality and for each X Player will draw them to a particular favourite based on their play style?

you entirely missed my point. the Events should NOT be randomly triggered on Zone change in my opinion, because than it has nothing to do with Searching, but with triggering the Zone Change event as often as possible to find something. and on second thought this vaguely resembles a Skinner Box. here an explaination what that is and why its bad for Games

My Idea was to Place all Findables at the Beginning of a new Game somewhere in the Vast Universe, so systemetically searching makes sense. And because Space is Huge also give the Player the Tools he needs to find these Needles in the Haystack (like Metal Detectors) - because in Space the Haystack is far bigger than in a Game played on some kind of Surface.