Things that need to be automated:
1. If my bank account is over a set amount due to missions, put it into a ships / station fund so they can use this collective money in a BANK ACCOUNT like situation so i don't need to run around providing every damn station with cash and micro manage it.
2. Resupply... why is it taking to long to put this in...
- I lose a ship that a station needs for trade, stop asking me to make it, go ahead, you have this bank account to do that with.
- Ship insurance.. We had salvage insurance in X3, let's finally think that the universe isn't built around idiots and finally use such thing.
- My ship needs drones? why can't a captain go do this himself, why can't they spend the damn time looking around for this stuff and make themselves useful.
- Why don't my boarding marines restock, why do i need to restock missiles and everything else manually so damn often when i know i want X amount of each missile and X amount of marines at ALL times including my marine commander back straight away without a wait time.
= basically, let me set the limits to what the station should have in ships and what type, let me set the limit of drones for EACH SHIP TYPE... i don't need to go into a menu and ask every damn person to stock the same crap.
3. GUARDS
- If my trade ships are taking damage, allow me to make fleets of response units that will respond to this and jump in to try help, patrol the system, clear it of enemy even, stick around for a while in that system.
- If guard unit alpha is busy doing the above task, beta is called in to take the next guard detail and so on until i don't have any guard squads left and then if nothing is being attacked in the system or it's all clear, go back through to alpha again or the next unit that's ready to respond.
- I used to have laser towers placed around gates with a few ships in X3 to block a gate on the site where i wanted protected so these ships came through 1 by 1 and got killed before they bulked up again to attack in force, this was great and gate keepers are perfect for protecting sectors, why was this removed?
- PATROLS, why was this removed? we need them to cover more than one little tiny area, can i make them stay still or return to a position with a defend this area order? this is extremely needed for keeping zones safe.
- Enemies shouldn't be able to just randomly spawn in like they used to, they need to COME FROM SOMEWHERE and thus be able to be blocked from the whole system or a few sectors easily with such a blockade in place.
- Let me select multiple items for the ships to guard... yes that's right... not the same squad, not a fleet, let me set the ships / stations these ships need to guard in a grouping so instead of putting them in the same little boat and forcing them to stick with one tiny little squad, give me a list of places they can protect so i can select 5 stations for them to guard and patrol around maybe?
4. Stations...
- Why do i need to create 30-40 stations to get all the products in the world... why can't i make a mega self contained hub that doesn't require any trade ships to function at all? Mining ships maybe... but what if i could create a self contained station that does all the work, it's not unheard of as far as things could go and most base building games end up having a single source of income to buy everything needed into the same area.
- I'm totally going to say this once, egosoft's idea of deconstructing and reconstructing station areas in order to move them around is entirely stupid... It's space, things can move and i'm wondering why the hell it should take 2x longer to just move a thing instead of fly it through space to the new area... it seems stupid and silly in all sense to have such things be done. Why not just cutscene it breaking away from the station and just reverse such action towards the new part instantly without a time delay...
- Why can't stations manage themselves, i hire a manager in XR or in any other game have a station or station manager and they need me to babysit those stupid idiots even tho they have all the skill in the world to probably start their own station up... We need more automated things.
- Modular areas like in XR but more randomly generated, we know you guys sucked at making interiors somewhat but damn, a little randomisation with the modules of a station could of helped so much, specially if you added spawn points for npc's and the amount / types of npcs in the station and had it all on random.
5. AUTOMATE
- Yes, my capital ship is taking too much damage and they know they're going to blow up, can't i tell them to all start running at 50% health? can they be a little smarter than telling me they need help when i ordered them to go shoot at something...
- Can we finally get the same level of automation that the sims have where i can select how much of the universe i need to babysit or can i give it a few numbers, some check boxes and tell them to be grown ups.
- My ship is low on drones, yet there's no option in nearly any of your games to tell them to go get everything they need without questions? that's stupid and broken.
6. highways and gates
- One way streets in space seems pretty bad, you'd wonder who the hell invented such a thing.
- Why can't we make our own? yes that's right.... i want to cure stupidity of one way highways with... two way highways... OMG it's... a smart idea for once... I want to make a highway from my stations to the trade hubs, i want to create my stations away from the main grouping but still have a great and easy access to all of them without needing to boost for years.
- Why isn't there cap ship highways.... even the ability to create my own jump beacons, yes... using a ship as a jump beacon? that's unheard of... NOT... oh wait, that's one of those 90's jokes you put in XR that was pretty lame and heard so often i actually muted all the NPC's dialog.
7. NPC's
- Why do they stand still... yes, XR showed me enough of that crap... the really dodgy stations that were basically a jumble of modules that didn't even have random generation with them even tho they could of totally done such with how modular they were...
- Why are they so repetitive, why can't i speed through menu's without them taking up so much time, yes i want 60 marines from all the recruiters in the area...
8. Don't rush this game out
- Egosoft rushed out XR... it was a mess, people have continuously added mods to help improve things yet so many get ignored when they are so needed.
- Can we pre-order X4 now and start testing it ourselves? I'd love to actually test this game out even if it costs and be able to tell devs that the game is broken in XYZ area. Don't care if there's no missions and it's all freeplay but unlike all the other games, it's shown to work well when it's well tested in such a large universe.
Time for some bloody automation ALRIGHT?
Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum
Good post alot of it makes sense. Tho i just read the first section tbh.
More everyday life tasks as mentioned should have a sense of automation especially in late game form when you just cant micromanage so many things and u wished captains or station managers would deal with certain issues themselves, and the money share thing has iirc been a long requested feature.
More everyday life tasks as mentioned should have a sense of automation especially in late game form when you just cant micromanage so many things and u wished captains or station managers would deal with certain issues themselves, and the money share thing has iirc been a long requested feature.
Re: Time for some bloody automation ALRIGHT?
XR has a really big money limit. I currently have 7 billions in accaunt.wolvern wrote:1. If my bank account is over a set amount due to missions, put it into a ships / station fund so they can use this collective money in a BANK ACCOUNT like situation so i don't need to run around providing every damn station with cash and micro manage it.
You can simply dock to the captured ship and take your marines and boarding officer back. Also, stations automatically resupply itself with drones and missiles.wolvern wrote: Why don't my boarding marines restock, why do i need to restock missiles and everything else manually so damn often when i know i want X amount of each missile and X amount of marines at ALL times including my marine commander back straight away without a wait time.
You can build military installations in X4, it's confirmed.wolvern wrote: I used to have laser towers placed around gates with a few ships in X3 to block a gate on the site where i wanted protected so these ships came through 1 by 1 and got killed before they bulked up again to attack in force, this was great and gate keepers are perfect for protecting sectors, why was this removed?
You really dont read any information about X4, right? In X4 almost every ship in universe will be constructed (Xenon and pirate too).wolvern wrote: Enemies shouldn't be able to just randomly spawn in like they used to
In X4 you can build station of your own design, so you can place any set of production modules (in 10x10x10km cube)wolvern wrote:Why do i need to create 30-40 stations to get all the products in the world...
It's engine restrictions, I think. By the way, neither of X Universe game was affected by Newton physics.wolvern wrote:I'm totally going to say this once, egosoft's idea of deconstructing and reconstructing station areas in order to move them around is entirely stupid...
Why they can't manage themselves? In XR I have entire system of DeVries full with my stations (and some stations in main systems) - from basic refinery to drone and weapons - ant they work pretty fine. You just need some time to warm up economy.wolvern wrote:Why can't stations manage themselves
As I mentioned, there will be station designer.wolvern wrote:little randomisation with the modules of a station could of helped so much
In XR ship actually running away with certain percentrage of hull.wolvern wrote:can't i tell them to all start running at 50% health?
Highway system will be redesigned in X4 and will look much like in Home of Light, but bidirectional.wolvern wrote:One way streets in space seems pretty bad
Construction technology lost, I think.wolvern wrote:Why can't we make our own [highways]?
Capital ships will use at least superhighways in X4 (because they won't have jumpdrive).wolvern wrote:Why isn't there cap ship highways
I think, I answered some of your questions.
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Vandragorax
- Posts: 1183
- Joined: Fri, 13. Feb 04, 04:25
This thread started off ok then seemed to turn into a bit of a rant 
Let me address your points with the same numbering you used:
1) I agree that bank account stuff could be managed better with automation. Let us choose which station managers can take money from our accounts and automatically replenish ships or other assets that might get destroyed. However this would need to be done carefully, I wouldn't want one of my traders to constantly send trade ships into dangerous territory and, before I realise it, he has used up all of my money on building tons of new ships because they keep going out and getting blown up.
2) Resupply has been vastly improved in Rebirth already, if I am not mistaken we can tell a ship to always request a certain stock level of missiles and consumables so that when they dock in a player owned station they will automatically take the required ammo. Obviously having a player HQ will help a lot with this, as well as the fact that smaller ships docking with a capital ship would presumably be able to do the same thing with the 'mothership' carrying the stock of supplies needed for their escort fleet.
3) Guards can already be assigned in Rebirth so I'm not sure what your point is here. You can already tell ships to guard a zone or station or assets in a sector. I presume by patrols you mean being able to go between multiple zones within a sector in a loop? This could be very useful and I don't recall this being possible in Rebirth.
4) Being able to build a 'mega' station hub has already been confirmed to some degree, it will be possible to incorporate many different facilities within the same station, only limited by "plot" size. There were a lot of issues with performance from previous X games where stations got too big, though I feel these have been overcome somewhat by a better design with stations now being modular. Also for this point I feel you are complaining a little prematurely as we don't yet have many details revealed about stations and 'plots' besides what we got from 1 presentation so far. Hold your horses and see what happens in this regard
5) Yes there could be better options for ships to automatically replenish stocks of drones. See number 2) above as this is already done with regards to ammo/missiles so could definitely be improved.
6) It has already been confirmed that Capital ships can now use Highways. Also they are not a bad thing at all, I'm not sure why you hate them so much. They are a great way to get around within a cluster without a) needing a jump drive, and b) causing space to feel too small, because you will only use them now to get around major areas like a real life highway, but outlying areas will still exist, thus needing to explore and travel away from the highways quite often.
7 & 8 ) Now you're just getting into a list of things that you hate, this has nothing to do with automation of game mechanics lol
Let me address your points with the same numbering you used:
1) I agree that bank account stuff could be managed better with automation. Let us choose which station managers can take money from our accounts and automatically replenish ships or other assets that might get destroyed. However this would need to be done carefully, I wouldn't want one of my traders to constantly send trade ships into dangerous territory and, before I realise it, he has used up all of my money on building tons of new ships because they keep going out and getting blown up.
2) Resupply has been vastly improved in Rebirth already, if I am not mistaken we can tell a ship to always request a certain stock level of missiles and consumables so that when they dock in a player owned station they will automatically take the required ammo. Obviously having a player HQ will help a lot with this, as well as the fact that smaller ships docking with a capital ship would presumably be able to do the same thing with the 'mothership' carrying the stock of supplies needed for their escort fleet.
3) Guards can already be assigned in Rebirth so I'm not sure what your point is here. You can already tell ships to guard a zone or station or assets in a sector. I presume by patrols you mean being able to go between multiple zones within a sector in a loop? This could be very useful and I don't recall this being possible in Rebirth.
4) Being able to build a 'mega' station hub has already been confirmed to some degree, it will be possible to incorporate many different facilities within the same station, only limited by "plot" size. There were a lot of issues with performance from previous X games where stations got too big, though I feel these have been overcome somewhat by a better design with stations now being modular. Also for this point I feel you are complaining a little prematurely as we don't yet have many details revealed about stations and 'plots' besides what we got from 1 presentation so far. Hold your horses and see what happens in this regard
5) Yes there could be better options for ships to automatically replenish stocks of drones. See number 2) above as this is already done with regards to ammo/missiles so could definitely be improved.
6) It has already been confirmed that Capital ships can now use Highways. Also they are not a bad thing at all, I'm not sure why you hate them so much. They are a great way to get around within a cluster without a) needing a jump drive, and b) causing space to feel too small, because you will only use them now to get around major areas like a real life highway, but outlying areas will still exist, thus needing to explore and travel away from the highways quite often.
7 & 8 ) Now you're just getting into a list of things that you hate, this has nothing to do with automation of game mechanics lol
1)However this would need to be done carefully, I wouldn't want one of my traders to constantly send trade ships into dangerous territory and, before I realise it, he has used up all of my money on building tons of new ships because they keep going out and getting blown up.
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The way to solve this is to blacklist areas and as stated, have response teams that are sent to such areas to clear them as well as basically show you areas where blockades are needed, this is the reason i stated that.
XR removed our ability to mount any sort of effective blockade and also made cap ships kinda stupid because i've been having issues with them even trying to defend sectors at all even with 5 star everything, i have 10 ships patrolling a sector yet a stations main guns next to a jump beacon work 10x better than a ship thus reinforcing the idea to allow such laser towers back.
============
2) Resupply has been vastly improved in Rebirth already, if I am not mistaken we can tell a ship to always request a certain stock level of missiles and consumables so that when they dock in a player owned station they will automatically take the required ammo. Obviously having a player HQ will help a lot with this, as well as the fact that smaller ships docking with a capital ship would presumably be able to do the same thing with the 'mothership' carrying the stock of supplies needed for their escort fleet.
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They've not really helped fix anything with resupply as i've seen, the ideal of having 2 missiles to stock up and and X drones makes me think it's more so the stations defence items just due to every station uses the same defence turrets and otherwise. The resupply mod was awesome at allowing me to restock my ships using nearby stock of shipyards to refill drones and cargolifters at the same time... this helped a lot but should of been default... refuel / restock? same thing really.
Oddly enough, when i tell the mother ship to refuel, none of the ships following did so in XR which made me worry that they've dumbed
==============
3) Guards can already be assigned in Rebirth so I'm not sure what your point is here. You can already tell ships to guard a zone or station or assets in a sector. I presume by patrols you mean being able to go between multiple zones within a sector in a loop? This could be very useful and I don't recall this being possible in Rebirth.
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These guards you speak of are single to every ship and thus make them useless and clunky because they actually don't keep up with the ship they're trying to guard and as such they'll be too late to any party as egosoft did another bad design flaw with not making ships form up and move together. You'll find with 10-20 ships, even down with 2-3 that they just head out randomly and don't fly in any pattern whatsoever. Also yes patrols weren't really possible in rebirth, it was funny how little work went into the combat menu. X3 had more and even a mod to declare zones off limits which for some strange reason wasn't brought into the loop for the new X games....
================
4) Being able to build a 'mega' station hub has already been confirmed to some degree, it will be possible to incorporate many different facilities within the same station, only limited by "plot" size. There were a lot of issues with performance from previous X games where stations got too big, though I feel these have been overcome somewhat by a better design with stations now being modular. Also for this point I feel you are complaining a little prematurely as we don't yet have many details revealed about stations and 'plots' besides what we got from 1 presentation so far. Hold your horses and see what happens in this regard
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Computers upgrade and i don't know how clunky it all got because my pc has been pretty good with things but i can assure you that 1 single large station that's all self contained could do more good than 20 in one sector since 3-4 ships could sell nearly all the wares in the station and send them out to many sectors at a time than having 2-3 trade ships per station with managing docking and otherwise at all times. Thinking about all the moving parts, you'd think that 1 large station would remove the huge bulk of those extra ships needed to run the station if most of it was made at that station and even so, the station could be somewhat connected with pipe over long ranges to keep it all in one.
==============
5) Yes there could be better options for ships to automatically replenish stocks of drones. See number 2) above as this is already done with regards to ammo/missiles so could definitely be improved.
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I know of this but yeah, it hasn't for a few games to the point that's needed and it just seems things are going a little backwards with how menus are.
======================
6) It has already been confirmed that Capital ships can now use Highways. Also they are not a bad thing at all, I'm not sure why you hate them so much. They are a great way to get around within a cluster without a) needing a jump drive, and b) causing space to feel too small, because you will only use them now to get around major areas like a real life highway, but outlying areas will still exist, thus needing to explore and travel away from the highways quite often.
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i'm more so saying that we need to build our own and i hate that they made so many one way highways, freelancer showed us how to do it right.
===========
7 & 8 ) Now you're just getting into a list of things that you hate, this has nothing to do with automation of game mechanics lol
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you really don't know how XR came out so buggy then? they didn't test it correctly, they were testing it only with the universe sped up and didn't do any real testing, it was rushed to all hell on that part.
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The way to solve this is to blacklist areas and as stated, have response teams that are sent to such areas to clear them as well as basically show you areas where blockades are needed, this is the reason i stated that.
XR removed our ability to mount any sort of effective blockade and also made cap ships kinda stupid because i've been having issues with them even trying to defend sectors at all even with 5 star everything, i have 10 ships patrolling a sector yet a stations main guns next to a jump beacon work 10x better than a ship thus reinforcing the idea to allow such laser towers back.
============
2) Resupply has been vastly improved in Rebirth already, if I am not mistaken we can tell a ship to always request a certain stock level of missiles and consumables so that when they dock in a player owned station they will automatically take the required ammo. Obviously having a player HQ will help a lot with this, as well as the fact that smaller ships docking with a capital ship would presumably be able to do the same thing with the 'mothership' carrying the stock of supplies needed for their escort fleet.
----------------------------
They've not really helped fix anything with resupply as i've seen, the ideal of having 2 missiles to stock up and and X drones makes me think it's more so the stations defence items just due to every station uses the same defence turrets and otherwise. The resupply mod was awesome at allowing me to restock my ships using nearby stock of shipyards to refill drones and cargolifters at the same time... this helped a lot but should of been default... refuel / restock? same thing really.
Oddly enough, when i tell the mother ship to refuel, none of the ships following did so in XR which made me worry that they've dumbed
==============
3) Guards can already be assigned in Rebirth so I'm not sure what your point is here. You can already tell ships to guard a zone or station or assets in a sector. I presume by patrols you mean being able to go between multiple zones within a sector in a loop? This could be very useful and I don't recall this being possible in Rebirth.
--------------
These guards you speak of are single to every ship and thus make them useless and clunky because they actually don't keep up with the ship they're trying to guard and as such they'll be too late to any party as egosoft did another bad design flaw with not making ships form up and move together. You'll find with 10-20 ships, even down with 2-3 that they just head out randomly and don't fly in any pattern whatsoever. Also yes patrols weren't really possible in rebirth, it was funny how little work went into the combat menu. X3 had more and even a mod to declare zones off limits which for some strange reason wasn't brought into the loop for the new X games....
================
4) Being able to build a 'mega' station hub has already been confirmed to some degree, it will be possible to incorporate many different facilities within the same station, only limited by "plot" size. There were a lot of issues with performance from previous X games where stations got too big, though I feel these have been overcome somewhat by a better design with stations now being modular. Also for this point I feel you are complaining a little prematurely as we don't yet have many details revealed about stations and 'plots' besides what we got from 1 presentation so far. Hold your horses and see what happens in this regard
-----------
Computers upgrade and i don't know how clunky it all got because my pc has been pretty good with things but i can assure you that 1 single large station that's all self contained could do more good than 20 in one sector since 3-4 ships could sell nearly all the wares in the station and send them out to many sectors at a time than having 2-3 trade ships per station with managing docking and otherwise at all times. Thinking about all the moving parts, you'd think that 1 large station would remove the huge bulk of those extra ships needed to run the station if most of it was made at that station and even so, the station could be somewhat connected with pipe over long ranges to keep it all in one.
==============
5) Yes there could be better options for ships to automatically replenish stocks of drones. See number 2) above as this is already done with regards to ammo/missiles so could definitely be improved.
-----------
I know of this but yeah, it hasn't for a few games to the point that's needed and it just seems things are going a little backwards with how menus are.
======================
6) It has already been confirmed that Capital ships can now use Highways. Also they are not a bad thing at all, I'm not sure why you hate them so much. They are a great way to get around within a cluster without a) needing a jump drive, and b) causing space to feel too small, because you will only use them now to get around major areas like a real life highway, but outlying areas will still exist, thus needing to explore and travel away from the highways quite often.
-----------------
i'm more so saying that we need to build our own and i hate that they made so many one way highways, freelancer showed us how to do it right.
===========
7 & 8 ) Now you're just getting into a list of things that you hate, this has nothing to do with automation of game mechanics lol
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you really don't know how XR came out so buggy then? they didn't test it correctly, they were testing it only with the universe sped up and didn't do any real testing, it was rushed to all hell on that part.
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Alan Phipps
- Moderator (English)
- Posts: 30431
- Joined: Fri, 16. Apr 04, 19:21
"they didn't test it [XR] correctly, they were testing it only with the universe sped up and didn't do any real testing"
They (the beta testers both private and public) might strongly disagree but that really has nothing to do with the thread topic of in-game automation. I would strongly recommend that everybody stays on-topic or this thread will get derailed and lost.
They (the beta testers both private and public) might strongly disagree but that really has nothing to do with the thread topic of in-game automation. I would strongly recommend that everybody stays on-topic or this thread will get derailed and lost.
A dog has a master; a cat has domestic staff.
Re: Time for some bloody automation ALRIGHT?
Some more automation would be nice.
Too much automation could also kill the game.
If we want to have all automatic, we just watch a movie.
btw and for example, automatic refuel of Marines is rally not the sort of thing I would be found of. Marines should never become an expandable. Now, as long as I'm still allowed to hire them manually !
If we want to have all automatic, we just watch a movie.
btw and for example, automatic refuel of Marines is rally not the sort of thing I would be found of. Marines should never become an expandable. Now, as long as I'm still allowed to hire them manually !
![[ external image ]](http://i.imgur.com/ByxGjz7.jpg){kind=link}
My experience is limited to X3TC and AP. I am naturally inclined to say "But, that was in X3TC" or "you could do that in X3TC if you did this and this and this, sort of..."
I want some "natural" automation in X4, much like was done with X3TC.
However, what I want more is not some "canned" automation process the game "does for me" that will eventually end up being NOT what I wanted it to do!
We don't need any more embedded "automagical" asset behavior thingies. That's not what X4 needs.
I don't want ships to automatically call for help when they're fired upon, only to have the tiny fleet I was building respond to an empty, old, merchant ship being pounded in the thruster by a Xenon Migration event.
NO!
How many crazy automagic behaviors result in a player's ships becoming scrap metal and their pilots ending up as paint for the nearby TL that just jumped into the sector or target practice for the Xenon Q that suddenly took an interest?
Instead, what I want are deep tools to work with to construct my own automation schemes. I want "logic fiddly bits" to piece together, a multitude of behavior options, command sets that can be tweaked and stored and the ability to change and improve whatever I, myself, as the "game player", construct with the sandbox that Egosoft gives me.
I want a full Construction Set of commands and behaviors that I can use to "make things do stuffs I wants them to dooos."
GIANT EXPLODEY TORPEDOES
If I want a Battleship to deliver a bouquet of roses taped to the nose of a GIANT EXPLODEY TORPEDO to the nearest Pirate Station on the first of every month, then I want to be able to make that happen.
And, if I want to resupply GIANT EXPLODEY TORPEDOES to that Battleship, complete with taped on roses, using "Space Taxis" smuggling them through interdicted space, then I want to be able to make that happen.
If I want to grow special bouquets of roses to be taped to GIANT EXPLODEY TORPEDOES and I want that production delivered on-time and stocks to be refreshed on-time, but maybe from a different source or, perhaps, a trader gets assigned to buy them in case my own production is too slow, and that trader may need an escort through a couple of sectors, but won't need it for others, then I want to be able to make that happen. Twice. Three times. Forever.
I want to deliver GIANT EXPLODEY TORPEDOES, complete with a suitable bouquet of roses (perhaps with an attached condolences card), in an efficient, yet flexible, manner, to the appropriate person or place of interest at the time. Or at any time. Twice.
I want to be able to do this by successfully linking behaviors, conditions, inventory, stocks, logistics, locations, ships, pilots and all the other critical fiddly bits together into one comprehensible set of behavior and logic instructions for any game asset I can fiddle with, from one ship or station to an entire fleet of Special Delivery GIANT EXPLODEY TORPEDO ships...
With roses. And, a nice card.
So, I have to say this:
Canned, inflexible, behaviors, beyond the most basic, are not what I want to see. Instead, I want the scripts and logic tools necessary to create my own behaviors for my assets.
Any X-game player who's played long enough has experienced the "why the heck did you do that you stupid, crazy, fool" moment when watching one of their assets doing something it's not "supposed" to do. Well, when that happens, players who successfully figure it out or come to the forums eventually learn one immutable truth - Your ships do exactly what you told them to do.
I want to reduce the impact of the "unknown" behaviors and scripting problems of the past by Egosoft developing a firm, easily comprehensible, framework of basic behaviors and then giving us the tools so we can, on our own, build as complex of a set of instructions as we feel we need at the time.
X3TC had everything necessary to automate just about anything one could think of. As the player-base developed, more complex behaviors were desired and some pitfalls to others were discovered. OK, fine, that's to be expected and the community eventually figured out how to work around certain issues, especially when people figured out what the scripts actually did.
The solution: Expand upon those basic X3TC scripts to include a few additional behaviors and game-mechanic convenience capabilities, which have been discussed ad infinitum on the X3 boards, as well as a limited selection of "logic" commands that allow for the asset running the final command script to cope with certain conditions, automatically. In other words - Give us the ability to automatically trigger secondary additional scripts to run on an asset and a set of conditions in which these scripts will supercede other behaviors. That's already in X3TC, in the form of UT and other ship behaviors, but I want the player to be able to customize nested behaviors, conditional scripts, etc.
Note: I understand that many assets all checking for triggers for addtitional player customized scripts might get a little hairy. OK, fine, we're not dealing with Star Trek computer tech, here. All I really want is to be more able to fully, as much as can be realistically done, customize asset behaviors, expanding upon the deep scripting structure of X3TC/AP.
PS - For the OP: In X3TC/AP, you are the one that is supposed to be figuring out how to automate everything or as much as you can. That's part of the game and you can't progress very far in it without learning how to do that. What we really need to do is to take it to the next level in X4 by giving the player additional tools to use to develop their own behavior scripts. We need it in a friendly format, since X3's UI was terribly clunky, and we need it to be easily comprehensible, but very flexible and efficient. That's hard to do, but I think Egosoft can do it. Then, you can have everything you mentioned in your post, without any canned, static, must-do-always, self-destructive and frustrating, scripted behaviors that can't be altered by the player, only "witnessed."
I want some "natural" automation in X4, much like was done with X3TC.
However, what I want more is not some "canned" automation process the game "does for me" that will eventually end up being NOT what I wanted it to do!
We don't need any more embedded "automagical" asset behavior thingies. That's not what X4 needs.
I don't want ships to automatically call for help when they're fired upon, only to have the tiny fleet I was building respond to an empty, old, merchant ship being pounded in the thruster by a Xenon Migration event.
NO!
How many crazy automagic behaviors result in a player's ships becoming scrap metal and their pilots ending up as paint for the nearby TL that just jumped into the sector or target practice for the Xenon Q that suddenly took an interest?
Instead, what I want are deep tools to work with to construct my own automation schemes. I want "logic fiddly bits" to piece together, a multitude of behavior options, command sets that can be tweaked and stored and the ability to change and improve whatever I, myself, as the "game player", construct with the sandbox that Egosoft gives me.
I want a full Construction Set of commands and behaviors that I can use to "make things do stuffs I wants them to dooos."
GIANT EXPLODEY TORPEDOES
If I want a Battleship to deliver a bouquet of roses taped to the nose of a GIANT EXPLODEY TORPEDO to the nearest Pirate Station on the first of every month, then I want to be able to make that happen.
And, if I want to resupply GIANT EXPLODEY TORPEDOES to that Battleship, complete with taped on roses, using "Space Taxis" smuggling them through interdicted space, then I want to be able to make that happen.
If I want to grow special bouquets of roses to be taped to GIANT EXPLODEY TORPEDOES and I want that production delivered on-time and stocks to be refreshed on-time, but maybe from a different source or, perhaps, a trader gets assigned to buy them in case my own production is too slow, and that trader may need an escort through a couple of sectors, but won't need it for others, then I want to be able to make that happen. Twice. Three times. Forever.
I want to deliver GIANT EXPLODEY TORPEDOES, complete with a suitable bouquet of roses (perhaps with an attached condolences card), in an efficient, yet flexible, manner, to the appropriate person or place of interest at the time. Or at any time. Twice.
I want to be able to do this by successfully linking behaviors, conditions, inventory, stocks, logistics, locations, ships, pilots and all the other critical fiddly bits together into one comprehensible set of behavior and logic instructions for any game asset I can fiddle with, from one ship or station to an entire fleet of Special Delivery GIANT EXPLODEY TORPEDO ships...
With roses. And, a nice card.
So, I have to say this:
Canned, inflexible, behaviors, beyond the most basic, are not what I want to see. Instead, I want the scripts and logic tools necessary to create my own behaviors for my assets.
Any X-game player who's played long enough has experienced the "why the heck did you do that you stupid, crazy, fool" moment when watching one of their assets doing something it's not "supposed" to do. Well, when that happens, players who successfully figure it out or come to the forums eventually learn one immutable truth - Your ships do exactly what you told them to do.
I want to reduce the impact of the "unknown" behaviors and scripting problems of the past by Egosoft developing a firm, easily comprehensible, framework of basic behaviors and then giving us the tools so we can, on our own, build as complex of a set of instructions as we feel we need at the time.
X3TC had everything necessary to automate just about anything one could think of. As the player-base developed, more complex behaviors were desired and some pitfalls to others were discovered. OK, fine, that's to be expected and the community eventually figured out how to work around certain issues, especially when people figured out what the scripts actually did.
The solution: Expand upon those basic X3TC scripts to include a few additional behaviors and game-mechanic convenience capabilities, which have been discussed ad infinitum on the X3 boards, as well as a limited selection of "logic" commands that allow for the asset running the final command script to cope with certain conditions, automatically. In other words - Give us the ability to automatically trigger secondary additional scripts to run on an asset and a set of conditions in which these scripts will supercede other behaviors. That's already in X3TC, in the form of UT and other ship behaviors, but I want the player to be able to customize nested behaviors, conditional scripts, etc.
Note: I understand that many assets all checking for triggers for addtitional player customized scripts might get a little hairy. OK, fine, we're not dealing with Star Trek computer tech, here. All I really want is to be more able to fully, as much as can be realistically done, customize asset behaviors, expanding upon the deep scripting structure of X3TC/AP.
PS - For the OP: In X3TC/AP, you are the one that is supposed to be figuring out how to automate everything or as much as you can. That's part of the game and you can't progress very far in it without learning how to do that. What we really need to do is to take it to the next level in X4 by giving the player additional tools to use to develop their own behavior scripts. We need it in a friendly format, since X3's UI was terribly clunky, and we need it to be easily comprehensible, but very flexible and efficient. That's hard to do, but I think Egosoft can do it. Then, you can have everything you mentioned in your post, without any canned, static, must-do-always, self-destructive and frustrating, scripted behaviors that can't be altered by the player, only "witnessed."
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RAVEN.myst
- Posts: 2585
- Joined: Mon, 20. Jun 11, 13:16
I'd like to endorse a qualified version: PLAYER-CONFIGURABLE automation is what I think many of us want. Rebirth brought too much "black box" automation that the player has no control over - station managers are among my main bugbears in this regard: they make all manner of decisions, but we can't adjust settings such as what ships handle which wares, what ship classes operate at what trading ranges, at what stock levels are products sold off or resources bought up, and so forth. This is the wrong sort of automation, in my opinion. The "correct" automation is that where the player gets to pre-define a behaviour model: in addition to fixes for the above, also say, for instance, warship level of damage tolerance before withdrawal, and another before actively seeking repairs; default engagement ranges; policies for servicing/repairs of fighters attached to a carrier or station, as well as policies regarding active usage of damaged fighters; and so forth. There are many many many many many many many many many many many many...well, you get the idea - MANY aspects that can benefit from player-tunable automation. I think EgoSoft need to first look at the design philosophy behind the CAG and CLS scripts in previous Xs as a source of inspiration to address a large portion of the economic inadequacies, and after that extend that way of thinking to other aspects of the game.
EDIT: OMG, ninjad by Morkonan with pretty much the same sentiment. Again.
And lots of :lol:s at the giant rose-bearing torpedoes!
EDIT: OMG, ninjad by Morkonan with pretty much the same sentiment. Again.
And lots of :lol:s at the giant rose-bearing torpedoes!
Last edited by RAVEN.myst on Tue, 10. Oct 17, 06:07, edited 3 times in total.
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Boron passenger: "You must hurry - my testicles are drying out!"
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Born on Lave, raised on Freeport 7...
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The Write Stuff
Boron passenger: "You must hurry - my testicles are drying out!"
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Born on Lave, raised on Freeport 7...
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The Write Stuff
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Sandalpocalypse
- Posts: 4447
- Joined: Tue, 2. Dec 03, 22:28
AUtomating basic play tasks makes it a simulation. Simulations can be fun but they often arn't really even games.mr.WHO wrote:Not really. You just automate boring and repetetive task, so you can focus on what you like. That how sandbox suppose to work.Kitty wrote:Too much automation could also kill the game.
If we want to have all automatic, we just watch a movie.
Take automatic universe traders in x3. They don't provide any gameplay. You arn't involved in trades. There's no strategy involved like there is with stations. In fact they remove gameplay by focusing on Good Trades across the whole universe, *removing the best trades from the activities the player can do*. They are just a way to make your account number go higher.
Irrational factors are clearly at work.
As said, best thing would be a sims style system where you could limit the automation based on preferences. Going through a tonne of menu's for every ship is a pain in the butt tho... They need some sort of grouping policy or such.Kitty wrote:Too much automation could also kill the game.
If we want to have all automatic, we just watch a movie.
btw and for example, automatic refuel of Marines is rally not the sort of thing I would be found of. Marines should never become an expandable. Now, as long as I'm still allowed to hire them manually !
My experience is limited to X3TC and AP. I am naturally inclined to say "But, that was in X3TC" or "you could do that in X3TC if you did this and this and this, sort of..."
I want some "natural" automation in X4, much like was done with X3TC.
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Factorio does well with automation and so does modded minecraft while making it extremely complex and fun... It allows me to spend 10+ hours automating something because it's not just menu automation but built automation where i need to program pathing, set up channels and groupings, also have item limitations and filters. This is what makes it fun, being able to automate something and when trash enters the automation process, figuring out what went wrong and finding out that little issue to solve. We all know the X series automation has been lacking for years from what i feel and i guess many others?
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However, what I want more is not some "canned" automation process the game "does for me" that will eventually end up being NOT what I wanted it to do!
We don't need any more embedded "automagical" asset behavior thingies. That's not what X4 needs.
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No it doesn't need canned stuff, as said, factorio and other games like big pharma or such give you a challenge at management of routes and also where everything goes, filters and all.
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I don't want ships to automatically call for help when they're fired upon, only to have the tiny fleet I was building respond to an empty, old, merchant ship being pounded in the thruster by a Xenon Migration event.
NO!
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This could be managed easily by having certain ships under WATCH as such, having the squads respond to specific fleets of ships, ships patrolling certain regions could respond first. The empty old merchant ship gives me an amazing idea... upkeep, ships don't age and it seems they should, engines should fail time to time and problems should appear. I would welcome adding a fund cut from stations for their maintenance on ships.
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How many crazy automagic behaviors result in a player's ships becoming scrap metal and their pilots ending up as paint for the nearby TL that just jumped into the sector or target practice for the Xenon Q that suddenly took an interest?
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This is why blockades would be good, the laser towers for sector control so basically all the defence you put in place if you're going to set up a large operation, it's best to set up protection.
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Instead, what I want are deep tools to work with to construct my own automation schemes. I want "logic fiddly bits" to piece together, a multitude of behavior options, command sets that can be tweaked and stored and the ability to change and improve whatever I, myself, as the "game player", construct with the sandbox that Egosoft gives me.
I want a full Construction Set of commands and behaviors that I can use to "make things do stuffs I wants them to dooos."
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As mentioned factorio and other games do this really well and the tools are exactly what i'm asking for as well.
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I want some "natural" automation in X4, much like was done with X3TC.
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Factorio does well with automation and so does modded minecraft while making it extremely complex and fun... It allows me to spend 10+ hours automating something because it's not just menu automation but built automation where i need to program pathing, set up channels and groupings, also have item limitations and filters. This is what makes it fun, being able to automate something and when trash enters the automation process, figuring out what went wrong and finding out that little issue to solve. We all know the X series automation has been lacking for years from what i feel and i guess many others?
==========
However, what I want more is not some "canned" automation process the game "does for me" that will eventually end up being NOT what I wanted it to do!
We don't need any more embedded "automagical" asset behavior thingies. That's not what X4 needs.
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No it doesn't need canned stuff, as said, factorio and other games like big pharma or such give you a challenge at management of routes and also where everything goes, filters and all.
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I don't want ships to automatically call for help when they're fired upon, only to have the tiny fleet I was building respond to an empty, old, merchant ship being pounded in the thruster by a Xenon Migration event.
NO!
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This could be managed easily by having certain ships under WATCH as such, having the squads respond to specific fleets of ships, ships patrolling certain regions could respond first. The empty old merchant ship gives me an amazing idea... upkeep, ships don't age and it seems they should, engines should fail time to time and problems should appear. I would welcome adding a fund cut from stations for their maintenance on ships.
==========
How many crazy automagic behaviors result in a player's ships becoming scrap metal and their pilots ending up as paint for the nearby TL that just jumped into the sector or target practice for the Xenon Q that suddenly took an interest?
-------------------
This is why blockades would be good, the laser towers for sector control so basically all the defence you put in place if you're going to set up a large operation, it's best to set up protection.
==============
Instead, what I want are deep tools to work with to construct my own automation schemes. I want "logic fiddly bits" to piece together, a multitude of behavior options, command sets that can be tweaked and stored and the ability to change and improve whatever I, myself, as the "game player", construct with the sandbox that Egosoft gives me.
I want a full Construction Set of commands and behaviors that I can use to "make things do stuffs I wants them to dooos."
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As mentioned factorio and other games do this really well and the tools are exactly what i'm asking for as well.
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BigBANGtheory
- Posts: 3168
- Joined: Sun, 23. Oct 05, 12:13
I think the trick to making automation a success is assigning these features to NPC abilities which the player can hire or not at their discretion. One player might for example want an automated trading empire so they can focus on combat or strategic gameplay where as another player may want to automate the defenses of their company assets as they go off and engage with trading themselves.
Any task that is repative is a good candidate for automatic but it doesn't mean everyone universally wants it in their gameplay experience. Somehow you need a layer that separates the feature from the gameplay with the player actions bridging the two.
Then of course you have QoL automation where the game logic and interface is doing tedious and unnecessary work for you. I think ES mentioned we will be getting ship templates which is a good example. This area just has to be play tested and predicted as part of the game design.
Any task that is repative is a good candidate for automatic but it doesn't mean everyone universally wants it in their gameplay experience. Somehow you need a layer that separates the feature from the gameplay with the player actions bridging the two.
Then of course you have QoL automation where the game logic and interface is doing tedious and unnecessary work for you. I think ES mentioned we will be getting ship templates which is a good example. This area just has to be play tested and predicted as part of the game design.
You're right with this, as with x rebirth they allow you to hire managers and architects but also allow you to tell them if you want to manage it yourself or for them to do it... as such there's also a mid ground where they can manage themselves but you can still help them along but this isn't really useful since you still need to micro manage pathways that ships should take to bypass hostile systems.BigBANGtheory wrote:I think the trick to making automation a success is assigning these features to NPC abilities which the player can hire or not at their discretion. One player might for example want an automated trading empire so they can focus on combat or strategic gameplay where as another player may want to automate the defenses of their company assets as they go off and engage with trading themselves.
Any task that is repative is a good candidate for automatic but it doesn't mean everyone universally wants it in their gameplay experience. Somehow you need a layer that separates the feature from the gameplay with the player actions bridging the two.
Then of course you have QoL automation where the game logic and interface is doing tedious and unnecessary work for you. I think ES mentioned we will be getting ship templates which is a good example. This area just has to be play tested and predicted as part of the game design.
I never found the free trading option for my ships which should be a thing.. but i've not seen anything that allows my 20+ extra cap ships to trade openly like that.
Yes.wolvern wrote:As said, best thing would be a sims style system where you could limit the automation based on preferences. Going through a tonne of menu's for every ship is a pain in the butt tho... They need some sort of grouping policy or such.Kitty wrote:Too much automation could also kill the game.
If we want to have all automatic, we just watch a movie.
btw and for example, automatic refuel of Marines is rally not the sort of thing I would be found of. Marines should never become an expandable. Now, as long as I'm still allowed to hire them manually !
I would add that, like in previous games, automations should have a cost (SW cost, pilot fees, etc), and not using them should be rewarded. That is to say, the average automation should not be too good.