Will there be fake traffic in highways?

[Falcrack]

You know, traffic that only spawns into existence the moment you enter a highway, and disappears when you leave it. I hope not. That was a big thing about Rebirth that bugged me. That, and the fact that in the highways, your ship always seemed to go faster than others, so it was a constant game of bumper cars trying to avoid other ships in the highway.

Egosoft, I hope you don't try and force the same bumper car minigame on us for X4!

[Sandalpocalypse]

You dont have to go full throttle in the highway :^)

[Rice]

no full throttle? well lets speed up the universe instead, can i have Sinza in highways?

[ezra-r]

Hope they remove everything fake, I wouldn'tt want to see ships that actually don't exist or serve a purpose in a highway or anywhere else.

It will feel more natural if less used highways have less traffic and so on, more inmersive. Like when you leave the city and get to smaller villages or towns. We must feel the difference.

So burn the fake! burn it!

[dez505]

Always liked the idea of the small civ craft moving very small amounts of stuff to local stations, You know useful stuff

[mr.WHO]

I hate small traffic because it doesn't do any thing useful (at least I didn't onticed) but they eat frame rates in more busy sectors.

IMO mass traffic can go to trash.

[dez505]

I hate small traffic because it doesn't do any thing useful (at least I didn't onticed) but they eat frame rates in more busy sectors.

IMO mass traffic can go to trash.

+1 for the option to turn it off

[spankahontis]

I would love to see actual Car Factories that make these tiny civilian vehicles. Like your Volkswagon, Chevrolet, BMW etc. of Space.

Once made they fly from station to station via the Highway.

[DaMuncha]

The traffic around the station was good and made it seem city like. But the traffic in highways really pissed me off, In a highway where your supposed to go fast, you heave lots of randomly spawned grandmas in space driving miss daisy in front of you, you try to accelerate and just crash into every single one of them. I hate it.

[monster.zero]

Yes... Something is REALLY wrong with the size/area of the highway system....They feel 100 meters wide.

A Highway system IN SPACE! should be kilometers wide...thousands of 'lanes' should be very difficult to rear end some one. Room for million of space ships....of course it wouldn't be a mini game if they changed it.

[Rei Ayanami]

I would love to see actual Car Factories that make these tiny civilian vehicles. Like your Volkswagon, Chevrolet, BMW etc. of Space.
Once made they fly from station to station via the Highway.

However, making it like that would require even more persistent ships to be calculated all the time, even when you are not in their zone.

The advantage of the fake ships, both in the highways aswell as the small ships around stations, is that they only exist while you are in the same zone/highway and, as far as i can guess, if you move far away to a different zone they get removed and won't have to be calculated anymore.

Personally, i like the small ships around stations, it gives the stations a much busier atmosphere, they are objectives for some missions and thus serve a purpose and provide nice target practice for testing weapon mods. As for the fake ships in highways, i don't mind them, however i think it would be less immersion-breaking if they only get generated while you are sufficiently far away from the beginning and exit of the highway so you'll have less encounters with sudden spawns/sudden despawns at the start/exit of a highway.

[caleb]

....of course it wouldn't be a mini game if they changed it.

Oh, I can live just fine without that "mini-game". Certainly did not add much to the game. So I'm all for your 100Km wide highways.

[ezra-r]

Not exactly the same thing, but...

I'd like if they did the same with people at stations, for example, no fake filling them up, merchants would go and live in stations where there is demand for their products, even player stations.

So new stations start up empty, transports come or there is certain demand in the area and they start coming.

Some could also go trying to open a market and fail or success which would attract or detract those of the same type or similar depending of the rate of success.

Player could file demands for certain types of traders if necessary which can stay or leave depending on their success selling.

All for a lively and attractive dynamics universe.

[rulerofallcheese]

Hope they remove everything fake, I wouldn'tt want to see ships that actually don't exist or serve a purpose in a highway or anywhere else.

It will feel more natural if less used highways have less traffic and so on, more inmersive. Like when you leave the city and get to smaller villages or towns. We must feel the difference.

So burn the fake! burn it!

One thing that shattered my immersion in X Rebirth was how mass traffic was implemented. There was a config file multiplier that controlled how many fake/mass traffic ships would be spawned. And to top it all off, they often spawned carrying "wares" that literally weren't produced in any station in the game and were just there for fun.

Now I know that it's been beaten to death that in X4, everything will be built from real economic resources. But this claim is can **never be true** unless mass traffic is re-implemented as well. Obviously, all those ships can't have fuill-fledged ai or the game would be too taxing to run on any level of PC hardware. However, they should at least have some drain on a station's resources when they spawn.

That being said, as long as all "real" ships come aren't faked that would be a huge step in the right direction. If corners need to be cut somewhere, then the mass traffic can stay as-is and I'll just keep on disabling it myself in the configs.

[dctrjons]

^^^^

"For the the first time ever the universe will be entirely supply, demand, resource driven"

This is how i thought Rebirth was advertised. But when i played my first hour or so, went to a station and saw the traffic going through ?docking? I knew they were filler. I may have seen that slider too as proof.

I'm going to buy into it this time, and I 100% believe with in a week players are going to find a way to destroy the game in some way(s) via this new economy...and I'm ok with that. I think it will be near impossible to get it right out of the gate before you have 10,000 testers with their stupid/ingenious exploits. And something will have to be patched bunches. Again...I'm ok with that because to me it means they stayed true.

I think the idea is...who is God now? Before it was essentially a replacement driven engine rather than a goal driven one...leasst far as i could tell. An overseer to replacing damage to the universe. Go on a murderous taxi killing rampage, the God engine would just replace them...as i understood it.

Now as i understand it, replacements will be factionally motivated...which would then beg the question...would there be a civilian AI in charge of buying ships and hiring (spawing) pilots for the jobs that dont "do" anything? If the player would decide to kill all civilian Novas....would the availability of them change because the civilian AI tries buying and replacing them?

Curious how base level the AI will be. From simply a imaginary immortal faction "boss" that makes expasion / replacement descisions. To the insane idea that every pilot has their own motivat ion , bankroll, income, and is tracked and killable, to be replaced by some population generator.

To me, the range in complexity of how far the AI goes will drive how and if civilian traffic exits. It almost would seem to me it would have to be a separate faction for just filler....since most players are unlikely to interact very deep with civvies.

[Crimsonraziel]

Curious how base level the AI will be. From simply a imaginary immortal faction "boss" that makes expasion / replacement descisions. To the insane idea that every pilot has their own motivat ion , bankroll, income, and is tracked and killable, to be replaced by some population generator.

Is there any indication for the latter?

[spankahontis]

Hope they remove everything fake, I wouldn'tt want to see ships that actually don't exist or serve a purpose in a highway or anywhere else.

It will feel more natural if less used highways have less traffic and so on, more inmersive. Like when you leave the city and get to smaller villages or towns. We must feel the difference.

So burn the fake! burn it!

But Highways are just that, highways.
Getting rid of them would be like cities tearing out the roads.

But I do agree that border systems need less highways, border towns need to be more Wild West and dangerous compared to the more civilized cities in the Core sectors.

[Nanook]

Hope they remove everything fake, I wouldn'tt want to see ships that actually don't exist or serve a purpose in a highway or anywhere else.

It will feel more natural if less used highways have less traffic and so on, more inmersive. Like when you leave the city and get to smaller villages or towns. We must feel the difference.

So burn the fake! burn it!

But Highways are just that, highways.
Getting rid of them would be like cities tearing out the roads....

Failed analogy. Automobiles require roads. Spaceships don't require 'highways'. They can fly anywhere. IMO, 'highways' in space are just plain silly. Controlled traffic corridors, sure, but not some 'tube in space'.

[ezra-r]

Hope they remove everything fake, I wouldn'tt want to see ships that actually don't exist or serve a purpose in a highway or anywhere else.

It will feel more natural if less used highways have less traffic and so on, more inmersive. Like when you leave the city and get to smaller villages or towns. We must feel the difference.

So burn the fake! burn it!

But Highways are just that, highways.
Getting rid of them would be like cities tearing out the roads.

But I do agree that border systems need less highways, border towns need to be more Wild West and dangerous compared to the more civilized cities in the Core sectors.

It seems you have read me but haven't understood a thing.

I have never said to remove highways, just fake "traffic" from highways.

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@NaNook highways make sense for space ships if they are a means for faster travel between points of interest, and that's precisely what they are.

[Morkonan]

... IMO, 'highways' in space are just plain silly. Controlled traffic corridors, sure, but not some 'tube in space'.

^--- This.

I don't understand the whole "highway" thing. Admittedly, I haven't played X:R, so there's that to consider.

It just reminds me too much of "Finding Nemo."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpV7NIJTxD0