The most important thing for you in an X game

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CtMurphy
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Ok, so things I want or don't want in X4

Post by CtMurphy » Wed, 10. Jan 18, 21:41

Ok... Selfish I know but I think the most important factor is accessibility. A lot of gamenow are demanding 4GHz processors as a standard.Who has compies that are capable of that? I've never once seen one in a shop and I've never heard/seen a player brag about having 4GHz O.o I mean, I know there's overclock, but that was never meant as a round (24/7) the clock fix for a lack of sustainable and affordable speed. So that would be 1. I'd setle for older school graphics if need be.

2) Pathfinding. XR was aweful, granted (in my honest and humble opinion), but X3 had it's failings too. One of the biggest, was pathfinding. Ships crashed into stations, ships crashed into each other, entire Tokyo's would unleash hell on another terran capital warship if so much as scratched paintwork was recieved via an accidental love tap near a gate. Entertaining to watch but allllmost game breaking when one of YOUR warships gets capped by sector security because of it.

3) Can we not have dead end, and useless production chains? Terran water, for instance. An unexpandable industry and nothing you actually build required water as raw material. Pritty dead end. Disheartenning after you find a nice big rock FULL of ice... The terran economy in general was pritty dead end -.-

4) If all of the old ingame mechanics and what nots get fixed (or perhaps, fully calibrated), then I'd really love an expansion of content. It was nice having the massive variety of M5 - M1 warships,and that's not even including the multitudes of civilian vessels out there. But to be honest, I'm alllllways pining for something bigger, with more guns, more shielding and higher sex appeal. and once I got my M2-M1 ship... I felt dissapointed that there wasn't anything else above it. Why stop at destroyers? What about a battleship, a dreadnought and heck, something even bigger after that too.

5) One aspect of X-rebirth that I liked was the ability to upgrade my ships basic systems. Energy, power speed and load cap which I'd like to see carried over to X4. As well as other fine tuning aspects, like energy efficiency and armour types.

6) Sudden random, and instantly bussiness destroying attacks was a real problem in X3. I know there was many other players too, whom lost entire sectors worth of work as soon as their backs were turned. It's fun, on occassion, but it's just disheartenning 3 times in a row. But I liked that the AI didn't just let us do whatever the heck we wanted, where ever we happened to desire it.
Why not lessen the attacks in frequency and employ a waved attack system/script AND, make it relevent to the attackers expected personality.

EG: If player peeves off a major race/faction, then that race/faction should send a scout wave. To see your defenses, see where you are strong and where you are weak, and possibly lay down a few jump beacons so that the next wave can jump down your throat. A second wave to soften, and a third wave to make sure the pain receptors are working. Number of waves, and severity of waves can be varied based on relations to race, how long ago since you antagonized them and how much of a fleet they happen to have at the time.

Complicated to make work, I know... but would rpovide the next step in immersion to the X series, as far as my honest opinion goes.

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Re: Ok, so things I want or don't want in X4

Post by Fleabum » Thu, 11. Jan 18, 03:46

CtMurphy wrote:Ok... Selfish I know but I think the most important factor is accessibility. A lot of gamenow are demanding 4GHz processors as a standard.Who has compies that are capable of that? I've never once seen one in a shop and I've never heard/seen a player brag about having 4GHz O.o I mean, I know there's overclock, but that was never meant as a round (24/7) the clock fix for a lack of sustainable and affordable speed. So that would be 1. I'd setle for older school graphics if need be.
The Ghz on a processor <> processor speed. Modern processors rely more on multi threading, branch prediction and lower power requirements than raw Ghz. You can have a Intel Xeon E5-2695 v4 @ 2.10GHz that preforms 10x faster than a Intel Pentium E6800 @ 3.33GHz. GHz is not a statistic that should be mentioned when discussing CPU speed, period. It means nothing without context.

I really have to disagree with your assumption that accessibility due to hardware limitations is the most important factor. You cant start developing a game based on old technology, or even think about dumbing your product down to the weakest comment denominator. Look at the top games over the last 5 years, and ask yourself honestly how many were designed to run well on old technology... hell, to play fully modded Minecraft you need a beefy machine to play into late game builds. You have to design your game to run on the average machine, and run fantastic on the cutting edge hardware, if your machine is below average, then sorry, save some cash and buy a better machine, don't expect developers to write new games for your aging hardware.

The single most important factor is fun (or maybe addiction! depending how you look at it). As a developer you will never please everyone, all the time; but so long as you please the majority, most of the time, your onto a winner.

X4 needs to be X3, with better graphics, better AI, better stations, better economy, better... everything , except for, oh X:Afterbirth.... lets move on...

The second most important thing after fun, is mod-ability. Look at all the games that are played years after release, they all have absolutely fantastic modding community... Minecraft, Fallout, Skyrim, X3 to name a few. Keep the modders happy, keep the customers playing your product.

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Flea

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Re: Ok, so things I want or don't want in X4

Post by Requiemfang » Thu, 11. Jan 18, 06:33

Fleabum wrote:


The second most important thing after fun, is mod-ability. Look at all the games that are played years after release, they all have absolutely fantastic modding community... Minecraft, Fallout, Skyrim, X3 to name a few. Keep the modders happy, keep the customers playing your product.

Regards
Flea
Hate to be a party pooper on the subject but seeing how Bethesda keeps repeatedly attempting to cash in on modding and in essence ruin modding by doing so in the process. We all remember Bethesda's attempt in cashing in on mods by partnering with steam to do it and we all know how well that blew over, mass revolt by 99% of the playerbase and modders were against it. And then Bethesda brought it back in the form of the creative club thingy.

You got to watch out for game developers who over time have lost focus on making really great games and instead only see the money they can be getting by trying to tap more of a hobby than something that is a market. Most modders mod just for the joy of it, sure some of them would like to get paid to do it but not if it ends up forcing their content behind a paywall. We got lucky with the egosoft developers in that they're in it to make a great game and make it very modifiable.

On the other hand what the developers for Ark did was kind of a win/win for modders and game developers. Get paid a monthly fee to develop your mod with the possibility of said mod being made into an official part of the game, that practically is telling them that they'll hire you. The other incentive there is that you're encouraged to create a mod and will get paid for it so long as you maintain it and develop it.

Anyways I'll end that there as this whole subject would be more appropriate in another forum.

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[FFCW]Urizen
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Re: Ok, so things I want or don't want in X4

Post by [FFCW]Urizen » Thu, 11. Jan 18, 17:00

Requiemfang wrote:Hate to be a party pooper on the subject but seeing how Bethesda keeps repeatedly attempting to cash in on modding and in essence ruin modding by doing so in the process. We all remember Bethesda's attempt in cashing in on mods by partnering with steam to do it and we all know how well that blew over, mass revolt by 99% of the playerbase and modders were against it. And then Bethesda brought it back in the form of the creative club thingy.
CC != Paid mods. CC is contract work. Ask chesko if you don´t believe me.
Insanity is just another form of brilliance!

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Nort The Fragrent
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Post by Nort The Fragrent » Thu, 11. Jan 18, 18:26

Indeed, this is about what we are wanting in the new X4 game, Not about spec’s .
By that I mean the core effect the game has on the player, yes flying a ship in space, navigating, thinking about your environment and how you are going to enjoy whizzing about.

It’s when at the helm of your ship the game is at it’s most appealing, be that trading, exploring, or for the cave men fighting!
Where is the next gate? What’s on the other side? Can I react quick enough if it’s hostile? Or is there something extraordinary to discover?
And later on as you build your map of what you think you know, you discover something you missed. Having tubes that whisk to where things are, is lame, stupid and not very smart.
Hands at the helm, flying through asteroids, skirting the rim of a beautiful planet or flying through a nebular. ( Ship time! )
Then add to that the knowledge that there are countless ship’s for you to acquire and fly, places to discover, factions to understand, and a deep core always there just waiting for you to make a bad/silly/dumb move. And you get punished, not beaten into a pulp. That’s not fun, just a warning to back of. Try another approach!
A bit like trying to tame a tarantella or scorpion, or a gun slinging squid! You know it’s dangerous but there is a way to get them on your side! So you can trade, or at least go peacefully through there space. Or for the cave men shoot at them (idiots)
The developers of X3, and soon to be X4 rather let the cat out of the bag, when one of them said in a video. “ And now for the important part, shooting. “ That rather spoilt it for me, seems guns are the core, and not ships, space, and the friendly universe!
Weapons, are unfortunately integral to most who are hell bent on domination, extermination, and death. So let them go into battle and die.
Me! Not fussed about the fighting aspect, I wish for fun, intrigue, plenty of wonderful places to fly my ship, ship’s.

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Post by Riccardoman » Thu, 11. Jan 18, 21:41

Agree for the most part, but there is beauty even during fleet battles (the perfect example is Homeworld....fireworks!), and everything that gives the player the idea of a vast, huge space, ships, stations, planets, asteroids, creatures that makes the player feel a sense of impotence and fascination

On the discovery part, X3 was a huge letdown to me. I had fun doing pew pew on paranid and xenon, being more rich than a teladi, but in the end I had the feeling that the game was over, there was nothing new to see, if not a bunch of pretty ships, stations and backgrounds
There was nothing that would make you feel a real discoverer, no real benefits, or fascinating phenomena
I saw the xenon hub and was only a background with a dock, I saw aldrin and it was a pretty low textured giant asteroid, I had to wait till XR to see a khaak station (very good design) but the only interaction was just hostility
Those 6 alien factions have the huge potential of being much more interesting than any other space game (if not any game) but their potential was underdeveloped

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Nort The Fragrent
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Post by Nort The Fragrent » Fri, 12. Jan 18, 01:04

Battles to watch, or sneak in to scavenge like a vulture, yes but the fighting I find to stressful. And I am no good at it, so don’t bother.
I managed to get just about everywhere, but was so disappointed with the effort only to find not much. And the hours, day’s even weeks scouting in dead space in the vane hope the architects had left some spoil for us intrepid explores to relish, and be rewarded for our troubles. Ok they hid the odd craft behind a rock, but nothing extraordinary.
The potential is enormous, and the fun to be had spectacular, if only they would think a bit more out of our atmosphere!
The working person has limited time to spends out there in the black, so a quicker reward is a must. Having to play for years, just to get a bigger ship is asking a bit much.
The upgrades in afterbirth for the hulk of a ship was a step forward, but one ship! With the advancement in graphics, storage, and screen resolutions, there is no reason what so ever to be limited in ship quality and diversity. If they are struggling with usable ship profiles, put the word out. I am sure there are plenty of willing designers just champing at the bit to have their ships included in the game.
Having a criteria that fits into the game, and the options are endless. Download new ships from the net may be!
I collected all the ship’s I could buy, find or capture. And had them stored in an uncharted area of space. Nothing ever happened to them, they just sat there. I had so much money flooding in from all my factory’s, That I build a space station race track, Then used the different ships to fly as fast as I could through the factory complex. I had used every rock I could find with high yield, to the point of running out of usable rock!! So that’s why the race track started. I just wanted to fly and have fun.

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Post by CtMurphy » Wed, 17. Jan 18, 20:08

Making it as accessible as possible is actually an important and valid marketting standard that's been used since business and bartering were made a part of human life/culture.

Whilst I do have access to a fairly good machine myself, I also realise that my machine isn't exactly an average standard and there are a great many people out there, whom for monetary reasons, don't have access to such technology but would loooove to take part in this community and game.

If they wanna make the game more content meaty then that's one thing, but why make it take up more resources than needed by making it more visually demanding on the compie than it needs to be?

And personally, regardless of the above, I'd much rather they focus on stabalizing content that is already there as a priority and make adding better, more resource draining graphical appeal a very backseat priority, after adding more actual gaming content.

Whether you guys wanna think about it or not, if they made the game to require an approximate total of 4-5GHz, how many people would have access to a processor(s) capable of reaching that kind of maintainable speed/power even in 3-4 years time? They'd effectively be halving their customer base just to make it look a little shinnier. If they reallly wanna make it more resource intensive then I'd rather they add something more meaningful such as... instead of making it LOOK shinnier on a purely skin deep visual level, why not add battle damage visuals into the game. Why not allow us to see our enemies getting shredded by our weapons. Allow us to actually see weapons being damaged/blown out and maybe make an engine in to a practical and visual hard point on a space vessel?

I would not call that dumbing down the game at all. I'd call that expanding and deepening the gamer experience as opposed to just making it look neater here and smoother there.

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Post by JSDD » Thu, 18. Jan 18, 13:22

CtMurphy wrote:.. instead of making it LOOK shinnier on a purely skin deep visual level, why not add battle damage visuals into the game. Why not allow us to see our enemies getting shredded by our weapons. Allow us to actually see weapons being damaged/blown out and maybe make an engine in to a practical and visual hard point on a space vessel?
this kind of information (battle damage) has to be stored somewhere. do you want it to be random and repetitive, or exact / approximate ? the latter could require lots N lots of memory usage (processing power shouldnt be an issue) ... as in some first person shooters, if you kill some targets, their bodys just dissapear over time (if you're not there), applied to x3 that could reduce memory usage ... it'd look better of course, maybe as an optional graphics setting to choose for each player ...
To err is human. To really foul things up you need a computer.
Irren ist menschlich. Aber wenn man richtig Fehler machen will, braucht man einen Computer.


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CtMurphy
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Post by CtMurphy » Thu, 18. Jan 18, 17:49

JSDD wrote:
CtMurphy wrote:.. instead of making it LOOK shinnier on a purely skin deep visual level, why not add battle damage visuals into the game. Why not allow us to see our enemies getting shredded by our weapons. Allow us to actually see weapons being damaged/blown out and maybe make an engine in to a practical and visual hard point on a space vessel?
this kind of information (battle damage) has to be stored somewhere. do you want it to be random and repetitive, or exact / approximate ? the latter could require lots N lots of memory usage (processing power shouldnt be an issue) ... as in some first person shooters, if you kill some targets, their bodys just dissapear over time (if you're not there), applied to x3 that could reduce memory usage ... it'd look better of course, maybe as an optional graphics setting to choose for each player ...
Doesn't have to be exact or approximate, for X, I'd say that repetative but either detailed or flashy damage visuals would be ideal, even if they are repetative.Heck, they don't even have to do that, I'd just settle for them fixing the navigational messes the AI sometimes caused because it doesn't know the full/exact dimensions of it's ships.

and yeah, you said it perfectly, the rest of your paragraph that is. A longthe lines of what I was thinking.

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Post by Requiemfang » Thu, 18. Jan 18, 19:12

I'd like to see the return of Fighter Wings and formations for those wings to fly in when out of combat, can't expect them to keep formation during a battle after all that would be bad :lol:

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Post by G0815Krieger » Sat, 20. Jan 18, 00:31

Most important things for me:

Ability to get and fly every ship, from fighter to capital

Abillity to manage everything from ship, without need of docking (if proper equipment is installed at ship) -- trade, comunication

Abillity to conquer sectors somehow and give it your own names

AI improvements especially that fighters don´t shoot the missles they launched direcly after launch, which is suicide so often.

Complex and logical economy, no ships/stations out of thin air, everything has to be build or rebuild after destruction, everything should be destroyable (no imortal stations)

Abillity to build every ship/station at your own shipyard (maybe you need to disassemble ship/station first to get the blueprint)

Abillity to build/offer every ship equipment at your docks (maybe you need to disassemble that equipment first to get the BP) or have factorys for shipequipment, sensors, scanners, lifesupport, dockingcomputer aso don´t come out of thin air.

More diversity in ores and asteroids would be nice.

Things like microchips, computercomponents, quantum should be used as materials for production, not only secondary resource or even unused.

Let playerbuild stations have secondery resource consumption, too not only the NPC build stations.

Redesign fight missions, it should be independant of fighter ranking. Very anoying that you can´t accept any fight mission at high fighter ranking without having a fleet of capitals. Sometimes I just want an easy fighter mission, but that becomes impossible very fast due to high figther ranking.

Mission rewards should make sense, 4.5mio credits for a 1 person taxi service 1 sector to go, just not making sense :)

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Post by Fleabum » Sat, 20. Jan 18, 02:13

CtMurphy wrote:Making it as accessible as possible is actually an important and valid marketting standard that's been used since business and bartering were made a part of human life/culture.
Explain that to Apple, they must be doing something wrong as they make their products as expensive and inaccessible as possible. How successful are they again?

Also ask yourself this, would a developer risk making a game for older technology, risk getting poor reviews due to the game looking dated which in turn would hurt their overall sales ALOT more than a few old players who cant run it on their old machines? That is the marketing the media industry runs by these days, reviews can make or ruin a game, movie or song within the first weekend.

If someone has a weak machine then they should not have the expectation to run new games. Simple as that.
CtMurphy wrote:Whether you guys wanna think about it or not, if they made the game to require an approximate total of 4-5GHzl
I think you misunderstand how computers and coding works. As I have already explained above the GHz speed means nothing without context. In reality X3 is basically a big database with a GUI bolted on, and my guess would be X4 will be no different. You could remove the GUI but that database would still require a very beefy CPU.

Think of it this way, the eye candy and slick graphics requires a good GPU card, and the meat of the game, the AI, the trading, the gigabytes of database data, they require a good CPU. If you limit the CPU, then you limit the meat of the game.

Anyways back on topic... I would also love to see better fleet and carrier management and AI. I loved commanding a massive fleet and having sector wide battles with 100's of ships, squadrons and wings of fighters followed by bombers to finish of the capital ships with GJ shield banks.

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Flea

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Nort The Fragrent
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Post by Nort The Fragrent » Sat, 20. Jan 18, 05:09

I like the idea of having your own shipyard, as I am a shipwright in real life. And agree about needing Blue prints, So it becomes a quest of its own. Getting the resources, and components together, and that’s just to build the shipyard. Production of ships comes latter after you have assembled the technology.
And if you are smart enough to place your station in a safe protected sector, then those random pirate attacks should not happen. I have found them to be a real irritant, and silly considering there are local enforcement petrol’s who do nothing to help.
I wish for the option to dock, in a realistic way. Be it by computer control, or personally. Make it believable.
Have an option for dead is dead, or turn it off. As theses game can be hard enough, and to then have to start all over again is tedious, and makes me not want to play. After all it is a game, and entertainment. Yes have some kind of penalty, that steps you back a bit. But not game over, that’s ridicules.

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Post by gbjbaanb » Sun, 21. Jan 18, 15:38

Fleabum wrote:
CtMurphy wrote:Making it as accessible as possible is actually an important and valid marketting standard that's been used since business and bartering were made a part of human life/culture.
Explain that to Apple, they must be doing something wrong as they make their products as expensive and inaccessible as possible. How successful are they again?

Also ask yourself this, would a developer risk making a game for older technology, risk getting poor reviews due to the game looking dated which in turn would hurt their overall sales ALOT more than a few old players who cant run it on their old machines? That is the marketing the media industry runs by these days, reviews can make or ruin a game, movie or song within the first weekend.

Think of it this way, the eye candy and slick graphics requires a good GPU card, and the meat of the game, the AI, the trading, the gigabytes of database data, they require a good CPU. If you limit the CPU, then you limit the meat of the game.
1. Apple makes it very accessible- only £20 a month and you have a new phone, hence everyone has one.
2. look at games like Dwarf Fortress or FTL.

Nothing is ever simple, there are many ways to make a game have less graphics fizz but still be an awesome game, and reviews cater for that. X4 needs to be an awesome game first, a fancy graphics-fest second 9though within reason obviously, you can't get away with awful in-station person models, but you can get away with stations that have less polygons than you'd like)

Anyway, I think we've seen what it'll look like, roughly, and if it is as good as X3 then it should run fine on the same level of CPU X3 was built for - which is ancient by today's standards.

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Post by Me163 » Sun, 21. Jan 18, 20:39

Trading, Fighting, Building and AI that thinks about those for me.

..And maybe less repetitive mini-games like those in XR! I liked all that stupid highways, graphics, Stations(NOT for scan) but I hate almost half of XR systems like hacking, scanning, wandering around station for nothing since they're useless and boring.
The game can be repetitive. but it should be pleasantly repetitive(feel rewarding) otherwise it's just a labor not a game.

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Post by Nort The Fragrent » Mon, 22. Jan 18, 01:08

Highways are good for not much, and for those who wish to be driven. Ok, have them for the blind, and those who take the bus! ( Like the walking they become tedious )
Have stations that are not parked right alongside rail tracks and have them be more rewarding to find. So the intrepid space pilot who doesn't need their hands held can have a worthwhile space experience.
Walking about inside a station is fine the first time but having to do it every time is so tedious. It's a space game not a walking game.
Ships ships lots of ships.
Space , and lots of it.
Tiny, and monstrous stations.
All sectors are accessible, so you can at least fly around and take a look.
Planetary. Landing.
Realistic docking, option to take control and dock your ship.
An expanding universe, updates, to include new sectors.
More rewards, so you can advance quicker.
Plenty of on/off options, so you can remove the annoying aggressors, if that is your wish. ( A peaceful universe ) One can but wish !

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Post by druid40 » Sun, 28. Jan 18, 10:10

Springblossom.

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Post by Axeface » Sun, 28. Jan 18, 15:09

For me the most important thing (if we ignore ship variety and boron...) to be improved for X4 is AI and pathfinding. Its pretty dumb in the x games, really want to see it improved. AI acts like drones, would like to see it act more real or lifelike. Current AI could actually still be used for drones, where it's quirks are actually quite fitting (swarms of fighters smashing into their target in Rebirth, for example).

I'de like to see AI start to work together too. Currently each fighter works as a single unit, why dont enemies use formations or other tactics that involve their wingmen? Capitals could do all sorts of things together too.

Also I REALLY hope that the AI in x4 can use all the tricks that the player has. Decoupled mode, boost and STRAFE (both in combat and out of it). I think its just a bit silly if the player is the only one with these powerful tricks.

This should all of course be linked to pilot skill. Dont think I have to stress how much interest and deep gameplay it would add to have pilots of varying skills in the game, where bad pilots act pretty much like current X3/XR AI and good ones kick your butt (or make the best wingman ever, considering we can hire). And hiring a pilot and seeing them slowly improve as they fight with you would be so rewarding. XR has pilot skills but honestly I never noticed much of a difference apart from how quickly they react to orders?

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Post by Rhapses » Tue, 30. Jan 18, 01:30

If this is meant to be called 'Foundations' then I'd imagine the foundations is where it should go (XBTF excluded to some extent as I believe XR covered that)::
  • - All of the original races: Argon, Boron, Paranid, Split, Teladi, Xenon

    - Able to fly any ship that exists: Not necessarily all buildable such as Xenon. Go back to the M0-M7 ship classing to assist in asset development so each race has at least one of each to begin with. Add in more later/post-release.

    - Large variation of station complexes/goods/production chains: More goods/items dependent upon specific race/faction, some of which are banned/illegal but perhaps still desired via smuggling (do you really think the Split would allow the boron to use their weapons? Would Borons make spacefly farms? Would Argon make dream farms? Who wouldn't want some space weed/space fuel after a long week hauling ore through pirate/xenon infested territory?)

    - Racial Visual Differences: Between all race stations, ships, AND equipment. Vanilla is boring and I personally liked how teladi preferred ammo based weapons for econimical reasons over expensive lazors

    - SETA: You know it wasn't just used for flying long distances. Gods did it take ages for goods to be made in a station, trade to occur (both in/out), and finally for profit to arrive - personally I used to use SETA to accelerate the speed of the game when IAW/AFK to allow my finances to build up so I could go spend the money on blowing stuff up or simply expanding further

    - Thereshallbewings: fun times when you want to just mess around with spawning and testing before committing to full-scale production chains or see what 100 M3's, 50 M6's, and 20 M1/M2's can do to Argon Prime... :wink:

    - No more instant ship spawning: Blowing up a xenon sector in X3 was fun the first time (couple of times??) then you realise it respawns and ask yourself what is the point in life and the x-universe. For Rapid Response Taskforces, ships in quiet sectors/zones can jump out and come join the fight. If they die, a new ship then has to be deployed to that sector/zone it originated from, meaning an invasion could and should weaken an empire much the same as it would a player.

POSSIBLE NEW FEATURES::
  • - Delayed broken economy : Break economies far enough into the game when builders will have the funds to plug the hole or monopolize on new opportunities rather than the AI trying as soon as a game starts (new research leads to new production chains or something maybe).

    - Post-release Expansion & DLC feature packs: Some may not agree but ES bean-counters might. Utilize Expansions to add in larger items such as races & sectors/maps (and associated stuff that would be in the DLC's). Utilize DLC's to add in smaller groups of new equipment, new production chains/goods, new ships, new (non-playable) enemies such as Kha'ak

    - Ship/Station Selling (not quite a new feature for the ship selling): particular to the stations when you undercut an AI opponent and they run out of money and choose to sell. Maybe they'd sell ships first to try and stay afloat, then the station when there is nothing else to sell.

    - Diplomacy / racial relations: Random events which scale according to current racial relations. Races who like each other won't ever go straight to war but could have incidents such as terrorist actions or ship collisions which strain (lower) relations. Whilst those who hate each other could have border skirmishes pop up which could lead to all out war (such as a skirmish to regain lost territory or to make their claim whilst only a handful of core sectors are perhaps unconquerable (subject to modding) to ensure a core race cannot ever be completely wiped out and break the game).

Just remember. For a sandbox, lack of diversity in all things leads to lack of interest sooner (aka boredom). The more choices/differences/features on offer, the longer the interest. Utilize Expansion/DLC post-release to expand and add in new 'everything'

TLDR: Variety/Diversity in all things

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