How many ships in x4

[JSDD]

But what if, you can research "enhanced ships" by unlocking special parts which can be added. That or research enhanced ship designs which you can build like a falcon +1 which has slightly higher stats tho some stats are raised it needs at least one negative so it's not a perfect better ship.

... what if every ship (of the same type) is the same (regarding stats) with the ability to tune each stat individually so that in a sense every ship can be unique ?! i hope thats what egosoft does with x4, for example a falcon+1 is a falcon bought at any shipyard, docked at a special facility which has expertise in engine tunings, ordered to do something with its engines (which of course cost money/time/etc). "special unlocked components" can be installed by default, or the capability to install it can be added at another equipment dock/HQ ...

in short:
NOT a globally stored STATIC list of types/ship stats (TShips-like), but a locally stored DYNAMIC list of ship stats (in terms of limitations, like max. speed etc)

[Alan Phipps]

@ JSDD: I'm struggling to see how that differs much from a simple expansion in scope of what is in X3 now with its static TShips and dock-added tunings options. Even they had the option for overtuning in special circumstances - see below.

Obviously there also has to be a static table of set maxima for the elements by ship type/version (as there is in X3) or the (rich) player could simply pimp any ship into a overpowered supership and then never try a different ship type/version again. This is also why floating overtuning loot crates had to be so few in X games and so very difficult to find (as intended in vanilla).

[JSDD]

@ JSDD: I'm struggling to see how that differs much from a simple expansion in scope of what is in X3 now with its static TShips and dock-added tunings options. Even they had the option for overtuning in special circumstances - see below.

Obviously there also has to be a static table of set maxima for the elements by ship type/version (as there is in X3) or the (rich) player could simply pimp any ship into a overpowered supership and then never try a different ship type/version again. This is also why floating overtuning loot crates had to be so few in X games and so very difficult to find (as intended in vanilla).

i dont mean the "installed engine tunings count", i mean increasing the maximum achievable speed limit. in x3 you had for example the ability to install (lets say) 10 engine tunings on the nova to fly up to 165m/s. no matter what, each ship in the universe of type nova could only fly up to 165m/s. secret or dropped containers with "engine tuning" ware was an exception. or some overtuned plot rewards. why not removing that "limit" of 165m/s totally ? for example by researching/optimizing installable engine components

not everything should be dependent on money, tuning should also need its time to take place ...

or another example:
X3: max shield count and type = const.
X4: maybe the opportunity to exchange a engine component/fuel cell for another shield cell. or the opportunity to increase the efficiencies of shield generators (resulting in faster recharge)

the initial stats are of course static / stored in a file somewhere, but the ability to change / develop these stats should be available (and if a ship has changed stats, these are then stored locally on the ship/object)

[CtMurphy]

To be honest, why not just have the devs focus on the base models of the ships and a standard layout, after the game is released, they can let modders have fun with the multitudes of varients they could come out with and maybe even release all of the best one into the game, similar to the patches from X3 using modded content?

[Skeeter]

Modders will have a hard time as the pipeline of adding ships is hard as it's unchanged from rebirth and barely any mods added new ships to rebirth. As a Dev confirmed it's unchanged and not made any easier for x4.

[Commander_K]

Adding new ship *models' is not easily done in X:R. Adding new ships with different stats should not be a problem, IIRC.

[CtMurphy]

Adding new ship *models' is not easily done in X:R. Adding new ships with different stats should not be a problem, IIRC.

What he said ^.^

[Skeeter]

Bit boring adding clones of ships with different stats, just upgrade instead on stock ships. Point imo of different stats is to fly a different ship because of its differences and feels different as in visuals in and out.

[Requiemfang]

Yeah there's not many modders in the XR community that managed to import ship models from other sources. Though KrYcHokE with his Lost Sectors mod seems to be importing back a lot of old Terran, Paranid, Boron, Argon, Split ships as well as Terran stations (though there's a base already in the game for those stations to work with.) There's also the Ship mod v1.08 that has imported quite a few ships from outside the game universe, mainly ones from the Star Gate SG1 universe.

As I said there aren't many people in the modding community who have gotten down to figuring out how to add new ship models in the game, yes there are at least a dozen or more ship adding mods but they're just copy paste module ships (ships that are made with different parts of vanilla ships.)