Get rid of 'software' wares - add them to the research tree instead please!

[Killjaeden]

Limiting research to a HQ means Egosoft have to make sure to provide it to the player fairly early, so the player can learn the game concept. Relying on players accidentally discovering something you spent alot of time on is a bad idea for a developer.

I'm sorry but why is the "research thing" silly? That seems to be a personal opinion that for some reason you dislike the thought of Egosoft adding any new game mechanics to the franchise.

I have no problem with new game mechanics, if they contribute alot to the game. And i dont see research or crafting adding much to that - at least not when compared to fleshing out the already existing game play elements first (trading, combat, production/building).
Why? Because the gameplay (the action) of conducting research is - quite frankly - in most games very very boring. You click on the thing you have and *pop* you got the thing you wanted (or more commonly: wait until arbitrary bar is full before, to "build excitement", before it goes *pop*). In mission-driven research it's not much more exiting. As there are a lot of technologies, you can't make a custom mission tree for every technology/product/whatever you "research", so they would be extremely generic and repetitive - Typical fetch quest, typical "collect 10 bear arses" mission, etc. Mini game driven research is the worst, if not considerable time is spent on the minigame - which ES clearly could not deliver because of how small they are. I'm even very sceptical, that SC can deliver people the "research" fantasy they promised them.

Research and crafting can't make a game interesting by themself either. They are like exotic spices... you wouldnt eat just some exotic spice. And you can cook most meals perfectly fine without relying on that exotic spice. If they spent a lot of time making research and crafting great , other parts of the game will receive less time. If they spent only little time on those features, they will feel slapped on and half arsed.
The core of the game (station building/production, trading, combat) is very expansive, that even in X3 and XR it was not where it could be, and in some areas it was simply flawed and unpolished. Now in X4 there is the addition of a proper map and RTS controlls...

Research and crafting are content gating. Content gating / unlocking can be achieved in other ways as well (buying or getting gifted licenses or blueprints for example). The wish that you don't need to fly all across the galaxy to equip all the software for one ship can be realised without needing any "research" feature at all.

Edit: Actually reading your initial post, you suggest getting rid of all softwares all together and having all ships have the same software automatically. Which i totally disagree with. It is a decision i have to make, if i spend the ressources to equip a ship with everything, or just with what it needs. In X3 this wasnt particularly meaningfull as ship upgrades where dirt cheap in most cases - this could be changed. Just giving every ship the same software removes this completely and makes the choice of getting a software a complete nobrainer. Also, what is with people that choose another playstyle than you? What if they build no HQ? Should those players be locked out of having access to good software?

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

In all my years of coming to this web-site there were always a number of topics that kept recurring.

Amongst the top 10 must be, Walking on stations, planetary landings, multiplayer and research and development.

So RD, here you saying that because you find it boring, that nobody else should be able to do it either.

[gbjbaanb]

Limiting research to a HQ means Egosoft have to make sure to provide it to the player fairly early, so the player can learn the game concept. Relying on players accidentally discovering something you spent alot of time on is a bad idea for a developer.

I'm sorry but why is the "research thing" silly? That seems to be a personal opinion that for some reason you dislike the thought of Egosoft adding any new game mechanics to the franchise.

I have no problem with new game mechanics, if they contribute alot to the game. And i dont see research or crafting adding much to that - at least not when compared to fleshing out the already existing game play elements first (trading, combat, production/building).
Why? Because the gameplay (the action) of conducting research is - quite frankly - in most games very very boring. You click on the thing you have and *pop* you got the thing you wanted (or more commonly: wait until arbitrary bar is full before, to "build excitement", before it goes *pop*). In mission-driven research it's not much more exiting. As there are a lot of technologies, you can't make a custom mission tree for every technology/product/whatever you "research", so they would be extremely generic and repetitive - Typical fetch quest, typical "collect 10 bear arses" mission, etc. Mini game driven research is the worst, if not considerable time is spent on the minigame - which ES clearly could not deliver because of how small they are. I'm even very sceptical, that SC can deliver people the "research" fantasy they promised them.

Research and crafting can't make a game interesting by themself either. They are like exotic spices... you wouldnt eat just some exotic spice. And you can cook most meals perfectly fine without relying on that exotic spice. If they spent a lot of time making research and crafting great , other parts of the game will receive less time. If they spent only little time on those features, they will feel slapped on and half arsed.
The core of the game (station building/production, trading, combat) is very expansive, that even in X3 and XR it was not where it could be, and in some areas it was simply flawed and unpolished. Now in X4 there is the addition of a proper map and RTS controlls...

I can think of one way to make research more interesting to the player and not the usual "time spent = goodies" and that's to use the existing system that X3 had: plot missions!

So you want a super high-tech round thing that links gates together, just go get the required kit to make it work, and some helpful Boron will rig it together for you

OK , maybe not quite that bad, but you could apply the same approach to other aspects of research, if you have certain items that can be researched, you need to fetch various bits n bobs to your research team to develop the item, or several items to have the platform to develop the thing you want - like you need a supercharged beam weapon, first you need the equipment to make the fusion reactor and the specialised ores to make the fancy barrel, etc.

That would work much better than researching "gun mk2" that gives you a +1 on damage v xenon.

[Vandragorax]

@gbjbaanb - yes, thank you. I also do NOT want to see something like "click research X technology, wait Y time, then get +10% weapon dmg" or some badly designed game system like that I reckon Egosoft can completely add research in a compelling and interesting story-driven way which fits in with the lore and gameplay without simply tacking it on as a very basic time sink.

I was thinking more along the lines of salvaging wrecks or captured ships in order to unlock components, like the softwares. It would be compelling to give the player a reason to do those tasks, and ultimately reward us by giving us some nice useful upgrades to our fleet.

Basically I'm not looking forward to X4 if it is going to involve the same as X3 with whenever I buy a new ship, I'm going to have to fly it halfway around the galaxy (to each different race's Home sectors for example) in order to 'collect' my required software wares. It's not compelling gameplay, in fact quite the opposite, it makes me want to quit more than carry on playing!

In the space-age, software should be simply downloadable into the ship's computer from any station where you can log in with your personal ID and get access to all the "apps" you own (whether you buy those, or your own player corp HQ programs them at your request aka research). Something we already have today in real life with our smart phones and apps, being shared across multiple devices.

That is why I'm not convinced by the idea to have the software as trade-able physical wares like other trade goods.

[gbjbaanb]

@gbjbaanb - yes, thank you. I also do NOT want to see something like "click research X technology, wait Y time, then get +10% weapon dmg" or some badly designed game system like that I reckon Egosoft can completely add research in a compelling and interesting story-driven way which fits in with the lore and gameplay without simply tacking it on as a very basic time sink.

I was thinking more along the lines of salvaging wrecks or captured ships in order to unlock components, like the softwares. It would be compelling to give the player a reason to do those tasks, and ultimately reward us by giving us some nice useful upgrades to our fleet.

Basically I'm not looking forward to X4 if it is going to involve the same as X3 with whenever I buy a new ship, I'm going to have to fly it halfway around the galaxy (to each different race's Home sectors for example) in order to 'collect' my required software wares. It's not compelling gameplay, in fact quite the opposite, it makes me want to quit more than carry on playing!

In the space-age, software should be simply downloadable into the ship's computer from any station where you can log in with your personal ID and get access to all the "apps" you own (whether you buy those, or your own player corp HQ programs them at your request aka research). Something we already have today in real life with our smart phones and apps, being shared across multiple devices.

That is why I'm not convinced by the idea to have the software as trade-able physical wares like other trade goods.

I think everyone agrees that the old X3 loadout system was .. lacking. Based as it was around a single-player style game that turned out to have more scope and potential for fleets than I think the developers realised.

However there is something to be said for scarcity of wares, even for software if you have to go to the core planets to get the better stuff, or military stations with a good rep for the military stuff, or out to the dodgy backwaters for the pirate stuff.

I'm happy if "software" turns out to be more than just software but hardware components too, then its OK to only fit it at a station that can repair/refit ships. But the way it is managed should be better, even if it means it gets installed in a template that is then emplaced automatically once docked. that would also help for fleet loadouts, where a fighter can be configured and as soon as you dock it, it gets fitted out accordingly.

Something like that anyway, I'm sure ES can come up with something good for mass fleet management that also applies to your own ships.

But a "I wantz, I now has" seems a little less optimal for what is ultimately, gameplay focussed on personal development, trading and thinking.

[spankahontis]

Be cool to have these upgrades appear once researched into Factory wares that you can build and supply a Shipyard/Equipment dock to be fitted into a vehicle.

Like the other person above said, you buy a car, you get the parts and upgrades as standard.
But Airbags are manufactured, like every other part of the car, they are mostly manufactured separately and later all put together to sell as the finished product.
An R&D system to research new upgrades and to see those upgrades become new wares that are built in factories and sent to shipyards that you have a monopoly over or you steal the blueprints and make them yourself would be a brilliant new addition to X4.
I just hope that the Research feature is going to be worked out right, that it doesn't become a half-arsed affair.

[Gazz]

Edit: Actually reading your initial post, you suggest getting rid of all softwares all together and having all ships have the same software automatically. Which i totally disagree with.

The problem here is scale.
Equipping one or two ships with "just the specials you need" is fine. There may even be a substantial cost to it because with your 2-ship empire your money-making ability is quite limited.

Now equip 1300 individual ships with specific upgrades. Not so much fun.
X3 has always had a hard time with scale because the game had such a vast amount of "empire growth".

One big X3 issue has always been that while the cost balancing worked for a while, the exponential economic growth of the player empire relegated any "cost" factors to menial but unavoidable chores.

It's not impossible to find a workable solution, though.
Say, your researched upgrade is indeed automatically applied to all your ships... but the research cost of getting to that point scales with your number of ships so the cost stays relevant.
It wouldn't matter a great deal if you researched hyperdrives on day 1 or day 100. In both cases the cost could be equally painful.
Don't get too hung up on what didn't work. ;)

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

If the player owns shipyards then they automatically receive any "upgrades"
that result from missions, R&D, etc etc.

For each ship type I should be able to save templates / blueprints of my favourite builds.

I should then be able to call up the dealer at a shipyard and queue a build of 1300 ships, using whatever template/s I want.

What happens to the completed ships while the whole 1300 are building built I have no idea.

What happens to NPC shipyards with regards to new "upgrades" I have no idea.

[JSDD]

It's not impossible to find a workable solution, though.
Say, your researched upgrade is indeed automatically applied to all your ships... but the research cost of getting to that point scales with your number of ships so the cost stays relevant.
It wouldn't matter a great deal if you researched hyperdrives on day 1 or day 100. In both cases the cost could be equally painful.
Don't get too hung up on what didn't work.

i wouldnt bind the research cost to player property, instead i'd try to increase research time + cost for further advanced software / "addons" to already researched software. and i wouldnt automatically let them be installed to any ship, but accociate the research tree to stations (equipment docks / HQ / etc) or race. for example, argon reseach tree is completely independent of player-research tree, at all argon docks you can install all (to argon) available softwares. once argon has reserarched another new technology / software, a hidden timer starts (say 20 hours + random value), after that period the technology will be available to ALL other races, doesnt matter if you've have it already or not ...

the managemnt issue: how to manage 1300 ships ?
maybe if argon has finished researching a new software, player gets the message as soon as one of his/her ships sees an argon dock next time. now you know that there is new software to install. how to do it / command you ships to install it ? a global menu, "management tool" or property filter menu, that has all the necessary utitities / functions to manage the whole game.

---> properties
------> ships
---------> equipment / software
------------> install missing / new software (among other entries, like "find" features)
---------------> select ships and software ... filtered list appears ... select all ships ... checkbox "SINZA" & "NAVIGATION" for example ... OK

then each selected ship will automatically find the next dock to upgrade itself. as an interrupting command, when done, each ship will resume its actual task ... there MUST BE such a global mamagement tool anyway, otherwise how would you manage 1300 ships + stations + personal ? nobody (no player) can do that without helping tools ... and siince egosoft has improved the user interface quite a bit, i dont think its that difficult to script such a tool

another thing to add would be queuing commands together, so that you can say: first go dock over there, install this and that, buy something, then fly over there, wait for this object / event to happen, then return home IF (statement) OTHERWISE do that ... thats also part of (micro)management, creating simple logic without having to script it via external tools (notepad, Visual Studio, etc)

grouping ships together, for example a trade convoy and several fighters which not only follows the convoy + waits for enemies, but flies in a "intelligent" formation to better protect the space around the convoy ... also part of (micro)management

loading / saving ship settings is another management area .. being able to copy the setting of 1 ship and applying it to a group of other ships saves you a lot of time .. and frustration! those menus dont have to be scattered all around the game, just merge them to 1 powerful tool to better "communicate" with the game ...

[Killjaeden]

Edit: Actually reading your initial post, you suggest getting rid of all softwares all together and having all ships have the same software automatically. Which i totally disagree with.

The problem here is scale.
Equipping one or two ships with "just the specials you need" is fine. There may even be a substantial cost to it because with your 2-ship empire your money-making ability is quite limited.

Now equip 1300 individual ships with specific upgrades. Not so much fun.
X3 has always had a hard time with scale because the game had such a vast amount of "empire growth".

One big X3 issue has always been that while the cost balancing worked for a while, the exponential economic growth of the player empire relegated any "cost" factors to menial but unavoidable chores.

It's not impossible to find a workable solution, though.
Say, your researched upgrade is indeed automatically applied to all your ships... but the research cost of getting to that point scales with your number of ships so the cost stays relevant.
It wouldn't matter a great deal if you researched hyperdrives on day 1 or day 100. In both cases the cost could be equally painful.
Don't get too hung up on what didn't work.

When you have to pay 8 million for a specific ship upgrade, while the ship costs 20 you will definitely consider equipping only special ships with it - especially if you buy in bulk. XTC had an advanced missile system that was really powerfull and convenient. It cost a lot. If you would have wanted to equip all ships of a fleet with ti you could have bought an entire new fleet for that. X3 was all manual. Just because manual doesnt work doesn't mean equipping only specific ships with certain software doesnt work. Create templates for ships and chose the template when buying - boom - finished. Can be used to setup homebases, missiles settings and whole bunch of other stuff as well. If you dont care about specialisation you just use the same template for everything. Easy.
You frequently argue that something is worthless because player can potentially reach nigh infinite economic power. But that's very a flawed argument, because depending on playstyle and amount of time the player spends means they may never even come even close to beeing so wealthy that he can just buy everything. By that logic we could ditch all upgrades for anything and just assume that the player will have it anyway at somepoint. Ditch stars for marines, personel, S and M factories (because L and XL is always better after all). The path to more power is what is most interesting and engaging. Having ultimate power (or infinite money) gets boring extremely quickly.

Research cost scaling with asset amount is completely illogical. Why does inventing a better laser cost more, just because i have 500 ships with poor laser, compared to just two? Equipping all ships with it will cost more, that is logical, but instead of paying for the upgrade of all ships, i dont see why i should not be able to just upgrade the ships i currently want.
Stellaris did this nonsense research cost scale, and it was better to just stay very small and have just a hand full of research labs, than it was to expand and have hundreds of research labs. You get penalized for having more power for no reason, other than allowing fledgling factions with a single planet to be as powerfull as you on a whim, which makes getting more power an unrewarding event.

[Vandragorax]

I'm in absolute agreement with ship blueprints. Hell, it seems like we're already going to be having something like that for stations in X4 why not extend it to ships too? Seems like a great idea.

I'd still rather have the ability to pop out a ship from a shipyard already containing all the software upgrades I know about/own already though, instead of sending them flying here and there (and however much time that takes) to get all the 'rare' MK3 versions of stuff

[vrod]

I actually don't mind flying around and discovering new software for my ship(s).

I agree that some software should be available when buying a new ship, but not necesarily everything.

It all seemed to work really well in X3.

[Seanchaidh]

Once you're at the point where you have your own shipyard and/or equipment installing capability, I should think you'd also have the capacity to save a standardized configuration that you can then apply to any of your ships of the same class assuming you have the necessary ingredients to make it happen (software, shields, weapons, and so on) and the correct station module to do it in.

Such saveable configurations could also be introduced before then, but still depend on local availability of resources (including the player's money) to apply.

[vrod]

Once you're at the point where you have your own shipyard and/or equipment installing capability, I should think you'd also have the capacity to save a standardized configuration that you can then apply to any of your ships of the same class assuming you have the necessary ingredients to make it happen (software, shields, weapons, and so on) and the correct station module to do it in.

Such saveable configurations could also be introduced before then, but still depend on local availability of resources (including the player's money) to apply.

I second that!

[CBJ]

It doesn't need seconding.

Will there be more tactical weapons? Like, weapons that are really effective against subsystems but useless against hull/shields or EMP missiles that makes it impossible for ships hit by it to target something and shoot missiles.
I can't give details about specific weapons, but you will be able to give your ships different loadouts, and you'll be able to save and re-use loadouts.

[Skeeter]

So weapon and or ship management profiles like in elite?

[Brandon123s]

So i've been working in IT for a few years now and i've become accustomed to how software and how licensing works.

What Egosoft should do about all 'software' is pretty simple. Allow companies to buy licenses to a type of software - say exploration, navigation, trade mk 1 / 2 /3 - whatever and assign them to individual or groups of ships. Make software deployment 'wireless' and not need any kind of docking - and if a ship dies you can even lose the license too. Think of windows... it's activated to the motherboard, if you replace the motherboard you have a new system. In a corporate environment you are even sometimes allowed to over-provision licenses so long as you buy enough seats within 30 days.

Once you get big enough you could just buy a 'company license' with unlimited licenses to software with or without a maintenance fee that is a portion of the purchase price per game day/week/month whatever.

Just get rid of the archaic manual physical installs of software and as many upgrades as possible. The cumbersome ship configuration of X3 and earlier is pretty terrible. Streamline it so that empire management isn't about microing ships to go to a dozen different docks to get all the softwares you want early on. Making a ship physically go from dock to dock for software might have made sense a little bit in 2003, but in 2018 technology doesn't work that way. 750+ years from now things will likely be even easier. Let the design evolve... and with this model you could even make a 'hardcore' mode with old school 'go everywhere to do anything' design.