Will your favorite corvette make a return in X4?

[Honved]

I was never really attached to any M6 ships in X3:TC. Basically, as a general rule (with exceptions) they were armed as heavy fighters, but steered worse than some frigates, featuring aspects of both fighters and capital ships by combining some the worst of both worlds. In most campaigns, I skipped over them directly to an M7.


The links in a previous post showing a Paranid and an Argon ship look "cartoon" colorful and otherwise uninspiring, not like something you'd expect to see as a military ship, MAYBE as a civilian design. I liked the cold, hard look of practicaly all of the capital ships in X3, even though the sweeping wings and projections on some looked ridiculously non-functional on a space-faring vessel. Many of the fighters were even more "wonky", with some seriously dysfunctional design aspects making them look extremely unrealistic.

Kindly remember the architectural quote: "Form Follows Function", and keep the ships looking like they'd actually be usable in space.

[GCU Grey Area]

I was never really attached to any M6 ships in X3:TC. Basically, as a general rule (with exceptions) they were armed as heavy fighters, but steered worse than some frigates, featuring aspects of both fighters and capital ships by combining some the worst of both worlds. In most campaigns, I skipped over them directly to an M7.

That's the thing - M6 ships need their own tactics & suitable equipment. Fly them as an excessively heavy fighter, or exceptionally light frigate & (IMO) bound to be disappointed. For me the guns on an M6 tended to be it's secondary armament - the big draw for me was a missile launcher with compatibility with a broad range of missiles & a big cargo hold for munitions (also drones, laser towers & other fun stuff). As a Tornado launch platform in particular the M6 class is unrivalled, though also wise to carry a selection of smalller missiles to deal with fighter escorts (some of which may be a little too nimble to take down efficiently with guns alone).

[Seanchaidh]

I really hope we don't see anything like the Springblossom again. Or the Spitfyre (I think? The Aldrin M3), for that matter. Both of those were way the hell too fast for their class, with few if any substantial drawbacks, and that made them too obvious of a correct choice for player combat ship as soon as accessible. Or if such things do exist, they need to be quite a bit more expensive than the rest of their class.

[Honved]

I really hope we don't see anything like the Springblossom again. Or the Spitfyre (I think? The Aldrin M3), for that matter. Both of those were way the hell too fast for their class, with few if any substantial drawbacks, and that made them too obvious of a correct choice for player combat ship as soon as accessible. Or if such things do exist, they need to be quite a bit more expensive than the rest of their class.

They could also have major weaknesses to compensate for the increase in one aspect. For example, Aldrin required high speed due to the huge sector size and large obstacle in the middle which blocked any direct path between the more distant points, so speed was a valid design choice. On the other hand, with practically no combat in the Aldrin system during the course of a century, shield and weapon generators would likely be considered secondary concerns. Having an M6 with M5 speed but M4 weapon and shield generators would make it a "one quick pass, then run away" kind of ship, good for trade but awful at sustained combat.

There are numerous ways to balance one feature against others, to create a ship that's a fantastic "one trick pony", but not a game-breaker overall because of the balancing down sides. Cost alone is a poor balancer, because eventually cost becomes irrelevant.

[Kittens David]

I am definitely more interested in the Frigates than corvettes. Turrets ship autofiring is way more interesting to me than fighter and piloting to aim.

My favorite look go for the

in X3:

Split Panther https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... C61C0AE7D/
Split dragon http://www.xdatabase.de/x3-reunion/comm ... ffe/17.jpg

in X rebirth

I enjoyed the look of the lepton even if it was a transporter and not a fighting ship. https://www.alpha-orbital.com/ship/lepton

[/u]

[Général Grievous]

I am definitely more interested in the Frigates than corvettes. Turrets ship autofiring is way more interesting to me than fighter and piloting to aim.

My favorite look go for the

in X3:

Split Panther https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ ... C61C0AE7D/
Split dragon http://www.xdatabase.de/x3-reunion/comm ... ffe/17.jpg

in X rebirth

I enjoyed the look of the lepton even if it was a transporter and not a fighting ship. https://www.alpha-orbital.com/ship/lepton

[/u]

I find all terran ships pretty cool, including the Succelus of course. But i dislike Teladi Design.

In X3 games, i dislike Paranid and Teladi designs, and loved the Terrans.

In X2, they were all good. maybe i'm nostalgic, i don't know!

[Tamina]

But i dislike Teladi Design.

Why? This is the coolest design ever made! I absolutly love the whole 3-dimensional ship layout and they look like giant jellyfish.
Very original, or at least I haven't seen this everywhere else.

Is it because it is different from X3?

[A5PECT]

The design of Teladi small and medium ships shown for X4 don't really gel with XR's Teladi capital ship design. I'm wondering if they''ll actually reuse the latter in the new game.

I liked a lot of the Terran/Argon ships in XR. I hope they make it into X4 somehow (I'm thinking a gate reconnection plot that adds the XR universe map to the X4 one). The Succelus and Foltor became some of my favorite designs in the X series, and I'd love to be able to pilot and command them in X4.

[Tamina]

The design of Teladi small and medium ships shown for X4 don't really gel with XR's Teladi capital ship design. I'm wondering if they''ll actually reuse the latter in the new game.

The Teladi XLs in X4 have a similar design to the XR XLs.
(Shout out to Simon for one of the coolest designs, ever.)

[mr.WHO]

I liked X-Rebirth teladi freighter design.
Capship design was kinda meh (too small comparing to other races capships).

However, fighter design was comple atrocity - flying lightbulb and not even stylish lightbulb.


I'm glad X4 Teladi fighter designs seems to be go back to X2 (Falcon) with some X3 (Teladi bomber) influence.

[Tomonor]

Well, in case the corvette class still exists by the timeframe of X4, they should go with their intended purpose and be support/armed transport ships. Unlike in X3, where they pretty much became powerhouse M3s without any real negative attributes.

They were balanced in X2, mostly because they could barely dock anywhere, and thus became these cool player yachts that even challenged players in the aspect of refueling them.

Then in X3, you just switched to an M6 after you got the money for it, because they excelled in every aspect of the game, including long range scouting, big cargo bay for transporting wares (and an almost infinite supply of energy cells for the jumpdrive), anti-fighter role (they almost steered like a friggin fighter!), anti-capital ship role (you could easily hide under a cap ship and spam your weapons on it until it exploded), and tank role (they even had proper shielding too).

See where I'm getting at? Make them either robust ships that have low capacity in steering, or make them similarly to fighters... But they can't go both ways.

[Honved]

In X3 games, i dislike Paranid and Teladi designs, and loved the Terrans.

I liked most of the curved and majestic Paranid capital ship designs in X3, but some of the fighters weren't very appealing in one way or another. Worse, the smaller Paranid M5s lacked recon capabilities (no way to mount a Triplex Scanner on either a Pegasus or a Pericles), and the Perseus design looked like a bad cartoon caricature of a fish. A few of the long projections looked dysfuntional on various designs, while others were odd but strangely "fitting" (the long "snout" on the Pericles). I was particularly fond of the Nemesis' look, but the far more effective Heavy Nemesis was just ugly. Then there was the Hyperion Vanguard, which looked the part of a luxury or racing yacht rather than the powerful M6++ warship that it was. My first thought when I saw one in the game for the first time was: "I want one".

Teladi ships in general looked blocky and ugly, but "cheap" and functional. I can't say I "liked" the look, but they fit into the game well.

The Terran ships were generally advanced and powerful looking, and as much as I hated the Terran weapon selection, they were still something to be desired. Some of the ATF ships looked ugly and blocky, and I was less than fond of several of the designs, no matter how brutally effective they were in the game.

The large Split capitals were also "fitting", and my opinion on their looks is decidedly mixed.

The Boron ships looked terribly out of place: those organic wings and projections serve no apparent purpose at all in space, but made them easy to hit and hard to maneuver in the game.

Argon was middle of the road, mostly "good enough" in appearance, with a few standouts and a few ugly clunkers. The projecting wings with engine pods suspended well clear of the main bodies seemed a bit unrealistic on most of their fighters, but overall the designs weren't objectionable.

[Tomonor]

in X rebirth

I enjoyed the look of the lepton even if it was a transporter and not a fighting ship. https://www.alpha-orbital.com/ship/lepton

That ship is oddly similar to some of the ships from the game Taikodom.

[dholmstr]

I always liked the M6 class. First when it was introduced they were really powerful, and could use the big Gamma HEPT. AAhhh those were the days of the green blob. Later on they got tweeked, for better or worse and I still like them. The middle class of ships, not small as fighters and not slow as caps. Could handle alot, versatility the name of the game.

In XR they were really putting the puny into them, so now the new middle class should be the M or L class. The only ship there is the Balor (wich again I do like both as a tool and the look). There was another thread on XR side of the forum, where we discussed breifly about getting more the middle ground ships and less the big XL fatties. Where the role for the was more specific for L ships and XL would be the monsters that did juuust about everthing and punched hard (but with misses on smaller ships). The Sucellus should really have been a L ship with the frontal smack of a artillary and with speed to run away when the shit hit the fan.

I do hope this will come in to X4, the role and diversity of function for ships.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

My favourite for its looks was the Heavy Centaur Prototype.

[A5PECT]

The design of Teladi small and medium ships shown for X4 don't really gel with XR's Teladi capital ship design. I'm wondering if they''ll actually reuse the latter in the new game.

The Teladi XLs in X4 have a similar design to the XR XLs.
(Shout out to Simon for one of the coolest designs, ever.)

They may just be placeholders for now. We've been shown a new design for the Teladi Falcon that conflicts with the Teladi Falcon from XR. My ideal scenario would be Teladi getting an all new set of ship designs for X4, but also reusing designs from XR as faction-specific ships.

One thing I liked in X3AP and XR was that there were multiple designs for a given ship class within a single race. AP had Argon/OTAS and Terran/ATF. XR had different ship designs between the Argon and Canteran governments, as well as designs specific to different corporations and factions belonging to the same race.

[Tomonor]

The design of Teladi small and medium ships shown for X4 don't really gel with XR's Teladi capital ship design. I'm wondering if they''ll actually reuse the latter in the new game.

The Teladi XLs in X4 have a similar design to the XR XLs.
(Shout out to Simon for one of the coolest designs, ever.)

They may just be placeholders for now. We've been shown a new design for the Teladi Falcon that conflicts with the Teladi Falcon from XR. My ideal scenario would be Teladi getting an all new set of ship designs for X4, but also reusing designs from XR as faction-specific ships.

One thing I liked in X3AP and XR was that there were multiple designs for a given ship class within a single race. AP had Argon/OTAS and Terran/ATF. XR had different ship designs between the Argon and Canteran governments, as well as designs specific to different corporations and factions belonging to the same race.

They have stated in a stream that they pretty much have to rework the ships in order to be able to access them seamlessly. So that might be the reason for the falcon redesign, while the L-XL size ships could stay the same, since they cannot land by normal means. But then again, Im just guessing here and they could be placeholders, or actual XR ported ships with redesigned interiors.

[Tamina]

The Teladi XLs in X4 have a similar design to the XR XLs.

They may just be placeholders for now. We've been shown a new design for the Teladi Falcon that conflicts with the Teladi Falcon from XR.

Small ships got a new design, yes. However, the Teladi XL ships are based on their XR design - according to Linolafett, asked him last week.
For how they actually look stands on a whole new paper but sure is they still have this overall jellyfish-look.

@repatomonor
That is a good guess XR smaller-then-L ships were mostly semi-functional 3D assets. They weren't even a playable element until Update 3.0 o.O
Now every ship needs to be able to land and have a cockpit. Makes sense.

[Spero]

If they have turrets and can dock at stations, I'll be happy.

I'll be even happier if at least one variant has just a full turret compliment and no forward weapons, because I loved that distinction when it came to M7s.

[A5PECT]

If they have turrets and can dock at stations, I'll be happy.

I'll be even happier if at least one variant has just a full turret compliment and no forward weapons, because I loved that distinction when it came to M7s.

It will depend on the station. Corvettes are roughly equivalent to M ships, so XR's "corvettes" will only be able to land at stations with M-size docking bays.