i feel like claiming sectors is kind of dumb

[Raptor34]

What might be interesting, although the detailed gameplay and rules would need careful working out, is if sector ownership meant that the player has a security responsibility for their space.

As examples, allowing pirates and hostiles to operate in owned space would incur some sort of penalty in terms of minor rep loss or paying financial recompense regarding friendly/neutral factions that lose assets to attacks or harassments there. Conversely, where a friendly/neutral faction has factories in player owned sectors, some small regular recognition (rep or cash) could follow periods of stable security with no attacks or harassments of their assets.

If nothing else, it would give the player an immersion or roleplay incentive to control piracy and hostiles in their space even if the associated rewards or penalties are relatively insignificant. Maybe players would no longer shrug about that Kha'ak outpost, or a FAF Rattlesnake on plunder patrol in their areas. Maybe providing regular patrols and policing would become more the expected norm rather than a late afterthought possibility.

Yeah, that would be nice. But factions already have issues doing that and if I need to provide security...

[Falcrack]

Another point that seems to have been missed is that if the NPC factions have limited money, the amount of money the player can ever possibly acquire is also limited. Once the factions have exhausted their financial resources, there is nowhere for the player to get any more credits from. If you make the amount of money that the factions have so large that this ceases to be an issue, what's the point of having the limit in the first place?

Here's how you address this issue. There needs to be a continuous circulation of currency. By this I mean, factions would continuously gain money through owning sectors, money which would be coming from the nameless sector population, but it would be coming in at a fixed rate. But they would also be continuously paying out money into the nameless sector population in the form of upkeep/maintenance costs for ships and stations (I know, a contentious issue). Eventually, there would be an equilibrium achieved between credits coming in through ownership of sectors, and credits leaving accounts through upkeep fees. Without a circulation of credits to and from the sector populations, the problem you indicate exists, but circulation of credits solves this issue. It would prevent all the credits from simply pooling into the hands of either the player or one particular NPC faction. There would be no "exhausting of financial resources" because credits would be continually replenished at a rate proportional to the number of sectors owned, and would be exhausted at a rate proportional to how many assets they have. It would ultimately balance out.

So the whole point of having credit limits on NPC factions is ultimately to limit the amount of ships and stations which could be supported in the universe. Too many ships and stations (including player owned ships and stations), and the total credit supply in the universe begins to dry up until more ships and stations cannot be afforded to be maintained. Too few ships and station, and the total credit supply in the universe begins to expand, allowing the purchase of more ships and stations. It is a soft cap on the size of the universe. There income rate from sector ownership would need to be adjusted such that it is able to support an ideal number of ships/stations to make the game interesting, but not so high that you get too many ships that results in performance issues.

[Falcrack]

You do realise the level of the AI required for such a thing. It would come so close to be a human that we would probably need a second computer (preferably a supercomputer) to run it along... Then the player would be playing "against" 5 opponents. A good oucome of such a thing would be that we would have real diplomacy....

Oh geez, I hear this a lot. You do realize there is a wide world of strategy games where the AI functions perfectly fine when they have limited, as opposed to unlimited funds, right? This is not some unreachable goal. Other game makers have made it happen many times over. If I were to play a pure 4X strategy game and realize that the AI factions were cheating by getting unlimited money, I would cease playing those strategy games. It is only for all the other good qualities aside from 4X strategy that I play X4.

What games? And how many of these are real time?

Stellaris. Europa Universalis. Sins of a Solar Empire. Hearts of Iron. There are several non-real time ones as well, such as Galactic Civilizations, Master of Orion, Endless Space, etc. All have money as a finite, replenishing resource generated as a result of owning planets/sectors. They also all have upkeep fees for ships and stations. It works out. The game AI still is able to handle this.

[CBJ]

It would ultimately balance out.

Um, no. As with other factors such as resources, it would make money a self-reinforcing limit on the NPC economy. As a faction shrinks it gets less income, and so is less able to rebuild, increasing the chances of it being wiped out entirely. In strategy games, this is the desired result; in X series games it's not. We have to work hard to solve this problem on the resources side, with smaller factions being particularly susceptible to disappearing far too easily, even without player influence. Adding another self-reinforcing pressure on top of this would, without any shred of a doubt, break it.

[Raptor34]

Oh geez, I hear this a lot. You do realize there is a wide world of strategy games where the AI functions perfectly fine when they have limited, as opposed to unlimited funds, right? This is not some unreachable goal. Other game makers have made it happen many times over. If I were to play a pure 4X strategy game and realize that the AI factions were cheating by getting unlimited money, I would cease playing those strategy games. It is only for all the other good qualities aside from 4X strategy that I play X4.

What games? And how many of these are real time?

Stellaris. Europa Universalis. Sins of a Solar Empire. Hearts of Iron. There are several non-real time ones as well, such as Galactic Civilizations, Master of Orion, Endless Space, etc. All have money as a finite, replenishing resource generated as a result of owning planets/sectors. They also all have upkeep fees for ships and stations. It works out. The game AI still is able to handle this.

Last I heard the PDX ones does have cheats. Either that or there was a time where they literally collapsed because the AI is dumb as bricks.
SoASE is also significantly simpler, they don't have to worry that much about the various things factions in X4 need to for instance. Like their dumbass transporters deciding to make the route through Xenon space the primary route instead of a detour. Or even without that having Xenon and Khaak deciding to take potshots at their logistics. I'm fairly sure the last time I played Sins that I didn't actually have to shuttle my resources around for instance. And iirc Sins doesn't actually have upkeep for everything last I remember. Or is it their upkeep is more like a tax? At least I don't remember it being a traditional upkeep system.

And I don't see the point of having a softcap when what people want is more shit not less. Also adding another overhead into the calculations is in no way conducive to having more shit either.

It would ultimately balance out.

Um, no. As with other factors such as resources, it would make money a self-reinforcing limit on the NPC economy. As a faction shrinks it gets less income, and so is less able to rebuild, increasing the chances of it being wiped out entirely. In strategy games, this is the desired result; in X series games it's not. We have to work hard to solve this problem on the resources side, with smaller factions being particularly susceptible to disappearing far too easily, even without player influence. Adding another self-reinforcing pressure on top of this would, without any shred of a doubt, break it.

Well, you could have a dying faction issue war bonds for a cash injection. And the player can be a financier.

The bigger problem imo is that I cannot actually see what this does for X4. It's could be an interesting system, but not what this game needs. Not yet anyway, the faction AI needs to be able to handle themselves better first before being given more responsibility.

[Falcrack]

It would ultimately balance out.

Um, no. As with other factors such as resources, it would make money a self-reinforcing limit on the NPC economy. As a faction shrinks it gets less income, and so is less able to rebuild, increasing the chances of it being wiped out entirely. In strategy games, this is the desired result; in X series games it's not. We have to work hard to solve this problem on the resources side, with smaller factions being particularly susceptible to disappearing far too easily, even without player influence. Adding another self-reinforcing pressure on top of this would, without any shred of a doubt, break it.

To address this particular issue, the AI factions could be limited in terms of their aggressiveness towards smaller factions. As a faction shrinks in size, the other stronger AI factions will cease their attacks and attempts to take over the smaller faction. But the smaller faction will not cease trying to reclaim lost territory. Larger factions would become targets of other factions until they are cut down to size, after which they would not be targeted as aggressively.

The only way a faction would be destroyed, in this situation, would be for the player to actively choose to destroy the faction.

[CBJ]

No, I'm sorry, that's not a solution. The disappearance of smaller factions generally has very little to do with a fixed level of aggression from other factions; it's the inherent instability caused by limited resources in a complex economy. It only takes a relatively small influence to tip them over the edge, and it behaves more like a butterfly effect than a consistently measurable level of aggression causing problems. Putting yet another limiting factor on that just adds more uncertainty to it, and provides fewer ways for the system to rebalance itself and prevent the faction from disappearing.

This is not just guesswork and theorising. We run lots of economy tests, and we know how delicate the faction economies can be.

[Y-llian]

I seem to a remember a beta, way back now, where the Xenon went on a rampage. Commonly referred to in history textbooks as the Great ‘let’s tweak’ Xenon Apocalypse …

[Falcrack]

No, I'm sorry, that's not a solution. The disappearance of smaller factions generally has very little to do with a fixed level of aggression from other factions; it's the inherent instability caused by limited resources in a complex economy. It only takes a relatively small influence to tip them over the edge, and it behaves more like a butterfly effect than a consistently measurable level of aggression causing problems. Putting yet another limiting factor on that just adds more uncertainty to it, and provides fewer ways for the system to rebalance itself and prevent the faction from disappearing.

This is not just guesswork and theorising. We run lots of economy tests, and we know how delicate the faction economies can be.

It might be nice to have a gamestart where the campaign and storyline is not enabled, and where everything is allowed to run wild as it were. Faction relations are dynamic and can change according to the in-game circumstances. Forget about trying to preserve factions, just allow the game to develop however it may. A lot of players want to play the game more as a strategy game than as a plot driven game, and these considerations to make sure one or more factions are not wiped out limits the potential of X4 as a strategy game.

Maybe in such a gamestart everyone could have the relatively simple Terran economy? That would make each faction more robust in terms of not having enough of a given resource to operate.

[Y-llian]

What might be interesting, although the detailed gameplay and rules would need careful working out, is if sector ownership meant that the player has a security responsibility for their space.

As examples, allowing pirates and hostiles to operate in owned space would incur some sort of penalty in terms of minor rep loss or paying financial recompense regarding friendly/neutral factions that lose assets to attacks or harassments there. Conversely, where a friendly/neutral faction has factories in player owned sectors, some small regular recognition (rep or cash) could follow periods of stable security with no attacks or harassments of their assets.

If nothing else, it would give the player an immersion or roleplay incentive to control piracy and hostiles in their space even if the associated rewards or penalties are relatively insignificant. Maybe players would no longer shrug about that Kha'ak outpost, or a FAF Rattlesnake on plunder patrol in their areas. Maybe providing regular patrols and policing would become more the expected norm rather than a late afterthought possibility.

I like some these suggestions, Alan. It’s really about opening up more opportunities for the player to own space and manage it. Personally, I always provide security in my own sectors so it may be nice to have some reward for those efforts.

Full disclosure, I did once play as a xenophobic type of faction, I called ‘The Gardeners,’ whose sole mission was to “trim” the galaxy like some sort of galactic tree - keeping all other factions bottled up in two sectors each. It was a really fun challenge… The Gardeners naturally took internal “security” very seriously indeed…

[Raptor34]

No, I'm sorry, that's not a solution. The disappearance of smaller factions generally has very little to do with a fixed level of aggression from other factions; it's the inherent instability caused by limited resources in a complex economy. It only takes a relatively small influence to tip them over the edge, and it behaves more like a butterfly effect than a consistently measurable level of aggression causing problems. Putting yet another limiting factor on that just adds more uncertainty to it, and provides fewer ways for the system to rebalance itself and prevent the faction from disappearing.

This is not just guesswork and theorising. We run lots of economy tests, and we know how delicate the faction economies can be.

It might be nice to have a gamestart where the campaign and storyline is not enabled, and where everything is allowed to run wild as it were. Faction relations are dynamic and can change according to the in-game circumstances. Forget about trying to preserve factions, just allow the game to develop however it may. A lot of players want to play the game more as a strategy game than as a plot driven game, and these considerations to make sure one or more factions are not wiped out limits the potential of X4 as a strategy game.

Maybe in such a gamestart everyone could have the relatively simple Terran economy? That would make each faction more robust in terms of not having enough of a given resource to operate.

I'll be careful about saying a lot though. I don't care for that for one. I just don't normally bother saying that.

[Y-llian]

Fair point Raptor… That is where X games are tricky because they cannot be easily squared into specific genres. And that means there will always be tensions in the player community on what/what does not add to that nebulous concept of “fun”…

[Falcrack]

No, I'm sorry, that's not a solution. The disappearance of smaller factions generally has very little to do with a fixed level of aggression from other factions; it's the inherent instability caused by limited resources in a complex economy. It only takes a relatively small influence to tip them over the edge, and it behaves more like a butterfly effect than a consistently measurable level of aggression causing problems. Putting yet another limiting factor on that just adds more uncertainty to it, and provides fewer ways for the system to rebalance itself and prevent the faction from disappearing.

This is not just guesswork and theorising. We run lots of economy tests, and we know how delicate the faction economies can be.

It might be nice to have a gamestart where the campaign and storyline is not enabled, and where everything is allowed to run wild as it were. Faction relations are dynamic and can change according to the in-game circumstances. Forget about trying to preserve factions, just allow the game to develop however it may. A lot of players want to play the game more as a strategy game than as a plot driven game, and these considerations to make sure one or more factions are not wiped out limits the potential of X4 as a strategy game.

Maybe in such a gamestart everyone could have the relatively simple Terran economy? That would make each faction more robust in terms of not having enough of a given resource to operate.

I'll be careful about saying a lot though. I don't care for that for one. I just don't normally bother saying that.

If you didn't like the idea of such a gamestart, no one would force you to choose to play it. I don't know how many would play it. I would though

[Y-llian]

If you didn't like the idea of such a gamestart, no one would force you to choose to play it. I don't know how many would play it. I would though

Isn’t the question really, whether there is enough demand / desire in the player base to justify development time? Personally, I wouldn’t mind such a game start but not at the expense of making core gameplay mechanics more interesting / useful.

[jlehtone]

To address this particular issue, the AI factions could be limited in terms of their aggressiveness towards smaller factions. As a faction shrinks in size, the other stronger AI factions will cease their attacks and attempts to take over the smaller faction.

What would you do with the "problem factions"?

• The Xenon have very clear mission to be aggressive. The "I stop, because I would win" does not compute with their lore
• The player will not comply to "stop now, because you are stronger than everyone" requests

You could create "Lex Ancient"; player assets may not exceed assets of any faction. If some faction loses ships, do self-destruct player ships to maintain the rule. Your only way to become stronger is then to make the weakest faction as strong as possible. Then Xenon becomes the weakest, is assaulted by NPC factions, and your stations burn to stardust unless you protect the Xenon.

Obviously such "artificial limits" are not acceptable. (They are ok in a strategy game, where you have to reach a goal in limited time/turns.)


The "pilot AI" and "CEO AI" act on different data. You can't predict the behaviour of latter's implementation from the behaviour of the former. Do the "other games" (that do have competetive empires) actually have "ace pilots" too?


Player is almost self-sufficient in X4. Once you have blueprints, you can build all stations, ships, and equipment and you don't need credits to do it, do you? Back in X3 there was always something that you did need the NPC (Docks) for.

Almost. Once you have the economy to build everything and have claimed all the sectors in the Galaxy, you will still be short on one thing: worthy goose to chase. If your interest is in building stations (for sake of building), then even that is not an issue (but your CPU might disagree).

[TheDeliveryMan]

No, I'm sorry, that's not a solution. The disappearance of smaller factions generally has very little to do with a fixed level of aggression from other factions; it's the inherent instability caused by limited resources in a complex economy. It only takes a relatively small influence to tip them over the edge, and it behaves more like a butterfly effect than a consistently measurable level of aggression causing problems. Putting yet another limiting factor on that just adds more uncertainty to it, and provides fewer ways for the system to rebalance itself and prevent the faction from disappearing.

This is not just guesswork and theorising. We run lots of economy tests, and we know how delicate the faction economies can be.

It might be nice to have a gamestart where the campaign and storyline is not enabled, and where everything is allowed to run wild as it were. Faction relations are dynamic and can change according to the in-game circumstances. Forget about trying to preserve factions, just allow the game to develop however it may. A lot of players want to play the game more as a strategy game than as a plot driven game, and these considerations to make sure one or more factions are not wiped out limits the potential of X4 as a strategy game.

Maybe in such a gamestart everyone could have the relatively simple Terran economy? That would make each faction more robust in terms of not having enough of a given resource to operate.

If Egosoft provides such a gamestart they also have to make sure it is reasonably playable. Players are going to complain if they cannot buy ships anymore after three hours due to a collapse of the NPC economy.

Someone needs to write scripts for what to do when low on on money or low on vital other resources. Someone else needs to run extensive tests for that game mode, etc... I think you are seriously underestimating the amount of work required for such a game mode.

[magitsu]

Someone needs to write scripts for what to do when low on on money or low on vital other resources. Someone else needs to run extensive tests for that game mode, etc... I think you are seriously underestimating the amount of work required for such a game mode.

Everything asked besides all using Terran wares (which isn't relevant ask in any case for this) is already available in the custom start. Story/campaign doesn't start if you don't scan the first Boso mission and do the dlc missions which start with cutscene intros at their respective gates.
Dynamic reps though need that Deadair mod.

Restricting AI money is indeed futile, because we know that it's already ultimately affected by resource extraction / production capability and the amount of jobs allowed. It doesn't need another less effective modifier in between.

The amount of jobs and the AI's ability to (not) have the few key assets in the right place at the right time might be even harder for it than resource extraction/production. Because even if it has endless resources, those few shipyards, Intervention Asgard etc. can be in the completely wrong direction and there's a lot of wrong places to be. Keeping in mind how hard it is for the AI to even corral defenses inside one sector to respond.

It's interesting to consider how much Paradox needed to change Stellaris for the AI. It had 3 jump methods in the beginning, which turned into one with heavy chokepoints. X Rebirth on the other hand had jump points in front of overpowered stations, which meant the pirate caps jumping in always got nuked in an instant. Enemies coming through highway or spawning out of thin air somewhere else were the only proper targets.
We still have some of that in the Encounter mechanism, which is somewhat unsatisfying way to provide surprise to a lull. It now at least has some sense (them being real ships teleported from somewhere else, but the random grabbing is the weird part).

[Hector0x]

It might be nice to have a gamestart where the campaign and storyline is not enabled, and where everything is allowed to run wild as it were. Faction relations are dynamic and can change according to the in-game circumstances.

+1
Optional game mode in a procedural galaxy. No job limits (everyone allowed to build unlimited military) Economy or faction death are possible, but get counteracted by dynamic relations.

How?
> whoever owns the most ships or has the highest grade of self sufficiency for his shipyards gets treated like the guy who is going for a sience victory in Civ 5.
Factions stop invading each other and gang up on him instead. Once he got decimated the coalition breaks apart again

[Falcrack]

It might be nice to have a gamestart where the campaign and storyline is not enabled, and where everything is allowed to run wild as it were. Faction relations are dynamic and can change according to the in-game circumstances.

+1
Optional game mode in a procedural galaxy. No job limits (everyone allowed to build unlimited military) Economy or faction death are possible, but get counteracted by dynamic relations.

How?
> whoever owns the most ships or has the highest grade of self sufficiency for his shipyards gets treated like the guy who is going for a sience victory in Civ 5.
Factions stop invading each other and gang up on him instead. Once he got decimated the coalition breaks apart again

+1 for Mayhem mod for X4!

[A5PECT]

Oh boy, we've arrived at "Just make it optional"

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