XR vs X4

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@Gligli: The simple fact is that while it is common in moduler/object-oriented software development practices to establish interfaces between modules/objects such interfaces are not true APIs in the commonly accepted sense unless they follow certain criteria (e.g. designed to be used by components external to the software library/application being developed - which is not a given).

In the context of Game Engines and the X-Trilogy games, based on what we have been told third-party APIs may have been used in the development of the X-Trilogy games but the game engine itself is not a distinct component from the game itself (disregarding scripts and the like - mods could change the scripts and creative content to in essence make a new game but that is another matter entirely).

Effectively X3:AP was the final article of the iterative development (starting with X-BTF) of what could generally be considered a reasonably homogenous product (at least from our perspective - Scripts/Shaders/Creative Content aside).

From the our perspective, X-Rebirth appears to be yet another homogenous product (no game engine publicly distinct from the game itself).

Such points of discussions are generally moot though, since the matter under discussion is not about the software architecture differences but rather about game features/performance/mechanics.

When I mentioned earlier about demands for multi-threading and 64-bit it was not for API reasons (although I can see how you could come to that conclusion) but game performance reasons since the multi-threading was perceived (by at least some of the community) as being a way to make the game perform better on multi-core hardware and the 64-bit was perceived (by at least some of the community) as being the answer to memory management issues that have plagued X games since at least X3:R.

The primary concerns now appear to be more to do with how X-Rebirth plays as a game and (in terms of missing/changed game features and changed mechanics) how things are changing for the next title. In such a context, fine distinctions about the game engine itself is pretty irrelevant although it is important to recognise the distinction in product lines (i.e. X-Trilogy and X-Rebirth going from Egosoft's forum titles) and that the product experience can change greatly between revisions of the product without totally rewriting the core software nor substituting/replacing major fundamental components.

[Gligli]

@Roger: Here, the only thing I'll not find irrelevant in your last post.
And I wont go further please...

Effectively X3:AP was the final article of the iterative development (starting with X-BTF) of what could generally be considered a reasonably homogenous product .

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@Gigli: Irrelevant to whom and in what context?

As far as I can see all of my previous post was relevant given the API and Engine points raised but in the context of the overall discussion this thread is addressing I feel only the last paragraph has any actual relevance to the topic apparently addressed by this thread.

The primary concerns now appear to be more to do with how X-Rebirth plays as a game and (in terms of missing/changed game features and changed mechanics) how things are changing for the next title. In such a context, fine distinctions about the game engine itself are pretty irrelevant although it is important to recognise the distinction in product lines (i.e. X-Trilogy and X-Rebirth going from Egosoft's forum titles) and that the product experience can change greatly between revisions of the product without totally rewriting the core software nor substituting/replacing major fundamental components.

[A5PECT]

I usually agree with you, Roger, but right now I'm having trouble following what you're trying to say.

In terms of its own development history and the future of subsequent games, XR is more comparable to XBTF than X3. I think it's why before launch Bernd was very insistent that XR would not be X4. Something down the line will probably end up being much closer to X4, but Egosoft has to iterate their way there again, all while making sure they don't program themselves into the same dead ends they found themselves at with the original X trilogy.

[gbjbaanb]

What I do think CBJ and Bernd are saying is that XR2 will be XR with a few more trade and/or ship management features and a couple of extra cockpits. I'm not holding my breath in anticipation for any of that.

I can assure, that this is not going to happen
Please do not speculate too much about the few things we have said so far. As soon as I am allowed to tell what we are doing, I will do that.
I sadly can not decide when its going to happen, but lets try to keep the discussions here down to earth and not end in very wrong assumptions as the one above

Yay, reading between the lines, that means more game based on the X3 engine... I'll get my coat

I don't want to fall into the RlsG trap, and I will hold my breath for the next iteration of XR, I'm hoping it'll be a lot more like the old stuff, all simulator rather than adventure game, so .. good luck. I'll wait and see (though my advice to Bernd is.. tell us! Keep us informed as much as Limit Theory chap used to do, we'll only fill the forums up with commentary.. which is what we're dong anyway!)

Cheers.

[Nanook]

...
Yay, reading between the lines, that means more game based on the X3 engine... I'll get my coat ...

Some people on here insist on confusing the X3 game engine with X3 game mechanics (not naming names but you all know who you are ) Two totally different animals. There's nothing to preclude creating a game with the XR engine that uses many of the mechanics of the past games, along with some from Rebirth. In fact, a lot of the past players would likely love to see that. So here's your hat to go along with your coat.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

I usually agree with you, Roger, but right now I'm having trouble following what you're trying to say.

In terms of its own development history and the future of subsequent games, XR is more comparable to XBTF than X3. I think it's why before launch Bernd was very insistent that XR would not be X4. Something down the line will probably end up being much closer to X4, but Egosoft has to iterate their way there again, all while making sure they don't program themselves into the same dead ends they found themselves at with the original X trilogy.

Essentially this is the point I have been getting at but with one subtle difference... with X-BTF Egosoft possibly did not envisage what X3/X4 might be like, where as with X-Rebirth and the potential future XR3/XR4/XR5 they seem to at least have a few ideas on the way the series might head (c/f an X4-like game). On that basis, I would expect the spec creep problem they had with the X-Trilogy to be less severe and have less technical implications since they know in advance possibly a large portion of the features/mechanics they may want/need to implement.

In short, assuming they have designed the core software architecture in the right way (based on public knowledge this appears to be the case) the X-Rebirth baseline could last for ALOT longer than the X-Trilogy baseline has regardless of changes (or additions) to game features and mechanics.

[zibafu]

I don't anticipate this kinda stuff even getting considered, but I would really like to see the combat made more interesting, especially when it comes to larger ships.

Bear... or is it bare... in mind I only touched rebirth and didn't like it, still playing albion prelude but:

Capital ship combat is kinda boring, there's little strategy involved other than
- avoid getting hit - whilst hitting the opponent. So how about scrapping the "random ware has been destroyed/damaged" message you get when shields are down, and instead have subsystems - engines, weapons, targeting, shield emitters etc, that you can damage to impair a capital ships ability to fight. This creates better strategies for fighting - sending a few fighters in to disable its engines, so you can board it for example.

This would make carriers much more useful in my opinion, since they are supposed to rely on their fighters afterall.

And how about instead of the single shield bubble approach, we have emitters for the different areas of a cap ship like front, back, top, bottom, thus meaning, that you again can employ strategy in either offense or defense when it comes to large ship fighting - taking a pummeling on one side, rotate that side away to protect it, enemy ships fore shields are low, get in position to take advantage of that, would certainly make the combat side of the game a tad more interesting

[Nikola515]

Actually M1 class in X3 wore pretty useful (for me personally ). Loading them with 30 Eclipses armed with missiles. They are pretty much unstoppable Only problem is equipping all of those fighters but after that it works like a charm What XR need to do is make ships to carry fighters and not those useless drones and problem would be solved

[BigBANGtheory]

Actually M1 class in X3 wore pretty useful (for me personally ). Loading them with 30 Eclipses armed with missiles. They are pretty much unstoppable Only problem is equipping all of those fighters but after that it works like a charm What XR need to do is make ships to carry fighters and not those useless drones and problem would be solved

Might as well just buff the stats of the drones then, no I don't think that solves anything and certainly doesn't not make it more interesting.

What you need is an efficient way to command the capships the fighters, drones etc (learning lessons from X3 on how not to do it whilst taking advantage of the XR squad system) and a reason to do so.

[UniTrader]

@zibafu

you just decribed how big ship battles are in XR basically, with the little exception that there are Cap Shields which protect the Ship as a whole whiche were added later on popular request. they still have small shields which cover only a few surface systems though.

[A5PECT]

The only thing missing from zibafu's description are carriers. No capital ships have docking bays for fighters in (vanilla) XR. There are drone bays, but drones are only marginally more powerful than they were in X3; they still don't directly compete with dedicated fighter craft in terms of performance.

Though I'd say it's even more important to have carriers because it makes managing large amounts of fighters much, much easier. Don't get me started on trying to move even a moderately-sized fighter squadron around the universe in XR.

[UniTrader]

Though I'd say it's even more important to have carriers because it makes managing large amounts of fighters much, much easier. Don't get me started on trying to move even a moderately-sized fighter squadron around the universe in XR.

no need to have carriers for that - the current Hierarchies are a much better tool for that, but it still needs much polishing..

(tell a fighter to get X Ships as Squadmates of the same type as his and semi-automatically replace losses, also command these as a whole instead of commanding individual ships, and in case the leader dies select one of his squadmates as new leader, and best make this seamless like the leader was never absent for scripting purposes)

[A5PECT]

Sounds like X3's GMS... it did make fighter groups infinitely easier to manage in-sector, especially in intense combat.

But there's also the issue of moving fighter groups across large distances, as highways have a very disorientating nature in regards to formations of small ships. Being able to cram a bunch of fighters into a single, larger ship and jump and boost them around the universe together would be a massive improvement to fleet management.

Oh, and most importantly, fighters launching from/landing at a carrier just look really cool.

[MegaJohnny]

no need to have carriers for that - the current Hierarchies are a much better tool for that, but it still needs much polishing..

(tell a fighter to get X Ships as Squadmates of the same type as his and semi-automatically replace losses, also command these as a whole instead of commanding individual ships, and in case the leader dies select one of his squadmates as new leader, and best make this seamless like the leader was never absent for scripting purposes)

Star Ruler 2's fleet system worked pretty much as you described, and it worked great. The fleet leader remembers how many support ships it has, and therefore how many got blown up in a fight. Then at a friendly system it will buy them back until it's up to the quota again. It was a simple, effective solution to the logistical problem of fleet management, and it just worked. If X had something like that it would be amazing.

[Lord Dakier]

I don't stop by here much any more, but just my 2 pence on the subject of fleets and combat.

---THE IDEA---

I want my fleet management to be kind of like it was designed by Paradox. Plenty of customisation and plenty of complexity, but not in a way where it feels like a chore to outfit fighters. It would be awesome to follow the Hearts of Iron example and have an order of battle where the AI will take control of some of the more minor tasks depending on how large my fleet it.

I never liked how carriers were designed in X3 I felt like they was just weaker destroyers that have hanger capabilities. I always wanted to see poorly shielded and weakly armed carriers with little more than light weaponry and anti-missile weapons/countermeasures.

Every carrier captain would command their units directly underneath them and you should also be able to compliment them with destroyers that act as assault units and frigates/cruisers acting as screening and support. Now the fleet commander i.e. the player or even AI should have overall control.

---TACTICAL MAP---

What would be awesome is a tactical map where we can simply select a carrier and tell it to attack another ship and it does so while taking into account all its own compliment of support.

To add to this it should also be possible to break off units from their homebase to support and objective and once its completed they then return to their homebase to take further orders.

Other features like selecting several groups and having a drop down menu of options to add them to that carrier would also be beneficial here. Pretty much anything could and should be done from this menu in terms of fleet organisation.

---REPAIRING/REBUILDING SHIPS---

Once ships have been damaged or destroyed then the carrier captain and commander of that battle group sends a report to the player once no threats are present detailing the losses and status of repairs. Some repairs should be fixable in space, but quicker at a dockyard. The player should be able to read through this report and order the fighters that was lost or add alternative to be built depending on pre-made loadouts or custom made loadouts.

Shipyards will respond and then mark-up the price of any equipment they have to import from other factions by anywhere from 10%-35% depending on relations and maybe some other factors like contract agreements or rewards for objectives completed in a mission. Ships should go through two phases; construction and re-armament. Payment could be taken in two sums should the player with to cancel armament once they've been built or just go straight ahead.

Once refitted with the pre-made or custom loadout requested these ships can then be grouped and the player should have an option of whether he wants the carrier captain to go to them or for them to go to the carrier group. Perhaps this could be automated depending on whether there are any hostile lanes/sectors or enemies in known areas.

That's how envisage the perfect war side of a space game like X being. Cut out the tedious stuff by making players only have to adjust their ships a few times with custom loadouts made to order, make tactics an actual gameplay element rather than just strategy.

[blotunga]

Here is what I would like to see in X4:
- redesigned UI - controls and UI actually designed for PC (keyboard/mouse and/or Joystick) -> opposed to controls designed originally for controllers and then make a bad PC port
- multiple flyable ships
- X3 style dogfight - I cannot get used to dogfight in XR
- no FPS part (it's meh anyway)
Mind you I've only tried the game during the free weekend but somehow I couldn't warm up to it. And I played everything from X2 to X3:AP.

Basically I would like to see X3 with updated graphics and new story... Now back to playing Albion Prelude .

[Helken Mootyflops]

I agree with biotunga.

What I am looking for in X4 is an improvement on X3 - by which I mean all of the things you can do in Terran Conflict and Albion Prelude, none of those features that contribute to enjoyment and narrative-building stripped away - and then some new things added onto that, and I guess nicer graphics and sound if possible.

I expect that might mean a lot of reimplementation of X3 features on the new platform, but that's what I'm really hoping egosoft go for, personally.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

In short based on what I have seen, that is not what we will be getting (at least anytime soon). To all intents and purposes X4 is effectively off-the-table (and has never been on-the-table even) based on what I have seen.

I mainly disagree with blotunga on one point wrt XR2/???... the removal of the FP part.

As for dogfighting, I can not see any substantial difference.

Where controls are concerned, it currently (v3.5x) works ok with KBD+MSE and even a HOTAS joystick such as the X52... the less I say about what I think of how it works with game controllers the better it will be for all concerned.

[blotunga]

I don't remember exactly how it is in X:R, but in X3 I can do everything with my keyboard. I don't have to move my right hand from the keyboard and to the mouse. Which I don't think I could in X:R. Well, I'll save some steam wallet money until the next sale and I'll pick up the game then and give it a shot again.