X4 - ten questions for developers

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Mon, 31. Jul 17, 22:25

@ mr.WHO: I am not sure that fps question fully applies in a future new game scenario.

I am pretty sure that the devs will employ the graphics capabilities of the combined engines to their fullest possible extent in providing enhanced gameplay with improved display quality and complexity. They will also wish to ensure that acceptable play and framerates can be achieved on a system at the minimum specs as declared for the new game and good performance if on a system at recommended specs. As yet we don't know what those specs will be.

Skeeter · Post by **Skeeter** » Mon, 31. Jul 17, 22:47

Let's hope the minimum spec is a decent spec like star citizen and not keep trying to get low spec computers from 10 years ago to play.

BigBANGtheory · Post by **BigBANGtheory** » Tue, 1. Aug 17, 00:31

mr.WHO wrote:What does high-performace part mean?

Can I expect better FPS than X-Rebirth or just better graphic, but same FPS?

"The way I read it" is simply this...

Vulkan API = far better potetnital for utilization of modern hardware than DX9

BUT Egosoft need to optimise with Vulkan over time to realise the benefits as well....

In short X4 should use not only Vulkan APi but optimizations learned from XR VR + Ealry Access. This is a very good thing for all fans of X Universe lets hope it works out well, it sounding good at this stage.

pixel · Post by **pixel** » Wed, 2. Aug 17, 00:39

The last best fun X game was X2.

X3 got lost in spreadsheets and complexes and forgot the fun.

X Rebirth was a tedious, buggy, interface mess. Don't even get me started by the retarded super highways and the indecipherable sector maps. Needing to scan stations all over. Pointless walking in stations that added 0. omfg. I actually restarted XR a year ago and gave up after getting stuck in scenery after 1 hour of play.

I really REALLY want to be excited by X4. but keeping the highways....Sorry I just can't be excited, it's just a signpost of 'we're going along the same road as XR'.

I have been an Ego forum member since the old forums, probably around 2000. I WANT X4 to be good. I have massive amount of time for Egosoft. Bernd and the team are good people.

Please get rid of the silly game in games (super highways, scanning stations ALL OVER, stockmarkets etc).

Please get back to making X fun again. You knw, building up your ship, finding out stuff, building an empire (without this needing to take 20 hours to just get started on that (20 hours may be an exaggeration!) and game guides), having formiddable ships, being a force to be reckoned with as the player without needing to resort to buggy, time consuming fleets and complexes that just kill enjoyment and FPS.

Sorkvild · Post by **Sorkvild** » Wed, 2. Aug 17, 15:43

mr.WHO wrote:What does high-performace part mean?

Can I expect better FPS than X-Rebirth or just better graphic, but same FPS?

Cutting this short - better performance on the graphics side which is more than good and also should please gamers with AMD cards (AMD likes Vulkan) and users oscillating around minimum specs.
Different story is - main processor use. We know how heavy the processor load in X games can be. That is up to new engine and how it handles things.
Yeah, but use of Vulkan is good.

What wonders me is which team X4 will favor more. Green or Red...

Lord Dakier · Post by **Lord Dakier** » Wed, 2. Aug 17, 18:41

I'm happy to see X4 go back to its semi-RTS, space simulator roots.

Empire building needs to be jacked up to the max. Bring back the races owning sectors of space and have distinct companies and personalities for them in those spaces. Allow the player to be their own company or own several companies of their own.

Corporations should have fleets, race military should have even more fleets and there needs to be plenty of war going on in at least 1/4 of the universe to keep things interesting. If there is going to be a big bad guy race/faction then I'd still like to see the typical factions at odds with each other. Boron/Argon vs Split/Paranid war anyone? Maybe seeing the player bring the factions together in an uneasy alliance too sounds fun.

Technology is something I'd like to see come into the game more and tuning/mods but more dynamic with plenty of upgrades.

Snafu_X3 · Post by **Snafu_X3** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 02:01

pixel wrote:Please get rid of the silly game in games (super highways, scanning stations ALL OVER, stockmarkets etc).

Please get back to making X fun again.

Dunno where you got the 'scanning stations all over' bit from; that was gone by v2 (or maybe v1.6; I forget..); however the silly highways (the 'minigame' was also disposed of some time ago) have mostly gone in XR:VR & prolly the upcoming XRv4.2x, leading us to believe that they'll have vanished or at least been substantially reworked in X4

You knw, building up your ship, finding out stuff, building an empire (without this needing to take 20 hours to just get started on that (20 hours may be an exaggeration!) and game guides), having formiddable ships, being a force to be reckoned with as the player without needing to resort to buggy, time consuming fleets and complexes that just kill enjoyment and FPS.

If you won't put the time/effort into building your internal economy/military base, why should the game give you stuff for free? This (despite the silly UI) is meant to be a time consuming game taking long-term strategy into account, not some 30-minute arcade shoot-em-up that you can put down at any time without thinking about it.. altho X:R currently fails in the former, IMO, leading to the latter <player> mentality, despite the vast improvements made with updates

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 08:28

Snafu_X3 wrote: Dunno where you got the 'scanning stations all over' bit from; that was gone by v2 (or maybe v1.6; I forget..)

Acquiring a Trade Agent has automatically scaned all station storage modules for some time but if we want to know about production demands and timings, we still need to scan related modules. Beyond a sense of completion, was there a need to scan entire stations in the past?

Snafu_X3 wrote: however the silly highways (the 'minigame' was also disposed of some time ago) have mostly gone in XR:VR & prolly the upcoming XRv4.2x, leading us to believe that they'll have vanished or at least been substantially reworked in X4

Egosoft shared their thoughts at the time on X4 highways back in April:

linolafett wrote:All answers have to be taken with a grain of salt, please.
I am trying to say something, without saying something wrong. I though can absolutely not guarantee that any answers stay like this til release. Somethimes features just dont make the cut.

Expect artist answers. I can not say anything about AI and stuff, as i have very little knowlege about it.

mr.WHO wrote: 5) You ocasionally mentioned that you plan to adjust the universe and universe travel (something with highways tweaks I presume) - can you share some details?
The highways will be mostly in straight lines or single radius curves.
Not all zones will have highways and you will be able to boost over longer distances.
Its following the steps we did in the HOL DLC.

Sandalpocalypse · Post by **Sandalpocalypse** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 09:26

Highways are still really convenient for keeping s/m traffic relevant within a sector, it also creates a difference between highway'd sectors and non-highway sectors in terms of ship choice.

main thing i dont like about the current iteration of highways is that the mission structures are reliant on them which causes some problems. IE station defense missions in highwayless sectors cancel out early because the s/m ships dont get there fast enough. On the flip side you have ships dropping out of high way into a massive station crossfire in p much every zone in HoL.

Carriers oughta provide a neat solution to such problems in x4 tho.

Gregorovitch · Post by **Gregorovitch** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 11:46

The highways will be mostly in straight lines or single radius curves.
Not all zones will have highways and you will be able to boost over longer distances.
Its following the steps we did in the HOL DLC.

I've never played XR, only watched a bit of this highways business on video, but I have sure played a lot of X3, Reunion being my first gX game, and this is my take on the issue:

There is no difference in principle between a jump gate and a super-highway tube - if they both just connect point A to point B.

However if a suer-highway is a whacking great road that travels right across the universe map with every stop on the way marked for out for you in your HUD like a metro tourist map then there is a big difference. That's point A to points B-Z and it's an exploration killer.

A big part of the magic of X3 for me, especialy when you first start to play it (I know that''s hard to remember now), is exploration - uncovering the sectrets of the universe by mapping out the sectors and jump gates one by one.

You get told to find Omicron Lycrea. that was a lot easier said than done for a noob. Where the devil is it? And in Reunion you had to negotiate a real pirate alley to get there to boot. OMG - "Pirate: Nova". I'll never forget the way the narrator pronounced "Nova" as long as I live and breath.

So i don't know how other folks see this, but for me I don't want no metro maps = blind harum scarum exploration and mystery for me - but exactly how I get teleported from one sector to another, don't care.

Edit: Fixed broken quote - Sparky

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 12:02

Hi Gregorovitch,

In X Rebirth, solar systems are setup like Earth in X3:AP (several sectors each). Super Highways in X Rebirth are equivalent to TOAs in X3:AP in that they connect Rebirth Sectors to each other.

Rebirth also has networks of Zones within each Sector, which are often connected by normal Highways. It's these inter-zone highways that are being discussed by Egosoft in the quote.

Skeeter · Post by **Skeeter** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 13:24

God I hope x4 goes back to single sectors, separated stations and the gate system, couldn't stand xr navigation and sectors or them big stations.

Commander_K · Post by **Commander_K** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 13:36

Skeeter wrote:God I hope x4 goes back to single sectors, separated stations and the gate system, couldn't stand xr navigation and sectors or them big stations.

God, I hope it doesn't. Solar systems where only 10 km^3 are used totally breaks my immersion.

Artean · Post by **Artean** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 15:41

Commander_K wrote:
Skeeter wrote:God I hope x4 goes back to single sectors, separated stations and the gate system, couldn't stand xr navigation and sectors or them big stations.
God, I hope it doesn't. Solar systems where only 10 km^3 are used totally breaks my immersion.

+1

Post by **linolafett** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 16:46

System Navigation got improved, the layout is not as messy as in XR anymore.
Sector sizes should match the Rebirth maps, they stay big.

mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 17:11

linolafett wrote:System Navigation got improved, the layout is not as messy as in XR anymore.
Sector sizes should match the Rebirth maps, they stay big.

By messy you mean like the vanilla X-Rebirth systems?
By improvement you mean like Home of Light system?

Post by **linolafett** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 18:45

Kind of "yes" to both.
It will make sense when you see the first map images in the future. I would probably fail to explain how it looks like here. Please have a bit of patience.

Post by **UniTrader** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 18:54

mr.WHO wrote:
linolafett wrote:System Navigation got improved, the layout is not as messy as in XR anymore.
Sector sizes should match the Rebirth maps, they stay big.
By messy you mean like the vanilla X-Rebirth systems?
By improvement you mean like Home of Light system?

The only Messy Place i know in the Core Universe is Omicron Lyrae. the other Systems are basically fine. Also they actually have a rpoper Background which you can travel by/through, opposed to HoL/TO which is plain boring in this regard - there are just some Planets/Asteroids slapped around the Sectors which are not even visible from other Sectors, no realy thought out overarching Concept for the whole System. At least thats my Impression, and quite possible i am thinking on a larger Scale than you.

Zetoss · Post by **Zetoss** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 20:03

Getting rather difficult to refrain from being excited about X4, personally been feeling restless for 8 months thanks to the Xmas statement that more info would be showing up this year. While I share a fragment of the worry UniTrader mentions about somewhat dull backgrounds in HoL it should be reasonable to assume it won't be a problem in X4, since core XR was an extreme in messy design and HoL was an extreme in the exact opposite it should have served to define a good frame for what works and what doesn't. Often the best way to figure out boundaries is to cross them, something that has indeed been done generously - a statement neither meant as praising or bashing the extremes in XR and the DLCs.

On a bit of a side note, I tried figuring out why I couldn't get used to the layout in Albion and OL even after a thousand hours despite being perfectly fine in every game I've ever played due to excessively good 3D memory... the only likely answer I came up with was that the ship simply turns too much in the highways, anyone else relate to this? There is like a galaxy size difference between turning "whateveryou'recontrolling" yourself and having it steered for you, a gentle turn doesn't throw me off but several sharp bends make me lose all sense of direction...

mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Thu, 3. Aug 17, 21:47

linolafett wrote:Kind of "yes" to both.
It will make sense when you see the first map images in the future. I would probably fail to explain how it looks like here. Please have a bit of patience.

Hmm, this is sounds interesting and I think I might imagine what you mean.
As fanatic Terran looking at HoL map I've been thinking how would our own Sol System look like.

I came up with each main planet (and some major moons) had and orbit (or 3) orbits like. E.g "low" (e.g. space ports, passenger terminals, orbital elevators), "mid" (industrial) "high orbit" (solar energy, cargo terminals).
Each orbit is encircled with highway analogue connecting "parking zone" (where stations are build) biger planets have 4-5 such zones per orbit while smaler have 3. Each orbit have highway that lead to higher/lower orbit. On high orbit there is also "Super-highway" leading to diffrent planet/moon (e.g. one from Earth to Mars, one from Earth to Venus).

However the con of this idea is that Sol end up having more zones that vanilla X-Rebirth altogerther.

This is just my idea, but I wouldn't be suprised if it would be close to what you have for X4.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

X4 - ten questions for developers