X4 - ten questions for developers

mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Fri, 23. Jun 17, 20:08

UniTrader wrote:i dont think thats feasible because it would require a massive increase in the details of the Ships/Stations Hull. or do you think this is detailed enough: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hdvg6sd47d5do ... 1.png?dl=0 (i turned a hull section into a walkable interior there)

Ship models in X2 and X3 were also not detailed much and yet it doesn't bother the spacewalk.
Also the Teladi Outpost from that distance would looks crap no matter if you are in suit or a ship. I assume devs never planned you let player so close to those 2D trees (ahh this brings the good ol' 90s memories back

).

Post by **UniTrader** » Fri, 23. Jun 17, 22:04

mr.WHO wrote:
UniTrader wrote:i dont think thats feasible because it would require a massive increase in the details of the Ships/Stations Hull. or do you think this is detailed enough: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hdvg6sd47d5do ... 1.png?dl=0 (i turned a hull section into a walkable interior there)
Ship models in X2 and X3 were also not detailed much and yet it doesn't bother the spacewalk.
Also the Teladi Outpost from that distance would looks crap no matter if you are in suit or a ship. I assume devs never planned you let player so close to those 2D trees (ahh this brings the good ol' 90s memories back ).

i dont think many bothered spacewalking near caps, and those who did to repair them were masochistic anyway, so the low detail was not an issue for them

But if being this close to Capships would turn into a regulary used feature i doubt this Level of Detail is enough. and upping the Level enough to be reasonable (not necessarily on par with the curent interiors) is an unreasonable amount of work imo (i think we would get only one or two capship types in that case) and has another downside: walking the distances of Ship Surfaces on foot is plain boring. i think to get to the border of the aforementoined interior ( here a screensho from its end overseeing the whole thing ) took about 5 minutes running, if not more. (and yes, it changes your position relative to the Ship/Station as whole)
so i think in practice it would be better to make multiple interiors for a Ship which are connected by a fast transport system and implement the repair/sabotage/spoinage functions in these interiors instead. Maybe add a few Outside Secttions, too. like Turrets and Shield Generators for example.

vkerinav · Post by **vkerinav** » Sat, 24. Jun 17, 01:46

I was partly thinking modified interiors for exploring wrecks--battered, twisted corridors. Gaps through which you can see stars. No gravity. Ravenous alien parasites jumping at you from every shadow.( <-- Joke )

Anyway, they can advertise the spacesuit as a bonus ship.

Snafu_X3 · Post by **Snafu_X3** » Sat, 24. Jun 17, 01:53

Skeeter wrote:A good reason to spacewalk in a suit is repairing ship/subsystems. Sabotage like place explosives to docked ships perhaps.

This is already implemented (altho naturally difficult) via the 'control screen' UI for neutral ships at least; perhaps expand upon that game mechanic to make it a possible strategy for hostiles?

Again (extrapolating) this would fall back to the X3 method of marine hacking skill; using the current mechanic of MO, perhaps increase their Mechanic/Science priority for a successful hack? (I'm trying to avoid FPS sim here..)

patient zero · Post by **patient zero** » Sat, 1. Jul 17, 05:08

On topic: X4 question for devs
Has it been decided how many CPU cores the X4 engine will need to run?
2 or 3 seems inadequate. 4 or 6 would be good. 8 or 10 would lock me out of the market unless the price comes way down before X4 is released.

Off topic comment:
I used spacewalking in X3 to measure CCK node locations so I could get perfect alignment between stations. I expect this will be useless in X4 but there might be other good uses for spacewalking and I vote in favor of it.

Post by **CBJ** » Sat, 1. Jul 17, 13:06

X4 currently has similar threading requirements to X Rebirth. This may change, however. It certainly won't require an 8 or 10 core CPU as that would lock pretty much everyone out!

Killjaeden · Post by **Killjaeden** » Fri, 7. Jul 17, 23:27

CBJ wrote: require an 8 or 10 core CPU as that would lock pretty much everyone out!

Including propably the entire Egosoft team... "sry guys our *thing* got so power hungry we have to stop work and save money for new machines"

patient zero · Post by **patient zero** » Sun, 9. Jul 17, 16:13

I heard Intel plans to release their 8th Gen CPUs soon which means the 10 core i7-6950X should drop below $1000 when they do. It might not be long before such things become commonplace.

Zetoss · Post by **Zetoss** » Mon, 10. Jul 17, 00:21

Something I've been itching to find out is what mining will be like in X4, care to scratch that for me? No excessive detail required, just whatever little nuggets you can toss for the hungry masses. The drones in XR were gosh darn heartwarmingly cute in that they made mining feel so much more alive but frankly X3 was far less of a pain in the tailpipe since a giant mine drilled directly into a big asteroid had no fragile little drones getting blown to bits by nasty ships with red names causing unpleasant trips to shipyards. Additionally it was possible to relocate a mine but relocating an asteroid field is somewhat less... possible, practical and flat out sane.

My core question is probably shorter; "Will our stations somehow be able to soak up resources without us manually replenishing ships and/or drones?" While automation may be the bane of the worker, I'm not in the X universe to work; I'm there to kick Xenon hulls and ferry contraband!

Maybe this has been covered already at some point a while ago but if so it still wouldn't hurt with an update, right? Information and vegetable are best served fresh.

Skeeter · Post by **Skeeter** » Tue, 11. Jul 17, 13:35

Mining could do more imo. It would be nice if there were multiple resources per asteroid in random amounts which could all be mined. Also more in depth scanning of asteroids would be good.

For example.

You have a basic geological scanning device which picks up 1 material say ore. So u can place a ore drilling rig to mine it. But.. It could contain multiple things like precious gems, or siilicon or iron etc. To find out the mining possibilities you need a better scanner which would be a mk 2 scanner which can scan and show potential yeilds of say 2 or 3 minable things. You could get multiple rigs digging for multiple things on 1 roid then. Or invest in a multi dig rig which can get more than 1 thing at a time but these would be very expensive so save for really decent roids.

Make mining more detailed and multilelved basically and realisitc.

spankahontis · Post by **spankahontis** » Thu, 20. Jul 17, 18:44

Zetoss wrote:
Maybe this has been covered already at some point a while ago but if so it still wouldn't hurt with an update, right? Information and vegetable are best served fresh.

That was a feature I liked in Frontier: Elite II.
If you wanted to trade Slaves and live animals? you needed life support in your cargo bay or they would become fertilizer the moment you left the station.

I'd like to see Capital Ships return with Equipment Dock Upgrades like in X3.
Universal Ships are cool, but I'd prefer greater customization incase I wanted ships that dealt specially in livestock, or a ship that needs special facilities to carry volatile chemicals.
That's where all X Games have failed for me in that matter is there being a complex list of items and resources that make the economy more self-reliant rather than every Ware making/breaking the functionality of the economy.

Assailer · Post by **Assailer** » Fri, 21. Jul 17, 19:17

Devs if you haven't yet check on Avorion, it's amazing what they managed to take from X (and other) games to their and in many aspect improve on it.

It's so addictive i can't have a break to other games since i picked it up last summer sales.

Hope, X4 will impress me as much as Avorion does! Rooting for it and make sure you won't rush it out like X:RB.

GageDragon · Post by **GageDragon** » Sun, 23. Jul 17, 18:17

Hoping there will be claimable derelicts and npc bailing.

Already missing not being able to eject and repair.

UnknownObject · Post by **UnknownObject** » Mon, 24. Jul 17, 11:24

Dear Linolafett! I don't understand German as well as I wish, so could you explain me.
Did you say
"I don't remember where Paranids in X4 were confirmed"
(hinting that "Paranids in X4" was a wrong speculation)
or
"I don't remember where Paranids in X4 were disproved"
(hinting that "Paranids in X4" was a right speculation)
?
Thank you very much!

Commander_K · Post by **Commander_K** » Mon, 24. Jul 17, 12:05

The last one. Only Borons have definitely been ruled out.

mr.WHO · Post by **mr.WHO** » Mon, 24. Jul 17, 17:14

Commander_K wrote:The last one. Only Borons have definitely been ruled out.

Do you have Egosoft quote on Borons beign rule out? If this would be confirmed then the Paranid are the only option...unless we count Sol Terrans as separate race from Torride/Canterans. As much as I'd love to see Sol again I think Paranids are more likely.

Post by **UniTrader** » Mon, 24. Jul 17, 17:20

mr.WHO wrote:
Commander_K wrote:The last one. Only Borons have definitely been ruled out.
Do you have Egosoft quote on Borons beign rule out? If this would be confirmed then the Paranid are the only option...unless we count Sol Terrans as separate race from Torride/Canterans. As much as I'd love to see Sol again I think Paranids are more likely.

i dont remember where exactly it was, but i can confirm that lino stated somewhere that there wont be borons in X4

Commander_K · Post by **Commander_K** » Mon, 24. Jul 17, 17:41

mr.WHO wrote:
Commander_K wrote:The last one. Only Borons have definitely been ruled out.
Do you have Egosoft quote on Borons beign rule out? If this would be confirmed then the Paranid are the only option...unless we count Sol Terrans as separate race from Torride/Canterans. As much as I'd love to see Sol again I think Paranids are more likely.

For example here.

gbjbaanb · Post by **gbjbaanb** » Fri, 28. Jul 17, 18:01

UniTrader wrote:
mr.WHO wrote:
UniTrader wrote:i dont think thats feasible because it would require a massive increase in the details of the Ships/Stations Hull. or do you think this is detailed enough: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hdvg6sd47d5do ... 1.png?dl=0 (i turned a hull section into a walkable interior there)
Ship models in X2 and X3 were also not detailed much and yet it doesn't bother the spacewalk.
Also the Teladi Outpost from that distance would looks crap no matter if you are in suit or a ship. I assume devs never planned you let player so close to those 2D trees (ahh this brings the good ol' 90s memories back ).
i dont think many bothered spacewalking near caps, and those who did to repair them were masochistic anyway, so the low detail was not an issue for them But if being this close to Capships would turn into a regulary used feature i doubt this Level of Detail is enough. and upping the Level enough to be reasonable (not necessarily on par with the curent interiors) is an unreasonable amount of work imo (i think we would get only one or two capship types in that case) and has another downside: walking the distances of Ship Surfaces on foot is plain boring. i think to get to the border of the aforementoined interior ( here a screensho from its end overseeing the whole thing ) took about 5 minutes running, if not more. (and yes, it changes your position relative to the Ship/Station as whole)
so i think in practice it would be better to make multiple interiors for a Ship which are connected by a fast transport system and implement the repair/sabotage/spoinage functions in these interiors instead. Maybe add a few Outside Secttions, too. like Turrets and Shield Generators for example.

Though I remember going up to the Aran and zapping it with a repair laser to make it boardable... didn't seem so shabby IIRC.

I think the problem here is that we expect X4 to be better than X3, not worse. And if ship interiors are a thing, you're in danger of biting off more than is chewable just like Rebirth did. Scrap the idea of ship interiors, have external ship textures like in X3 even, and add the interior stuff in as a DLC once the main game is properly complete.

And a repair laser, with a bit of "walking" on the exterior welding a plate over a hole to patch a ship up enough to get it to base, is a good bit of immersive gameplay.

Mailo · Post by **Mailo** » Sat, 29. Jul 17, 22:35

Can I ask why the new game was named "X4" and not "X-Rebirth 2"?

I pretty much stopped following the X-Universe after X-Rebirth came out, so this is actually the first I've heard of X4 ... yet from all the answers in this thread I get the impression that maybe it is more than X-Rebirth, yet still far less than X3 ... less races, ship options, less game options (some of my most memorable game experiences in X3 were in a space suit ... that you cannot think of good gameplay reasons yourself speaks volumes) ...

egosoft.com

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X4 - ten questions for developers