Satellites!

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Falcrack
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Satellites!

Post by Falcrack » Thu, 14. Dec 17, 15:39

I noticed in the last twitch that satellites are planned! This is great, these guys serve as a great, cheap way to keep eyes on a sector and the current prices and stock levels of factories. I've got a couple of questions about their planned functions.

Will they have an effective range? By that I mean, the required range from stations before they are able to see the station prices and communicate with stations about placing orders? Also, a range at which they can communicate with your ship? Maybe it might be necessary to set up several relay satellites so that info from satellites can get to your ships.

Will NPC factions and corporations also need satellites, or at least have ships or other property present, to keep eyes on sector prices? It would be nice to see satellites for more than just the player playing a role, and to know that they serve a critical function for NPCs. Kill a faction's satellites in a sector, and you can temporarily blind them to trade opportunities in the sector. Until they place a new satellite, that is, and kill your in retaliation!

PabloRSA
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Post by PabloRSA » Thu, 14. Dec 17, 16:57

I prefer the method of paying the station manager for a licence to have access to his internal feed to update information around his station and his prices and contact with the people on the station.
Maybe fee allowing you to teleport you there.
Or you could use the (better thought out) mini hack game if it still exists in X4.
Same can be said for disrupting other corps access which may result in you losing access to entire station if your caught.

I mean the sations have a big dish on them atleast in XR, why not give it a function. Blow it up disrupt fighter support or trade data.

I can see the point of satellites in outside space but having npcs dump them where they want would just be a pain and a lot of rep loss for mowing them down, not only that, they would cause more objects in space to track. less objects less pc specs and more fps.

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MegaJohnny
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Post by MegaJohnny » Thu, 14. Dec 17, 17:07

I think I saw multiple satellites in the same sector in the footage. My guess is they have a limited range, or at least can only see things in their own zone. But I definitely agree that they're good to have back.

I don't agree with PabloRSA at all. You could try to flesh out the trade subscription idea so it's more interesting, but in terms of the core appeal of the universe simulation, you'll never beat a player-owned object out in space.

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sd_jasper
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Post by sd_jasper » Sat, 16. Dec 17, 00:33

Uhhhhaa, I still have nightmares about satellite deployment (and replacement) from X3. I hope this time around it's a bit easier to manage.

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Sandalpocalypse
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Post by Sandalpocalypse » Sat, 16. Dec 17, 02:01

You can see in the feed that they have a fairly limited sensor range. I am not looking forward to the satellite deployment minigame either. Would vastly prefer to subscribe to an NPC-run service...

Hopefully theres a way to at least get prices without dropping satellites everywhere.

Maybe a "trade agent' script for one of your ships that makes it cycle between known or given stations in an area :^)
Irrational factors are clearly at work.

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Nikola515
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Post by Nikola515 » Sat, 16. Dec 17, 23:28

I already asked CBJ about them and he told me that they will probably add some other mechanic for satellites. It looks like they changed their minds. Perhaps you can tell manager of station to deploy them around station or sector ?

Will there be satellites/advanced satellites ?
Probably not in that form, but the primary purpose they served is likely to be covered in a different way.
It's not world hunger because we can't feed poor,it's because there will never be enough to feed the rich .....

iforgotmysocks
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Post by iforgotmysocks » Thu, 28. Dec 17, 00:24

Well, there's actually 2 different aspects to satelites and/or station information feeds.

1. Information about current trade good prices
2. Information on ships currently active in given zone

In my opinion both should be available. The player should be able to subscribe to station information feeds, but also be able to deploy satellites at key locations to get information on shipmovement or even hostile movement.

It could be done in a simple way that satellites weren't even to show up in any menu, just visible on the map or in space (killable by enemies if detected)
and the player could be able to just get rid of them via selecting a selfdestruct option via the map if he'd choose to do so.

If satellites definitely won't be in the game it could also be changed that stations the player is subscribed to could also uncover the zone for the player despite the fact that he has no assets there himself.

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