Idea: Rare and Unique Ships

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brevi
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Idea: Rare and Unique Ships

Post by brevi » Wed, 21. Feb 18, 06:05

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2uaRHFmBT4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOogLQz1ugQ

I saw these two videos for Elite Dangerous and thought, wowwww I would love to fly these around in the X Universe…. Especially the Eagles and the snake monikers. The corvette and battle cruiser near the end too.

Please Ego, steal these designs and some from Star Citizen for X4!!!... I’m kidding (I’m not kidding... but I know you can’t do that). Something at least close to the same concept of those designs would be lovely tho.

I digress…

The Skunk in XR is a very good ship. What I like most about it is the fact that it is a one of kind ship with a good loadout of weapons that no other ship its size or smaller could match one on one.
It isn’t pretty tho, not by a long shot. Not once in my hundreds of hours of playing in XR did I think, let me go into external view and admire my Skunk. But in the days X3:TC/AP I adored my Hyperion Vanguard.

So watching these videos got me thinking:

If Ego added such sleek looking ships to X4 what might be a fun way for the player obtain them?

What if all or most factions in X4 had one or more very beautiful, very rare or very unique ship that is steal-able or capture-able or salvage-able (if destroyed) through varying levels of difficulty? From small single pilot ships to XL cargo and capital ships. These could be considered flag ships for that faction. A pirate faction could have a very fast, heavily armed (with fairly weak hull and shields) unique ship with and ace pilot and the player has the option to destroy or steal it but only with the help of special weapons and or tech (imagine a tech that would increase the pilot’s chance to eject from the ship). A powerful trade faction could have a few heavily guarded rare cargo ships the player can steal but only through stealth or with heavy attack support. The same would go for some very powerful unique capital ships own by some powerful military factions.

What if Ego’s new X4 Tech Research allowed us to research and develop new unique ship designs? Maybe through a mission where I had to acquire a one of a kind blueprint to further my own ship design or by reverse engineering a one of a kind faction ship (destroyed ships take much longer to research/reverse engineer).

What if some missions required me to search and find some unknown advance alien ship wreckages to salvage to also further my tech development? Kind of like a treasure hunt with a true purpose.

Completing any or all of these optional missions can open up new research trees which would in turn give even better ship options from small ships to XL ships and even new weapons with more loadouts for these new ships… hell, maybe even new station designs.

In short, this could give the play individuality to completely stand out across the board from the cookie cutter universe that we’ve had so far. Think Albion Skunk expanded, think previous X game races. Besides the cool factor, I would immediately be able to identify “mine” from “theirs” no matter what crowded zone I’m in without having to point-to or select what I’m looking.


TL;DR: In a universe of Hondas, Toyotas, box trucks, and AMTRAK, please give us some exotics.… give us Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and bullet trains! Let us paint them too.


Besides the bad vehicle analogy what do you guys think?

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Post by Killjaeden » Wed, 21. Feb 18, 11:38

Making one of a kind ship is the same work (if not more) as making a "toyota" ship that everyone can select from. If it's one of a kind, it is only suitable as playership and nothing else. AI can't use it, the player can't use it for his empire building.

Given that they are limited in artist manpower (as they said themself, and also the fact that we won't see some of the races) - i am stricktly against having ferrari's. I dislike overpowered ships like Hyperion and Springblossom and that ugly humpback from XR anyway.

Also, here's an interesting change: Due to removal of jumpdrives and replacement with teleports you can say bye bye to the overdominant playership idea, because you have no way to quickly travel with it across the universe. You have to switch ships in order to do that.
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Post by Skeeter » Wed, 21. Feb 18, 13:01

Unique rewards like one of a kind guns or shields etc would be nice when exploring. Even if it's just variable stat ranges for things like a 125mw shield or something is a 135mw shield which can't be made or bought, that u can find or say gather from wreck from destroyed ships would be cool. Tho would like unique weapons exotic ones.
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Post by Sandalpocalypse » Wed, 21. Feb 18, 21:08

yeah, given that ships have slots you can put stuff in, i think rare or unique gear is a better choice. Then you can put it on whichever ship it is you favor, within limits.
Irrational factors are clearly at work.

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Post by mr.WHO » Wed, 21. Feb 18, 21:42

One of weak point of X-Rebirth and strong point of previous X-games was ability to seek and obtain unique ships.
I hope that with X4 we will be able to benefit from this feature again.

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Post by Karvat » Wed, 21. Feb 18, 22:32

Rather than a single ship of its kind, I prefer to see whole sets of ships with the most varied and particular features belonging to the strangest races imaginable
A ship is just a ship, rather than finding those abandoned in the lost space I would like to find myself in front of black holes, spatial anomalies, outposts hidden by nebulae or large clusters of asteroids inside huge sectors, unknown threats, something more stimulating than a only abandoned ship

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Post by ezra-r » Thu, 22. Feb 18, 14:58

seems like community food :lol:

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Post by adeine » Fri, 23. Feb 18, 04:57

Sandalpocalypse wrote:yeah, given that ships have slots you can put stuff in, i think rare or unique gear is a better choice. Then you can put it on whichever ship it is you favor, within limits.
I think adding gear like that runs the risk of turning an X game into a WoW-esque lootfest. Grinding for "epics" or "legendaries" to give you that extra 2% DPS, making the trading and building aspects of the game worthless.

Part of the beauty of the series in my opinion has always been the idea that in theory, everyone (AI or non-AI) is on an equal playing field in-universe. It's the kind of 'realism' where you feel like you have something powerful because of an opportunity you made for yourself, for instance

- by making friends with a faction and rising in their regard to where they trust you with their deadliest technology (and maybe finding their one research outpost that sells it!)
- by stealing or capping it from an enemy faction through a daring endeavour
- by building your own supply chain and factory complex churning out your product of desire, perhaps after reverse engineering blueprints in your headquarters

Having something that is more powerful than anything else just because you found it under a rock, or it 'dropped', and never being able to surpass or replicate it through your own mettle kind of ruins that entire feeling of achievement.

Finding unique abandoned ships could be a fun idea, but as has been pointed out, the development team is limited. As it is, we won't even get most of the factions in X4 at launch. I'd rather have something as central as 'ordinary' Boron or Split vessels in the game than a special ship I might never see.

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Post by Seanchaidh » Sun, 25. Feb 18, 03:06

I'd rather not have the player running around with overpowered ships or equipment unless there are a significant number of other people doing the same. CEOs, admirals, elite units, and so on. They should be able to be reverse engineered but also very expensive in resources/labor to produce.

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Post by alvie » Sat, 5. May 18, 06:25

i can relate with your idea, but i can relate too with people who think it will be a waste making a unique ship not mass productible.

i essentially play as a mercenary with a wing of heavy fighter (the economics are secondary to me) and i play mainly with xrm and the npc bail out mod, meaning theres numberous variations to ships and i can go scavenger for damaged ships and weapons at high risk on the argon/terran frontlines.

more than unique new ships, i hope they keep the ship artstyle (that makes thems looks still great after all those years) and the soundtrack style), hoping they will take a hint at xrm giving us more small variation for each ships, more wings, guns ,widows you call it.

btw, do anyone know if there is some script/mod to deepen joystick configuration? like to invert axis or increase deadzones?

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Post by Karvat » Sat, 5. May 18, 13:33

I really don't want this feature and I hope that there will not be unique ships abandoned in space, maybe abandoned yes, but not unique, in my opinion would unbalance the game in the wrong way, it would be more appropriate that the ability of the NPC makes a better ship

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Post by Skeeter » Sat, 5. May 18, 13:57

What might be cool is NPC's flying the odd unique ship which would tie nicely into exploration. Nothing too special that it's going to be a OP ship if u can capture it unless it's a ace pilot flying it with a unique NPC with unique personality when u try talking to him or her or it. No but I mean exotic ship designs that's just cool to look at like a rich persons personal ship or a royal liner ship or a pirate kings gold plated wings ship lol. Somit when u fly as u do u go oh my that's a cool looking ship instead of seeing the usual ships which after a year playing the game I'll be like meh there's a boring argon trader or teladi scout..

Maybe them very rare occasions so it it's special when u see them.
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Post by A5PECT » Sat, 5. May 18, 14:13

I'd like it if there were unique or custom variants of "normal" ships, that would be used by certain factions in specific circumstances.

Such as the Argon Government faction using "normal" Colossi for general applications, and then having more advanced, proprietary variation for core sector defense (Argon Two, anyone?).

Or a tricked-out Falcon variant that you'd only encounter when you anger a certain Teladi or Pirate faction and they send them after you as bounty hunters.

Things like that.
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Post by Karvat » Sat, 5. May 18, 14:57

In my opinion it does not really make sense to find unique ships, because once you lose the time to create a new one, and put it in the game, why should I have only one of that kind for every game? Give me the opportunity to buy as many as I want at the construction site rather, and instead of a simple ship abandoned in space, put something more interesting and unexpected

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Post by Skeeter » Sat, 5. May 18, 16:02

Maybe the best appoach and more resource friendly i think would be just be to allow players to do custom skins for ships in some sort of ingame way, kinda like u can in say need for speed underground 2like choosing prime and 2ndary coats and stuff u can add decals like stripes or logos etc by click and drag etc. The module interface shown in x4 videos when making stations is kinda what id imagine it to be like but instead of parts ud choose colours and logos. Best thing as well would be if mods can be able to expand on logos and patterns and things by import and exporting templates. Could be cool and hopefully not too hard to impliment if they can copy the station building interface for it. After ur done with custom paint job save it as a template so next time u put a order in u can have choice 1 which is normal or choice 2 using custom paintjob. Could possibly be cool that way then u can do a red nova, yellow nova, black nova, squadrens that was built using different template schemes.
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Post by Greenhorn » Sat, 5. May 18, 19:42

Hi all, makes me think,about your statements everyone.in x3 I always get the griffon m-7, at the high/ end of game ship,a multipurpose ship. But like to stay wih the best shielded-fastes corvette m6.Hmm im thinking devs / egosoft if you put unique ships.So you have now; s,m,l,xl.So Like the size of griffon, but has a auto repair facility there.so any small ship that dock there can be repaired,besides npc who can repair dock ships.to and alternative ways .to do things.
Since all ships are shielded based defensive. How about(( upgradable armored hull skin)) for ships.Or like a paint coating atop of armor,to reflect certain weapon type.. Make use of niviidem minerals too.niviidem armore anyone?. :o ..bye all.
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Post by Falcrack » Sat, 5. May 18, 19:44

I am opposed to the idea of one-of-a-kind, player-only ships. I am even opposed to the idea of engine tuning, cargo bay expansions, and rudder optimizations that only the player is able to take full advantage of, and the AI simply cannot or will not utilize.

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Post by Fulgrymm » Thu, 10. May 18, 02:28

Rare and unique ships would be pretty great, and could come in all sizes.

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Post by Karvat » Thu, 10. May 18, 09:30

So boring, finding a special ship and better than any other, and improving it as well, seems like using cheat, and you feel forced to always use that because the AI would waste it.
Put some debris instead; every time I found an abandoned special ship, I always destroyed it in previous games in order not to see it.

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Post by Honved » Thu, 10. May 18, 17:09

I'd rather see more variety in the major factions' ships, not one-of-a-kind wastes of artist time and money.

Civilian ships: I want to see NON-military ships in the game. What does that upper-middle-class working family living in the space station use? Does everybody in the universe fly the space equivalent of Jeeps and Hummers? Nobody owns an SUV, pickup truck, or sports sedan? We need a class of C3-5 ships (better yet, overhaul the whole twisted M0-M8 mess into something that makes sense).

A handful of different rare and unique ships could make a good expansion or later patch, not something that Egosoft should priotitize for the initial release.

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