X3: Bug List & Patch 1.3 Suggestions (Spoilers)

[Neonin]

Many thanks to every single person who has contributed to this list!

The colours used in this list are hard-coded and will be difficult to read if you are using a forum skin which has a light background!

BUGS/GLITCHES
User Interface
= Text in load game screen too big in 1024x768 and 1280x1024 resoultion. Screenshot
= Colour of "Step: 1" text in trade window difficult to see. Screenshot
= Some station menus support single keypresses to select options, some don't. Annoying and inconsistent.
= Readtext problem in trade window when trading at a pirate base. Screenshot
= Graphical bug on the menu system (GeforceFX 5900XT). Half a box of text is constantly appearing over the centre (selected) button on the contextual menu at bottom of screen, making it difficult to view things.
= The best buys/sells option does not respond to shortcut (ship info screen for OOS satellite).
= Comm screen in pirate base has no entires, but nothing to indicate this just a blank screen. Screenshot
= The Best Sell software should not list equipment you cannot sell (software upgrades etc).
= Once missile fire probability is set to 0%, it's impossible to change it again.
= SQUASH mines do not have targetting brackets around them, only the auto-aim indicator when targetted.
= Gameplay becomes choppy when sector map is open.
= Unable to use numpad to set High-Water-Mark price on own station for transferring funds.
= 'Escape' key brings you down one level in menus except in Options->Controls.
= I can crash X3 EVERY time by undocking, pressing 'r' to bring up my asset list, selecting a sector trader, pressing 'shift+c', '3' (trade menu) and '5' (start sector trader). It's only been happening for the last two days, but it does do it every time.

Combat
= The HUD 'aiming' marker is so wrong it's almost funny. It doesn't account for your current sideways drift, nor your targets.
= Target Nearest Enemy will also target any missile in close range first, not just enemy ones.

Sound
= Some ships don't play any comm chatter when you attack them. Seems to be limited to Boron pilots, but not all of them.
= Some bounty messages from killing pirates/Kha'ak do not play.
= Firing sound of the PAC-type guns is very quiet.
= Lots of comm messages display the "person" but no sound is being played.

General Graphics Issues
= The picture displayed in a comms window when you receive a message will regularly default to the last person you talked to, before quickly flickering to the correct image.
= Destroying a station while saving a game leaves a semi-transparent image of the station behind.
= When creating hub stations the connecting tubes will pass through the solar power plants panels in some cases.
= Ecliptic Projector turns on and off, and glitches into part-working mode.

Ships
= Flying a Demeter: You can see the background stars through the hull of the ship (as you see it infront of you).
= Some turret positions seem to allow you to fire through your own hull.
= Sometimes ship models disappear. Screenshot Screenshot 2 Screenshot 3
= Boron Passenger Shuttle M engine glow placed way behind ship. Screenshot
= Boron Hydra and Teladi Osprey models are the same.
= Argon Buster and Argon Discoverer models are the same.
= Rear turret on Boron Orca. The turret can fire, but only within a approximately 3 degree arc on the extreem left and right sides of its field of view. If one pulls the trigger while the turret is aimed anywhere else, nothing happens.
= All three Split capital ships currently use the same mesh.
= Argon Mammoth will not obey "Follow me" instructions, have to manually direct it.
= Huge numbers of ships congregate at a specific spot for no apparent reason. See Lofte's post here
= Kha'ak M3 appears to be missing its front pyramid, although it shows correctly in the monitor view. Screenshot
= Captured ships sometimes refuse to fire, despite mounting new weapons in them.

Systems
= In the system Priest Rings there is no planet visible although the system description mentions one.
= In Spaceweed Drift the water shifts over the landmass instead of the clouds shifting over both.
= Station debris in Spring of Belief system allows you to dock to it.
= Numerous system descriptions list suns which don't appear, a prime example being Akeelas Beacon which has no visible suns at all when it should have 3.

Commanding Owned Ships
= Unable to assign commands to ships when player is in proximity to a station due to "Command Rejected" feature.

Bulletin Board
= Readtext error in an entry on the board. Screenshot
= Unable to register for racing missions in Freedoms Reach, ReadText error on registration page.

Flight Issues
= If you use autopilot to follow a ship then turn it off, you go straight to the speed you were flying before autopilot was engaged.
= If you boost immediately after jumping through a gate your ship jumps back.
= Docking computer will sometimes reject a docking command or report that a station is not in range, even when it is.

Stations
= Docking at a station appears to stop it from producing.
= You can attack a station in a heavily patrolled area (like Kingdom End) without incurring the wrath of the police if they aren't in range.
= Manual docking at Free Argon/Teladi Trading Stations: An invisible force field prevents you from manually docking.
= Pirate bases have plenty of visible turrets on them, none of which will attack you.
= Pirate base in Atreus Clouds: You can see one of the planets through the hull.
= The break even price at player station complex always shows 0.
= Targetting a player station hooked up to a complex and changing the price drops said price to 0 and sticks there, unable to change it.
= Peculiar reflection issue on Teladianium Foundry in Great Exchange. Screenshot Screenshot 2
= Player-owned station managers appear to be embezzeling money. Funds disappear from stations for no apparent reason.

Startup
= Humble Trader's starting Mercury has overtuned max steering, 13.62% out of 10.20%.

Missions
= Apparent problem with finding the Black Crystal early prevents people from completing the mission.
= In the mission where you get the black crystal the destroyed Xenon M0 is an Argon Titan from X2.
= Rescue Miria Marani - When you have to go to the Split Trading Station in Thuruks Pride the BBS Message which leads you to the Silicon Mine is missing for some people.
= In mission 7 when you pilot Saya's ship you are invulnerable to collisions (possibly intentional?).
= Docking with the HUD disabled at the beginning of mission 2 keeps it disabled for the entire mission.
= Ship continues on at speed during cutscene in mission with The Talon, often leading to your ship ramming said Talon.
= Escort mission from Home of Light won't allow you to target Kha'ak properly. You can't call up any screens while in that mode and it forces you to fire blind.
= If you hold an Argon Police License during mission 2, shooting target drones Saya releases gives you cash rewards.
= During mission 8, hailing Miria while doing one of the three parts, need an option to say don't want to change your mind.
= In mission 9, Saya tells you to meet her in 1 hour.
= Mission-critical stations, like the Quantum Tube Fab in Bala Gi's Joy, can be blown up before being reached in the plot, breaking it.

Trading
= Problem with remotely-operated ships with a player-owned station as homebase. See Skid's post here.
= Strange error where UT's cannot deliever energy cells from NULL.
= Players can sell any weapons in any equipment dock, but sector/universe traders are unable to do so.
= Able to transfer "built-in" software from one ship to another, which promptly disappears.

General Game Issues
= Captured ships sometimes list weapons installed that do not exist.
= Some issues with game controllers not working properly still exist. See Here
= Able to purchase a Teladi equipment regardless of standing with Teladi. Screenshot
= Some of the Universe Trader messages appear bugged, i.e reporting the wrong sector.
= AI capital ships moving to intercept enemies at the nearest gate sit IN the gate, getting themselves blown up.
= No way to raise Goner reputation in a non-plot game.
= Corrupted savegame error, please this Rambam's post on this thread and also Mopy's post here
= You can comm a customs ship after it has gone red because you will not drop freight and get it to go blue again by saying sorry for shooting.

AI
= AI for capital ships docking is clunky and can often take a long time. An improvement on this would be welcome.
= Flight plan taken by ships on auto-pilot fails to take objects into account and just jerks around them at the last minute.
= Some AI ships seem to have problems controlling themselves, hitting stations when trying to dock (probably the faster ships).
= Capital ships have trouble flying in formation, often running into each other. Only seems to affect M1/2 class, M6 seems fine.

SUGGESTIONS
User Interface
= Ability to change window transparency, or at least make it slightly darker than it is currently.
= Draggable menu windows.
= Ability to change colour of menus, or at least a few different colour schemes to pick from.
= Ability to resize information windows.
= Option for bigger text as the size can be a bit small for reading on high resolution.
= When using the jump drive, the amount of energy involved in the jump could be slightly more informative, i.e (Energy: 35 (60 Available)).
= Adding a field in a ships info display to show the variant type, if any (e.g Variant: Vanguard/Raider/etc) rather than just in the name.
= Get rid of, or fix, or give the ability to switch off those tool tips.
= Ability to set a quick button/key for claiming a ship would be handy.
= Percentages in numbers on those hull and shield bars when I press 'Y' for example.
= Hotkeys such as "." for sector map should continue to function when docked at stations.
= With autopilot on switching mouse mode (RMB) deactivates the autopilot, like an option to stop this.
= Nice to see numbers being formatted, could the trading bar amounts (left & right hand side) be formatted too.
= When pressing "I" over a station in a shipyard it would be nice to get some information about that station like you do with ships.
= After viewing a ships details in a shipyard, going back to the list should return you to the ship you were looking at and not the top of the list.
= Place gates higher up the list in the sector map, perhaps at the top underneath a players assets.
= Players assets under attack could do with flashing red on the universe/sector map like in X2.
= An asteroids tab on the sector map to enable quick exploration of them in a busy sector.
= Unable to copy/paste names like in X2, please re-add this.
= Best Buy/Sell locator list should be sorted in order of cheapest/best selling price.

HUD
= Ability to turn off the brackets around everything in scanner range. HUD can look extremely messy because of this. Screenshot
= Ability to change colour of the HUD.
= Target monitor could should remember whether it's been minizmized or not after undocking/gate jumping. Would also be nice to be able to turn it off.
= Larger display of hull/shield, or even a sizeable display, would be nice.
= Some form of brief, high transparency flash on the screen when your shields are being hit.
= The 'Red' colour used for the single-pixel-wide indicators on enemy ships is nigh on invisible. Make it brighter, make the indicators thicker, anything.
= Addition of the hull/shield spheroid indicators mentioned in the manual. Screenshot
= Integrate the target hull/shield display into the targetting reticule again, like in X2.
= Highlight current target in gravidar.
= Weapon Control - Ability to save weapon types as well as their on/off status in the four configurations e.g 1. 3 BIRE :: 2. 6 BIRE :: 3. 3 BPAC :: 4. 6 BPAC
= The blue flash in your auto-aim marker is confusing and leads people to believe the ship has gone neutral. A different colour would fix this.
= A key to enlarge the mini-monitor like in X2 could be useful.

Combat
= Easier key combination for "Target Nearest Enemy" in default control setup.
= Combat AI still isnt great. The AI can still continuously fight even when both parties are unable to actually damage each other.
= Some kind of grouping system for multiple ships, so that when I get to 20 fighters flying off my TL, I can give them group-orientated tasks.
= Missiles have no trail, making them extremely difficult to pick out. A trail, at least, would give you some indicator where to look.
= A target-nearest-missile shortcut key would prove very useful.
= A message notifying you of a pilot bailing from a ship you are attacking on-screen would be nice.
= More targetting keys like 'Nearest Enemy Attacking Me' or 'Nearest Enemy Attacking My Target'.

Sound
= A way to disable the station announcer, ala X2, would be handy.
= Along similar lines, a way of disabling the computer voice every time you select a target would be nice.
= Some setting allowing you to decrease the frequency in which the AI pilots taunt you, or even turn it off.
= When docking at a station the music stops, would be nice if it continued but maybe quietly.
= The "Danger, entering atmosphere" voice warning repeats far too often. An on-screen warning blip would be preferable and less annoying.
= Random radio chatter (like in Freelancer) would help increase the immersion factor.
= Perhaps add a more prominent engine sound when flying a ship.

General Graphics Issues
= The invisibility distance is way too close in some sectors, an option to change the range would be good.
= Nebulas need more realism like depth, stars are easily seen through it yet objects are invisible until close.
= Ability to turn the nebulas off would also be nice.
= The Ecliptic Projector: If you're more than a few km from the Ecliptic it's supposed to project, you're lucky to see a faint grey haze.
= Explosion graphics need work. Currently poor and not scaled to the size of the ship.
= The ability to change more graphics settings for those people with lower system specs would be extremely useful. Things like planet detail, shading, particle effects, etc.
= A fix for wide-screen support to sort out the aspect ratio problem would be very welcome!
= A new icon for X3, instead of the repainted X2 icon.
= A picture of the ship you are looking at in the shipyard instead of a big question mark.
= Turrets on M6, TS, TP & M3 ships do not appear to move when tracking a target.
= All turrets appear to be twin-barrelled in design even though the majority of them only support one weapon.
= Ability to reduce the number of stars/particles might be useful.
= The return to player logos!
= A new animation for the jumpdrive instead of the standard jumpgate one.

Bulletin Board
= System is currently filled with posts from X2 that wouldn't have any relevance now. New news posts would be welcome.
= It would be nice if the bulletin board screen had its height increased so you don't have to scroll up and down to read 3 paragraphs of text.
= The bulletin board missions should always explicitly state mission requirements seperate from the info text of the mission, or preferably not show missions you don't have the rank to do.
= More messages offering sector maps for sale would be handy.

Stations
= A way to engage SETA while docked at a station would be nice.
= Possibly add a toggle to allow player-owned stations to adjust their prices based on stock level like AI stations do.
= Need the ability to set which products are sold in a player complex.
= Possibly add some form of "Respray" station that allows you to change the colour scheme of your ship, perhaps between a few set styles.
= Please in crease the number of ships able to dock at a station from the current maximum of 5.

Commanding Owned Ships
= Need to be able to assign ships wingmen, currently you can only assign yourself wingmen.
= Freighters lose their protecting escorts when the freighter docks.
= Ability to set M3/4/5 ships to patrol a sector as well as M6 and above.
= Ships should provide some feedback when they have completed a task rather than just sitting there waiting for you to notice.

Missions
= Reduced difficulty of mission 2.

Trading
= Universe traders could fly to a random adjacent sector to search for energy cells when they run out instead of just giving up.
= Ability to transfer freight between two ships remotely would be very handy.
= Station-owned ships set to buy/sell should be able to use the jumpdrive if it is installed.
= Race rank restrictions should be shown in all screens displaying a stations products, rather than wasting time flying to a station only to find you can't buy something you wanted.

General Gameplay
= Race alliances should be factored in when you attack/destroy a races ships. Attacking Argon should also upset Boron and so on.
= How about missions received over the comms while flying, such as distress calls etc?
= Notorious criminals/random enemies scaled to player combat rank that appear in the universe and can be fought.
= Purchased ships should stay docked at the station when you swap into them rather than being in flight.
= Ship ID tag added to the target mini-monitor would allow us to quickly se what class a ship is.
= Being able to turn off some of the AL things like passenger services in X2 might help people with lower-spec systems.
= More customization of satellite alerts, i.e alerting when enemies in range, certain enemies are in range, etc.
= Make sure the speed you exit a gate at is the same as the one you went in.
= The ability to name your savegames, or have the main menu interface show as much detail on them as the quickbar in-flight menu shows (station docked at etc) would come in handy.
= More pirate-owned stations would allow for playing as a pirate without having to keep at least one race happy so you can get ship repairs done/get more equipment.
= Keyboard still slow in response to key-presses, will often miss pressing a letter twice.
= Would be nice to be able to use the diagonal keys on the numpad (1, 3, 7, 9) to scroll around the map as well as the normal ones.
= Ability to order ships carrying contraband to drop it if you hold a police license and scan one carrying it, gaining recognition (perhaps only if you destroy the container).
= Tugs for moving stations around in-sector.
= Ability to rename Unknown Sectors and claim them as your own.
= Capturable stations, or the ability to buy existing stations from their owners.
= Hiring pirate, or other, informants on a station to let you know when a trade ship leaves, where it's headed, and what cargo it has for piracy.

Please feel free to add other suggestions, and if you kind fellows at Egosoft are not currently taking suggestions for patch 1.3 then please consider the above for patch 1.4.

[Brackendale]

make it so in the second mission theres 50% less enemies either that or have the option of doing trading missions or doing combat missions.

[pitstarter]

Spoiler

Show

Get that second mission toned down significantly. Nuff said.

[martindemon]

Just one suggestion: correct aspect ratio for widescreen users

[Neonin]

Funny, I did the second mission without a problem.

User Interface
- Text in the load game screen is too big in 1024x768 resolution, and such entries as "Cloudbase South West" don't fit in the provided box and drop down to the next line, on top of the save game below.

[ external image ]

[ytheleus]

I agree with Neonin on most of those points. I'd also like to see the 'post processing' graphics option turned way down so it is much more subtle. Maybe it's just my system (128 MB 6600GT, 77.xx drivers, Win 98 ), but planets often look more like stars, and the detailing of some ships and stations is almost completely obscured. It's turned off for now (and still looks awesome). I'd also like an easy way of measuring framerates so I can tune detail levels.

Apart from minor stuff like that, it's been a blast so far.

[Neonin]

How did I miss this one..?

User Interface
- Ability to resize information windows! I don't want to scroll down the thing when I could just make it big enough to contain the information I want.

[pasty11]

Funny, I did the second mission without a problem.

User Interface
- Text in the load game screen is too big in 1024x768 resolution, and such entries as "Cloudbase South West" don't fit in the provided box and drop down to the next line, on top of the save game below.

[ external image ]

The second mission was diffuclt? Aim shoot fire dead, nuff said.

[pixel]

if you have prbs on the 2nd mision you need to try lowering your gfx settings

[Electro]

.

1. Menu resizing ability.
2. Text size option.
3. Invisibility range option.
4. Nebula realism.

.

How did I miss this one..?

User Interface
- Ability to resize information windows! I don't want to scroll down the thing when I could just make it big enough to contain the information I want.

Yes this is a bit silly and needs sorting, I got the space on screen so I would like to see more information.

Another thing I think we need is the option for bigger text as the size can be a bit small for reading on high resolution.

Also the invisibility distance is way to close in some sectors, an option to change the range would be good.

Nebulas need more realism like depth, stars are easily seen though it yet objects are invisible until close. I am more willing to accept objects invisible in a nebula but only if they were better and it happened at a reasonable distance.

[Brackendale]

The problem is though not everyone who plays x3 has played x2. Thats the whole problem. These guys obviously made a game for hardcore fans and not new users.

[Neonin]

Station Menu Navigation
- Can we please have a return to the days of X2 when you could hit the ESC key constantly and end up undocking?
- Although this has nothing to do with navigation... can I reinforce my earlier request to turn station announcements off? I really don't need some daft bint announcing "Mind The Gap" constantly

Oh, and Brackendale, I'm hoping they didn't do it on purpose. The first rule of Interface Design is KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid!)

[Hendy709]

Funny, I did the second mission without a problem.

User Interface
- Text in the load game screen is too big in 1024x768 resolution, and such entries as "Cloudbase South West" don't fit in the provided box and drop down to the next line, on top of the save game below.

[ external image ]

The second mission was diffuclt? Aim shoot fire dead, nuff said.

Yep the mission was easy for me too, I dont see how peeps are gettting stuck on it.

[Electro]

I think it would be a good idea if you could update your first post with all the good/valid suggestions.

[Larington]

I didn't have any real problems with the city mission but maybe I'm just lucky.

-----
1.

It would be nice if the bulletin board screen had its height increased so I don't have to scroll up and down to read 3 paragraphs of text.

-----
2.

The bulletin board missions should always explicitly state mission requirements seperate from the info text of the mission, perhaps in form of:

Combat/Trade Rank:
Cargo Space Needed:
Ship Type Needed:
Equipment Requirements:
(Any or all of these as necessary)

So that the player can skim straight to that basic description to quickly eliminate missions that the player can't do in the ship he/she is currently in.

-----
3.

When using the jump drive, the amount of energy involved in the jump could be slightly more informative, IE ( Energy: 35 (60 Available) ) so that it isn't necessary to check the freight screen just to see the ships energy stock (This will also be useful for ordering other ships to engage their jump drives).

-----

I would put this stuff in the DevNet ideas section but its still locked, oh well.

[Neonin]

I'll put suggestions I think are useful in the first post from now on, but keep them coming guys or this thread will disappear into the depths

[General Dave]

Only minor niggles but...

The boron with the snazzy green translucent shirt seems to have trouble speaking, so more Boron lessons for him.

When pressing ctrl and escape to take the game down and say change my music settings or post on this forum, the game will not re enitialise, only a minor problem really but those are the only things mucking up my experience of what has so far been a fantastic game..

Also subtitles on the intro... sorry.....your the president of what now....?

[Neonin]

Also subtitles on the intro... sorry.....your the president of what now....?

Actually... subtitles and the ability to turn the voice off without dropping all the voices down would be handy... That "Argon Today" woman is about as annoying as they come!

By the way, anyone else found a way to engage SETA while docked in a factory like you used to be able to in X2? I can't seem to do it now.

[Nazgutek]

One menu for a station supports using single keypresses to select an option (the vertical style menu, and 'u' shows the details of the station, for example) The other menu for a station does not support any kind of shortcuts, you have to use left/right/select. Annoying and inconsistent.

The 'Red' colour used for the single-pixel-wide indicators on enemy ships is nigh on invisible. Especially when you grind 10 FPS... Make it brighter, make the indicators thicker, anything. As it is, every ship/station that's not an enemy is more clearly indicated than any enemy.

The ESC key doesn't exit from the controls/profiles submenu.

When I've 'minimised' that FPS-sucking target window, I really meant to minimise it. That means after I've undocked or gated, I'd like it to stay minimised. Not everyone can justify buying an FX-57 Athlon system with two SLI 7800GT-Mega-Super-Ultra graphics cards.

Not everyone can justify buying an FX-57 Athlon system with two SLI 7800GT-Mega-Super-Ultra graphics cards. I really don't care that I can see every tiny detail on a Satellite Factory when it's sliding past at 8 FPS. Lower polygon counts, simpler models, reduced reliance on shaders, anything. Every time I fly in Argon Prime, I get the urge to move back to X2...

The Ecliptic Projector: Or should I call it the "8000cr device that might or might not show something visible". Did any beta testers actually use this thing? If you're more than a few km from the Ecliptic it's supposed to project, you're lucky to see a faint grey haze.

Sector Map: It's slower, more cumbersome and provides no additional functionality over the X2 sector map. In fact, it's indentical in operation, except for the fact it's slower and more cumbersome.

Combat: Love it, the pace and action is excellent. Until you try shooting a fast M5. The HUD 'aiming' marker is so wrong it's almost funny. It doesn't account for your current sideways drift, nor your targets. Result? It's useless. Don't bother paying attention to it, you'll miss your target otherwise, unless your target has a stupid moment and flies in a straight line.

Visibility: I can see stars in the background that must be light years away, yet a sector gate 6km away is invisible. Nebula might well turn you on, but I'd like a space-flight simulation, not a fog-bank-flight simulation.

Ship names: I spotted a Mercury once, and its name implied it was a different model to the 'standard' and 'tanker' variants for sale at Argon Prime. By 'implied', I mean "A. Argicultural Transport Mercury T.", and the details showed it had a larger cargo bay than the standard and tanker variants. How about placing the actual ship type name in the ship details screen? I get a lovely list showing compatible weapons, generator capacity, cargo bay size and so on, but no bloody name.

BBS: Having checked the BBS religious, I'm now getting out of the habit. Pointless news articles I stopped reading months ago in X2 are still around. And jobs? I've seen three M5 passenger runs. Three. In total. I don't own an M5...

Station production: I love how docking at a station stops it producing. I'll remember that one when I try to beat the competition. Noticed it when I docked at Argon Prime Satellite Factory, and it was 72/82 stock. Fifteen minutes later? 72/82...

Suzy: Seeing as I can't turn off the Station Announcements, can I instead throw Suzy the lost Argon girl into the Matter tank of the M/AM engine?

Weapon Energy Indicators: I can understand you don't want some instrumentation being intrusive, but setting an indicator to the same colour as the background in some sectors, and then having it about half transparent so it's still invisible in half the other sectors is a bit of a joke, right? Right? Tell me you were just havin' a laugh there...

----------------------------------------------------------

Apart from that, X3 is proving to be rather fun. Looks like Egosoft have done a great job, but there's so many factors that keep pulling my gaze to the X2 icon...

[jinks]

BBS: Having checked the BBS religious, I'm now getting out of the habit. Pointless news articles I stopped reading months ago in X2 are still around. And jobs? I've seen three M5 passenger runs. Three. In total. I don't own an M5...

I agrree 100% on that one posted this http://www2.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=96134

maybee it should have been posted down here instead oh well