Collecting ideas and content for superbox

The place to discuss scripting and game modifications for X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

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Collecting ideas and content for superbox

Post by Bernd » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 12:34

Hello everybody,

we are currently looking into the possibility of making a kind of "ultimate" X collectors edition. This would be a single box with all games, no copyprotection and most importantly: As much additional material as possible.

To filter through all the fan made material and later help us create an installer that makes it possible to install mods, scripts, custom savegames etc. as conveniently as possible, we are looking for your help.

Everybody could help us to collect this material and one person could actually turn this into a little job for a month or two and help create the installer.

The goal would be to have a full DVD just with bonus content. This DVD would probably be seperated into "official" material and fan made stuff. The person to look after this installer would have to try out all the fan made material, filter for what is appropriate for this DVD and develop an easy to use installer for it.

Anybody interested in helping us collect the material, should get in touch with Owen (Owen at egosoft.com). If you are interested in this job please get in touch with me (Bernd at egosoft.com). If you fail to figure out how to turn this into an email adress you are not fit for the job ;-)

Looking forward to the "ultimate" X box!


Belisarius wrote in X-SUPERBOX: What is this all about and what should it contain?
First of all I should explain that "Superbox" is more of a working title for this unofficial project than a fixed name. We haven't decided yet what name we will give it; as soon as we have made a decision you will be the first to know!

As you probably know, the 10-year story of the X-series came to a conclusion with X3: Terran Conflict. Over the years many fans of the series have come to these forums and many are still here in the community. They are sure to remember the humble beginnings of this story with Kyle William Brennan and his ship, the X-perimental. In X-Beyond the Frontier he lost contact with Earth as a result of a terrible accident involving his jumpdrive and had to fight against massive threats. In X-Tension he recovered a lost prototype ship belonging to the Paranid. In X2: The Threat and X3: Reunion his son, Julian Brennan, followed his footsteps and fought against more dangerous threats than his father could have ever done. In doing so he rescued millions of people in Omicron Lyrae and even made it possible to reconnect the X-Universe with the Sol system. In X3: Terran Conflict you had to maintain peace while the Kha'ak and the Xenon, the descendants of the Terraformers, continued to threaten not only the people of the X-Universe, but also the humans of the Sol system and of course you! This was the only way to grant both sides a peaceful future together.

All the games mentioned above will be in this special box, that much is for sure! But the games of the X-series also motivated many people to create expansions, write scripts, fan-fiction and many other things. To make this superbox worthy of the name, we are calling upon our trusted community to make suggestions of possible fan-made content to go into the box. The potential variety of the content is huge, so don't be hesitant when making your suggestions. This box shouldn't just be something from EGOSOFT for fans, but by fans for fans. You wrote many useful guides, tutorials and HowTo's that we'd also like to add to the content of the superbox. Tell us what you want to see in this box and we'll do our best to add it.

To keep an overview of the collected content we've decided to separate this request into five threads. The content we want is so huge that it would be easy to lose track if we collected it all in one thread.

So, we are separating the subject areas into the following categories:
  • X3: Terran Conflict - Scripts & Modding Forum

    Here we will collect the following things:
    • Scripts
      Mods
      Scripting and Modding tutorials
      AL-Plug-ins
      MD-Missions
      MD-Tutorials
      Plug-ins & Tools
      Ships (need to be installable with Cycrow's Ship Installer)
    Please note that any scripts you suggest need to have an interface, so that they don't need to be executed via the Script Editor.
  • X-Universe

    Here we are going to collect:
    • Tutorials, Guides, Tips, Tricks, HowTo's
      Sector maps
      Savegames
      Screenshots (i.e. as loadscreens)

    We will look through all of this content and decide which to put into the box. We ask you to always post a link to the content you want us to include so that we don't have to spend too much time searching for it.
  • X3: Reunion - Scripts & Modding Forum

    Here we are collecting:
    • Scripts
      Mods
      Scripting and Modding tutorials
      AL-Plug-ins
      MD-Missions
      MD-Tutorials
      Plug-ins & Tools
      Ships (need to be installable with Cycrow's Ship Installer)
    Please note that any scripts you suggest need to have an interface, so that they don't need to be executed via the Script Editor.
  • X2: The Threat - Scripts & Modding Forum

    Here we will collect:
    • Scripts
      Mods
      Scripting and Modding tutorials
      Plug-ins & Tools
      AL-Plug-ins
    Please note that any scripts you suggest need to have an interface, so that they don't need to be executed via the Script Editor.
  • Creative Universe

    Here we are collecting:
    • Fan-fiction
      Wallpapers
      Music
    Regarding music titles, these must be fan-made rather than commercially released tracks that require licensing, and must also not already have been used in any of the games. Wallpapers should have X as a theme and not your favourite cars; the same goes for fan-fiction. Since we know your creativity knows no limits, anything not listed here is also allowed as long as it relates to X.
As you can see the box is turning into a really big project. EGOSOFT isn't just going to ask you for content, but will also be adding its own materials that will definitely throw you out of your pilot's seat! We want this superbox to be as big as possible so we are asking for your help in collecting good, helpful materials, and are looking forward to your suggestions.

Enjoy!
Thread for Merge Mod (collection of mods merged together for the SuperBox)
Thread for Mod/Script suggestions and compatability info

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supakillaii
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Post by supakillaii » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 12:48

Sweeeeeeet! Can't wait!
That means 2 discs, no?
And yay for Xbox not made by Microsoft xD

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Post by amtct » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 13:25

That is very easy to do.I like Terran Conflict DvD menu alot and I think this project menu should be like that.

I dont think its a month work to do the menu ,but its a month work to collect all mods and scripts and saved games and make installers for them (where is needed).

Can we use any software or we should use one preferred by Egosoft (do we need to write one new)?

P.S.I did a Dvd with a menu for my saved games few months ago ,so this ideea its not completly new for me :P :lol:

Cheers,Adrian.

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Post by Chris0132 » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 13:42

Would it not make sense to use cycrow's mod manager thingy? The plugin system it allows is a very nice method of using custom content, it's very similar to bethesda's plugin system for the elder scrolls games and both are very easy to use.

Polish it up some and maybe add it to the little startup box you get when you launch the game and I'd say it'd be a perfect installer.

Or have I misunderstood what you're asking for?

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Post by amtct » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 13:46

I think (if we are aloud to post toughts here :) ) it should be better that each script and mod to have his own installer with an easy to use description (manual).

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Post by Chris0132 » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 13:59

The problem with that is that if you want to then remove an addition it's difficult, plus you need to run half a dozen programs to install it rather than a single program and then just load in what files you want, and you may not know what things you have installed.

A game as heavily modified as X3 benefits immensely from a good management system for its modifications otherwise using them becomes difficult. This is a problem I noticed a lot in bohemia interactive's games, they have lots of content but no managment system, so the only way to manage your mods is to make lots of subfolders in the game and have a shortcut for each set of mods you want to load, very confusing and clunky.

Things like the mod manager and the configuration menu are really helpful for people using scripts, I can't overstate how much easier they make things.

You could include something in the main installer to install plugins for the first time, but I really think you need some easy way of uninstalling them again afterwards, not to mention a way for new scripts to be easily incorporated into the game.

I do agree about the documentation though, perhaps an addon to the mod manager which lets you view manuals attached with the plugin?

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Post by Vitez » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 14:11

errr.. I faded after reading "making a kind of "ultimate" X collectors edition. This would be a single box with all games" - so I need to ask: this will be an X-anthology? :o If so, then I don't have ideas for fan related things, but it could include everything special Egosoft made - books, T-shirts, music CD's. Ahh, sweet dreams :roll:
Last edited by Vitez on Thu, 9. Jul 09, 14:30, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by ianrobo75 » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 14:24

I would assume this would contain alot of the stuff in X-universe sticky: 'The Ultimate X resource and guides list':
- PDF's of user guides, maps, etc
- Rabiddeity's Video Guides.
- Excel Keyboard Maps, Info, Stats Compendium, etc.
- Installers for the Tools such as exogenesis' 3D Models and Stats Viewer, XAdrians Factory Complex Calculator, etc.
- Saved games

+ Commonly used scripts c/w PDF guides.

It would be nice if these could be viewed/ open/ ran from the DVD main menu. Perhaps this content and menu could also be saved to the users PC so they didn't need to have the DVD in to view/ run/ install stuff.
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Post by TTD » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 14:32

If I have read this right,yes ,a complete collection of the X-series from x-btf through to the latest version of TC,when finally released.

As for scripts and mods...

There were incompatibilities between some of them and others duplicated work in others.
So either we need them all to be compatible or have information about which ones are not compatible with which.
Maybe a suggested list for install,taken from all that comes with the superbox?

Edit

On reading further down , x-btf is such an old game.Would it run on an XP system etc?

So yes,tips on setting up older games on newer systems would be useful
Last edited by TTD on Thu, 9. Jul 09, 15:14, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by amtct » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 14:32

ianrobo75 wrote: It would be nice if these could be viewed/ open/ ran from the DVD main menu. Perhaps this content and menu could also be saved to the users PC so they didn't need to have the DVD in to view/ run/ install stuff.
The menu can have a copy to disk option or a browse option (like Terran Conflict Dvd menu has already) where you can chose what you want to copy to your HDD.

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Post by Xenon_Slayer » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 14:35

Indeed, we will want to include guides and resources which people have found useful among other things. There is more information here. There are other things we could include such as stuff from the creative forum. Wallpapers, stories, artwork e.t.c.

Heh, I'm thinking of looking into my old X2 scripts I made :roll:
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Post by Gammel » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 14:49

Something I don't thing anyone has said:
Ships! Ships! Ships! Ships! :D
You could collect up every ones fan made ships, except that 90% of the fan made ships come from other games/tv series/movies. So it would breach copyright to include them. But that's no reason why people couldn't make ships specifically for the X-Box.
Could even run some kind of forum competition. :)
Last edited by Gammel on Thu, 9. Jul 09, 14:54, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Alan Phipps » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 14:51

Given all the dramas we see on the Tech Support forum, I suggest that the box has a basic guide leaflet on min update requirements for different OSs, updating drivers, device management, cleaning up nasty codecs and finally on memory utilisation. Also, how to optimise sound on Windows 7, on Vista with Creative cards, etc. Save a whole bunch of 'help me!!!' posts. I wonder what system reqs the box will state given the range of demands of these games?

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Post by dalin80 » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 17:09

would love to see any concept drawings or models that didn't make the cut.

on the subject of installer perhaps a system akin to that of C+C first decade?
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Post by ianrobo75 » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 17:15

Posters with all the ships on perhaps.
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Post by Gazz » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 17:39

Scripts are practically always compatible to each other, except for the "command button" issue.

Offering multiple mods "at a click" is nothing but a recipe for disaster. =)
Even if each mod clickie thing shows a list of mods that it will not be compatible with... who is gonna read that?
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Post by Wintermist » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 17:43

Hell, if you took all the former X games and put it into the TC engine, that'd be enough for me to buy it :D

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Post by Osiris_sam » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 18:03

if the installer is going to be fresh written, surely it wouldnt be a large job to code in a 'disabler'
mods which arnt compatible are disabled when one is activated. i cant imagine that would be too hard to do, although i have no real programing experience.

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Post by Wintermist » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 18:13

If they actually DID put all the X games into this latest engine, it would also mean all scripts could work for all games. Imagine the fun!

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Post by Gazz » Thu, 9. Jul 09, 18:29

Wintermist wrote:Hell, if you took all the former X games and put it into the TC engine, that'd be enough for me to buy it :D
I doubt that this would work because for instance, TC does no longer have any station BBS.

All new missions are MD based while old (story) missions were hardcoded which certainly does not work with the code of TC.
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