Unbiased Poll about The Pride of Albion vs multiple ships

[lsc9x]

Dear Fellow pollers,

Just wanted to add that there is a lengthy interview with Bernd about the new features coming up in X Rebirth, and while the character is limited to piloting 1 ship (upgradable etc.) he also indicated that the pilot (i.e. the player) will be able to don "virtual reality goggles" that will enable him to pilot:

1) Other ships
2) Drones
3) Guided Missiles

He further went on to talk about how this would impact game play in terms of missions such as spying missions and sabotage missions, etc.

So, while the player will still be stuck with one ship, I think there probably going to be a LOT of "piloting" of other ships in game play.

He also added that is one of your "piloted ships" blows up, then the player is still alive, even if you lose that ship.

Somehow that paints a picture of a lot of ships getting blown up because you won't have to care as much about being on THAT ship.

Food for thought...

[Geek]

[Noimageavaiable]

[Aydan]

Steering Drones, Other ships and eventually missiles isn't a new feature. It was already mentioned in the Terran Conflict articles before the release of that game. It was mentioned that the player would be able to jump instantly into the action, and it's true. You could already take over the control of any ship in your property by clicking on it and steering it with the enlarged upper left monitor. Just try it, it works already, so the ability to fligh other ships this way isn't new. This, so far, is the technical side, and yes, i think this feature will work.

My concern is that this will still suffer from the same limitations we have today. The camera used on remotely controlled ships is a relative one. It has a fixed point of view and it doesn't use a camera definition from the remotely controlled ship at all. I think this is due to the player placement and the property under his direct control. The "new" game is developed since X3:Reunion, and the design principles will be determinated in that time. So the question is how far this announced radical new game design is implemented? Do we discuss new features at all, or only reused ald parts of the game under a new graphic engine? Those remotely controlled ships can do anything under direct player control. They can turn, strafe, shoot and dock. However, they CAN'T use the the extrapolation of the fight command software. You have no crosshair. They DON'T change the camera view point of the ship the player is sitting in. It's always the same, and when the target leaves the line of sight from player ship to remotely controlled ship, flight maneuvres, aiming and so on get's interesting, to keep it diplomatically. Try it yourself in TC, you will see what i mean. For Rebirth, cameras, aiming and several other flight commands have to be solved, and i'm not sure that this will work. It's not easily fixable, as camera positions are used for more than one purpose, and if the objects camera positions are usable by the player, it can be a severe obstacle for modding, for example to move the player to a different ship. It depends on how the ship are handled as objects/entities. Nobody outside the beta testers and devs would be able to give some hints, so this is speculation.

Further, having decks and rooms isn't new either. It was already intorduced by Observe, as far as i can remember, with one of his luxury TPs in Transcend 1. Could be also coming from Phlts New Horizon, but i think he told me that he had the permission to use Observes ship models.

Transcend.... Rooms in an X game? Already done http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=261288&highlight=transcend

[Jcewazhere]

Take Nexus' (mainly) single ship that upgrades, plus the "female companion" that is the Angelwing avatar/AI, add Starlancer's interior, and add Freelancer's "space highways" and you get Rebirth?

(I may have flipped Starlancer and Freelancer)

[mpcribeiro]

".................Only one player ship! You can move within the interior It has a cockpit & crew It is altered throughout the plot............."


That is simply regretfully that X3TC-AP seems to be the last of the long and excellent X game series

After X3 release, other space games appeared few years back on the market with lazy concept of providing the player with a single ship (I can't even remeber their name)...The player could change its cosmetics and weaponry depending on the mission to be played... as result those games end-up without a future because are BIG TURN OFF playwise... something that was fine late in the 80's or 90's but not in 2012 forward.

So if X-Rebirth has that same lazy single player ship concept regardless how beautiful it might be... looks like I'll keep playing the X3TC-AP for years to come since it seems it is the best and the last game of the X series.

[Mightysword]

[mpcribeiro]

[Mightysword]

Except in the case of Rebirth the "pilot a single ship" is more like a semantic concept than a practical concept because you do control other crafts through VR. Yes, semantically different, but practically through a computer screen it doesn't mean much.

Oh, since you publish your opinion on a public forum do expect it to be commented on. I didn't tell you can't or shouldn't post it, but you shouldn't have a problem that I let you I don't agree with your opinion. Especially when I can back up with evidence as to why I disagree (i.e modern games with multiple ship)

[Troubleshooter11]

I-War had only 1 ship. And what a magnificent ship it was!

The CNV-301 Dreadnaught. It was the first Dreadnaught class corvette and many many more were build and featured in the game. Yet the CNV-301 stole my heart. You know why? Because it was MY ship. I didnt nearly feel as much a 'connection' with the ship in I-War 2 when i was able to switch between different ships.

It's not that uncommon, heck even in games like Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, Mass Effect or SWTOR you are 'stuck' on 1 ship during the game, even if it's between missions. But it makes the ship more 'unique' and adds 'personality' to it.

And as people mentioned, the first X game only featured 1 playable ship, so in a way they are returning to their roots.

And corvette class/size ships are the best kind of ship to use in stories and games. The Normandy, Millenium Falcon, Ebon Hawk, Dreadnaught, Albion Pride, playerships in SWTOR, etc. All of them have roughly the same size, weapons, armor and agility. Even the larger ships in Freelancer could be considered the size of a small corvette.

Ships of the size of the Albion Pride/Skunk are small enough to make the player feel like there are bigger fish than him out there and makes the ship more agile and allowed to have a main array with guns for 'cool space combat'. Going up against ships bigger than you will feel like being in a boss battle and will be far more rewarding.

Ships bigger than a corvette would be too slow, boring and lumbering to personally fly as a player. They also give you far too much of a 'safe feeling' and allowing you to simply own things with near impunity. Being able to own capital ships and command them while being in a ship that handles halfway between fighters and capital ships is in my opinion the perfect mix and Egosoft is right on the ball with this one.

Ships smaller than a corvette are basically fighters and will require you to have a carrier unless you want to restrict the player to purely combat related gameplay (like wing commander).

This little dutchman gives Egosoft a thumbs up and i trust in their ability to take the X franchise into a new direction. There will be a lot of people that will say "They changed it so now it sucks!" and "ruined forever!". That is very sad to see, but i hope most of us will eventually be happy with X-Rebirth.

EDIT: in response to a post above me: i do believe laziness is not involved in this as they would just resort to giving you standard non-interactive ships to play which will all be bland and the same. Quality > Quantity.

[brucewarren]

Back in the early days of Elite, you could only fly the Cobra MKIII, but it
didn't spoil the game. You upgraded it. It was only when Frontier came out
you could change it for a better. I still wanted to fly a Fer De Lance though
They looked seriously cool.

I think it all depends on three things

How cool the Skunk is as a shop (and I assume it's a beaut)
What counts as a "drone"
How good the M2 pilots you can hire are. If they can learn it would add a whole new RPG layer

One thing in some of the screenshots I'm looking forward to is the minefields
and crafted systems. It reminds me a bit of the hidden areas in Freelancer where
you had to go off the beaten track and look for stuff.

IMO Fully modelling the ship's interior to allow you to walk around in 3d might
not be necessary. In Freelancer you couldn't really land on planets Frontier style,
but the short cut-scenes created enough of an illusion to give the
impression that you had and it was sufficient.

[tough boy]

[Alan Phipps]

I have split and merged the previous 8 posts from an inappropriate old thread into here. The recent discussion there, if continued, should be kept polite and friendly or the next split will also be locked.

[WendigoX]

Wow, all these pages, and I didn't see anyone mention what I think could be the killer ap for the drone-centric approach.

In X3:R, and now X3:TC, I pretty much limit myself to one ship. It's not because I am particularly attached to it or that it fills all my needs or I'm in some roleplaying mood. It's that changing ships is annoying. I have to get the ship I'm in over to the ship I want to get in, hopefully I've fitted the target ship with a SETA and a teleporter and a whole bunch of other kit that makes flying it not-annoying. Hopefully the ship I'm in can carry enough energy cells to make the jump. Hopefully it's already carrying enough energy cells to make the jump, otherwise I now need to make another stop or pull up another group of menus to send a remote ship to resupply me. Etc, etc.

Yeah yeah yeah, I get pretty good at this, especially juggling ships with a TM in X3:TC. But that doesn't mean it's any less of a chore and I don't let out an audible sigh when I have to do it.

Without the pretense of having to actually be in a ship to "fly" it, if I want to fly a new "ship," I can just call up my assets tab, click on what I want, and select "control." Viola. In two seconds I can be piloting any drone I own anywhere in the universe. That means I spend more time playing the game rather than navigating the abstract graphical game-finder that is the X universe.

Do I know that this is the intent of the drone system? No. But, can I think of any other reason why they would make this switch? No. So, I'll be optimistic and believe this is an attempt to get me doing what I want to do faster.

[Geek]

Juggling might still be necessary.
You assume that all drones come pre fitted with all equipement ; it is far to be certain. It has been already stated that XR drones have little in common to X3 drones.