Commands/Features that XR or next title needs

[Nikola515]

. Im not sure how and what they are going to do with next title but i would love to see FPS boarding. Something simular to Parkan 2.... Im sure some people wouldn't like it but it would be perfect mini game for me

I'm amazed how people still want the FPS part after X-Rebirth or worse, No Man's Sky.

In X-Rebirth station walking and ship interiors are bare-bone and eyesore - how do you expect to have the FPS gameplay that would be at best the same quality? Especially that Egosoft has no experience in FPS games. NPCs would have to have much better model animation and movement pathfinding - somethings that was always Egosoft Achilles heel.
C'mon if they can't teach capship to move around huge asteroid that is literally 20 km away, then how do you expect to have NPC runing and fighting in tight ship interiors?


With current X-Rebith it is bossible to polish and expand station and ship interiors, but FPS is a big NO, NO!
This is no Start Citizen with 60mil budget wher they just can build FPS game within the Space Sim game.

How????

Have you ever played Parkan 2 ?????? All though it is older game and graphically(or any way) inferior to XR they still made it fun. If you have little imagination it is possible to do it... Also i don't think anyone except it to be like CoD or Battlefield. As for staton interiors there is nothing wrong with them. Only problem is that there is nothing to do in them and that is making them bad. Just like people blame actors for poorly written dialogue

Edit: Anyway if they look at other games and see something they should just take the same approach. Like you said they dont have any experience and them coming with something Ego original would be disaster

[mr.WHO]

I actually played Parkan 1 and Parkan 2.
While first one was OK (gave me the poor's man Battlezone series feeling) the second one was not able to draw me for more than a few hours.

[Nikola515]

I never played first one but second was pretty fun. I got addicted fast to it..... For example grabbing loot from boarded ships as well as crafting ammo. Numerous weapon as well as drones that can aid you in space as well as ground..... Yes FPS was cheaply made and it sucked but with all this things that come with it made it fun. If Egosoft could pull average FPS with all those things it would make game more fun.

Another boarding mini game would be good if they had FTL style mechanics...

[Nikola515]

I just download new No Man's Sky update and i must say im amazed what they did in short time. Especially when it comes to building stations/ships interiors Something i was always saying that i wanted to see in XR. I never thought features like this would be so much fun.... Anyway Egosoft should definitely check this out. Plus with tools we would be able to create infinite content and share it on workshop;)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vpkXfzkmBVY

[linolafett]

Will that also include textbox cursor movement, as I've frequently been crying out for since at least v2.0?

Have tested: Nope does not work yet. I will ask, how difficult this would be to implement though.

[RAVEN.myst]

Hey, sounds like you folks at ES are busy with the next thing

Here's a thought: Rebirth either caches greedily, or it simply has a memory leak - I find that after about 2-3 hours (on average), memory usage grows to 90% of available, it starts lagging and stuttering and pausing, so I have to save, quit, and reload, after which it is fine again for a while. I was thinking, if it's not a memory leak but rather a caching issue, how about a "flush cache" command?

Here's even a possible strategy for what to dump: assign values to assets based on both spatial and temporal distance, ie. if something is spatially far (in Rebirth's universe structure, if it's many jumps away, for example), or if it's temporally far (ie. hasn't been accessed in a long time), then it gets a high value. The cache flush command then clears a certain number of assets with the highest assigned values. Maybe executing it once does a conservative flush, doing it again does an aggressive one, with lower threshold values...

Just an idea (which may or may not be applicable to your current project)

Good hunting!

[UniTrader]

Here's even a possible strategy for what to dump: assign values to assets based on both spatial and temporal distance, ie. if something is spatially far (in Rebirth's universe structure, if it's many jumps away, for example), or if it's temporally far (ie. hasn't been accessed in a long time), then it gets a high value. The cache flush command then clears a certain number of assets with the highest assigned values. Maybe executing it once does a conservative flush, doing it again does an aggressive one, with lower threshold values...

Just an idea (which may or may not be applicable to your current project)

Good hunting!

if ego keeps the JD as is (at least from what i read about it, didnt use it so far) then not applicable since the player can instant-warp anywhere

[RAVEN.myst]

Yup, that is understood - it's why I qualified with "in Rebirth's universe structure", as I don't know whether it would stay as is or change back to something "flatter" like in older Xs. (Personally, the new, more tiered and more interesting universe structure and jumpdrive model is one of the things in Rebirth that I prefer, and consider a positive evolution, even if [or perhaps, BECAUSE] it effectively increases distances.)



The Radial Menu
-------------------
This needs to either be done away with entirely, or be seriously overhauled. At the moment, folks, let's face it: it's an incoherent, inconsistent mess, due to the patchwork availability of hotkeys. For example, to build a station: one selects the build location, and the radial menu can be summoned by hotkey. But then, there is no hotkey (that I can find, at least! If I'm mistaken here, please DO correct me - I would GREATLY appreciate the info!) and one has to click on 'Build'. After that, hotkeys are once again available. In combat, it's quite a lot worse, in fact. Once again, the radial menu can be called up via hotkey, but the next level has none, so "Scan", "Board", "Attack" (**), etc have to be clicked on, which means one loses one's mouse location for steering - once the command is issued, the ship may veer wildly, especially since the menu pops up arbitrarily in the direction of the centre of the target, so if it's a capital ship one is close to, one sometimes ends up having to hunt around the screen to find it, often at a screen edge or corner - UGH! Having to do this and then moving mouse cursor over to click slows down the process considerably, whereas a keystroke is faster; this also means that one's flight controls are tied up for longer, while the player futzes around with clicking on a tiny label in a radial menu that first has to be found (erm.... seriously, WTF? I don't mean to be overly critical or abrasive, but who thought this was good design?).

So, to summarise: IF the radial menu is to be kept, it should:
1. Always appear at or near the screen centre (slightly in the direction of the target may be ok, may even be good, but it shouldn't be too far off-centre (and certainly not all the way at the edge of the screen!)
2. Have hotkeys at EVERY level, so that interacting via mouse-click is totally optional (ie. visually the radial menu is still there, but functionally the player has the option of doing away with it.)


** This command needs help, too, but that's another story for another day! Actually, it needs to become AT LEAST three commands: Fighters Attack, Capitals Attack, and All Attack. This is by no means comprehensive, but merely the BARE minimum that should be available. Other possible options might be to have designated wingmen attack the selected object, or a control group (not very many control groups would be needed, perhaps only up to 4 - even that would vastly improve available tactical options.)

[w.evans]

or a control group (not very many control groups would be needed, perhaps only up to 4 - even that would vastly improve available tactical options.)

This, at least, is possible using the squadron system. And i kind of like it better than additional "all fighters attack/all capital ships attack" commands because squadrons could be any arbitrary grouping of ships AS LONG AS each ship in a level of the hierarchy is the same size class as, or smaller than, their respective commanders.

So you could, for example, have five ships immediately subordinate to you, but each ship be a leader of a squadron:

Squadron A: 4 Taranis (personal bodyguard),
Squadron B: Sucellus and 2 Stromvoks (for long-range harassment and snipery),
Squadron C: 5 Sucellus and 16 Balors (hunter-killer squadron),
Squadron D: Taranis with fighter escort (to pin a target, to keep it away from whatever you want to keep it away from, and to handle light targets),
Squadron E: Drostan and fighter wing.

Order just Squadron B to attack some particular target and, as long as you and your fleet aren't attacked, the rest should stay put.

That said, i do agree that the possibility of using squadrons this way could've been more apparent.

edit: pardon the indulgence. just started a new game last Saturday and i really miss my fleet.

[Nikola515]

@w.evans

That is good idea but i think it woulod be better if they add behavior system to it. Where we have can name our squads (unlimited number of squads) and assign them who ever we want.

Something like this:

Squad A : 5 S fighters Behavior- Defend against incoming fire ( Small ships will hunt any missiles or drones that get close to assign ship).

Squad B: 10 M fighters Behavior- Defend against Fighters ( This ships will be always on defensive against any fighters in assigned ships proximity).

Squad C : 20 S/M ships Behavior - Attack enemy fighters (they will be clearing fighters so bombers can get in close).

Squad D : 10 bombers Behavior - Takeout modules/hull ( this ships should move together with other capitals and deal massive damage to enemy or they can be used to take out modules for boarding).


Now we can take those squads and assign them to our flag ship and they will according to their role. Also if some of ships get blown up we can add more to that squad without messing up setup. This would also come in handy with capital squads as well.....
This would give us deep fleet customization as well as full (as possible) control. But this shouldn't be forced upon all player.... Not everyone like to micromanage as some of us do. X3 was perfect example of how complex was for players to get in to the game (it took me forever to figure out how X3R worked).

[BigBANGtheory]

Not everyone like to micromanage as some of us do. X3 was perfect example of how complex was for players to get in to the game (it took me forever to figure out how X3R worked).

X3R exposed the complexity and forced micro management on the player mainly because it relied on using lists and nested menus to control everything. You absolutely need the UI to take the chore out of micromanaging commands whilst the AI assumes a preset behaviour there isn't another option that works imho.

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=387054

It's ok to support the 'CEO in space' persona which doesn't place great importance on battles, strategy, command & control etc... but ES need to recognise that its a niche playstyle. X Universe's single greatest asset and USP is player owned infrastructure and assets in the context of deep economic simulation....and its madness not to exploit that advantage.

[SpaceProbe]

some sort of scaleable UI would be nice, maybe even different fonts and color options. I found some of the fonts in XR a bit hard to read, no idea why exactly.

[birdtable]

With regards to radial menu, this highlights one of the problems of PC gaming, the use of 3 separate input methods ... controller, mouse/keyboard and joystick. I use the X52 Hotas setup and find the radial menu (in fact all menus in Rebirth) extremely easy to use...I have all commands available with just the X52pro from docking to boarding to trading to travelling to weapon selection and on and on....
That does not mean it is perfect just pretty damn good... but then I have never mastered the controller ( the devils device) or the mouse for flight sims of any kind so maybe I am biased.

[Nikola515]

Menus it self are not bad but they don't suit XR gameplay.... It takes too much time to make order especially when you are in midle of fight.... Fast gameplay and slow menus dont match in my opinion.

[RAVEN.myst]

Menus it self are not bad but they don't suit XR gameplay.... It takes too much time to make order especially when you are in midle of fight.... Fast gameplay and slow menus dont match in my opinion.

This. Also, as well as the delay (or somewhat related to that), is the fact that working the radial menu cuts you off from the flight controls - you can't manoeuvre and use the radial menu at the same time. This is where (for me, anyway) hotkeys work so much better - much more scope for multitasking. That way, I can steer and issue commands (and even shoot) all at once, instead of: steering/flying/shooting - pause to fiddle with radial menu while the ship sticks to latest vector or keeps executing the latest turn - back to steering, usually having to correct madly for the ship now pointing wildly in some inconvenient/potentially lethal direction, as well as the fact that now the steering cursor is nowhere near where it was before the menu-fiddling, exacerbating the crazy veering.

[Nikola515]

I think they did good job with drone menu when we send them from skunk... People don't use that menu as much becuse drones are useless and too expensive. It would be good idea to expand on it as well . For example do same for weapons and missiles so we can switch them much faster instead of switching 6 weapons to get to one that we want... Also it would be good for fleet comands as well.

Mass efects did pretty good job with this. It is fast paste game( combat ) but yet menus are easy to access. Hot keys are good idea too but it can be pain to remember all of them especially for new players.

[UniTrader]

Also it would be good for fleet comands as well.

i think for that purpose the Dialogue Menu with the Change that it doesnt interrupt Ship Control would be better. (doesnt cover the Crosshair when you have to react to something quickly; fewer Keys required to navigate it)

[RAVEN.myst]

I think they did good job with drone menu when we send them from skunk...

Yes, largely because most of the commands have matching hotkeys (1-8), which means that people can use hotkeys or mouse/controller, whichever they prefer. Too bad that "smart defence" and "recall all" don't have hotkeys, though. As you say, this basis could be expanded for some of the other menus - it would make most players happy (which is such a rare thing to accomplish, hahahah!)

Hot keys are good idea too but it can be pain to remember all of them especially for new players.

Agreed. I think both options ought to be present - radial menu is fine, but with matching hotkeys for those who need/want them (and the hotkeys could be indicated on the radial menu, to make them easy to learn for whoever wants to.) Then it can be up to the player as far as how many/which of the hotkeys to use (and remember! )

[Nikola515]

I agree with you 100%.... Menus should not be totally dum down but at the same time they shouldn't be too complicated. It is hard to pull something like this with a game and scope such as XR or X3. Perhaps Egosoft should lay out couple different ideas and see what community thinks or perhaps they should look at some of the moding community. I think it would also be good idea for them to add some RTS comands on map for faster and less boring control as well. Something like hybrid controls taken from whole bunch of different playstyles (after all XR is hybrid between FPS space and economy simulation).
Here are some examples:

1)Clicking on trading ship on map and than clicking on station will assign that ship to station for trading.

2) Double-clicking on one unit will select all same units on map (as long as they are not assigned to ship stations). This would be useful to tell all fighters to attack/defend targed. Or if you want to assign 30 M size traders to stations.

This would eliminate need for a lots of micromanagement especially later in game where we have hundreds of ships and stations....

[RAVEN.myst]

I think it would also be good idea for them to add some RTS comands on map for faster and less boring control as well. Something like hybrid controls taken from whole bunch of different playstyles (after all XR is hybrid between FPS space and economy simulation).
...
This would eliminate need for a lots of micromanagement especially later in game where we have hundreds of ships and stations....

+1. If hybridising the controls could be complicated or confusing, then maybe have a button for "tactical mode" or something like that, which activates those RTS-style controls (maybe disabling the traditional ones for the duration.)