How dynamic is the universe?

[xTheIcex]

Hi,

I finish the campain some hour before.It was not bad, so i continue the game.

But when i start building more and more ships and building, i start thinking how its works the xUniverse?

1., I never saw before the AI wanna destroy my property...(Expect the protect mission)
2., I never saw before AI start building more and more station and take territory...
3., How dynamic is the universe? How its works? anyone have experiense who playing long time ago?

[Alan Phipps]

Regarding point 2, if you have completed the Plot then you should be seeing new Canteran stations being constructed across several non-Reiver zones in DeVries. One of these stations is a new Shipyard.

[RAVEN.myst]

But those stations are scripted - always the same, always preordained, and therefore not "dynamic" in nature.

@xTheIcex: to partially answer your question (from my perspective, at least) - the universe, unfortunately, is not truly dynamic, certainly not along the lines you're asking about. Your stations and other assets WILL get attacked by outlaws from time to time, at least if you play on a high difficulty - on the highest difficulty those attacks can become quite pesky, though in truth they never really pose much more of a threat than "nuisance". As for NPC development: zero. Yes, there are those few stations, but they are always going to be built, the same stations and in the same places, so in effect they are actually there from the start, merely not functional at first.

There is no NPC grand strategy in effect: NPCs never build any stations (barring the above "exception"), so they never encroach on territory or market share in that manner. They don't build fleets to invade each other or you. You will never see swings in power or any noticeable shift in the power structure, even if you manage to destroy a significant amount of a faction's assets.

The market DOES, however, exhibit variable behaviour that emerges purely from random occurrences: a freighter carrying a crucial cargo may get destroyed (by you or by pirates), and suddenly its destination is lacking whatever it was set to get, so now there's a market gap (potentially ripe for exploiting - I mean the word in the positive sense, not as in "cheating"), and depending on where in a supply chain the disruption takes place, it could have a domino effect, cascading all the way to the system's shipyards. Conversely, you can also have a beneficial effect on the market, filling in gaps in the local economy (such as the energy shortage in Omicron Lyrae), having fairly widespread effects on the local economy. This is, of course, not truly "dynamic", but merely reactive, but at least it can be quite satisfying, being able to see one's actions/decisions affecting the game universe tangibly (albeit predictably.)

You'll occasionally witness emergent behaviour on a small scale (say, within a battle), but not really on a wide scale - too many numbers are locked in, instead of being variables (for example, two factions' relationship with each other will never change, regardless of what may happen between them - so you could arrange to provoke a "friendly fire incident" between two factions in order to erode their relationship, and it would have absolutely no effect.)

[mr.WHO]

In short - it's not dynamic - period (at least vannilla, you can istall CWIR mod for more dynamic experience).

[Ezarkal]

The way the game is designed seems to show it was meant to be fully dynamic, though. It seems the features were never fully implemented, though. So as Raven said, there are a few fixed vanilla parameter that will rule over everything. Ship built at shipyards just move out to disappear into nothingness, and enemies will spawn out of nowhere. Station have infinite amount of cash, and they don't get built nor destroyed.
The mechanic is there, though. I have good hope for the next game regarding dynamic universe.

In the meantime, well... there are a few good mods out there, and they have reasons to be. XD

[hisazul]

Stations are not dynamic at all, they are 100% static unlike say X3. Economy isn't too bad there are always ships being built and resources changing hands. Aside from PMC/HoL and mishap with teladi not being hostile to teladi pirates while teladi pirates are hostile to teladi there is nothing in terms of conflict. Just typical pirate/hostile raids and so forth.

If you want to spice up vanilla experience leave somebody as hostile. Like PMC, since they are Rebirths douchebags anyway. Do missions. Raid xenon space or your enemy faction(major one anyway).

Wait for X4. Ego never promised Rebirth being X4 they said it was going to be a reboot for the sake of new engine. Don't expect longevity out of vanilla experience, tho I actually spent hundreds of hours without restarting.

[RodentofDoom]

its not.

to achieve dynamic status a lot needs to change

npc factions need to have variable relations with each other
npc factions need to construct new stations to meet needs
npc factions need to manufacture ships to meet needs
stations need to be destroyable

the only most likely barrier to this happening
the average home pc would probably not be able to manage it

[UniTrader]

i think tHe problem there is balancing, not performance.
i think its possible to create/add these Features in about a month with negligible impact on performance, but to balance everything that it doesnt break down on its own and is also fault-tolerant will take months, if not years (and no, just adjusting Numbers that there is too much of everything is also not a solution - then the economy will lock up because of over-saturation)

And as a reminder: i am not an egosoft employee, just a modder sharing his opinion about this topic

[RAVEN.myst]

i think tHe problem there is balancing, not performance.
i think its possible to create/add these Features in about a month with negligible impact on performance, but to balance everything that it doesnt break down on its own and is also fault-tolerant will take months, if not years (and no, just adjusting Numbers that there is too much of everything is also not a solution - then the economy will lock up because of over-saturation)

I think this is spot-on right. The trick/challenge is to make the variables not cause vicious circles or death spirals - positive feedback loops that result in runaway processes ("processes" in the general sense, rather than a computing one.) So, fault-tolerant and self-corrective/regulating enough to prevent such fatal feedback loops (normal ones still need to occur though - that's emergently natural), but not so dampened as to become merely another artificially governed/restricted construct.

[hisazul]

^
Kind of like the whole initial debacle with docking, lines etc because Ego didn't test long term effects.

Engine at this point is fairly decent. Dynamically replacing destroyed stations isn't rocket science. Game can easily handle 3-4 stations per zone but the problem would be the after effects. Think how long it took to polish the logic of station creation/removal in X3... over a decade and it was still wonky and it still required making some things permanent.

I'm not sure we will get dynamic factions and stations in X4... still think it's a bit early but I expect that at the very least we will be able to destroy some stations and ai will eventually send a building to build them again. But you never know... it's Ego. They may do it and just fix and balance it as we go.

[Carl Sumner]

Egosoft knows about dynamic economy systems, they had them in the previous games. But they also had the associaled problems, like "death spirals" in the economy.

This is what is called "cellular automata", but more complicated than most played with by the scientists. They are agonizingly complex and can produce emergent phenomina. Now imagine making that stable for a long time run!

I think they probably had a lot of this in XR, but had to take it out. There were complaints about "locked up" economies in earlier versions, although some were because players didn't understand what was happening.

Part of the game, is for players to make the economy stable and prosperous by building and trading.

From what I can see, the lower levels of the economy are quite dynamic, except for the solar cells. (NPC solar can produce without resoucees.)

The top levels, of manufactured hightech goods, have some "artificial stabilizers" added. Shipyards do use resources, but not all ships are built at shipyards, I think.

By the way, those new Canterran stations are not certain, if reivers destroy the construction ship they might not get built! So protect them if you can.

[Silla]

I think the biggest problem is that for a really dynamic game

1) You would have to change the way X- games work from the basis. Simply said you would have construct the game in a way that even in the case of a breakdown the system can swing back into a local stabel state by gamemechanics. At the moment that is just not possible. If main structures are destroyed and there is no production by the means of stations ..the game is over. (balancing)

For that very reason I believe that the universe should have a mutilevel development system with a very basic core mechanic that is indestructable (as stations are at the moment but on a low level instead). Like salvaging, Planetary production, piracy to bordering sectors (making piracy an actuall economy for poor sectors!). From this core gameplay the game could develop dynamically up and downwards and the player could take part in that.

2) I see a problem with players... anything dynamic might be to complex for some people. Like an AI opponent for example that actually plays the game with/against you...
Also the way how to play the game would change. Not just going arround and looking at production holes in the matrix... as the universe would evolve arround you this way of playing would not work that well anymore depending on the timeframes of development. New gamemechanics would be needed for that cause. However this non dynamic gameplay is what especially older players to the frenchise are looking for. I do not get why so... im pretty much fed up with it by now, but that is just my personel opinion.