No useless ships

[Alan Phipps]

I may appear to be arguing against myself here.

In X3 games, the fluff ships could sometimes become quite annoying by filling up player station docking spaces. Another niggle was them crashing into your station/complex docks or tubes and damaging race rep while you were building and linking up your complexes.

However, once you realised those potential annoyances existed, it became a minor part of the game to divert, drive away or otherwise manage them. Almost an ongoing evolving empire management aspect for mid to late game that required different solutions for different sector circumstances.

Sometimes planning for, resolving or avoiding those problems gave a sense of achievement.

[Beermachine]

Voted for option 1.

While having a fully simulated universe with every ship role, no matter how minor, having meaningful mechanics behind them is ideal, it's a lot of work for what I would consider to be minimal gameplay benefits. Far better to concentrate on the important ships (trader, military, pirate, corporate, etc) having real depth to their simulation and the filler ships being more superficial.

Still, completely fluff ships, like the randomly spawning ones to make the highway mini-game work, are a BIG no in my book.

[Falcrack]

Here's another point to consider. They say that every ship in the game will require resources to construct. If that also includes the fluff window dressing ships, then that is a lot of resources being poured into making ships which are not pulling their weight and contributing back into the economy or to security.

[Fedora01]

Here's another point to consider. They say that every ship in the game will require resources to construct. If that also includes the fluff window dressing ships, then that is a lot of resources being poured into making ships which are not pulling their weight and contributing back into the economy or to security.

Unless every civilian is flying around in a state of the art military grade fighter craft and constantly suiciding into xenon sectors I don't think this'll be much of an issue. Other than the occasional rampant pirate fleet, civilians will probably not have to be replaced very often.
An actively fighting military force on the other hand would put a strain on the economy (imagine trying to get a ship from Argon Prime or Cloudbase SE if every ship needed to be built in X3)

[RAVEN.myst]

Here's another point to consider. They say that every ship in the game will require resources to construct. If that also includes the fluff window dressing ships, then that is a lot of resources being poured into making ships which are not pulling their weight and contributing back into the economy or to security.

Actually, it is often a problem that the games end up lacking sufficient resource sinks, especially in the late game, resulting in artificial ways to address that by having resources magically, spontaneously sunk from game, which in turn can cause imbalance thus necessitating magic spawning of resources and bad guys, too. When resources aren't sunk adequately (as happens in Rebirth, for instance), the economy becomes saturated and opportunities for the player dry up - suddenly, ArmsTech manufacturing goes from lucrative to a big white elephant, as does much ShipTech (particularly Plasma Flow Regulators.) So in fact, by creating market demands, I would say what you cite here is actually a significant advantage rather than the contrary, and thus a strong argument in favour of those ships' implementation...

ADDENDUM: In fact, using production of these so-called "fluff ships" to sink excess resources would be quite an elegant way for them to reflect on the prosperity of a region: If the economy engine or whatever identifies imminent market saturation, it burns off some resources by converting them to civilian ships and signage and what-not - the area ends up looking busier as a result, giving a visual indication of a thriving economy. Places where there is no surplus would end up looking emptier, more barren - think DeVries in the campaign, before scripted events turn its economy around, except that in that campaign that illusion is created regardless of whether the player decides to involve him/herself in developing the area, regardless of whether a single new station (PC- or NPC-owned) pops up.

[DaMuncha]

I want useless ships.

I liked the lanes of little space cars zooming around stations.

And I'd like to be able to drive one, like drive a taxi to do taxi missions.

[RAVEN.myst]

And I'd like to be able to drive one, like drive a taxi to do taxi missions.

And in its single weapon slot, it can have a hooter (or "horn", depending on where you're from) Also, turn indicators.

[Nanook]

I would like to propose that for X4, that a ship will not exist flying around unless it serves an actual gameplay purpose. It needs to perform some actual function rather than act as window dressing, or to make the universe feel more "alive". Examples of that from X3 would be stuff like Arena ships, spacefly collectors, and civilian ships in general...

How are these not useful? I can attempt to capture them and use or sell them. That makes them far from useless.

Useless to all but the player who wants to exploit a mechanic not available to NPCs. Not my personal preference, I want gameplay mechanics that are available to the player to also be avaiable to NPCs. In other words, they need to be doing something more than just acting as targets for the player, or just acting as visual eye candy.

Really? Then all boarding and capturing of ships should be removed, right? After all, this is a player-only game mechanic. Because if we gave the same mechanic to the NPC's, they, too, could capture your "useless" ships.

BTW, I've seen pirates and Xenon in the X3 games go after these "useless" ships. They served as targets for them, too.

In conclusion, your so-called "useless" ships aren't.

[RAVEN.myst]

Really? Then all boarding and capturing of ships should be removed, right? After all, this is a player-only game mechanic.

And don't forget the campaign, and plots and missions in general - these, too, are only available to ("exploitable by") the player - dump those, too! (Couldn't resist chiming in, heheh)

[Kitty]

Should I cry or should I laugh ?

There is no useless ship in X3. Boarding has been said. Never tried the "scan cargo for police/pirate" missions ? Does it sound the same when all scanable ships will have something to scan than when there are also tourists ?

Yes, there are civilian ships that may just be tourists. They not only add flavor, they have the use we can imagine for them. This is the way a sandbox works.

[Clownmug]

Might as well get rid of all those useless stars and planets too since we'll never be able fly to them.

[Crimsonraziel]

Might as well get rid of all those useless stars and planets too since we'll never be able fly to them.

You sir, are a genius!

[BigBANGtheory]

imho XR advanced the feel of a more living universe something X3 was frequently criticized for, I say keep them whilst they add to that ambience but cull them when necessary for performance.

[Killjaeden]

imho XR advanced the feel of a more living universe something X3 was frequently criticized for, I say keep them whilst they add to that ambience but cull them when necessary for performance.

Didnt GTA have amount of civ's and traffic slider as gameplay/graphical option? I think this would be a good way.

[monster.zero]

More ships the better.

There should be millions of star ships flying around the 'city'.

Probably 10-20 billion ships in the galaxy.


Heck...Earth has 3 billion+ vehicles.

If you traveled back in time and told some one in 1899 that there would be billions of horseless carriages driving around...they would have called you crazy!

Fast forward to 2017....There will be billions of personal spacecraft flying around in the year 2117.

[Aven Valkyr]

If the dynamic game engine is well made, there will be no need for "fluff". The universe will already be extremely busy with ships flying all around, doing their thing. I even hope we see stations filled with captains that are fulfilling orders or picking up contracts. I hope the dynamic element of this game is carried deeply throughout its theme. I hope the whole game is built around the dynamic content, every little detail fulfilling some purpose.

[mr.WHO]

More ships the better.

There should be millions of star ships flying around the 'city'.

Probably 10-20 billion ships in the galaxy.

Modern day's CPU beg to differ. Ask again when we will have comercially viable quantum CPU.

[thrangar]

I thought everything was made from scratch, wouldn't that be a huge draw on mineral resourses to make FLUFF ships?

[spankahontis]

I thought everything was made from scratch, wouldn't that be a huge draw on mineral resourses to make FLUFF ships?

Minerals will probably be like all previous X Games and respawn or the economy would collapse.

These XS Vehicles will be the BMW's, Chevrolets, Toyota's of the X Universe.
Tiny consumer friendly vehicles intended only for 'short-distance' travel, like cars, they would need something like a Ferry/Carrier type ship of much larger size in order to go further distance.
But for a Factory worker that lives on a Station and needs to travel to another Station the other side of the Zone , they would need something small and cheap like an XS Vehicle.
The Highway System for zone to zone travel.

Resources to build them will be very small as well, seeing as they have no boosters, shields, weapons, they are civilian vehicles big enough for 1/2 people.
It wouldn't be a burden on resources, if this Planet we live on can sell us cars, computers, etc. A vast Universe of near limitless asteroids floating in Space wont be a problem for the population.

[thrangar]

I thought everything was made from scratch, wouldn't that be a huge draw on mineral resourses to make FLUFF ships?

Minerals will probably be like all previous X Games and respawn or the economy would collapse.

These XS Vehicles will be the BMW's, Chevrolets, Toyota's of the X Universe.
Tiny consumer friendly vehicles intended only for 'short-distance' travel, like cars, they would need something like a Ferry/Carrier type ship of much larger size in order to go further distance.
But for a Factory worker that lives on a Station and needs to travel to another Station the other side of the Zone , they would need something small and cheap like an XS Vehicle.
The Highway System for zone to zone travel.

Resources to build them will be very small as well, seeing as they have no boosters, shields, weapons, they are civilian vehicles big enough for 1/2 people.
It wouldn't be a burden on resources, if this Planet we live on can sell us cars, computers, etc. A vast Universe of near limitless asteroids floating in Space wont be a problem for the population.

No what I mean, is not that it can be explained by how large the universe is but...If we want war between the races and military ships are needed(constantly) really how much game resourses and or priority building will be allotted to Fluff ships....not against this but, will be surprised if this comes to fruition