X4 meaningful crafting (ideas) ?

[Nikola515]

With introduction of crafting in XR I was somewhat surprised.... I never thought that Ego would do something like that in their game. All thought it was good idea it was somewhat limited and I don't have much use for it ( my personal opinion). Shields and engines wore ok but it was not something we wore doing often do to its parts being rare. Small talk I hate so I ignored whole gift and seminar things ( I use mods to level my NPC). I do use weapons for mods but not as much and you need 1000 of those scraps to make plates. Hacking chips wore good idea but hacking was not that useful in XR. Finally torpedo are somewhat fun but it takes to long to make parts.....

So what would be good idea for X4 crafting ? Something that don't take too long to find and that we can use more often but at same time we shouldn't be forced to do it. Here is some ideas:

1) Internal battery- This is one time item that use supercharged battery that can charge weapons or shields to 100%.

2) Boosts that can increase speed, recharge of energy for weapons and shields.

3) Status effects ammo- This ammo will give weapons temporary effect like radiation, burning hull or ion effect.

4) Craft missiles and weapons/shield mods.

5) Healing items .

This is some of ideas that I think would improve crafting and gameplay. What does everyone else think how crafting would improve X4 ?

[Skeeter]

I strongly disagree about crafting. Its not a mmo or rpg or survival game, its a space shooter so imo just buy or steal stuff u want dont craft it.

[PabloRSA]

Build Fight Trade Think

I wouldnt mind a R&D bit, just not tedious, repeatative or go here, now go to the other side of the universe, talk to the guy back on the other side of the universe.

But agree its no a MMO, no need for sheild or hull heals. Need to making practicle thngs only good for the player or convert them to a material type you can use that is worth your time getting the scrap.
Or salvage blown up vessles for parts engines, guns missles instead of givingthem freely as crates in space.[/b]

[Tomonor]

I too disliked the crafting aspect of X Rebirth.

And if you think about it, every aspect of crafting can be replaced by these space factories, which is a lot more loyal to the X series.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Elite Dangerous is a space shooter. Does anybody here wants X4 to be like that?

Personally I have no problem with the guys at Egosoft introducing RPG elements into the game.

Crafting, I would like it to be implemented differently. Like having a "high tech" crafting room on board the larger vessels and at stations.
Crafting would lead to the production of prototypes, these after some period of research would then become upgrades to existing weapons shields and engines.

So once completed I could then upgrade my ships and have available more choice with slightly different characteristics.

[DaMuncha]

Thats what factories are for. No point doing it your self one by one.

Status effects ammo? This is a ship were shooting, not a zombie.

[Killjaeden]

I agree with the dominant sentiment here. I feel like crafting in X is superfluous and would only feel tacked on with the only justification beeing that "all the other open world games have it", instead of really offering any real value in X.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Well according to the QA responses they are not intending to remove it.

So we will just have to wait and see how it is implemented.

Feel free not to use it.

Just had an amusing idea for the game after this one... X4 The Zombie Invasion!

Sometimes the people who post here remind me of one of my grandkid's favourite movies the Croods.

If its not in X3 it's bad, if it was in X3 but it's missing it's bad, if it does'nt look like X3 it's bad, if it doesn't sound like X3 it's bad, if it's new its bad, if it doesn't involve me sitting in a spaceship it's bad.

[Axeface]

An X games 'crafting' imho should be firmly rooted in creating wares, ships and products in stations. You need stations and resources to make things in X3, how is that really any different from a 'crafting' system? You collect stuff, you make things - XR's crafting to me was a very strange addition and im not sure why it happened in the first place. I wouldnt be opposed to the idea that weapons, for example, have a few subcomponents that you need to create to make them (in factories), and that those can be looted from destroyed ships - but nothing like XR's.

Also if the player has any crazy equipment that gives them an edge over AI, the AI should have a chance to have that equipment too. I really hate the player having a huge advantage over the AI (on top of X games AI being historically pretty bad at fighting.... im looking at you de-coupled mode).

[Observe]

I like the idea of blueprints. In order to build anything, a blueprint design should be required. These could be bought, stolen, found, researched, etc. After all, 'crafting' is just the 'build' component of X games.

[adeine]

'Crafting' seems like a ridiculous addition to a game where wares are built in factory complexes and you are setting up your own production infrastructure. Completely immersion breaking if nothing else.

The only possible exception I can see where this makes sense would be some kind of system to allow you or NPCs to repair subsystems or smaller vessels on the cheap - in the spirit of the old suit repair laser but a little more fleshed out.

[Killjaeden]

'Crafting' seems like a ridiculous addition to a game where wares are built in factory complexes and you are setting up your own production infrastructure.

Exactly. If you could bypass the infrastructure requirement via crafting - why do you need factories at all? Just craft everything...
And i also object to having a secondary ware tree that serves no other purpose than for crafting goods. It breaks immersion. The wares in the universe should all feel integrated. This problem already existed to some extendin X3. The secondary wares for missions all felt extremely tacked on (because they where), but at least you didn't require any of them for anything other than that specific mission. If you have capacitors as part of a "crafting recipe", they need to be something you can buy from a factory - and not something you have to find somehow or aquire through special means - unless it is really justifiable that this component would be super special (khaak poop or what not)

I wouldnt object to the idea of "crafting" if you build a factory for it. A versatile metal machine shop that can build machined metal goods stuff with higher versatility, but way less quantity and with lower time and money efficiency compared to a dedicated factory.

Sometimes the people who post here remind me of one of my grandkid's favourite movies the Croods. If its not in X3 it's bad, if it was in X3 but it's missing it's bad, if it does'nt look like X3 it's bad, if it doesn't sound like X3 it's bad, if it's new its bad, if it doesn't involve me sitting in a spaceship it's bad.

And sometimes people don't appear to understand that you can objectively and rationally think about something and still come to the conclusion that some features which work in other games simply are at odds with the existing game concepts of X, or are simply not a great addition in X's context.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Yes, well modern psychology does suggest that we not as objective and rational as we like to think.

Most of our decision making is done with the "unconscious" parts of our brain. With all of our inherent biases built in. Our so called objectivity and rationality is then finding reasons for this decision.

Suggesting that we can make objective and rational decisions about something that we know nothing about as yet, does not seem very rational or objective to me.

Steve Wozniak "crafted" the Apple I computer in Steve Jobs' garage.
He took existing components and put together something never before seen in computing. It was the first time in history that a character displayed on a TV screen was generated by a home computer.
Something like that seems techy and nerdy enough to fit a space based simulation.

[Killjaeden]

Steve Wozniak "crafted" the Apple I computer in Steve Jobs' garage. He took existing components and put together something never before seen in computing.

It was a break through. But not scientifically. It was a break through because people realized (and acted on it) that good HMI's are important and that it was affordable to do so as opposed to the past, when it wasn't.
And now compare that to present day. Creating a new modern computer architecture is so complex that it requires multiple corporations, each with Engineers with several decades of knowledge and development funds of several millions of $ (in case of Processors) to develop entirely new components. Or you could substitute several decades of knowledge for years of knowledge if you increase the "several millions" by several tens of millions.
A technological breakthrough preceedes a breakthrough of the kind of the Apple 1 is possible. And a technological breakthrough at scifi level technology beeing done in some space garage by Bob the player and plot-enabled stereotype "rogue Einstein" scientist is tropy as f , has been done to death and is therefore unimmersive.

In RPG you level up your character and craft better equipment for yourself. In X, by crafting better equipment that can't be accessed in any other way, you affect the entire universe's technology on a regular basis. And this is simply too far fetched / power fantasy like. It makes the rest of the universe's corporation and so on look like idiots. To fix that you would have to let the rest of the universe also make innovations and break through, which will end up in a giant spiral of gameplay and universe complexity, as well as power creep in terms of game balance.
In addition, the process of innovation beeing put into a linear progress tree where everything is plannable is the biggest contradiction there is. "Tomorrow i research the next scientific breakthrough" - said no one ever - except people following arcade video game logic.

Something like that seems techy and nerdy enough to fit a space based simulation.

When this is the only criterion, why are there no space hover boards, no powergloves, no giant talking robots with screens as faces and no neon-everything?

[PowerPC603]

Crafting would do nicely to re-create some weapons onboard captured ships.
For now, it's either a weapon onboard a captured ship survives 100% or it was damaged 100% and thus gone, but there was nothing in between.

Imagine you're onboard a ship with some fellow marines and you are borading a enemy ship. If you found some system onboard, do you leave it alone or completely vaporize it, leaving nothing to salvage from it?
I guess you could land a few hits on it, damaging it but there would always be something left to salvage.

Why not have a chance to have a weapon that broke into pieces?
Then you would need several pieces of the same weapon-type to recreate one whole weapon.
Then you also have an incentive to find and capture multiple enemy ships to have a chance to find all pieces of a weapon without buying it or making it yourself.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

I was not talking about building things from the ground up, I was not talking about creating new architectures, here I was talking about putting things together in novel, new ways that then have benefits and downsides.

There are new startup companies building (recent article on the BBC web site) satellites with new functionality and purposes. They are taking existing technologies and putting them together to do this. They are not using "space hardened technology," but just robust components that can be sourced cheaply. Several 10's of millions of £'s cheaper than traditional methods.

The components are smaller, lighter, faster, makes it easy to build in redundancy, makes it cheaper to launch and get larger numbers in to space.

This type of thing is to me, crafting in the modern era.

[Alan Phipps]

".. satellites ... sourced cheaply ... makes it cheaper to launch and get larger numbers in to space. "

I do hope that X4 has a Zonal 'Dangerous space clutter recovery and recycling' mission type then.

[Riccardoman]

Craft a limited number of jumpgates that will connect with unknown sectors?
Craft ships or stations from unknown blueprints (some XR content, anybody? )?

[csaba]

If hacking (the craftable type) had more lasting effects in XR it would have been more useful to craft. The security console provided between 3-5 minutes of free reign on dropped items which was only useful if you already had your ship parked there and had a shitton of surface miners. Add the hyperactive policemen and most of the time it was better to get rid of the illegal stuff than crafting it.

The gifts were nice if you wanted to find a 5-5-5 Marine Officer, Manager or Engineer and the Paranid jewelry you could craft from stuff bought from Mining vendors. The skill system was nice and gave depth to the game so gifts could stay. On the other hand seminars were too hard to get for what they were giving so I installed the autotrain mod ages ago this would be fixed if they gave out seminars right after the gift without the hard mode Speech test.

I don't know what people have against the rare tech you could craft. Those are some of the most interesting and rewarding missions in the game. You also needed to think if you didn't use a cheat sheet. Also none of them gave items that were necessary to progression or gameplay so you weren't forced to collect them.

Although saying that, putting the SETA, the Jumpdrive and the Torpedoes behind a crafting wall was stupid. At least the SETA was easy to obtain but the other two required horrendous legwork.

Crafting mods was pointless, ships dropped them left and right. Craftable mods should be cheaper to make and need a lower droprate from enemies to be worthwhile your time.

For new ideas:

- Landmines (were not producable in XR and I doubt it will be in X4)
- Drone upgrades: longer range, more speed, easier hacking (e.g. slows down the slider)
- Bonuses for your marines: armour, hand weapons, gadgets
- Increased sensor range installable on all ships, satellites or stations
- Special effects for missiles and weapons like the ED engineer mods (disable booster, scramble weapons, extra shield damage etc.)
- station production bonuses like the specialists in XR
- Special modules for ships that are not part of a regular design, e.g.: smuggling container, shield/engine hacking module, probe launcher, tractor beam
- station info hacker, like SW computer spike (owned ships and their cargo with their destination, departure time, planned trips etc.)

[Killjaeden]

Crafting would do nicely to re-create some weapons onboard captured ships.

The term would be "repair".

here I was talking about putting things together in novel, new ways that then have benefits and downsides.
There are new startup companies building (recent article on the BBC web site) satellites with new functionality and purposes.

So they are producing cheap throwaway sattelites. Please explain why that would justify crafting mechanic in X? The outcome of the evaluation process in a game is already predetermined. You already know you will succeed to get this product into production eventually. Why do you need a crafting functionality to determine "if it will work"?. What is exciting about crafting? The action of clicking the icon and seeing the number in your inventory increase? If no, then why do we need "crafting"?

Everything else (ressource collection, fulfilling a requirement list, unlocking some thing that was locked before, gifting a rare item) can be provided by many different means. You could just as well gate-keep the production of "cheap throaway sattelite version" until you have met "some-startup-guy" character and given him 10 bear arses, 20 capacitors, 50 microchips, a fluffy dice and 50 million in space credits as starting capital and waited for time X.