XR vs X4

[donzi]

I usually just hire a guy with the top price on his head and push him to work.

I've done that for a while, but it seems prices don't neccesarily commensurate with skills so I went back to grinding on the smalltalk for skilled workers and virtual seminars - more fun than a person might be able to stand!

[Night Nord]

Prices seem to depend on a race and overall count of "stars" (including non-primary stats). Originally it was possible to get an engineer with 20 stars overall (and a high price), but with 1 star for engineering. Nowadays their algorithm tends to put more starts into primary skills for a type (and that was the intended announced change a while ago). You may still got a pricy guy with low primary skills, that said. It's just less possible than before.

That's why I usually round up all my guys once in a while. I'm capping ships a lot and usually have no choice rather than hire a captain that is immediately available at a zone in question. So I hire lots of guys and I'm in a zone of big numbers theory here.

If it's like 60% chance to get a decent guy my method that if you are hiring a single captain you may not be able to get a good one in while. But you've hired 20 captains and then you line them up and see if they are good - you'll get 12 decent ones.

[Nanook]

Prices seem to depend on a race and overall count of "stars" (including non-primary stats). Originally it was possible to get an engineer with 20 stars overall (and a high price), but with 1 star for engineering. Nowadays their algorithm tends to put more starts into primary skills for a type (and that was the intended announced change a while ago). ...

Source, please, because I sure haven't noticed this happening. Started in 3.0 and now playing 3.53.

[donzi]

It's funny.. The only NPC I can think of which I can see is better or not with 5-star skill(s) are the engineer and marine officer.

Stroke of luck early on, my marine officer I found via smalltalk was 5-star boarding. Actually not done enough boarding to know for sure the maxed MO does much for me anyhow since I tend to trash the target down to nothing before boarding.

Due to the sheer quantity of NPC needed for any empire expansions, I am pretty close to forgeting about their ratings at all and just scoop up the crew types I need indiscriminately as quick as I can locate them.

Engineers even.. Unless the cruising or boosting m/s suffers (due to final repair cap) with a 0-star engineer vs 5-star, I may forget about them too. Hull damange never gets fixed fully anyhow.. Probably just as well the sell the ship and buy a new one than screw around with fixing them for what little benifit that seems to be worth.

[GCU Grey Area]

It's funny.. The only NPC I can think of which I can see is better or not with 5-star skill(s) are the engineer and marine officer.

Captain with 5* skills is definitely worth having, particularly one with 5* Navigation.

Difference is noticeable in how long it takes a ship to get moving after a jump & manoeuvre round to face the right direction before boosting off to a different zone. I consider obtaining (& training if necessary) a 5* captain an essential prerequisite before starting any boarding ops in a new game, just as important to me as finding a good marine officer.

I keep that Captain aboard the Skunk purely for the purpose of extracting stolen ships from hostile territory - as soon as I've got it to safety that 5* Captain (& any other highly skilled capture crew temporarily assigned to the stolen ship) can be replaced by the ship's permanent crew.

[donzi]

It sounds like mainly you're talking about in-zone navigation. Do you think there is any noticable difference OOZ or System too?

I've seen a variety of my ships:

- jump and boost away instantly
- jump or boost immediatly after a gate

..never looked too close at any patterns though. Most of my captains are decent skills although I've pretty much forgotten about them after all the work finding them. I expect some are 5-star navigation.

The ship, AFAIK also does make a difference too. I'm pretty sure the captain on my titurel is 5-star navigation. He still can't seem to find the raiders swarming all over the habitat ring in Timid Veil despite (AFAIK) them being well within the ships radar range. Patrols seem kind of sloppy anyhow with respect to the 'zone' -- they always leave the actual named zone, wandering in surrounding empty areas.

One thing I'd like to see is 5-star navigation would be the captain not need to fly all the way to the next zone in order to undock.

Best I can tell this is influenced in part by the station structure, location of the dock used, etc. Some OL stations in particular seem to always cause very lengthy undocking procedures.

[Ragemaster9999]

I have been away from the X community for a while, just popped back onto the forums and notice alot of people across threads talking about the next x game. Are there any confirmed sources of a new game being developed, or is this just the players wishful thinking? I see no official announcement on anything at this time.

As far as X rebirth goes, I enjoy the engine much better than X3.. however, I feel that the UI in X rebirth is absolutely terrible. It feels more like a console UI and not a PC UI... its very tedious loading into the cabin to interact with crew, ect.

In the next X game, I would like to see the station part actully expanded to be something meaningful, or removed completely... because it feels very hallow and pointless in its current form. Also the minigames are the most annoying part of the game, especially smalltalk. Overall I feel the engine tech for the X as a whole took a giant leap forward with Rebirth, but the UI and content need work.

[linolafett]

I quote CBJ for the current status:

Our main development focus at the moment is on adding new features to the game engine. The result of a lot of this work is likely to find its way into a new game rather than an update to XR, but that by no means rules out further updates to XR nor future DLC for it.

Everyone's idea of what an "X4" would be like is likely to be different, but most people would interpret it either as a new game using the X3 engine, or as a game using the XR engine but with all the features of X3 and more. Neither of those accurately describes what we are doing.

We are using the XR engine, yes, and we are working on adding features, such as flying different ships, that will take various aspects of the gameplay more in the direction of the previous series. We have taken on board the feedback we've had since the release of XR and we hope that the new game will appeal both to those who enjoy XR and to those who preferred the previous series. That's what we mean by working "towards" a more X4-like game.

[nalim27]

I suggest that title for new "X4" game should be:
Y: The Next Next Big Thing.

[Night Nord]

Source, please, because I sure haven't noticed this happening. Started in 3.0 and now playing 3.53.

"Originally" means from 1.0. I have been playing since the release and finished a whole campaign at 1.25, I think.

I pretty much sure it was either in one of Release Notes posts (but it doesn't seem so) or in of early days developers post, in some enraged thread "oh my, I've hired a captain for 100k+ with all primary skills 1". I do remember screenshots and demands to have engineers that actually know something about engineering and not, say, management.

But I can't find a link and it was too long ago to remember exact wording and such. But I'm sure some EgoSoft guys here may just confirm it - I'm sure that was in some kind of public information anyway.

[Nikola515]

Source, please, because I sure haven't noticed this happening. Started in 3.0 and now playing 3.53.

"Originally" means from 1.0. I have been playing since the release and finished a whole campaign at 1.25, I think.

I pretty much sure it was either in one of Release Notes posts (but it doesn't seem so) or in of early days developers post, in some enraged thread "oh my, I've hired a captain for 100k+ with all primary skills 1". I do remember screenshots and demands to have engineers that actually know something about engineering and not, say, management.

But I can't find a link and it was too long ago to remember exact wording and such. But I'm sure some EgoSoft guys here may just confirm it - I'm sure that was in some kind of public information anyway.

They did a lot of changes with NPC and skills.... I remember at beginning there was whole bunch of NPC with zero stars and they fixed that. Also im not sure but I think that is same for specialists now. Better specialists are more than the ones that have lower engineer skill (not sure if skill do anything with them)....

Edit: Anyway perhaps they should add bioscanner so we can tell who is good and who is not just like in X3TC/AP And no more small talk

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

The patch note sticky on this forum probably got too long as the notes for patches before 1.20 have been removed and/or moved to a thread that has sunk over time. Not easy for Nanook to find!

They can still be found on Steam's site after scrolling down:

X Rebirth Update 1.18 Released
...
• Improved skill levels for new NPCs.
...

X Rebirth Update 1.19 Released
...
• Rebalanced skills of existing NPCs in line with new ones.
...

[Nikola515]

Don't forget those stealth fixes/changes that they dont tell us about it

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Ha, yeah. Those post-plot stations, for example

[GCU Grey Area]

Better specialists are more than the ones that have lower engineer skill (not sure if skill do anything with them)....

Specialists with higher skills provide a higher efficiency modifier to the station they're assigned to. They're one of the few categories of NPCs I always go to the trouble of training up until they're 5* in all relevant skills (efficiency modifier increases as their skills improve). IMO well worth doing a bit of smalltalk to get a few % extra production from my factories.

[Nikola515]

Better specialists are more than the ones that have lower engineer skill (not sure if skill do anything with them)....

Specialists with higher skills provide a higher efficiency modifier to the station they're assigned to. They're one of the few categories of NPCs I always go to the trouble of training up until they're 5* in all relevant skills (efficiency modifier increases as their skills improve). IMO well worth doing a bit of smalltalk to get a few % extra production from my factories.

Thanks
I think it didn't matter before how many stars they had but it looks like they changed that too...

[Nanook]

The patch note sticky on this forum probably got too long as the notes for patches before 1.20 have been removed and/or moved to a thread that has sunk over time. Not easy for Nanook to find!

They can still be found on Steam's site after scrolling down:

X Rebirth Update 1.18 Released
...
• Improved skill levels for new NPCs.
...

X Rebirth Update 1.19 Released
...
• Rebalanced skills of existing NPCs in line with new ones.
...

All I can say is, from my experience, the majority of the NPC's I hire without smalltalk tend to have a random mix of primary and secondary skills. Pilots especially seem to be bad this way, since I tend to hire a lot more of them than other NPC types. So I'm not sure how much "improvement" was made.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

I was a v1.25 starter so I'm not that sure either. Still, the concept of needing to persuade a person to show me their qualifications before i hire them seems so odd, I use the 'Show skills' mod and now don't have a good appreciation of the variation.

Ironically, if "show me your skills please" felt more like an interview where smalltalk was linked to conversations rather it is now, it might seem less odd. E.g. if hirable captains became Captain Recruitment Agents: depending on whether we describe what we want elequently or like a gibbering ideot, we'd get high or low primary skill captain. There'd still be repetion issues so i would wish for audio-skipping.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

the concept of needing to persuade a person to show me their qualifications before i hire them seems so odd

The game concept is basically to persuade someone else to give a reference for someone, not to persuade an individual to give us their own reference. The show me your skills bit is just a mechanism to see the reference given for that person.

Personally, although the process makes sense to me I would like to see the ability to buy the information instead of having to deal with Small Talk.

In addition, it would be nice to have something like the trade screen for all personnel both hired and available to be hired (that we have acquired information for).

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

the concept of needing to persuade a person to show me their qualifications before i hire them seems so odd

The game concept is basically to persuade someone else to give a reference for someone, not to persuade an individual to give us their own reference. The show me your skills bit is just a mechanism to see the reference given for that person.

It would also be non-nonsensical for a potential employer to have to try and persuade a third party to provide a reference. If none was readily available and one was wanted, the employer would look to hire someone else.

The in-game process simply involves talking directly to an individual, doing a small talk and them showing their skills upon request. There are no other 3rd parties involved. Any further interpretation of what the general concept might be is simply a guess.