[idea] Late game improvement - REAL WAR (plot spoilers warning!)

[mr.WHO]

Hi all,
Recently I finished the main plot and now I kinda feel there is no sence of playing the game. Comparing to previous X-games, now you can have a fleet of capships quite fast and smooth (no need to look for hundreds of hardware pieces for one destroyer), but you have nothing to do with them.


Currently my single objective is to get rid of Plutarch Overwarch station that blocking my Albion operations - she chewed my Arawn-Taranis pincer attack like it was nothing, so guess I need to have so more cash for some OL Fulmekrons and more Arawns.

However once I'm done with this sation there is kinda no point of playing any further

I think that there should be a new artifical life script that starts running after main plot is finished.

Basically we know that Xenons and PMC is still at large and player is starting to have bigger fleet at that moment (I have Arawn, Taranis, Light Sul and two Balors).


Therefore we could have something like that:
Both Xenons and PMC would have a hidded HQ station placed randomly in Maelstrom and Albion.
This station would be heavily armed and protected (like Plutarch overwath) - from time to time these stations would spawn construction ships with escort that would move to a nearby sectors and start constructing an outpost.
Once outpost construction is started PMC/Xenon would send transport ships with resources from HQ to finish the construction.
Once finished the Level 1 outpost is done and it starts spawning PMC/Xenon miltary ships that will further invade nearby sectors trying to clear the route for next construction ship.
In the same time Outposts if not destroyed by player will upgrade itself up to level 3 (with further resource convoys). Each level will spawn stronger force.
Level 3 outpost will also spawn resource transport to haste the costructions or upgrade of next outpost.


PMC if unoposed should expand in Albion and DeVries, while Xenons should expand in Maelstorm and OL.

Similar small scale scripts could be created for Canterans, OL and Rievers to counter the spread of Xenon and PMC.

The key of this new change would be for player to make a diffrence - if he destroys the outpost/construction he cripple hostile war efford. if you destroy the HQ - the faction is defeated.

This would only require to make some small stations for each faction.

[Kaldo]

While I completely agree, that is no small task. I'd say it is even DLC / expansion worthy if it were to be done correctly. You need to make sure the game is playable with all these dynamic relations, that it's not too easy or too hard, that the enemy AI behaves in a smart way when building new stations or moving fleets.

You also have to make sure there's a middle ground - if player starts losing the war he probably doesn't want to lose all his stations in a spiral of destruction. Not to mention that managing stations and traders becomes very hard.

And all this is ignoring general economy - do you want them to use "real" resources or to spawn them? If the first, is it going to break the whole economy? If second, is it going to do the same?

But I agree, we could definitely use some "endgame". X3:AP had faction wars mods, the base game had the Hub / Player HQ megaplot. I'd love to see something similarly challenging here, one day.

[mr.WHO]

I basically described "Improved races" mod X:TC and X:AP, so it's not big deal. If one person can do it then it shouldn't be a problem for Ego team.

[Assailer]

I basically described "Improved races" mod X:TC and X:AP, so it's not big deal. If one person can do it then it shouldn't be a problem for Ego team.

Sometimes a single person is worth a team or two

[Kaldo]

I imagine Egosoft team has it's own production pipeline and development plan, they can't just cram any suggested feature and abandon bugfixes or core game gameplay. The community on the other hand has practically infinite time and resources

[pref]

I imagine Egosoft team has it's own production pipeline and development plan, they can't just cram any suggested feature and abandon bugfixes or core game gameplay. The community on the other hand has practically infinite time and resources

I'm not sure if ES sticked to their original plan regarding XR the game would look like as it does now.

[Sandalpocalypse]

that sort of thing would be cool, but it would actually be really difficult to pull off in x rebirth's economy. inlike in x3 which just used credits ... ship production is real fragile, you need the whole economy functioning to build anything with resources. for the AI you can abstract ship production but the player would be much worse off. start losing the war even a little and you might end up unable to build ships...

[wwdragon]

I also want further plot lines to continue after the current stuff.

However, there are a few problems with OP's idea.
1) PMC lost all their agi controlled drones and is now essentially fighting a xenon incursion from inside their own space.

2) If enemy factions can expands and fight for territory, so should friendlies.

3) I think they are sort of doing that already with auto station building, but the fact that stations are indestructible ruins any possibility of the player taking out those stations.

[JimmiG]

There are some random raids in Beta 3.0. There's also World War X which adds actual combat and invasion fleets between factions. But there's no real HQ or "boss" to destroy.

I would expect them to expand on the main story line in the future. All the video files are called "Ep1..." suggesting that they were planning to add more episodes but ran out of time, money or both and needed to release the game as is.

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

ran out of time, money or both

There actually was evidence of this (not sure if true/false) but it disappeared when Rebirth was released