A shot of the sector outside the Xenon Hub

[Reven]

I'm sure this has been done, but I finally figured out a way to get a ship outside the Xenon Hub and into the sector proper. I was surprised that the hub is a fully finished model outside and in. Even the parts of it you can't possibly see from through the crack are completely finished. This leads me to believe it was intended at one time to be something you could leave.

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[RAVEN.myst]

Nice one

I was surprised that the hub is a fully finished model outside and in.

This explains why this location is so hard on graphics cards (relatively speaking) - I get my highest temperatures here and at the Torus - another large and complex model.

[Alan Phipps]

UniTrader successfully entered such a screenshot into the X3TC Screenshot of the Week gallery in Feb 2009: https://www.egosoft.com/games/x3tc/scre ... en_029.jpg

There was some speculation that the hub draws its necessary vast power directly from the local sun - so it was never all that clear why it needed all those energy cells just to realign gates.

[RAVEN.myst]

I think it draws its power from the player's graphics card

But on a more serious note: perhaps the EC requirement is only due to the clueless Commonwealth engineers' clumsy jerry-rigged way of operating it... Maybe that's not how the Xenon designed it to be used...

[Timsup2nothin]

I thought the Xenon just found it. It's designed by the same ancient lost civilization that built the gate network in the first place, isn't it?

[pjknibbs]

Bear in mind that you can view any ship in X3TC from an external camera, and you can zoom way, way out--so it's quite easy to see parts of the Hub exterior just by parking your ship near the edge and then zooming out on the external camera view. I suspect that's more likely why Egosoft felt the need to model the entire exterior.

[Reven]

Bear in mind that you can view any ship in X3TC from an external camera, and you can zoom way, way out--so it's quite easy to see parts of the Hub exterior just by parking your ship near the edge and then zooming out on the external camera view. I suspect that's more likely why Egosoft felt the need to model the entire exterior.

The inwardly curving torus-like lip is very very wide, even parking a ship or a base near the edge doesn't let you zoom far enough to get a camera outside. But I hadn't tried building a base outside the hub before - that works too, even though trying to script a ship outside doesn't.

It just seems so odd to spend so much time on an amazing model that most people will never see. All sorts of animations on it, rotating rings and arcs of plasma. It's visually clear that it's taking solar energy for some purpose. I suspect there was a bigger story for this model than we know - I'd bet money that the intention at one point was to find it not by jumping inside it but from discovering it from the outside. It's too bad you can't actually fly around the sector. If you do manage to get a ship outside the hub, the game code that prevents flying out of the hub locks your ship down and prevents it from moving. It's like the sector is made out of a visually transparent solid.

I'd love to know what the story is begind the model and the intentions for it.

[RAVEN.myst]

@Reven: Thanks for tipping me off to this whole lot Knowing that it exists to look for it, I simply

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hopped into a Phoenix, parked it near the inner edge, went external view, and zoomed it out all the way.

This has allowed me to take a decent look around, and you're right - what a waste it all being hidden from most! And I'm inclined to agree in that surely original intentions for its presentation must have been different...

[RainerPrem]

@Reven: Thanks for tipping me off to this whole lot Knowing that it exists to look for it, I simply

Spoiler

Show

hopped into a Phoenix, parked it near the inner edge, went external view, and zoomed it out all the way.

This has allowed me to take a decent look around, and you're right - what a waste it all being hidden from most! And I'm inclined to agree in that surely original intentions for its presentation must have been different...

Hi,

the other possibility I see is that one of the developers created the scenery in his spare time and then they found a use for it in the game.

cu
Rainer

[Alan Phipps]

An Egosoft developer with spare time?

[Cycrow]

An Egosoft developer with spare time?

I'm not sure such a thing exists

[Honved]

An Egosoft developer with spare time? :D

I'm not sure such a thing exists

An inexplicably anomoly, just like the hub itself. Fitting.

[RAVEN.myst]

I simply

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hopped into a Phoenix, parked it near the inner edge, went external view, and zoomed it out all the way.

This treatment also works on the Hub Station itself - in both cases, the viewing freedom isn't total, but between the two one can get some nice angles

I've now come to the conclusion that this whole lot is perhaps meant as an elaborate Easter egg...

[Hemmingfish]

I'm sure this has been done, but I finally figured out a way to get a ship outside the Xenon Hub and into the sector proper. I was surprised that the hub is a fully finished model outside and in. Even the parts of it you can't possibly see from through the crack are completely finished. This leads me to believe it was intended at one time to be something you could leave.

Yeah it's pretty neat, and the arms into the sun are ridiculously long. I had a lot of fun looking around at it and the Torus in the universe editor. Never found a way to get out of it without cheating though.
Good work!