Boron DLC

[Blake00]

Why use the new concept art for x4 boron's when old xbtf to x3 boron's which are humanoid species. When they talk on monitors they don't seem to need water and talk ok. What's to say they don't have legs just with webbed toes?

So it's really up to egosoft, can't they use old boron's? Why fixate on the concept ones.

Erm other than some visual changes to the head (in that X4 concept art) there's been no drastic/major changes to the Boron that I'm aware of? The X1-X3 Boron's were always a water species. It's stated in various places in the games, the manuals, and the X novels. There's even a scene in the X2 main story where you visit a boron world and go under the sea to meet with them.

Your belief that there's no water around them when you speak to you on comms rather contradicts all of the above. Especially as the coms is a small low rez animation.. so how can you really tell? This guy could easily be in water haha.
[ external image ]

I think the only lore/design change that needs to be made to solve the 'water race' problem is the one I mentioned in my previous post. Put all Borons in humanoid encounter suits with a window showing the Boron floating inside and switch their ships and stations to air based with separate 'Boron only' water sections you can't enter for decoration. This takes care of the race specific issues and Egosoft can instead concentrate on bringing back new versions of all their cool shiny scaley green ship & station designs.

[Skeeter]

I wrote a reply but some ones removed it and it was a good reply which took ages to do on my phone, grr.

<No such reply is anywhere on the forum, including in the trash. I guess submission failed. Alan Phipps>

[Sorkvild]

Simply rework the Borons, just give them humanoid legs and add a breathing apparatus with some cool looking electronics et voila.
This would look much more natural than "wheelchairy" stuff and water filled ship cabins.
Besides their original ship design and mention of unpleasant ammonia smell on their stations the Borons in previous X games were a race like any other race.
We could pilot Boron ships and they didn't look much different then cockpits of other races ships. Borons could also pilot other races ships. We had the Boron marines in X3 and no one wondered "how?", but now out of a sudden tons of adaptation problems have appeared - cabins, enviro suits, iron lungs, feeding tubes etc, geez, really - let's not go crazy, OK.
Other developers don't have such problems. For example new GTA doesn't mention of San Andreas characters and even old places we knew look much different. No one cried. I think no one would cry seeing the Borons functioning normally, piloting other races ships, walking on stations, serving as crew and marines.
In my opinion this whole "adaptation" problem is an excuse.

[lighters]

Simply rework the Borons, just give them humanoid legs and add a breathing apparatus with some cool looking electronics et voila.

Agreed, I'd be fine with any solution that's not too complex to implement. Borons have some of the most beautiful ships in the universe, it'd be a shame to lose that in order to religiously follow the lore restrictions, which weren't too well defined to begin with.

[Skeeter]

Given that the above image of the boron has tentacles with suckers on, I'd have thought they were based on the squid or octopus species yet the newer concept art has it as a very pretty seahorse which while nice as art work it doesn't look that good as a space faring race.

Why? Just doesn't make sense tbh. Just ignore the art and just use the old boron and create a body for the head and jobs done.

[Axeface]

I still dont understand why we are seeing suggestions to make them humanoid or in a humanoid suit, it isnt that big of an issue to have them floating... its just animations, as long as we forgo the whole water-in-the-ships thing, which was ignored in previous games as mentioned above. While the excuse that they are 'complicated' has been used as an excuse for them not being in X4, I think it's more that they had to cut some species to cut work load (we arnt even getting Split and their body model is already done...), and the fact that Boron have some 'niggles' to iron out is why they were cut, ego also seem to think they arnt as important as other races - they just drew the short straw.

[Blake00]

I still dont understand why we are seeing suggestions to make them humanoid or in a humanoid suit, it isnt that big of an issue to have them floating... its just animations, as long as we forgo the whole water-in-the-ships thing, which was ignored in previous games as mentioned above.

I was simply trying to make things easier within the existing limitations that stopped egosoft from implementing them. For the record I'd be fine with dropping all the lore and making them a air breaking walking race too but egosoft appear to not be fine with that so I'm trying to offer them ideas that work within the established lore and can be done at a lower cost.

I disagree that implementing a whole new floating race that needs to do all the things that the others can differently (eg walking, talking, interacting with panels and climbing into cockpit chairs etc) is easier then just using the existing human animation system and changing their body textures & shapes a bit to look mechanised/synthetic with a window showing a Boron inside.

Another good mech suit example was the Rebel Asgard in Stargate Atlantis. They had mechanical exoskeletons (you could say they just used 'existing assets' too as it was just a stunt guy in a suit lol) but when the suit opened up there was a little 3-4 foot Asgard in there lol.

[Tamina]

Simply rework the Borons

They were reworked for X4: they look like Teladi now, they are called Teladi but they are Borons. Problem solved.

Tbh I think every person has different preferences when it comes to Borons. For a lot of people the "water" part seems to be very important. Simply "reworking" an idea brings up the important question where you are drawing the line, or else you could just use the Teladi and call them Boron - after all, what gives?

[Skeeter]

Just because there from the water doesn't mean they need water, look at whales, there from the sea but breath as there mammals like us.

Look at boron video image, looks like they have shoulders to me which arms like a humanoid. The only reason some people are saying they aren't is they think the boron concept art is what borons are when it was just concept art which was scrapped, it looks cool for a seahorse but that's all. A boron is what you see from video transmissions from old X games. A kinda octopus/squid human hybrid kinda thing which is probably a air breather. So let's stop thinking of concept art version.

[Axeface]

So let's stop thinking of concept art version.

Nope, sorry, I wont. That is what concept art is for. Concept art wouldnt exist it its whole purpose wasnt to design the look and feel of... a concept. I for one am glad that sci-fi managed to pull itself away from the Star Trek green-painted women, designers actually started looking past the human race for alien inspiration.

[Blake00]

The only reason some people are saying they aren't is they think the boron concept art is what borons are when it was just concept art which was scrapped, it looks cool for a seahorse but that's all. A boron is what you see from video transmissions from old X games.

I'm not, I couldn't care less about the concept art. I'm basing it on how the Boron were described in X1-3 & in the X Novels, the mission in X2 where you have to go under the ocean to see them, and what egosoft have said themselves over the years.

Now IF there is no water in the comm video, and of course there's no water when you buy a Boron ship or visit a station then perhaps they are air breathing which also solves the whole water in ship problem too meaning no encounter suit would be needed. But I suspect based on the above lore examples that they are water based and they just build their ships and stations to be air based/compatible so commonwealth races buy their products.

I literally only read an egosoft X novel a month or 2 ago and the book clearly describes hovering Boron encounter suits and there's a scene when a split destroyer blasts a Boron freighter and water explodes out of the ship.

Which means if they wanna go lore friendly they're gonna have to go the encounter suit route, OR they will need to the drop previous lore and just make them like the other races.

[nemesis1982]

@Blake: Or they could say the Boron evolved to be able to breathe air. The Boron are also mostly scientists if I remember correctly so they could have bio-engineered themselves to be air breathing by now. Since it's far in the future of X3 they could make up many explanations.

Or maybe in X4 we find a gate to the Boron sectors and find out they have all been made into barbecue by a few split who were left in their sectors. It would save egosoft the debate

[Axeface]

Or they could just put them in a suit that allows them to breath Or I dont know, put some tubes on it? Its better to put a tube on their suit than make drastic changes to the defined lore.

[Xeroxia]

Honestly, a Boron expansion with ships similar to X2 and X3 would be a serious reason to consider X4. I feel like they are one, if not the defining race of the X-series.

[Axeface]

I feel like they are one, if not the defining race of the X-series.

Agreed, thats what they are to me too.

[Blake00]

@Blake: Or they could say the Boron evolved to be able to breathe air. The Boron are also mostly scientists if I remember correctly so they could have bio-engineered themselves to be air breathing by now. Since it's far in the future of X3 they could make up many explanations.

Absolutely! The bioengineering route works too.

Or maybe in X4 we find a gate to the Boron sectors and find out they have all been made into barbecue by a few split who were left in their sectors. It would save egosoft the debate

lmao great now I'm wondering how good a Boron BBQ tastes! We love a good seafood BBQ here in Australia haha!

I feel like they are one, if not the defining race of the X-series.

Agreed! It's a real shame.

[Fedora01]

This is just something I've been mulling about (since I first saw this topic some... 20 days ago) while starting my second play through of TC, of how the Boron could be implemented on a technical/gameplay level so that they could be more than just "another race", so to speak.

Faction Relations: Unlike the other factions the Boron would be non-aggressive in their relations to other races, avoiding offensive wars and, preferably, only fighting defensive ones. Although there would always be high tensions between Boron and Split factions.

Stations: The Boron would sell station modules for exclusive use with Boron populations (I think it'd be cool to have a massive space-fish tank ). They also sell 1 time purchase "conversion kits" that can be used on a station to make it compatible with Boron modules (although this probably wouldn't mix well with a Split station).

Ships: The small ships only come in 2 flavours: Boron only (these wouldn't show up in a buy list) or Humanoid refits. Capital ships (or any ship large enough) on the other hand would be able to simultaneously be able to house Humanoids and Boron. All stations would be encased in small bubble-like structures with tube openings at the bottom (or top) that are filled when in use by a Boron and are emptied out when not.

These ideas are far from complete but it's just my thoughts on the subject, oh, and here's a suit "idea" https://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/en ... 0614193745

[TheBaykon]

Hello,

I understand the decision for not having boron as this would need a lot of thinking/design etc.

Thought would give some ideas which may help with thinking how boron can be introduced in the future

The Boron always remind me of the mon calamari from star wars.

They use suits to walk around like normal humanoids and the ships themselves are not full of water most likely because it would have cost more for production to add it in.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-GmxeodZpZ5E/T ... lamari.png

Another idea is it could be like the Xindi-Aquatic from star trek enterprise where some sections of the ships are air but the main ship holds water.

http://trekmovie.com/wp-content/uploads ... quatic.jpg

Of course i'm not saying these should be copied but give some ideas to how a water species could be introduced.

Interested in what other ideas people have?

[Alan Phipps]

@ TheBaykon: Oversized images replaced by links and topic moved into existing active discussion thread.

[Axeface]

Or, as said a hundred times, they could just make them float and excuse the whole water thing with advanced suits... Its actaully EASIER to animate a floating Boron than a walking one, legs are hard to animate. The only difference is IF they are walking they can reuse the human RIGGING and that cuts the workload because you are reusing existing animations. If they are to introduce the Boron in a DLC it should be done properly and not use shortcuts like completely re-writing the established lore.


It REALLY isnt a big deal that they are aquatic. Us humans, in our ineptitude manage to go underwater by putting a tube in our mouths.... Boron as the most technologically advanced species in the commonwealth are surely able to overcome this limitation.