Scripted Events e.g. Pirate Attack

[sware]

While browsing the forum I read a few times that the universe feels empty and boring. So its not just me.
Maybe this could be changed with some more scripted events which occur random around the player in a radius of 1-2 sectors. For example: when i understand correctly pirates already hack stations from time to time to steal some wares. But i have not seen any real coordinated „attacks“. So Pirate stations could send out some ships which try to steal some wares. Because pirates are highly specialised in what they do, they have a special freighter for this (would justify a new ship for pirates). I‘m thinking of something like the XR Titural, some heavily shielded armored freighter with like 10 S ships on board. The engines are specialised for this kind of action. Very slow but very fast boosting (and high shield draining). The freighter would deploy its 10 s ships for some distraction and try to get away with the stolen goods.

The blueprint could be bought from the free ports of the pirates (depnding on reputation with them and their enemies) and be build in the player shipyard. You could even think of some random missions were some kind of treasure hunter found a wrack of a pirate freighter in some astroid field and sells you the coordinates. Of course the ship is surrounded by mines and has very low health ( i think that was a bad deal ) Once you own the ship a new mission chain could open up -> the hacking tutorial followed by a small pirate mission chain. There you learn your way as a pirate and can raise your reputation with them.


I also think that the teleporting of ships to the player is not helping with the emmersion and emptiness. There should be some reason why they are there. E.g. fighting over a loot box/abondend ship, trying to exchange illegal wares...

I know that there are much bigger problems with the game. But maybe thats giving someone some inspiration for a mod or even the devs for some additions for the base game when then dlc comes out. I don‘t understand why sandboxes always have to feel emtpy because it has to be a sandbox with no prescripted things. The small things make the universe feel alive ( even if they are predefined).

[sware]

I was missing something: „Make Pirates great again!“

[radcapricorn]

When done wrong, such events feel unnatural, boring, or outright stupid. Take the current pirate assaults on ships, for example. "Oh, you're 50 km away? Lemme scan your cargo like you can't do at all. What's that? Ooooh! A single energy cell! DROP YOUR CARGO! Eh? You're in a Gorgon, I'm in a Discoverer? So what? DROP YOUR CARGO!!!"

[sware]

Ok... Thats the way not do do things

But I‘m not talking about such prominent events (hearable for the player). Why should i be listening to their chatter...
But the idea behind is not wrong. Maybe the AI should CHECK the cargo instead of talking weird stuff. And there should be a calculation of winning chances (ship class, weapons , shields... ), like real pirates would do. Then the whole thing could be better than this nonsense, you‘re right.

It would also be nice if pirates would try to board your bigger freighters if they will have a chance in suceeding. Would give marines a defensive purpose and motivate the player to protect his/her trade fleet. I think nobody is using marines for anything else then boarding...

[ei8htx]

I love it. Better scripted events could be for all kinds of things.

The pirate attack idea is pretty awesome. Would love to see the pirates engaging in boarding ops too.

Could do something similar with the Xenon, scripted, coordinated attacks on your shipyard (or a faction's shipyard), or even a whole sector.

Right now it's just like random ship attacks that don't result in real battles.

Not sure how they did it in X3, but I remember large battles occurring in some sectors, especially between the Terrans and Argon. Factions also kept an armada in some sectors, which made some sectors secure and others not; it really mixed things up.

[SPiDER]

you know what I miss from X3TC ...Betty saying "Mistral Superfrieghter!" such a way with words that gal. and what's with incarcatua anyway...Mistral Superfreighter sound way better

[Artean]

One of the strong points of X4, to me, is the dynamic and unscripted universe that doesn't revolve around me, the player.

And as it happens, my universe isn't empty and boring, especially not so in 2.0.

[sware]

One of the strong points of X4, to me, is the dynamic and unscripted universe that doesn't revolve around me, the player.

And as it happens, my universe isn't empty and boring, especially not so in 2.0.

But thats not true, there are already scripted events (but very bad ones).
1) pirates trying to get cargo from ships (could be improved)
2) hacking of stations to release the wares of the storage (could be improved)
3) teleporting of ships to the player when far away from the center of the sector (shouldn‘t be done at all)

[Imperial Good]

I think the pirate system is very much a work in progress. Seeing how there is data left over from a pirate start, data left over from one being able to gain reputation with SCA and that pirates are some of the only ships in X4 that magically poof into existence at gates, I would not be surprised if they get improved at a later time.

For example pirate ships will happily pirate the freighters that try to supply their stations with the wares they need. There is currently no logic to stop your freighters treating a pirate station as any other station.

Additionally it looks like HAT pirates have been completely disabled now, which was required because of their messed up faction relationships (they are neutral to everyone so if you shot them up everyone hated you). From what I can tell HAT are meant to be mercenaries, not really pirates, and hence why they are neutral to everyone. I would not be surprised if they get some logic improvements as well down the line.

Currently pirates are the single most annoying part of the game. Where as one can fix Xenon by killing them, one cannot do the same for pirates since pirate ships will keep magically poofing into existence. Additionally the factions are utterly useless at stopping SCA pirates. I have literally seen a single Raider empty around 200,000 units of shipyard product into space since nothing came to stop them.

[photomankc]

Yeah, I'd actually pay good money for some 'lonely' space, at least at first. Starting out in a Discoverer with worst possible shield and pew pews:

30 seconds of travel drive away from the highway:

- "Hmmmm lets take a look at your cargo"
- "Lets see what you have in your cargo"
- "So nice of you to share that with me. Drop your cargo"
- "What do you have to share with me"
- "Your cargo is profitable to me. Drop your cargo"
- "Your cargo is of interest. Drop your cargo"

They were coming in so fast they riding over each other's transmissions. I'm not really in any position to fight it out and I can't find a few seconds of peace to even check the dang map to see where I want to go, just have to keep running from pirates. I get trying to keep some risk to the player but good lord!

[Artean]

One of the strong points of X4, to me, is the dynamic and unscripted universe that doesn't revolve around me, the player.

And as it happens, my universe isn't empty and boring, especially not so in 2.0.

But thats not true, there are already scripted events (but very bad ones).
1) pirates trying to get cargo from ships (could be improved)
2) hacking of stations to release the wares of the storage (could be improved)
3) teleporting of ships to the player when far away from the center of the sector (shouldn‘t be done at all)

Well sure, there are scripted events but, imo, that is NOT the strong points of a x universe. Watching how the universe plays out all by itself and you choose when to intervene or not - that is what sets the x universe apart from others.

[Imperial Good]

SCA Pirates are pathetic. You go up to them with a police scanner, scan them, ask them to drop their cargo, watch as they run away burning all their shields, then shoot them up for daring to ask your trader to drop their cargo. If you want to be really mean, spam torpedoes at them and watch them explode. All because they asked your ship to drop some Energy cells...

Only reason SCA pirates are not an endangered species in X4 is because of their cheating ship generation. Their jobs are some of the few declared to spawn in at gates rather than be built. The only other exceptions are mission ships (save X from mines) and Kahak (spawn in around clusters).

[Rei Ayanami]

While i like the idea of some scripted events, i think one must be careful that they don't feel artificial or break immersion.

Making these events only happen 1~2 sectors around the player for example is a bad idea, in my opinion, because sooner or later the player will recognize this ("hmm, special events only happen around me") and the immersion is broken. If there are events, they should happen regardless of where the player is.
And they shouldn't poof ships into existence out of nowhere in the middle of space, like X:Rebirth did. Again, the player will notice a pattern and the immersion is broken.

If there is an event where, for example, the pirates decide to do a huge raid on other factions stations, then the condition should be that they have enough ressources to spawn the required ships at their shipyards/wharfs, so such events could help keep the economy going again in a universe situation where shipyards/wharfs have too many ressources, aka "hey, we got way more ressources than we need for our usual ship jobs, lets go crazy and spend it all the on a big fleet and do a raid on our enemies".

I also think that the teleporting of ships to the player is not helping with the emmersion and emptiness. There should be some reason why they are there. E.g. fighting over a loot box/abondend ship, trying to exchange illegal wares...

Yea, this is a bit wierd. But i think its hard to give ais a good reason to coincidentally fly to areas way outside the normal sector range where the player might come through soon, so i guess teleporting ships near the player as "random encounters" was a quick and easy semi-fix to make the universe not feel empty outside the main sector area.