4.00 Public Beta now available

[Tilen]

@ Tilen: Your Egosoft cheque is in the post, perhaps (or not).

It better well be! I take my entertainment with monetary compensation, don't you know?

[Artean]

We've just released an update to our current 4.00 beta. Among other things we've fixed Kha'ak station modules not being destructible. Find out more over at viewtopic.php?f=192&t=405397

Great fixes!

[CorruptUser]

Any idea when online ventures will return for the Beta?

[Burneyx]

Well,

for me X4 is still a singleplayer game, after all.....

And i don't get the reason for content im paying for is cut off, when using mods.....

This doesn't give me a good feeling at all + why needs the forum login to be changed???
My Account is linked to my E-Mail adress since 20 years, and now, what's the problem with it???

Maybe you should explain why the changes are needed, very simpel, what the goal of this behavior?

Is there a need to watch videos to open any crates of loot in the near future? Just asking

[CorruptUser]

Well, from the looks of it, we will be able to visit each other's universes in person. This makes mods... difficult to coordinate, to say the least.

It's a shame, because otherwise I'd love to use stuff like the signal leak finder mod, or the flyby looting mod.

[Buzz2005]

Well, from the looks of it, we will be able to visit each other's universes in person. This makes mods... difficult to coordinate, to say the least.

It's a shame, because otherwise I'd love to use stuff like the signal leak finder mod, or the flyby looting mod.

The way I look at it is we will be able to choose where to send venture ships, nothing in person, and we could choose how will those ships behave, ally or enemy to player etc...

[Polofix]

Hello,
I have a question for the beta testers. Does ani-aliasing work in the meantime? Or does it still flicker so strongly at the edges and borders?
I hope this is or will be fixed. I think this is much more important, like volumetric fog. The graphics were so nice and quiet in Xrebirth and it is so bad in X4. It is very exhausting for the eyes, when the graphics always flicker like this.

[chew-ie]

Hello,
I have a question for the beta testers. Does ani-aliasing work in the meantime? Or does it still flicker so strongly at the edges and borders?
I hope this is or will be fixed. I think this is much more important, like volumetric fog. The graphics were so nice and quiet in Xrebirth and it is so bad in X4. It is very exhausting for the eyes, when the graphics always flicker like this.

If you never participated in the beta and reported this I doubt that it will ever be "fixed" / adressed.

[Skeeter]

nah its still like that, temporal aa would fix it but they dont have time to add it if at all. Msaa and fxaa dont help for those bits. Its a shame as it really puts you off.

[Polofix]

If you never participated in the beta and reported this I doubt that it will ever be "fixed" / adressed.

Hello,
I think the problem is well known. There have been frequent discussions about the bad AA. Anyone can see that.
No beta 4.0 from my side.
4.0 I will only touch when the DLC is released and even then I will wait. And I will read how it all works. I have installed many good mods in the meantime. Disaster, if they don't work with 4.0 anymore.

But I would have been very pleased if AA had worked now.

[Axeface]

I really would love to know if DLSS is being looked into, as far as I understand it it could have the potential to really help performance in X4 in crazy ways, as this game is a special case.

[Buzz2005]

I really would love to know if DLSS is being looked into, as far as I understand it it could have the potential to really help performance in X4 in crazy ways, as this game is a special case.

isn't that a GPU thing? That would not help x4 much

[avilonrayne]

Well, from the looks of it, we will be able to visit each other's universes in person.

Can you please explain where you got this from? All I've seen regarding the future of the venture system is this.

Just to be clear, this is not just about people sending modified ships. I am not going to go into details, for various reasons, not least of which is that we're not ready to share our future plans for the venture feature yet, but suffice it to say that the requirement for an unmodified client is not going to be going away because it is an essential element in maintaining a level playing field for everyone who chooses to participate.

I'm still looking forward to hearing the real reason for the restriction against mods with ventures. Lots of mention of shared experiences requiring it, but no details on what these experiences may be.


Random side question though, for everyone. I saw this in the beta patch notes.

• Added possibility for crew to bail when under attack by NPCs.
• Added possibility for NPC factions to claim abandoned ships.

In all my time playing, I don't think I've ever seen NPCs bail. Was it something that happened before when you attacked with your player-controlled ship (which I almost never do, I have minions for that), or is this a whole new thing that only applies when NPCs attack things? I like both of these additions, I'm just curious if it's completely new or not. I have fond memories of finding abandoned battleships in the pirate/argon and xenon/terran war zones of X3:AP

[xant]

Random side question though, for everyone. I saw this in the beta patch notes.

• Added possibility for crew to bail when under attack by NPCs.
• Added possibility for NPC factions to claim abandoned ships.

In all my time playing, I don't think I've ever seen NPCs bail. Was it something that happened before when you attacked with your player-controlled ship (which I almost never do, I have minions for that), or is this a whole new thing that only applies when NPCs attack things? I like both of these additions, I'm just curious if it's completely new or not. I have fond memories of finding abandoned battleships in the pirate/argon and xenon/terran war zones of X3:AP

I've found various ships in battle zones that were abandoned by various factions: a Split Jaguar in a neutral sector, a Paranid Tethys in front of a gate leading to a Xenon sector, a Paranid Nemesis within a Xenon sector, an Argon Drill (Mineral) that was most likely attacked by Kha'ak at some point and so on. It's a nice new addition, I like it.

Just to be clear, this is not just about people sending modified ships. I am not going to go into details, for various reasons, not least of which is that we're not ready to share our future plans for the venture feature yet, but suffice it to say that the requirement for an unmodified client is not going to be going away because it is an essential element in maintaining a level playing field for everyone who chooses to participate.

I understand and accept if Egosoft decides to be strict on modified clients partaking in online activities. That is fine. What saddens me is how that feature gets completely disabled once you install even a simple mod. I don't care much for deep online experiences, even if you had the full mmo-thing going on with online clans, seasons and some kind of shared map. I respect if people like that, but I personally don't care.

All I want is using Ventures to get some loot that is hard to get otherwise. Like a slot machine: put in ship, press button, wait a while and voila, you either get something or not. Simple as that. So please, reconsider at least giving us offline-Ventures for Paint Mods and Exceptional Ship Mods. Or make them more accessible in another way.

[Rei Ayanami]

And i dont get the reason for content im paying for is cut off, when using mods.....

Because properly and fairly adjusting and properly handling all possible cases that could happen between a vanilla game and a modded game where basically anything could be changed is impossible.

How would you propose modded ships (with custom models, textures, etc) from game A being sent to an unmodded universe of game B should be handled? Game B wouldn't know what ship model, textures or, in the case of custom ship macro id, which ship data in general to use for that ship.
What if there is a file- or naming conflict between game A and game B, where modded game A with mod X sends a ship of ship class ID "my_test_object", but mod Y in game B use ship class id "my_test_object" for a completely different ship or an entirely different object class entirely? Game B would probably either be screwed up or crash.

But lets say Egosoft somehow manages to handle all the technical details : What if game A sends a modded custom ship "Doomsday Carrier" with 5000 turrets and 2000 shield generators? Is that acceptable and fair to appear in an unmodded game?

Only with vanilla-to-vanilla transfers it can be guaranteed that both players actually use the same game data that iis compatible with eachother and on the same fair playing field.

And yes, there are many, many mods which don't alter the gameplay but only add local quality-of-life improvements, such as UI elements, but Egosoft would probably have to test and verify the functionalities of all these mods, which is a lot of additional work.

[avilonrayne]

And i dont get the reason for content im paying for is cut off, when using mods.....

How would you propose modded ships (with custom models, textures, etc) from game A being sent to an unmodded universe of game B should be handled?

There's an easy fix that gets around all of those problems. Two fixes, actually. Make modded games send a default ship of the correct type for the venture. Alternatively make them not send a ship at all, but still lock the ship that the player placed in the platform for the duration of the venture. That said, there has been mention of "future plans" for the venture system, but zero details on what these might be. These planned things may actually require unmodified clients. Some sort of multiplayer would do it, but I don't want to get any hopes up with speculation.

[Burneyx]

And i dont get the reason for content im paying for is cut off, when using mods.....

Because properly and fairly adjusting and properly handling all possible cases that could happen between a vanilla game and a modded game where basically anything could be changed is impossible.

How would you propose modded ships (with custom models, textures, etc) from game A being sent to an unmodded universe of game B should be handled? Game B wouldn't know what ship model, textures or, in the case of custom ship macro id, which ship data in general to use for that ship.
What if there is a file- or naming conflict between game A and game B, where modded game A with mod X sends a ship of ship class ID "my_test_object", but mod Y in game B use ship class id "my_test_object" for a completely different ship or an entirely different object class entirely? Game B would probably either be screwed up or crash.

But lets say Egosoft somehow manages to handle all the technical details : What if game A sends a modded custom ship "Doomsday Carrier" with 5000 turrets and 2000 shield generators? Is that acceptable and fair to appear in an unmodded game?

Only with vanilla-to-vanilla transfers it can be guaranteed that both players actually use the same game data that iis compatible with eachother and on the same fair playing field.

And yes, there are many, many mods which don't alter the gameplay but only add local quality-of-life improvements, such as UI elements, but Egosoft would probably have to test and verify the functionalities of all these mods, which is a lot of additional work.

Come on,

there are 5 players sending 5 ships to other players, thats called now pvp,

An easy task to restrict the possible ships, that can be sent, very simple

But now what Egosoft does is a bad marketing decision, showing an unfair and unpleasant behavior
against 95% of the paying customers.....

But, well, there u go.....

[Burneyx]

And i dont get the reason for content im paying for is cut off, when using mods.....

How would you propose modded ships (with custom models, textures, etc) from game A being sent to an unmodded universe of game B should be handled?

There's an easy fix that gets around all of those problems. Two fixes, actually. Make modded games send a default ship of the correct type for the venture. Alternatively make them not send a ship at all, but still lock the ship that the player placed in the platform for the duration of the venture. That said, there has been mention of "future plans" for the venture system, but zero details on what these might be. These planned things may actually require unmodified clients. Some sort of multiplayer would do it, but I don't want to get any hopes up with speculation.

+1

Very simple, let us mod users send standart ships to say hello

Easy way to please everyone and make us all love you more, Egosoft

[CBJ]

As I have already explained, that is not an option. And no, I cannot give more details at the moment.

[avilonrayne]

• Removed Interact menu option to follow ship (still available as default behaviour).
• Removed Interact menu option to protect station (still available as default behaviour, or assign to station instead).

Why? Protect station I can understand because it's effectively duplicated in the interact menu with assigning the ship to the commander for defense, but why following? It turns the process of following a ship from a couple clicks to an entire default order selection.

Edit: Just had a thought, does the coordinate attack action allow for following the target, and does it work for boarding? That's what I usually use following for. Collecting my fleet around a non-aggressive target before attacking it.