Concept for a Rogue-like X-Spin-off

[Melecus]

Obviously, the best setting for a procedurally generated game would be during the first reactivations after the gate shout down before the events of X4 and it could also fix the terrible ending from XR.
Just a quick recap of XR's ending:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UxO1TbIxj8
The player and the rest of the good guys destroy the Xenon home base in Maelstrom, but to do so, they leave their home systems unguarded. The cinematic at the end of XR clearly states that Omicron Lyrae as well as Albion and DeVries are getting overrun by Xenon. But after the end of the main story, the only thing that changes is that Xenon can now spawn as random enemies during combat missions. This ending always felt for me as if Star Wars: A New Hope ended after the heroes escape from the Death Star and the last scene was Vader and Tarkin talking about the Tracker on the Falcon.

The beginning for a Rogue-like X-Spin-off could take place at a time where this threat became reality. The Xenon simply overrun the whole XR-universe and now the last remaining refugees gather in Fields of Opportunity. As the last survivors are getting surrounded by Xenon, the inactive gate in Silent Night would activate and give them a way to escape. Behind that gate, the procedurally generated map of the game would start.

First, you would have to build your starting fleet from a randomly generated pool of Ships. This pool could include Argon ships from Albion or Home of Light, Terran ships from DeVries or Toride, Teladi ships from Fields of Opportunity, Split ships from Maelstrom, or Terran/Argon ships from Omicron Lyrae. (I so badly want to be able to pilot a Fulmekron myself...)

After that, you would leave Fields of Opportunity and enter the first randomly generated sector. Here the mazelike highway structure XR is so often criticized for could become handy. Your fleet would have to traverse these mazes to find the next jump gate in order to escape the Xenon flood.

The Xenon from the XR-universe should chase the player fleet across the entire game. Here the Xenon could become the life-ending threat like they are often depicted, although the games almost always fail to portray them as the nemesis of all living beings. The Xenon flood should always be one or 2 zones behind you to create a threat in your neck, that prevents backtracking and leaves little room for error.

In each zone, you could find a random encounter, that could either consist of enemies, other refugees that join you, random resources, ship equipment, trade stations, warp anomalies that transport you to random positions in the same sector, or things like this.

As enemies besides the Xenon flood, you could use the usual suspects: Xenon, Khaak, and Pirates. Furthermore, you could also use aggressive Split or zealous Paranids. The most interesting would certainly be Argons or Terrans, that still believe the Terran Conflict is going on. So if your fleet is too Argon heavy Terrans would attack you instead of joining you and vice versa with Argons.

The most interesting part of this potential Rogue-like X-Spin-off is that I could fill in the gaps between X3 and X4. There are about 200 sectors from X3, that are not in X4 or XR, and therefore we know nothing about their fate after the gate shut down. The procedurally generated world of this game could contain the sectors Egosoft doesn't want to use in later X-games and explain what happened to them. (And if Helge Kautz or your own writers haven't the time to come up with 200 stories, an X-(lore)-nerd with too much time writing Reddit posts is sitting right before you.)

I think every X3 fan is looking forward to once again see Legend's Home again and get a couple of these beautiful OTAS-ships. Or imagine finding Queen's Harbour under siege by Split or Xenon with a single Megadon holding the line... the possibilities for such a world are almost endless, but sadly the Xenon flood would mean, that inevitably all these sectors would be obliterated by Xenon.

One question remains: What is the end of the game? First of all, there could be no end. You just try to escape the Xenon flood for as long as you can until you die. Besides that, every Rogue-like worth its soul should have an endless mode. Another possibility could be, that after a specific amount of explored systems/sectors, you would enter Argon Prime through the gate, which's inactive in X4. There you would be met with the full might of the Argon military, which's able to hold the Xenon flood at bay until they are capable to remotely destroy the gate from the other side.

This ending could also explain one little plot hole: X4 Argon ship design looks very similar to XR Omicron Lyrae ship design. This could be blamed on just parallel development, but the Omicron Lyrae ship set is a synthesis of Argon and Terran design that's to my knowledge unique to the Omicron Lyrae system. (And yes I know, that there are much simpler real-life explanations, but I just like to spin my own in-game explanations.)


Does anyone of you have another idea for a Rogue-like X-Spin-off?