SO EXCITED!!!

[Aven Valkyr]

But one question. Why? Why are you doing this Egosoft? What was the inspiration behind it? I sent an e-mail at the beginning of March asking for the source code to X3 so I could put together a community resurrection project. Now all of a sudden 1.5 months later you are releasing this! I can't even believe it.

Funny thing, for the first time ever playing Albion Prelude in a brand new run-through, I finally figured out how to make a gigantic corporation with several huge starbases all printing money. For the first time ever, I've had millions, hundreds of millions of credits rolling through my account. I was buying M1's and M2's and didn't even have to capture a single ship to do it! Yeah I got this game all sorted out, but something was still missing. A reason, a point to existance. A reason for being. Something to point my guns at and a reason to point them. So I reached out and asked for the source code as I have many solid ideas to make this game what it needed to be. And then I found out you're releasing this??? I just. Can't. WAIT!!!!

[CBJ]

But one question. Why? Why are you doing this Egosoft? What was the inspiration behind it?

Have a read of the interviews for answers to these questions.

[MegaBurn]

Aven,
People have been asking for the source code for years, myself included, doubt it'll happen within the next couple decades. Next best thing would be open access to the SDK (without having to sign an NDA), so the object code files containing much of the game logic could be modded, but no luck yet (though a Russian group did create a disassembler & compiler). For development, FL is shaping up to be the next best thing after that, see the wiki for SE & MD command lists, notice there is a bunch of previously hardcoded stuff there, and scattered around are mentions of hardcoded logic stuff being replaced with scripts, including some menus.

On a combat oriented point to existence in AP, there are a few scripts to address that, LIFE & Improved Races 2 can create war scenarios, or mods like LU & Mayhem have a definitive enemy. XRM has a Xenon start good for a lot of action without making everyone hostile. There are some mission packs and plot mods around too, TC-AP, ATF Outpost, TSOG.

If you had the source code, what would you develop?

What do you want to do which cannot be done via scripting and modding?

Any plans for FL modding?

On why Egosoft is doing this, if I may add some context and analysis (sorry, bored rambling). The simple answer provided is, this is a volunteer project by a small group of long-time community members and Egosoft wants to support their efforts. That seems incomplete to me, I think there is something more to it.

Compare this to later commercial DLC's released by other small studios, its often to boost sales of the main title. Consider XTM and XTC, both were huge multi-year team projects, perhaps not fully canon but could have easily been pushed that way. XTM inspired content in TC, could say a quasi release (stretch). XTC went in a very different direction than AP but was huge enough for a commercial DLC release. XRM was huge enough for a commercial DLC release, especially if combined with the various recommended mods/scripts commonly used with it, and maybe some content released in TC/AP patches. LU is also huge, adds a lot of new script commands, certainly had the potential to be a fun non-canon DLC. Publishing those as FREE DLC releases would have been expensive. As PAID releases those could have offered profit share to authors while funding more benefits to players, like better quality control, better localization, better Linux/Mac support, game engine improvements, more content, gaming media attention to bring in more players, etc. By contrast, FL could have been released as a mod of similar scope to XTC and LU, or as a major AP v4.0 patch, without the cost of publishing a FREE DLC.

My theory is FL is a market test, to see if a new DLC bumps X3-AP/TWP sales and revitalizes the X3 segment of the community, kind of checking to see if Egosoft is leaving behind some potential business. I think if FL does both, then more will follow - localization, Linux/Mac, engine updates, etc. Could also be a community test, to see if people migrate content from TC/AP to FL and use the new features. Beyond that, FL has a fairly mature and reliable engine, with good backward compatibility, would it be a stretch to "remaster" X-btf, X-Tension, X2, and X3-R by having a similar small team port them to X3-FL as new DLC's linked to owning/buying the "classic" releases? Would that boost sales enough to cover release costs and could they recruit unpaid volunteers (X addicts) to do it? Are there interesting yet combat intensive canon segments not already covered that would make good PAID X3 DLC's? Maybe prior to X-btf, like Terraformer Wars 1 & 2, Boron Campaign, and later, maybe Sohnen prod Terrans & Argons to hunt AGI (to clean up Earth's mess).

Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part (and Egosoft is free to revise history to make that true if those seem like good ideas ).

[CBJ]

You're seriously overthinking this! There is no ulterior motive to this project.

[MegaBurn]

Planting seeds

[AdrianB1]

The only significant thing one can do with the source code is to bring the game engine to date: 64 bit memory addressing, multithreading and newer GPU feats like DirectX12. This cannot be achieved by modding or scripting. But this kind of work requires dozens of skilled developers to work for many months or a few years, so the chance for this to happen is negligible.

I hoped in the past few years that a future version of X will get on par with X3; it did not happen yet, but there is still hope: Rebirth was a major derailment, X4 Foundations is better but not yet there (really, space highways? where are the long term parking and toilets, is it a truck driver simulator?) and maybe X5 will be the real deal. But by the time that may happen, the source code for X3 will be irrelevant because the game engine is simply too old. A few weeks ago I tried to run a X2 again and it looks and feels so outdated I gave up after a couple of hours. I plan to spend some good time with Farnham's legacy, but this will be outdated in a few years too.

[Klord]

Planting seeds

Lemme add some water and fertilizer...there we go.

[MegaBurn]

Adrian,
Yeah, time is a major factor. Injecting money into this equation with a series of paid releases would speed things up significantly. There are some innovative contributor license agreements, with profit-share schemes for professional grade work and project success based bonuses for non-paid volunteer work. First, we need to see how well FL does, if the modding community rebounds, and how much development skill we have around in, say, two months?

Space highways are not as absurd as they seem. Consider large space stations with huge solar arrays, they could emit energy beams to nearby destinations so ships in transit do not need to carry power generation or fuel onboard, only reaction mass and smaller engines (lower mass), this is a very energy efficient means of transport. Solar sails with remote lasers is similar. In both cases the beams wouldn't go all the way, just enough to accelerate outgoing and decelerating incoming traffic, similar to Trans-Orbital Accelerators but much slower. A unified theory of everything might allow for the X-R/X4 (Freelancer) highway tech, but there would need to be huge field generators on either end to create a continuous path like X-R/X4 (Freelancer is more like riding a wave). Not to mention orbital dynamics, everything is moving. That's better than being fired out of a huge rail/coil gun, or mass effect accelerator, then using a magnetic "decelerator" (bullet catching), aero-braking, or some sort of tractor beam net to slow down at the destination. All have the downside of being completely screwed if something goes wrong in transit, and most of that can be weaponized.

[Klord]

Damn, thats one way to set things up !

[Aven Valkyr]

To answer some of your questions. No I can't really code but I understand other people's code, can reverse engineer, troubleshoot and even fix code. I know how it all relates with statements and function calls but I consider it being ultra high IQ and intimate with the library and game engine, to be able to pull variables out of one's hat and use this, instead of that. So my hat's off to those who are nasa level software engineers and can code a simple script. Where I lack however, I make up in spades. Because I am good in other departments such as coordinating projects, overseeing overall visions, keeping people on point, and making sure things are done right the first time, saving much debugging and reworking down the line.

The reason I wanted the source code is because I wanted to mainly rework the UI to be much more user friendly, and I know it already is. But the one big pitfall of the X3 engine is in its fleet management, using hockey's to direct fleet movements, and also in the management of stations. I wanted to implement a brand new UI for empire management, managing CAGs, station agents, UTs, assets, satellite networks and such. I also wanted to re-work the AI pathing system, and devise a better, smoother, more linear way of moving around spacial objects like asteroids. Instead of the ship going in and out in a spike pattern until it finds a way around, a ship should just calculate a path before it reaches the object and take a wide berth around the object. These are all things that cannot be scripted and "fixed" via modding.

After all that however, it's just a simple matter of working the mission director, creating new objects, scripting the eff out of things like CODEA, creating a storyline, and bringing the overall vision into focus. But we shall see how this new iteration of X3 works out, and I'm STOKED to say the least!

[Cycrow]

Pretty much everything you mention except the path planning can be done via scripting, especially in FL.

[Aven Valkyr]

Pretty much everything you mention except the path planning can be done via scripting, especially in FL.

So what you're saying is the UI can be completely reworked, windows can be created and deleted, the entire management system can be made from scratch, all via scripting?? That's pretty cool

[Cycrow]

Not completely reworked, but you can create your own menus to do alot of things via scripting, add these menus into the existing menus/context menus/siderbar, etc.
and completely replace some of the standard menus with your own versions.

most of the new menus added are also done via scripts, so can be edited directly

[Aven Valkyr]

Awesome dude. I will have to poke through all the guides you guys posted. You're the author of LU right? Fave mod by far. Loved the OOS abandoned script. Wish the base game had more ships to collect, specially in AP when they want an L to reverse engineer. Lots of cool stuff going on and a wicked time sink for the folks under lockdown. Again, super stoked on it!!

[X2-Illuminatus]

LU = Litcube's Universe, with Litcube being the main creator.

Cycrow is the man behind the Plugin Manager, dozens (hundreds?) of scripts for the X3-games and long time forum moderator. See also his interview for reference.

[MegaBurn]

Aven,
For menu scripting details see the Custom Menus page on the wiki. Could also see Custom Property Owned Menu, you can open those script files with X Studio, but the new commands in FL will be labeled "unknown".

On flight path finding, that "spike" pattern is LU Bounce (in KC, also available as standalone SE script), its an aggressive collision avoidance system, figure many of those "spikes" were prevented impacts, it uses the basic assumption that going "backward" is safe without actually checking. While, yes, flight behavior is deep in the engine, that "checking whats safe" is an area which could be improved upon with scripting, but as processor load increases the logic needs to throttle back to basic Bounce. This needs research, if you have the time and inclination, check out the Bounce code in X-Studio, and Google game AI low cost path finding tricks or collision avoidance tricks - some examples are whiskers, path probing objects, route mapping objects, proximity beacons, and object prioritization schemes for higher cost methods (e.g. only runs on player, mission, derelict, jobs with certain flags, etc, and any objects which threaten to run into those priority objects). Might look at the fight scripts, maybe MARS (goblin behavior), for examples of SE managed movement behavior. And reminder, LU has SE commands which are not available in AP or FL (pick relevant script examples). Hope that helps...


Cycrow,
Are updated definitions available for X Studio?
Is there a X3 Editor 2 update?

[Aven Valkyr]

Wait so you're saying that right off the hop, base game, the reason ships do that is because of bounce? I mean I know about the bounce script that was released as a mod and included with LU, but is it a thing that's scripted in the base game?? If so, should be easy enough to look at and clean up. I know it causes overhead on the CPU but apparently the source code for FL was switched to 64 bit processing which should help reduce overhead a whole bunch

[CBJ]

...apparently the source code for FL was switched to 64 bit processing...

I'm not sure where you got that idea from. It wasn't.

[Cycrow]

Cycrow,
Are updated definitions available for X Studio?
Is there a X3 Editor 2 update?

Not currently, but all the script commands are available in confluence so someone could use that to start creating a definitions file
for the X3 Editor 2, theres no current update, but most files haven't change in format, except for jobs

[MegaBurn]

Aven,
No, there is collision avoidance flight behavior buried deep in the game engine, this would require source code to change (afaik its lower in the executable, not higher KC logic). There is also "Evade" flight behavior, (afaik) also buried deep in the engine, but which can be called by an SE script command, it is intended for combat, is more exaggerated than collision avoidance, and tends to be more effective.

SE Bounce detects collision risk with distance checks using ship sizes defined in a "wall file" and calls Evade for 1 second. If you want to improve that behavior, find the Evade call and put something more interesting in above/before it, but you will probably need to increase detection range and add some low cost method (trick) to find a better path around. For more details read the Bounce thread linked earlier.

LU Bounce (iirc) detects object sizes dynamically (no wall file), and uses a more brute force 180-degree flip to prevent the collision, not Evade. For more details read the LU Bounce page on the LU wiki.

Differences in appearance of collision avoidance behavior:
- Vanilla Collision Avoidance: Ships slow, turn, act hesitantly, faster ships may do yo-yo probing but are at very high risk of crashing into the object they're trying to avoid. This requires engine source code to change.

- SE Bounce (SE Evade): Ships turn away sharply and flee, then turn back to previous course, may look like bouncing, the turns curve more than LU. You can improve on this directly.

- LU Bounce (KC code): Ships flip 180 degrees, then return to previous course, producing a sharper spike pattern you described. This requires restricted SDK tools and KC source code to recreate or port from LU.

- Collision Spheres: In XRM/SRM and XTC, invisible collision spheres were added to ship scenes to make the ships seem bigger so the vanilla collision avoidance behavior works better. As Litcube notes, this causes unwanted behavior with confused missiles and gun fire missing, and it wont help much with more natural pathing around obstacles. Whiskers are a variation, with longer invisible forward protrusions. Another problem with this approach is each ship scene needs to be modified. Benefit is its lower processing cost than distance checks with SE script.

In theory, you could procedurally generate and apply collision spheres or whiskers to scenes. If you know Python then starting with X3 Customizer might be easiest. Caution, this is advanced work, the learning curve is steep, beyond my current comfort range, if you want to give it a try I may have some reference material, notes, and links which may help.