X-Rebirth No piloting Capital ships!!??

[pjknibbs]

Regardless of the engine used, the general style of the X series for many players requires a capital ship to be affective.

And Bernd has made it clear that you can still have capital ships, so what's the problem, exactly?

[e1team]

Whether you can reside in one? That's the main fuss. It has been stated you CAN'T fly one yourself. Does it mean you can still be INSIDE one while giving it commands?

[eldyranx3]

I spend most of my time in a M6 anyway. Rarely in a M7 (Mostly for OFF). Almost never in a M1 or M2. I for one wont miss it, if it comes to it.

[e1team]

Of course, if it turns out one can not be ON the ship, it'll make some people sad (me for one). Doesn't mean the game will suck or somesuch though. Nobody said that. We just need that particular bit of info to calm people down.

[Tolmos]

Regardless of the engine used, the general style of the X series for many players requires a capital ship to be affective.

And Bernd has made it clear that you can still have capital ships, so what's the problem, exactly?

The remainder of the quote that you skipped keeping explained, so I will re-explain again. Everything they have said is about us HAVING cap ships, but has anyone stated we can be IN THEM? When a bit battle is going on, it is extremely necessary to be in a safe spot if you wish to control large fleet operations. So unless they have greatly improved the OOS code and we just watch large battles on our map, or if they have allowed us to, I dunno... view the camera of a ship not in our system, being able to sit inside of the safety of our flagship giving orders is FAR superior to sitting in a fighter dodging bullets while trying to maneuver through fleet command hotkeys and menus.

I happen to think flying anything less than a M7 is not fun, does that mean M3,4,5,6 needs to be removed?

Option = good.

This.

[Tolmos]

Yea. its not like I ever take the steering wheel myself, but 90% of my gameplay after a certain point of empire building takes place on my flagship. I don't care if I can't turn the mouse and watch my capital ship slowly move left or right... but if I can't even dock in the ship, there has to be a downright amazing feature (an RTS god view option or something) that allows me to sit out of sector and give commands for my fleet.

I'm sure this is something they have taken into consideration. Downgrading their game this much by removing the ability to dock with your own capital ships would be changing some of the core gameplay by a ton... to the point that it would almost feel like the game is aimed towards a different type of playerbase. Which would be fine as well- it isn't like X3:TC's graphics are outdated. Not by a longshot. If it does turn out that X:Rebirth is just a different kind of game, geared more towards shooter fighting, then great for those who enjoy that type of game. But if it turns out we CAN dock on our own ships, just not maneuver them manually but rather give commands from our own bridge, then I do wish they would say it so those of us who like empire building/large fleet warfare can know whether to be excited for this game or not. >_>

Because if we can't dock- wouldn't that also remove carriers from our fleet? Or would we just have carriers that our personal fighters magically can't dock to? That would remove hot-dropping a carrier into the middle of a fleet battle. And would also require saying goodbye to any future BSG mods >_>

[Scoob]

Hi,

For those of us that remember, one of the more common questions/requests from X:BTF was "why can't I fly/own other ships?" People want to fly other ships. When, in the Xtended official expansion, there ability to own/fly up to a TL class was added people loved Egosoft that little bit more.

Moving on to X2 when we could own/fly pretty much everything we had a fuller game as a result... X3 and TC built on this further.

Now the problem is that Rebirth wasn't originally planned to be an "X" game as such so certain features may have been designed and implemented differently to what we've come to expect.

The idea of buying, crewing and commanding a competent AI controlled Cap ship of my own is appealing. But bottom line is that most of us still want to be able to sit on the bridge. I mean, does the admiral of a fleet of warships really tag along behind in a dingy while using a loudhailer to issue commands?

When I own a fleet in-game I want to be safe to actually be the commander, not have to worry more about my own safety while I sit in a more vulnerable craft.

When I play TC, like Reunion and X2 before it, I always aspired to be sat on the bridge of my own large ship, & actually feeling a little safer!

Let's see what Egosoft has to tell us, aren't we due some more news in June?

Cheers,

Scoob.

[Tolmos]

I mean, does the admiral of a fleet of warships really tag along behind in a dingy while using a loudhailer to issue commands?

That cracked me up. If we could have signatures, this would be mine forever.

[eldyranx3]

If we could have signatures, this would be mine forever.

You must have been extra naughty then.

[Tolmos]

If we could have signatures, this would be mine forever.

You must have been extra naughty then.

lol whoops! I didn't think we could. I had tried it before back in 06 and couldn't get mine to work. Nvm then! =D

[jlehtone]

... being able to sit inside of the safety of our flagship giving orders is FAR superior to sitting in a fighter dodging bullets while trying to maneuver through fleet command hotkeys and menus.

Is it? Granted, my experience on the matter is limited, having never tested X3TC.

What I have seen in X3R.

• If I fly the big ship, then I clear whole sectors hands down, alone. That becomes a bit boring after a while.
• If I fly my fast scout a hundred km from the foes, nothing is there to touch me.
• If I tell a M2 to kill a M1, the M2 gets killed. Must be my fault, yes?
• Capital ships get blown to pieces in mere seconds.

Based on that the Teladi instinct in me wants to choose between flying solo and running away. Flying the big ship protects the ship more than me.

I'd like to see the AI to survive a fight. The AI of current games is geared to die in the fight. That is what makes it so easy to exploit, and what massacres player's fleet too.

If we have to rely on the AI to keep our Precious alive, then perhaps the X-R AI finally can do that. If not, then Capitals are mere expensive cannon fodder. I don't think that the intention has been to produce sheep.

[Tolmos]

... being able to sit inside of the safety of our flagship giving orders is FAR superior to sitting in a fighter dodging bullets while trying to maneuver through fleet command hotkeys and menus.

Is it? Granted, my experience on the matter is limited, having never tested X3TC.

Lets take an attack on a small Xenon sector in X3:R (since most of my playtime is in it). I jump in with an M1 (my flagship, carrying roughly 30 fighters and me), 3 M2s and a few M6s. Xenon immediately take notice and head on over for fun. First thing I do is maneuver my M2s between my M1 and the enemy. They are now a buffer between my flagship and the absolute death on its way. Xenon fighters are usually putting around, nipping at the hulls of my M2s and M1 (though rarely to much avail). I launch 1 group of 5 fighters to each of my 2 M2s, 1 group to protect my carrier, and 2 more go out to rumble away from my fleet. I have 1 group of 5 fighters left docked.

Like setting up a chess board, my fleet is ready for the Xenon to come attack. The opening move was mine, since I got the jump. The capital ships should be contained partly by my fighters, partly by my capital ships (keeping damage distributed enough to give my capital ships a slightly longer lifespan). Most of this time Xenon fighters should be hovering around my carrier like little pests, my carrier and its fighters doing their best to kill them.

Now, in this situation I've been spending my entire time issuing order after order to my fighters and capital ships. Maybe I've lost some fighters, maybe not. But the entire time I've been able to watch the fight from a front row seat in my flagship, relatively safe from tons of fighter lasers which would completely rip a little fighter to shreds.

Take away my ability to sit in the capital ship and what do I have? A battle I can either watch from afar, give rushed/crappy orders for or just say "to hell with strategy", tell everyone "get em boys" and run amock in my fighter hoping the chaos somehow results in my win.

[SuperG]

Well The way I play X3:TC.
Is in a M7 as a base for my M3.

X3 games do feel very unfinished and unfocused.

The Fight think build trade.

We go here for the Fight and think part.

There is fighter combat play that decent.
There is bunch of fighter wingman combat wich bad. It needs fast acces interface and wingman who can act independed and just need tactical command steering. Instead baby sit. The problem is the lack of decent AI what fit the kind of unit. Here you notice the very limited AI.
Take fighters with huge shield.

Then you got capital ship. Where does that start from M6 ? M7?
M6 act like a slow mo fighter.
M7 and up do to. But have many option in a deep hard to use interface.
And carriers are criple by the management needs.

So then fleets. If one capitalship is a management hog. A fleet is that many more desaster then that.
The AI is absent to make fleets usefull or more expected efficenty in battle situations.

I think the problem is largly AI.
A capital ship is accualy a fix formation fused together multy unit object.

It common knowledge that human thus also gamers can just handle so much then 3 to 7 things. Where 7 are born leaders and extreem multitasking persons. Young people can be just fast enough to plow to all those task. But most ar eoverwhelmed.
The average is 3.

That is why there are grunt handling one task.
leader and his wing man. 2 task.
Alfa bravo etc wich wont have more then 4fighter in each
Alfa = Leader and his wingman and sub leader and his wingman is 3 (L + W + SL).
Squad leader ALFA BRavo and gamma 4 leader is passive
Flight controle handles 3 squads.
That's how a fighter hiarcy would lool like.

Capital ship Thus a captain deals with 3 to 5 officers who handle spefic task.

Your interface would be tad more then 3 officers on the bridge .

If flag ship you have a captain to handle the ship wenn you as admiral handle your fleet.

Interface would like this.

Imperor <interfaces with > Supreme commander, Science leader, industrie, etc.
Supreme commander -> Admirals
Admirals -Battle groups
Battlegroup comander -> capitalships.
Captain - brigde officers
Bridge officers - > Subtask officers
Subtask officers - Specialist.
Specialist who do the work

The bigger the ship and crew the deeper the hiarchy.

On a carrier one of its officers is flight commander.
Wich has flight controler and fighter/bomber squad leaders under controlle.

Altho there are levels in the hiarchy leaders can bypass one level.

The game up till now I just run into a wall of one capital. Wich is what I barely can handle. In a effective way.
A fleet forget it.

I got the impression they do a fresh start.
Fighter part they have lot of experience with.
Capitalship.
Well if you want to use your fleet
The must work out capital ship play and fleet combat.
They have no experience with that. Because the ships where in but the gameplay unfinished cripple and by the absent of good interface

So I piloted my Split M7 not act like a captain

So there choice to do something makes sense, altho I am not sure where they going to with it.

[Tolmos]

X3 games do feel very unfinished and unfocused.

I try not to look at em like that. I look at mods as being an integral part of the game design.

Its like: Egosoft gave us the graphics engine and core engine for everything, then let the modders put in the advanced stuff. I like it because it allows Egosoft to put the most time and effort into basic functionality and graphics, but still allowing us to have the ability in game to do neat things (with the added bonus that the modders are more likely to listen to feedback from users than a company is =D).

Tbh, if X:Rebirth doesn't allow capital ship docking, it's not like I'm going to lose my faith in Egosoft and run off crying. X3:TC's graphics are still top of the line, the gameplay is only improving with time as more mods complete... I already wasn't expecting another X game, so if X:R turns out to head off in a completely different path, forgoing X3's trademark pilot anything/do anything/empire build status, that is perfectly fine. I can see myself still playing X3:TC 10 years from now and be happy as can be.

The market of gaming is slowly moving from slow, strategic and complex games to slightly more dumbed down versions of what we love, that appeal to everyone. These more simplistic games generally have their own appeal (take Supreme Commander vs Supreme Commander 2. Everyone rags SupCom 2 for being crappy... I just look at it as a different game. Looking at it like that, it's actually pretty fun for what it does- a simple fast paced little RTS), and it is an appeal that the mass market seems to love. If X:Rebirth heads down that path, then it's fine with me. If that is the case, I will still <3 egosoft and still <3 X3:TC, just won't get into X:R.

[nap_rz]

IMO the problem with capital ships & fleet combat on current X games is more at the fundamental nature of the combat system than the stupidity of the AI and the lack of proper user interface...

these big ships are still using victorian age style of naval warfare than modern 21st century naval warfare, much less resembles a futuristic space age warfare one

in today naval warfare, we should expect battleships launching cruise missiles and torpedoes from tens or hundreds of miles away, cannons are considerably obsolete and only used as the last resort; same with carriers, they would have launched fighters & bombers from far away.

since we aren't on space warfare age yet, we do not know how will space warfare fought... however it's logical to say that it won't be back to ancient way of short distance battles with capital ships engage each others below 10 km distance

so IMO capital ships weapons should have much stronger, faster and longer reach; also IMO the game should put more emphasis on electronic warfare like those found on modern military vehicles simulators... I mean space ships on that age must have multiple sensors musn't they?

improve those aspect first and then we will have a better space combat

[eldyranx3]

We should expect battleships launching cruise missiles and torpedoes from tens or hundreds of miles away

Maybe Battleships carry torpedoes in your universe, but it's quite a different story here.

[Gothsheep]

We should expect battleships launching cruise missiles and torpedoes from tens or hundreds of miles away

Maybe Battleships carry torpedoes in your universe, but it's quite a different story here.

A large missile fired from a hundred miles away is going to be shot down by point-defense lasers a dozen miles from its target.

[pmenso57]

Whenever I promote the X games to others, one of the "selling points" that I always use is that, unlike games like Freelancer, you can own hundreds of ships of all different types and unlike RTS games, you can fly all of them.

I don't want an RTS. I want what X already has but with better fleet control (etc.) which may include RTS elements. I don't really care whether it is more "realistic" or whether I can be "on" the ship. If I can't fly it, I consider it a huge step backward into the realm of other games I currently don't play in favor of playing X.

Despite whatever valid or invalid reasoning behind the change, I was excited about X:R. Now I'm not.

[A5PECT]

Whenever I promote the X games to others, one of the "selling points" that I always use is that, unlike games like Freelancer, you can own hundreds of ships of all different types and unlike RTS games, you can fly all of them.

"Yeah, you can fly any ship in the game. Even those battleships."

"Wow, I guess that's really different from flying a fighter, huh?"

"Not really. All of the flight mechanics and controls are the same. Capital ships are just slower, and much less maneuverable."

"Oh. Well you at least get to use bigger guns, right?"

"No. You don't control any guns while you're flying. The computer fires all of the turrets for you."

"..."

[jlehtone]

I don't want an RTS. I want what X already has but with better fleet control (etc.) which may include RTS elements. I don't really care whether it is more "realistic" or whether I can be "on" the ship. If I can't fly it, I consider it a huge step backward into the realm of other games I currently don't play in favor of playing X.

Yes, many user factions have we.

• RTS. Be in the middle of the battle, see everything, and command the fleet from safety. Safety can be either armoured command and control center of a ship, or camera position outside of any ship.
• Heck with that. Fly the brute.
• It was a mistake to let the player into the Capitals in the first place.
• ...

PS. IMO "Assign crew to position" is just syntactic sugar and is no different from "Run turret command 'Attack all friendlies^H^Henemies' ".