X Rebirth - The good, the bad and the ugly in bitesize chunks!

[Zetoss]

Because of the lack of solid information, opinions developing into conflicts, fear leading to anger leading to hate and so on and so forth I have decided to list as much info as possible right here in a format that is easily accessible and easy to understand. I will attempt to edit and update this as new info may be released or if anything is missing or incorrect. Any constructive input is welcome, pointless bumping is not and fighting will just make me very very sad, ok? This thread is meant to stop confusion and pointless fighting.
Updates listed at bottom!

Every part will be covered (informatively but briefly) in this order:
1. How it works/what it is. (Hard facts, read the stickies and watch the interview. I will not bother to give specific URLs because if you were really interested and not a lazy **** you would already know all of this!)
2. What's good about it. (Forum input, Egosoft's visions, my thoughts.)
3. What's bad about it. (Forum input.)
4. Why it will be this way. (Mostly my own input, you should really be able to figure most of it out on your own but I'm saving you the trouble of thinking and having common sense and any insight in computers.)

[index]
The player ship
Drones
NPCs
Capital ships
Stations
Fast travel
Steam
Recent changes to this post


The player ship
[ external image ]
> This ship judging by screenshots and info will be our new home, it is at least about 10m wide and 20m long when all available info is added up, it will be fast and maneuverable. It will eventually have the ability to launch drones and work a little bit like a small mobile headquarters for you and a few NPCs you pick up as you go.
> The upsides we know so far are that this ship will have loads of detail, an interesting part in the story of the game, be very customizable and have a co-pilot that can take over when you have something more interesting to do than sit on your ass in the cockpit. Finally a few words from Bernd himself: "You can influence what this ship is and how it develops."
> The most agreed on downside is the inability to change ship, another common complaint is the visual design of the ship as several forum members would refer to it as a bit ugly or other colorful words.
> Why we get stuck with this ship is LIKELY because of the following reason that you should have figured out if you didn't have your head up where the moons don't orbit: The team behind the game is incredibly small, when faced with this challenge they were forced to choose between making inferior interiors and/or poor functionality for a hundred ships or make one single ship with a great interior and superfunctions. Egosoft takes pride in giving players choice but this is likely not possible right now and will haveto wait for either patches or future X games using this brand new engine. No amount of begging is likely to change this in any way at all.

Drones
[ external image ]
> There will be several types of drones for us to use for a variety of tasks, we have heard of such things as torpedo drones and stealth drones with high speed among others. The drones used by YOU can be controlled by remote as if you were actually inside them by use of VR goggles in your ship, you can also simply instruct them via some sort of quick and easy compass menu instead and they will work autonomously. Some stations will have drones too, for instance collectors that gather asteroid fragments for processing, further info is limited at this time.
> Upsides: These drones bring a whole new level of tactics into the gameplay, they can reach places no ship will ever be able to go, do things that no ship could and they are expendable so you don't personally die if one of them is destroyed. A severely overlooked aspect of drones is that they give you a whole new sense of perspective, at a distance it does't matter if a station or ship is tiny or the size of a small moon, you need perspective to experience size. Skimming along the surface of a station in a drone will finally let you feel just how immensely big these things are.
> Downsides: Some call them unnecessary and would rather have more multi purpose ships, there is also a complaint that they are very "expendable" and such can be viewed as either negative or positive thing depending on what penalty you think should be suitable for losing the drone.
> Probable motive: As stated above the drones will finally bring perspective into the game, this has been an enormous flaw in previous games. (Buy yourself a Mammoth in X3TC and look at it from 3km in a Discoverer, it will look small and boring. Try docking with it and you finally feel how insanely huge it actually is and how much detail it has as you get close.) Other than that is all the things the drones actually do, they provide a lot of interesting gameplay opportunities and exploration.

NPCs
> We have little info other than the fact that we can meet them in the game and they replace the menu system we have had so far. They can be ordered to mostly think for themselves or to follow precise instructions to the letter.
> Positive aspects: They will likely bring a lot more immersion into the game, imagine hearing one of your captains suddenly hailing you with something like "Sir! We are surrounded by enemy fighters and our shields are going down fast, what should we do!?" instead of the monotone onboard computer repeating "One of your ships is under attack". They will also likely be a lot more intuitie than the menu systems of previous X games.
> Negative aspects: Some players prefer machines to do their dirty work, depending on the dialog choices (hopefully we will never again haveto hear "you are talking to the automated interaction system, make your request") an NPC will either work more or less efficiently than a menu, it is hard to know at this point.
> Reasons: As Egosoft have stated themselves, the NPCs will make it easier than ever to get into the game and focus on actually playing rather than having to read a manual for a couple hours first. They seem to claim the new system will still have the depth of the previous models.

Capital ships
> So far we know that they will be a lot more customizable than what we have seen in the past, exactly how this works would be mostly guessing at this point but we do know there will be up to hundreds of more or less exposed details on them such as hardpoints for placing turrets or shields for instance. Damaging a single system can cripple a ship in specific ways such as making it unable to move or use a jumpdrive. The ships will not be possible to pilot (NPCs will instead do this at your command) but you will be able to land on them and take a relaxing walk on the deck, watching the stars around you.
> Upsides: The subsystems bring a heck of a lot more tactics into play, if you are smart and skilled enough you may be able to defeat near impossible odds. The ability to walk around on top of the ship can put you on first row in a battle, again the scale of what is going on will be about a million times more dramatic than ever.
> Common complaint: The inability to directly pilot the ship is a huge downer for some players, "capitals are slow and boring to pilot" is not a valid enough argument for some.
> Probable reasons: Very likely the above minus some players not being deterred by the "slow and boring" part of capitals. As stated with the player ship even if "pilotability" could be added we would haveto either suffer bad interiors and details or wait another couple years for the game, neither is a good alternative at this point.

Stations
[ external image ]
> Let me quote this: "Every module of a station is built by welder ships. Transporters bring the needed resources for building and only once the resources are there, can the welding begin. You can see how your new station is created literally wall by wall." On top of this once the basic station is finished it can be customized in ways we could only imagine before.
> The yay: We finally get something worth actually looking at, stations can have literally several hundred components that actually DO stuff that both look mighty nice and add to the gameplay. Have a station that gets attacked often? Smack a few badass turrets on it and bye bye enemies.
> The nay: Concern about possible FPS impact, gameplay videos show only small parts of a station making it hard to estimate how taxing a large structure would be to render.
> Motivation: It looks pretty?

Fast travel
> Allow me to use a few quotes that describe this system.
"Local highways accelerate all ships by a very high multiplier (different from place to place though) and bring ships with the same destination much closer together. You can leave a local highway at any time and explore the areas between zones. Although a highway boosts your speed permanently as long as you are inside it, you can still influence your speed by skillful steering. This makes it fun to travel as fast as possible, but also possible to intercept other ships or even attack them in the middle of a highway. Local highways can be entered not just at their endpoints, but also anywhere in the middle." (If anyone starts talking about Freelancer again I'm gonna smack you!) Some people have asked if we can see where we are going in super highways, the following citation should make it clear once and for all: "Super highways are even faster than local highways and bridge interplanetary distances. Again you can influence your speed and interact with other ships but you can not leave a super highway in the middle." and a screenshot of the SUPER highway for good measure:
[ external image ]
> Good: Another citation that makes it pretty clear: "Thanks to the highway system we can finally have realistic proportions. What was known as sectors in the old universe, was always supposed to be entire solar systems."
> Bad: Some people do not approve of the name (What's wrong with you anyway? Are your lives so uninteresting that you need to complain about the most trivial of inconveniences?) and some do not approve of the graphic element of having "tubes" all over the place.
> Reasons: The SETA we have all abused for countless hours to get from point A to point B should make it painfully clear why this system is a step in the right direction, even Bernd himself has called the SETA "a dirty hack".

Steam
Might be required to play the game, ALL bitching and moaning should be done at http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=308264

That's all for now, before you comment just please think once or twice extra before posting to make sure you cover all that you want to say in one go, flooding the thread will not help. You are as always free to point out good and bad things, if I missed anything just tell me and I will try to add it asap.

Edits so far...
- Skid pointed out that I was a bit unclear with opinion vs. fact, should be fixed now, thanks! Sorry but I see no point in linking a sticky because of the reason I've added up there: If people would read them this thread would not exist, it is meant to shut up lazy bastards that bitch and whine without proper cause.
- perkint made me aware of the "too little penalty for losing drones" type thing, I must have missed it so it's good you brought it to my attention! I have changed the info a bit to make it clear what is fact and what is educated guesswork or opinion, we DO know about the player ship being fast and maneuverable, I even had to copy the word "maneuverable" from the info about the ship because I could not for the life of me spell it.
- apricotslice & Gazz: I'm sorry, I did not know it was possible to change background at all. Still, the color is there to make it easy for the people that come here only read half a sentence and start whining because of something they don't even know anything about, it is not so much for you fine getlemen who obviously are seasoned enough to have other color schemes and as such are surely already well informed. Might change it if several others also complain about it tho. For now you can press Ctrl+A to mark all text, should light up like christmas and be super easy to read.
- Black Gryphon pointed out the possible FPS impact of the station animations, a slightly unnervingly valid concern...

[Skid]

Just a small criticism, with the way you've written your post you've made no clear distinctions between the facts that have already been proved by Egosoft and the consensus or views of the forum members or yourself. Since the thread looks like a collection of things we know about the game, people who skim read might take everything you've put as fact.

It might be an idea to split the points into Things we know, speculation / opinions, complete unknowns.

Also link to the sticky threads, since those threads ARE the facts that we do know about the game.

[perkint]

You make a few assumptions on the playership - we assume it will be fast and manoeuvrable but don't know for sure. We know it can be customised during the plot but do not know how much choice you will have over what ways you change it or if it is at all customisable outside the plot. It may have a fixed upgrade path that cannot be changed once done.

Don't know how much use it'll be, but if you haven't seen it it may be worth checking out my "what we know about X-Rebirth" thread. I've not had chance to update it since the new forum was introduced but it contains summary details and links to the source of all info released prior to this forum (which didn't really give much more, just better put together!).

Anyway - if I can help with anything constructive I will. I still intend to update my thread, just that October is turning into a month with very little free time for me

Tim

[perkint]

Oh - one real criticism of drones is that it removes an element of risk from combat - you cannot die if you are only there through VR. A few people have complained about that.

Tim

[apricotslice]

Colour change please. On a green backgound (which I use), its almost unreadable.

[Gazz]

Same on a white background.
Bright colours bad hmmkay.

[stabile007]

Good helpful post thank you

[Walkop]

we assume it will be fast and manoeuvrable but don't know for sure

Actually, we do know this with 100% certainty if Bernd is to be believed

Expanding the ship

It is a fast and maneuverable ship and can be expanded. Weapons systems, engines, shields, but most importantly: Drones.

[imperium3]

Who thinks the Skunk looks ugly? I like the look of that ship. It's not quite as sleek as the old Hades or Yokohama, but it has character

[Ulfarus]

Who thinks the Skunk looks ugly? I like the look of that ship. It's not quite as sleek as the old Hades or Yokohama, but it has character

Sorry but it is butt ugly.

It just doesn't compare to the sleek designs of the hyperion, nemesis sentinel, excalibur, ventri, heavy dragon, drake, ocelot, centaur sentinel, vali, tenshi, need I go on.

[perkint]

we assume it will be fast and manoeuvrable but don't know for sure

Actually, we do know this with 100% certainty if Bernd is to be believed

Expanding the ship

It is a fast and maneuverable ship and can be expanded. Weapons systems, engines, shields, but most importantly: Drones.

Tim

[Falcrack]

Who thinks the Skunk looks ugly? I like the look of that ship. It's not quite as sleek as the old Hades or Yokohama, but it has character

My wife took a look at it and declared it to be ugly. I am inclined to agree with her.

[A5PECT]

Who thinks the Skunk looks ugly? I like the look of that ship. It's not quite as sleek as the old Hades or Yokohama, but it has character

My wife took a look at it and declared it to be ugly. I am inclined to agree with her.

Well I like it.

Arguing about the aesthetics themselves isn't going to change anything because whether or not the ship looks appealing is entirely dependent on user's opinion (unless I get "design student" all up in here and someone else joins me).

I'd say the more pressing matter is that if the player doesn't find the PoA attractive, there should be some kind of alternative.

One obvious solution is for the ship to change appearance when upgraded. I think this makes a lot of sense, since it gives the player something to work towards during the game and would symbolize their progression. However the appeal of the ship still falls upon the opinion of the player.

Another idea is that Egosoft releases custom starts for the game with patches (I'm thinking of the X3R 2.0 and X3TC 3.0 updates), that put the player in a completely different ship. Although this wouldn't address the lack of switching between ships during gameplay, it would give players choice in what they fly. It would be fantastic if third-party modders can do this themselves, as well.

A final, perhaps more long-term plan is for Egosoft to incorporate ship-switching back into the series. I'm guessing this will come in the sequel, or an expansion if we're lucky, or immediately modded back in if we're really lucky.

[grbaker]

Good post.

On the single upgradable player ship .. it was done in Dark Star One.. and the limited upgrade paths there became very boring very fast. I hope X-R doesn't suffer from this.

In X3 if I got bored with a Split Mamba I would just cap the next ship I hadn't tried yet and give it a burn for a few days... great fun.

[Falcrack]

I really hope the player upgradable ship isn't too reminiscent of the ship in Darkstar One. Part of the appeal of the X games to me is the fact that the ship I am flying is is not some uber ship, but it is in fact the exact same ship I can see other pilots flying around.

[Bill Bones]

Just point out that Egosoft had a chance to make a detailed "control module" that could be attached to every ship larger than a M4 if that was the issue of "quantity vs quality of interiors".

Noes. They go for a single ship because this is exactly what they think that will appeal to players.

And that fails miserably with me. I never gave a damm of the original X game when it was released. I read "X-Shuttle..." and dismissed the game as useless "one playership" crap. It was X3R's variety what drew me into the series.

[Zetoss]

@ Bill Bones, I'd say you make a valid point there, it is entirely possible to make a universal control module that will fit in anything above a certain size... However, it does not make any sense and is likely going to seem a bit ridiculous to say the least when every new ship you enter looks exactly the same on the inside, if they are all the same why even change ship apart from the exterior that you will not even be looking at much? One of the biggest complaints up until XR has been the lack of a cockpit, now we will finally get one and not just the cockpit so I'm pretty happy about it. Both the programming and the modelling are likely very hard for these guys to get right as everything is new to them so the first interior might have already taken them months if not even years of work, however I suspect that once the engine is stable and familiar and they feel at home in the new environment they will start making new interiors faster and faster, this is pretty common (look at how fast even very big packs of DLC can be created once a dev has the engine figured out) so I wouldn't worry too much about it at the very beginning. I even remember when I first got into 3d modelling, it took me a good while to make anything that looked even remotely good, nowadays I can create things ten times as pretty in half the time.

I really don't think they believe for a second that we will like getting stuck in one ship, I just think it's the way it has to be for now while they work on the rest to give us the best possible experience. Patience is a virtue, right?

(edit: spelling)

[Black Gryphon]

Stations... > The nay: Have not noticed any complaints here so far?

With the increase in station animation, when will it start effecting the FPS? After one station, 4, 50?

[mkloepper]

If those animations are implemented well - and I have no doubt that Egosoft will do this very well - than an increasing amount of stations shouldn't effect FPS.
Most probably those animations will only play if you can see the animated part of the station and if you are nera enough to see the animation.
Given the fact of the new size the stations have I doubt that you will be able to put more than two animated stations in your view at once

[Skid]

I bet I could fit more then two in my view at once