Ask Bernd *One* Question - The New Thread (See all 3 Sets of Q & A's)

[strude]

For those of us without floppy disk drives, will there be any compatability issues with the new features, or is a floppy disk drive required now?

I imagine that a data cassette drive would suffice.

[Kong]

The game also comes with a stunning real life swedish 25 yr old blonde named helga, who will work for you as a drinks bringer and special favour assistant with the mega pack version.

This I will believe when I see her
Coll.Ed. Inflatable Doll DLC more likely.

"Nooooooooo"
Quote Lord Vader 3.0


21st century pansy force
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27RVJJfny4I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tim5nU3DwIE

[Goldfinch]

The game will be any platform compatible, windows, linux, others

Does this include Xbox 360? I was really hoping to play this on my X box 360.

[Zippo342]

The game will be any platform compatible, windows, linux, others

Does this include Xbox 360? I was really hoping to play this on my X box 360.

Sure, but it is recorded on an ordinary DVD disc. You will have to go to great lengths to swap discs and such to get the disc read by your XBox.

[xavierd]

The game will be any platform compatible

Fire up Commodore LIKE A BOSS
Stick in tape LIKE A BOSS
Ready Run Ready LIKE A BOSS
Press play on tape LIKE A BOSS
Flashing colours! LIKE A BOSS
Have a seizure LIKE A BOSS
Half an hour LIKE A BOSS
'Nother seizure LIKE A BOSS
8-Bit Zakharov LIKE A BOSS
Chat up Betty LIKE A BOSS
Awesome Sprites LIKE A BOSS
Beep boop beep LIKE A BOSS
Transfer marines LIKE A BOSS
Forget lifesupport LIKE A BOSS
Try to reload LIKE A BOSS
Didn't change tape LIKE A BOSS
Rebirth tape ruined! LIKE A BOSS
Shift+e, enter LIKE A BOSS
Fly into a sun LIKE A BOSS
Now I'm dead

[InFlamesForEver]

@LV Not sure if serious...

[WhoCares01]

Now this one will be a more elaborate question:
Will there be a realistic component to communication that might even evolve into a strategic component?

Not elaborate enough? Okay, you asked for it:
As has been said in Navigation and universe design, the game adheres to realistic proportions. And in some more details it has been explained its impact on travel and transportation via highways and so on.

However, lets face it, if we are bound by the players ship we will have to rely much more on communication with our drones and NPC controlled stations, ships, squads or fleets to operate our "enterprise".
Back to the proportions, if we rely on traditional=radio communication, we will suffer a 1 second lag in controlling a drone in moon orbit from earth orbit (~300000km distance). If some quick math didn't fail me, it would be >1h to Uranus (~3000 million km).
Rather impractical... So radio communication as we all can fit easily in our satellites, drones, ships and whatever is well suited for local communication, local as in zone and intra-sector communication in New-X-R-Speak (assuming the distance between zones in a sector are indeed "just" hundreds of kilometers - e.g. earth and moon should not be in the same sector). But radios will be of little use for inter-sector/trans-gate communication.

Thanks to the gods of physics and some smart guys working somewhere on Earth in 2011, a Faster-Then-Light way of communication has been detected. Alas, it is a rather unwieldy, impractical, unsafe and totally inappropriate technology to be integrated into any kind of space ship. Nevertheless, over the centuries of development and refinement since its discovery the technology nowadays known as ComCERN, exclusively operated by a monopolist company by the people known as KonCERN (okay, that includes a "germ-ish" word-play"), has found its way into practical operation in the ComCERN Relay Stations (CRS):
[ external image ]
All these relay stations do is receiving radio transmissions, forwarding them via ComCERN to a different CRS, which then broadcasts it via radio transmission to the recipient.
Simple as that, KonCERN has placed these relay stations in all major sectors to ensure optimum coverage of the Super Highway-connected universe.

In the past such CRS have become prime targets of raiding parties as well as in major conflicts between factions or federations, as it cuts the local defenders from faraway central command. As a result, they are primarily placed in well-defended central zones.
Interestingly, KonCERN has always taken a neutral stance in such conflicts, passing communications from attacker and defender equally, as the offender of one CRS might well turn into the defender of the next. As such, KonCERN itself also has only a comperatively small fleet of combat ships but fully relies in the defenses of the "host" for its local CRS.

There are rumours that a prototype of a mobile CRS has been built recently. However, this seems to be rather unlikely due to the complexity of the whole system.
Furthermore, building the static dishes, which have to be paid by the local authorities, seems to be the better business anyway, and as such the KonCERN has little interest in such a mobile system. Especially as there is the trend to a second or even more static CRS in a sector to overcome the thread of losing the control of its forces with the destruction of one. Static CRS can't retreat to safe zones...

--------------------------------------------------------------------
There are some interesting implications with this idea. One of them is that when the Gates are re-activated, the newly connected clusters/sectors will initially not be connected via ComCERN. As such, the active exploration of these new locations will require the players personal presence!
A remote exploration by a drone is still possible, but requires that the drone (or another ship in radio range to it) returns to a ComCERN covered sector to transmit you the results.

Too bad that the answer to the initial question is most likely no, there is no realistic component to the communication, but it was anyway fun to write this little treatise - maybe next time

Edit: Strange, in the preview the image is properly integrated, but it just shows as link in the actual post
And yes, I see that the "dish" is referenced to as PMC U, but I prefer CRS anyway, at least for my little story

[strude]

Go to your profile page and make sure "Images in post" is selected under "Always show these images:". If it's not selected, you will only ever get links instead of pics.

[surferx]

What are the size dimensions of the player ship and how many crew members are there?

[Zippo342]

What are the size dimensions of the player ship and how many crew members are there?

You do know that's cheating right? Well if we get told, that would hopefully put down the complaints that there isn't enough space on the Albion to hold the crew

Follow-up question to Surferx: What are the relative sizes between fighters, cruisers, frigates, and battleships, as well as the average crew amounts for each?

[WhoCares01]

Go to your profile page and make sure "Images in post" is selected under "Always show these images:". If it's not selected, you will only ever get links instead of pics.

Thank you!

And while I am already posting - here another question to Bernd:
Can the player put "podests" and "towers" more or less freely on capital ships and stations?

I am referencing to the "hardpoints for placing turrets or shields" Zetoss references too in his X Rebirth - The good, the bad and the ugly... thread.
So, this is under the assumption that we have indeed the freedom to put turrets (and the "podests" underneath) more or less freely on the ship hull.

The idea behind the questions is quite simple. "Podests" help to place your guns close together but still get good all-around gun coverage without one gun turret blocking the other. A good reference would be the ships of the past, e.g. HMS Nelson
[ external image ]
Of course, I am thinking of the elevated placement of the middle turret. The bad example that must be avoided would be the third.
Advantage of such placements would be a
- a tight grouping, as in the fired "shells" are hitting close together - once the lead and range is defined it gives great effect on a small/precise target (e.g. enemy guns or shield generators)
- easier to protect with a "local" shield generator (if something like that is available)
- easy to suppy with a local energy generator (if that is possible)
- sleek and slender ship designs


A negative would be that the front turret would be blocked from firing backwards, but that might be of little importance if some other ship superstructure is there anyway. In fact, the turrets (and acompanying shields?) might even add to the protection of those structure behind.

The tower goes in the same direction, but probably more suitable for stations:
[ external image ]
Okay, they obviously didn't protect the Death star very well, but who says we have to do the same placement errors as the Empire. * insert Emperor or Darth Vader emoticon*

Along the line of all this I also wonder whether our new turrets also support some negative elevation, but that would be a different (and indeed minor) question.
[ external image ]
Just think of the broadside of the Nelson but being able to fire a bit down as well - of no use for the Nelson but might be invaluable in space.

[Oldman]

Trade, Fight, Build, Think. I'm under the impression these four categories will still be (as in a few of the previous games) present in Rebirth.
Taking one of those categories out for a more in depth view, let's pick 'Build' for example.
We could previously use an asteroid to build a station, Ore mine, Silicon mine etc. Will we have any interaction in this respect using small 'Moons' and asteroids in the systems to build new elements, minerals and various new goods, organic or minerals, previously not seen in X3TC.
Can we 'claim' mining rights to some of these more distant celestial body's..maybe even the 'dust' rings or volatile atmospheres of some of these moons or planets, for example some hydrogen, methane, noble gasses, even perhaps oxygen or some exotic gases and usefull minerals we've never had in previous games.
Okay "warning entering atmosphere" will probably still be in the game. I just thought it might be a little bit more interesting at that point to be able to extend the usefullness of some of these graphically entertaining objects, without actually having to land on them....just 'skim' the surface, for various organic materials and gas to power certain 'factories' or fuel of some kind...built by the 'races' in the universe or possibly some of your own player built ones.
Have you thought about doing this (or something along those lines) in Rebirth? ....I suppose the single question is, to sum it up, are the moons and Gas Giants, planets and 'Suns'. in this new universe going to be a usefull edition, ('Build & 'Trade' good wise) other than a picturesque backdrop for the universe/systems. I understand 'Planets' wouldn't be an object to be able to land on, but there's no mention in the same or similar context for moons (small or Large) or even small to medium/large/ giant gas planets.

Oldman

[Sh0klar]

Question:

Will player logos be back in X:R? I really miss having them on my stations.

[stevecs]

Been away for a while but reading through the sticky info's here and this thread the one question that I would have would be: Is it now a closed universe?


The comments in the info stickies where you have to supply resources for building, and other items appear to be resource specific (i.e. sunlight amount has an effect on production for example), it would imply that it IS?

Just to clarify what I mean here is that there are no 'ware sinks' so items and their quantity available (supply/demand) would directly affect pricing and eventually the ability to build items (ships; stations; whatnot) which would open up the ability to attack production capability as a means to control sections of the universe.

[X-Reider]

How much time will pass from the time of X3TC?

[NLS]

What was the main reason behind pushing the release to 2012?

Really? Lets see... UN-Foreseen bugs, longer than expected development times for a part of it, trying to cram a new feature in. Pick one.

My question: How will you improve wingman/fleet command in X-Rebirth. It was rather clunky and difficult in X3.

Also: Have you fixed the wingman bug where you dock with a station and all your wingmen go on a suicide run right into the side of the station your docking at?

You do know that you ask TWO questions and that your questions are actually way worse than the one you criticize eh?

You are asking (a) if they improved something, when they have said they started from scratch anyway and also that controlling other ships is vital this time around, (b) if they fixed a bug of the current game...

...erm...

[ClearSky]

Will the player be able to customize their underpants?



What? I expect a lot customizability in my games these days!


Now, where did I put those dried frog pills, hmmm?


Icky

[Noahdilweed]

Question:

Will player logos be back in X:R? I really miss having them on my stations.

???! Which game had player logos? i only came in at X3-reunion. That is an AWESOME idea! i would have totally wanted this for myself. make it happen! lol..

[bluenog143]

Will there be a real economy for the races? For example instead of a shipyard just spamming ships, will it need a certain amount of resources and materials (and time) to produce an AI/ Player ship (in which the government has a certain amount of money, depending on how many products that government/company sells). I am describing something very much like this http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... sc&start=0 . This way there is alot more strategy to te game in which by taking out all the SPP's that belong to that race for example, it would seriously mess up production and funding.

[softweir]

???! Which game had player logos?

X2: The Threat, iirc.