"X:R will be newbie friendly"

[Nanook]

First of all, I disagree with the idea of a CnC ship. I don't want to have to be in one of those just to tell my trading fleet what to do. That's just silly, IMO. Remember, this is NOT a fleet simulator.

The solution to all this, it seems to me, is to allow the player top level control of all of his ships without them being in the player's squad. Any ships assigned to a top level ship, call it the 'flagship' of that fleet, would no longer be under direct player control, until removed from that fleet. The AI fleet commander would then direct it's ships in a suitable fashion to carry out the player's general orders.

We essentially have most of this already. We just don't have the ability to command those top level ships without putting them in our squad. I think with this rather simple change (partially done already for trading ships) we'd solve most of the current issues with ship control. We could have as few or as many fleets as we wish, and we'd avoid having the super micromanagement headaches of direct control over every player-owned ship in the game.

[pref]

@Roger:
There is just one built-in squad in the game, which is a wing from X3 with follow player command set as default for every ship that has no other command. Ships assigned to eachother for escort/defence is not a squad (not even the game calls it as such, nor is the function the same).

Anyway, who on earth want their only wing on constant follow? That should be a command that the player issues whenever they want, and should only last until the next command.

And the squad requirement for issuing orders is not independent from the squad mechanic obviously. As one is required for the other.

I think its clear that ES had some pretty funny design concepts at release. Some of these are being obviously grown out as they are finishing/expanding the game. The whole squad system belongs to this category imo - it was 'acceptable' while there were no ship commands at all, but now that they added some it really just hinders the gameplay and unnecessarily complicates things.

We just don't have the ability to command those top level ships without putting them in our squad. I think with this rather simple change (partially done already for trading ships) we'd solve most of the current issues with ship control.

Right, that would make things bearable already. But with this change the squad wouldn't really be used any more, which shows that it's not really filling any purpose.
Though there still needs to be a way to tell AI whether you want them to escort the leader, or execute the same command as the leader.

[Nanook]

...

We just don't have the ability to command those top level ships without putting them in our squad. I think with this rather simple change (partially done already for trading ships) we'd solve most of the current issues with ship control.

Right, that would make things bearable already. But with this change the squad wouldn't really be used any more, which shows that it's not really filling any purpose.

This is really just semantics. The 'squad' is your 'fleet', so to speak. But it can have many different categories of ships, doing many different things. An independent fleet would be single-purposed depending on the commands you give to its 'flagship'.

Though there still needs to be a way to tell AI whether you want them to escort the leader, or execute the same command as the leader.

I disagree. Perhaps initially, but once you assign a ship to a fleet, it should be up to the AI of that fleet to control that ship. From what I've observed so far, the AI seems to do a fair job of dealing with assets. And IMO, the player shouldn't have more control over his/her ships than the AI does. It's only fair.

[pref]

A bunch of ships that just auto-follow you is entirely different from a fleet imo.

I still remember several situations from X3 where fleets did drive me crazy, and a broadcast for the wing was much more effective. I'd expect the same problems in XR.
So i'd love to see both fleets and wings in the game. Esp wings as they sound easier to implement, and still would help a lot.

[Nanook]

A bunch of ships that just auto-follow you is entirely different from a fleet imo....

Oh, don't misunderstand me. I too think the squad behaviour needs to be 'adjusted'. Having a freighter automatically follow you into a battle after it's finished a trade run is just stupid. I haven't gotten far enough into the game to know whether the squad would be a useful mechanic if/when the player is given control of non-squad fleets. But it does appear that Egosoft's attempt to simplify the game in this way was a miss, not a hit, for the most part.

[blackWindow]

Agree, Nanook, ability to give orders to ships that are not in squad would make a big difference and it's a small change, so shouldn't be hard to do it, but idk, I'm not a modder.

Quick question, I don't want to make separate topic for it...

I hacked a station, it dropped containers, but I can't get into cargo collect mode. Yisha says I don't have a ship capable of doing that, even tho there my titurel 5km away filled with cargolifter, surface miner, scoop collector and construction drones. Also in my squad. What's the deal?

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Quick question, I don't want to make separate topic for it...

I hacked a station, it dropped containers, but I can't get into cargo collect mode. Yisha says I don't have a ship capable of doing that, even tho there my titurel 5km away filled with cargolifter, surface miner, scoop collector and construction drones. Also in my squad. What's the deal?

Check that the Titurel does not have any orders such as waiting, providing it is on standby (and follows you if you move to another zone) it should be available for mining and cargo collection.

If you are not sure check with the captain that "Follow me again" is not in their order list, if it is then you will need to ensure it is following you.

You may need to remove it from your squad and add it again if you have encountered one of the hanging orders bugs.

[blackWindow]

Quick question, I don't want to make separate topic for it...

I hacked a station, it dropped containers, but I can't get into cargo collect mode. Yisha says I don't have a ship capable of doing that, even tho there my titurel 5km away filled with cargolifter, surface miner, scoop collector and construction drones. Also in my squad. What's the deal?

Check that the Titurel does not have any orders such as waiting, providing it is on standby (and follows you if you move to another zone) it should be available for mining and cargo collection.

If you are not sure check with the captain that "Follow me again" is not in their order list, if it is then you will need to ensure it is following you.

You may need to remove it from your squad and add it again if you have encountered one of the hanging orders bugs.

Thanks, that works! I wouldn't think of this myself in a year

[Nanook]

...
Quick question, I don't want to make separate topic for it...

I hacked a station, it dropped containers, but I can't get into cargo collect mode. Yisha says I don't have a ship capable of doing that, even tho there my titurel 5km away filled with cargolifter, surface miner, scoop collector and construction drones. Also in my squad. What's the deal?

I recently had this exact problem. Turns out for me it was a drone issue. I had 3 of 6 interceptor drones listed as in use, even though they weren't (maybe left behind after a jump, IDK). Anyway, I solved it by sending my Titurel to a shipyard and selling and rebuying all my drones. After that, no more problems (so far, knock on wood ). But just to be sure, I've stopped giving it any combat drones, since they tend to get deployed by the defense officer and left behind.

[Slashman]

First of all, I disagree with the idea of a CnC ship. I don't want to have to be in one of those just to tell my trading fleet what to do. That's just silly, IMO. Remember, this is NOT a fleet simulator.

It wouldn't be used to command trading vessels. It would be for military assets. I'm also not sure what you mean about this not being a fleet simulator. You give people fleets to command and you need to simulate the command and control over those fleets in an intuitive way to the player.

The solution to all this, it seems to me, is to allow the player top level control of all of his ships without them being in the player's squad. Any ships assigned to a top level ship, call it the 'flagship' of that fleet, would no longer be under direct player control, until removed from that fleet. The AI fleet commander would then direct it's ships in a suitable fashion to carry out the player's general orders.

This still requires a very decent capability from the AI. 'Suitable fashion' can mean a lot of different things from one situation to the next.

[pref]

I only have about 20 ships, so im not that deep into it, but i really cannot say that i used the squad as it was originally intended more then a couple of times.
Maybe when ill start to attack sectors, and don't care about collateral - but still then i'd rather park them at weapon range from stations and use them as turrets/missile boats, if fly to skunk can be used that way. That would take care of los/FF issues (those drive me insane).

It's pretty rare that the auto-follow feature is what i need. I'd rather send them someplace with an order that results in a predictable behaviour, while i follow/lead them - making sure all goes as planned, adjusting commands if needed.
Also as i cannot sit in the high DPS/Hull ships the 'follow me' is a bit funny.
I mean the skunk is usually the weakest ship around

[Alan Phipps]

@ Nanook's reply on drone issues: ... and that issue and workaround just shows how badly we need a working, searchable and dynamic hints & tips database for 'How do I do ..' and 'Why can't I do ..' that is quite apart from the impenetrable tangle of the gameplay and Tech Sp forums.

[Nanook]

First of all, I disagree with the idea of a CnC ship. I don't want to have to be in one of those just to tell my trading fleet what to do. That's just silly, IMO. Remember, this is NOT a fleet simulator.

It wouldn't be used to command trading vessels. It would be for military assets. I'm also not sure what you mean about this not being a fleet simulator. You give people fleets to command and you need to simulate the command and control over those fleets in an intuitive way to the player....

No, the game allows the player the ability to create 'fleets'. That's far different from being a 'fleet simulator'. It's just the same as calling it a 'trade simulator', which it also is not. Or maybe a 'pirate simulator'. It's singly not one of the above, but a combination of all. Recognizing that, you can't expect the devs or the game to be very comprehensive in any of those areas.

In these kinds of games, simple commands is all you're probably going to get before the game bogs down with way too many options. For it to be called a fleet simulator, the game would have to concentrate on the fleet aspect and downplay all the rest. IMO, if you want to turn it into such a game, that's what modding is for.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

@Roger:
There is just one built-in squad in the game, which is a wing from X3 with follow player command set as default for every ship that has no other command. Ships assigned to eachother for escort/defence is not a squad (not even the game calls it as such, nor is the function the same).

There is one player squad which is not the same thing but I think Nanook and others have covered the point well enough.

[Agent Fortytwo]

Ok I'm completely new to the x universe. I have been trying hard to figure out is this worth getting into. I have zero experience with the earlier versions.

After reading for about 2 weeks I still really don't know what to make of this game. There are clearly those who truly enjoy it and other who seem to derive an almost spiritual degree of pleasure from pointing out how awful elements of the game are.

Is there someplace in this forum that outlines how the games could be played or have been played successfully? Not really interested in right or wrong, just what is actually possible and attainable with a month of practice and asking the right questions.

If you were walking into the game today and had to judge the state of the game from this point forward, what would you think? Is it worth the space on a hard drive? Can it be fun/ is it fun?

Thanks.
42

[pref]

If you were walking into the game today and had to judge the state of the game from this point forward, what would you think? Is it worth the space on a hard drive? Can it be fun/ is it fun?

Thanks.
42

i like 42!

If your biggest concern is hdd space, then i'd say get it. You can at least pull off of it a couple 10 hours of fun imo.
Problem perhaps that it starts to build up towards something really nice, but fails before getting there due to lack of content/mechanics. Mods can help many of these issues, and ES will add more content so it will get better.
Also there are some possibly frustrating problems with the interface. Depends on your tolerance for these things as well.

Some of us here got a bit spoiled by X3, hence the noise.

[NZ-Wanderer]

Is there someplace in this forum that outlines how the games could be played or have been played successfully? Not really interested in right or wrong, just what is actually possible and attainable with a month of practice and asking the right questions.

Easiest way to answer that would be to say: Jump in and start your own thread asking this question
I am sure you will find people will come into your thread and give their opinions.

If you were walking into the game today and had to judge the state of the game from this point forward, what would you think? Is it worth the space on a hard drive? Can it be fun/ is it fun?

Personally, I would say yes it is worth the HDD space. And also yes, I am having a lot of fun playing X rebirth (I do use a lot of mods to make my game more fun, but that's just the way I play.)
I have never done the plot (one day I might give it a go) but I am more into just having fun building, exploring etc etc.
Cause I am the sort of person who wants his own zones to build in I use the Transcend/Lost Colony Mod which gives me brand new zones with no-one else building in it so I can basically do as I please. - And if you use the "Gamestart - Empire" of Transcend you get several ships, two stations and lots of money to start with, making the game a lot easier to play, rather than jumping into the game with next to nothing. (For a newbie starting out I would suggest starting with this, once you get used to the game you can always go back to one of the other game starts)

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

...

Hi 42 and welcome to the community,

Depends on your expectations to be honest, having no prior experience of the previous titles will probably help not stifle your enjoyment of this game.

If you played and enjoyed Microsoft Freelancer then you will probably find X-Rebirth at least better than that.

[Agent Fortytwo]

I see. So the unrest stems from unavailable elements preventing the player from executing their grand vision or master stratagem without….technical difficulties. Does anyone have a painless play style thread? Most of the ones I have read slide into deep technical gameplay discussions I don’t quite understand.

From what I have seen the game is rather beautiful(visually). I have not been in a space anything for years. The last one I really liked was Homeworld 2. Sins made me sad.

X looked really cool because it seems you can build up from a tiny point in space to a fleet of financial might on your own terms. No rush, no Eve style angry people running around, a take your time and think and plan your pathway game….with dogfights.

Thanks for the assistance. I will give it more thought.

Perhaps I will solicit strategies in the form of a painless play style thread.

[BigBANGtheory]

From what I have seen the game is rather beautiful(visually). I have not been in a space anything for years. The last one I really liked was Homeworld 2. Sins made me sad.

X looked really cool because it seems you can build up from a tiny point in space to a fleet of financial might on your own terms. No rush, no Eve style angry people running around, a take your time and think and plan your pathway game….with dogfights.

Which you can do, where the problems start to creep in is having built your financial base and fleet of ships you then realise that the UI isn't there to help you with commanding your assets. It tries to get by with basic commands driven by menus which are slow to use and frustrating in their scope.

You may recall how easy it was in HW2 or Sins to quickly select a group of units and order them to a position... that is exactly what you can't do in XR at this time.

If you want a painless play style focus on yourself and your ship, stay well clear of trying to build a fleet as things stand.