Translation for German Q&A - 5 year old thread dredged up - ignore

[mr.WHO]

Hey guys, can you note here english translation for any interesting Q&A from presentation that wasn't mentioned in English part?

[LunaMoonbringer]

I've gathered the responses to various questions in the twitch chat that I could find. If you asked any questions that got answered, please post them, or PM them to me and I'll add them. Also, let me know if anything here is incorrect, or if I misinterpreted anything!

Modding Support

* Ship modding is supported, although obviously somewhat more difficult than X3 due to the additional requirements (interior, higher quality standards)

* "all the meshes are moddable, it's just that doing so is quite tricky"

* Scripting is still in XML, but somehow different from X3, as per a response to Jourbarbe.

* Steam Workshop will be supported for adding mods.

Ships

* Final count: "giving a final number now would be silly and almost certainly turn out to be wrong"

* Sizes: they can't give specifics, but "some [ships] are quite big", in reference to the Aran and Valhalla.

* Limited Modularity: no swapping around rooms, but you can customize engines, weapons, etc.

* Every ship will be flyable. Period.

* Docking computer exists

* SETA will be making its return

* Ship Variants won't exist in the form of Mercury, Mercury Super Freighter, Mercury Tanker..., "but there may be some variations"

Stations

* Regarding collecting items on stations, CBJ doesn't know if it's been removed, "but I didn't see it recently"

Universe

* Will there be pirate sectors and ships? "Not Sure".

* No Boron due to limitations of life underwater.

* No infinite procedurally generated systems

* Number of sectors at launch: "we're not answering that as we'd like people to get a chance to explore"

* "quoting Bernd on the topic of Kha'ak: 'We will see'"

Multiplayer

* Devs seem to be markedly ignoring most questions about this, I wouldn't make any assumptions that it's possible though.

* They have acknowledged their refusal to answer the question, with a

Engine

* Completely new engine, vulkan-based. Same as XRVR.

* Only limitations on ship count in battles should be performance.

* "too early to give details" on target hardware.

* Game is mostly C++ with a bit of python.

* There is no special creation-kit-like editor used that they could release to the public as a modding tool.

* "there is no Dev Editor as such - the universe (planets/backgrounds, nebulae...) is built in 3DS Max with some plugins of ours, but there is no way we can hand out trimmed versions of that tool. It's professional 3d modelling software"

* VR would be released as a separate game client.


Development

* Release Date 2018, no further details.

* There will be a closed alpha/beta

* No comment on demo/benchmark release

* "Weeping Angel" bug: an animation that worked as long as you didn't look at it.

* Bernd is most proud of Modular Stations, can only speak for himself.

* "EGO_CBJ: as an engine programmer, the things I'm proud of are mostly buried deeply in the code and not really obvious to the player "

[Alan Phipps]

A very good and useful effort but Egosoft are compiling a very similar Q&A listing based on all livestream/Twitch, Reddit and forum sources that should be released to the public in due course anyway.

[LunaMoonbringer]

Alright! I'll be glad to delete this post when that goes up, but until then it might be a useful resource for the impatient.

[Falcrack]

No need to delete it! It will be buried of it's own accord at some later date.

[vahadar]

Just poped here to say this twitch is really really awsome. I have to admit i am still playing Albion Prelude, but not X-Rebirth, never really was into it. When i saw "you can fly every ship in the game" my smile was going from one ear to the other

Would love pirate ships, even if they are underdogs in combat stats, they looked great in X3. Add a bit of "roleplaying" dimension feeling you controll a fleet of pirates stuff.

Hope this will be great, as all previous titles were (including X-R) after polishing.

[LTerSlash]

CBJ said a clear "NO" about MP in the chat... they got that question asked like every 2 minutes in the chat, is clear to me what people want, but that still not enoght.

personally i just want coop with no need for competetive PVP gameplay, MP balancing or more than one player ententy, but well, its a no

[cataclaw]

Early Access is a thing they are discussing.

[BigBANGtheory]

Q: Can the multiple objects be selected in the new map e.g. a group of ships to order or attack?
A: Yes

Q: Can you fight in first person as your character?
A: No

[Krushwarok]

I found this handy Q&A XCON wiki page and it's being updated fairly frequently.

https://www.egosoft.com:8444/confluence ... +questions

[rulerofallcheese]

* Every ship will be flyable. Period.

Umm... um maybe not xenon ships though. In XR you couldn't fly these even if you captured them, presumably for similar reasons why the Boron ships are not flyable (no ship interiors for humans).

[Falcrack]

* Every ship will be flyable. Period.

Umm... um maybe not xenon ships though. In XR you couldn't fly these even if you captured them, presumably for similar reasons why the Boron ships are not flyable (no ship interiors for humans).

I thought the lore said that all Xenon ships did have life support and controls on the inside. A relic from their early programming to make their ships have this as a feature, which persists to the present despite their overall hostility to all life.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

In X Rebirth, Xenon Fighters have the same models as X3, and could give up during a fight. The player could then claim them by sending a Pilot to them. Basically the same as in earlier games.

However, Xenon capitals in X Rebirth are entirely different models, looking more organic than like functional tombstones. Unlike other capital ships, those of the Xenon could not be boarded and therefore could not be acquired by the player.

From that it seems to me that new Xenon designs have managed to evolve beyond wasting resources on an unnessiary weakness of maintaining human faccilities. I guess the same ideas would feature in X4.

[Xenon_Slayer]

* Game is mostly C++ with a bit of python."

That statement's not correct. When it comes to the engine, it's C++. Scripting is done with our own system, with the scripts in XML and UI is written in lua.

[lostProfitssssArrgh]

"there is no Dev Editor as such - the universe (planets/backgrounds, nebulae...) is built in 3DS Max with some plugins of ours, but there is no way we can hand out trimmed versions of that tool. It's professional 3d modelling software"

There are a few cross-platform file formats available in commercial 3d suites and Blender (Alembic, fbx...). Blender has really matured btw, if you need to save some cash on licensing. And if you're going for open-source on the rendering engine front (vulkan), openEXR is a really nice image format.

(fyi: switched from 3ds to maya 14 years ago, never looked back. ymmv).

As is stands, it's really up to you to make it easier for the modding community - or not. The tools can't be blamed at this point.