TonganJedi wrote: ↑Sun, 27. Jan 19, 01:01
1. Fix the bugs
Until these get squashed, I see no reason to add more content (and potentially more bugs).
2. Improve the AI
Between the behavior of boarding pods and the exploration command, there's a lot of room for improvement here. There's no point in having player-owned shipyards if small ships can't be managed effectively, let alone large fleets. Trying to get a subordinate fighter to land on my frigate can be comical at times.
3. Fix the economy
I need to break this down a bit. I feel this is the core of the X games. If we wanted to focus on space combat, we could just play Elite: Dangerous. We're here for something more.
3a. System Economies
We need end-user resource consumption for the economy as a whole or none of this works. Planets benefit from ore and gas, right? Tie the trading posts to the local system economy and use them as a resource sink. The larger the population, the higher the demand for consumer goods. (Which means we need different consumer goods to trade!) Fluctuate demand of certain goods. Maybe there's a pandemic in a system and medicines are worth more during the outbreak. Certain luxury goods could be in high demand due to an upcoming cultural festival. Certain missions could unlock illicit contacts on trading stations where you can move illegal goods. And why do wares have hard minimum and maximum price caps? Shouldn't station owners determine what their caps are? What if I want to put the other energy suppliers in a sector out of business by subsidizing my dirt-cheap energy cells with mission credits and mining profits? What if I want to offer discounts on bulk purchases. So much could be improved here.
3b. Supply, demand, and risk
Right now, I can send a couple of ships to mine nividium and make a fortune without doing much of anything but waiting. If it's so easy to obtain, why it is worth so much? Where's the risk? Where's the scarcity? Why is silicon worth more than ore if they are both in abundance? None of this makes any economic sense. And where's the motivation to smuggle illegal goods? What are the consequences? Where's the risk/reward? I piss off a single police fighter for a short time before they forget it ever happened?? What sense does that make? All of this needs a complete rework.
3c. Operating costs
Why are stations free to operate? There should be maintenance and labor costs. If you want to run a station, you should expect to manage its economy. Is everything automated? You still need to pay for repairs. Do people work there? You need housing, food, and wages. If station owners (player and AI) can't make a profit or at least break even, those stations should cease to operate. Then we have demand for new stations and demand for resources. Players could even purchase a defunct station and try to make it profitable. What about ships and crews? Shouldn't they require wages? If a full service crew improves efficiency, that should come at a price (and not just an initial "I buy you forever" slave price). If you're serious about X4 being an economic simulator, then let's get serious about how production systems work.
4. Optimize code
If there are lags from operating one ship, how is this game going to behave when their are dozens?? My buddy told me his computer can run Elite: Dangerous just fine but when he tried X4, it struggled. He refunded it. He'll try again when things run smoother. This should be high on the improvement list--long before you introduce MORE content.
5. Ship Overhauls
The lack of variety in ships, weapons, and equipment is staggering compared to X3. We probably don't need it to be that extreme, but more choice would be appreciated. Also, if you can shove any weapon or engine onto any ship, you lose the uniqueness of the ships themselves. They just become a measure of how many weapon hardpoints they have and those with fewer will get ignored. Seems like a waste of work designing those models. Compatibility would go a long way in making ship purchases a meaningful decision. Maybe I want those fast travel engines, but they don't work on that heavy fighter with the six weapon hardpoints. Right now, it doesn't matter. Retool all of this.
6. Station scanning
What is the point of this and why is a full station scan so cumbersome to obtain?? Why are successful section scans so arbitrary? Not sure why this system even exists. Did it come from Rebirth? (Never played.)
7. Walking around
This is a complete waste of time. If you like being able to walk around because it "immerses" you into the universe, your immersion is immediately ruined by vast stations that are mostly empty. The ones that do have the occasional personnel floating around are plagued by the the disjointed behavior of these models. It's all unnecessary. Please allow us to interact with all facets of a station from our cockpits so we don't have to waste time traveling to offices that look the same regardless of faction and talking to faction reps sitting at their office desks with helmets on. That's not immersion worth bothering with.
8. Sector size
I see no point in bragging about how much larger these sectors are compared to previous games if there's nothing to them. It's just empty space. Unless there's a reason to explore this space, what's the point? Either make that extra space meaningful or get rid of it. How much would removing it improve game performance?