X1 - X3 Nostalgia

[Evanu]

As much as there are haters out there I'm really enjoying the X4 game. They have gone out of their way to streamline the game, but that does make me nostalgic for some of the trivial stuff from the older games.

- Random articles. X2 Every station had a message board with random articles that typically had very little to do with gameplay. It made the game much more immersive though. With the incorporation of the walk around stations, I wish they would bring back just random chatter to the stations. The lottery that i NEVER won! Still would play it every time!

- Random station announcements. Did they ever find little Suzy? And remember airlocks are not toys.

- Sector details. X1 - X3 I think all kept details about the various systems. Type of star, type of planet, population, etc. Again trivial information, but made it more interesting to explore.

- News Briefs. They were a little intrusive but were story oriented. What they could do instead... Is incorporate the "War Messages" into news briefs at the various stations. Install monitors... apparently, TV is a lost art in the future ... have short clips play of Xenon vs Argon or whoever the war is about. Wouldn't need to be too many overall clips.

- Better variety! More ships, weapons, and trade goods. On top of that a greater variation in the stats. The customization is great, don't change that at all! But make one race EXCEPTIONAL at shields but suck at hull, or exceptional hull but slow as hell. Its kinda there now... but the variation is so small it's barely noticeable.

- Cockpits. For nostalgia, the view out of the cockpit used to have a greater variety. The walk around cockpits are awesome, especially the Odysseus. I would love to see more cockpits...and ones that are more then 2 paces across!

- Creepy Sectors. I think it was X2? I remember a couple of zones you pop into that were effectively inside a giant Ka'k or Xenox Dyson Sphere.

Trying to think of what else there was from previous games. Most of these are atmosphere/environment so are likely low on the priority list to incorporate

[Scoob]

What I miss from the early X games - last seen in X3 I believe - was the ability to ask for help from stations. If the controlling Race liked you enough, they'd send ships to help you out. That was bloody marvellous early-game when you'd built some rep but still didn't have much in the way of combat assets. I liked how each station had a small complement of Fighters aboard back then. This feature was lost in X3. You could still Comm a station and ask for help, but as they had NO owned and docked fighters they could never respond.

X4 sadly simply isn't as good with ships often being unaware of hostile actions in the sector. Many times I've seen fleets patrolling oblivious while hostiles roam unchallenged. If we had a way, like in X2, to contact these Patrols and say "Erm, guys, CRIME being committed here, people are DYING!" and have them respond would be great. If such a patrol then being actively engaged actually alerted reinforcements etc. then the universe would feel MUCH more alive.

I'm not saying prior games had responsive patrols, they simply did not without mods, but being able to ask for help and getting a few fighters launched to assist was great. I completed many a patrol type mission with help back in the day, really felt like a team effort, something missing today.

I'd like to see this working in X4. Most stations have a complement of Drones and they could readily help if they wanted to.

Scoob.

[Evanu]

I've found myself clicking the mega ships in sectors asking for help occasionally! Not that its an option...

[radcapricorn]

But the police will gladly scan you and jump on attacking you while you're nibbling away at that Hive Guard in your Disco

[Sir Warwick]

Bring back slaves - I have quite a few HOP bail - we should be able to collect them and condemn them to eternal servitude down some toxic mine or bind them in chains and have them as slaves on our stations under threat being spaced if they even look at anyone funny

Maybe add a new ultra high capacity slave habitat to our stations to use slave labour to boost productivity.

[phrozen1]

The lack of interaction is also one off the things i miss the most.
Immersion through communication and information.
So much gameplay-potential is unused too.

[Mysterious Mr. M]

Bring back slaves - I have quite a few HOP bail - we should be able to collect them and condemn them to eternal servitude down some toxic mine or bind them in chains and have them as slaves on our stations under threat being spaced if they even look at anyone funny

Maybe add a new ultra high capacity slave habitat to our stations to use slave labour to boost productivity.

X4 kind of has that already: ever noticed you don't pay your station workforce any wages? you only provide them with food to stay alive and "medical" supplies to enhance their work performance.
Admittedly i do miss selling my enemies into slavery.

[radcapricorn]

"medical" supplies to enhance their work performance.

On a tangent, despite her otherwise jarring mispronunciations, I absolutely love the ever so slight sarcasm in Betty's "Pharmaceutical Goods factory".

[Sir Warwick]

Bring back slaves - I have quite a few HOP bail - we should be able to collect them and condemn them to eternal servitude down some toxic mine or bind them in chains and have them as slaves on our stations under threat being spaced if they even look at anyone funny

Maybe add a new ultra high capacity slave habitat to our stations to use slave labour to boost productivity.

X4 kind of has that already: ever noticed you don't pay your station workforce any wages? you only provide them with food to stay alive and "medical" supplies to enhance their work performance.
Admittedly i do miss selling my enemies into slavery.

When I found out I was going to have to build 30 L habitats along with all the supporting production for food and medical supplies for my station I thought sod it and left it as is - normal workers seem to demand too much hence the need for slaves

[Nafensoriel]

Bring back slaves - I have quite a few HOP bail - we should be able to collect them and condemn them to eternal servitude down some toxic mine or bind them in chains and have them as slaves on our stations under threat being spaced if they even look at anyone funny

Maybe add a new ultra high capacity slave habitat to our stations to use slave labour to boost productivity.

X4 kind of has that already: ever noticed you don't pay your station workforce any wages? you only provide them with food to stay alive and "medical" supplies to enhance their work performance.
Admittedly i do miss selling my enemies into slavery.

Just because you don't have direct control doesn't mean they don't get paid. For all you know that's handled by your manager. You don't actually HAVE to build food for workers to do anything. You can just ship it in.

In fact, it actually makes more sense since you are positioned as the CEO. A CEO doesn't pick paycheck sizes for grunts. They DO decide if they want to ship in a good or produce it locally though.

[SPiDER]

As stated elsewhere Betty saying "Mistral Superfreighter" i really think she liked that ship....

[RodentofDoom]

Remember, untended animals will be vaporised.

Never leave your Teladi crew-members untended.

[Mysterious Mr. M]

Speaking of teladi, i miss the days when they wore clothes.... seriously Egosoft when when did the X series turn into a 18+ game with naked aliens running around?

[adeine]

Some things that haven't been mentioned:

- Queen Atreus and the Kingdom of Boron

- Faction personalised station greetings. Sad every time I dock and am greeted by a monosyllabic "Welcome" in X4.

- Ship classifications that make sense and can be parsed immediately from meaningful ship IDs

- A sense of scale from the smallest to largest ships. Even the largest ships in X4 feel small unless you're on a platform, and gone are the days where the larger ships were literally built to just about fit through a gate.

- The variety of equipment, role and faction specific loadout options, especially with some of X3's mods such as XRM. Said equipment being actual wares that could be traded for profit, and having to find them in universe, sometimes on hidden research bases. Satisfying capital ship weaponry, including beams and flak guns.

- Ship upgrades and software providing an actual early game in X2, and to a lesser extent X3. Slowly being able to kit out your first ship and gaining access to more of the game's features (SETA, advanced commands, jump travel, etc.) was such a memorable phase of the game that simultaneously worked as somewhat of a tutorial, and it's just been cut out of the game entirely. As with equipment, chasing down elusive upgrades was a fun aspect of exploration.

- Destructible elements on all ships. I miss being able to survive a combat encounter and limp away in a ship that barely flies with its SETA, shields, weaponry, etc. broken. Since S and M ships in X4 are effectively invulnerable to systems damage this also introduces weird balancing quirks (such as L ships and up being comparatively useless OOC).

- Sector music that plays reliably, and having more than one combat track

[radcapricorn]

Atreus is probably dead by now

[Reactivist]

I didnt really get into XBtf until Xtension came out as you could use other ships, X2 remains my all time greatest X game, I played it for months, went back to it year after year, it seemed to get almost everything right, the most recent save I have on it is 65 days 22 hours played, I did buy all the X3 games but just couldnt get interested in them, I really didnt like the ship design,the lack of cockpits and you no longer landed on stations, you just got magnetised to a twig sticking out of them, it wasnt as immersive, it felt like playing a "lite" version of X2.

Things X2 had I miss a bit in X4 are:

Great and destinctive designs for the races ships, ths split ships a bit like those star destroyers, the Argon ones a bit like babylon 5, the organic looking Boron ones, the Teladi fighters that looked a bit like Cylons, the Osprey was fantastic, some of the X4 ships look ok, hopefully it gets better when we have the other races.

Weapons were more interesting in X2, surely everyone remembers those phased shockwave generators which were grossly overpowered, you had to be really careful where you used them and normally you carried regular weapons and only swapped to PSGs when you were sure no friendly ships or stations were anywhere near.

Ship orders seemed to be more functional, you could order cap ships or the M6 larger fighter types to patrol sectors and they would intercept any Xenon or Khaak no matter how far away there were when appeared.

The Khaak were actually a threat, they hardly seem to exist in X4, Nvidium could only be found in those scary Khaak sectors with cap ships that looked like ticks everywhere, I used to jump a fleet into those sectors with mining ships on carriers, then send those miners out for the Nvidium whilst my fleet fought off those Khaak ships, that used to be great fun, I liked the idea that there was reward for the more risk you took.

The universe was a good size, after skipping X3 more or less, I expected the universe in X4 to be vast, but its really very small, and the amount of tradeable goods seems to be less, also the races seem to have little demand for products made by other races now(teladianium, soja etc), this demand used to be great for choosing the factories you were buildings and where.

I realise now that X4 is a work in progress and will be added to by expansions, it just seems the starter universe is a little too small, I am looking forward to what the game eventually becomes, there are some great ideas in it and Im enjoying it a lot right now

[Général Grievous]

-> All you said

Totally agree with that. i have the same feeling.
I just want to add that in X2 like in X3, there were dangerous paths across the gates. There was a lot of pirates / anarchic mysterious territories. Khaaks and xenons were very dangerous too.
And the music was perfect with sector ambiance. When it was dark and dangerous, the music played well with this sector, etc...

[Evanu]

Weapons were more interesting in X2, surely everyone remembers those phased shockwave generators which were grossly overpowered, you had to be really careful where you used them and normally you carried regular weapons and only swapped to PSGs when you were sure no friendly ships or stations were anywhere near.

Shockwaves....Oh those were fun. Never accidentally try to cap a ship in a shipping lane with that. Manage to tick off a whole system at once! Better equipment variety was awesome though. Resource stuff too...If i remember right there were allot of dead end resources only used to enhance production not purely for making something.

[Red-Spot]

One of the things I can still remember best from previous titles ... how I nearly shat my pants when first entering Presidents End in X2 and every time after that until I had a properly set up Nova and still tailed out of that sector asap.
X3TC made me like how no buildings where placed in PE by the AI, where in AP they did start construction stuff including a trade station .. and I again appreciated it cause it felt like progress.

[Techedge]

Lack of real threats (Xenon are getting better but Khaak...seriously?).
Lack of immersion (background story/encyclopedia).
Lack of variety (unique ship designs, unique weapons, the latter being a -bad IMHO- legacy from X:R).

However I think X4 has the right "foundations" to potentially become the best title in Egosoft history. They are setting (trying to, actually) great bases to modular expansions (vanilla and modded ones) that, given the time, will dramatically increase the actual universe in size and depth. We are still along way from that, but within the first year from the launch (and hopefully with the first DLC) we'll be more confident on the possibility to reach (or not) that goal.

Finally, it is obvious how we are compelling about something from X2 missing and/or something from X3 missing in X4: we have to wait for X5 for that! (X2+X3)