Split from "Why have you guys traded metal for plastic?" thread

[Midnightknight]

I won't repeat what radcapricorn said but i'm mostly on the same opinion than his.

People ask to remember the X3's at their launch, and this is biased too. TC is a standalone addon or Reunion, so TC should be compared with the upcoming DLC i guess. Alright.
The fact is i played Reunion almost at launch, i was looking for a space sim and not knowing Ego or anything i chose to get a cracked version. (Yes sorry but that's a good way to test games). And i was really really mixed with this game. It showed a lot of potential but was so hard to get inside that i stopped for a month before playing again. I think it was with the first patch introducing the Yatch. This time i enjoyed the game a lot and when TC was released i bought it eyes closed cause i knew it would be a nice game. Did the same with AP.

Why do i say that? Because i have quite a fresh memory of how was X3:R and if never finished the main plot that wa sa bit tedious, i loved most of the game and i can compare pretty well to X4.

Here sorry but X4 is a reused of many things in X:R, where Reunion had to craft all from 0 almost, we are 2.5 now, it's a long run since launch day already and the game is still empty like outer galaxy space. No plots, only 3 races, most ships are copy/pastes, missions are repetitive like hell and quite buggy. Lot of really tedious mechanics. Path finding ridiculous, collisions working when they want, impossible to manage fleets and marines correctly. I will stop here. More than 6 months after the release day i don't think we have a single aspect of the game that is working correctly, i'm sorry but X3:Reunion was fully functional and enjoyable at this date.

Finally i could be fine with "emptiness", they lack time, it's a lot of work to have a game work, i'm programmer myself and i have been game developer for many years in the past, what i really do not accept is the choices they could make sometime that are just pure non-sense to me and a hard slap in the face of their players. And that's the only thing that makes me seriously regret to have bought this version. (Hell i did even bought X:R on steam when there was a discount to support Ego after they announced X4, how stupid i was.)

Let's talk of an example, to me it's really the worst, to illustrate. The save games ... In X3 and previous game the save format was in binary, and config files were in text but formatted in a simple but efficient way, now they chose to go for XML.
Why? Because XML is fashionable? Because they were lazy, took a parser on the internet to do the work instead of them? I don't know, but what is sure is that there is no most inefficient way to store datas than in XML, and even a student in 1rst year of university know this. This coupled to the fact they want to save everything, almost like a memory dump would, and that many of those datas are stupidly useless, like to know which part of a station have been scanned or not, and you end up with save games of more than 300mb for a game where you still do not have a real a fleet and no more than 3 stations.
Oh fear not, we will compress it! They thought, that's right it may help ... When it's done right. And here they dig a bit deeper in the mess cause they would simply have used a dedicated thread that save the uncompressed file on memory, or on the drive and then while continuing to play, the dedicated thread compress and delete the old file, it would have worked fine, but no. They could have used a zip library that accept multi threading to shorten the time, but no. They made it even worst than not compress anything. In the end i turned off the compression cause i was about to simply stop playing cause of this.

In the above example they did not do something wrong, they do the whole thing the worst possible of all the options they had, and this is really what i can't understand, cause there are absolutely no justification in this except being "Lazy" or "not caring" for their work. And it pains me to say that, but except if they change their mind, X4 will never reach even 10% of the greatness X3 had, and no matter how long you give them.

Ego a great company that sin by excess pride and might die from it, sadly.

[Buzz2005]

I had to wait to load every sector in x3, and now its a game breaking soul crushing problem that it takes long to save

not everyone feels this way

[Midnightknight]

I had to wait to load every sector in x3, and now its a game breaking soul crushing problem that it takes long to save

not everyone feels this way

In X3 you had more than 150 sectors to play in, it was an old game that did not took advantage of multi core computer, cause back when X3:reunion was released multi core CPU weren't used for any else than servers, it was a 32bit app that couldn't use more than 4Gb of memory.
Here X4 only have 50 sectors and i can't even open chrome in back ground while playing without having windows warning me i'm using too much memory and that it will shut down X4 that takes up to 12gb of memory on my 16gb system.

What are you talking about? At all? I played X3 to just check what you said and no waiting on a SSD (at least on an unmodded game). So if you compare old tech on old computer VS new tech on new computer to make your point, it's not really fair. By the way, i'm waiting to see how the game will behave with more sectors, when the splits and borons will be added again, and how save games and memory use will rocket jump with this new load to manage, cause yeah, if you did not realized, there are only (less than) 1/3 of the sectors you could play in X3:TC here.

[Buzz2005]

well ofcourse on ssd is fine, didnt have it back then, just like now I dont have some future super fast ram memory whatever or cpu with 6.0GHZ so that it runs without a hitch

what I would like to say is that all this reasons are just bugs and stuff that can and hopefully will be fixed, not something set in stone

[Midnightknight]

Yes!! You are right and this is the point of my post.

This is not set in stone. (But no that's not bugs, it's faulty design, XML didn't jumped in their savegame code by error, they wanted it).
It can be changed and while like i said, X4 is under X3 on every aspect, is buggy and poorly finished it do not have to stay like this. What i'm pointing at is that actually Egosoft is not looking to solve those. And that's actually what pains me a lot.
Like i said i'm game dev my self and there are tons of issues that could be solved in only a few minutes, but we are in 2.5 now and still not solved. How is this simply possible? That's the problem, i don't know if their team changed and remaining people don't know anything from X:R engine and should learn all from it again, if they want moders to solve those issues for them or i don't know what the hell they expect but to me that is what makes me loose faith pretty fast in this game and i seriously doubt it will be playable a day. I'm pretty sure we will have some sort of add on standalone like TC to have a new game without the bad review and make money again when the game will start to be playable, at this point.

[Buzz2005]

so its time thats your problem, all of this will take time maybe not xml saving but bugs and content for sure

[CBJ]

I've split this from the Why have you guys traded metal for plastic? thread because it has very little to do with the original discussion. Feel free to carry on with this topic, but not in that thread.

While I'm here, Midnightknight, you say that you are a game developer but a number of your statements are just plain wrong. A complex game like this cannot use a "memory dump" as a savegame format, and there are many other reasons why the XML-based savegame format was chosen. I have neither the time nor the inclination to go over those reasons again, and I very much doubt that you would change your opinion even if I did. However, your insinuation that this, among other things, was done out of laziness or incompetence is not welcome; personal insults directed towards developers will be treated the same as personal insults towards any other person in this forum, so I suggest you change your tone.

[Midnightknight]

Midnightknight, you say that you are a game developer but a number of your statements are just plain wrong

Well if this isn't a personal attack then i'm as good at speaking english than a developer.


I'd personally love to know why use a structural language like XML for something related to storage efficiency. Really. Using XML for interface like WPF in C# is fine, using it to interface with a website on the internet like did XHTML was fine too if you had to, but speaking of internet, the very creator of XHTML said himself using it for websites (were memory weight and storage size is important) if you don't require it to be interfaced with XML parser was a non sense and a waste.

So you speak of personal attacks, right i might have been a bit harsh (ans i'm sorry for that), but to my opinion claiming you know better than the whole world how something you did not created, mislead from it's original purpose, should be used, is a bit of an insult too?
I must say i was a bit provoking people to have a reaction (Not the one expected thought) cause i think i know why you (they?) used XML, because it's simpler, because it's used by everyone so don't we do it too? Because you have lots of parsers out there and because when you are hunting bugs in a save game it's easier to read in XML. Am i right? I'm sorry but that's exactly the "lazy" i was speaking about. (I can understand you may be lazy, there are days i don't want to work cause i want to do something else, and i love my work. But that's how humans are. But not on something as critical to my point of view)

So here is a simple example:

<factions>
<faction id="khaak">
<relations locked="1">
<relation faction="xenon" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="player" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="alliance" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="antigone" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="argon" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="civilian" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="criminal" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="hatikvah" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="holyorder" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="ministry" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="paranid" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="scaleplate" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="smuggler" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="teladi" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="visitor" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="visitor001" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="visitor002" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="visitor003" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="visitor004" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="visitor005" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="visitor006" relation="-1"/>
<relation faction="visitor007" relation="-1"/>
</relations>
<signals>
<response signal="policehalt" response="attack"/>
</signals>
</faction>

This is how you store relations in the save, here for Kha'ak and i cut a lot of "visitorxxx" lines cause there was more than a hundred in my game ...
I think every one see the issue here, if you reused the way X3 stored it's data in config files for example, if you did not wanted to go all binary, we would have ended with that.



<factions>
id=khaak
relations_locked=1
xenon=-1
alliance=-1
antigone=-1
argon=-1
civilian=-1
criminal=-1
hatikvah=-1
holyorder=-1
ministry=-1
paranid=-1
scaleplate=-1
smuggler=-1
teladi=-1
visitor=-1
visitor001 =-1
visitor002 =-1
visitor003 =-1
visitor004 =-1
visitor005 =-1
visitor006 =-1
visitor007 =-1
<signals>
<response>
policehalt=attack


It would work exactly the same for a parser and the size for the 1rst one is 1173 bytes, while for the second one it's 370 ... No joking. This means a save game of 300mbytes would be cut down to 94mb ...
Why did i said it's a memory dump? Well look at it, i put only 8 visitor reputation here, but i have over 1 hundred in the save game, i'm not really sure it's pertinent to have this level of details set on Kha'ak's relations right? No treatment have been applied to the data being stored here, simply out of memory directly in the file.

I know this may be irritating, you may think i'm a low developer (If i am at all) that don't know what he is speaking about, if you wish, but you can't say something when facts say something else. The whole save game process used in X4 is faulty and shouldn't ever existed. I' should make the game crash and catch the output that is sent out for debugging and compare with the save game by curiosity, and check which one is tinier.

[MegaJohnny]

because it's simpler, because it's used by everyone so don't we do it too? Because you have lots of parsers out there and because when you are hunting bugs in a save game it's easier to read in XML. Am i right? I'm sorry but that's exactly the "lazy" i was speaking about. (I can understand you may be lazy, there are days i don't want to work cause i want to do something else, and i love my work. But that's how humans are. But not on something as critical to my point of view)

This sounds a bit off to me. In software development you never do something from scratch just to avoid being "lazy". Like, the history of software development is the history of more and more layers of reusable components and standards being created, so developers can spend more time on domain-specific logic. If you think Egosoft are lazy for using XML, consider how many games use an off-the-shelf engine like Unity or UE4, or how many web frontends are based on React/Angular/Vue.

[Midnightknight]

I use Unity and UE4, there are no issues in this as long as it is pertinent.

But then will it be pertinent to use UE4 (one i know fairly well) to make a 2D team management application simply because UMG interface (the UI of unreal 4) is simpler than make your own? I think it wouldn't come to mind to anybody. Cause you would end with something heavy, full of useless features for what you want to make and would require gaming computer to run while it should be smooth on office notebooks.

There is a gap between invent again the wheel and be lazy. And as you speak about those two framework, it's fun, cause most of the time, using this kind of tools requires even more focus on keeping all under control to avoid issues, as you can't control every aspect of the framework. So i don't think it's always so easy to reuse something out like you seem to say.

And maybe that's why Ego have so much troubles now, maybe, cause they use a lot of third-parts application, they did not always chose wisely, of for another project (Like a game that was aimed for the Xbox?) and now they can't sort out it right.

[CBJ]

I don't have time for a lengthy explanation, but here's a quick summary of the priorities:

1. Extensibility. Our games are under development for many years, both before and after release. A format which is easily extensible, i.e. does not require frequent version checks to determine whether a particular piece of data is likely to be present in order to maintain savegame compatibility, is a high priority. With the X3 file format (and most binary formats), this was a major headache, and cost time which could have been better spent working on actual game features.
2. Robustness. Another priority is the ability to continue to load savegames even if there are minor problems. Problems could be caused by corruption, game version changes, the presence of mods, or even user editing. Crashing out of the loading process because of unexpected data was another problem with the X3 file format (and, again, most binary formats).
3. Readability. For both us and for modders, being able to read, and even edit, the format (once decompressed) is also very useful. Having the structure visibly correspond to how the data works in-game is a bonus.

Your objections to it seem to focus entirely on the size of the file, and while this is not to be completely ignored, it really isn't as big a factor as you seem to think. When loading, the time spent reading and decompressing the file is trivial when compared to the time taken to construct the game universe and start all the processes needed to make that universe function. The time taken for this latter part is similar whether creating the universe from scratch or loading from a savegame, and the savegame file format has no bearing on it whatsoever. When saving, the file format overhead is even less.

Of course we could have thrown months of developer time into creating a format that could have achieved most of the above, but that would have been time we couldn't spend on other things. In your example above, you chose a particularly non-representative section of the XML to highlight your point; it's a small subset of the data, where spending time making it smaller was simply not a priority. There are some other areas in the data where improvements would definitely be welcome, and when we get time that wouldn't be better spent on something else, we may well look into those.

I'm not under any illusion that reading the above will change your mind, but you can rest assured that the choice of format was deliberate and carefully thought through. You may not agree with it, but claiming that your opinion that it is "faulty" is a fact does not make you right.

[BlackRain]

I don't have time for a lengthy explanation, but here's a quick summary of the priorities:

1. Extensibility. Our games are under development for many years, both before and after release. A format which is easily extensible, i.e. does not require frequent version checks to determine whether a particular piece of data is likely to be present in order to maintain savegame compatibility, is a high priority. With the X3 file format (and most binary formats), this was a major headache, and cost time which could have been better spent working on actual game features.
2. Robustness. Another priority is the ability to continue to load savegames even if there are minor problems. Problems could be caused by corruption, game version changes, the presence of mods, or even user editing. Crashing out of the loading process because of unexpected data was another problem with the X3 file format (and, again, most binary formats).
3. Readability. For both us and for modders, being able to read, and even edit, the format (once decompressed) is also very useful. Having the structure visibly correspond to how the data works in-game is a bonus.

Your objections to it seem to focus entirely on the size of the file, and while this is not to be completely ignored, it really isn't as big a factor as you seem to think. When loading, the time spent reading and decompressing the file is trivial when compared to the time taken to construct the game universe and start all the processes needed to make that universe function. The time taken for this latter part is similar whether creating the universe from scratch or loading from a savegame, and the savegame file format has no bearing on it whatsoever. When saving, the file format overhead is even less.

Of course we could have thrown months of developer time into creating a format that could have achieved most of the above, but that would have been time we couldn't spend on other things. In your example above, you chose a particularly non-representative section of the XML to highlight your point; it's a small subset of the data, where spending time making it smaller was simply not a priority. There are some other areas in the data where improvements would definitely be welcome, and when we get time that wouldn't be better spent on something else, we may well look into those.

I'm not under any illusion that reading the above will change your mind, but you can rest assured that the choice of format was deliberate and carefully thought through. You may not agree with it, but claiming that your opinion that it is "faulty" is a fact does not make you right.

This seems to be a big problem on the forum in general and it isn't just with any particular person but from many that I have noticed. There tends to be many so called self introduced "experts" who think they know better than anyone else how X, Y, and Z should be. They seem to know all the answers and have nothing but criticism towards others for not agreeing with them. Most of the time, their examples and explanations are cherry picked pieces of "evidence". They lack details, can't control their emotional outrage, can only harp on one point whether it is valid or not, and can't handle anyone disagreeing with them. They are completely unreasonable, are incapable of seeing things through any other perspective other than their own, etc. I won't continue with it, you get the point.

[CBJ]

I use Unity and UE4, there are no issues in this as long as it is pertinent.

But then will it be pertinent to use UE4 (one i know fairly well) to make a 2D team management application simply because UMG interface (the UI of unreal 4) is simpler than make your own? I think it wouldn't come to mind to anybody. Cause you would end with something heavy, full of useless features for what you want to make and would require gaming computer to run while it should be smooth on office notebooks.

There is a gap between invent again the wheel and be lazy. And as you speak about those two framework, it's fun, cause most of the time, using this kind of tools requires even more focus on keeping all under control to avoid issues, as you can't control every aspect of the framework. So i don't think it's always so easy to reuse something out like you seem to say.

And maybe that's why Ego have so much troubles now, maybe, cause they use a lot of third-parts application, they did not always chose wisely, of for another project (Like a game that was aimed for the Xbox?) and now they can't sort out it right.

And here is another prime example where your assumptions lead you to incorrect conclusions.

- We do not use a third-party framework for the game as a whole.
- We do use a small number of third-party tools for specific elements of the game, each of which is analysed carefully before we accept it.
- The tools we use were not chosen for another project, nor were they aimed at a console game.

We chose to use XML because it did what we wanted, without creating unnecessary development overhead, not because we are lazy, unwise, incompetent, or unable to "sort out" the tools we are using.

[Midnightknight]

I don't have time for a lengthy explanation, but here's a quick summary of the priorities:

1. Extensibility. Our games are under development for many years, both before and after release. A format which is easily extensible, i.e. does not require frequent version checks to determine whether a particular piece of data is likely to be present in order to maintain savegame compatibility, is a high priority. With the X3 file format (and most binary formats), this was a major headache, and cost time which could have been better spent working on actual game features.
2. Robustness. Another priority is the ability to continue to load savegames even if there are minor problems. Problems could be caused by corruption, game version changes, the presence of mods, or even user editing. Crashing out of the loading process because of unexpected data was another problem with the X3 file format (and, again, most binary formats).
3. Readability. For both us and for modders, being able to read, and even edit, the format (once decompressed) is also very useful. Having the structure visibly correspond to how the data works in-game is a bonus.

Your objections to it seem to focus entirely on the size of the file, and while this is not to be completely ignored, it really isn't as big a factor as you seem to think. When loading, the time spent reading and decompressing the file is trivial when compared to the time taken to construct the game universe and start all the processes needed to make that universe function. The time taken for this latter part is similar whether creating the universe from scratch or loading from a savegame, and the savegame file format has no bearing on it whatsoever. When saving, the file format overhead is even less.

Of course we could have thrown months of developer time into creating a format that could have achieved most of the above, but that would have been time we couldn't spend on other things. In your example above, you chose a particularly non-representative section of the XML to highlight your point; it's a small subset of the data, where spending time making it smaller was simply not a priority. There are some other areas in the data where improvements would definitely be welcome, and when we get time that wouldn't be better spent on something else, we may well look into those.

I'm not under any illusion that reading the above will change your mind, but you can rest assured that the choice of format was deliberate and carefully thought through. You may not agree with it, but claiming that your opinion that it is "faulty" is a fact does not make you right.

Well sorry to tell you that you are wrong, but know why you chose XML actually is very welcome, at least for me, i can't speak for other's players, but for me it's quite important here.

I hear your arguments and yes it makes sense for most of them, even if i see a few flaws here. You say i took a particular chunk to my advantage, in fact i opened the save in notepad++, rolled on the scroll bar and took the chunk i ended on randomly. So no i wasn't mean choosing one that wasn't to you taste. Should i take another one? Or maybe you can chose one and i'll do the same work?

You are right on loading, it's not that important, it's basically why XML is a structural language, it loads fast even if storing it a pain. Cause it's made to be written once and for all and read a lot. So yeah you are right, but that wasn't really the issue with your saves, it's when you write them like i said. It could go fine if you only had to save once every 2 hours, but we all know it's not realistic. Cause of bugs, cause of random death, cause of so many things that could go wrong, player's fault or not, you have to save often. And that's the catch. First it's not multi threaded, your whole game goes unresponsive, and is completely frozen, so you were closing a menu when auto save kicked in, you are thinking the game crashed and are already ready to ctrl+alt+del ... And it takes forever. It's not a priority, fine, you put priority were you want, but at least you can't deny there is a real issue with this and it should be solved. (And in many other aspects in the game, and that are not "bugs")
My issue is more that sometime we feel like you say "Oh it's not important" like everything was fine and do not take it seriously.

This seems to be a big problem on the forum in general and it isn't just with any particular person but from many that I have noticed. There tends to be many so called self introduced "experts" who think they know better than anyone else how X, Y, and Z should be. They seem to know all the answers and have nothing but criticism towards others for not agreeing with them. Most of the time, their examples and explanations are cherry picked pieces of "evidence". They lack details, can't control their emotional outrage, can only harp on one point whether it is valid or not, and can't handle anyone disagreeing with them. They are completely unreasonable, are incapable of seeing things through any other perspective other than their own, etc. I won't continue with it, you get the point.

Or maybe there are people that think everyone else are idiots cause they don't want to see there are problems? I was moderated cause being harsh, how should i qualify your reply?

[spankahontis]

In X3 you had more than 150 sectors to play in, it was an old game that did not took advantage of multi core computer, cause back when X3:reunion was released multi core CPU weren't used for any else than servers, it was a 32bit app that couldn't use more than 4Gb of memory.
Here X4 only have 50 sectors and i can't even open chrome in back ground while playing without having windows warning me i'm using too much memory and that it will shut down X4 that takes up to 12gb of memory on my 16gb system.

What are you talking about? At all? I played X3 to just check what you said and no waiting on a SSD (at least on an unmodded game). So if you compare old tech on old computer VS new tech on new computer to make your point, it's not really fair. By the way, i'm waiting to see how the game will behave with more sectors, when the splits and borons will be added again, and how save games and memory use will rocket jump with this new load to manage, cause yeah, if you did not realized, there are only (less than) 1/3 of the sectors you could play in X3:TC here.

You could argue that X3 added Sectors from X2: the Threat, so they didn't make 150 Sectors off the bat. They built up from previous X Games to make X3 and every standalone that came after Reunion was using X3 and adding to it (So work was half done from the start).
Plus they were just wallpaper with (again) assets they added from X2/X1 with new stuff thrown in. A gradual improvement, not something dynamic.

Also, what X game didn't screw with framerates? when I had X3 it didn't handle well when I made the biggest Station in history, over 200 Stations all connected together, flying near it reduced my frame rate to 5 frames a second and this was in that Xenon Sector near Freedom Reach? 2 Xenon Stations so it wasn't as though I overcrowded the Sector, one super station I made was all it took to make flying there unplayable.
So I've always pushed the boat out on some games to see how far before they crack under the strain and X3 is no different.
Also my PC is mostly 5 years old, (My Graphics Card 1060 2 years old with power source) Apart from that everything else is 5 years old and X4 runs steady for me (the odd exceptions).
I'm not a "60FPS or GTFO?" kind of guy, as long as it's a steady 30+ then i'm happy.

And I follow Buzz that it's a matter of taste. I like X4, there are things about it I hate! But overall, i've never played an X Game that I didn't have critique over.
I loved X:Rebirth and mods for it only made it better.. But again, allot of things it didn't have and certain mechanics I thought were crap.

This seems to be a big problem on the forum in general and it isn't just with any particular person but from many that I have noticed. There tends to be many so called self introduced "experts" who think they know better than anyone else how X, Y, and Z should be.

The term is 'Argument from authority'. And if they were soo good like they say they are? Why aren't they working for Egosoft? Or in Devnet helping to fix the game. That's what bothers me personally about these particular arguments.

[BlackRain]

You were moderated probably because you made a personal attack on someone using offensive language, I don't know though since I didn't see it. My comment wasn't even harsh and please don't read meaning into it, just stating my observations as I see it. I didn't call anyone an idiot. I mean if you think the behavior I described is idiotic, that is your own personal interpretation. I consider it more to be along the lines of foolish, not necessarily idiotic. People do foolish things all the time, especially with the anonymity of the internet. I mean, on the internet, I can be anything I want to be when anonymous. I can claim myself to be an expert on anything and know everything. My issue is that you were basically insulting egosoft's credibility and the way they work, but you know nothing about why they made the decisions they did. You are not privy to their work environment and business decisions but felt the need to berate them on their choices. You then claimed to know better than the very people who made the game, especially CBJ. It is easy to be the one looking in from the outside and pointing fingers, especially when you aren't the one who had to put in the hard work and make the tough decisions.

And by the way, by no means am I saying there are no issues with the game. There are plenty of things to be worked on, so feel free to report the bugs and request the features you like. As for complaining about how they chose to do saving in the game, what is the point? It isn't going to change and I doubt it is something that could change at this point. This just isn't constructive.

[Buzz2005]

Thats the point, I could have wrote a wall. of text back then about having to wait loading for every sector you get into, it would get me nowhere

and to the saving xml thing, I would say it not a big problem for most of the players, hitting F5 here and there and waiting for half a minute is not end off all things problem, and for a guy that dont know anything about programming xml style save is very friendly to edit and see whats what

the game is very stable (at least for me) and you can configure the autosave interval, if it happens in some menu and its not clear still not a big deal, surely not something that would get me to stop playing

if you want something that's a potential big problem right now would be the NPCs building production modules on shipyards, thats screws up enough things to be mad about

[CBJ]

First it's not multi threaded, your whole game goes unresponsive, and is completely frozen, so you were closing a menu when auto save kicked in, you are thinking the game crashed and are already ready to ctrl+alt+del ... And it takes forever. It's not a priority, fine, you put priority were you want, but at least you can't deny there is a real issue with this and it should be solved. (And in many other aspects in the game, and that are not "bugs")
My issue is more that sometime we feel like you say "Oh it's not important" like everything was fine and do not take it seriously.

Yes, the game is "frozen" while you save. If it weren't then the game state would be inconsistent, containing data representing states at different times across the duration of the save process. Using threading to make the game "responsive" during saving would be a terrible idea, and indeed most games avoid this. And yes, the save process takes a little time. Most games only have to save your progress through their "level" system, and the states of a handful objects on your current level; the X series games have to save the state of everything in the game universe (apart from a few things that can be re-created from other data, such as the physics environment). Again, the format of the resulting file is a factor in the time taken to save the game, but it's by no means the biggest factor. Would we like to improve save times? Of course. Would creating a whole new file format and re-engineering everything to use it be an effective use of developer time in trying to achieve this? No, it wouldn't.

[Artean]

and to the saving xml thing, I would say it not a big problem for most of the players

Indeed. To put your energy and complain about the saving system in X4 is just hilarious.

[IRONOX]

Thats the point, I could have wrote a wall. of text back then about having to wait loading for every sector you get into, it would get me nowhere

and to the saving xml thing, I would say it not a big problem for most of the players, hitting F5 here and there and waiting for half a minute is not end off all things problem, and for a guy that dont know anything about programming xml style save is very friendly to edit and see whats what

the game is very stable (at least for me) and you can configure the autosave interval, if it happens in some menu and its not clear still not a big deal, surely not something that would get me to stop playing

if you want something that's a potential big problem right now would be the NPCs building production modules on shipyards, thats screws up enough things to be mad about

My game save for about 5-9 seconds. Which is faster than some of my citys in City:Skylines
And Ego using XML might be based on the fact that they used it since X2(?) for multiple things and so they get proficiend and used to it.

I cant see a damn reason why using XML is a "lazy" or "bad" thing....