Egosoft@Gamescom | Live@Gamestar | Translated Summary

[Axeface]

But just to reinforce what I'm saying, here's a video of an X-Rebirth mod, where the X3 models work perfectly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m02in8wHask

They wouldn't look bad per se but additional work would be required. In fact, one might need to completely remodel them from scratch while using the original look as a template. This is basically what happened with some of the X4 ships (X-BtF's Falcon, X2's Buzzard, the Pelican is basically a reworked X3 Teladi Falcon, etc).

Worked well in Rebirth yeh (that mod is amazing), but i'de need to see them in X4. The Terran ships are probably the closest of the x3 models to being ready because of their style and their clean textures. Ide like to stand next to that Terran Yokahama docked in X4, i'de be surprised if it looked passable. Other races like the Boron, Argon or ATF would require much more work. The little details and flourishes you see on their ships would have to be totally redone.
And yeh reboots of old designs is good, the buzzard is probably my favourite ship in X4. I would personally prefer big reworks that really define the races design characteristics (and thought put into WHY a race designs in a certain way) rather than trying to hold onto old designs though.

[Chris0132]

Also why the boron would probably be a huge amount of work to make, I really didn't like their ships in X3. I get what they were going for but they just looked like big lumpy space turds unfortunately, the engine just couldn't render the whole organic/biological style properly. The disconnect would be even more glaring given the much higher fidelity of the X4 models.

I think that's why a lot of the races have gone for a more industrial style in X4 with the paranid slapping those big plates of armour over everything. The split designs do look really cool though so I'm excited for what they manage to come up with for subsequent content.

[spankahontis]

Whether you Love or Hate X Rebirth, it did to capital ships very very well.

I was quite surprised when NONE of the excellent X Rebirth Capitals made it into X4 and the ships we did get...well, they'd have made great Frigate-class ships (think M7's in old money lol) but they are NOT in the same league as Rebirth's capitals.

I like X4's Fighters, though I think a clear Scout / Light / Heavy type distinction would be nice - different map icons like X3 and prior for M5/4/3. Corvettes are pretty good as they are while a Frigates only distinction is the ability to dock ships / drones. I'd love to see larger Frigates, but that's where the current Capital ships fit it seems.

The game is crying out for Arawns, Taranis and the Terran Capital ships - they were all awesome. Even the weaker DeVries ships were very well done. It seems a shame for all that excellent design work to not make it into X4.

I also hope that Egosoft have another pass at weapons and shields. Really, what is their obsession with SLOW projectiles and WEAK shields? Every single X game prior to X Rebirth- and I've been here since day one - has been modified by me with faster bullets and better shields, making for infinitely better combat. Period. Rebirth appeared to do things differently and, once hull shields were in (I made a mod for myself to do that initially) the weapons balance felt pretty good.

I'm looking forward to 3.0 and the DLC of course, but I'll likely not be playing it - other than to test perhaps - until Shuulo's excellent VRO mod is updated with its faster and more varied projectiles and shields that actually work. Comparing the pure visual aspect of a vanilla fight and a VRO fight it's a different game and the balance feels pretty much spot on with larger ships feels harder - no more single light fighter whittling away a Capital ships shields...that's just silly lol.

I do of course welcome the extra Sectors, the game needs it I think as it does feel small compared to X3 irrespective of however many cubic km it's technically larger. Plus it's good to see the Split back in force with their own unique ships. I would love it though if Egosoft officially imported and converted many of the great Capital ships from Rebirth. Modders are doing it, so I expect it'd not be a huge effort for the team behind both games to make it official. An injection of a large number of ships would be fantastic - the designs are sat there, waiting

Scoob.

To be honest, i'm pleased, only means the Argon will have more unique ships when the Rebirth Systems do connect to X4's Systems. Which means the other Factions will need new ships to compensate their numbers.
Love to see Plutarch and Albion still fighting in a civil war along with the Republic of Canterra aiding them, with their own ships.

The xr ships aren't coming. Its a weekend to two to port them but the modding community can't because ego won't let us.

X-Rebirth has several mods on the Nexus that have created new ships, I'm sure someone has already ported the Taranis into X4.
Also I can understand how difficult it must be given that X4 changes allot of X:Rebirths Engine, plus the fact that they both have different rendering Engines?

The xr ships aren't coming. Its a weekend to two to port them but the modding community can't because ego won't let us.

LOL what? I see no less than 3 XR ship mods in X4 moding page - there is no Egosoft blocking anything on the modding side.
viewtopic.php?f=181&t=409546
viewtopic.php?f=181&t=418034
viewtopic.php?f=181&t=405414

LOL SNAP!

[spankahontis]

The xr ships aren't coming. Its a weekend to two to port them but the modding community can't because ego won't let us.

LOL what? I see no less than 3 XR ship mods in X4 moding page - there is no Egosoft blocking anything on the modding side.
viewtopic.php?f=181&t=409546
viewtopic.php?f=181&t=418034
viewtopic.php?f=181&t=405414

https://imgur.com/tTmFK98

viewtopic.php?f=181&t=418034

so each of us can only port a few and we have to get approval for each one?

You do know this is easy to get around right? Break them into several different mods and install them on the Nexus.
Even Bethesda has said that People are free to maker massive conversions of previous titles? Just as so long as they aren't profiting from Egosoft's Engine or any other thing under their Trademark.
In the end it's all standard practice so I don't see the fuss. No company wants to see their copyright stolen.

[dholmstr]

I'm lazy and haven't looked up, so I'll just ask here. Was there anything on station spam specifically? In my game ANT and ARG went cuucuu wildhorsecrazy batshit building spree in Hatikva space. I am also hoping for Ego to put some extra time on code optimizing, anything remotly about that? Would make the game work on lesser computers better...like mine

[Cabrelbeuk]

I am globally very excited by the 3.0 and the DLC, except about one point :

- Adds diplomacy: A new mission-based game feature that enables the player to manipulate relations between factions.

If i understand well, there will still be no real diplomatic screen, as if you were managing an actual faction, but it will goes through missions.
I was hoping for something more 4X and less action/adventure style honestly. Reason being it both make diplomacy a bit blurry and more tedious to achieve.

Sounds like extra effort to develop it for a less efficient result.

But maybe i just misunderstood it ?

Sorry to interrupt, but is there more info about diplomacy features in 3.0 ?

[Falcrack]

I'm lazy and haven't looked up, so I'll just ask here. Was there anything on station spam specifically? In my game ANT and ARG went cuucuu wildhorsecrazy batshit building spree in Hatikva space. I am also hoping for Ego to put some extra time on code optimizing, anything remotly about that? Would make the game work on lesser computers better...like mine

They have specifically mentioned fixing station spam for 2.6

[Killjaeden]

...

Except just about every post of yours is nothing but a complaint and how upset you are. I wouldn't be surprised if you're the kind of person that [...]

has a lot of passion for borons and thus created these beauties in his free time,
[ external image ][ external image ][ external image ]
which where sold as part of X3:AP, (and are in Xtended mod for TC)... Thus he directly contributed more to the content of X games and monetary health of Egosoft than the people, that whine about other people being passionate about an X game, combined ...

The X3 models would look very very bad in X4, most dont hold up to close inspection at all. The XR ones are better but even those would require a lot of work for their modeling quality to match that of X4. A modder can add a ship without worrying too much about quality being even across the board, the devs cant. I also love loads of the XR designs, but I dont know if adding them to X4 would be a smart thing to do - havent thought about it much but my gut feeling is they wouldnt 'fit'.

Considering the paranid destroyer/carrier are just X3 paranid ships, that have been inflated by FFD modifier (/ blender equivalent)... and got cube-shaped boolean cutouts to place the big weapons, i'm not sure that X3 ships would look worse when ported. Yes you'd have to adjust the textures for PBR. But as they all used the same multitexture set anyway (apart from the fighters), you would be done with that fairly quickly for each race.

Remodelling a ship/ improving it, is less time consuming than starting all from scratch. Egosoft started 2 times from scratch with ship design, even when they knew that they only have limited resources and time for making ships is long...

[Scoob]

I like X4's Fighters, though I think a clear Scout / Light / Heavy type distinction would be nice - different map icons like X3 and prior for M5/4/3.

Corvettes are pretty good as they are while a Frigates only distinction is the ability to dock ships / drones.

I'd love to see larger Frigates, but that's where the current Capital ships fit it seems.
Scoob.

Sorry, but are you blind? X4 races have exactly such fighter classification:
Scout, (for the lack of better description) Main Battle Fighter, Heavy fighter.

The only anomaly are Teladi having TWO scout for no reason and Argon having Elite (obsolete/old interceptor) and Quasar (which is bizzare stat non-sense comparing to Pulsar/Eclipse)



Regarding X4 frigates - personally I do not reckognize them as actual frigates - both size and capabilites they are more or less X3 Heavy corvettes (M6+).
I agree that the X4 need PROPER frigate (aka small ship in L-size range - less direct firepower and L-turrets, but very condense M-turrets with great coverage - ideal anti-fighter platform).

I didn't say they didn't have such a classification, I said a distinction would be nice via different associated icons as per prior games. Just to make it clear, at a glance, what a ship is - which was so very easy with the old M5/4/3 having a different icon. Sure, I can tell if a ship is likely a scout or whatever by double-checking its stats. I can even sometimes remember what's what. However, to help newer players and me a simple but nice QoL thing for people like me, I'd love it to be obvious just from the Icon what I'm seeing.

I agree re: the Frigates, they are just a "special" Corvette in my eyes, the current X4 "Destroyers" are Frigate size in my view. Carrier are fine - they can hold a lot of ships, so they live up to that role. However, I feel they are light carriers at best, akin to the M7 Frigate light carriers in prior games.

So, fighters are fine, but let's have distinct Icons for them for clarity, not all grouped as "Fighter". Corvettes and Frigates in X4 are just two Corvette variations in my view - only the landing pad makes a Frigate distinct, size and weapon loadout does not. Current Destroyers are what I consider a "Frigate" class, they are light, fairly speedy and can do some damage but can't soak it up - even vs a couple of scouts! Mods (to weapons and shields) can make them feel a lot more potent, but they are still small. I want some giant ships again

As an aside, I personally rename my ships with a prefix for their class, so my own assets are very distinct at a glance... I just wish ship renaming was a case of delete and type from scratch. Argh!

At the end of the day, the Capital ships in X Rebirth impressed me and I miss them. They were some great work by the Egosoft team both in design and combat potency. X4's Capital ships are fine...if they were the class below (M7) and I do like them in that contexts. They're simply not the impressive war machines that X Rebirth brought to the field though. I would LOVE for Egosoft, with a few tweaks of course, to bring their entire catalogue of X Rebirths larger ships into X4. Balor heavy missile Frigates? Yes please. Arawn Carrier that can actually carry fighters in X4 hell yeah, I want that ship. Any of the Terran monster ships....heaven.

Over the years, since I first got X:BtF in 1999, I've rarely even glanced at the prior title again when the new title has come out. The new game replaced the old entirely for me. This was true up until X3 Albion Prelude, which I revisited a number of times after X Rebirth landed and I've done so again since X4. X4 has replaced X Rebirth for me in many many ways, it's a solid game no doubt. X Rebirth just nailed the Capital Class though.

Scoob.

[Karmaticdamage]

I've always hated boron ships and the boron themselves. I'll take the terrans as the next faction over the boron any day. I hated that the commonwealth heavy destroyer in X3 was given to the boron, the megalodon. I much rather have had literally any other faction be given the right. Their ships look like plants. Did any of you honestly fly boron ships in X3 other then the megalodon? I eagerly await the next incarnation of the python, osaka, and tyr. I could'nt care less about a new ray.

[Cabrelbeuk]

I've always hated boron ships and the boron themselves. I'll take the terrans as the next faction over the boron any day. I hated that the commonwealth heavy destroyer in X3 was given to the boron, the megalodon. I much rather have had literally any other faction be given the right. Their ships look like plants. Did any of you honestly fly boron ships in X3 other then the megalodon? I eagerly await the next incarnation of the python, osaka, and tyr. I could'nt care less about a new ray.

Sounds like someone will go full genocide mode as soon as the borons will pop in

[Warnoise]

X3 was way ahead of its time. Same can't be said about X4 however.

[Chris0132]

I seem to remember boron freighers were quite good stat wise, so I probably bought a few and just set them to run factories somewhere I didn't have to look at them lol.

[taztaz502]

I just want them to fix the ship classes, they're so boring right now.

Frigates are just TM type ships from X3 (E.g. Magnetar)

Destroyers are basically just frigates from X3, lacking real missile frigates lets face it we all used to love shooting stuff from across the map with

Rename current frigates to recovery ship or drone carrier or something and rename current destroyers to frigate class.

That way you can add every race a corvette like nemesis (M6), and give every race some real destroyers (M2) and later down the line it would be nice to see some (M2+) Flagships for each race.

Carriers seem fine in terms of scale etc for me, just fix their AI.

[Killjaeden]

I hated that the commonwealth heavy destroyer in X3 was given to the boron, the megalodon. I much rather have had literally any other faction be given the right.

Split also have a "M2+" in AP... though its only usefull in player hands, due to front weapons and few turrets (and imo doesnt look that exciting).
All ship models for AP except the Skunk came out of the community, and there was no quality heavy destroyer for any other commonwealth races, where the modeller could be reached for permission. If there would have been you would have gotten one for all other races as well, most likely.

I dont understand why you wouldnt want Boron in X4, if you hate them so much. Boron where always my preferred enemy number 1 in X3, because i play as Split. Without Borons, i would have no arch enemy and the game would be much less fun.

[Tomonor]

I hated that the commonwealth heavy destroyer in X3 was given to the boron, the megalodon. I much rather have had literally any other faction be given the right.

Split also have a "M2+" in AP... though its only usefull in player hands, due to front weapons and few turrets (and imo doesnt look that exciting).
All ship models for AP except the Skunk came out of the community, and there was no quality heavy destroyer for any other commonwealth races, where the modeller could be reached for permission. If there would have been you would have gotten one for all other races as well, most likely.

I dont understand why you wouldnt want Boron in X4, if you hate them so much. Boron where always my preferred enemy number 1 in X3, because i play as Split. Without Borons, i would have no arch enemy and the game would be much less fun.

I think he dislikes the concept that the heaviest of destroyers were given to a race which is least likely to fight you, lore-wise.

Edit: nvm read his post

[Axeface]

Considering the paranid destroyer/carrier are just X3 paranid ships, that have been inflated by FFD modifier (/ blender equivalent)... and got cube-shaped boolean cutouts to place the big weapons, i'm not sure that X3 ships would look worse when ported. Yes you'd have to adjust the textures for PBR. But as they all used the same multitexture set anyway (apart from the fighters), you would be done with that fairly quickly for each race.

Remodelling a ship/ improving it, is less time consuming than starting all from scratch. Egosoft started 2 times from scratch with ship design, even when they knew that they only have limited resources and time for making ships is long...

I had my suspitions but havent looked at the models directly, do you mean the Atlas and the Zeus? I noticed the boolean cuts on the front of the odysseus. Doing that is definately less work yeh, guess im just one of those people that expects too much. I like it when people reinvent the wheel I certainly wouldnt mind if they brought the Deimos to X4.
And thanks

[Karmaticdamage]

I hated that the commonwealth heavy destroyer in X3 was given to the boron, the megalodon. I much rather have had literally any other faction be given the right.

Split also have a "M2+" in AP... though its only usefull in player hands, due to front weapons and few turrets (and imo doesnt look that exciting).
All ship models for AP except the Skunk came out of the community, and there was no quality heavy destroyer for any other commonwealth races, where the modeller could be reached for permission. If there would have been you would have gotten one for all other races as well, most likely.

I dont understand why you wouldnt want Boron in X4, if you hate them so much. Boron where always my preferred enemy number 1 in X3, because i play as Split. Without Borons, i would have no arch enemy and the game would be much less fun.

I don't care if they are added or not. I'm not against the boron being put in, I just didn't like them in previous games. I'd rather the terrans be in the second expansion.

[Ovni]

I don't care if they are added or not. I'm not against the boron being put in, I just didn't like them in previous games. I'd rather the terrans be in the second expansion.

Or maybe they could have a new alien race, instead of having two human races and recycling the same content since the first X game. I know, gasp!

[Chris0132]

The terran style does look very nice though, and is something that's probably easier to execute than boron ships.