Unpopular Opinion: I miss hacking

[sd_jasper]

I might be in the minority on this, but I kinda liked the hacking in X:Rebirth. I thought it could use some improvements as it was a bit simplistic and repetitive, but I just loved finding a capital ship on its own that I could hack to be dead in space, then perform a low risk boarding. In fact this was probably what I spent the most time doing in X:R. It was even possible to hack enemy faction ships, if you were carful to avoid detection.

I haven't really tried to use emp bombs for anything other than getting station blueprints. Do they function as the replacement for hacking?

[Tomonor]

This feature was kind of recycled with the data leak feature, yes. Also, you were only urged to hack a ship if you had a trojan drone onboard. Otherwise shooting the modules ended with the same results.

[Axeface]

Doubt its unpopular at all. I definately miss Rebirths drones and the risk factor of its minigames. Ive said in the past that I miss having to actually do something to hack stuff and hope that the mechanic gets added back but changed to be a better minigame - really dont like that all we have to do is press a button and thats it. There should be risk involved.

Reintroduce minigames - risk vs reward please.

[Buzz2005]

I might be in the minority on this, but I kinda liked the hacking in X:Rebirth. I thought it could use some improvements as it was a bit simplistic and repetitive, but I just loved finding a capital ship on its own that I could hack to be dead in space, then perform a low risk boarding. In fact this was probably what I spent the most time doing in X:R. It was even possible to hack enemy faction ships, if you were carful to avoid detection.

I haven't really tried to use emp bombs for anything other than getting station blueprints. Do they function as the replacement for hacking?

I loved that in rebirth, especially if you fail the fast escape

[Buzz2005]

Doubt its unpopular at all. I definately miss Rebirths drones and the risk factor of its minigames. Ive said in the past that I miss having to actually do something to hack stuff and hope that the mechanic gets added back but changed to be a better minigame - really dont like that all we have to do is press a button and thats it. There should be risk involved.

Reintroduce minigames - risk vs reward please.

wooooooaaaa hold on.... I would not go there

[Marco Nero]

Mini games are so boring...leave them to Rebirth

[mr.WHO]

My god, I have Vietnam style flasback where I hear Yisha voice telling me to hack random things during boarding.

Please make it stop, make it stooooooooppp......

[sd_jasper]

I want to make clear, I'm not talking about the hacking DURING a boarding where you would have to hack a single "node", but hacking as ship BEFORE, where you would get a bunch of nodes and have to hack 90% of them and leave the ship disabled. This would allow you to then attempt a boarding and the ships couldn't jump/boost/attack you (w/o mods you still were forced to attack the engines and jump drive first). With the turrets down your boarding pods were safe, and if you didn't have to disabled all the surface elements during the boarding, you could get a ship in halfway decent shape.

In X4 you could use the bombs launcher and bomb surface elements, but to be honest I haven't tried this to see how effective it is. The wiki claims that the EMP bomb disrupts surface elements, but I've only every used them to get data breaches.

[tomchk]

I agree with your general point, at the very least. There was infinitely more risk and *far* more atmosphere in how they did such things in X:R. All the X:R haters that still own it should really give it a shot now that it's stable and complete. If it were released the way it is now, our fan community would be a *lot* bigger, I'm quite certain.

[ubuntufreakdragon]

hacking was not the unpopular feature, the minigame was it.

[tomchk]

hacking was not the unpopular feature, the minigame was it.

How about a different mini-game, like a mini Sudoku or something? I think we need something more than just a button-push.

[ubuntufreakdragon]

no minigame at all!!!
just make the masstrafic police the minigame.

[tomchk]

no minigame at all!!!
just make the masstrafic police the minigame.

That sounds okay to me, I suppose. Maybe they could add some police NPCs that patrol hackable consoles on stations?

[ubuntufreakdragon]

or a hack might randomly cause some interference that makes the police visit the spot

[tomchk]

or a hack might randomly cause some interference that makes the police visit the spot

That would also work. If you then get "caught" (the NPC gets within a certain distance of you), you are instantly fined successively higher amounts and lose successively more reputation with the station owner faction. This sounds pretty doable without needing more assets, etc.

[Jaswolf]

I miss all the XRebirth's manned/unmanned drones:

-The hacking drone as you already pointed out. (I guess you already know, but just in case: you can hack station's storage and make them empty all their cargos into space)
-The shield recharger that helps you in tight situation (like during a pre-boarding assault)
-The shield screener, when launched in group creates a fixed shielding screen which you could use to snipe stuff while being relatively out of harm
-The specialised scanner that helps you to pinpoint the last part of a station to be scanned
-The Novadrone, massive manned torpedo that you guides until the last moment to make that freaking chirurgical strike.
-And my favorite one, the sabotage specialist that allows you to put explosive charges anywhere you want and detonate all of them at safe distance (or not, kamikaze style )