Twitch Live Stream on November 14th, 2019

[Gregory]

[Edit] Thanks for watching! Here's the recordning in case you missed it: https://youtu.be/qp3Rzm5K5SA

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On Thursday, November 14th, we will be streaming live on our Twitch channel (https://www.twitch.tv/egosoftofficial) to update you on the current state of development of X4: Foundations, and our plans for X4: Split Vendetta. Bernd Lehahn, founder and Managing Director of EGOSOFT, will be taking part, as will several other team members.

Post your questions about X4: Foundations, X4: Split Vendetta and EGOSOFT here in this thread, so that we can read and answer some of them during the live stream.

[geronimo3]

Good Idea,

i have three questions on the introducion of Split Vendetta
- can you roughly comment how much will the Universe be exteded with X4SV
- did you expect performace degredation with the introducion of X4SV
- will the manual be updated with or after the release of 3.0 and X4SV (lots of functionality in the game is not in the manual)

thx, geronimo

[Kpla Keltak]

Q1. will we be able to man defence stations with marines as well as fighter squadron's.
plan defence strategies and organise standard patrols as well as QRF quick reaction forces if a patrol is attacked.

Q2. will we be able to negotiate with other factions rather than all out war.

Q3. will good relations with certain factions result in bad rep with other factions.

Q4. will we be able to do structured and efficient crew transfers.

Q5. will we be able to send our employees to academy's to increase their skillset.

Q6. Can we have an Import/Export function for Factory designs, so that we don't have to do the same thing all over again just because we started a new game.

Q7. will capping function properly, had so many issues with this hanging and not despatching marines etc.

Q8. Can we have some Hard or impossible game starts.

Q9. will sector owner ship allow the use of our terms of engagement and illegal goods classification.

[ShoC]

My question is when in the logical overview showing the stations products and production is there any plane to have a selection to switch between stations without leaving this view?

It's cumbersome leaving the menu to find a stations to then check that again.

[CBJ]

Q6. Can we have an Import/Export function for Factory designs, so that we don't have to do the same thing all over again just because we started a new game.

You've been able to do that since the game was first released!

[alt3rn1ty]

Q. Will all pathing problems with approaches to stations / gates / structures adjacent to highways eventually be solved.

Biggest immersion breaker for me with this game is when you are onboard a ship being piloted by an NPC, bumping into a structure and then watching as the ship slowly drills through the structure as if we are ghosts capable of passing through solid matter.

Its just awful and really puts me off playing the game.

I recently had a pilot approach the Teladi Trading station in a Nemesis. It lined up to go through the centre of the big hoop, but then collided with the structure of the smaller hoop in the middle.

I know you have done work to try and stop such things happening, but there are still many instances where this occurs.

[Skeeter]

My questions would be

1. If theres a plot/campaign added with 3.0 or the dlc, how big is it and what has been the avg time to get through it in playtesting.
2. If above a no, why not?
3. The game shipped with few weapons and missiles and their effects. Will the new 3.0/dlc add more and update their visuals. I have noticed that some effects have changed, are they final or just updated but not fully updated to latest finals yet.
4. Can their be more content for early game, as in past games it was nice to work hard with only staring on a few credits and building up through trading, with crystal mining easier and maybe other ways i think trading in the early stages would be nicer if there was more incentive somehow.
5. I hope one day you can move paricles from cpu to gpu so the game can be cooler with more lights flashing around during a big fight plus might help the bottleneck from some of the cpu that way perhaps? If it was to happen when may we see that, more early next year or more 2nd dlc release time ish? As i think it is a larger job than usual so thats why i mentioned 2nd dlc time frame too.
6. Can we maybe get more character models variation in ages and gender and voice overs maybe? Maybe for cheap voice overs ask the community for donating their services if good enough? I think the teladi could use more options.
7. What can be encouraged to keep out of the map as main game empire overview and get us back to flying ships. As alot of times and others might have this, i tend to think why fly a ship when i can do alot from the map screen to make money. Odd question i know.
8. Will you be doing anything to make walking around stations any more fun or interesting or usable. Maybe manual loading cargo could be a thing, boring but some might like to do it or hire a npc as a dedicated cargo loader i dunno.
9. Whens x poker coming ingame, im imagining a mini game like "poker at the inventory" game by telltale but with x game characters and playable in x4 somewhere.
10. Will we ever see military looking teladi like we used to see in the video cam in older x games like xbtf at start or x2. I miss those guys.

[tomchk]

They might not want to answer questions already addressed in the recent reddit AMA. For those who haven't seen it, here's a good summary: viewtopic.php?f=146&t=419679

[Ketraar]

Also I would suggest people to contain their expectations and not post long lists of questions expecting them to be all answered.

My suggestion is that you should choose a few interesting ones as those have a much higher chance to be looked at.

MFG

Ketraar

[Kpla Keltak]

Q6. Can we have an Import/Export function for Factory designs, so that we don't have to do the same thing all over again just because we started a new game.

You've been able to do that since the game was first released!

Awesome

how do we do that

[Cdaragorn]

5. I hope one day you can move paricles from cpu to gpu so the game can be cooler with more lights flashing around during a big fight plus might help the bottleneck from some of the cpu that way perhaps? If it was to happen when may we see that, more early next year or more 2nd dlc release time ish? As i think it is a larger job than usual so thats why i mentioned 2nd dlc time frame too.

I've seen this request 2 or 3 times now and it's really bugging me. You need to go read up on why both Vulcan and DirectX12 moved a lot of work from the GPU to the CPU. It's actually a LOT better to have things like particles calculated on the CPU. This also has nothing to do with how the particles look.

The main reasons a CPU would be bottlenecking this game have more to do with the AI in the game then anything to do with graphics. Moving graphics calculations back to the GPU is not going to do much for you and will reduce performance for those who are currently running ok.

[tomchk]

My questions would be

1. If theres a plot/campaign added with 3.0 or the dlc, how big is it and what has been the avg time to get through it in playtesting.
2. If above a no, why not?
3. The game shipped with few weapons and missiles and their effects. Will the new 3.0/dlc add more and update their visuals. I have noticed that some effects have changed, are they final or just updated but not fully updated to latest finals yet.
4. Can their be more content for early game, as in past games it was nice to work hard with only staring on a few credits and building up through trading, with crystal mining easier and maybe other ways i think trading in the early stages would be nicer if there was more incentive somehow.
5. I hope one day you can move paricles from cpu to gpu so the game can be cooler with more lights flashing around during a big fight plus might help the bottleneck from some of the cpu that way perhaps? If it was to happen when may we see that, more early next year or more 2nd dlc release time ish? As i think it is a larger job than usual so thats why i mentioned 2nd dlc time frame too.
6. Can we maybe get more character models variation in ages and gender and voice overs maybe? Maybe for cheap voice overs ask the community for donating their services if good enough? I think the teladi could use more options.
7. What can be encouraged to keep out of the map as main game empire overview and get us back to flying ships. As alot of times and others might have this, i tend to think why fly a ship when i can do alot from the map screen to make money. Odd question i know.
8. Will you be doing anything to make walking around stations any more fun or interesting or usable. Maybe manual loading cargo could be a thing, boring but some might like to do it or hire a npc as a dedicated cargo loader i dunno.
9. Whens x poker coming ingame, im imagining a mini game like "poker at the inventory" game by telltale but with x game characters and playable in x4 somewhere.
10. Will we ever see military looking teladi like we used to see in the video cam in older x games like xbtf at start or x2. I miss those guys.

I think 4, 7, and 8 are excellent questions in general. I doubt they'll do manual cargo moving, but we do need more to do on stations.
I think they answered 1-2 fairly well in the AMA, and they said a bit for 3 and 5-6.

[Greenhorn]

Hi ego, My Q are about Pirates.
Yes or No answers perffered...

Q1 Wiill. Pirates have there own style of ships?.

Q2 How about joining 3 sectors together, .only one way in,or out.like in x3?.its like having there own secure property's?.

Q3 Will pirates able to. have a economy if any?.

Q4 Will you consider a pirate faction/HQ?.

[Greenhorn]

Hi egosoft my Q are. about ships..
Yes or No answers perffered.

Q1 Will you. consider tm class ships, like in x3?.

Q2 Will there be any special class of ships like ,command ship or battleship for any of the. plan races?.terran for example.

Q3 Any new ship software. be added in 3.0 .for example: Like camflage devise example; fades ship slowly off and on visualy or .just cloaking device?.

[Fazmaster]

First of all let me thank you for the great game and the opportunities you provide to give feedback and get development insights. This is much appreciated!

I have a general question regarding the current assets. The paranid X/XL ships seem to lack some geometric details, the teladi's are not very distingishable from each other, xenon using argon defense platforms, the brilliant looking interiors of the (race-specific) gangways do not match the rooms behind let alone the docks etc.

Q - Are there and if what are the plans to add new or improve the assets of the base game?


And one bonus question:

Q - The Xenons often look flat brownish in X4. Is this intended?

[adeine]

Q1. You've previously stated that you plan on expanding station-side gameplay by offering missions through NPCs. Are you considering also fleshing out station announcements, welcome messages (more personalised to faction) and faction representatives? The monosyllabic greetings and boilerplate dialogue feel like a step back compared to previous games and make different faction's stations feel alike.

Q2. Would it be possible to improve the ship/station building screen to be more immersive? As it is it feels very disconnected with the same generic background regardless of context. Station building could use the skybox of the current system and ship building could show the prospective ship docked to the relevant station/carrier (for extra effect, you could even have some of the little constructor drones hovering around it).

Q3. In your roadmap you mentioned expanding and improving generic missions as a major goal going forward. Are you considering adding an XRM-style bounty system for both player and AI ships? If a player is able to rack up a bounty on their head, acts of aggression or piracy would have more realistic, tangible effects beyond straight reputation. Not only that, but you'd have an organic source of generic "missions" with a police licence or equivalent giving you access to a faction's bounty listings (and rewards), with vague 'last seen' locations of said vessels in their space alongside a list of their crimes/victims.

[tomchk]

Strongly agreed on all points. I also think such bounties might be doable in a way that doesn’t noticeably bloat save games and bloat performance further. For example, perhaps only a couple could be tracked at a given time.

[Angsaar]

Q: Are there plans for more interesting NPCs to be hired (at least Captains), even if just something like 3-4 word procedural backgrounds, to make them more memorable?

Having nothing to say about them but "Here lays Bob, Three-and-a-halfer pilot and terrible engineer. Boosted hard till the end, 2965-2992 AD"... feels rather cold.

[BigBANGtheory]

My suggestion is that you should choose a few interesting ones as those have a much higher chance to be looked at.

Q1 : Why doesn't Egosoft actively promote (themselves not a publisher) to USA market?

Q2 : End-to-end play testing (new start to natural conclusion) feels very missing in Egosoft games.... What gives and why not recruit player testers as a panel that can represent the different player styles/personas?

[Meme Turtle]

A few questions:
1) Any chance Odysseus gets a redesign to look less like a hair dryer?
2) Any plans to add more capital ship classes? I.e. dreadnoughts, battle ships.
3) What about unique player only ships? I.e. Skunk, Hyperion.