[REQUEST] X4 X-Tended someday?

[ziplock815]

If dreams really come true...

[kmunoz]

What would that look like? We already have mods that (collectively) add sectors, ships, factions, AI tweaks, gameplay... and so on. Would an "X4 X-Tended" be a kind of compilation? The original X-Tended wasn't as complex as Litcube's Universe.

[Eriodas]

But it was unique on it's own way, and provided a lot of new assets (race oriented station looks, some destroyers that were implemented in the main game later, race specific weapons... etc.)

[BlackRain]

But it was unique on it's own way, and provided a lot of new assets (race oriented station looks, some destroyers that were implemented in the main game later, race specific weapons... etc.)

Isn't VRO already sort of something like that?

[Baldamundo]

But it was unique on it's own way, and provided a lot of new assets (race oriented station looks, some destroyers that were implemented in the main game later, race specific weapons... etc.)

Isn't VRO already sort of something like that?

VRO + XR Shippack + Ship Variation Expansion is pretty close tbh. Would be cool to have it all properly integrated like X-Tended, but seems to work well enough

[ziplock815]

Personally I like X-Tended Terran Conflict a lot. Still playing it. It has unique atmosphere and is very immersive. Music, sectors, missions, GNS news system, Shivan dragons and other lifeforms in space... It'd be nice to see all of this made with X4 engine.

[JPB101673]

My former screen name is 101010 and I was with the X-Tended for TC team since the Alpha stage as a tester and lite modder, mainly correcting ship models but by no means one of the development team. I was also a tester for Litcube for a brief period until I had my daughter and quit playing for seven years and had to start a new acct when I started playing X4, since I long forgot my old info.

The most notable thing that X-Tended did was around the development/introduction/lore, of the factions within Terran society at the time and the introduction of new ship models for those factions, ATF etc. To be sure there would be no COH for X4 without X-Tended.

The old team went their own ways years ago (not sure if any are around or still play (X-games) and the old xuniverse site has been defunct for years. X-tended made its mark on the X-Universe forever to be sure and most definitely had its own charisma, however there will never be another X-Tended.

Litcube did more to develop the X AI for X3 then I have seen for any other X-game, I was always amazed how he could seem to do what no one else ever could and/or said was not possible at the time.

Both had completely different focuses and changed the way we see the X-Universe, how we play it and think it should be developed/played. We as players have more ability/freedom to set the parameters of how we play than ever before. We can thank Lit for that in many ways as far as I'm concerned.

X is more than just a game for many, it is a universe where anything is possible as long as it's not hard coded. It is a labor of love that takes time and patience to master playing or modding.

It is human nature to want to return to what is familiar/nostalgic, "the good ole days". However, the only constant in life is change. I see the old DNA in the new. The past is the past. Rather than wish to return to it, let's build upon it and create something even our predecessors could not have imagined.

(My opinion)

[ziplock815]

My former screen name is 101010 and I was with the X-Tended for TC team since the Alpha stage as a tester and lite modder, mainly correcting ship models but by no means one of the development team. I was also a tester for Litcube for a brief period until I had my daughter and quit playing for seven years and had to start a new acct when I started playing X4, since I long forgot my old info.

The most notable thing that X-Tended did was around the development/introduction/lore, of the factions within Terran society at the time and the introduction of new ship models for those factions, ATF etc. To be sure there would be no COH for X4 without X-Tended.

The old team went their own ways years ago (not sure if any are around or still play (X-games) and the old xuniverse site has been defunct for years. X-tended made its mark on the X-Universe forever to be sure and most definitely had its own charisma, however there will never be another X-Tended.

Litcube did more to develop the X AI for X3 then I have seen for any other X-game, I was always amazed how he could seem to do what no one else ever could and/or said was not possible at the time.

Both had completely different focuses and changed the way we see the X-Universe, how we play it and think it should be developed/played. We as players have more ability/freedom to set the parameters of how we play than ever before. We can thank Lit for that in many ways as far as I'm concerned.

X is more than just a game for many, it is a universe where anything is possible as long as it's not hard coded. It is a labor of love that takes time and patience to master playing or modding.

It is human nature to want to return to what is familiar/nostalgic, "the good ole days". However, the only constant in life is change. I see the old DNA in the new. The past is the past. Rather than wish to return to it, let's build upon it and create something even our predecessors could not have imagined.

(My opinion)

Well, I can say you are abslolutely right, especially about human nature. But there is one more thing in human nature that is also essential: to dream and hope...oh, turns out there're two things, not one

Anyway, I want to express my gratitude to you and to all X-Tended team. Big thanks for your hard work. X-Tended always was and'll forewer be that Universe where I'll always want to return not only because it is familiar and nostalgic, but because for me it really feels like...home. Home in space, to be precise

[RedEyedRaven]

Xtended (especially the original for Reunion) was actually a much larger and ambitious upgrade overall.

You did not just get ships, sectors, music, additional effects and such, but also additional story and plots - also completely new gameplay mechanics like an entire shiptype built for special systems.
New factions of course, and also... well. XTended was jampacked with a lot of additional scripts and possibly loads of workarounds to make things work. There was so much content, I can really just scratch the surface here.


While X3 Terran Conflict included some ideas and shipdesigns from Xtended thanks to some of the team working with or joining Egosoft, a lot of what made the mod special and original didn't make it into the official game.
And most of what I mean by that wouldn't translate well into X4 either. I also didn't feel Xtended for TC being as big a deal anymore and preferred XRM on that one, and that was already quite different.



VRO is different in scope, more narrow and focused on gameplay first and foremost. Factions (especially the Xenon) field more fleets and have a few additional ships/shiptypes. It does not add more story or completely new factions or anything. It's more reminiscent of XRM, but smaller.

SVE was also mentioned, but that one adds ships only (lots of them for sure). The author also made a weapon-addon and a more vanille-oriented overhaul-mod, but it's comparatively small stuff.



Now. Do I want an Xtended for X4? No. Not really. That one had its time to shine like 15 years ago.

[brendon867]

I'd like to see LU/Mayhem or something similar in X4 which helps turn it more into a strategy game

[JPB101673]

@ziplock815 thank you for your kind words.

I would ask all to keep something in mind. X is a sandbox that we have all been invited to play in AND develop as we see fit. As long as it is not hard coded or runs afoul of copyright, intellectual property laws, then you can do it. In other words you do not have to hope, if you are willing and have the time to learn coding modding etc, you can make X be anything you want. If you do not have the time, knowledge yourself and maybe your the player behind the scene with a ambitious idea. Then post your idea in the forums, ask for help and see if anyone is willing to except the challenge.

I signed a NDA agreement not to share, discuss etc what we were all working on at the time. There were and are those laws I mentioned that we always had to be aware of, that was a BIG point in all that we did. I remember there were some personalities at the time that thought the X-tended team were a bunch of elitist snobs that only few were chosen to be a part of and how DARE they ask anyone to sign an NDA just to be part of the team. However we had to always make sure we were not breaking the afore mentioned or what might to turn out to be TNBT...

@RedEyedRaven, if we had the time and had all the "things" been in our Favour, X-tended would have been far more than you can imagine. If the dream could have been realized in it's fullest, X-tened would have been the best of Lit's univ and X-tended put together and probably more. Do not ask what I mean by that!!! I'll not discuss it further out of respect for the parties involved at the time...

Woooooowwww, if you thought we were a cohesive team... One of the dev team spoke only Russian, most spoke German, I speak English, OM Goodness, IF you think Google translate leaves little to be desired today, today imagine what is was like then.

I get that some feel that there is something missing from the X universe, I feel it as well. More than I could tell any of you. Back in the day we were all over the place, X-Tended almost did not even get released, on the edge of it all getting done and was ready to go, it almost fell through the floor.

When we finished it was not everything we had wanted it to be. Reasons. We had all the fans telling us what they wanted, we tried to tell them what we could do. In the end when it was released it was with a "it will be what it will be" kind of attitude. I was probably the most patient of us, however when I was told it was going to be released, I was just glad it was over and I'm fairly sure I was not the only one that felt like that.

Truth be told, some of the dev team had walked away before it was done, one of the reasons it took so long. We even asked ourselves/each other if it was still even relevant and should be even released in the state it was. It was not even close to what we had wanted to be.

In the end what was released was a half realized dream.

If any are willing to pick up the mantle, make sure any that you ask to be part of your dream have the same one and will see it to the end, no matter what it may turn out to be.

What I feel is missing is the adventure, the unknown and unexpected. is that not the reason many wish to travel to the great unknown to begin with? To see what has never been seen? to imagine the impossible only to realize it now is? Or just to have a home away from home that allows us to take a moment to ourselves, and just breathe. With our own thoughts and imagination.

[Frank Mc Clane]

I was wondering the same as OP for a while now and came to the conclusion that it simply won't happen. It's been a while so I would only mix up the releases of X3 but I did enjoy both versions of x-tended, the fully compatible and the experimental one.

Aside from the QOL improvements and innovations in general what appealed the most to me was the dynamic universe. If another mod would offer that for X4 I'd be finally ready to start my first modified save.

And thanks JPB101673 for sharing and for your part in making x-tended. Even if it wasn't what you had in mind it brought a lot of joy to me and several other players out there. I can only imagine how working on this must have been back in the days of mIrc and aim

[RedEyedRaven]

What I feel is missing is the adventure, the unknown and unexpected. is that not the reason many wish to travel to the great unknown to begin with? To see what has never been seen? to imagine the impossible only to realize it now is? Or just to have a home away from home that allows us to take a moment to ourselves, and just breathe. With our own thoughts and imagination.

Yeah, the sense of the unknown and exploration are not really a thing in X4. Everything is already interconnected, and aside from the bare-bones encounters (aka random mining-ships and Khaak/Xenon at the edge of a sector) there is nothing even resembling that kind of feeling. I'd be stunned to see actual unknown space with myriads of challenges in any X-game, really - but it'd be hard to implement, with the way the systems are set up. That little unknown system in the recent expansion is the closest we got, and it's sadly just a setpiece to a story.


Truth be told, I didn't quite expect such an in-detail answer at this point. Thanks for sharing some insight

[kmunoz]

What I feel is missing is the adventure, the unknown and unexpected. is that not the reason many wish to travel to the great unknown to begin with? To see what has never been seen? to imagine the impossible only to realize it now is?

While I understand this feeling, I don't share it at all. It feels to me akin to asking Command & Conquer to have a cooking minigame.

Even the one game in the X series that has arguably the most "explore the unknown" to it (namely, the first one) - even there the whole idea is that these are populated sectors, with populations of species known to everyone else, and the player is entering into an already well established galactic civilization. That's the essential premise of the series, and every gameplay element bends toward that backdrop.

If I want that feeling of exploring the unknown, I'll play a different game, and come back to X4 for what it provides. I'm no more disappointed that X4 doesn't have exploration than I am disappointed that Tetris doesn't have shotguns.

[Privata]

Exploration of the unknown played a big role in X-BTF
and I would argue that X2 had a lot of exploration as well in that compared to X3 all its sectors were really unique with hidden unknown sectors lurking behind nebula or dense asteroid fields.

The issue is probably that the only time a X game is ever going to feel alien is the first time. I started with X2 and it was one of the most immersive experiences I have ever had with fiction. reverse engineering the lore and story from nothing but BBS, sector and object descriptions was amazing, though, probably not the intended way.

Going back to the older games and then the newer ones gave me a familiar feeling. once inducted into X, its your home. X4 is no different, its just different era. so I do feel a sense of nostalgia and grasping at whatever aspects of the past I feel are missing (M ship classification and Tazurian cladder would be my big one) so I play as a Nostalgic Argon.

But X-tendeds goal for X3 was to be a fan made expansion. it expanded the base game, added its own plots, sector, music and so on.
X-tended for TC was less of a expansion and more of a fan made spin-off. in my minds eye X-tended for TC is a stand alone game, one that IMO should maybe see the official treatment

Does X4 sit in the position were the two X3 games sat back in their day? I dont think so. I think X4 pushed forwards mechanically a lot more than X3 ever did and, back then we were told X3TC was the last game in the series (maybe they said last X3 game, but that does not hold up either)

[Lord Dakier]

But it was unique on it's own way, and provided a lot of new assets (race oriented station looks, some destroyers that were implemented in the main game later, race specific weapons... etc.)

Isn't VRO already sort of something like that?

VRO + XR Shippack + Ship Variation Expansion is pretty close tbh. Would be cool to have it all properly integrated like X-Tended, but seems to work well enough

VRO is fantastic and personally the best mod since XRM, though I profess, I never really got into LU and by the time it released X3 felt a bit archaic for me. SVE's ships are mostly nice, but balance really does need work and some ships could do with improvement. As for XRSP, I've never understand what people enjoy about it. The ships simply do not fit the theme of the games races and most of them are ugly, not to mention the balance is well off.

X4 does feel like it lacks a complete overhaul mod and though VRO's the closest we have to that, Shuulo doesn't want to widen it's scope, which is understandable, not to mention he clearly has more important things going on in life right now.

I'd overhaul all ships so they have clear class differences. fighters work fairly well, we still need dedicated bombers, I feel. M and Cap ships could be expanded with specific roles for each faction such as anti-fighter, light for speed, heavy for brawling, tanky, drone carrier, artillery, missile light/heavy, utility. They all feel a bit 'generalised' at the minute and we all know its down to lack of models. Egosoft need to work with modders to incorporate and credit the best ship designs modders make.

...How we've not got a ship yet with the Dragoon system from Gundam really bothers me. Lasertowers that orbit the ship would be soooo cool.