XLOG: A Vision for 7.00

[chew-ie]

I deliberately never went to war with any of the main factions. Please provide an alternative existential crisis against Xenon / Kha'ak or an [un]known [Pirate] faction. Trantor on a universe scale would be perfect.

Wouldn't one of your current allies as your nemesis be a refreshing step outside of your comfort zone?

I can't help it - I always have to be the Paladin (more good then lawful) who is saving / helping everyone. Or the Boron who doesn't attack his allies.

[alt3rn1ty]

I can't help it - I always have to be the Paladin (more good then lawful) who is saving / helping everyone. Or the Boron who doesn't attack his allies.

Same, I consider this a failure. But I'm finding it near impossible to get friends with CAB and FAF again.

On topic: I'm surprised, I was kind of thinking we are getting towards the end of X4's lifecycle and we would get a few more polishing updates. Good to hear there is more on the horizon, although I would be maybe shying away from opting into the end game crisis .. But I think I would be tempted if I was getting to the stage where I want a new playthrough and thought well I may aswell have a go at it before hitting the big reset.
The third person stuff I cant imagine what could be better to be honest, although I typically have an AI pilot as Captain of the ship I am on while I go looking around the outside at any action taking place, while being wary if I need to jump in the pilot seat quickly. I have no opinion on this aspect of the discussion really, not enough detail to think about.

[adeine]

I can't help it - I always have to be the Paladin (more good then lawful) who is saving / helping everyone. Or the Boron who doesn't attack his allies.

Same, I consider this a failure. But I'm finding it near impossible to get friends with CAB and FAF again.

Egosoft finally fixed the FAF issue somewhere between CoH and KE. You can get FAF missions at FRF stations again and fix your rep with them.

[SphinxofBlackQuartz]

Mainly automatically generated by YouTube, I just clean them up a little bit to get rid of the biggest mistakes it generates. Glad it helps

Thanks for taking the time to do a little cleanup. YouTube's auto-subbing doesn't always do so well with game- or tech-specific jargon.

X4 is amazing, and just keeps getting better. I look forward to seeing what the next year (or so) brings.

[jlehtone]

I can't help it - I always have to be the Paladin (more good then lawful) who is saving / helping everyone. Or the Boron who doesn't attack his allies.

I do understand.

The point was that a Paladin, who is tricked into backstabbing party members, probably feels "existential crisis",
while an executioner whose daily routine is to smite Xenon will not be terribly exited about an "additional" chance to smite Xenon daily.

[A5PECT]

I'd assume that if it's something Bernd himself would present as a new, upcoming feature, then the new 4X-esque mechanic will be different/expanded from the player's current ability to declare war on a faction. He also notes that this new feature is to be purposefully challenging, so much so that that he had to stress that the player must explicitly opt into it. Whether or not it's enough of a challenge to satifsfy the most maximalist of X4 players remains to be seen, but surely the devs can make hostile factions a bigger, more direct threat than they are now.

Also, very psyched for further 3rd person gameplay implementation. I really enjoy flying using the 3rd person camera, but I constantly have to switch modes to check things like shield and hull or weapon heat gauges. I've been asking for improvements there for years now.

[Nerwesta]

It surely looks promising, thanks !
Since it's more or less on the same subject, I hope some love would be given to the factions that seriously lack any guild / war-guild against Xenon for instance.
It's quite surprising the Borons aren't that fleshed out in that prospect, given they are the latest race available.

[Falcrack]

For the 3rd person control, here's a thought. What if, from the map, we could convert the map view into.an actual view of the sector, from the current map camera perspective? In other words, we would be looking at a fully rendered sector with background and everything, but using the top down perspective typically seen on the map? We could also control ships and see orders the same way we do from the map currently, all the ships would have icons so we could see and select them from a ditance, but it would be an "in sector" view.

[chew-ie]

Jip, a sector map would be nice - just render that one Hex the player is currently in. I like =)

Even better - make an option like in X:Rebirth to view the [sector] map in the "middle console" / ship HUD to boost the immersion even more.

[Nerwesta]

For the 3rd person control, here's a thought. What if, from the map, we could convert the map view into.an actual view of the sector, from the current map camera perspective? In other words, we would be looking at a fully rendered sector with background and everything, but using the top down perspective typically seen on the map? We could also control ships and see orders the same way we do from the map currently, all the ships would have icons so we could see and select them from a ditance, but it would be an "in sector" view.

I don't understand, it's already there in the game, I use this all the time.

[Falcrack]

For the 3rd person control, here's a thought. What if, from the map, we could convert the map view into.an actual view of the sector, from the current map camera perspective? In other words, we would be looking at a fully rendered sector with background and everything, but using the top down perspective typically seen on the map? We could also control ships and see orders the same way we do from the map currently, all the ships would have icons so we could see and select them from a ditance, but it would be an "in sector" view.

I don't understand, it's already there in the game, I use this all the time.

Not really. Imagine your typical map view, then change the map to an in sector view with the camera in the same position as it was when you were in map view. You can see all the ships and planets and ship icons. You can also see the order lines. You can move the camera around using WASD, and zoom in and out just like the map. From this view you can give orders just like in the regular map. It would be like controlling your ships from the map, just looking a lot better because it is a fully rendered sector.

[S!rAssassin]

...map view...

It’s like strategic zoom in Supreme Commander? I’d love to use this feature in X4!

[Caedes91]

Wait another major patch or another whole year just for simple external camera tweaks?
Please, simple but essential things like like that need to be released in a hotfix now. Not in 1 year+ on top of the 6 years already since release.

[Falcrack]

...map view...

It’s like strategic zoom in Supreme Commander? I’d love to use this feature in X4!

Yeah, that's kinda the idea. It would be limited to a single sector at a time, so you couldn't zoom around multiple different sectors at the same time. I think it would be pretty awesome.

[Belmont]

We may need some sliders to adjust things like Xenon aggressiveness at game start, or more triggers during play to bump up their difficulty. However I think that there would need to be some rebalancing of their ships/stations as well. The short turret ranges and lack of variety in turrets make them much less threatening than they could be. I'd like to see them have ship choices similar to the Commonwealth Factions too, they need a lighter/faster destroyer and a carrier. Also kind of think they should have come up with an improved battleship to challenge the Asgard. Asgard is pretty OP, especially in a player's hands.

I've seen players build big defense platforms right inside the gates. The Xenon/NPCs would need to be able to deal with that.

I've noticed the NPC factions seem to repair their stations faster and recover better from attacks so that's good. I've seen the split repair a few defense platforms and equipment docks and was pretty happy about that. I wish the NPC Factions would stop constantly sending their trade ships into xenon sectors though. If they were a little smarter about how their resources were used I think they'd do better defending, even if the Xenon get reworked a little. I do like setting up traders to move goods around and support them, it's a little frustrating seeing them crank out a new destroyer and then get it blown up not long after. I guess it's good for business though lol.

The most recent game I started to try out Kingdom End had Two I's and 8 K's in Hatikva's Choice I right at the beginning. I was surprised because in my original game they never sent I's out of the core sectors and only had a few. They seem to be more aggressive than my last game in that they constantly have fighters and a steady stream of K's everywhere now, but I haven't seen many more I's and they still seem to be slow to build up sectors they've emptied. I'd like to see them build new shipyards and wharfs in those sectors.

Ultimately I think that after some balancing of Xenon and other factions (mostly Argon) the new end game scenario could be pretty fun.

Also still hoping for an expansion of boarding gameplay. I loved boarding in X3.

[Nerwesta]

For the 3rd person control, here's a thought. What if, from the map, we could convert the map view into.an actual view of the sector, from the current map camera perspective? In other words, we would be looking at a fully rendered sector with background and everything, but using the top down perspective typically seen on the map? We could also control ships and see orders the same way we do from the map currently, all the ships would have icons so we could see and select them from a ditance, but it would be an "in sector" view.

I don't understand, it's already there in the game, I use this all the time.

Not really. Imagine your typical map view, then change the map to an in sector view with the camera in the same position as it was when you were in map view. You can see all the ships and planets and ship icons. You can also see the order lines. You can move the camera around using WASD, and zoom in and out just like the map. From this view you can give orders just like in the regular map. It would be like controlling your ships from the map, just looking a lot better because it is a fully rendered sector.

Okay now I understand. To me this looks like a feature that could seriously tank performances, I don't know about your experience but my map view is sometimes quite laggy
So may I say it again, the one featured in the game can allow you to give orders to your ships, even if it's not fully fledged and lacking a lot of QoL features, like being able to see the current orders without selecting the ships.

[xrogaan]

There never have been any limits on player expansion in the other X games along the lines of running costs. Any ship or station you own has never needed any sort of recurring costs (unless you count workforce food and medicine requirements, but workforce is optional for stations to operate, which is a mistake IMO). No unit caps either, just continuous expansion until your computer dies from CPU overload or you get tired of continuing your save game.

If every ship and station module in the game (including defence modules) required work force to function and prevent decay in hp over time, and if you had to pay wages over time to your work force for them to stick around, that would be acceptable to me in terms of maintenance fees.

It's not a very sexy proposal though. Welcome to X4 Foundation, pay your taxes! Here's a spreadsheet listing all your employees, their performance assessment and how much you pay them. I understand that it's a bit weird the have so many crew members and not spend a dime on them. But I find it equally weird to be destroying traffics around stations to gain positive points with a faction. Why destroy traffic instead of arresting the criminals? Don't we have space prisons? Anyhow, it's a part of the game that is best not to look too closely at.

[chew-ie]

I can't help it - I always have to be the Paladin (more good then lawful) who is saving / helping everyone. Or the Boron who doesn't attack his allies.

I do understand.

The point was that a Paladin, who is tricked into backstabbing party members, probably feels "existential crisis",
while an executioner whose daily routine is to smite Xenon will not be terribly exited about an "additional" chance to smite Xenon daily.

Oh, I'd love to smite more Xenons. All my smiting reduced the smitable opponents. And Kha'ak barely need fleets - just some lone destroyer can do the trick against them.

So I've very high hopes for the existential crisis to open the "flood gates" into Xenon / Kha'ak realms with hundreds of hours worth of smiting.

[Karvat]

Egosoft if you are reading!

Add at least 3 Kha'ak sectors, give them some new stations, some L ships, and make them the triggerable end game existetial crisis by turning them an extrmely dangerous threat if the player wants to!

[jlehtone]

The Teladi could stop all trade. That could drive some of us to the brink.