I'd like an XL battleship DLC

[flywlyx]

So, after every faction copies the Terrans and builds a superpowerful battleship, wouldn't you expect the Terrans to respond with a deathstar-type vessel, to counter all those new battleships? After all, they are the recognized technology leader in the X Universe and they'd need to do something to regain their edge.

Syn is undoubtedly the most powerful destroyer right now, but I haven't seen players demanding that every faction get a direct copy of it. ...

I never said "direct copy". I meant that the other factions would copy the Terrans by building their own battleships. And then superbattleships. And then ... 'deathstars'. Do you understand where I'm going with this?

If the copy you’re referring to isn’t a direct copy, then what kind of copy are you talking about? A good example is the Raptor—every faction gets a carrier, but I haven’t seen people demanding that every faction have a supercarrier. So where did your idea of a "super battleship" come from? There’s no point in arguing against a strawman.

The focus behind any battleship or future ship Egosoft plans should be on diversity. X4 already has enough copy-paste designs, and adding more would be pointless.

This will not satisfy the players who just want an easier game using their IWIN XL battleships. Once the Xenon gets a superbattleship the next thread here will be begging for an even larger player ship. It will never end.
Battles have to stay intense or else the game isn't worth playing.

The Rattlesnake already serves as an "I WIN" button, and adding battleships for that purpose would be complete overkill. If you’re looking for a more challenging game, you should be in favor of NPCs getting stronger ships as well.

[vvvvvvvv]

This will not satisfy the players who just want an easier game using their IWIN XL battleships. Once the Xenon

Battleship does not mean a win, though. Original deathstar was blown up by a small fighter. That is also the t heme in both rebirth and x4. You can take out a K in a much smaller craft.

I'm also unsure if the fights are intense now. Intense battles would mean large number of vessels to me. Hundreds. This doesn't seem to happen often. Intense battles are also more likely to happen in a large ship. Because stronger ship makes the player bolder, and then the player runs into some sort of swarm. Either VIG or Xenon. Then it is explosions and lasers everywhere.

[Raptor34]

This will not satisfy the players who just want an easier game using their IWIN XL battleships. Once the Xenon

Battleship does not mean a win, though. Original deathstar was blown up by a small fighter. That is also the t heme in both rebirth and x4. You can take out a K in a much smaller craft.

I'm also unsure if the fights are intense now. Intense battles would mean large number of vessels to me. Hundreds. This doesn't seem to happen often. Intense battles are also more likely to happen in a large ship. Because stronger ship makes the player bolder, and then the player runs into some sort of swarm. Either VIG or Xenon. Then it is explosions and lasers everywhere.

Yeah... Show me when the AI can do that.
And going by experience player's do not like limitations, neither do I for the record, so there is no chance, especially if it's a ship DLC instead of a full one, where the battleship is going to be limited.
Or to put it another way, how many would want an Asgard with the beam weapon only? Because that would seem interesting to me, while factions cannot replicate the Asgard, being able to replicate select portions of it seems possible.

[vvvvvvvv]

Yeah... Show me when the AI can do that.

A single destroyer vs VIG at their home sectors. They'll blow up the engines and take it out. Worked this way in version 6 at least.

And going by experience player's do not like limitations,

Players do not like limitations, but they like challenge.

"You're a not allowed to install X into Y in the name of balance" is a limitation that is not logical, and that makes it irritating.

Trying to nab a Ravager before it spots your ship and deletes it is a challenge and fun.

--edit--

Speaking of which, there's a very cheap way to add challenge. Optional Ironman/permadeath mode. Can also come with an achievement "Survived crisis on Ironman + Permadeath".

Or to put it another way, how many would want an Asgard with the beam weapon only?

There isn't a practical reason to not install turrets onto a vessel. So it'll be received poorly.

You could, however, make a superweapon without engines and defenses, that cannot move at all and requires tugs and a support fleet to protect. That would be more interesting, but as a mission and not a thing you'd want to build.

Because that would seem interesting to me, while factions cannot replicate the Asgard, being able

There's no point in trying to replicate it. A reasonable way would be to develop a cheap counter for a fraction of the cost. As they say, "For a big ship, a big torpedo"

[Raptor34]

Yeah... Show me when the AI can do that.

A single destroyer vs VIG at their home sectors. They'll blow up the engines and take it out. Worked this way in version 6 at least.

And going by experience player's do not like limitations,

Players do not like limitations, but they like challenge.

"You're a not allowed to install X into Y in the name of balance" is a limitation that is not logical, and that makes it irritating.

Trying to nab a Ravager before it spots your ship and deletes it is a challenge and fun.

Or to put it another way, how many would want an Asgard with the beam weapon only?

There isn't a practical reason to not install turrets onto a vessel. So it'll be received poorly.

You could, however, make a superweapon without engines and defenses, that cannot move at all and requires tugs and a support fleet to protect. That would be more interesting, but as a mission and not a thing you'd want to build.

Because that would seem interesting to me, while factions cannot replicate the Asgard, being able

There's no point in trying to replicate it. A reasonable way would be to develop a cheap counter for a fraction of the cost. As they say, "For a big ship, a big torpedo"

A fighter swarm, not a single fighter. Must have misunderstood what you were referring to.
And no practical reason? How about not having the powerplant to power the main gun and all the turrets? Otherwise we should as well have S fighters with Asgard beams.
As for a cheap counter, what can be a practical counter to a 14km death beam? Fighters? You're assuming the Terrans wouldn't have them. If you have like long range torpedoes then maybe, but even those are basically just fighters but weaker. And while your fighters are prancing around with the enemy's, your fleet would have been slowly annihilated everytime the Asgard cools down like at Endor.
But well, you can always go full VIG I guess, that's the most practical counter. No need to worry about the enemies' death beam when you have nothing worth death beaming. Which interestingly enough does mean that you should as well not build XL Battleships to deal with the Asgard, since unless you can replicate a 14km beam, even if it is weaker, anything you build is just a big target.

[vvvvvvvv]

A fighter swarm, not a single fighter. Must have misunderstood what you were referring to.

A single AI fighter taking out a K would require an AI upgrade.

And no practical reason? How about not having the powerplant to power the main gun and all the turrets? Otherwise we should as well have S fighters with Asgard beams.

Well the issue here is that ships do not have powerplants. There's reactor room, but there's no strong reason for a ship not to have seven hundred turrets. It is just a number chosen during design process.

As for a cheap counter, what can be a practical counter to a 14km death beam?

Torpedo from the back. This thing takes eternity to turn. Scatter, circle, shoot it into the butt. It has a single engine, once it blows up it is a sitting duck. Fighters typically can hug capitals, once they're affected by capital field they can circle the ship and keep plinking from turret's deadzone.

If you want a more technical in-universe solution, grab the fastest ship you can find, install remote control, and put an large antimatter bomb into the cabin. A remotely controlled kamikaze ship. That could be used as a comeback for direct drone control.

[Nerwesta]

Syn is undoubtedly the most powerful destroyer right now, but I haven't seen players demanding that every faction get a direct copy of it. ...

I never said "direct copy". I meant that the other factions would copy the Terrans by building their own battleships. And then superbattleships. And then ... 'deathstars'. Do you understand where I'm going with this?

If the copy you’re referring to isn’t a direct copy, then what kind of copy are you talking about? A good example is the Raptor—every faction gets a carrier, but I haven’t seen people demanding that every faction have a supercarrier. So where did your idea of a "super battleship" come from? There’s no point in arguing against a strawman.

The focus behind any battleship or future ship Egosoft plans should be on diversity. X4 already has enough copy-paste designs, and adding more would be pointless.

This will not satisfy the players who just want an easier game using their IWIN XL battleships. Once the Xenon gets a superbattleship the next thread here will be begging for an even larger player ship. It will never end.
Battles have to stay intense or else the game isn't worth playing.

The Rattlesnake already serves as an "I WIN" button, and adding battleships for that purpose would be complete overkill. If you’re looking for a more challenging game, you should be in favor of NPCs getting stronger ships as well.

You could read the first page when we gave quite some informations, and most importantly for the sake of the debate, target for Eugen to aim for, they are designing the ships afterall.
I doubt you can say the Ray is a copy carbon of the Phoenix, that's exactly what we are talking about here in term of ship variety.

On the subject I've read here and there that the cornerstone's of a faction engagdment was already filled by Destroyers, it is not.

Destroyers are L ship that can be accessed fairly easily, Battleships shouldn't.
Destroyers can be spammed, Battleships shouldn't
Destroyers can even be accessible easily from other races, Battleships shouldn't.

What I've been wanting is a XL military ship that can somewhat lead Destroyers, yet is fairly unique, costly and geared towards late game.
If this causes balancing issues, it's perfectly doable to trickle how the AIs ( including Xenon ) would react, as I believe the "Crisis" thingy still need refinement.

[flywlyx]

You could read the first page when we gave quite some informations, and most importantly for the sake of the debate, target for Eugen to aim for, they are designing the ships afterall.
I doubt you can say the Ray is a copy carbon of the Phoenix, that's exactly what we are talking about here in term of ship variety.

I haven’t seen anyone asking for battleships as powerful as the Asgard, which is why I’m confused about where this "super battleship" idea is coming from. All battleships could be weaker than the Asgard, but they should still be unique—and it seems like most people agree on that.

Egosoft has shown an intention to differentiate faction ships since the first DLC. The Rattlesnake, for example, stands out from other destroyers with its higher speed, weaker shields, and shorter weapon range. However, it doesn’t fully define a faction’s tactics. The Ray is definitely unique, but it’s also the only destroyer distinct enough to build a strategy around.

VRO attempted to give different races more defining traits but was still limited by the vanilla game. Since Egosoft has more freedom than modders, they could introduce unique weapon effects more easily, allowing for more diverse tactical options.

[Nerwesta]

You could read the first page when we gave quite some informations, and most importantly for the sake of the debate, target for Eugen to aim for, they are designing the ships afterall.
I doubt you can say the Ray is a copy carbon of the Phoenix, that's exactly what we are talking about here in term of ship variety.

I haven’t seen anyone asking for battleships as powerful as the Asgard, which is why I’m confused about where this "super battleship" idea is coming from. All battleships could be weaker than the Asgard, but they should still be unique—and it seems like most people agree on that.

Egosoft has shown an intention to differentiate faction ships since the first DLC. The Rattlesnake, for example, stands out from other destroyers with its higher speed, weaker shields, and shorter weapon range. However, it doesn’t fully define a faction’s tactics. The Ray is definitely unique, but it’s also the only destroyer distinct enough to build a strategy around.

VRO attempted to give different races more defining traits but was still limited by the vanilla game. Since Egosoft has more freedom than modders, they could introduce unique weapon effects more easily, allowing for more diverse tactical options.

Oh my mistake, I misread your message then.
Those are definitely good points indeed, I agree with you.

[LameFox]

Some kind of arms race with the Asgard isn't really necessary IMO. It has its own very specific gimmick that lets it occasionally kill another ship of essentially any size—basically it's the sniper class of XL ship. This can easily co-exist with other kinds, as it already does with the Xenon I, which serves as more of a heavy close range brawler.

[jlehtone]

Destroyers are L ship that can be accessed fairly easily, Battleships shouldn't.
Destroyers can be spammed, Battleships shouldn't
Destroyers can even be accessible easily from other races, Battleships shouldn't.

Asgard can be spammed. Erlking not, but no faction uses Erlking. Do we want ships for factions, or for player?

All battleships could be weaker than the Asgard, but they should still be unique—and it seems like most people agree on that.

Egosoft has shown an intention to differentiate faction ships since the first DLC. The Rattlesnake, for example, stands out from other destroyers with its higher speed, weaker shields, and shorter weapon range. However, it doesn’t fully define a faction’s tactics. The Ray is definitely unique, but it’s also the only destroyer distinct enough to build a strategy around.

In other words, the release of the Enhanced base game Destroyers did miss a window of opportunity to differentiate them?

Btw, HOP does not use Carriers. Granted, it is not a "main faction" ... (perhaps TRI could take a "Battleship" into use, so all access to it would be locked behind a plot choice )

I haven’t seen anyone asking for battleships as powerful as the Asgard, which is why I’m confused about where this "super battleship" idea is coming from.

Oh my mistake, I misread your message then.

That is the issue. We misread. We assume that what others say is either aligned or opposite to what we say.

Do you agree that a ship more powerful than Destroyers has been asked for? The Terrans and Xenon do now have some lead on power (although the Xenon still get a beating from factions' "weak ships"). By lore they want to keep that "advantage". Therefore, if other factions build more powerful ships, then they should do that too, to "maintain superiority".

[capitalduty]

This will not satisfy the players who just want an easier game using their IWIN XL battleships. Once the Xenon gets a superbattleship the next thread here will be begging for an even larger player ship. It will never end.
Battles have to stay intense or else the game isn't worth playing.

Nowadays you can defeat any ship with the Asgard alone....do you hear anyone complain about it?. Instead adding new battleships give a new challenge to overcome against opposing factions, not only for the player usage. Xenon I represents a challenge because are enemies of all factions. In your game do you fight another faction?? Someday try it, you will find no to much of a challenge...only Teladi, Terran and Vig could pose a treat IMO. Late game wars becomes station demolition simulator, this could be improve with fleets that adds some battleships, carriers and standing army to try defend from player aggression.

[capitalduty]

This would be something to round out existing factions. Argon, Teladi, Paranid, Boron, and Split would all benefit from getting XL sized battleships, ships which on their own could go head to head with an Asgard or an I and possibly win.

Of course, also it makes lore sense. Factions should try to field a response to Xenon I and Asgard via their own counterparts, that doesn't mean copy stats, but give a huge opportunity to Egosoft to showcase those faction design and combat tactics into consideration when building this class of vessels.

[xant]

It takes roughly a month for the devs to create a large detailed ship, such as the Asgard. If all the other five factions now get one, it would clog the workload of the devs for almost half a year just for that alone. And for what? Gameplay-wise there's little to gain from it, other than having faction flavor. That, and I could argue that the Raptor already is kind of a battleship, just classified as a carrier.

I'm actually happy with the current approach to factions, which is to give each something that is unique to them. TER have their battleship, BOR have their light carrier, SPL have their battleship/carrier hybrid, and I wish TEL had an XL freighter, ARG an XL miner, and PAR could also get something that only they are really good at. I think this is the direction the devs should go into.

Because what's next, does TER also need a super-heavy carrier? Does ARG and SPL also need a fast L-sized carrier? Do we really want everyone to have everything? There is no need for everyone to have a copy of everything, that is imho redundant.

[jlehtone]

Do we really want everyone to have everything? There is no need for everyone to have a copy of everything, that is imho redundant.

I hope we don't want that.

It takes roughly a month for the devs to create a large detailed ship, such as the Asgard. If all the other five factions now get one, it would clog the workload of the devs for almost half a year just for that alone. And for what? Gameplay-wise there's little to gain from it, other than having faction flavor.

I just realised something. The OP is for a DLC. DLC are optional, for those who pay real money for them. Therefore, options are not have additional battleships, have them as third-party mod, or pay for them (and drain Egosoft's resources, which should go to base game).


Guess what "make it optional" wish has been around? One that involves more ships and one that all players definitely do not want. Xenon.
A DLC with more Xenon jobs, possibly with more Xenon ship types (that either outrange us or outrun). Everyone could choose whether they want (to pay) for the extra threat.

only Teladi, Terran and Vig could pose a treat IMO

Did you mean "threat" or "treat"? (Although in this case the words mean the same thing.)

[xant]

I just realised something. The OP is for a DLC. DLC are optional, for those who pay real money for them. Therefore, options are not have additional battleships, have them as third-party mod, or pay for them (and drain Egosoft's resources, which should go to base game).

Guess what "make it optional" wish has been around? One that involves more ships and one that all players definitely do not want. Xenon.
A DLC with more Xenon jobs, possibly with more Xenon ship types (that either outrange us or outrun). Everyone could choose whether they want (to pay) for the extra threat.

DLC or not, Egosoft has limited resources. I think we should keep it traditional, meaning that Egosoft gives us content updates, which usually contain a varying mix of usable ships of different sizes, quests, new sectors, new factions, and new gamestarts. Additional station modules and new economic branches (such as Scrap and Protectyon) are also welcome. Although we're already at a point at which new sectors/factions become less important, so there's that.

Still, we have a few more old things that have yet to appear: Aldrin as a faction is still missing (and with it all their ships, Springblossom anyone?), we still don't have companies (Plutarch, Jonferco, OTAS, TerraCorp etc., and Northriver doesn't have assets), X:R is still not reconnected.

Egosoft's time should go towards making the universe complete, and also enriching the current economy. As it is, war is the only focus we have. I'd love to have a civilian economy, with civilian goods meant for something other than building machines of war.

[Raptor34]

You could read the first page when we gave quite some informations, and most importantly for the sake of the debate, target for Eugen to aim for, they are designing the ships afterall.
I doubt you can say the Ray is a copy carbon of the Phoenix, that's exactly what we are talking about here in term of ship variety.

I haven’t seen anyone asking for battleships as powerful as the Asgard, which is why I’m confused about where this "super battleship" idea is coming from. All battleships could be weaker than the Asgard, but they should still be unique—and it seems like most people agree on that.

Egosoft has shown an intention to differentiate faction ships since the first DLC. The Rattlesnake, for example, stands out from other destroyers with its higher speed, weaker shields, and shorter weapon range. However, it doesn’t fully define a faction’s tactics. The Ray is definitely unique, but it’s also the only destroyer distinct enough to build a strategy around.

VRO attempted to give different races more defining traits but was still limited by the vanilla game. Since Egosoft has more freedom than modders, they could introduce unique weapon effects more easily, allowing for more diverse tactical options.

In such a case why do we need XL battleships for all races then?
Firstly, Split already has the Raptor XL Battlecarrier so they are out.
Argon used to have the Griffon which iirc the lore was that it was the first drone carrier. Them getting that back as a L drone carrier with further drone improvements would suit them better.
Paranid somehow now feels like the sniper race... Maybe they are? All their turrets are long ranged, high speed and they built the mass driver. A bunch of high speed L snipers using that as the base would be interesting. Imagine a L Mass Driver.
Teladi... No idea, but as previously mentioned something cargo related would be nice, but isn't really necessary, maybe they want to build an XL battleship to protect trade or whatever.
VIG as previously suggested get's some kind of combo construction ship/carrier/aux to represent how they need to compromise. It'll be weaker than separate ships of course, but being an all in one it has more flexibility. Also seems like it has piracy uses too due to the flexibility.
Boron... Megalodon again? Kinda lazy but the precedence is there. Reimagined as ranged crowd control going by how modern Boron weapons are. An XL turret with the Ray main gun means wanting to get close to the Boron fleet with anything big is going to be a real PITA. But it has the new Boron weakness of not being able to actually finish the job. Though with how many L turrets it could in theory pack and the range they would have, it'll be able to control a relatively large area of space without actually getting close.

[capitalduty]

It takes roughly a month for the devs to create a large detailed ship, such as the Asgard. If all the other five factions now get one, it would clog the workload of the devs for almost half a year just for that alone. And for what? Gameplay-wise there's little to gain from it, other than having faction flavor. That, and I could argue that the Raptor already is kind of a battleship, just classified as a carrier.

I'm actually happy with the current approach to factions, which is to give each something that is unique to them. TER have their battleship, BOR have their light carrier, SPL have their battleship/carrier hybrid, and I wish TEL had an XL freighter, ARG an XL miner, and PAR could also get something that only they are really good at. I think this is the direction the devs should go into.

Because what's next, does TER also need a super-heavy carrier? Does ARG and SPL also need a fast L-sized carrier? Do we really want everyone to have everything? There is no need for everyone to have a copy of everything, that is imho redundant.

I understand that there are limited resources, but based on previous Egosoft experience, making more content for existing factions, that includes corporations and similar content have reported gains to them. X3 Terran conflict/ Albion Prelude have a wide range of ships for each faction, they still had enough diversity and style to remain unique, yes they have massive battleships M2+ ships too...Many X fans love these games, when Ego try to do something too different it doesn't sell to well (look at X-Rebirth and Timelines for instance), so resources invested to give more content geared for existing factions we could argue that is Egosoft best interest. Look at the hype that hyperion is generating....is only one returning ship made in a awesome style. Many players had in the past the famous Panther and Tiger as theirs main ship....these will sell very well, for that I am sure.

Another point to observe, the best valued DLC is Cradle of humanity (terrans) oh!! surprise. Look what we got???? plenty of ships and returning loved faction, for me specially L and XL vessel where masterful additions to this DLC.

[vvvvvvvv]

A DLC with more Xenon jobs, possibly with more Xenon ship types (that either outrange us or outrun). Everyone could choose whether they want (to pay) for the extra threat.

I'd love that.

One issue with the game I have now is that universe is kinda small. There's no very long range xploration.

Would be nice to have some sort of massive space to explore where you could play hide and seek with large enemy fleet or practice your RTS skills. Basically an area where NPCs do not build, where perhaps you can't build, but one that is full of xenon and effectively you cannot ever clean them out. So you'd need to make a wandering fleets while not being able to quickly return to stations.

[Caedes91]

It takes roughly a month for the devs to create a large detailed ship, such as the Asgard. If all the other five factions now get one, it would clog the workload of the devs for almost half a year just for that alone. And for what? Gameplay-wise there's little to gain from it, other than having faction flavor. That, and I could argue that the Raptor already is kind of a battleship, just classified as a carrier.

The ship models of X4 are too busy and overdesigned. It only hurts performance ans is visual clutter without any real gameplay or aesthetic benefit. Precious modeling time having been wasted on tons of useless parts sticking out like a sore thumb from the fuselage etc.
Just take a bit more of a realistic design approach from now on. See modern ship and equipment design as an example, where you see more streamlined hull (and therefore easier to model)

This is why they take so long and waste a ton of money, they will barely if never make back. One entire year for some DLC and over half a year for a Mini-DLC with one ship, which is just an update of an old, already conceptualized ship from a past game. And no free ship updates ever.

The Cutlass and Odachi are a step in the right direction, beautiful, but still practical and plausible. Sadly Egosoft dropped the ball again by making them useless museum pieces.