X Rebirth Trailer Analysis and Speculation

[mr.WHO]

IMO I don't want the game to be easier - TC was much easier than X3R and I think that TC was optimal for difficulty/playability/enjoyment.
What I want much is easier imterface that will reduce micromannagement (like mass equip fighters in hangar, RTS way fleet command ect.).

EDIT: I read the encyclopedia and.....NOOOOOOOOOoooooO! They took out the Torus! I hope that Terrans will have their revenge and not isolated again.

[Demotruk]

After reading the little section on it, a Firebreak seems likely.

[mr.WHO]

Yeah, firebreak sounds like a plan. This means that Supernova wasn't an natural event, but triggered by Ancients.

There is a potential, that even if Sol/Terran won't be present in X-R, the Terran fleet (that was outside the Sol during Second Terraformer War) could have an active role in X-R. However, due to Terrans having a gateless jumpdrives it's unlikely that Sol, or stranded Terran fleet would be unable to return home/ advance into the nearby X-universe sectors. Even if they didn't had a fleetwide use of gateless drives, they could always build them as soon as the gate network is down.
TOA in trailer and screens seems to proove that Terrans will be somehow involved. As I mentioned before it would be a pity to scrap Terrans & Sol after 3 games period of trying to connect them


EDIT: Well, some 50 encyclopedia pages later and we have a perfect non-Terran explanation for TOA

[Technojerk36]

X Rebirth may be the sexiest looking space sim of 2011

Nice to know that major gaming blogs still report on niche genres

[athleos]

About X-Rebirth
Are we still going to be stuck in the cockpit for the entire game? Fans would like to walk about on the stations and visit a bar, and do an alien babe in between missions. And why can’t we land on planets and rob high security banks for some credits? And remember the zero-gravity flight combat – watching your ship bank left or bank right, only to gently glide back to the third person defalt view? Opps, sorry. I must have been thinking of Free Lancer. For crying out loud, yes I love great graphics, but come on guys! Game play sells games, and makes gamers happy too!

[Trickmov]

I would really like to know, when we get some real informations

The trailer and the short list in the X-News/Posts are by far not enough.

I still don't know, where the differences to the current X-games are.

The trailer reveals a similar graphics to X3TC, the new tradelanes, blinking police-lights (:D), bigger stations (but unconfirmed if that counts for all stations) ... ah and of course the name of the game.

The X-News just give some very superficial statements and no additional information, how this makes a difference to the current games.

Thus currently it could also be X3TC with a bit better graphics, tradelanes and a new plot. I really hope it's not that, but I will remain sceptical until I get some real informations

[reddragan]

We will not be getting more details until the 28th April, as stated in the News section on 30th March.



I do feel they need to dumb down the game for the bigger audience though, the complexity is nice but this industry is a numbers game I am afraid to say. The more buyers, the more investment.

Perhaps with a much larger install base they can afford to implement a bit of walking so you are the character instead of the ship.

[Trickmov]

We will not be getting more details until the 28th April, as stated in the News section on 30th March.

That's also questionable - I mean the 30th March announcement said, TNBT would be unveiled on 28th April, now we are a week earlier with that and do we really get additional info on 28th or do we have already all info planned for that date?

[reddragan]

We will not be getting more details until the 28th April, as stated in the News section on 30th March.

That's also questionable - I mean the 30th March announcement said, TNBT would be unveiled on 28th April, now we are a week earlier with that and do we really get additional info on 28th or do we have already all info planned for that date?

But then again, who is to say Rebirth it the The Next Big Thing? All they have revealed is a new layout for X universe, what if there is something big tied into this game they have not yet revealed?

For instance, Dust 514 is the FPS sideshow to Eve Online where the Eve players can contract FPS fans to fight out their battles on the ground. Okay, speculating a bit there but let's see what happens on the 28th.

[mjs]

Well there are gates in Freelancer too between larger sectors, but the universe is built in a very different way with trade lanes than something like X.

What I mean is that in Freelancer because of designer-created trade lanes, the sectors are very structured and predetermined, while in X they have been more dynamic.

Trade lanes are the only way to allow fast trading in a multi player game while something like SETA makes a multi player game simply impossible. I also don't think that trade lanes make a sector less dynamic because s/o can still use paths beyond those lanes.

[Trickmov]

@reddragan:
Yeah - I just hate this uncertaintity - as you said, it could be everything. All posts in all threads combined it could be said, that there are multiple hopes how this new game will be - but almost no secured informations.

Of course we are months before release and it's early for announcements (at least for ES), but this trailer and the additional informations give just not enough results - as I said, it could also be X3TC with tradelanes (ect.)


btw secured informations:
there are some informations regarding modding TNBT in this thread (on page 4 onwards Apoch aka Mike Lewis gives some ES-informations)

[imperium3]

I do feel they need to dumb down the game for the bigger audience though, the complexity is nice but this industry is a numbers game I am afraid to say. The more buyers, the more investment.

IMO it's not dumbing down that's needed, so much as giving your average noob a decent tutorial at the start. In general TC wasn't a particularly tricky game to play, it's just that the UI was extremely obtuse (buying and equipping fighter squadrons, anyone?) and there was absolutely no help at the beginning, compounded by misleading advice in the manual and very vague instructions in some of the early missions (ie the scan pirate base mission, that got a new thread every week).

If they've fixed that in Rebirth (and here's hoping they have, then it's not dumbing down, it's a godsend

[The_Lost_Marauder]

You know, heres a theory. notice how the stations are much larger and there are only a few? perhaps they took complex construction to the next level and made it so that multiple stations are connected together together, just in a more realistic way than those tubey things in TC. so something like having a base station and then being able to append more stations to it in a modular style. those trade lanes could be running in between these superstations or between modules maybe? I hope they are real ships and not like the ones that fly around the earth torus. the first time i flew in close to look at one i had an odd suprise.

as for the gate, it did look more like a TOA. not sure why, it just has the look of an accelarator rather than a portal. so possibly this supernova affected the gates and shut them all down, the the Terran stepped in and set up super trans orbit accelarators. that sort of story would cause the political shake up and would leave many sectors stranded and dying, like mentioned in the voiceover. it would be a wholly different universe structure too.

Thoughts?

Indeed the structure was huge!
It could be a "Complex" as it's known in X³, but then I'd want some RPG elements, it would be a "FAIL" IMHO to have such huge stations and being able only to dock and resupply with computer.

The gate I saw reminded me "Cowboy Bepop": they are basically "entrance/exit" of Space Highways.
Similar to Terran TOA? It seems so, they may be limited to a single Solar System (not the Terran one of course); then there could be REAL jump gates which allow players to warp from one Galassy to another one.

Er guys I wouldn't get too excited, it's the same game with a new storyline just like X2, X3 and X3TC were lol.

I really hope not, it would be the worst epic fail ever in sci-fi games history.

Fully agreed on that observation. Trading Ships now no longer need their own script to fly from one place to another, rather, they are "moved" from one place to another on the trade lane. That should save a lot of CPU cycles (i.e. no <<gasp>> Collision detection).

It ensue that when we build a new station, we will have to build the trade lane leading to it?

Don't kick me for this, but I almost instantly thought about "Assassin's Creed 2" when I saw those lanes. I already see myself going there and hiding, it would be awesome!

A supernova would've had to travel through the gate system.

People here seem to forget sometimes that space is really freakin' big. One reason the Terrans use trans-orbital accelerators to travel within Sol is because jumpgates aren't needed. A TOA is basically a gun that fires ships at a fraction of lightspeed, and can send ships between planetary orbits in minutes.

However, no "high percentage of lightspeed" is sufficient to get from Sol to Heretic's End in any reasonable amount of time. Even if Heretic's End is at Proxima Centauri (which I don't think it is), that's a trip of over four years at the speed of light (and that's not including relativistic effects, which would push it to near 30 years for the people waiting for the ship). The most recent Star Trek film danced uncharacteristically into the realm of pseudoscience with the idea of a supernova that "threatened to destroy the galaxy" (not quite a direct quote from Leonard Nimoy's Spock): not only does the blast wave of a supernova travel at sublight speed, it would weaken as it traveled according to the inverse-square law.

However, if the supernova propagates through the gate system, then all bets are off: it could travel from Kingdom End to Queen's Harbor in a matter of hours, and would incinerate the known universe unless the gates have an emergency shut-off function.

TBH I don't know why you and others are talking about explosions and/or burnt universe, but my 0.02$ are:
░░░A░░░░
░░░¦░░░░
░ B - C - D░░
░ ¦ ░ ¦░ ¦ ░░
E - F - G - H - I
░ ¦ ░ ¦░ ¦ ░░
░ L - M - N ░░
░░░ ¦ ░░░░
░░░O ░░░░

If the "explosion" occurs in sector G, the most affected would be C / F / H and M because they're directly connected to G; the other sector would soffer only minor damage.

About X-Rebirth
Are we still going to be stuck in the cockpit for the entire game? Fans would like to walk about on the stations and visit a bar, and do an alien babe in between missions. And why can’t we land on planets and rob high security banks for some credits? And remember the zero-gravity flight combat – watching your ship bank left or bank right, only to gently glide back to the third person defalt view? Opps, sorry. I must have been thinking of Free Lancer. For crying out loud, yes I love great graphics, but come on guys! Game play sells games, and makes gamers happy too!

Without going too far, I do hope planets will be more involved this time.

[BeidAmmikon]

I like and don't like those searchlights on stations - what are the photons reflecting off and absorbed by? Fog? Although there may be an assortment of vapours and... dust coming out of a station and sticking to its premises that would justify them, or an unknown effect in physics of the future, but their length is big enough for me to raise this question. They look nice, though, and fit into the general atmosphere in that part of the sector.

Only 2 or 3 huge stations not owned by the player, per sector, would make for a boring gameplay experience IMO, unless you could walk or otherwise fly your ship inside the stations, or if the modules therein are very diverse, or if you are to do something tedious on your way between them, like micromanaging your "empire", or just be able to listen to pilot chatter, or alien radio channels...

[Yzbuzz]

Any chance?

[SIMON POPPLEWELL]

Unlikely....

[Spero]

Time spent developing planets is time spent detracted from the actual game.

Though one thing that was used in EVE was building your bases on planets. Imagine X3 where instead of building your sprawling complex in space, you just built a dock or somesuch and the rest was done planetside where the complex wouldn't be visible to cause the notorious complex lag in X3.

[reddragan]

It's a shame we are not yet a level where a program can be created that creates systems and planets for us, all that would be required is the dev's test the system to see if it ok and then manually correct everything.

It is cheating, but, it would be effective, cheap and time saving.

[Catra]

That be taking the cheap way out =P

I say they have a standard hull and then you add modules to it, like say for instance:

An XL factory hull with 12 modules, such addable modules are:

A panel of Solar energy collectors.
An Argnu breeding + processing farm.
An IRE production center.
A meatsteak cahoona assembly line.
A Solar panel production center.
A silicon processing plant.
A Energy cell production center.
A Energy cell storage area.
A weapon storage area.
A general goods storage area.
A meatsteak storage area.
An additional shield generator.
Laser / Missile emplacements.
An additional power supply for shields / Lasers.

They could take it further by having the player actually -require- to get personell for the factories, where the production times / accuracy / Rate of fire of said modules is determined by the veterancy / mood of the personell.

[mr.WHO]

Time spent developing planets is time spent detracted from the actual game.

Though one thing that was used in EVE was building your bases on planets. Imagine X3 where instead of building your sprawling complex in space, you just built a dock or somesuch and the rest was done planetside where the complex wouldn't be visible to cause the notorious complex lag in X3.

Actually that might be very interesting. You just place dock/shipyard in space and rest is a planet development via Master of Orion style submenu. If you need something you produce in on planets and then ferry via shuttles to dock/shipyard.

It has even more sense due to the gate network shutdown - before that whole economy was fully spaceborne, but after that all sectors that don't have local TOA would have to turn toward planetside economy.

An XL factory hull with 12 modules, such addable modules are:

this would be a second good idea, customizable factory stations with production modules.