What’s Next for X4? An Early Look into 2025

[Time19991]

Egosoft, cool new logo

[Thereswhy]

Egosoft, cool new logo

Where can we see the new logo?

[chew-ie]

Egosoft, cool new logo

Where can we see the new logo?

Current beta, Intro.

[Thereswhy]

I see. Thank you.

For anyone else wondering:

New Logo:

[mr.WHO]

Any ETA on full reveal / Steam page for Hyperion mini-DLC?

[CBJ]

We don't pre-announce announcements, so there's no point in asking.

[Hankyke]

We don't pre-announce announcements, so there's no point in asking.

Deem, and my next questione was "Can you give us a time for Pre-announcement for pre-announcement of announcement?" /s

[Waltz9]

noooo

Why a paranid ship
I admit hyperion looks nice but I really hoped the new ship wouldn't be a freaking paranid ship.
Just another ship I probably will never use.

[alt3rn1ty]

REQUEST:

Wish I thought of this earlier, TroubledRabbit mentioned it in another topic ..

Is a low spec machine DLC possible?

Features
Reduced Textures - 4096x4096 become 2048x2048 etc
Meshes Optimised reducing poly count
Reduce the amount of Jobs, so that when a big battle happens the game doesn't turn into a slideshow. The amount of VIG fighters could maybe afford a bit of reduction, VIG sectors for me are generally a no go area. I know their strength is their fighters .. so it may be a tough ask, idk.

And anything else which could benefit performance which you may consider are not acceptable in the normal game.

I know you put a huge amount of effort into optimising the game already.

This DLC would also have to affect all other DLC, with replacement resources for all of them.

[Nikola515]

I hope they bring back X3 and XR generic combat missions too. Especially harder missions where we hunt and destroy capital pirate ships (like in X3). X4 missions are just too time consuming and not balanced. For example, laser tower defense missions can fail because stations defenses already have destroyed them before I get there, or Xenon destroy turrets on station mission is so time consuming it is easier to destroy whole stations. X3 mission pack DLC would be awesome with X3 reputation system Hyperion is looking good, and I can't to take it for a spin. I hope they bring back like Argon/Teladi/ATF pack with all X3 capital ships (I always liked their design especially Titan).

[StoneLegionYT]

We don't pre-announce announcements, so there's no point in asking.

Wait, so that means the DLC drops without an announcement or did you pre-announce the announcement Not sure how I heard about the DLC now I think about it

[vvvvvvvv]

We don't pre-announce announcements, so there's no point in asking.

Wait, so that means the DLC drops without an announcement or did you pre-announce the announcement Not sure how I heard about the DLC now I think about it

There's pre-announcement in Beta 8+. You get a message at the main screen saying "stay tuned".

First time I heard it was on steam. Christmas tree announcement.

[TroubledRabbit]

REQUEST:

Wish I thought of this earlier, TroubledRabbit mentioned it in another topic ..

Is a low spec machine DLC possible?

It was kind of a bitter joke from my part. There (being realistic) is no perspective for that.

Shortly: DIY.

LOWRES does not work properly anymore, still you can try to 'compress' (thsi is not exactly what the LOWRES does) some of basic textures from (mostly) base game. I am trying to rewrite that program to the working state and platform agnostic (my C-Fu is kind of rusty) but with changes to catalog files, new dlcs and my general lack of time it won't be ready anytime soon.

viewtopic.php?t=409184&hilit=LOWRES

Reduced Textures - 4096x4096 become 2048x2048 etc

The game won't be uglier much that it is anyway with '1024' textures (this is a simplification ofc.). Most of the 'shiny' is from effects (disable or mod out them, starting with bloody asteroids, pointless traffic, fog etc.) and shaders. From my ancient perspective the game looks a lot better when most of that stuff is gone.

Mesh optimisation is something which hardly can be automated from users' side and for a company's graphical dept. it would be pointless effort (you sell the product on 'shiny stuff' not on 'low quality'). You may risk using LOD1 instead LOD0 models (with LOWRES) but it is glitchy as hell (some part of the ship/station model just dissapear which is not a problem while flying but becomes one during missions and 'stationwalking').

Set your own mental setting on 'lower quality'. It helps

Reduce the amount of Jobs, so that when a big battle happens the game doesn't turn into a slideshow. The amount of VIG fighters could maybe afford a bit of reduction, VIG sectors for me are generally a no go area. I know their strength is their fighters .. so it may be a tough ask, idk.

These are design problems (or just bad design decision as with ToA's case). Some kind of TD (time dilatation: aka when a lot happens in player vicinity, the 'galaxy' slows down to make a room for spectacle) is happening I think (speculation) but the implementation seems to be problematic. There are (were?) a few mods tying to address the issue.

And anything else which could benefit performance which you may consider are not acceptable in the normal game.

I am sorry but expect 'buy a better computer' mantra. The game may be forced to be playable even on very 'low-spec' machine to some degree but it requires serious sacrifices and careful management of the expectations. It still can be fun, but forget about 'great battless', 'megacomplexes' and stuff.

The game seems to be working better on linux (this is anegdotal, not an anctual, proven statement).

[alt3rn1ty]

I am sorry but expect 'buy a better computer' mantra. The game may be forced to be playable even on very 'low-spec' machine to some degree but it requires serious sacrifices and careful management of the expectations. It still can be fun, but forget about 'great battless', 'megacomplexes' and stuff.

The game seems to be working better on linux (this is anegdotal, not an anctual, proven statement).

Yep as usual with any X game, I dream of the PC I will one day buy for the current game .. But then the next game in the series releases, many shiny improvements lure you in to the new and put you off the old. But then also, the new is being designed for a machine we can buy in about ten years time .. Its an infuriating cycle repeated every time. Typically the published Machine Spec requirements for each game are only if you want to play the game as an occasional slideshow experience (yes I realise the spec is for desktops, and I do a lot of research on what an equivalent laptop would need to be, which isn't always entirely successful). I still like X3AP which performs brilliantly on my laptop .. But we dont have legs, or the new map and strategic command capabilities for our fleets etc etc. Sigh.

I have seen mention of the game working better on Linux a few times now. Linux as I understand it makes better use of SSDs, but also the performance of the game can be remarkably better than on Windows. The latter OS of course is permanently in danger of Microsofts Bright Ideas department trying to sell old rope with new tricks .. Windows 7 drastic cut on background services and a major overhaul of the OS was probably the best version of Windows ever, but since then we have all been railroaded into newer versions of the OS as old versions are no longer updated, and it is steadily getting worse again.
So yes, Linux is high on my to-do list. But I need to see better support for my other games first, Proton is coming on leaps and bounds in that department, but I am still shy of making the leap, and which Distribution to go with. POP, or Mint are more than likely, I tried the bleeding edge Fedora once and was overwhelmed with the amount of updates .
There is also the problem that proprietary Graphics drivers lag behind in Linux development. As we found out recently in the 7.5 betas, up to date NVidia drivers help with a couple of hitches people experienced .. Much patience is required for the Linux versions to catch up.

[TroubledRabbit]

I am sorry but expect 'buy a better computer' mantra. The game may be forced to be playable even on very 'low-spec' machine to some degree but it requires serious sacrifices and careful management of the expectations. It still can be fun, but forget about 'great battless', 'megacomplexes' and stuff.

The game seems to be working better on linux (this is anegdotal, not an anctual, proven statement).

I have seen mention of the game working better on Linux a few times now. Linux as I understand it makes better use of SSDs, but also the performance of the game can be remarkably better than on Windows. The latter OS of course is permanently in danger of Microsofts Bright Ideas department trying to sell old rope with new tricks .. Windows 7 drastic cut on background services and a major overhaul of the OS was probably the best version of Windows ever, but since then we have all been railroaded into newer versions of the OS as old versions are no longer updated, and it is steadily getting worse again.
So yes, Linux is high on my to-do list [...].. Much patience is required for the Linux versions to catch up.

That really depends of the applications/games you want to use and level of you desire to 'peek and poke in stuff'. I am old and lazy AF, so I am staying on Mint one version behind (though for X4 I am using much newer kernel which allows for proper use of continous shared RAM with iGPU, because Egosoft ignored the issue completely, you do not need that with real GPU with >4GB VRAM).

Besides border cases, I had no problems with most games, though I am not a 'gamer' in any way. Steam with Proton Experimental (or sometimes older version) does job done just fine in most cases. If not - there is Lutris and other solutions. X4 has got native executable anyway, so you do not need messing around with compatibility layer. If you do not have super new hardware/software demands, you do not need (and generally you should not aim to) 'rolling releases'. Stable is always better than 'newest and shinniest'.

Ux generally perform better (better threads, memory and storage management, WIndows is still somewhat ~decade behind in these deptartments) but above all general performance gain is just because no distro tries to do shady stuff constantly in background eating the machine power. Seriously decluttered Windows can be quite well performing. Just do not try to connect with the Internet.

Fly safely and have fun.