X-Tended - Terran Conflict (XTC)

[Aragon Speed]

What, we got skins now?
o.O
Estimate #?

About that, possibly a bit more.

[supakillaii]

GAH! So many? I was expecting something along the lines of i, but # or MORE!? Wow!

[Aragon Speed]

GAH! So many? I was expecting something along the lines of i, but # or MORE!? Wow!

[supakillaii]

Anything on the new starts?
Anything?
As in will there be any?

[Aragon Speed]

As I have said before, there will be new starts, but there will probably only be one in the first release as we would like to get the base mod out first.

[someone else]

WOAH!!!! that Katana says "I'm bad, intrinsecally bad... I'll kill you if you look me too much in that way",
a very LVish ship imho.

that is what the terran ships should look like... not "sons of the Space Shuttle" like in Vanilla (the Vanilla ones are cool, but quite out of place imho)

that skin system looks quite powerful at my eyes... is there some hope that some of you guys can write down a tutorial/link the tutorial you use somewhere?

I really wanna se this mod come to life

[dalin80]

now give the katana some useful weapons and i will be happy.

[supakillaii]

So that's "Perhaps (most likely?) one (1) new start in the first version", no?

[Aragon Speed]

So that's "Perhaps (most likely?) one (1) new start in the first version", no?

Yes.

[supakillaii]

Yay!
iWin pl0x.

[Aragon Speed]

XTC News 14th July 2009.

It's been a while since the initial announcement we made, so we thought we had better tell you something about the new mod rather than just veiled suggestive comments and pictures. ^^

So what are some of the things we have been up to?

First of all we have an announcement that some will love, and others will hate, so let's get this out in the open now. We have created an entirely new universe from scratch. We have been hinting at this for a while with the teaser stories we have been posting on TXU, but it's time everyone knew.

This was a difficult decision as we know that a lot of people will not like the fact that they will not be in the normal universe (Not to mention, from our point of view, the amount of work that is involved to do something like this). The plain facts of the matter are that with all the new sectors ES added to the map in TC (and then even more in the 2.0 patch, although by then we had already started work on the new universe), the possibilities for expansion were severely limited. This on its own was not enough of a reason to create a new universe, and we were originally going to use the current universe and not add new sectors, but the more we thought about things we wanted to do, the more we realised how difficult it would be to do them in the current universe. Then a stormer of an idea surfaced that we simply could not leave out of the mod once we had confirmed it was possible, and this idea would simply not work in the current universe. The idea itself will be announced at a later date as it is one of our large features and we do not wish to tell you about yet. Yeah I know that's cruel, but how else will we keep you checking in for new info? (If anyone can guess what it is before we announce it, I will personally send them a pack of chocolate chip cookies. ^^ XTC Team and Testers are excluded from this promotional offer... )

Another thing we took into consideration is the performance in TC. If we added extra sectors to the vanilla map, these would need populating with stations and ships. More jobs in an already stressed universe was not good in our opinion, what's the point in making a mod the size of XTC if the game engine cannot handle it? Even if we didn't add new sectors, we thought about the extra strain our additions would cause with the extra scripts etc we will have running in XTC, and we figured that everyone's machine would just cough, splutter and fall over dead. So we went for a new universe. This universe is smaller than the standard TC universe, but by no means small. It is about the same size as the standard X3R universe. By reducing the amount of sectors slightly we have also improved performance in the game.

The new universe has plus points and minus points from a players point of view.

The minus points are that you will have a universe that is entirely different from the one you are used to, so nothing will be familiar and safe, and you will have to explore the whole universe to see what is out there again. All ES plots and starts will be unavailable as they will not work in a different universe.

The plus points are that you will have a universe that is entirely different from the one you are used to, so nothing will be familiar and safe, and you will have to explore the whole universe to see what is out there again. All ES plots and starts will be unavailable as they will not work in a different universe. ^^

The team have had constant requests for the XTM ships that didn't make it into vanilla TC to be added to the new mod. As this was pretty much a foregone conclusion we haven't said much about it, but just to put everyones mind to rest we can confirm that they have been added to XTC.

Recently we have had a new member join the team. Trickmov of X3R 'Sector take over', 'Player owned equipment dock' and 'Statistics centre' fame is now working with us, so expect good things to come from this pairing.

We have introduced a working in-game difficulty system that can be manually set to different difficulty settings to tailor the game to each players skill level. This setting can be changed at any time from within the game itself, suppressing and replacing the current ES system in use.

XTC will include XXL fabs for all you complex builders out there. For those that are not familiar with this type of mod, this adds many larger factories to the universe for sale that produce products in larger amounts than the stock factories, this allows you to build complexes using less factories to get the same amount of resources (or the same amount of factories in a complex that really churns out the goods ^^).

Player configurable shield, weapon, and missile complexes. Self contained mini-complexes that are pre-built by the races. You just need to place them and tell them which products you would like them to produce.

Mobile factories (From XTM) also make a return in XTC so you can build all those nice weapons, or produce E-cells etc while on the move. After listening to our fans feedback (complaints ^^) and due to the new menu system available in TC, all control scripts have had a major overhaul for efficiency and ease of use as well.

All scripts in XTC have been written from scratch to include the new functionality in the TC script editor, and have also been written with a large and complex mod in mind from the start. This time around we have designed the scripts system to take growth into account and to hopefully provide a more stable and enjoyable X-Tended game.

Exploding ships will now cause blast damage. The range you can be damaged at, and amount of damage an explosion will cause is scaled to the size of the ship going boom. Don't sit next to that flaming M2 when you are in an M5. ^^

Ever wondered why huge capital ships where designed without a way for the crew to escape if they are going to explode? Well now they do. Any NPC capship that is about to explode will release emergency escape pods that contain the (lucky) crew members that managed to get to one in time.

M1's now will act a little more like carriers. Any damaged ship that docks at a carrier will be slowly repaired by the carrier's maintenance crews.

Sector station defence forces that will respond to threats. If you attack a station ships will be launched from the local trading station to deal with the incursion.

Pirate stations will slowly build themselves defences over time, the longer they are there the stronger their defences will become.

You don't want\don't like any of the above options? Not a problem, most of them can be individually turned on or off depending on your personal preferences.

The final thing we would like to announce is a new newspaper system. This is our take on replacing the (in many peoples eyes) missing BBS system from X3R. The core of this system has been designed so that it is easy to add your own news to. The core files for this system will be released as a separate mod soon, and before the release of XTC. This has been done so everyone can have a universally compatible news system whether they are playing XTC or Vanilla, it's just the news articles that will be different depending on which universe you are playing in.

That's all for now folks, I hope we have wetted your appetite more this time around. ^^

The X-Tended team.

[someone else]

so nothing will be familiar and safe, and you will have to explore the whole universe to see what is out there again

just what I wanted.

very very good works so far. Keep it up!


p.s. just in case you want some cool scripts to enhance AI and behaviour of khaaks, xenon, Pirates and Yaki Improved Races by 1ate9tin11s

[X2-Eliah]

Woo - a new universe.. Perfect!

Edit: - judging by the lore posts, you are not getting rid of the races..

My guess on what it is all about **Pure speculation**- Terrans have opened a long-forgotten part of the gate network, and now all races are rushing to grab what they can...
Races actively fight each other and conquer sectors (one of the reasons Trickmov is in your team), and the universe starts with few sectors per race and a large number of uninhabited ones.. By the end of it, all sectors are taken over..

I do hope that the player at least does not start out as a "race", but is still a small fish in an ocean..

Or, another guess - in the new universe sector gates actively shift their connections, meaning no sector today is connected to the one it was yesterday..


P.S. Please tell me this isn't a conversion to an RTS... Please...


As for the Newspaper system - will it be available at stations / while docked, or will you "Subscribe" to a newsletter that automatically sends you incoming messages per day? And will it contain the stories from X2/X3R?

And of the sectors -will they themselves be X2, X3-R or X3-TC sector sized? (I.E. How large will they be?)

[Deadbeat_Spinn]

A whole new universe.....can't wait for that, been waiting to step into the unknown again (haven't had that since I first started playing). On that subject however is there going to be a least one new race making an appearance or are the races staying the same and are the Sohnen returning for XTC?

Having blast radius damage from dying capitals will be nice to have again, course that means no more hiding under a ship that 50m away from you.

The Escape Pods, can they be captured (for the slaver type) or destroyed (for the type that prefer not showing mercy) by the player?

A new form/type of BBS, how I have missed it. Hmm if the player can add their own form of news, does that mean the player can, say make posting for hiring (i.e. pilots/troops/ships) and/or post missions so the NPC's can do some dirty work so the player has less/none of a rep hit (and for the cruel, kill the hirelings so you don't have to pay them, though NPC's could be more wary of working for said player in the future)? It's good to know it'll be back in some form or another.


Keep up the good work guys.

[X2-Eliah]

Hum - more introspection..

I think that the idea to dismiss the whole ES plot & gamestart thing is a good one (even if it is mandatory and unavoidable).
For instance, just now I started a new game (mods and all), worked up to the Terran plot, and.. Well, now I have no inclination to play X3, to be frank - I already know everything I will have to do, the way I'll have to do it, and what I'll get for it.. The same applies to all other plots aswell. And, of course, no disrespect (word, yo) to the mission designers - I really liked the plots the first times round, but there are only so many times one can do the thing..
Getting rid of those plots will help to achieve a better sense of a "new game" thing.


Oh, and once more, yay for the new universe!
I certainly hope there will be all sorts of things to discover (like memos of lost ships, interesting artifacts, rich asteroids, secrets 'n' stuff...
And exploration - lots and lots of exploration and exploitation. Can't wait.

[Greenhorn]

Ya hooo a news system. Will news be like active locations of race raids /incursions /wars/ econmic oppertunities locations in progress?. If so, sounds like a very lively universe going to happen.Just when can we try this feature mod.I want to try this out.

[Aragon Speed]

Please tell me this isn't a conversion to an RTS... Please...

*Shudders!* Nope, no RTS conversions here.

The Escape Pods, can they be captured (for the slaver type) or destroyed (for the type that prefer not showing mercy) by the player?

Nope.

Ya hooo a news system. Will news be like active locations of race raids /incursions /wars/ econmic oppertunities locations in progress?.

There will be both the generic/static type of news, and dynamic news that is dependant on what is happening in the universe.

[The-Gizmo]

Being new to X games, I've never heard of any of the X games before X3:R and X3:TC. I'm still playing the 'vanilla' game, and am just about bored with it. I've completed all of the plots except the HUB and HQ plots, but as long and boring as the HUB plot is, I don't really care about completing it anymore, as I'm not sure the rewards are going to make the game any more interesting by now. Being able to reverse engineer and build rare ships is nice, but in the end doesn't really make the game more interesting, and definitely not worth all the time needed to complete the HUB plot IMO. So I'm probably just going to consider the game complete for now and just pretend the HUB and HQ plots don't exist.

Though, being a C and C++ programmer, I've thought about making a script/mod to enable building those production complexes that the NPC has when you start the game (like Medium Shield Production Complex). By just selecting 3 or so of your stations when you build the production complex to become a part of the one station complex (excluding Solar Power plants and Mines). But considering it appears this mod is already implementing a similar feature, I'll probably just wait for this mod. This mod looks like it'll make the game interesting again. Definitely looks good so far. I've never played the original one for Reunion, but it looked pretty fun.

[X2-Eliah]

Just in case someone missed it - the XTC will be based in the Solara system, in which the Aldrin systems reside..
It may mean that all sectors will be as large as Aldrin (though without the giant rock in the middle, I imagine)..

It seems that the Terrans are trying to claim the system for their own, and the Solarians do not wish to give their positions up, so they stroke a deal allowing Argons to enter..

The Paranid are trying to infiltrate the new universe as spies, possibly settle an economy for themselves as well.

Naturally, Pirates will be in the equation.

What of the other races, I could not figure out..

°°° Again, speculation from the public information sources, I'd wager 97% accuracy on the first paragraph, and 80% on the second one. 3rd paragraph is about 75% accurate, 4th is 100%, and the last paragraph is honest too °°°

[someone else]

It may mean that all sectors will be as large as Aldrin

that would be... regrettable. (performance issues)

please Aragon, say that he is wrong on this...