Rebirth engine?

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Observe
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by Observe »

Axeface wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 04:05
ZombiePotatoSalad wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 03:05
Observe wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 02:59
My thoughts exactly. I've been thinking about this quite a bit as we approach launch date. Combined with highways, this will deflate my interest severely. I can live with highways, because I can mod them out. Collision detection/avoidance/pathing absolutely absolutely must work though.
Didn't they add a sort of boost drive, so you don't have to use highways all the time?
Have you played Rebirth? You dont have to use the highways all the time. Yes there is a boost drive just like in Rebirth (which you can use to avoid highways quite effectively), and also travel drive which is effectively just the boost drive that ships other than the player have in rebirth - its a boost drive, but it doesnt run out like boost does.
Highways are ugly. They clutter-up space like a junkyard. As I said, I can mod them out. But this is not the time or place to rant about highways. Yes, I am aware of boost-drive and that's what I prefer.

My point in posting, was to express need (for me) for X4 to have decent pathing, collision avoidance and collision detection. These are sorely missing in Rebirth. I want a space game, that is "reasonably" realistic for the sake of immersion. No immersion, no interest.
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by ZombiePotatoSalad »

@Observe, While the highways never bothered me (I played Freelancer, kinda used to the concept), I do agree that the pathing got really wonky. AI ships pretty much had no clipping, and could phase through each other at will. I'd hide inside a Heavy Sul, only to have the nose of an Arawn come poking through the wall.


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Observe
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by Observe »

ZombiePotatoSalad wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 04:26 @Observe, While the highways never bothered me (I played Freelancer, kinda used to the concept), I do agree that the pathing got really wonky. AI ships pretty much had no clipping, and could phase through each other at will. I'd hide inside a Heavy Sul, only to have the nose of an Arawn come poking through the wall.
Exactly! In Rebirth, it only takes a few minutes of gameplay to see this happening. That's about when I shut down the game in disgust. In the beginning, I used to play the game every one in a while, until reminded why I don't like it. Kind of like a bad restaurant that you end up going to again because you forgot how bad it was. I am waiting to hear how X4 is dealing with these problems, before I decide to buy or forget it.
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by ZombiePotatoSalad »

Observe wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 04:33
ZombiePotatoSalad wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 04:26 @Observe, While the highways never bothered me (I played Freelancer, kinda used to the concept), I do agree that the pathing got really wonky. AI ships pretty much had no clipping, and could phase through each other at will. I'd hide inside a Heavy Sul, only to have the nose of an Arawn come poking through the wall.
Exactly! In Rebirth, it only takes a few minutes of gameplay to see this happening. That's about when I shut down the game in disgust. In the beginning, I used to play the game every one in a while, until reminded why I don't like it. Kind of like a bad restaurant that you end up going to again because you forgot how bad it was. I am waiting to hear how X4 is dealing with these problems, before I decide to buy or forget it.
Especially since I saw this video back when it came out.

Also, it seems that the ships' pathing area is in the middle of the ship, rather than the front, which would probably help with the clipping. An 18 wheeler does not drive with its center.

https://youtu.be/dt4B4e3i5_0
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by Alan Phipps »

Just throwing in a comment here. This thread started out with whether X4 used the XR game engine. That was quickly and fully replied to. Some of the major XR initial bugs and ongoing dislikes were hardly game engine issues anyway but more perhaps in the interpretation and coding of gameplay aspects such as Mission Director code, scripting, and text/audio etc.

This thread has since rather adopted another and common 'Will X4 have the same bugs and things that I didn't like in XR?' theme. That is fine as long as we at least loosely keep the discussion to comparing these aspects to what we have seen or been told about X4 instead of just rubbishing aspects of XR. Thanks for your ongoing consideration that we keep this forum X4-centric. :)
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by spankahontis »

ZombiePotatoSalad wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 01:29
Protector AR wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 00:55
Net-FX wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 00:45 Well, the one thing I am certain of is that if and when any issues with X4 arise, Egosoft will work tirelessly to fix them. This is why I own every X game thus far and have already pre-purchased X4. :)
I agree, I played X:Rebirth a lot and they fixed every bug I came across.
Most people didn't see this with X:Rebirth unless they stuck around long enough.
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Observe wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 04:18 Highways are ugly. They clutter-up space like a junkyard. As I said, I can mod them out. But this is not the time or place to rant about highways. Yes, I am aware of boost-drive and that's what I prefer.

My point in posting, was to express need (for me) for X4 to have decent pathing, collision avoidance and collision detection. These are sorely missing in Rebirth. I want a space game, that is "reasonably" realistic for the sake of immersion. No immersion, no interest.
Every time you leave your House, you see Roads, I'd wager you don't say.. "How Pretty those Road look"?.. Because they are not meant to be pretty, they're meant to be essential to keep civilisation rolling.
Highways are meant to be for ships like this.. https://roguey.co.uk/xrebirth/ships/bulk-carrier/
Ships that are too small for boosters, travel drives etc. They need those highways to get to other stations in the Core Sectors.
No immersion, no interest.
You don't realize that if you mod out out those Highways you are essentially saying you don't need roads to get to work, you'll be driving your car over mud? Right?
For Ships S Size and larger? You don't need to use Highways.. They should exist purely because they are essential to keep the economy and civilization rolling as real life Roads.. They're a status symbol, not something that is supposed to be pretty; they're meant to be ugly.
removing them is removing immersion so you're doing the opposite of what you are saying.
ZombiePotatoSalad wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 04:26 @Observe, While the highways never bothered me (I played Freelancer, kinda used to the concept), I do agree that the pathing got really wonky. AI ships pretty much had no clipping, and could phase through each other at will. I'd hide inside a Heavy Sul, only to have the nose of an Arawn come poking through the wall.
I want the Highways to stay purely for aesthetic reasons.. Cars need roads, that's what the XXS Ships we see buzzing around stations in their hundreds look to me, economy cars without the jumpdrives, boosters and travel drives cause they're too small to have them.
S to XL Ships come off as Helicopters, jets and Battle Ships that don't need roads.

If the Highways were designed like that, as boosters/travel drives for the little people getting to work then that would be awesome.. For those with bigger ships? They have a whole plethora of engine upgrades to make Local Highways obsolete. For long distance? there is the Jump Gates and trans-orbital accelerators which all ships can use.
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by pref »

Observe wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 02:59
jasonbarron wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 01:54 Pathing. If I see capital ships just blithely phase through a station in X4 like they do on a regular basis in XR it'll kill it for me.
My thoughts exactly. I've been thinking about this quite a bit as we approach launch date. Combined with highways, this will deflate my interest severely. I can live with highways, because I can mod them out. Collision detection/avoidance/pathing absolutely absolutely must work though.
XR engine doesn't mean the XR issues will stay. Scripts will define the experience much more imo, and the engine is pretty flexible.

Regarding collisions - think ES patched that in after a while? Maybe my memory fails me, but i really remember seeing big ships collide and not fly through eachother.

Also quite a few months after release i made a script for fleets to board stations (couple capships circled around to distract turrets while the boarding ship flew up close with a small delay and released the pods).
It wasnt exactly easy getting them fly real close to the station, but with proper params they never flew through it. Actually it looked pretty sweet in the end.
Iirc having them fly into the station required some intentional misparameterization, but otherwise it never happened.
Anyway pathing definitely got better well after release, though scripts had no exact control over the trajectory and the destination was overridden in case it was inside a hitbox in zone.

Guess X4 will at least be in this state, or maybe has even seen some improvement.
Plus there is X3 style internal docking and carriers - which makes me think those improvements might even be unavoidable.
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by AC_Black »

Protector AR wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 00:55
Net-FX wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 00:45 Well, the one thing I am certain of is that if and when any issues with X4 arise, Egosoft will work tirelessly to fix them. This is why I own every X game thus far and have already pre-purchased X4. :)
I agree, I played X:Rebirth a lot and they fixed every bug I came across.
Most people didn't see this with X:Rebirth unless they stuck around long enough.
I do agree they did patch it as fast as they could and I believe they are still trying to fix some. I am able to enjoy the game, shoot, capture, destroy and just day dream.
I am NOW on my 4th go around in X Rebirth, with all DLC's. Yup I pre-ordered it as well. ALL of the bugs they fixed in X R, they now have a full data base of what to look for and fix, BEFORE we get it on the 30th :) At least they have this learning curve over with :lol:
Yup pre-ordered the CE and heres hoping I can get the game to run with no game breakers for 24hrs of just flying around looking for my NEW Home. (Just hoping I can place My PHQ where I want after finding that SPOT :) Profittttsssss will be made here )
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by Zloth2 »

ZombiePotatoSalad wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 04:54 Also, it seems that the ships' pathing area is in the middle of the ship, rather than the front, which would probably help with the clipping. An 18 wheeler does not drive with its center.
It's a space ship, it's the center of mass that counts.

One thing is for sure - ships can't just pass through stations in Rebirth. There's a pirate station in O.L. that's stuck right between the jump beacon and the stations of the Ratfish zone. Even when out of sector, trade ships will ram right into it! The station will then start cutting the trade ship apart. There's a mod now to move the station up a little and now my trade ships zip right on past.
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by ZombiePotatoSalad »

Zloth2 wrote: Mon, 19. Nov 18, 03:09
ZombiePotatoSalad wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 04:54 Also, it seems that the ships' pathing area is in the middle of the ship, rather than the front, which would probably help with the clipping. An 18 wheeler does not drive with its center.
It's a space ship, it's the center of mass that counts.

One thing is for sure - ships can't just pass through stations in Rebirth. There's a pirate station in O.L. that's stuck right between the jump beacon and the stations of the Ratfish zone. Even when out of sector, trade ships will ram right into it! The station will then start cutting the trade ship apart. There's a mod now to move the station up a little and now my trade ships zip right on past.
Yes, but I imagine there would be some sort of Vernier thrusters at the front as well. However, there's still the principle of the matter: you shouldn't steer with the center. SInce the engines are at the back, you should lead with the front and steer with the rear (in the case of thrust vectoring). The center is inert.

Basically, I believe that since it navigates with the center, it doesn't care what's in front of it, until whatever it's running into gets close to the center.
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by sd_jasper »

Zloth2 wrote: Mon, 19. Nov 18, 03:09
ZombiePotatoSalad wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 04:54 Also, it seems that the ships' pathing area is in the middle of the ship, rather than the front, which would probably help with the clipping. An 18 wheeler does not drive with its center.
It's a space ship, it's the center of mass that counts.

One thing is for sure - ships can't just pass through stations in Rebirth. There's a pirate station in O.L. that's stuck right between the jump beacon and the stations of the Ratfish zone. Even when out of sector, trade ships will ram right into it! The station will then start cutting the trade ship apart. There's a mod now to move the station up a little and now my trade ships zip right on past.
Oh? I could've used that mod awhile ago. I've lost many ships to that station. It got to the point where I stopped sending ship to OL.
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by nerdtron »

A big thing lacking in X:Rebirth is an FOV slider. Hopefully that's corrected in this next iteration of the engine :)
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by Drewgamer »

Making an engine is no small task. Add that to the fact they were creating a new game on top of it and (from my perspective) it's easy to see why Rebirth was "such a mess". Egosoft has had a good bit of time to refine and improve upon the engine since releasing X Rebirth.

I believe we won't have anything major to worry about when it comes to the engine. If there are any major issues with the game, it will be due to design decisions (which it seems like they addressed most, if not all, of what people disliked about Rebirth) or logic issues (which we hope the testers are furiously trying to work out :P).
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by sandalle »

sd_jasper wrote: Mon, 19. Nov 18, 15:15
Zloth2 wrote: Mon, 19. Nov 18, 03:09 It's a space ship, it's the center of mass that counts.

One thing is for sure - ships can't just pass through stations in Rebirth. There's a pirate station in O.L. that's stuck right between the jump beacon and the stations of the Ratfish zone. Even when out of sector, trade ships will ram right into it! The station will then start cutting the trade ship apart. There's a mod now to move the station up a little and now my trade ships zip right on past.
Oh? I could've used that mod awhile ago. I've lost many ships to that station. It got to the point where I stopped sending ship to OL.
Just found the mod today, it's X Rebirth > Workshop > SirNukes's Workshop > Move Murky Skies Distillery for those interested. :)
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by OneOfMany »

Zloth2 wrote: Mon, 19. Nov 18, 03:09
ZombiePotatoSalad wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 04:54 Also, it seems that the ships' pathing area is in the middle of the ship, rather than the front, which would probably help with the clipping. An 18 wheeler does not drive with its center.
It's a space ship, it's the center of mass that counts.

One thing is for sure - ships can't just pass through stations in Rebirth. There's a pirate station in O.L. that's stuck right between the jump beacon and the stations of the Ratfish zone. Even when out of sector, trade ships will ram right into it! The station will then start cutting the trade ship apart. There's a mod now to move the station up a little and now my trade ships zip right on past.
If you watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boxj2l5MkqY at 23:20, you will see that ships can now clip quite easily through solid objects.
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by ZombiePotatoSalad »

OneOfMany wrote: Tue, 20. Nov 18, 17:19
Zloth2 wrote: Mon, 19. Nov 18, 03:09
ZombiePotatoSalad wrote: Sun, 11. Nov 18, 04:54 Also, it seems that the ships' pathing area is in the middle of the ship, rather than the front, which would probably help with the clipping. An 18 wheeler does not drive with its center.
It's a space ship, it's the center of mass that counts.

One thing is for sure - ships can't just pass through stations in Rebirth. There's a pirate station in O.L. that's stuck right between the jump beacon and the stations of the Ratfish zone. Even when out of sector, trade ships will ram right into it! The station will then start cutting the trade ship apart. There's a mod now to move the station up a little and now my trade ships zip right on past.
If you watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boxj2l5MkqY at 23:20, you will see that ships can now clip quite easily through solid objects.
But that, like everything else we've seen, is in Alpha. They could have fixed it by now, or it could still be an issue. We don't know.
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by OneOfMany »

ZombiePotatoSalad wrote: Tue, 20. Nov 18, 17:35
OneOfMany wrote: Tue, 20. Nov 18, 17:19
Zloth2 wrote: Mon, 19. Nov 18, 03:09
It's a space ship, it's the center of mass that counts.

One thing is for sure - ships can't just pass through stations in Rebirth. There's a pirate station in O.L. that's stuck right between the jump beacon and the stations of the Ratfish zone. Even when out of sector, trade ships will ram right into it! The station will then start cutting the trade ship apart. There's a mod now to move the station up a little and now my trade ships zip right on past.
If you watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boxj2l5MkqY at 23:20, you will see that ships can now clip quite easily through solid objects.
But that, like everything else we've seen, is in Alpha. They could have fixed it by now, or it could still be an issue. We don't know.
You are quoted above as stating that "ships can't just pass through stations in Rebirth". If they got it right then and are using the same engine, why can they clip through now?
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by nerdtron »

OneOfMany wrote: Tue, 20. Nov 18, 18:10 You are quoted above as stating that "ships can't just pass through stations in Rebirth". If they got it right then and are using the same engine, why can they clip through now?
I would guess that how various objects clip with respect to other objects is just a setting that can be changed, not a fundamental property of the engine. It could go either way with the same engine by modifying how it works.
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by Alan Phipps »

… and that is indeed most probably supported by the fact that Egosoft tried X Rebirth both with and without capital collision/damage/avoidance with asteroids etc.
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Re: Rebirth engine?

Post by ZombiePotatoSalad »

Alan Phipps wrote: Tue, 20. Nov 18, 21:30 … and that is indeed most probably supported by the fact that Egosoft tried X Rebirth both with and without capital collision/damage/avoidance with asteroids etc.
There's pros and cons to each. If they ignored objects and didn't clip, then their pathing would have to account for that. Capital ships would have a walrus of a time trying to navigate asteroid fields, perhaps reduced to spinning circles just outside the field. Conversely, if they just passed through with reckless abandon and clipping, the player's immersion would be shattered. It's hard to find a balance with these things.
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