WHAT IS THE NEXT BIG THING? ...and WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE ,or not like IN IT

[BeidAmmikon]

i really want something out of it

I want those %$^&* "particles" out of my way, or at least have an option not to display them. I'm able to perceive the movement of the ship I'm in, thank you, without "particles" that would fly past me and that would, frankly, clutter and spoil the scenery unless I'm stationary Presence of small particles (dust, or very small debris) is logical around stations and in places where ships would have dumped their garbage, aka randomly-placed, short-lived, clouds of debrees

[RedEclipse]

5 things, actually :

- better camera gestion.
These are too rigid. When your ship explode, the camera stops. When you stop pushing the "turn camera" buttons, the camera stops.
It stops from full speed to 0 speed. This is very rigid. It should decelerate first, maybe with a few ° of inertia.

- smoother gameplay transitions. Today, you enter a ship BAM you are in the ship. You enter a station BAM you're in. With no transition.
Some simple-to-program fade-to-black are required everywhere in this game, this is rigid again.

- more accidently mayhem. Some kind of "road code" on highspeed roads. Traffic ligths. Police, smugglers are in the game. But I'd love to have a speed fine in that game. Or police chasing me because I jumped in the portal with no care of the caution rules. Of course the player would want to go fast where he could and provoke accidents : that would be fun !

- more hard-scifi. For two things : first because that kind of scifi not only works well, but sells well (BattleStar, Eve Online, Firefly) and because I like very scientificly studied universes. That is not the case in the X series but I would love to see this coming here.

- cockpits. At least some generic one, one from a live-saving capsule, I don't know, but cockpit. Let's say i've got only one single same-model cockpit for all the ships and i'm happy.

Other than that ?

Nothing : I'm full confident about devs in egosoft

[Spero]

The dilemma with cockpits is that they cost a lot of development time, which is a very finite resource.

Imagine dev time as a percent scale. You have 100% to spend developing your game. 50% might go into modeling the ships. 40% more might go into modeling stations. Now what do you do with that remaining 10%? You could model cockpits, or you could model more ships.

I know which I'd prefer. That, and I prefer 3rd person arcade views anyway!

[bill2505]

SEAMLESS planet traveling.
planet missions


being able except stations to build cities or colonies

[LTerSlash]

I going to start with only one thing.

NO, i repeat, NO EASY PLOT COMBAT, and way HARD invading.

There no point in building a big fleet if nothing in the universeproves to be a challange. Invading a sector should be HARD, and definetely not possible in a single ship. Maybe some tactical strike, but nothing more.

Addicionally, no more easy combat plots!!! the whole Terran plot in TC just looked like a long tutorial, if you play it from the begining, you will notice that the Xenon and invading Terran space with M5, M4, and maybe one M3 after a while...

Thats not even a small threat... if the combat of a plot mission is too hard, just do it again later when you got a better ship or a wing/fleet. No more missions adapting dificulty to player statics... the player is the one that should adapt to the mission.

Same apply to 4 M5 and 2 M4 attacking a station in a "station defence" mission...

You get the point, combat should be HARD, and no by equiping all ships with some overpowered and deadly weapon like the Xenons or the Pirates.



In addidition to this, trading should be posible and fun too... i dont want to see more timers for trading missions, trading should be only be lost to another ai player beating you to deliver the items.

[wolvern]

i know exactly what i want from this game but one thing i do really want is the option to TURN THINGS OFF.

i want to be able to turn off random enemy ships jumping into my sector and only attacking my ships, like a peaceful mode. maybe even the ability to at least make them neutral to me or not targeting my things only.

i want to be able to turn difficulty for some things up and down, like how hard it is to get an enemy pilot to eject.

small options that allow me to change little things in the game without making it cheating by just giving myself stuff.

having a simple mode for setting up stations trading, have everything just automate using my funds when i get a station so i can concentrate on combat only. Being able to hire like a business manager or combat expert who strengthens my fleet by buying what is better for me.

I want to be able to play the game without worrying about something 30 sectors away. by having these little automated things that i can turn on or off. kinda like sim city really where you only manage the large problems or the initial problems.

if i can flick a switch and need to deal with it or hire someone in game to deal with it i'd like that. then at least it's optional.

I REALLY WANT CAPITAL SHIP CREWS and to walk around a really nice capital ship in game, even a major station would finally be nice.


----edit for more idea ----

network pilot chat in game, so we can talk to the x3 community while playing. I like to be a little more connected and it'd make the game feel more multiplayer because you'd be talking to people throughout the entire universe of the game... hehe

[wolvern]

The dilemma with cockpits is that they cost a lot of development time, which is a very finite resource.

Imagine dev time as a percent scale. You have 100% to spend developing your game. 50% might go into modeling the ships. 40% more might go into modeling stations. Now what do you do with that remaining 10%? You could model cockpits, or you could model more ships.

I know which I'd prefer. That, and I prefer 3rd person arcade views anyway!

i notice egosoft still uses the worst idea of window style cockpits when really they make the weakness in any ship. if they went windowless they'd be able to design a more flexible hud style that uses most of the same textures many times over but gives ability to change configuration of how many internal monitors and other things. With the pod idea this would be kinda a great addon idea, where you can customise the pods internal screens and what the holo-emitters show meaning that the internal cockpit would look initially as bland as stepping into seat with some glowy balls situated around the place with addon's able to be bought. When a pilot wants to customise the display all they have to do is set like display rotations, vertical or horizontal bars for health and other items..... hell if you want to drop down some more time make it open dev so people can make cockpit config files and other things like the flight sim modders do.

could open it up further with the ability to mount cameras like a sandbox to the outside of the ship so the internal displays can link back to them using simple menu controls. If egosoft adds some nice freelance type ship area damage it would make battles interesting because you could target these camera areas and force a pilot or a cap ship crew to bail out because their external sensors and guns could be disabled completely.

[wolvern]

What I would like to see is:

1. Concerning stations
- unique names given to them.

2. Concerning scenery
Random, transparent, BIG images.

3. Concerning equipment on ships
Gadgets and other equipment that would not be mandatory to fit your ship with, but nevertheless useful
spare spacesuit;
water;
oxygen
spare parts;
video recorder;
video projector;
travel log storage device;
survival kit;
tool kit;

1. Concerning stations
- unique names given to them.

/// good idea but somewhat overall useless, stations have names regarding their use on the map but we've never seen stations have these random names because it would be somewhat confusing on a map to many pilots.

2. Concerning scenery
Random, transparent, BIG images.

/// somewhat a bad idea in most cases unless you have some sort of combat or entertainment type drug in game that can cause these things to happen. The best idea from this would actually be the wing commander movie anomaly where it sends out random signals and otherwise that lures in ships because it's a space and time distortion.

3. Concerning equipment on ships
Gadgets and other equipment that would not be mandatory to fit your ship with, but nevertheless useful

spare spacesuit
/// - already worn while in the cockpit, your flight suit seems to double as one

water;
oxygen
spare parts;
/// - these would be good as supplies for a capital ship but for a smaller vessel they are usually seen as cars.

video recorder;
video projector;
travel log storage device;
/// - some items that are already in game, others would use up dev time and would be better suited for modders to put in like a MP3 player which allows you to play your own music during game.

survival kit;
tool kit;
/// - already part of the spacesuit

[wolvern]

5 things, actually :

- smoother gameplay transitions.

- more accidently mayhem

- cockpits. At least some generic one

- smoother gameplay transitions.

this would be good for some but not all, it would be nice to play a build up mission to it but a lot of people don't commit time to starting into a game. Freelancer was the best at doing this gradual progression from transporter to fighter pilot with many upon many good systems shown. including target weak point ability and portions of your ship coming off with the weapon as well.

- more accidently mayhem

i think most of us remember the older X games of the series where doing a jump with many ships at once caused you to lose nearly all of them because they just jumped on top of each other. My large mammoth hauler was a very good show to how bad this was in the older games where all the escort ships ended up being roadkill.

Even today the X series provides us with these accidents where ships crash into your stations and cause you to lose rep, even the autopilot ships taking hours upon hours to dock with your fighter transport or the large haulers never able to get round an asteroid belt.

[vrod]

I would love to be able to roam around the large ships. Instead of just "being inside" a landed ship, you would have to run to the hanger and climb aboard.

Think about beaming aboard an enemy ship and having to fight FPS style inside. You could help your marines out or decide to find the hanger and steal an enemy ship to escape.

This could also lead to some cool missions where you must steal an enemy ship, dock at it's mothership, then sneak around inside. Either planting explosives, gathering intel or goods, or hijacking another ship in the hanger.

[vrod]

Support for up to 6 monitors with custom views for each.

Dragable buttons and HUD panels that could be pulled and activated on any screen. (a Wing Commander did this) Imagine a small TFT monitor laying at your side with various buttons at your fingertips.

The goal would be to hide the keyboard and setup a nice spaceship simulator. Something more besides a cool joystick.

[Terre]

The players main control craft could have jukebox, to which they can add their favourite track.

[Hubert99]

The dilemma with cockpits is that they cost a lot of development time, which is a very finite resource.

Imagine dev time as a percent scale. You have 100% to spend developing your game. 50% might go into modeling the ships. 40% more might go into modeling stations. Now what do you do with that remaining 10%? You could model cockpits, or you could model more ships.

I know which I'd prefer. That, and I prefer 3rd person arcade views anyway!

This is not a dilemma. Suck it up, and make the cockpits.

I could do with less ships. How many ships does one actually fly ? After 40-50 days of play (and that's modest) there are still dozens of ships I never had my ass in. And I probably will never have. Than, what use it is the great number of ships ? One will always fly the few select ships: Springblossom, Hyperion, a few other M6, one or two TMs, few M3 and M3+ ...

Seriously. Game development is not all about making the models, that's actually a smaller part of it, imo. The engine, the code, the scripts, now, that's business.

Cockpits generate a cosy, more warm atmosphere ... I feel that I am human, and there is this personal space, and a hull and some shileds bewteen me and the coldness of space. Even EVE devs realized that they are missiong out many players who do not like to identify themselves with a ship model. Cockpits are a step into the right direction,

[Blitus[PNX]]

Few things I'd like to see in TNBT:

The 'clouds' in some sectors... they stop me seeing stations etc but yet I can see all the stars and the planets. Def better was to make sectors have low vis.

Shields - I want to see them, maybe only when something hits them like a laser or missile.

Weapon mounts, the guns point in one direction but you can fire directionally with the mouse and it just looks odd, either make the weapon move like a mini turrent perhaps, or make it omni directional such there isnt a barrel.

The interface, I'd like to be able to keep open several windows, move them about, resize them etc, would be handy to have the my missions window, a small sector map, a mini 'R' window which I can filter myself etc.

[THE_TrashMan]

I could do with less ships. How many ships does one actually fly ? After 40-50 days of play (and that's modest) there are still dozens of ships I never had my ass in. And I probably will never have. Than, what use it is the great number of ships ? One will always fly the few select ships: Springblossom, Hyperion, a few other M6, one or two TMs, few M3 and M3+ ...

That argument works againt you...if you only fly 5 ships out of 50, then you will also only use 5 cockpits out of 50.


All resources are finite. Developers ALWAYS have to cut things from games. ALWAYS. NO EXCEPTION. So they also have to decide which features to keep, which not. Which offer the most bang for the buck.

As long as the game is moddable enough, and the core machnics are sound, I don't care about lack of cockpits - they'll be added by the modding community soon enough:P
Alas, it doens't work the other way around.

[Hubert99]

Nah, they don't. Tell me one such working mod for X3TC. Not one that uses X2 models.

A cockpit is not something you can easily mod in. It is aither organic part of the game, or there isn't one. Probably that's what you mean by needing a lot fo dev time, and that's why it was left out.
Yes, I agree. It takes good quality work on the part of both are and programming departmemnts. So ? I still want them.
Will I get them ? Not sure. I hope. I did use a mod for cocplitsb in an earlier game. Eventually the game was lost to mods and bad savegame managment. I am no programmer. If I have to sue mods, sooner or later I will f...k up. So I want my cocpits in the offcial vanilla unmodded game.

Did I say, I want cockpits ? Heck when you sit in a turreted ship and you see the sides of your ship, and the elerons or what's their name ... isn't that a nice feature ? I gives immersion. I do not play in third person mode. A dedicated cocpit is a seat where you spend the most tim, and it should be part of your hub. Sure, I could build a cockpit myself, and build my monitor in, and pretend that I am a space jockey. But that is uber geekness. So I want my immersion creating cockpit, beyond the screen of my monitor.

So, give me cockpits. Even a single generic one, or one by class would satsify me. Yes, X2 had it, and IMO, it was a great thing to have. I never played X2 extensively cos by the time I got the game as a bonus CD from LEVEL magazine, X3 was already out and me being a sucker for better graphics, just could not bear playing it while there was X3.

Egosoft, please don't forget cockpits.

[TokraBase]

Hi,

- Planetary landing (e.g. Infinity game)
- Discoverable planets with buildings and docks

regards