So I bought Elite: Dangerous

[Sanshy]

Highway doesn’t make any good for game play. It creates a paradox in this game ... small ships can be quicker then bigger ship on the other side of the galaxy. This is going against any logic. Where a big ship should carry many smaller one. They have just made the big ships completely useless for trading / mining. It’s a disaster.

To come back to the ship design, I do not understand ... why those developers who had the best ships design ever in X2 / X3 / XR had to throw away everything and give us those poor miserable copy pasted stats ships across the factions ... they are first must of them ultra ugly and with no soul.

For god sake just give us back all the previous ships.
We want racial Specific ships and also equipment specific ships. Why can an ARG ship can use all PAR technology ?
Give us something more racial and logical.

Maybe ask a modding / creative challenge for people to design ships mod that you can add to the game after being validated by egosoft ?
All factions get too similar ships technically speaking. We want some differences and MORE VARIETY.

My two cents but I thing I am giving the voice for many peeps around here.

And for me , I am not going to E.D.... too boring , Emory and complicated. I will just log back in what I play for 16 years. EVE ONLINE.

[Akahito]

My two cents but I thing I am giving the voice for many peeps around here.

You can be sure of that!

[Kadatherion]

Highway doesn’t make any good for game play. It creates a paradox in this game ... small ships can be quicker then bigger ship on the other side of the galaxy. This is going against any logic. Where a big ship should carry many smaller one. They have just made the big ships completely useless for trading / mining. It’s a disaster.

In all fairness, this was mostly true even in X3: except for the smallest scouts, pretty much every ship could mount a jumpdrive. This made many bigger ship roles fairly pointless (carriers especially), with one notable difference that kept them still relevant: fuel. You'd go for bigger TS ships for trading, or still could find some (little) use for carriers, because not only they were more cost efficient, cargo storage directly translated into travel range before needing to stop and refuel (thus wasting time and losing efficiency).

Some mods tried to go the "hardcore" way of limiting the jumpdrive to only the biggest ship classes: it made a lot of sense, of course, but in the end this path was pretty much abandoned because quite unsuccessful, mainly due to QoL against the silliness of the AI and the unwieldly user interface. One thing is having the choice to play with carriers even if they are pretty hard to control and don't really give you an advantage, just for your own immersion: another one is being forced to play with them, while still - among many other things - being also forced to switch to another smaller ship every time you have to dock at a normal trade station or fab.
In X4 the same applies: rethinking the highway mechanic to make it if not mandatory at least clearly better to travel long distances with carriers would make a lot of sense on paper. Until you start up the game and realize how painful it is to sit on the bridge and wait potentially even HOURS before your fighters and their broken autopilot are finally able to dock. Nor, on the other hand, you can let big ships do everything the smaller ships can, so as to not need them anymore because... well, you wouldn't need them anymore, and the issue would still be the same, just upside down.

Right now, in X4, there's not even fuel, so there's no point at all in bigger ships. And no easy solution. One would be to put back in the game the concept of ware size in a similar way to the wares/solids/liquids that's in right now: let's have some very profitable ware that can be carried only by the L freighters. They are still gonna be slow, but they'll have a use all of their own. When it comes to military, given the autopilot AI, which can't be fixed to what would really be needed, it might be even harder to find some relatively simple to code solution. Dunno, maybe carriers could give passive bonuses to their assigned fighters, or - as many have proposed - could repair, rearm and maintain them automatically. That way, there would be a reason, and convenience, to set up a carrier with a squadron of fighters to patrol a certain area, especially OOS.

[Sanshy]

Agreed.

Those issues have all the same roots. Vanilla game wasn’t planned around a logical core system. Then using mods to alter it and make it more real wasn’t optimal.

You can see how many complain against the highway. It was a mistake to design the game like this, but now it’s too late ...

I reiterate, big ships should carry smaller ones and small ships should have a limited radius from a home base / ship. But I can only dream of it hehe.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

In the context of X4, the situation is a bit more straight forward in some ways and complex in others. What we have is a universe that already had a partly-space based society and was heavily dependent on jump gate technology. What they have done as a result of the gate shutdown is essentially try to replicate the end effect with highways/accelerators. The time between the gates shutting down and the gates reconnecting again was not really long enough for the kind of socio-technological evolution that you are referring to since there are already existing approaches in play AND true genuine change takes time and investment.

If we were talking about a day Zero technology for a fledgling space based society then what you are suggesting would make sense but that it not the case in X-Universe lore. The main priority of the X-universe would have been to reconnect their existing colonies/stations and recover from the consequences of the gate shutdown.

You do have a point, but... let's be real, there's no such logic behind the actual game development decision about how the highways are implemented. If there was such a logic, then we also wouldn't have most of the races COMPLETELY change their cultural style in ship design.

False assertion logic - and the main races have not completely changed their ship culture styles really. The Kha'ak, and Paranid are on the most part unchanged. The Xenon and Teladi ship designs are consistent with the precedent set by X-Rebirth. Human ship designs have rarely followed a single consistent design pattern over the X-series, nor has the Teladi really. Even disregarding that, it is one thing to change aesthetics of a ship design and another thing entirely to do what you are suggesting.

Doesn't matter if we like or not like the new designs, such huge difference (think the Teladi, from hulking, budget friendly flying scraps of metal to flying mushrooms or space dildoes) isn't something that develops to such extremes, in a culture, in just a few decades. Just like we still make cars that look pretty much just as they looked 50 or even 100 years ago: they are sleeker, sure, with softer angles and so on, but the basic concept (which, of course, comes from functionality, just as the Teladi spaceship concept did) is the same and still perfectly recognizable.

The dome type ship design from a purely engineering standpoint may not be particularly pretty nor especially aerodynamic BUT the general approach is likely to be stronger, and more material efficient for the overall internal volume. Plus if you have read any of the books, it is VERY consistent with the Teladi culture. In X2/X3 the Teladi ship designs were very industrial looking BUT were inconsistent with the lore culture really.

We have highways as they are because they were thought to be the best solution for good gameplay. I dare say they don't only make relatively little sense "in-universe" (even though your point still stands and is very valid), they also make little sense for good gameplay, because the concepts mentioned by Général Grievous would also make gameplay much better. For instance, because that would not only feel more "cohesive", but it would also organize the sectors in a way that would let the player see much more varied views of the backgrounds, the planets and so on, that in X4 are much less unique and distinctive compared to Rebirth and, to an extent, even X3. X4 highways only serve the purpose to allow you to travel faster over the same direct path you'd travel anyway, nothing else. It can be called QoL, sure, but it could have been much more, if paired with the currently virtually unused "limitless" sector sizes.

In X3:TC, the Argon/Teladi/Boron/Paranid/Split were exposed to the Terran Accelerator technology. In X3:AP, there were the beginnings of the high-way technology being established by the X-Universe races - this was formalised in X-Rebirth, and revised in X4 (probably primarily in response to X-Rebirth critique). There is an element of gameplay consideration over their specific implementation in X4, but do not make the mistake of assuming that gameplay is the ONLY reason for their existence and that there is not a basis in X-Universe lore.

[Général Grievous]

My two cents but I thing I am giving the voice for many peeps around here.

It sounds like it's my voice too!

[Techedge]

I reiterate, big ships should carry smaller ones and small ships should have a limited radius from a home base / ship. But I can only dream of it hehe.

Sounds more or less like my old proposal, made before 1.5. Still, here we are...

[Kadatherion]

False assertion logic - and the main races have not completely changed their ship culture styles really. The Kha'ak, and Paranid are on the most part unchanged. The Xenon and Teladi ship designs are consistent with the precedent set by X-Rebirth. Human ship designs have rarely followed a single consistent design pattern over the X-series, nor has the Teladi really. Even disregarding that, it is one thing to change aesthetics of a ship design and another thing entirely to do what you are suggesting.

You actually are reinforcing my point: yes, inbetween games, even before X4, ship styles have been retconned time and time again, with little to no in-universe explanation. Because, and that's my point: it's a videogame (and not even a narrative driven one like some RPGs can be), realism comes second as narrative is just one of the elements of the product, not the main driving point as it would be for a book or a movie. As such, no, the logic you mention is hardly ever taken into much consideration when you have to make a game. The problem comes when changes arrive after having set standards that have been particularly successful, had many years to sediment in the collective imagination, and such changes are - arguably, but still - for the worse, in overall quality and variety. To this, the fact such changes aren't often presented with any in-game explanation - in X4's case especially, since it opted to forego even what little narrative presentation and threads X games previously had - is the cherry on top.

In X3:TC, the Argon/Teladi/Boron/Paranid/Split were exposed to the Terran Accelerator technology. In X3:AP, there were the beginnings of the high-way technology being established by the X-Universe races - this was formalised in X-Rebirth, and revised in X4 (probably primarily in response to X-Rebirth critique). There is an element of gameplay consideration over their specific implementation in X4, but do not make the mistake of assuming that gameplay is the ONLY reason for their existence and that there is not a basis in X-Universe lore.

Never did say it's the ONLY reason for the existence of a certain thing, but gameplay is the first and main reason why a gameplay functional element is added into a game. Again, a videogame isn't a book or a movie, the gameplay element comes absolutely first, then later comes - when it does, and in X4 it pretty much doesn't - the narrative to justify, explain the existence of such element to offer a more seamless, immersive, cohesive fictional scenario that *supports* the actual gameplay.

Long story short: unless you are a total incompetent in game developing who doesn't know games are tactile experiences, you decide that the story will go with the gate shutdown for "mysterious reasons™" *because* you thought it would be fun to have highways and/or let go of the jumpdrive mechanic (and *then* your next hurdle will be to present that plot development in the most seamless and plausible way possible). Not the other way around. Then that specific mechanic could turn out to be less fun and well received than you expected, but that's part of the process and its risks. If you go the other way around, AKA forcing yourself to implement something like the highways *because* you wanted the actual narrative to go a certain direction (let alone the fact you then don't really present any narrative to the players, as it happens in X4), before even taking into consideration if they would be a good gameplay mechanic or not (and, as said, to many it isn't), or worse conciously knowing they'd be inferior solutions for smooth gameplay, then you'd be at a whole new level of stupidity. Egosoft can be blamed of many missteps and yes, even some stupid decisions, but really, this level is way beyond them.

P.S. Let's not bring the "book" into this. First because I wouldn't want, and it would be OT anyway, to judge the work of a colleague, but even more because it's the oldest logical fallacy in the field: when to "understand the movie" you are told to go and read the book it was based on, then the movie is by definition bad (at the very least at exposition). And, of course, the same works the other way around with novelizations. Because they are separate products, each one has to be evaluated by its own merits.

[mr.WHO]

X4 (and rest of X-Series) is the only game that let me own, fly and walk on everething from small fighter, through capships to space stations. Planet landing would be the final cherry on top, but I can live without it.
X4 with all it's faults and bugs is the only single player space game with proper depth (EVE online is the same for Multi-player, but I don't like MP games).

Elite Dangerous is wide like an ocean, bu shallow like a puddle. Even No Mans Sky after updated is better/deeper than ED.
X4 own both of these games with ease and X4 is half-broken and half-done !!!!

[Techedge]

X4 (and rest of X-Series) is the only game that let me own, fly and walk on everething from small fighter, through capships to space stations. Planet landing would be the final cherry on top, but I can live without it.
X4 with all it's faults and bugs is the only single player space game with proper depth (EVE online is the same for Multi-player, but I don't like MP games).

Elite Dangerous is wide like an ocean, bu shallow like a puddle. Even No Mans Sky after updated is better/deeper than ED.
X4 own both of these games with ease and X4 is half-broken and half-done !!!!

The potentials of this game are huge and they are there for all to see.
Egosoft nailed with the title, let's hope that these foundations will become more and more solid with the next updates.
If so, I predict many years of wonderful gameplaying (as in the X3+TC+AP trilogy which I really enjoyed much).

[MakerLinux]

X4 (and rest of X-Series) is the only game that let me own, fly and walk on everething from small fighter, through capships to space stations. Planet landing would be the final cherry on top, but I can live without it.
X4 with all it's faults and bugs is the only single player space game with proper depth (EVE online is the same for Multi-player, but I don't like MP games).

Elite Dangerous is wide like an ocean, bu shallow like a puddle. Even No Mans Sky after updated is better/deeper than ED.
X4 own both of these games with ease and X4 is half-broken and half-done !!!!

I'd like to contribute and suggest a small one-man indie game that has all of these elements -- in fact, it looks a lot like the earlier X games, but with much better mechanics and creative and quite competent fleet commanding: Void Destroyer 2.
Bought it on Steam, the main differences from X4 are:

- You don't have space legs, although you have a few sections in first person (when docked on stations, etc.);
- UI is very competent and intuitive. Really!!! Commands resemble X3, but in an iconic and organized interface.
- Soundtrack is nonexistent, which makes you admire the epic soundtrack of X4 even more.
- Graphics are untextured cell-shaded. Yeah, not sure why it's untextured (first Void Destroyer is textured), maybe for a distinct look or something; also, this makes the game run well on a potato, even with its simulation aspects on full drive.
- The long trip mechanics is something different called "the overworld", basically the map in an RTS-like controlling scheme where you can fly with accelerated time.
- You have upkeep costs for fleet and stations.
- You don't have highways and for some portals you have to pay to use them.
- Besides owning ships besides the one you fly, you can also rent ships for a mission or a particular length of time.
- AFAIK you can't spacewalk
- No ship interiors
- No hacking mechanics
- Doesn't seem to have different mechanics as "Out of Sector" and "In Sector". AFAIK economy seems X3-like, not X4-like.
- The AI for your ships doesn't usually do things which would make you swear at them, like the depleting shield boost fighters in X4.

But it has most of the stuff of X games, even the "vibe":
- Comm mechanics have other options besides asking for docking permissions or asking directions, although most of them seem pointless (insult, compliment and the likes)
- You start with a small ship and go on buying lots of different ships, and assemble them in fleets if you want; particularly, fleet management is much better than in X4;
- You can have fighters, bombers, carriers, transport ships of various sizes, miners and even repair ships, and of course give orders to them.
- You have mechanics equivalent to boosting/jump drive/travel drive which is called "gravity drive", but I don't know how to properly explain it.
- You have newtonian/non-newtonian switch shortcut which you can (and should) turn on and off to do things like flying sideways facing an enemy to shoot it.
- You can build ships and stations, sell them too if you want;
- You have missions like X4, to be frank of a greater variety, more creative and they scale with your skill/ship/money;
- You have a story, but you can ignore it completely and treat it like a sandbox. However, the story is engaging enough that you'd be missing out, at least in the first playthrough;
- factions have their particular traits and you have reputation with them that can be improved or harmed; as in the X games, they can become friends or enemies.
- you can repair your ships in some stations, change weapons, add/remove mods and customize it in a number of ways.
- You can add turrets to your ships and decide how to use them
- HOTAS support
- Modding support. In particular it seems very easy to add ships (no surprise, since they don't need textures and do not have interiors), even with moving parts.
- Asteroid mining, in person or via NPCs, manual or automated
- Trading, in person or via NPCs, manual or automated
- mines, proximity mines, armed debris;
- space mysteries and anomalies and the likes;
- ... and there's much more, but I still don't know the game completely.

I don't know all its elements, but its presentation might deceive, it is a VERY complex game and it is developed by one man only, and he is very active and responsive on the steam forums and gives great feedback about the game mechanics. Hence the consistency of the whole game is great too.

Now why I am spending my time advertising such a game that might rival X4? It's not that I don't like X4. But I think it can benefit from the comparison with a game that's very much like it. Also, although Void Destroyer 2 has a lot of stuff better, X4 is a vast game with sightseeing and depth and even with its bugs, I don't think it is superated by any other game. Besides that, X4 is frightfully complex and I bet it scares a lot of players due to that complexity. Void Destroyer 2 is almost as complex as X4, but with its cartoonish toy-like appearance might work as a "gentle introductory game" towards X4 (or the X series in general). Having more titles of this genre helps X4 earn public, not lose it. I like playing both VD2 and X4, and I think most people would prefer to have both than to ditch one for the other.

And BTW, I use Linux, for Linux players although there is no native version of Void Destroyer 2, both VD2 and VD1 run as platinum on steam play, that is, it runs as well as in windows, if not better.

[EmperorDragon]

I'd like to contribute and suggest a small one-man indie game that has all of these elements -- in fact, it looks a lot like the earlier X games, but with much better mechanics and creative and quite competent fleet commanding: Void Destroyer 2.
Bought it on Steam, the main differences from X4 are:

- You don't have space legs, although you have a few sections in first person (when docked on stations, etc.);
- UI is very competent and intuitive. Really!!! Commands resemble X3, but in an iconic and organized interface.
- Soundtrack is nonexistent, which makes you admire the epic soundtrack of X4 even more.
- Graphics are untextured cell-shaded. Yeah, not sure why it's untextured (first Void Destroyer is textured), maybe for a distinct look or something; also, this makes the game run well on a potato, even with its simulation aspects on full drive.
- The long trip mechanics is something different called "the overworld", basically the map in an RTS-like controlling scheme where you can fly with accelerated time.
- You have upkeep costs for fleet and stations.
- You don't have highways and for some portals you have to pay to use them.
- Besides owning ships besides the one you fly, you can also rent ships for a mission or a particular length of time.
- AFAIK you can't spacewalk
- No ship interiors
- No hacking mechanics
- Doesn't seem to have different mechanics as "Out of Sector" and "In Sector". AFAIK economy seems X3-like, not X4-like.
- The AI for your ships doesn't usually do things which would make you swear at them, like the depleting shield boost fighters in X4.

But it has most of the stuff of X games, even the "vibe":
- Comm mechanics have other options besides asking for docking permissions or asking directions, although most of them seem pointless (insult, compliment and the likes)
- You start with a small ship and go on buying lots of different ships, and assemble them in fleets if you want; particularly, fleet management is much better than in X4;
- You can have fighters, bombers, carriers, transport ships of various sizes, miners and even repair ships, and of course give orders to them.
- You have mechanics equivalent to boosting/jump drive/travel drive which is called "gravity drive", but I don't know how to properly explain it.
- You have newtonian/non-newtonian switch shortcut which you can (and should) turn on and off to do things like flying sideways facing an enemy to shoot it.
- You can build ships and stations, sell them too if you want;
- You have missions like X4, to be frank of a greater variety, more creative and they scale with your skill/ship/money;
- You have a story, but you can ignore it completely and treat it like a sandbox. However, the story is engaging enough that you'd be missing out, at least in the first playthrough;
- factions have their particular traits and you have reputation with them that can be improved or harmed; as in the X games, they can become friends or enemies.
- you can repair your ships in some stations, change weapons, add/remove mods and customize it in a number of ways.
- You can add turrets to your ships and decide how to use them
- HOTAS support
- Modding support. In particular it seems very easy to add ships (no surprise, since they don't need textures and do not have interiors), even with moving parts.
- Asteroid mining, in person or via NPCs, manual or automated
- Trading, in person or via NPCs, manual or automated
- mines, proximity mines, armed debris;
- space mysteries and anomalies and the likes;
- ... and there's much more, but I still don't know the game completely.

I don't know all its elements, but its presentation might deceive, it is a VERY complex game and it is developed by one man only, and he is very active and responsive on the steam forums and gives great feedback about the game mechanics. Hence the consistency of the whole game is great too.

Now why I am spending my time advertising such a game that might rival X4? It's not that I don't like X4. But I think it can benefit from the comparison with a game that's very much like it. Also, although Void Destroyer 2 has a lot of stuff better, X4 is a vast game with sightseeing and depth and even with its bugs, I don't think it is superated by any other game. Besides that, X4 is frightfully complex and I bet it scares a lot of players due to that complexity. Void Destroyer 2 is almost as complex as X4, but with its cartoonish toy-like appearance might work as a "gentle introductory game" towards X4 (or the X series in general). Having more titles of this genre helps X4 earn public, not lose it. I like playing both VD2 and X4, and I think most people would prefer to have both than to ditch one for the other.

And BTW, I use Linux, for Linux players although there is no native version of Void Destroyer 2, both VD2 and VD1 run as platinum on steam play, that is, it runs as well as in windows, if not better.

Thanks for that heads-up. I have VD1 as well and I loved it, the direct ship control was extremely fun and the whole game had a nice "feel" to it. I'm keeping a keen eye on VD2, is the MU and their boulder-ships still around? Those were... interesting ship designs.

As for Elite Dangerous, I was looking forward to it but the always-online thing was a real spit-in-the-face. If you make a hefty budget game for a small genre like space sims, then it's only logical and respectful to make it accessible to the broad gaming community, many of whom waited for a new Elite since 1984, instead of giving half the gaming community the finger. I actually had my security administrator develop a server emulator to play it offline but, according to him, the game is not worth the effort.

Because of the online restrictions, I consider ED an online game and, as such, in no way comparable with X4. Same with Star Citizen, online games are in a different category of their own.

[Olfrygt]

Highway doesn’t make any good for game play. It creates a paradox in this game ... small ships can be quicker then bigger ship on the other side of the galaxy. This is going against any logic. Where a big ship should carry many smaller one. They have just made the big ships completely useless for trading / mining. It’s a disaster.

To come back to the ship design, I do not understand ... why those developers who had the best ships design ever in X2 / X3 / XR had to throw away everything and give us those poor miserable copy pasted stats ships across the factions ... they are first must of them ultra ugly and with no soul.

For god sake just give us back all the previous ships.
We want racial Specific ships and also equipment specific ships. Why can an ARG ship can use all PAR technology ?
Give us something more racial and logical.

Maybe ask a modding / creative challenge for people to design ships mod that you can add to the game after being validated by egosoft ?
All factions get too similar ships technically speaking. We want some differences and MORE VARIETY.

My two cents but I thing I am giving the voice for many peeps around here.

And for me , I am not going to E.D.... too boring , Emory and complicated. I will just log back in what I play for 16 years. EVE ONLINE.

Well wrote. That's my opinion too. Nothing to add...

[mr.WHO]

I'd like to contribute and suggest a small one-man indie game that has all of these elements -- in fact, it looks a lot like the earlier X games, but with much better mechanics and creative and quite competent fleet commanding: Void Destroyer 2.

Yes, VD2 is nice, but it's still Early Access (it's getting close to release state). - also it's more like Mount & Blade in Space than X-series.

I'd also recommend Helium Rain (closest thing to X-series, that is not X-Series):
https://store.steampowered.com/app/681330/Helium_Rain/

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

False assertion logic - and the main races have not completely changed their ship culture styles really. The Kha'ak, and Paranid are on the most part unchanged. The Xenon and Teladi ship designs are consistent with the precedent set by X-Rebirth. Human ship designs have rarely followed a single consistent design pattern over the X-series, nor has the Teladi really. Even disregarding that, it is one thing to change aesthetics of a ship design and another thing entirely to do what you are suggesting.

You actually are reinforcing my point: yes, inbetween games, even before X4, ship styles have been retconned time and time again, with little to no in-universe explanation. Because, and that's my point: it's a videogame (and not even a narrative driven one like some RPGs can be), realism comes second as narrative is just one of the elements of the product, not the main driving point as it would be for a book or a movie.

Nope - false in the case of X4. Some of the model changes between games on the most part can be explained by evolution of graphics on one-hand and logical changes in space ship fashions/designs on the other.

The X-series, including X4, has a solid narrative behind them - it has nothing to do with realism, but there is a solid case for lore. The changes in ship designs between X-BTF/X2/X3 were more evolutionary with really only the larger ships significantly changing in X3:R (X3:TC/X3:AP involved a mix of community developed models and Egosoft originals). X-Rebirth reset the whole approach to models in the main and lore wise it could be justified by the fragmentation of society and the break-down of the gate network after AP. X4 continued on from X-Rebirth and recycled some of the models from X3 where Egosoft felt was appropriate, and as with X-Rebirth capitalised on lore as an opportunity to redesign some of the models from the ground up.

ED has similar reasoning behind the model evolution - Elite 1984 was pretty much basic wireframe graphics, Elite: Frontier and Frontier 2 moved to Solid graphics but the designs were essentially the same as the original Elite. ED brought the graphics forward but retained much of the original lore-founded designs. Some of the legacy models from the later games have not been revived, and AFAIK some of the designs are actually completely new to ED.

Overall, the point being lore in both games has driven at least some of the design decisions - in the case of Highways and models in X4, there is a strong degree of truth to this. Very little has truely been retconned although some of the ship names have been allocated different roles to older name sakes (mainly in respect to X3:TC/X3:AP though).

[MakerLinux]

The X-series, including X4, has a solid narrative behind them - it has nothing to do with realism, but there is a solid case for lore. The changes in ship designs between X-BTF/X2/X3 were more evolutionary with really only the larger ships significantly changing in X3:R (X3:TC/X3:AP involved a mix of community developed models and Egosoft originals). X-Rebirth reset the whole approach to models in the main and lore wise it could be justified by the fragmentation of society and the break-down of the gate network after AP. X4 continued on from X-Rebirth and recycled some of the models from X3 where Egosoft felt was appropriate, and as with X-Rebirth capitalised on lore as an opportunity to redesign some of the models from the ground up.

You seem to know a lot about X lore. Do you know why the Xenon ships have changed so much between X3 and X4/X: Rebirth? I was always curious about that, specially about Xenon K and I.

[MaGicBush]

I have Ed and bought a hotas for it. It was alot of fun for the 60 or so hours I played it, as the universe and atmosphere and what I'd say will be a more realistic form of space travel all adds up to the immersion. I felt like a space explorer doing mostly exploration and a bit of missions. However, it grew boring once I realized that's all there is to it. You save up for bigger and better ships, and then.. Thats it. I got about halfway to the "Best exploration ship" and realized what's the point? Once I get that my grind is done, and eh. So I stopped. About that time x4 came out, and I have not looked back, except when my friend plays I'll hop on a bit and wing with him which can be some fun still.

[Arvel]

Elite Dangerous is, in my opinion, EuroTruck Simulator in space. Its combat is worse than the X series', which I consider only mediocre (without mods).

VR is what I feel makes Elite Dangerous worth playing: Its complex monotony becomes sort of beautiful and cathartic in VR. Plus I can throw up a holographic screen of Netflix in my cockpit to watch in-flight movies or documentaries during long hauls. E:D isn't what I'd call a "fun" game, but it's great if you want to escape reality and relax for a while.

X, on the other hand, is all about empire building (and destruction) for me. Amass a mostly autonomous economic and military force to be reckoned with, then suffer not the Paranid to live.

Yes, VD2 is nice, but it's still Early Access (it's getting close to release state). - also it's more like Mount & Blade in Space than X-series.

I'd also recommend Helium Rain (closest thing to X-series, that is not X-Series):
https://store.steampowered.com/app/681330/Helium_Rain/

Hmm, yes VD2 really does have a M&B feel, now that you mention it. My main complaint with the game are the aesthetics (space shouldn't look like I'm swimming through blue Powerade), though you can customize how everything appears to a degree in game.

I'd never heard of Helium Rain before but it looks rather interesting. Thanks!

[Kadatherion]

Yeah, lore is so solid and a priority in X games, that they don't even have a plot to narrate it anymore (which is totally fine in my book, btw, their "plots" always where childishly written and performed as glorified tutorials, and they always were sandbox games at heart anyway).

Roger, really, when we like a franchise enough we can make perfectly sensible excuses or explanations for anything, even for the hot mess the new Star Wars movies or the last GoT episodes are (there sure is people trying ), but as someone who writes for a living, let me reiterate: if I burden the reader with the task of imagining explanations for what I present him, instead of actually giving them to him (or at the very least suggesting them), I'm doing my job all wrong.
You could justify the changes in Rebirth (or any other X game) in many ways to try and make sense of the inconsistencies, point is, you could but *they did not*. Why? Because it wasn't important enough for them in the context of a videogame, a mainly sandbox one at that. Which, again, testifies how narrative necessities come definitely second (to say the least) in the decision making process for gameplay elements (which, as said, I can stand behind: sure, better narrative is always welcomed, but there have to be contextual priorities; in this context, the quality of the changes is more relevant than their actual consistency).
While this might not hold true - or not as much - for certain other games that are by their nature much more narrative driven, it clearly, objectively is - and couldn't be otherwise - for X games. Thinking otherwise is projecting yourself.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

The X-series, including X4, has a solid narrative behind them - it has nothing to do with realism, but there is a solid case for lore. The changes in ship designs between X-BTF/X2/X3 were more evolutionary with really only the larger ships significantly changing in X3:R (X3:TC/X3:AP involved a mix of community developed models and Egosoft originals). X-Rebirth reset the whole approach to models in the main and lore wise it could be justified by the fragmentation of society and the break-down of the gate network after AP. X4 continued on from X-Rebirth and recycled some of the models from X3 where Egosoft felt was appropriate, and as with X-Rebirth capitalised on lore as an opportunity to redesign some of the models from the ground up.

You seem to know a lot about X lore. Do you know why the Xenon ships have changed so much between X3 and X4/X: Rebirth? I was always curious about that, specially about Xenon K and I.

If you recall from X3 (can't remember which one) there was not just one Xenon faction but at least two (c/f the peaceful Xenon CPU ship which featured as part of a plot-line). The Branch 9 Xenon capitals we see in X4 were carried over from X-Rebirth and pitched as a separate (but still hostile) evolution of the Xenon (not entirely unexpected).