Let us reverse-engineer and produce the "limited" ships aka. unrestricted blueprints

This forum is the ideal place for all discussion relating to X4. You will also find additional information from developers here.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

xant
Posts: 928
Joined: Sat, 21. Feb 04, 15:15
x4

Re: Let us reverse-engineer and produce the "limited" ships aka. unrestricted blueprints

Post by xant »

If it's a technical limitation, why aren't the devs commenting here, in their own forums, on that issue? Would've saved us all a bit of trouble, and we wouldn't have gotten so worked up over it.

But it makes me remember something Bernd once said, that X5 was on the table the moment technical limitations started hampering X4. Well, here we are now, ships/equipment from the first few expansions is now incompatible with stuff from later expansions. And from the sound of it, it's not going to get better with future expansions.

The situation is really not ideal, as it basically destroys the idea behind one of the core features of the game: the modularity of the ship designer. I really hope something can be done about it, even if the solution were to be letting modders do their thing and then integrating the mod into the official game, or something like that.
Caedes91
Posts: 279
Joined: Sun, 22. Aug 21, 17:23
x4

Re: Let us reverse-engineer and produce the "limited" ships aka. unrestricted blueprints

Post by Caedes91 »

xant wrote: Sun, 4. Aug 24, 10:59 If it's a technical limitation, why aren't the devs commenting here, in their own forums, on that issue? Would've saved us all a bit of trouble, and we wouldn't have gotten so worked up over it.

But it makes me remember something Bernd once said, that X5 was on the table the moment technical limitations started hampering X4. Well, here we are now, ships/equipment from the first few expansions is now incompatible with stuff from later expansions. And from the sound of it, it's not going to get better with future expansions.

The situation is really not ideal, as it basically destroys the idea behind one of the core features of the game: the modularity of the ship designer. I really hope something can be done about it, even if the solution were to be letting modders do their thing and then integrating the mod into the official game, or something like that.
Ignoring this on their own forum, then answer somewhere else, without at least pointing there. Even if they did not take us serious enough, they could just have said, that they have an answer elsewhere and won't bother responding in two places.
It was pure coincidence, that I stumbled on that reddit thread. As you pointed out, all that accomplished, was making us think, that this was some choice agains the sandbox nature of this game.

Turns out they shifted their design philosophy to downsize the weapons and "integrate" the shield and engine modules into the hull beginning in Kingdom End DLC. This means no more critical components sticking out from the fuselage like sore thumbs. Never made sense to me by the way.

If this does not remove the modularity of the ships as a core functionality of this game, meaning I can still cross equip between different factions' tech for min-maxing, I personally very welcome this decision. I always hated these stupid modules bastardizing the ship designs. There was never a point to it anyway, because on S- and M-size ships, you can't destroy the modules. Only on capitals, does this ever make sense. Finally the copy-paste engines that awkwardly cut off the hulls are will alse be a thing of the past. At least on fighters and mediums.

Although the shift happened back then, nobody has questioned the incompatibility of the Boron stuff with the things from the basegame up to ToA DLC.
The only delivered explanation at that time, was that Boron ships and arsenal were "organic" and made out of water and therefore only usable on other Boron assets. So there was a "lore" reason to that, a delibarete choice rather than a limitation. But they failed to mention the technical aspect back then, until now.

However that should definitely have been communicated!!

Apparently, there is no gain in porting/converting/updating or recreate old models in new software to bring them up-to-date and to fit the new aesthetic. Creating duplicates of the same things through new software is out of the picture either as this would double the maintenance cost. They would rather put time and effort into creating new things. (That can actually be sold to the players - my words not theirs)

Hope the aesthetics of future ships will be worth it.

And this also screws the Terrans again after having already been fisted hard in this game. Missing all their unique and strong weapons from X3. Now definitely forever doomed to ape after the Commonwealth with statwise-copy-pasted m-turrets, but with worse tracking than the Argon ones and L-Turrets with abysmal range. All while simultaneously missing any Flak or plasma equivalent. Not having access to torpedoes and even losing to the babaric Split in terms of missile selection.

As a fan of the Terran faction in lore and design, this saddens me to no end. Really liked the EM-guns introduced in Timelines, but only usable on two ships and one of them you cannot mass produce...





Here all responses from linolafett if you want to confirm yourself at the time of posting this:


l_x_fx:
There is an argument to be made, that the old Xenon ships were built by humans/Terrans in the first place. It would make sense to actually be able and build those ships.

Same for the new equipment btw, I really like the Electromagnetic turrets/weapons, but why are they limited to the new ships only? It's all Terran stuff, I assumed I would at the very least be able to use Terran stuff on Terran ships.

Hate those limitations, it really diminishes the value of the rewards, in what is already a somewhat controversial expansion with limited use in the sandbox. Introducing more limits doesn't help.

linolafett:
The limitations are sadly art caused. We changed the dimensions of the weaponry starting from the boron dlc. The weapons are now physically smaller and therefore can not have the same compatibility as the earlier made ones.
Reply to another user:
linolafett:

We also integrated the shield modules as well. This opened up a lot of space on the ships to play more with the design. Beforehand the rather large surface elements were really limiting us in what we could do with the look of the ships. Sadly its not possible to undo the "damage" on older ships and the compatibility between new and old designed ships surface elements is not given.
runekn:
Are there plans to resize old weapons?

linolafett:
No plans to do this. The old weapons are created in a different 3d software, scaling them would mean creating a copy in the different software and maintaining both versions at the same time, which is... not great.
l_x_fx:
Would it be much work to just scale those things up, and add them as a separate variant blueprint, available for pre X4:KE ships?
...

linolafett:
Sadly scaling up components is not possible in our engine.
We did consider creating duplicated copies, which got scaled up in the 3d software and exported as separate model, but that was causing issues in other places.
Its sadly not that simple, otherwise we would have gotten to the point where the modules are compatible. :(
l_x_fx:
That is really disheartening, because I like the new weapons/turrets, but still like the older ships over many of the new ones.

May I ask, what was the issue with creating a new weapon variant? Isn't that something you do with each expansion, adding new weapons I mean?

...

linolafett:
Mostly a time factor. There are probably hundreds of weapon meshes which would need to be duplicated, scaled and reanimated as scaling breaks the animations. Then you have two of the same looking weapons and need to maintain twice as much assets. Each bug report will then take twice the time to fix and test.
Additional hurdle was the change of 3d software starting with boron dlc. Only a few artist still have a license of the old software and i would rather not create new assets in the old software. Therefore all old assets would need to be exported to the other software and re setup - its just a lot of work for very little gain. I hope that we just get more new ships over time and with them more weapons. Maybe then we could also allow cross mounting them (between all ships starting from boron dlc).
l_x_fx:
That is honestly sad, as the Terrans and Split have some of the best looking ships out there. I love using those almost exclusively to this day.

Knowing that they'll never be able to mount any of the newer weapons, especially those from future expansions, is not what I wanted to hear. :-(

Have you considered using some sort of adapter base for the weapon/turret slots? Then the weapon wouldn't have to scale, it would just sit on a generic adapter-like thingy, which would act as an interface between old and new. That could gracefully hide the disparity of size.

Beyond that, maybe exporting some(!) of the old ships via the new software, create a revised E variant, and use the opportunity to touch up some values and maybe even a few design elements? That would keep old content compatible with new content, which is always worthwhile.

Oh well, I'm grasping at straws here, because this really kills me. You're doing such a great job at making all those ships and all that equipment, hate to see it becoming increasingly incompatible.


linolafett:
Yes we had discussed a adapter, but you underestimate the scale difference. The adapter would also only work one way, not both ways, therefore it was not a real solution, if it would have even been possible at all. :(

Getting one ship from the old software, adjust the design to match the new philosophy is a one to two week task, in the end to have the same ship again. Usually its preferred to put this time into new ships. The old ships wont go away and work fine, dont despair. I hope that what ever comes next in that ship department, will make you put the straws aside.
Rest of the conversation between l_x_fx and linolafett:
l_x_fx:
Aside from using unpaid interns, I can only think of using old and compatible weapon models, but then change the name, stats, and projectile to the newer weapons. Which wouldn't be a perfect solution, but better than nothing.

sigh It's hard to come to terms with it...

"I hope that what ever comes next in that ship department, will make you put the straws aside."

I have the utmost confidence, you really manage to create such beautiful ships every time.

The Odachi is a great Katana replacement, but the Cutlass doesn't cut it (pun intended) against the Gladius. And the Sapporo isn't anywhere near a Syn or Raptor, and I'd have loved the Electromagnetic turrets on those ships.

Be it as it may, thanks for taking your time explaining it to me, I now understand better why it is how it is.

linolafett:
Glad i could at least help you get a better understanding of the problem. Nothing is ever "simple" in gamedev and sometimes you have to do some decisions which are not great in the short term, but better in the long term.
Have you tried the Sapporo with the new missile launchers enabled? At least visually its great fun to just barrage down the surface elements of enemy capital ships :)

l_x_fx:
I'm not a huge fan of missiles in general (too much of a hassle with re-supplying and all that), nor do I have a thing for the almost industrial feel of the Sapporo.

Yes, it absolutely is a beautiful ship, don't get me wrong, but I have a thing for pure energy-based weapons, mounted on top of the sleek, almost luxurious yacht-like lines of the newer Terran ships. I use Pulse on everything for that exact reason, from small fighters, to destroyers and freighters, even teh Raptor (which uses the white Aldrin paintjob), it's Pulse all the way.

Coming from X3, the white silhouettes of Terran ships against the dark background of space, that made me fall in love with that faction. Aside from Split ships (the Raptor is the king of anti-fighter warfare), I almost exclusively use Terran models and Terran station modules. There's something magical about the pure white glow in dark space.

Sadly, you removed all the great, heavy-hitting energy weapons from Terrans in X4, like the PSP or the SSC. The Electromagnetic stuff reminded me of the SSC, and I was very excited to install those weapons on all of my Terran ships. Only to learn that it's not possible.

That's where I'm coming from, and why the weapon limitations are so hard on me. That the limitations are technical in nature, and therefore won't change anytime soon, if ever, is devastating.

I understand the situation, but if there's ever any opportunity at some point to bridge the gap between the old and new ships equipment-wise, know that the effort would not be wasted, and that there are players who would absolutely appreciate it.


Btw, you could lessen my pain somewhat by re-inventing some of the old ATF/Aldrin ships. The Springblossom, but also the Valkyrie and Vidar, were some of my favorite ships design-wise. If you ever have too much time at hand (lol), you could always bring back ships inspired by those beauties.

Return to “X4: Foundations”