Please reduce number of deployables on ships

[jlehtone]

Indeed. The "broken is broken" does not explain anything.

[Falcrack]

Indeed. The "broken is broken" does not explain anything.

I wouldn't say 50 deployables per each fighter is broken. Just unreasonable given the size of fighters and the amount of wares required to produce 50 deployables.

[GCU Grey Area]

I wouldn't say 50 deployables per each fighter is broken. Just unreasonable given the size of fighters and the amount of wares required to produce 50 deployables.

What you consider unreasonable I think of as convenient. Significant chunks of the game (in terms of the amout of time I spend doing them) would become unreasonably tedious if you got your way. Aside from my aforementioned lack of enthusiasm for having to restock with satellites multiple times to survey even a single sector, I also do a lot of deployment missions. For those I need to carry a mixed load of deployables; both types of sats, laser towers, mines & resource probes. At present can carry sufficient to do several such missions in succession before I need to restock. If deployables capacity were significantly reduced it would likely mean a trudge to the wharf or equipment dock before every single mission, adding a great deal of tedium to the game while adding nothing of benefit.

[Falcrack]

I wouldn't say 50 deployables per each fighter is broken. Just unreasonable given the size of fighters and the amount of wares required to produce 50 deployables.

What you consider unreasonable I think of as convenient. Significant chunks of the game (in terms of the amout of time I spend doing them) would become unreasonably tedious if you got your way.

Having played Star Wars Interworlds and laid down massive numbers of satellites using certain S sized freighters which can carry 12 satellites, it wasn't that bad. I just had to buy more of those ships to be able to lay down the network faster, using several for a task I might otherwise use only 1 for. I never got annoyed at their somewhat lower carrying capacity. Also made me need to think more about what type of ships I needed to use to lay down satellite networks, such as avoiding those which could only hold 5 satellites.

It would not be the end of the world to have more varied and generally lower deployable amounts on ships.

If there was a laser beam in the game which could be mounted on a small fighter and instantly delete any enemy large or small without any thought or planning, you might consider it convenient too, and I would consider it unreasonable.

[Raptor34]

I wouldn't say 50 deployables per each fighter is broken. Just unreasonable given the size of fighters and the amount of wares required to produce 50 deployables.

What you consider unreasonable I think of as convenient. Significant chunks of the game (in terms of the amout of time I spend doing them) would become unreasonably tedious if you got your way.

Having played Star Wars Interworlds and laid down massive numbers of satellites using certain S sized freighters which can carry 12 satellites, it wasn't that bad. I just had to buy more of those ships to be able to lay down the network faster, using several for a task I might otherwise use only 1 for. I never got annoyed at their somewhat lower carrying capacity. Also made me need to think more about what type of ships I needed to use to lay down satellite networks, such as avoiding those which could only hold 5 satellites.

It would not be the end of the world to have more varied and generally lower deployable amounts on ships.

Otoh I consider more ships a significant downside, and I think the game needs less ships flying around, not more.

[Falcrack]

What you consider unreasonable I think of as convenient. Significant chunks of the game (in terms of the amout of time I spend doing them) would become unreasonably tedious if you got your way.

Having played Star Wars Interworlds and laid down massive numbers of satellites using certain S sized freighters which can carry 12 satellites, it wasn't that bad. I just had to buy more of those ships to be able to lay down the network faster, using several for a task I might otherwise use only 1 for. I never got annoyed at their somewhat lower carrying capacity. Also made me need to think more about what type of ships I needed to use to lay down satellite networks, such as avoiding those which could only hold 5 satellites.

It would not be the end of the world to have more varied and generally lower deployable amounts on ships.

Otoh I consider more ships a significant downside, and I think the game needs less ships flying around, not more.

In this case I simply used Sheathipede freighters which were assigned as traders to stations. I gave them orders to drop sats, and when they were done, went right back to trading. Was not really a problem at all.

We're talking about maybe 5 more ships in the universe to accomplish the equivalent task. This is hardly gamebreaking.

[fury1ord]

...

That could all be fixed with toggle options to be honest...

Yeah, in a player's brain. It doesn't need to be hardwired into the game.

Nanook, did you forget that X4 has multiplayer competitive component attached to it? Lack of balance is the root of metagaming behaviour: satellite spam, laser tower spam, Asgard spam, miners spam, traders spam, production modules spam.

I agree with the OP even though i often use the satellite exploit a few times at the start of a new game things like this do need to be addressed.

You may consider satellites to be an exploit. I do not, I like to see what's going on. This is the current extent of my surveillance network, every single one of them deployed personally so I can ensure precise placement without gaps. It's a bit tedious & takes quite a while to setup, but has proved immensely useful. Would vastly increase the time it takes (& the tedium) if my scout ship couldn't carry sufficient satellites to cover even a single sector & I had to keep flying back & forth to wharves etc to restock just to complete individual sectors.

It's funny how you called your satellite spam an exploit when it is common knowledge that 'Adv. Satellite exploit' is related to reselling them. May it be your subconsciousness naming things? Nevertheless, what you show on the screenshot is both an exploit and metagaming in my opinion. It is an exploit because you get rid of the fog of war feature added by Egosoft to get the upper hand. It is metagaming because you as a player handicap yourself if you do not have 100% satellite coverage in X4.

Nanook, a small scout fighter deploying 50 laser towers is illogical and it also breaks the current in-game balance.
Small scout fighter deploying 50 satellites diminishes the entire feature Egosoft has developed and added to the game - the fog of war mechanics.
Multiply the above examples infinite times - what results will you get?

Nanook, I want my cheapest fighter to carry 400 missiles and shoot 100 missiles in one salvo - why doesn't the game allow me to do that? This is a theme park in the end. /sarcasm

The issue is not only the damage of laser towers and satellite capacity of small fighters but the overall lack of drawbacks to spam anything by the player. The lack of limits and restrictions promotes spam by the player and the deployable capacity of the small fighters only highlights the issue.

Take a look at any economical simulator or RTS and you will see that there are mechanisms in place to reduce spam. For example: why does Starcraft have a unit cap?

[GCU Grey Area]

Having played Star Wars Interworlds and laid down massive numbers of satellites using certain S sized freighters which can carry 12 satellites, it wasn't that bad. I just had to buy more of those ships to be able to lay down the network faster, using several for a task I might otherwise use only 1 for. I never got annoyed at their somewhat lower carrying capacity. Also made me need to think more about what type of ships I needed to use to lay down satellite networks, such as avoiding those which could only hold 5 satellites.

So your 'solution' is that I should stop playing this part of the game myself & instead order other ships to do it? I do not find that a satisfying answer. I very much prefer to be actively playing the game, rather than passively watching other ships play it for me.

If there was a laser beam in the game which could be mounted on a small fighter and instantly delete any enemy large or small without any thought or planning, you might consider it convenient too, and I would consider it unreasonable.

No I would not consider that convenient. I don't have any ships with that capability, irrespective of size (Asgards are much more fun to have as enemies). Whole reason I like flying scouts in this game is for the feeling of vulnerability that comes from flying a tiny ship with barely any shields & which is armed with a peashooter. However, what I do need that ship to be capable of doing is scouting, for which I need a reasonable capacity for tools. For reference this is the current loadout of the Irukandji I've been flying this evening. Enough adv sats to fully survey a single sector along with enough other deployables to fulfil several deployment missions for the factions. I do not consider it unreasonable, it's what I need to have fun.

[Falcrack]

Whole reason I like flying scouts in this game is for the feeling of vulnerability that comes from flying a tiny ship with barely any shields & which is armed with a peashooter. However, what I do need that ship to be capable of doing is scouting, for which I need a reasonable capacity for tools. For reference this is the current loadout of the Irukandji I've been flying this evening. Enough adv sats to fully survey a single sector along with enough other deployables to fulfil several deployment missions for the factions. I do not consider it unreasonable, it's what I need to have fun.

Very well, so you need to have 50 deployable slots in order to have fun in X4. To each his own I suppose. Therefore, instead of reducing the number of deployables per ship, I would be open to reducing their cost instead in terms of wares to better match the carrying capacity of small fighters.

Let's take the example of advanced satellites. They cost
5x Advanced Electronics (30 m3 each, 150 m3 total, average price 1,014 credits, 5,070 credits total)
10x Energy Cells (1m3 each, 10 m3 total, average price 16 credits, 160 credits total)
5x Scanning Arrays (38 m3 each, 190 m3 total, average price 1,053 credits, 5,265 credits total)

So each advanced satellite currently requires ware that take up 350 m3, and 10,495 credits in average ware price. I assume shipyards multiply that price to make a profit. Multiply the storage space for the wares by 50 (the number of advanced satellites they can load), and we have small fighters carrying the equivalent of a freighter with 17,500 m3 storage space. Most small fighters only carry ~500 m3, give or take depending on the model.

So what if we reduce the cost of each to 1x Advanced Electronics, 2x Energy Cells, and 1x Scanning Array, which is 5 times less? That is still 3500 m3 of storage for 50 advanced satellites. That is still about 7 times as much storage as most small fighters, so if we were to reduce the number of advanced satellites with the reduced cost to the amount that would reasonably be expected for small fighters, that would be about 7 advanced satellites per fighter. Way too low for you to have fun.

We could reduce the storage volume for advanced satellites and scanning arrays I suppose. That way ships could carry a higher volume of them. That may have unknown effects on the economy I suppose. If advanced satellites and scanning arrays had a volume of 4 m3 each (a box 2 meters wide, 2 meters long ,and 1 meter high, pretty big I think), then our reduced cost advanced satellites would have a total volume of 10 m3, or 500 m3 for 50 advanced satellites. Much more reasonable.

For laser towers, the mk1 version uses 1x Drone Components (30 m3), 50x Energy Cells (50 m3), and 20x Smart Chips (40 m3). For a total volume of 120 m3 per mk1 laser tower, or 6000 m3 for 50. That feels like way too much. So maybe small fighters should only be able to carry 10 times less, or 5 of them? That sounds too few for you to have fun. Maybe reduce the cost further so they take up less space in wares? But then they become so cheap, that they become far far too powerful for their cost (which I feel they already are). Maybe nerf the laser output of the laser towers into oblivion to make up for our drastically reduced ware cost, in order to fit 50 of them in the storage space of small fighters?

I don't ask for complete realism in game. But I do like there to be logical consistency within the rules of the game itself. Honestly, I really don't think Egosoft thought very deeply about the implications when they put together the numbers for volumes of different wares, number of deployables, etc. I think they just sort of picked numbers that they thought sounded right without really doing the math to make sure any of the numbers made logical sense. That's why we get things like the advanced satellite exploit happening, because of logical inconsistencies in these numbers.

[GCU Grey Area]

Very well, so you need to have 50 deployable slots in order to have fun in X4. To each his own I suppose. Therefore, instead of reducing the number of deployables per ship, I would be open to reducing their cost instead in terms of wares to better match the carrying capacity of small fighters.

That would be a waste of dev time as far as I'm concerned. Simply don't care about the logistics of deployables manufacture in this context. Realism's fine, up to point. That point being where it impinges on the fun I experience while playing a game. Fun after all being the entire point of playing a game.

[taztaz502]

Indeed. The "broken is broken" does not explain anything.

I've already explained why i think it's broken.

Heres a screenshot for you to easier understand.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 3379756399

How you fitting all of that in that tiny ship? Must be a damn Tetris genius.

[Y-llian]

Very well, so you need to have 50 deployable slots in order to have fun in X4. To each his own I suppose. Therefore, instead of reducing the number of deployables per ship, I would be open to reducing their cost instead in terms of wares to better match the carrying capacity of small fighters.

That would be a waste of dev time as far as I'm concerned. Simply don't care about the logistics of deployables manufacture in this context. Realism's fine, up to point. That point being where it impinges on the fun I experience while playing a game. Fun after all being the entire point of playing a game.

Yep, I’m with GCU here. Fiddling with the economy to solve a “realism” complaint for ship assest deployables seems like overkill. Besides, you could make the argument that increased deployable sizes (even if unrealistic compared to the ship models) helps the economy to drive demand.

[Raptor34]

Btw. When are we resolving the exploit of player controlled ships? Along with the exploit of the player not being restricted by the job system? Both of these are far bigger exploits.

[jlehtone]

How you fitting all of that in that tiny ship? Must be a damn Tetris genius.

I would not label that "broken". "Not 100% hardcore realistic" yes, but most of the game is not realistic. The game is not that kind of simulator, nor should be.

[GCU Grey Area]

How you fitting all of that in that tiny ship?

Lore explanation is cargo compression. Has been an established technology in the X universe right from the start. Physical size of a ship is not necessarily a good indicator of how much stuff you can cram inside.

[sh1pman]

I want to have a mega death ray cannon on my small scout that can vaporize stations in a single shot. Why not? It’s a single player video game, so balance and realism don’t matter if it’s fun, right? Oh, and I also want it to cost one credit, because earning money is not fun. Can I have a death ray please?

And when they add the death ray, you shouldn’t ask to remove it, because that would ruin my preferred play style.

[jlehtone]

I want to have a mega death ray cannon on my small scout that can vaporize stations in a single shot. Why not? It’s a single player video game, so balance and realism don’t matter if it’s fun, right? Oh, and I also want it to cost one credit, because earning money is not fun. Can I have a death ray please?

And when they add the death ray, you shouldn’t ask to remove it, because that would ruin my preferred play style.

That sounds "fair", but in order to satisfy Falcrack's need for challenge player possession of such death ray will instantly place NPC death ray scouts -- titled "Ambassador" -- from all factions next to all player stations, with very itchy trigger claws.

[MKL81]

I want to have a mega death ray cannon on my small scout that can vaporize stations in a single shot. Why not? It’s a single player video game, so balance and realism don’t matter if it’s fun, right? Oh, and I also want it to cost one credit, because earning money is not fun. Can I have a death ray please?

And when they add the death ray, you shouldn’t ask to remove it, because that would ruin my preferred play style.

We can argue the other way too. Let's limit the number of Asgards players can have, because they are so op. One should be enough, considering you can only have one Erlking for example. Oh, and please limit the number of ships that you can build, I mean NPC factions are limited in that regard, so why players have an unfair advantage here, that is the way. Or maybe let's make some upkeep mechanics that will be so cumbersome and prohibitively expensive to have so many i.e. destroyers, that would be much more realistic. Same for crew - let's make them paying a living wage mandatory and include some sort of unions mechanics into the game so that they can go for a strike, for example. Also, players are building huge gigafactories, making them billions in matter of hours, now THAT is op, we should limit the number of modules per single plot to, say, 30 or 4o max. Also, please limit the number of plots possible to own, otherwise player will spam factories and break their games that way. So many things to nerf, so little time.

[BitByte]

Maybe the game would need include "Crackfal"-scenario (or maybe it would need be separate game as becomes too complex to make changes to existing X4 ) where you would not be allow have more than 20 stations, 100 ships and 1000 deployables.
Ships cargo capacity would be devided with everything - fuel for ship, food & meds for crew, life support (which can fail), cargo, deployables and missiles/torpedoes.
If ship crew amount is full then player is not able to travel with them as ship is "full" (you cannot have standing/hang around people in ship).
When you buy ready made wares or equipment (scanning arrays, claytronics, turrets or ships) you pay "full price" which is value of resouces + running costs + tax + hoohaa payments (which goes to sector owner).
When you sell wares or equipment you only get half value of it's raw materials (because it might go to recycling anyway) but from that value you still need pay the tax and extra (recycling) fees.

If your ship runs out of food the crew can die and ship becomes abandoned. Or if there's not enough food and meds ship crew can go strike and park ship to any station nearby. Player would need food also.
Ships can also run out of fuel and get stranded and at that point you would need aux ship (would work for all sizes) to arrive onsite to help the crew or tug ship (Manticore for S- and M-size) to tow it the nearest station which can help.
Not forgetting that ships would need constant fixing. Small stuff can be done by crew with glue and ducktape (these also cost and take cargo space!) but at some point ship needs real maintenance (especially those which get in fights or travel in hazardous areas) and visit on Equipment Dock, Shipyard or Wharf. And when ship gets enouhg old it becomes more and more unstable and needs replaced. If engine, shield or turret gets destroyed during the battle then ship needs maintenance on station or Aux ship can bring new equipment if it have enough resources to build such.

And diplomacy - if you're friends with Argon & Antigone then you would be automatically enemy for Holy Order and Zyarth. If you have good relations with Vigor then you would be unwanted / hostile with near everyone else.
So you would need balance your faction reputation around 0 if you want be neutral with everyone. If you go up to +5 with other faction then it's enemy faction you would be -5.

[chew-ie]

Soo.. can we again come back to that idea of adding deathray scouts to X4 ...?