NEWS: Screenshots of the Week - [no new Screenshots]

[ConCorDian]

Unless it's a flyable ship, it's pretty stupid to put windows on a drone, it only makes it more vulnerable for nothing.
There is no need for a "bridge" on a drone. Even if it is to give access to an engineer, important parts should be accessed by a small isolated, hidden cabin where no missiles/fire can reach it. Otherwise it'll just make the drone even more vulnerable.
So yea it is confusing, ThommoHawk does have a point.

with that kind of mentalisty to it why have a window in flyable ships. why not basic sensors and a display? the drones could need that for a engineer to test it, so perhaps the engineer needs the "cockpit" in order to fly and test it before turning it back over to AI/remote control

[Dr2i]

Unless it's a flyable ship, it's pretty stupid to put windows on a drone, it only makes it more vulnerable for nothing.
There is no need for a "bridge" on a drone. Even if it is to give access to an engineer, important parts should be accessed by a small isolated, hidden cabin where no missiles/fire can reach it. Otherwise it'll just make the drone even more vulnerable.
So yea it is confusing, ThommoHawk does have a point.

with that kind of mentalisty to it why have a window in flyable ships. why not basic sensors and a display? the drones could need that for a engineer to test it, so perhaps the engineer needs the "cockpit" in order to fly and test it before turning it back over to AI/remote control

When you pilot a ship, nothing beats the eye sight. You can put sensors and display etc. but you imagine what you'd have on the screen when passing through an asteroid field? add in a few missiles heading towards you and it's a fiesta. It's pretty obvious you need windows/cockpit when flying a ship.

A drone is always on autopilot. You don't test it manually (EDIT:by manually i mean from the inside, not remote control) if noone will ever fly it manually... And as I said, windows are too much of a weak spot and that kind of testing surely isn't worth all the loss in strength.

[ravisoul]

June 5-7, 2012 E3

<In case you were wondering what E3 is. Alan Phipps>

[Drewgamer]

When you pilot a ship, nothing beats the eye sight. You can put sensors and display etc. but you imagine what you'd have on the screen when passing through an asteroid field? add in a few missiles heading towards you and it's a fiesta. It's pretty obvious you need windows/cockpit when flying a ship.

Cameras

[Nick 031287]

you do know some Glass can be tougher then metal

[Vitez]

When you pilot a ship, nothing beats the eye sight. You can put sensors and display etc. but you imagine what you'd have on the screen when passing through an asteroid field? add in a few missiles heading towards you and it's a fiesta. It's pretty obvious you need windows/cockpit when flying a ship.

A drone is always on autopilot. You don't test it manually (EDIT:by manually i mean from the inside, not remote control) if noone will ever fly it manually... And as I said, windows are too much of a weak spot and that kind of testing surely isn't worth all the loss in strength.

In the name of every Jem'Hadar (Star Trek), I must disagree

[Canefox]

Looks very Terran in design aesthetics, and is that an acceleration gate I spy in the lower left?

[SuckMyNova]

Awesome, the scale of that system is really enormous. I wonder if we will be able to conquer all those astroids with purpose-built stations and network them with our own local highways

June 5-7, 2012 E3

Would be nice but I doubt it, since he could have said "till E3" and not "for the next weeks"

[dphantom]

Nice station, I like the scale of it. I wonder if those asteroids in the back a just a backdrop or if we can actually fly around them.

I'm really to sad and I'm sorry about it to announce this. But this week it was the last new screenshot so far and for the next weeks you will have to forgo upon new pictures. I'm aware about the expectations that have been made here in the last months towards this thread and the new picture for the following week. But it was me that decided to make a cut here and give Egosoft the opportunity to make new screenshots in a better quality to show the actual development progress of X Rebirth.

So what does this mean, the old batch of screenshots is over? Or does it simply mean the ones that are left are all about things we have seen one way or another, in videos, or other screenshots. Does it mean real "new news" are coming, or is Egosoft gonna give us new screenshots from the current development state, to keep us entertained for a while longer?

Unfortunately I fear next Monday there won't be the usual news that have "kept me alive" for the past months, and we won't see anything new for quite a while.

[ConCorDian]

A drone is always on autopilot. You don't test it manually (EDIT:by manually i mean from the inside, not remote control) if noone will ever fly it manually... And as I said, windows are too much of a weak spot and that kind of testing surely isn't worth all the loss in strength.

even our own drones were "manually" tested first, the first UAV's we created had cockpits to test the equipment, they were more or less normal fighters with all the remote gear inside them..

also from an engineering stand point you wouldn't really test it on remote... you isolate everything you can, and test the components in its simplist form you can... therefore getting into a cockpit and trying the firing mechanisms manually, rudder, engines.. then when they all check out youd test it all together and then on remote.. means if something goes wrong you have a more focused area where the fault occured. that type of procedure aint going to change regardless of how far in the future you go... because its logical.

Cameras

in a way yes... but camera's themselves would be a major weakness.. if you put simple "camcorder" like feeds in... but surely in the distant future they would be able to create renders on a veiw screen of some sort, with the raw data the sensors bring in... either that or microsoft are still holding back computer tech the way they are now.

you do know some Glass can be tougher then metal

another excellent point... not only that but Glass can have other properties that would help.... for example Glass is a decent insulator... a lot of metals are conductors... and therefore Glass may be a better material when you take into account most weapons are Energy Based.

@squirrelrider: your way of thinking of strength is pretty two dimentional when you think about it... your not thinking about Thermal Dynamics, Elasticity, Weight, etc etc. your way of coming across is the hardest material is the strongest... dont forget the space shuttles only have "metal" space frame, pretty much every other material is Carbon/Silicon composites...

[the-danzorz]

Nice station, I like the scale of it. I wonder if those asteroids in the back a just a backdrop or if we can actually fly around them.

Yeah, you can fly around and even in them (some of them). Or build on them depending on station type. Some of the screenshots you see huge asteroids with stations on them.

[ConCorDian]

Yeah, you can fly around and even in them (some of them).

is flying in them for definate? i was hoping this would be the case but i dont remember seeing anything for certain saying thats the case

[ravisoul]

June 5-7, 2012 E3

Would be nice but I doubt it, since he could have said "till E3" and not "for the next weeks"

so i checked out the E3 site and Deep silver has a booth, that there just gave me some hope for information, not that it says that Egosoft will be there but still you never know

[the-danzorz]

Yeah, you can fly around and even in them (some of them).

is flying in them for definate? i was hoping this would be the case but i dont remember seeing anything for certain saying thats the case

In at least one screenshot i've seen a large cavern which looks more then big enough for a ship to fly into. How oftern you'll see one that you can fly through... not sure.

But it looks like some stations, you can split asteroids into 2 or more parts. So we'll have to see what egosoft throw at us.

[Rednoahl]

Unfortunately I fear next Monday there won't be the usual news that have "kept me alive" for the past months, and we won't see anything new for quite a while.

This is good news as far as I'm concerned - everything I've seen so far hasn't had much AA (if any at all.) Hopefully this means that the gfx engine is finally done and we'll get a better idea how the game will look in motion. If the art team have finished creating game assets too then we might have some really nice shots to look forward to (if they are working on promo stuff.)

[Observe]

Unfortunately I fear next Monday there won't be the usual news that have "kept me alive" for the past months, and we won't see anything new for quite a while.

This is good news as far as I'm concerned....

Agreed (this is good news).

To me, it means (if anything) they are preparing to enter the next phase and it now won't be long before we have plenty to be happy about.

[Observe]

June 5-7, 2012 E3

<In case you were wondering what E3 is. Alan Phipps>

Looks like Deep Silver will be at Booth: PMR303B

[ConCorDian]

In at least one screenshot i've seen a large cavern which looks more then big enough for a ship to fly into. How oftern you'll see one that you can fly through... not sure.

But it looks like some stations, you can split asteroids into 2 or more parts. So we'll have to see what egosoft throw at us.

just because it looks that way doesn't mean you can... ive had a look at some of your artwork on Deviant so surely you can see that just because something looks like its hollow, or capible of something doen't mean its not on a 2d canvas.

[the-danzorz]

In at least one screenshot i've seen a large cavern which looks more then big enough for a ship to fly into. How oftern you'll see one that you can fly through... not sure.

But it looks like some stations, you can split asteroids into 2 or more parts. So we'll have to see what egosoft throw at us.

just because it looks that way doesn't mean you can... ive had a look at some of your artwork on Deviant so surely you can see that just because something looks like its hollow, or capible of something doen't mean its not on a 2d canvas.

Firstly, please bring your attention to the following screenshot:
http://www.egosoft.com/games/x_rebirth/ ... en_029.jpg

The second screenshot from left to right, you can see the structure is going very deep inside. Similar too how X2: The Threat stations were back in the day.

If you look at the overall size of the asteroid in all those picture, compare it too the size of the station and see how the "cavern" is going deep inside (like it has been mined). Then you can see the probability of entering deep inside of them is high. Also that station is pretty big, so is that asteroid. A capital ship looks like it can fly in there. We've seen from other screenshots how massive asteroids and stations are now getting, they're giant compared to X3.

Secondly, I'm going to guess the "2d canvas" comment is based on previous posts made about Concept Art, and these screenshots not being them. Because otherwise that comment makes no sense.

I said myself we'll have to see what egosoft does and doesn't allow us to do. All my speculations have been on observations of several screenshots, looking at the current info on what they plan to provide us in Rebirth. As a result there are high probabilities that some asteroids can be flown into. Which may or may not be a result of a station digging or even landing platforms.

if you've played X2 you'll know this feature isn't new. You had to fly deep into an asteroid to finally dock at a station. Sometimes it took a fair amount of time because of station / asteroid size.

It looks like they're bringing back a lot of X2 which they removed from X3. X3 was rushed, a lot of copied models, nothing felt original. TC fixed a fair amount of that but rebirth looks to be bringing back a lot of decent content and feel which was in X2. Also in X2 you could fly into a fair few asteroids, i'm not confirming these features. but from screenshots, what plans they've said. the probably is high that we'll see some interesting asteroid uses and features in-game. be it from stations or natural formations.

As for the concept art, these aren't concept art. I've made more then enough posts saying why they aren't. Even from a common sense point of view. Egosoft wouldn't troll us like that, that would piss off a large % of community. Steam alone has sparked a massive debate and egosoft is under fire for that. Given their past history with the word "screenshot" and it always being from "in-game" content, also the desire for them to not kill there company alone should make most people see that it isn't concept art.

[amtie]

Every time someone says "fly into an asteroid", I can't help but think of literally head-butting your ship into the 'roid, auto-pillock style.

the-danzorz, can you link to the "massive debate" on Steam related to Egosoft?