X3TC / X3AP Patch 2015

[Honved]

Repairing the "Feeble" (Fragmentation Bomb Launcher) would be a big step toward making many of the AI-controlled Paranid ships less irrelevant and defenseless.

The two different Flak guns should have higher hit chances (either area effects or faster projectiles) and less damage, so they're more useful against the light fighters they're designed to counter, yet generally fail to hit, and less effective against other capital ships, which they now demolish.

[Jimmy C]

I don't know about you, but the FAA and CFA are pretty effective at killing fighters for me.

[Cursed Ghost]

The problem with adding more weapons is, will there be enough variety to make a difference? Otherwise, it's just a matter of Big Gun, Bigger Gun, etc.

Another issue with weapons is that there are already several useless weapons that have no practical combat purposes and should be removed.

Take IREs for example these are to short range and to weak to really be of any benefit and the only way I can see these being useful is as an anti missile weapon but in order for that to be effective then they would need the range increasing to at least 3km and there damage would need a slight increase as well to compensate for the fact some of the heavy missiles now have armour.

FBL are another useless weapon as well because the shot speed is to low the power drain is to high and the flak effect doesn’t work it just makes a lot of noise and a pretty fireworks display but otherwise does nothing

PRG are similarly useless they are designed to be heavier weapons for interceptors and a weapon for shooting down small fast targets for heavy fighters that don’t have the speed but interceptors cant use these due to the energy drain and even M3+ fighters that can use them can’t sustain fire from a battery of these for more than about 30 seconds I have better luck using HEPTs despite the fact that these draw twice the energy they do sufficient damage that I only need about 10 seconds of sustained fire to flatten even heavy fighters unfortunately I cant say the same for PRGs while these might be grate against shields or grate in turrets for shooting drones and missiles they do nothing to hulls rendering them useless because I need to be able to crush the hull as well and generally I find it more effective to just use PBEs despite the short range

Personally I’d just remove PRGs and simply buff PACs with a increase in bullet speed slight increase to damage slight increase to range but I’d leave the rate of fire and the energy drain as they are now the benefit of this is that you gain all of the strengths of the PRG with none of the down sides namely the stupid energy drain and the incompatibility with most ships

The prototype aldring weapons are not needed either from a plot perspective it made sense in TC but in AP I would assume that all aldrin ships would simply be upgraded to use the production models since the aldrin systems have been reconnected to the main terran systems via the Neptune jump gate this of course would necessitate that the flak guns carried by the Springblossom be rebalance though because the Springblossom as is already considered by many to be overpowered me personally I don’t agree but I do think that if you are going to give a corvette flak then the flak needs to be less powerful then the flak carried by frigates and capitals for the purposes of maintaining proper balance

Then we have weapons like ISRs/CIGs which are supposed to be bigger guns for bigger ships yet damage wise they are little better then HEPTs especially when you factor in the energy drain of ISRs or the irritating knock back effect of CIGs which make CIGs useless against fighters both of these need looking at

For ISRs I’d increase the bullet speed and rate of fire but decrease the energy drain and damage so they are more geared towards fighter attack and for CIGs it probably increase the energy drain decrease the bullet speed but increase the damage so they are more geared towards taking down or corvettes and frigates

Then of course you have the beam weapons most of which never made it in to the game and the ones that did got a r******* nurf to accuracy while I understand why ego did that as I have said may times that is just stupid because the main benefit of beams is the accuracy and if you take that away then what is the point in using beams you may as well just stick with projectile weapons

so that’s something else that needs to be sorted ego need to decide if beams are going to be anti fighter weapons and if they are then they need to remove the accuracy nurf and decrease the damage or if they going to be anti capital weapons in which case they need to increase the damage but lower the accuracy some more

personally I’d vote for beams to be frigate level weapons as there are no proper frigate level weapons in game I’ve seen how plasma beams equipped on a carrack work and in my opinion they are perfectly balance for that role because power wise they are about half way between IBL and CIGs which is right where frigate level weapons should be sitting and I would balance all the other beams weapons similarly well with the exception of the Khaak Kyons

then of course you have some of the more speciality weapons like the boron Ion weapons which would be grate if not for a couple of issue 1 being compatibility 2 being availability and 3 being energy use.

What weapons, and how are they bugged?

2 weapons that come to mind as being bugged are PALCs and FBL.

FBLs are missing the splash damage so the fragmentation effect does nothing plus they are just badly balanced with energy drain that’s to high bullet speed that to low

PALCs on the other hand don’t do any where near the damage they are supposed to do when being fired by the player and even when being fired by the computer from turrets the damage is questionable plus the graphic effect cases massive frame rate lag so that needs fixing to

Then there are also several weapons which strictly speaking are not bugged per say but are badly balanced for example:

PRGs/ISRs/IPGs the energy drain is to high so ships cant actually use these weapons since the reactors aren’t strong enough to keep up.

PBGs are also problematic since they give fighters fire power equivalent to IBLs but are as energy efficient as the Terran EMPCs and probably shouldn’t be usable by fighters for this reason.

Similarly Pulsed Beam Emitter probably shouldn’t be usable by fighters either since these are doing almost as much shield damage per second as capital level guns and to be honest if it wasn’t for the short range of these weapons I’d consider them to be capital level guns due to the level of shield damage they do.

Don’t get me wrong PBEs and PBGs have to be 2 of my favourites weapons due to the high level of damage they deal but looking at it from a balance perspective they are way to strong to be used by fighters and it makes them far to powerful having said this without them they are to weak against bigger targets so it's catch 22

of course I've already covered a lot of this in my previous posts

though with regards to adding speciality weapons I'd like Ego to add an EMP to help in capturing ships as an EMP will shut the ships electrical systems down for a short period of time down stopping the ship from escaping or firing back this would be hugely valuable when boarding ships if I can temperately disable there ability to fire back, jump away or lunch moz missiles at my boarding pods it would also save a lot of hassle as well since the EMP would also disable there shields for the duration of the effect since that is also an electrical system it would also help when space walk boarding because you don't have to worry about your boarding ship getting splattered if you don't have an M7M

[Nanook]

...

What weapons, and how are they bugged?

2 weapons that come to mind as being bugged are PALCs and FBL.

FBLs are missing the splash damage so the fragmentation effect does nothing plus they are just badly balanced with energy drain that’s to high bullet speed that to low

PALCs on the other hand don’t do any where near the damage they are supposed to do when being fired by the player and even when being fired by the computer from turrets the damage is questionable plus the graphic effect cases massive frame rate lag so that needs fixing to...

I guess our definitions of 'bugged' are a bit different. See, I see something as bugged if it doesn't work, or work right, because of some flaw in programming. I don't see it as 'bugged' just because it doesn't work the way I think it should. More than likely, the devs made them the way they are on purpose, for their own reasons. Differences of opinions on how things should work doesn't constitute them being 'bugged'.

[Honved]

Sorry, but as a big fan of the Phased Repeater Gun, I'd hate to see these go away. Their high bullet speed makes them ideal as M5 killers. Using them against large targets runs into energy drain issues, but that's why we have multiple weapons slots. They're nearly perfect M6 turret weapons.

My favorite M3 loadout is a PRG Pair and a six-PAC.

ISR/CIG are a bit shy on range for a "big gun". As pointed out, a rebalance would be a good idea, so there are reasons to use different guns for different purposes, but that's beyond the scope of a patch.

I suspect that most of the issues are related to "new" versus "old" content, with each new game's additions partially overlapping the existing roles and functions. The convoluted order of ship classes is the result, with no logical progression in size: M5, M4, M3, M8, M6, M7, M1/2. Again, this calls for more than a patch. The game needs a complete overhaul of the existing interface and a rebalancing, but not a replacement with a totally new system. The GAME itself is great, the details.....not so much.

[vkerinav]

What's the point of creating an "empty weapons group" that only modders would use?

Simple; so modders can use them. It's a choice that has already been debated in this thread. Should this proposed patch add new vanilla content, or should it open things up to modders?

We should understand that, if this patch ever comes, it will be the last. Egosoft has to move on, even if we don't like where it's going. That's why I advocate opening things up, more than adding on.

Sometimes, I think this theoretical patch should be; release the source code! I can't imagine Egosoft has much financial interest in the series, after all the effort they put into Rebirth's engine, and it would be interesting to see what happened.

I know, a limited release is all we can hope for--to a group of modders under an NDA--but it would still be interesting.

[ThommoHawk]

... snipped ...
Sometimes, I think this theoretical patch should be; release the source code! I can't imagine Egosoft has much financial interest in the series, after all the effort they put into Rebirth's engine, and it would be interesting to see what happened.
... snipped ...

^ Dream on. Egosoft's continued financial interest in all of the 'X Trilogy' games are still very much in evidence - as can be seen in the Steam shop. I wouldn't be surprised if at least half of Egosoft's cash income is still being generated by game sales from the X3 series and earlier. XRebirth is still considered a lemon F.U.B.A.R. by many who have/are still trying to play it, despite the apparently never ending list of patches which keep coming out for it.

I would not be surprised once this patch is released for X3TC/X3AP, that it will be repackaged and released in a newly updated retail/downloadable 'superbox' or something like that.

[vkerinav]

Dream on. :P Egosoft's continued financial interest in all of the 'X Trilogy' games are still very much in evidence - as can be seen in the Steam shop. I wouldn't be surprised if at least half of Egosoft's cash income is still being generated by game sales from the X3 series and earlier. XRebirth is still considered a lemon F.U.B.A.R. by many who have/are still trying to play it, despite the apparently never ending list of patches which keep coming out for it.

I would not be surprised once this patch is released for X3TC/X3AP, that it will be repackaged and released in a newly updated retail/downloadable 'superbox' or something like that.

I will, thank you. Yes, a source code release is extremely unlikely, but the Rebirth engine is still the future of the X series.

[Cursed Ghost]

I guess our definitions of 'bugged' are a bit different. See, I see something as bugged if it doesn't work, or work right, because of some flaw in programming. I don't see it as 'bugged' just because it doesn't work the way I think it should. More than likely, the devs made them the way they are on purpose, for their own reasons. Differences of opinions on how things should work doesn't constitute them being 'bugged'.

Not really you say you see things as bugged if they don’t work right due to programming flaws well answer me this then

Why do PALCs do less damage then an equivalent number of Beta Kyon Emitters ? because I can state for a fact that when being fired by the player PALCs most definitely do not do the damage that is stated in game and before you say it yes I have tested this clearly this is a programming flaw therefore by your definition of bugged PALCs are indeed bugged also the massive frame rate lag caused by these cant be anything other then a coding bug and no its not my computer because I have seen other players complaining about this as well.

the same applies to the splash damage of FBL clearly FBLs are supposed to have splash damage hence the name "FRAGMENTATION" which clearly says this weapon should have splash damage which it doesn’t which again by your definition of bugged means that FBL are not functioning as intended due to programming errors because the devs forgot to add the splash damage just the same way they forgot to add the splash damage on the CFA until that got patched why they didn't fix FBLs at the same time I don't know but it still doesn't change the face that both of these weapons are bugged and no that's not my opinion.

Sorry, but as a big fan of the Phased Repeater Gun, I'd hate to see these go away. Their high bullet speed makes them ideal as M5 killers. Using them against large targets runs into energy drain issues, but that's why we have multiple weapons slots. They're nearly perfect M6 turret weapons.

well technically if my suggestion was followed they wouldn't go away yes PRGs would be removed but PACs would be upgraded to take there place so using PACs would be like using PRGs because the range damage and bullet speed of PACs would be upgraded to match PRGs the only thing that wouldn't be changed is the rate of fire and the power drain they would stay as they are now thus PACs would gain all the strengths of PRGs and none of the downsides and in the process that would open up a weapon slot that can be used for something else since the game can only support a limited number of lasers

so really you wouldn't be loosing anything because my take on this stuff is why bother adding a PAC clone that uses twice the energy but does almost the same amount of damage ? it makes no sense especially when PRGs can only be used by a limited number of ships where PACs can be used by almost every ship in the game might as well scrap PRGs and simply upgrade PACs and then use the spare weapon slot to add some frigate level guns.

I guess everyone has there own take on this so I don't expect everyone to agree but you have to admit it makes more sense

I will, thank you. Yes, a source code release is extremely unlikely, but the Rebirth engine is still the future of the X series.

I wonder if it would be possible for them to port the other X games to the new engine? admittedly this is probably way beyond a simple patch but doing so would be well worth it as it would help to sort out a lot of performance issues and would give the devs more scope for doing stuff which simply isn't possible with the current engine given that its a dinosaur by comparison.

[UnknownObject]

It would be nice if Egosoft releases a hotfix for X3:Reunion. I would like to see FAAs not missing too lot after loading a saved game.

[extaz93]

Hey,

Is the patch still on his way ?
Does Egosoft gave any news about it ?

Even if i have to wait 1 more year, it would be great to be SURE that there will be a new patch coming some day...

[Sinxar]

Does Egosoft gave any news about it ?

There has been no news as of yet but Steam Cloud Sync was enabled on Sept 28, 2015. You can view the announcement here: http://steamcommunity.com/games/201310/ ... 9884851902

[X2-Illuminatus]

While there hasn't been a confirmation by Egosoft, whether there will be a patch or not, in the last X-Universe News issue in the article about Future development plans Bernd mentioned the possibility for future X3TC/AP Updates again.

Because of this, we are working exactly as we did in the X3 times: In parallel working on a new project and improvements to the games already released. This won't just include making improvements to X Rebirth and The Teladi Outpost, but maybe also further updates for X3: Terran Conflict or Albion Prelude.

[Karmaticdamage]

I'd like to see the Teladi and Paranid get a new destroyer like how the other races have. Also it would be cool to add in a Xenon M0, a big bad boss to take on in the xenon core. A xenon equivalent to the Valhalla but even bigger and more powerful. Make it not boardable, and only one exist at a time.

[Jimmy C]

The Xenon had an M0, in the very first X-game, BTF. It was destroyed and they never rebuilt it.

[pref]

Hope mod compatibility won't be a big issue if a new patch ever comes.
Some mods might require people to skip any further game updates.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Hope mod compatibility won't be a big issue if a new patch ever comes.
Some mods might require people to skip any further game updates.

AFAIK, game updates via Steam became compulsory about a year ago.

[pref]

huh. Best to make a full vanilla backup in time then.

[RainerPrem]

I was in the Pluto sector the other day, and realized there's an easy thing Egosoft should change.
That being the picture of Pluto in the sector.

+1.

Pluto looks so much better then anyone expected.

+2

I want Charon, too.

cu
Rainer

[Karmaticdamage]

The Xenon had an M0, in the very first X-game, BTF. It was destroyed and they never rebuilt it.

So what? A giant boss ship would be awesome, and having one hang out in the xenon core sector isn't going to ruin the game.