Why is SETA back?

[Informer]

I get the feeling that people who don't like SETA did not spend enough time waiting for ship construction / station building / production cycles.

SETA will hugely improve Build/Trade gameplay.

If that was true, why just not make the game play were build/trade is going faster anyway. Why would someone make a game were it takes so long?

I do agree I did never watch my ship construction/production or trades to finish, I was always playing the game. The point of a sandbox game is that you can do many things, and accomplish things. Why watching and waiting, if there is so much other things to do?

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

SETA can be an enjoyable feature. Mods that introduce a downside from inactivity, like those from BlackRain and Runbini, offer a nice trade off for the function.

[Spami]

SETA can be an enjoyable feature. Mods that introduce a downside from inactivity, like those from BlackRain and Runbini, offer a nice trade off for the function.

That is indeed true!
Sadly that doesn't count for the Vanilla game and yes I tried that mod but had to disable it again because after a few minutes all ships didn't moved anymore and instead started to shiver.

However that is a very good example how SETA could have a downside when using it just to wait in space instead of grinding and looting the *h** out of this game!

[DiArmada]

I get the feeling that people who don't like SETA did not spend enough time waiting for ship construction / station building / production cycles.

SETA will hugely improve Build/Trade gameplay.

why would you wait for something like that?
there's always enough to do.
it depends on playstyle I suppose.

[Mr. Personal]

After "simulating" how seta would affect the game, I found out that you would be wasting around 80% of the late game hiring employees for your workforce (What a "lovely" minigame). Let's face it, who want to have manager running their multi million station with 0 stars on management skill?

THERE MUST BE A MORE PLEASANT WAY TO DO THIS!

[spankahontis]

After "simulating" how seta would affect the game, I found out that you would be wasting around 80% of the late game hiring employees for your workforce (What a "lovely" minigame). Let's face it, who want to have manager running their multi million station with 0 stars on management skill?

THERE MUST BE A MORE PLEASANT WAY TO DO THIS!

Would be nice if they could introduce software you could buy off a Mechanic that allows you to view the skills of a potential employee?

Make it a fortune to buy, so you don't just buy it for 200,000 credits.

[UniTrader]

Would be nice if they could introduce software you could buy off a Mechanic that allows you to view the skills of a potential employee?

Make it a fortune to buy, so you don't just buy it for 200,000 credits.

i would prefer if something else than Money is used.. because after some time you have enough money that everything just gets cheap, or a ridiculous Grind..

my idea on this Topic is to add/use the Skill Levels of the Player - they are based on the Players Actions (eg hiring a Mnager or smalltalking with him increases the own Managment Skill) and based on these own Skills the Skills of the potential employee are visible and shown more or less accurate (if your Skill is higher then it is accurate, otherwise it may be inflated, or may be not)

got a basic implementation based on this idea, but since i am not familiar with UI Modding it just displays all Skills if your skills are higher, and otherwise behaves as usual (skills stay hidden) can be found here

[pref]

I dont like these HR duties at all. Would be happy if i did not have to hunt skilled employees, nor had to hire or fire them.
If i got full 5* crew automatically when acquiring a ship, it would be perfect.
The only skill i appreciate is boarding - that is fine as it is. Otherwise it just messes with and holds me back from the space/trade sim experience.

Without TAF and ShowSkills i could not play this game.

[Tamina]

I need a head hunter in the game
I pay him and he searches automatically for every of my free appointments a skilled worker based on his own similar skill.

[Jaxartes]

I need a head hunter in the game
I pay him and he searches automatically for every of my free appointments a skilled worker based on his own similar skill.

There should be a ship for this also, like a TP from x3, like a normal cargo ship except instead of cargo capacity slots for NPC's. So you can also use it to store your staff.

[UniTrader]

i would prefer if Skills improve when your employees do their Job (like it works with Boarding Experience)

also agree with some auto-hiring, but this should not simply give you the best Crew available but simply an average Crew - if you want to find the best from the Beginning you have to look yourself..

@pref also if we are simply given a full 5*-Crew upon Ship completion what would be the point in the Skill System? i basically like the Idea of having this system, but it needs extension and refinement in some areas..
this may be an idea for a Cheat Mod but i strongly disagree that Vanilla should be changed in this direction.


PS i think this Discussion should be split from Mr. Personals Reply onwards since we drifted away from discussing SETA to discussing the Skill System/HR-Aspect

[pref]

Just my taste. I dont enjoy that at all.
Would be better if skills improved - it would perhaps allow me to get attached a bit more to my emps, but considering the numbers we have to deal with mid game where there are a couple of ships and stations already, its just a repetitive chore to me.
Having to care for each employee only works small scale imo. The first 10-20 hours in each game perhaps. But gets old by the 2nd playthrough entirely.

[Mr. Personal]

Would be nice if they could introduce software you could buy off a Mechanic that allows you to view the skills of a potential employee?

Make it a fortune to buy, so you don't just buy it for 200,000 credits.

i would prefer if something else than Money is used.. because after some time you have enough money that everything just gets cheap, or a ridiculous Grind..

my idea on this Topic is to add/use the Skill Levels of the Player - they are based on the Players Actions (eg hiring a Mnager or smalltalking with him increases the own Managment Skill) and based on these own Skills the Skills of the potential employee are visible and shown more or less accurate (if your Skill is higher then it is accurate, otherwise it may be inflated, or may be not)

got a basic implementation based on this idea, but since i am not familiar with UI Modding it just displays all Skills if your skills are higher, and otherwise behaves as usual (skills stay hidden) can be found here

You still would have to assign a new employees to your fighters/capitals/stations separately and check their skills.
And later on when you're able to buy a many ships at one time your work load increases drastically.

I dont like these HR duties at all. Would be happy if i did not have to hunt skilled employees, nor had to hire or fire them.
If i got full 5* crew automatically when acquiring a ship, it would be perfect.
The only skill i appreciate is boarding - that is fine as it is. Otherwise it just messes with and holds me back from the space/trade sim experience.

Without TAF and ShowSkills i could not play this game.

I think ShowSkills mod would be best solution so far for (edit) HR problem.


Or how about star-skills are removed totally and replaced with 1-10 unlockable perks which are unlocked over time or with small talk.
These perks would be utility based. Example: 1st unlockable perk would be "Understanding" which would remove or shorten dialogue between the player and employee. 2nd perk would example unique perk such as "people person rank 1" for a manager which would show 1 random unlockable perk for each job seeker (Later on he/she could list everyone on the station into a report where you could easily choose your little slaves). For a pilot 2nd perk would be unique evasive manouver (Barrel roll, axion roll, U-turn, ect.)
These kinds of perks would make a player only need to invest more of their time on few stations/fleets instead of all of them.
But.. it would require some kind of mechanic which would allow more pleasant job assignment.

I utilized Unitrader's idea and ShowSkills mod with this idea

[pref]

Maybe if there were a few key employees - station and trade management, military and such 'advisors' that would govern a bigger set of assets and would provide additional config options in return for higher skill levels. They could be trained like MO during use (pls no more smalltalk lol).

For ex create a loop by assigning several stations to a key manager, and handle that as one entity, or for military fleet commanders to get more advanced commands. All of which should provide additional benefits for skills, not just introduce some semi-bugs if they are low skilled. And they should be needed in low numbers or else we are doing chores and not play.

Standard crew for ships and stations or the skunk should not need constant running around wasting time on the same 3 sentences or even smalltalk if its a vanilla game.

I think ShowSkills mod would be best solution so far for this problem.

As i stated in the post you quoted, i use ShowSkills.
But it still isn't enough - you have to keep running around a lot to find emps that will do without training.
I finally wrote a script that sets all player owned emp skills to 5* - the experience is much better like this imo. Its still a chore to always have enough personnel, but i can live with it at least as i can get it in a few extra clicks.

[BigBANGtheory]

Arguing that the DEVs should spend their time on something perhaps more useful or urgently needed is again a rather subjective view. Firstly, neither of us know how much work and effort was really required to implement it and whether that other feature you are looking for isn't in the pipeline but takes more time than making it possible to commit.

Ah but if you were to measure the popularity of a given topic it would be less subjective and there is an undenialble truth that certain topics and trends appear time and again and from many sources. The reality is if you spend too much development time on less popular features....

It seems to me you're making an assumption that has no real basis in fact. You're implying that SETA was not a popular feature, porbably basing it on a very tiny but vocal minority that for whatever reasons didn't like it. I challenge you to produce any data that says SETA was generally unpopular amongst players of the previous games. A few anecdotal comments don't mean squat.

I'm not making an assumption I'm simply saying that without making an effort to measure opinion :
subjective = "license to avoid anything you like"

[Slashman]

Arguing that the DEVs should spend their time on something perhaps more useful or urgently needed is again a rather subjective view. Firstly, neither of us know how much work and effort was really required to implement it and whether that other feature you are looking for isn't in the pipeline but takes more time than making it possible to commit.

Ah but if you were to measure the popularity of a given topic it would be less subjective and there is an undenialble truth that certain topics and trends appear time and again and from many sources. The reality is if you spend too much development time on less popular features....

It seems to me you're making an assumption that has no real basis in fact. You're implying that SETA was not a popular feature, porbably basing it on a very tiny but vocal minority that for whatever reasons didn't like it. I challenge you to produce any data that says SETA was generally unpopular amongst players of the previous games. A few anecdotal comments don't mean squat.

I'm not making an assumption I'm simply saying that without making an effort to measure opinion :
subjective = "license to avoid anything you like"

I think it is rather pointless to try to view the 'popularity' of SETA in the old games because you HAD to use it. That would be like bragging that no one knows the popularity of the cape-glide feature in the Batman: Arkham games. Sure you could NOT use it, but travel time became ridiculous if you didn't. SETA is no different.

It just seems rather hypocritical that they repeatedly bash a feature that that wasn't put into XR gameplay (with a bunch of reasons given by them as to why not) and now all of a sudden it's not so bad.

What it basically says to me is that all the effort they put into graphically showing the build processes for goods, ships and stations was a waste of time that could have been spent on other things if the end result is that you can just speed it all up and never think about it again once you have a SETA device.

It further cements the whole about face mentality behind the entire XR game process. Say one thing...then its something else another day.

In the end it boils down to: 'We made one game of questionable quality so we could beta test features for the real game we're going to bring out, but we told you that the gimped game was awesome and you bought it. *cha-ching!!!*

[Mr. Personal]

I think it is rather pointless to try to view the 'popularity' of SETA in the old games because you HAD to use it. That would be like bragging that no one knows the popularity of the cape-glide feature in the Batman: Arkham games. Sure you could NOT use it, but travel time became ridiculous if you didn't. SETA is no different.

It just seems rather hypocritical that they repeatedly bash a feature that that wasn't put into XR gameplay (with a bunch of reasons given by them as to why not) and now all of a sudden it's not so bad.

What it basically says to me is that all the effort they put into graphically showing the build processes for goods, ships and stations was a waste of time that could have been spent on other things if the end result is that you can just speed it all up and never think about it again once you have a SETA device.

It further cements the whole about face mentality behind the entire XR game process. Say one thing...then its something else another day.

In the end it boils down to: 'We made one game of questionable quality so we could beta test features for the real game we're going to bring out, but we told you that the gimped game was awesome and you bought it. *cha-ching!!!*

Have you ever played R.U.S.E or Total war?
Those small little details helps you to "Feel" that your factory is alive. In R.U.S.E and Total war series, when you zoom in first time you will see nice little details and when you zoom back into bigger scale, each fight you will see you know what your troops are doing. Seeing is believing.
I agree that egosoft did bad design there, because game does not "guide" the player to see these things first. You have to be lucky to see these details in the right order. Conclusion, development time wasted.

I also agree that game (3.60+) feels quite beta. There are so many badly designed mechanics which you never going to use if you're trying to reach riches. Such as mining, trading anything else than scrapmetal with skunk and ect. Exploring is also quite dumm due to a lack of unique secrets in my opinion (A delicious looking pancakes though ).

When you put SETA system into all of this, player will skip most mechanics if SETA ability is acquired early. Sure this is good for X series veteran who is starting a new game, but a poison for a new player.
SETA being late game ability (Example; you need certain stations to manufacture certain parts to make SETA available) new players would not suffer so much and capitalists would make their monopoly more pleasant to acquire.

What players would do with a their's empire when they have reached ultimate power? Wage war? No, you cannot destroy stations. Build riduciously expensive deep space exploration, monstersized ship with self sustained food/medicine and forges to produce materials for stations? No, there is just empty space, because there is no random generation or hand crafted anomalies.

Conclusion; SETA would help reach a contentless lategame faster.

[Slashman]

Have you ever played R.U.S.E or Total war?
Those small little details helps you to "Feel" that your factory is alive. In R.U.S.E and Total war series, when you zoom in first time you will see nice little details and when you zoom back into bigger scale, each fight you will see you know what your troops are doing. Seeing is believing.
I agree that egosoft did bad design there, because game does not "guide" the player to see these things first. You have to be lucky to see these details in the right order. Conclusion, development time wasted.

Well for strategy games, I'd say that's a good thing to have fine details.

But seeing what your troops are doing in Total War (I only own Shogun 2 btw) is a far cry from watching the manufacturing process for a gun. I can understand watching the build process for a station since that's constructed in plain visibility in reachable space. But why for other goods?

Conclusion; SETA would help reach a contentless lategame faster.

And that is something they have yet to actually address. Decent lategame content.

[Mr. Personal]

Well for strategy games, I'd say that's a good thing to have fine details.

But seeing what your troops are doing in Total War (I only own Shogun 2 btw) is a far cry from watching the manufacturing process for a gun. I can understand watching the build process for a station since that's constructed in plain visibility in reachable space. But why for other goods?

The game itself wont lead you into the right perspective where these details flourish. Try to explore these stations really close and you will find some quite nice details. Because most separate missions and story wont show these details itself, stations seem really simple from a far away.

[Mightysword]

I don't claim it's true, but to me 90% of things about the stations and thing inside of is are a waste:

- station interior: a huge huge huge waste of time a resource and next to useless. If you ask for proof why this is a fact and not an opinion, mods that allows players never have to set foot on station again are among the most popular is the proof.

- NPC: this includes both story and station NPCs. And it's not like Egosoft haven't tread down this path before: X2-The Threat, we all grin at how bad the NPC, their design, their model, their animation ...etc... none of them was done right. I guess that's why they were completely done away through out X3 and replaced with just their portrait. Sure, it wasn't a perfect solution but not many complained, and I think most of us was glad time and resource on them. Then ... why did they decide to try it again in Rebirth? When ... this feature was announced for Rebirth, I was excitedly (not) waiting to see how bad it would be, wasn't disappointed.

What really weird is though, look at Freelancer, a game with development started in 1999 (hello 20th century) and released in 2003, and its station interface is 100x times better. Rebirth is a game that released over 10 years later ... even when one is to speak from ignorance of the difficulty of the game making process, it's hard not to understand when someone says something like "common, it can't be THAT hard!". I'm pretty sure the Devs played most space sim game in existence, I wonder if they ever look at the freelancer interface and thought "this is an example of a simple-elegance-effective system".


About the exterior detail, they're nice for sure, but I think it's just another case of mis-priority. If the scale of this game is like Kerbal, where we're limited to 2 handfuls of system and bodies, where it's normal we can spent hours and hours around one single task to get it done, then the micro details will be a huge plus. But X game meant to have dozens and eventually hundred bodies, it might be nice the first one time we see it, but I bet not many will sit there waiting for miner ship to dock and unload its cargo. It'll come down we want to finish the current task and move on to the next one. Again, they're nice and I wouldn't speak against having them. Provided all the essential core work properly, then detail is always an extra icing on the cake, but with things as they were at release, it's understandable why it actually may be seen negatively.

It's like I never understand why someone would buy a 55k SUV instead of a 15k Sedan (when they have no need for an SUV) when they still haven't own a house, or pay off their student loan, and still have a mountain of credit depth.