Why is SETA back?

[spankahontis]

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.

It's when they throw around dlc like cheap Halloween candy that it would kill the franchise.
Don't want to see Egosoft turn into Creative Assembly.

[pref]

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.

Well, it might be more honest or true to the original concept if the current patch contained more smalltalk, HR duties and highways or similar - but i think we are better off with JD, SETA and semi-newtonian flight mechanics.
They completely messed up the initial concept, and took a lot of time to realize that but better late then never..

[Slashman]

Well, it might be more honest or true to the original concept if the current patch contained more smalltalk, HR duties and highways or similar - but i think we are better off with JD, SETA and semi-newtonian flight mechanics.
They completely messed up the initial concept, and took a lot of time to realize that but better late then never..

Well late it is going to be because there is no new game announcement yet and we are two years past the launch date of Rebirth.

I only hope the next REAL X game isn't a giant pile of ill-thought, misrepresented ideas because I'd really like a decent X game to play beyond X3.

[renoan]

Thanks, Egosoft, for bringing back SETA. Contrary to what most of the outspoken forum community seems to think is best for all players, I'm quite happy to have this option back on the table. I don't know how much time these other players put into this game, but I like to play it a few hours a week, and frankly, spending 85% of it waiting for one of my traders to buy a product and then deliver it to my station so that it can start constructing the next phase is tedious.

Now, I get to enjoy the game.

Sorry, everyone, that giving a player like me somehow destroys the game (you're so nice to be so concerned over how it'll ruin the experience for other players who don't know better than to activate SETA—those poor, innocent fools!), but I'm happy with SETA.

[Santi]

I believe that the issue is that better solutions should be implemented for problems like waiting for too long for trades or to make travelling around faster or to improve production etc.
The other point at discussion is how it affects gameplay and future gameplay development.

I do not like SETA, simply because it is a global setting, it affects the whole of the game, it breaks the natural pace and progression of the game. A game like X Rebirth with such a scope, should be like a snowball rolling downhill, starts small and as you make money, buy ships, build stations, you should be able to trade, build and fight better and faster, till you are unstoppable.

The devs are in the right path making SETA difficult and expensive to obtain, so you can only take advantage of it when you already are in your way to riches. As I said before I would prefer more focused solutions, like extra production modules or Super Specialists that increase your output of wares, a Warehouse and a Construction Supply ship with massive cargo space but very slow and defenceless, so you can fill it up with wares needed for building stations and deploy it together with the Construction Vessel. Player Dry Docks and even ship building facilities.

[BigBANGtheory]

- 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.

I think the answer is simple, someone somewhere in Egosoft has a creative thing for RPG. Problem is RPG has evolved into games like Mass Effect, Skyrim and Witcher its not the hammy system of old so if you can't create a comparable experience today then it sticks out a mile.

Some things you can get away with by doing a lite version, construction and building is a good example, having SETA applied to a subset of gameplay also works but hammy RPG is immersion breaking in todays games.

[pref]

I believe that the issue is that better solutions should be implemented for problems like waiting for too long for trades or to make travelling around faster or to improve production etc.
The other point at discussion is how it affects gameplay and future gameplay development.

The issue that SETA solves comes from the nature of the game.
The more detailed the simulation is, the more involving it is but also more things can get messed up.
Devs can help this by making things more automatic and quick, but that path also leads to boredom - everything works on its own, you just click here and there and have more cash. This also involves a lot of AI cheats.
On the other end of the scale are huge wait times and constant babysitting.
The babysitting issue is mainly a UI/AI problem so lets leave that for now (hope one day ES will realize the importance of UI and the amount of resources that needs).
For the delay though time acceleration is a perfect solution. You can optimize the game in the slower mid region - so every action takes time and effort, and first timers will feel an achievement when they pull up the first fab or have their first ship produced ('yay after hours of work i made this' notion). And with SETA you can skip all this to favor people who don't enjoy watching grass grow. Need five more ships? Just hit seta and you're done before you drank your tea.

SETA allows to get over a balance issue that is not resolvable without loosing a lot of players and possible playstyles otherwise. Your ideas don't even address the real problem here imo.
While beyond subjective notions, and a weird fantasy about ES becoming obsessed with playing the game on full SETA, you have no real points against it.

[birdtable]

AND when you have just hit SETA to get 5 ships built what do you hit to find the crews for 5 ships.
Of course you can avoid "time and effort" .... but then not switching on the computer also avoids "time and effort".....

[Slashman]

SETA allows to get over a balance issue that is not resolvable without loosing a lot of players and possible playstyles otherwise.

That is not even remotely true. Not accelerating time does not lose playstyles. No options are removed from the game. You can take the same actions...the process of things just takes longer.

Your ideas don't even address the real problem here imo.
While beyond subjective notions, and a weird fantasy about ES becoming obsessed with playing the game on full SETA, you have no real points against it.

There are plenty of things that are doable to lessen wait times in the game apart from global time acceleration.

And yes there are points against it. You just choose to ignore them. There are some valid points on either side of the argument. But don't let that stop you from pretending that nothing conflicting with your POV is valid.

[CBJ]

Enough of the personal attacks. As has already been explained, there is no reason for anyone to try to tell other people how they should play the game.

[birdtable]

Who would have thought that SETA would be such an emotive issue ...

[pref]

That is not even remotely true. Not accelerating time does not lose playstyles. No options are removed from the game. You can take the same actions...the process of things just takes longer.
..
And yes there are points against it. You just choose to ignore them. There are some valid points on either side of the argument. But don't let that stop you from pretending that nothing conflicting with your POV is valid.

This part about 'just takes longer' can be a major problem in cases. It's not just a side effect but the core of the problem - at least for me.

Im just waiting for the valid points against it, as far as i see there is nothing logical on that side. XR will likely not change fundamentally, that can only be expected from the next game, so those who dont like seta will just ignore it and play as before. Changing the way trade/build or travel works is beyond scope, so even if there are possible workarounds in that area it wont happen now.

Even if ES rebalances everything, there is still the issue of flexibility - the first few stations or ship builds, highway travels are nice to have vanilla way, but later on it gets old. So the need is there to have the system first work in a detailed and slow way and later it has to work quickly, as then its just another step of the hundreds that creates your empire.
You could get around this by many more features (quick build/trade, extended boost for travel for late game, etc) - but that raises AI and balancing issues and might get too complicated.

With time acceleration AI has no handicap, and it's up to the player at any moment to choose how they wish to play. For me it's highly mood dependent whether i want to watch a station getting built, or to get quick results and some fabs pulled up before im off to the other end of the universe for an uninterrupted boaring session.

Also i will probably not touch a highway except in some cases of emergency with SETA & JD on the skunk. As soon as highways are not mandatory, they will seem like a nice addition to the game, not an annoyance factor.

How does seta damage the 'XR experience' is beyond me.

[renoan]

I just realized an practical argument for SETA.

Right now, the loooooong wait to have my stations get resources, churn them into products, and then have them sold (all via assigned ships, mind you), leads to the following playstyle for me.

• Determine I'd like to play 2-3 hours on a particular night.
  Turn on the game.
  Set up a few initial trades to get the trade process started.
  Leave for work/hanging out with friends or the wife/go eat/anything.
  Come back half a day later.
  Smile that I now have enough money to build another station or two, or to get that big capital ship I wanted to build so I could revel in some gratuitous space battle.
  Come back next week to repeat.

The end result? I got the 2-3 hours of gameplay I wanted, at the expense of running my computer for half the day. That's 5-8 hours worth of extra CPU wattage making my power company a little bit richer, and our planet a little bit dirtier from whatever extinct animal it burned to make my game possible.

Save the planet. Stop climate change by giving us SETA.

*Bows*

[CommanderTM]

I just realized an practical argument for SETA.

Right now, the loooooong wait to have my stations get resources, churn them into products, and then have them sold (all via assigned ships, mind you), leads to the following playstyle for me.

• Determine I'd like to play 2-3 hours on a particular night.
  Turn on the game.
  Set up a few initial trades to get the trade process started.
  Leave for work/hanging out with friends or the wife/go eat/anything.
  Come back half a day later.
  Smile that I now have enough money to build another station or two, or to get that big capital ship I wanted to build so I could revel in some gratuitous space battle.
  Come back next week to repeat.

The end result? I got the 2-3 hours of gameplay I wanted, at the expense of running my computer for half the day. That's 5-8 hours worth of extra CPU wattage making my power company a little bit richer, and our planet a little bit dirtier from whatever extinct animal it burned to make my game possible.

Save the planet. Stop climate change by giving us SETA.

*Bows*

Lol, yeah. I agree that seta on late-middle game is a good addition some things. At the beginning, most of the time, while your stations are built, you are doing missions, exploring or sweettalking trade agents. No seta needed there because you have to earn more credits by the time the station gets finished for you to be able to provide budget or additional defences or modules.

Later in the game, when you just want to have couple stations up fast before going to bed, you end up with getting more sleep because that evening 5 hour game time turns into 2.

For example, yesterday i was up until 1 am, just so i could get my station working so i could leave it producing for the whole night. Most of the time i waited for those damn Fusion Reactor sellers to arrive and architect to build (with 20 builder drones i could afford to put on it). I could have been in bed by 11... if i had SETA.

[Slashman]

How does seta damage the 'XR experience' is beyond me.

That's likely where we disconnect. I'm not invested in the 'XR experience'. As far as I am concerned, its dead to me. I was discussing SETA as a whole with a view to what happens in the next game which hopefully will be more a core X game.

[Kadanz]

How does seta damage the 'XR experience' is beyond me.

That's likely where we disconnect. I'm not invested in the 'XR experience'. As far as I am concerned, its dead to me. I was discussing SETA as a whole with a view to what happens in the next game which hopefully will be more a core X game.

You don't have to use it if you don't want to.

[Rei Ayanami]

I've tested the new update and to be frank, i have not felt using the SETA alot until now.

X:Rs sector design is so that i never really feel that i have to use the SETA to cross distances and i usually always find something to do while my boost recharges. Be it managing stations, commanding ships around or going through the list of weapon upgrades that i collected in the last battle.

The only times i used SETA so far is
-for autopilot-flying after a Xenon scoutship because i was curious where it was going and
-sometimes when i'm waiting for a certain station to build/waiting for freighters and i hav absolutely nothing else to do

But compared to the previous X titles i use it nowhere nearly as often as in the older X titles. For me it is just something i'd use when i have absolutely nothing else to do in the game while waiting, which is very rarely the case.

Even for "cheaty"-moneymaking i don't find this that useful, i rather spend the time doing missions or capturing ships for making additional money AND get the money from my stations than just SETA-waiting for station money.

I think people should wait and try it out for themselves when the update comes out.

[GCU Grey Area]

I've tested the new update and to be frank, i have not felt using the SETA alot until now.

Same here - really hope other people are using it a lot more than I do, otherwise it was a bit of a waste of time adding it to the game. However personally just don't have much need for it - there are enough methods of traveling fast (i.e. highways, Skunk's boosters, capital taxi) that I don't really need SETA in it's traditional role & what little use I have made of it has primarily been for testing purposes. In a real game I may not even bother constructing it at all - the components from which it is made are worth over 500k & frankly would prefer the cash.

[Rei Ayanami]

Same here - really hope other people are using it a lot more than I do, otherwise it was a bit of a waste of time adding it to the game.

I don't think it's a waste of time, since it has its uses (waiting for freighters or stations).

And even if turns out that players don't use it that often then Egosoft shouldn't consider it a waste of time, because then it would show that ingame there is enough to do and/or traveling is done in a good way (you can reach your destination in a good and fast way) so SETA isn't needed as often as in the older X titles.

[Snafu_X3]

In a real game I may not even bother constructing it at all - the components from which it is made are worth over 500k & frankly would prefer the cash.

The components you can find multiple times; SETA can be crafted only once

However I agree that it's (fortunately) not the money/combat cheat/exploit it was in previous games, & I'm thankful for that! Like you, I generally use it for long distance travel (esp in the new DLC zones) in the early to mid-game. After I've set up a few stations with their ship + crew requirements I rarely use it: there's plenty enough managng to keep me occupied during long flights