NEWS: 2nd Twitch Live Stream on Sept 27th (20:00 CEST)

[Arvel]

A little disappointed nobody at the stream asked how the teleporter system will interact with player (ship) destruction. Since the teleporter has a limited range from your HQ (that can be upgraded), if the player is in a ship within that area will it automatically recover him/her from an exploding ship?

Don't know what others think, but I feel like there are a few potential advantages to this:

Firstly, it gives players more freedom to fly in fragile ships rather than just the beefiest capital vessel available, since it isn't an instant game over if they're destroyed.

Secondly, while it seems counter-intuitive, it actually gives death more permanent consequence than a gameover does. A gameover screen causes you to load your last save. You lose a little of your own time, but in-game it's as if that ship was never destroyed and you get to try again. By having the player able to survive past the destruction of a ship it means that asset is actually gone.

[Aken_Bosch]

A gameover screen causes you to load your last save. You lose a little of your own time, but in-game it's as if that ship was never destroyed and you get to try again. By having the player able to survive past the destruction of a ship it means that asset is actually gone.

...and then it causes you to load your last save, and you get to try again. Again.

[Vandragorax]

Holy mother... these walls of text with people trying to justify Jumpdrives, will you get over yourselves? lol.

Thanks CBJ for posting a very concise and interesting read about your decisions as a team. I feel confident that you are all thinking deeply about the real gameplay reasons for these systems being devised in the first place, and coming up with better, more fun (and less OP) solutions to deal with the same problems.

It seems like you are aiming for a larger more expansive, more strategic feeling to the game than ever before and I seriously hope you stick with it - it's looking and sounding amazing so far. Please don't pander to a few people whining about losing JD's without really understanding the core issues behind it!

GOOD RIDDANCE JUMP DRIVES

[Killjaeden]

The Stellaris designers actually consider the three different FTL types to be a "major design headache" (if i remember that quote correctly). They talk about it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w7MyDPhuy8

Unsurprisingly, because when you pit a faction that uses exclusively that one drive vs. a faction the exclusively uses the other, the balance needs to be on point, otherwise it will be unfair and frustrating for one or the other. There is no common 'normal' travel method. Things look much more different if you enforce a certain travel method (one of the three) for every faction, but still have the late game warpdrive in addition to that. In case of hyperlanes and warpdrive they do complement each other very well in late game, when everyone uses both.

The warpdrive allows you to jump over neutral sectors that would otherwise block you in and prevent you from partaking in some conflict because of enforced game mechanics that stop you from flying into their space if they have open border treaty, but is slower and way less quick to react than hyperlanes.

... these walls of text with people [...]Please don't pander to a few people whining about losing JD's without really understanding the core issues behind it!

Talking about insulting

[Nikola515]

I think X4 is going to be more like Sins of Solar Empire with gates when it comes to battle & strategy. But than what worry me is how big universe is going to be ?

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Well I can see large battles being even more interesting.

If you can teleport, you can move to any ship in the battle.

I don't know how long it takes to teleport and what the restrictions on usage are.
But you could move from you largest destroyer to the smallest fighter,
then on to a corvette, a bomber, a carrier, a whatever
and take part in the battle in many different ways.

[Edit] and since your ships have pilots that carry on with their previous orders
when you leave the seat, you don't end up with ships just sitting around doing
nothing.

[Edit2] Something I want to know is will we have a nice new UI for constructing fleets and giving them formations?

[ADMNtek]

question why would my favorit ship be with the fleet? if it were my favorit ship i would alredy be flying that. one of the reasones why i would take the skunk back in a heart beat.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

What?

Ok so say in X4 your favourite ship is an Argon Centaur.

Loaded out with Weapons X, Y and Z.

You then build a fleet and add an Argon Centaur with your favourite load out.

Then you teleport to this ship to take part in a battle.

[Nikola515]

Bigger question will be how will this work with OOZ combat ? For example we teleport in ship and game over When we teleport to ship it might look safe but it might be targeted with barrage of log rage missiles or weapons. It sounds good but how will teleportation work in practice ?

[Juggernaut93]

Bernd already confirmed that if you are on a station and the module you are on gets destroyed, you die. So I guess you will also die if you are on your ship and it gets blown up.

[GCU Grey Area]

Without claiming to have considered all aspects of it, I'd implement the boost drive like this: The moment you activate it, it deactivates shields and weapons. You need the energy for the engines, after all. Then it needs a few seconds to actually activate. Those two aspects in combination make sure that the boost can not be used as a "get out of battle for free" card. After that, you accelerate to "travel speed" and can maintain it indefinitely. When you deactivate the booster, you slow down again and shields+weapons recharge. That means you can't boost directly into a battle with guns blazing, so it maintains the strategic element of having to think ahead.

Now I'm sure I have missed some absolutely crucial gameplay aspect of that booster design. Anyone care to point it out?

One potential issue might be the effect it could have on NPCs. Might make combat less satisfying if enemy weapons & shields shut down for several seconds every time they used boosters. Also personally quite like the energy management aspect of XR style boosters, particularly deciding how fast I'd like to get to the fight vs how much shielding I have left when I arrive.

As for jumpdrives, doubt I'll miss them in X4. Got used to playing without one in XR & preferred the way it made the universe feel a lot bigger. Even after the player ship jumpdrive was added to the game never got round to building it - simply didn't want that capability for my ship (IMO makes combat less satisfying if I can jump out of dangerous situations instantly).

[Nikola515]

@Juggernaut93
And that was my point.... It will be one of those WTF and smashing keyboard/joystick moments.... Especially if you wore in middle of something when you got alert and didn't save game. I think it might piss of lots of people to the point of annoyance (like playing fallout 4 on survival ).

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

In previous iterations you could jump to a sector that looked safe only to end up on the windscreen of a carrier or destroyer.

You takes your chances. What, don't you think there might be a frisson of excitement over teleporting to a battle zone, not knowing if your already dead meat?

[Edit] I have lost count of the number of times, something like this happened in X2 and X3 and I lost hours of game time, due to not having saved.

It was just par for the course.

[Santi]

You have the map that shows what is happening, so you know it will be risky to teleport to a ship currently engaged in a dogfight.

Jump drive, for me the best way to visualise the problem is thinking about a game like Total War series. Now add the ability to move your army anywhere instantly...and you broke the game. You only need two armies, one in base camp and one to conquer the rest of the map.

Of course I do not expect the tactical gameplay on X4 to be very advanced as it is a new feature, also a jump drive will make pointless the gameplay decisions derived from the new Universe, with zones highly developed and a periphery of less civilised sectors.

It does affect the pace of the game too and will shorten significantly the end game gameplay, and could get frustrating really quickly as enemy fleets could spawn out of nowhere anywhere in your territory over passing your outer defences.

[AndrewR]

Great stream. Sorry I missed it when it was live (I may have been playing X:Rebirth).

I really like the colour correction option, the "Photo" option seems to be a nice balance.

Also noticed improvements in textures/tarnishing of metal surfaces. If there is any other improvements that need making, it is in how the metal surface reflect (although the colour correction seemed to help).

Just as a request from playing X:Rebirth, that the back button is kept to the same key (i.e. number 1).

The station designer is looking fabulous.

Sector sovereignty is something many of us wish to see. Possibly related to the owner of the highest number of stations and licensee stations in that sector.

Andrew

[Juggernaut93]

@Juggernaut93
And that was my point.... It will be one of those WTF and smashing keyboard/joystick moments.... Especially if you wore in middle of something when you got alert and didn't save game. I think it might piss of lots of people to the point of annoyance (like playing fallout 4 on survival ).

I'm sorry, I was answering to the guy that asked it a few posts before, I forgot to quote him.

[Crellion]

You have the map that shows what is happening, so you know it will be risky to teleport to a ship currently engaged in a dogfight.

Jump drive, for me the best way to visualise the problem is thinking about a game like Total War series. Now add the ability to move your army anywhere instantly...and you broke the game. You only need two armies, one in base camp and one to conquer the rest of the map.

Of course I do not expect the tactical gameplay on X4 to be very advanced as it is a new feature, also a jump drive will make pointless the gameplay decisions derived from the new Universe, with zones highly developed and a periphery of less civilised sectors.

It does affect the pace of the game too and will shorten significantly the end game gameplay, and could get frustrating really quickly as enemy fleets could spawn out of nowhere anywhere in your territory over passing your outer defences.

You know thats what enemy (npc) fleets have been consistently doing throughout X3. Will this not be a thing in X4?

So for example- I park my mining fleet 500kms from a highway. This means that for enemies to attack me they need to slowburn 500kms?

If this is the case then it makes more sense.

Also -just to make sure- what people think of as broken is the 'gates and unobtainable by player beacons' Jump drive or some PtP type Jump drive? Obviously I read cbj's answer I am wondering if many share his blanket approach.

[-Dna-]

Jump drive, for me the best way to visualise the problem is thinking about a game like Total War series. Now add the ability to move your army anywhere instantly...and you broke the game. You only need two armies, one in base camp and one to conquer the rest of the map.

I know that your is just an example, but what if with you have the ability to move your armies instantly anywhere but only before starting the battle? Does this still broke the game or not?

My point is the following. If we want to have some tactical and not overpowered Jumpdrive, we can think about anything and I'm sure we will manage to define something acceptable. But if we start with absolutes (no Jumpdrive), there is nothing to discuss


Again, I accept this decision and at this point my curiosity will be how Egosoft will justify this absence in the game. The supernova strikes again?

[Len5]

Maybe make jumping only possible to beacons you have bought a licence for, in friendly space, of course. Or just for XS and S ships, so you can't jump a whole fleet of destroyers to your enemy's front porch.

Bernd said that the jumpdrive could destroy the idea of exploration, but having no jumpdrive keeps me from exploring too far out.
I don't feel like flying somewhere for a long time and fly all the way back again.

[Killjaeden]

Jump drive, for me the best way to visualise the problem is thinking about a game like Total War series. Now add the ability to move your army anywhere instantly...and you broke the game. You only need two armies, one in base camp and one to conquer the rest of the map.

Except now some developer changes it so that 1) your army has to move far from any town/village and also any army before beeing able to engage 'jumping' across the board
2) it takes several turns to get to the destination (dependant on distance) 3) the army will be unavailable and not recallable once it is in transit 4) they appear far away from any town or army. 5) You have to pay a quarter of the combined recruitment costs of the army for each jump 6) Your army can't choose march stance if they have this ability to warp 7) Only special units can jump (e.g. only light cavalry) 8] a random chance is implemented that can cause significant increase of transit time

Yes you still have jump ability, but you definitely need more than 2 armies now, it isn't instant anymore and has certain limitations and drawbacks. Therefore using the jump ability requires carefull planning, and also adds risks.

If you expand the unstable factor of it - e.g. by adding a random position deviation, that can range from several 10km's up to several sectors, you can turn the jump ability into a real two sided sword. The majority of time the result is what you expect - except for when it isn't and you have to deal with a situation you couldn't have possibly planned for (unless you considered the jumping army or ships as 'lost' the moment they engage the ability).