Things that we want and don't want from X3 in X4

[Nikola515]

All though i liked X3 there are some things that I don't like and there are some things that I like but they are not in X4 (as far as we know).
Here are some things that I don't like about X3:

1) Bump explosions. Every time AI gets r******* my ships gets destroyed Is it not moving asteroid or another capital ships..... Anyway it was annoying and I hope this wont be in X4(according to CBJ it shouldn't but you never know) .

2) Short capital ship battles. I liked to use capital ships turrets but usually didn't have time to use them because of that( especially when outnumbered).

3) Equipment destruction. I get hit in hull only once and I lost all of my equipment.

4) Equipment docks/trading stations small storage. They wore pretty much useless for trading or player uses(when player builds them) do to its limitations.

Things that I liked but not in X4:

1) Space walks.

2) Player using turrets.

3) Ship storage. We had to use cargo to decide how many weapons,missiles,shields,energy for jumpdrive we could use.

4) Reputation. XR reputations was pretty much for discounts while X3 was much more advanced and realistic. I hope they bring it back.

[caleb]

Collisions... Tormenting X players since 1999. AI how I hate thee... Not sure if X4 will be any better either... I hope they do fix it. Or do something to avoid those dumb deaths to AI.

I like the idea of separate storage, and I think that would help a lot. Separate fuel storage, separate cargo storage, I would even set a separate ammo storage.

Equipment destruction sucks I would be ok with damage (reduced efficiency), or disablement for a period of time. But outright losing equips is a bad idea. It just reinforces the "reload if a battle goes bad" mentality. I do not mind some temporary punishment, but permanent punishment for a small mistake kind of sucks. Again, this would be better on the long run. It's okish if you have a single ship, but if you have 200 ships, and parts keep getting destroyed... Ah, that would be a nightmare.

A good reputation system is really needed. But a really good one. I don't want to be able to board and capture the Argon one, and 15 minutes later be buddy buddy again because I sold them 100K energy cells. I'm no game designer, but I would probably do time locks for reputation. I mean, you capture a capital ship, you go to hostile, and you are locked in that state for... dunno... 6 hours or so. No matter what you do, you simply cannot get the reputation to increase. After that, then you are still hostile, but can work to get it back. Something like that I guess.

[Juggernaut93]

3) Equipment destruction. I get hit in hull only once and I lost all of my equipment.

Since there will be shieldless ships, I don't think equipment destruction will happen, at least not with one hit.

[A5PECT]

- A jump drive that trivialized the scale of the universe

- An identical strafe drive on every ship regardless of size

- Pirates that don't do anything (sorry Larry)

[DaMuncha]

Oh space walking is a MUST. I love to go space walking and use my repair laser to repair my ship my self. It also calls for a sense of tension when you have to go space walking in a dangerous area. Like the mission in X2 where you have to space walk in a mine field in a zone populated by pilots.

[Kitty]

Here are some things that I don't like about X3:

1) Bump explosions. Every time AI gets r******* my ships gets destroyed Is it not moving asteroid or another capital ships..... Anyway it was annoying and I hope this wont be in X4(according to CBJ it shouldn't but you never know) .

Agreed. Difficult to correct though. Espetially when you write "everytime AI gets r*******" which means that your machine is low on CPU. This does not mean that bumping into a station should be harmless, just that this should not happen due to autopilot unless ship is forced by a special manoeuver (a capital ship pushing another one to a station, he he).

2) Short capital ship battles. I liked to use capital ships turrets but usually didn't have time to use them because of that( especially when outnumbered).

Agreed ! Killing a M1 with a M3 in less than a minute just using the flamethrower (no amo, no missile) is no fun. I can accept that this is possible to destroy a capital ship with smaller ship, but I want to feel a hero when I do. And Capital vs Capital battles should be epic even if one sacrifices itself by provoking a mega collision (good opportunity for boarding, no ?).

3) Equipment destruction. I get hit in hull only once and I lost all of my equipment.

No agreed. When I get hit in hull, I don't always loose equipments. When it arrives, either it is one or two, or I get killed anyway (try continue to fight with a Mamba whose speed is reduced to 20%). Loosing mosquito missiles is not a big deal. Loosing Jump Drive in X3TC is fun. What ? 100k lost whet I can get missions paid 1Mn? Never mind. It is ennoying, but it is a challange as I have to find a way to get back one and it is not always obvious. Last time it forced me to buy an OTAS TM that was not planned. Fun. Fighting with no risk is not fun.

4) Equipment docks/trading stations small storage. They wore pretty much useless for trading or player uses(when player builds them) do to its limitations.

Not so important, but agreed.

Things that I liked but not in X4:

1) Space walks.

Agreed. But very linked to repair, to ship bails, to plots. X4 may offer alternatives.

2) Player using turrets.

AGREED. Espetially for capital ships.

3) Ship storage. We had to use cargo to decide how many weapons,missiles,shields,energy for jumpdrive we could use.

AGREED. This is an important part of X2/3 fun. This part of ship tuning. I didn't read that X4 would not have an equivalent.

4) Reputation. XR reputations was pretty much for discounts while X3 was much more advanced and realistic. I hope they bring it back.

I don't know about XR reputations. I find it not enough advanced and realistic in X3. I would expect an improvement here, not a regression. And this has been discussed in other threads and/or questions to Egosoft (about effect of capturing a capital ship, for example). CBJ answered wisely that they don't want to have automatic escalation to war. I have the feeling that this means that there is a need for diplomatic as a feature (Yes I got one of your ships, a) Sorry, I give it back with a fee b) I pay for it, don't get too upset, you need my factory productions c) I'm proud of if ! See my armies ? You can get upset, but unless you have a better army, keep it down... etc... well, this is a translation in words of mechanisms we can have in various Civilization-like strategy games). Needs to be multiple axes: treaties (what has been agreed), trust (will new treaties be respected?), anger (short term feeling), debt (long term balance of wins/losses). Just one axe reputations are very limitated.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

4) Reputation. XR reputations was pretty much for discounts while X3 was much more advanced and realistic. I hope they bring it back.

I don't know about XR reputations. I find it not enough advanced and realistic in X3. I would expect an improvement here, not a regression. And this has been discussed in other threads and/or questions to Egosoft (about effect of capturing a capital ship, for example).

The mechanics of X Rebirth's faction reputation system are pretty good (info on consequences is here). There's the permanent, steady increases and decreases, and a system for temporary changes (a bit like of a sector goes red in X3, but time-related rather than apology/police ship destruction/pirate bribe), and they modify mission availability (IIRC). Factions that turn hostile will initially only target our combat ships unless we make them really hate us. It also gates off various licences for trading with illegal wares, and modifies the price of wares.

So from a trade perspective it feels improved over X3 to me. But on the other hand, XR faction reputation has no links to what ships or equipment can be purchased - if you can afford it, you can own it. For me, that is a shame as that represented quite a nice sense of progression in X3. It's in this area I hope to see further changes compared to XR.

[PowerPC603]

Even if it's in there and you don't want it, just don't use it.

You don't walk spacewalk? Then don't get out of your ship to do so.
You don't want SETA? Don't press the J button (or even better: don't install the equipment, then you can't even accidentally use it).
You don't want players to be able to use turrets? Then don't hop into a turret.

But other players do want those features and would be punished by not having them because of one player asking to remove them from the game completely.

Like in real-life, I hate football/soccer for example, so they should demolish all stadiums? I guess they won't do it because 1 guy doesn't like them or doesn't need them.
They're still here, I just don't go to them.

For the collision damage, they could make a toggle for it to enable or disable collision damage.
It might even be a setting for some difficulty level.
Even the loss of equipment might be a toggle.
Enable it and when equipment is too badly damaged, it's destroyed.
Disable it and the equipment will simply become deactivated (not destroyed) and you can repair it inside a shipyard or use a repair drone, repair laser or even an engineer to auto-repair it over time.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

For collision damage to equipment, I imagine it will be either like in XR, or an iteration on that: Two levels of damage, leading to reduced efficiency but not equipment destruction. Any change would probably be to permit destruction in some circumstances.

Since there will be shieldless ships, I don't think equipment destruction will happen, at least not with one hit.

Does this relate to the following Q&A?

"Q:Will ship roles be more strict? (Like frigates vs destroyers)
A: Ships will cover certain roles, but there will not be one ship that can do anything. This means only certain ships will be able to install shields, weapons and upgrades."

I had interpreted that to be about changing shields rather than having them or not. I guess it could mean either.

Even if it's in there and you don't want it, just don't use it.

You don't walk spacewalk? Then don't get out of your ship to do so.
You don't want SETA? Don't press the J button (or even better: don't install the equipment, then you can't even accidentally use it).
You don't want players to be able to use turrets? Then don't hop into a turret.

But other players do want those features and would be punished by not having them because of one player asking to remove them from the game completely.

I think you may have misunderstood the posters above. They were not calling for turret control or space-walking to be excluded.

[Juggernaut93]

Since there will be shieldless ships, I don't think equipment destruction will happen, at least not with one hit.

Does this relate to the following Q&A?

"Q:Will ship roles be more strict? (Like frigates vs destroyers)
A: Ships will cover certain roles, but there will not be one ship that can do anything. This means only certain ships will be able to install shields, weapons and upgrades."

I had interpreted that to be about changing shields rather than having them or not. I guess it could mean either.

Yes, but I guess your interpretation makes more sense.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

It was probably more of an assumption by me! We'll have to wait and see

[Crimsonraziel]

"Things that we want from X3 in X4"?

Sorry, can ... not ... resist.

Borons

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Please resist

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

Things I don't want: X3 borons.
Things I want instead: Xtension borons (they were much better back then, better voices and character)

[-Dna-]

I laugh every time someone wants the X3 Boron back: did they enjoy do the Xenon hub plot and gathering all the stuff for Mahi Ma?

[Skeeter]

Things I don't want: X3 borons.
Things I want instead: Xtension borons (they were much better back then, better voices and character)

If u go with that then I'd go with I want xbtf teladi in x4 not xrebirths.

[RAVEN.myst]

I'd like to *see* (pardon the pun) the VEGs make a comeback... (Whenever I play Rebirth, I keep wanting to zoom in on things...)

[Alan Phipps]

@ Raven: Well I find the XR alternative to VEG pretty useful - if a bit unexplained and unrealistic.

Target something, F3 for view of target and then the numberpad figure keys to rotate around it and +/- to zoom in and out. Great for setting up screenshots by the way.

I agree that it is not an untargeted 1st person perspective zoom though.

[RAVEN.myst]

@ Raven: Well I find the XR alternative to VEG pretty useful - if a bit unexplained and unrealistic.

Target something, F3 for view of target and then the numberpad figure keys to rotate around it and +/- to zoom in and out. Great for setting up screenshots by the way.

I agree that it is not an untargeted 1st person perspective zoom though.

This alternative is also inferior to that in X3, and I was actually just coming back here to add to my previous post In X3 (and, if I recall correctly, X2 as well), if you went to targeted object view, the view starts in the same orientation - so, for example, if the ship is crossing your path from left to right, you'd be seeing its starboard side. However, here in Rebirth, you are automatically given a default rear view instead from start, which is useless for purposes of zooming in, say for example, to determine whether a targeted surface element is on the near side or on the other side of the hull.

(Incidentally, I have Left-Alt bound to give me mouse-based view rotation of F2 and F3 views - much snappier than using the NumPad, and something I really miss whenever I go back to X3, which is often, hehehe.)

There is another weak alternative, to use the railgun, but this comes with its own problems - firstly, it has to be installed (and occupies the same slot as another gun I faaaar prefer to have installed), and then results in a shot being fired (granted, one can aim to miss, but still...) - and there's also a time limit before the weapon overheats, at which point (I think) the zoom is cancelled (if I'm not mistaken.)

So, here's what I was going to add to my previous post: I hope in X4 the viewing behaviour of F3 or equivalent is as it was in X2-X3, ie. maintaining relative orientations (in fact, it can be improved on slightly: in the previous Xs, as soon as any NumPad key was touched, the view would snap to a rear view and rotate from there - it would be more natural if the view simply rotated from where it starts.)

[RAVEN.myst]

A couple more things I'd like carried over from X3 to X4:

- Decent sliders. None of the current crap in Rebirth, where a precise value is extremely tedious to set if the range is wide. I *really* want back the Home/End functionality to min/max a slider, as well as direct step value input.

- Decent editing of names and such. At the moment, if one wants to change letters at the start of a name (say, for instance, if changing a prefix in one's nomenclature system), one has to backspace over the whole thing and start over - if changing a prefix for an established parent, and all the children have to be adjusted accordingly, this can be a SERIOUS pain in the mikta (O'Neill: "Neck?" Teal'C, with characteristically raised eyebrow: "No.")

- Passive reputation gain through trade infrastructure. In Rebirth, only ad hoc trades conducted directly by the player count, whereas before it was possible to slowly gain rep through ongoing trade activities. If nothing else, this is a point of consistency: either way, I'm trading with that faction, and either way I've made it happen, so in both cases it ought to count, or in neither.