On smart AI and communication.

[fipmip]

A problem that has persisted over the years is that the player knows that an AI actor is just that, an AI. As a result, the player has trouble discerning the reason for an AI action, or a lot of the time doesn't even notice. why is that NPC running backward instead of toward the enemy? why is that NPC running out of cover? Since these NPC's are AI, the player would probably be confused as to whats so hard about just making them stand and fight.

The way this gets solved is with communication. If you've played halo, or fear, or ArmA, the NPCs will often contextually yell out what they are doing. that NPC was running because "There's too many of them, retreat!" that NPC was out of cover because "Grenade, move!" An AI can be smart and know how to do things like cover or pickup weapons or use equipment, but unless this the player's attention is drawn to these actions, the player may never never know that the devs went to these lengths and my never appreciate or forget what's going on.

The same can be said about X. It's clear there's a lot of hidden detail going on in X4. but what? the player can never be expected to catch it all. I think that a lot of the current complaints of X4's universe can be removed by use of 'communcation systems.'

These systems already exist in some capacity which I appreciate. but there needs to be more. perhaps a news ticker that can be subscribed to detailing events, like 'Argon fleet meets quota and is poised to strike' or 'Paranid invasion of [sector] repulsed,losses include:...' The player should be able to see what the orders of a ship are without the loss to rep for scanning. There could be a heatmap updating every hour showing different bits of information in across the universe, like production, mining volume, losses etc.and is available via news ticker. It's all very well to have a game in which these great details exist, but it is better to show these to to the player rather than let them maybe feels the effects several hours later and wonder why.

[Kadatherion]

I wholly agree. Such things should be as camouflaged in lore/immersion as possible, but they are very important in avoiding misunderstandings by the players. What looks like a bug might not be one, but the player often doesn't have the means to realize it. This, in turn, leads to wasting a lot of the devs time, who may have to investigate frequent reports that turn out to be "false positives". This is an area in which the game could improve quite a bit.