Walking around in Stations

[Gween]

I really love the feature to be able to walk around in the stations (or well, the dock areas...) Standing on the platform waiting for- and looking at my ship landing right in front of me is one of the things that really make the game immersive for me.
Sadly I feel like the feature itself isn't being used properly. Some stations (for example Shipyards) are huge, yet everything is centered around the dock area.
From the Trader's corner to the Faction representative's office, everything is inside that rectangular block.

This leads to all stations "shrinking" to the size of that little dock area when the station is actually huge with many workers/traders/security/service crews/etc.

What I'd wish for is maybe putting atleast some of the things in other parts of the stations. For example, the representative's/manager's office should be in a very high part of the station, with a big window where he can observe the whole station and it's traffic. The security office on the other hand should be very central.
A great example would be how the Citadel in mass effect is built. You have very small areas to move in, but the different designs of those (for example the difference between the dock area and the presidium) let's you "feel" the size of that station.

It'd even be nice to have walkways leading to the different offices, but I don't know how hard it would be to build those ways in the modular station parts.

And I know that walking around on stations isn't what X is supposed to be and I'm already glad, that it's in the game (I never liked the docking clamo system in X3, the System of X2 was way better imho)

[CBJ]

Hello, and welcome to the forum. Station and ship interiors are a complex topic, with strong opinions on both sides of the argument as to whether we should spend more or less time on them. To save time covering some of that, I'll quote a post I made some time ago in a similar topic. It doesn't cover all your points, but it does touch on several of them.

There are several things to consider before leaping into creating huge interiors.

• This is fundamentally a space game, and most people want to spend most of their time flying spaceships. Interiors are good for building immersion and can introduce some interesting gameplay opportunities, but if they get out of hand then they have the potential to dominate the workload. Not creating any interiors at all isn't really an option these days, as many people expect them, but spending too much time on them at the expense of the spaceships would be... unwise.
• If you are going to create additional interior areas then there has to be a purpose to them. Cargo bays and engine rooms are all very well, but what are you actually going to do there, other than look at the pretty graphics and feel the immersion? Remembering the point above, there is a careful balance to be struck between giving people a gameplay reason to go there if they want to do that kind of thing, and not forcing them to go there if they don't. The initial release of XR didn't quite get that balance right, but we improved on it in later updates. With X4 we've tried to improve that further, and that means not adding long corridors or areas with not much happening, even if that would be more immersive.
• Expanding on that point, making interior areas without some kind of "fast travel" between them also risks making them unusable. If you have a capital ship that's hundreds of metres long, with a bridge at one end and a docking bay at the other, making people run from one place to the other might be good for immersion, but it makes for some really painful gameplay. And before anyone mentions the dreaded "make it an option", think about how much work would have to go into creating that option, knowing full well that the vast majority of people would switch it off because it was simply too boring!

With regard to walking from one station module to another, I'm afraid the distances involved would make that rather impractical.

[Gween]

Thank you for the response

This is fundamentally a space game, and most people want to spend most of their time flying spaceships. Interiors are good for building immersion and can introduce some interesting gameplay opportunities, but if they get out of hand then they have the potential to dominate the workload. Not creating any interiors at all isn't really an option these days, as many people expect them, but spending too much time on them at the expense of the spaceships would be... unwise.

I completely agree with your first point, obviously you would have to find a use for certain rooms, but I actually thought about that right after I made that post:
The first thing that came to my mind was a kind of workshop/drydock where you can go to upgrade your ship. Maybe there's a ship hooked on a crane right now and engines/guns/shields/etc. laying around and you can go around, look at them and see the prices and stats. Kinda like the "Upgrade ships" menu does at the moment except from a first person view (obviously the menu would still have to stay an option)

And before anyone mentions the dreaded "make it an option", think about how much work would have to go into creating that option, knowing full well that the vast majority of people would switch it off because it was simply too boring!

I guess that part of your last point would apply to what I said too, but again I have to make a connection to a Mass Effect game. You had the option to buy everything available in the shops on the citadel from your ship. (by mail I guess ) The only downside was that you had to pay extra. Here I would give the player a 5-10% discount if he buys it in the workshop instead of the hangar menu. (The lore reason could be that it's easier and cheaper to install a new weapon in the prepared workshop than on a landing platform with a bunch of traffic all around it)

It could also be applied to the ship interiors. As an example I have yet another game/game series: Star Wars Knights of the Old republic/ Star Wars the old Republic
In both game series' you had a reasonable big ship with lots of different rooms and interior. But by no reason were they useless. You had storage containers to store your items in (which would actually make sense in X4 because of the inventory wares) You had a holomap in the central part of the ship (a good idea for bigger ships in X4 especially) And you even had workbenches on the ship (this is a thing I'd especially wish for X4)

If you are going to create additional interior areas then there has to be a purpose to them. Cargo bays and engine rooms are all very well, but what are you actually going to do there, other than look at the pretty graphics and feel the immersion? Remembering the point above, there is a careful balance to be struck between giving people a gameplay reason to go there if they want to do that kind of thing, and not forcing them to go there if they don't. The initial release of XR didn't quite get that balance right, but we improved on it in later updates. With X4 we've tried to improve that further, and that means not adding long corridors or areas with not much happening, even if that would be more immersive.

You are right about that, that's what I meant by

but I don't know how hard it would be to build those ways in the modular station parts.

Of course the technical side is always a problem and I won't stop playing the game just because it won't be implemented how I imagine it or at all. I just think it's possible to get more use out of the feature.

[SumUser]

In my opinion, compared to X:RB (which I had a 300hrs save game prior to X4 releasing) stations have been greatly improved. I like the overall structure of the docking instance itself (the walking belt, elevators, space traffic, announcements (my favorite being the one where you are warned about stray pets being vaporized), and overall décor. I also like how they implemented the transporter that allows access to minor modules/instances like the Bar, Security, Engineering, Trade Rep, and more.

I do wish though there was More to do in those spaces. Perhaps a better variety of skills as it relates to the hirable NPCs as well as dialog options. I also sort-of liked the loot system from X:RB where you could find valuable things hidden around stations. In spaces such as security and engineering (aside from the ability to hack) it would be a nice addition to have various types of information that could be discerned from terminals like the system's specs (star type, economy type, population, and even descriptions and histories of the sector)... Maybe Blueprints could be discovered as well for things like equipment and ships. Maybe even hidden missions could be discovered... Point being is the graphics are amazing but the usage of the space that is already there seems low. I'm hoping patches and expansions will add more... maybe even new types of areas you can use the transporter to get to with who knows what else!

The exciting part of X4 is that the game itself seems to be set upon a solid foundation (no pun intended) with a lot of potential to be expanded.

[Tomonor]

One important thing to note is that monitors don't translate space scenery too well - if the different station modules were utilized to be walkable, you wouldn't be seeing that busy (fake) traffic the dock modules support. Thus theres a chance you would be looking at the big empty without a way to rotate the view to your liking.

That being said, I do believe that station modules should have been a bit more differentiated. For instance, separate bar module, separate station administration module, that kind of stuff.