[Suggestions]: Making the universe feel inhabited by people.

[pittlebelge]

X4 has come a long, long way since the release and I'm very happy about it. I've more than 2000h on the clock and I know that in this community those are rookie numbers. But in last playthrough, there were a few things that nagged at me. We got this remarkable economic simulation, lots of plots and missions, a good variety of playstyle and self imposed challenges are possible and that's all amazing. But to me, the universe feels inhumane, a bit dead in a sense despite it being simulated in real time with some really nice complexity. I've tried to pinpoint why and propose some ideas to solve that.


Names:

I think that there are missing elements on the side of the emergent storytelling. The first and maybe the simplest is the names. The naming system we got is very practical when it comes to finding a ship for an economic purpose, but it says little about the people who fly it or their culture. Furthermore, as a practical example, if I have a cool interaction with a ship early in my playthrough, say a Split Dragon saves me from biting on a Xenon patrol a bit too tough for me. I won't really have a name to attach to it. I got a description of his role, I got an ID tag, but not a cool name that I can remember. And so, I'll forget about them, I won't be able to really search for them, and if cross path with them by chance, I probably won't even realize it's the same ship. If that ship was named "The flaming dragon", I'd remember it, I'd be able to notice it.

So, I think that all ships should have a second line for their name, one with an actual unique name that is not just descriptive of it's economic purpose.

And it's the same with stations and gates. Most gates would have a nickname given by the locals, be they active or not. The name of a station could tell me if it's part of a greater conglomerate or if it's a local independent business.
If a ship is destroyed, the name goes back in the pool and will be used with a number added to it. So, the "The Flaming Dragon 2" would be the replacement of the ship mentioned above.

I get that the system would create more work on the UI and well, it's a lot of names, like, a lot a lot. Probably in the range of 10000 names. But if you get 10 people to find 5 names everyday they come to work, you might get it done in a year. That's still a lot of work, but I genuinely think it would add greatly to the feel of the X universe.

Paintjobs:

There are all those paintjobs and we are the only one in this universe that happens to have fun with them. That doesn't sound right. Some npc ships should be painted. In particular, police and military ships should have distinguishable markings and if a faction has different branches to its military, they should be visually distinguishable. In the same vein, some merchants belonging to a faction, but not the military, should have some fun with the appearance of their ships. Just like the names, it would make the universe feel like it's inhabited by people.

Random events:

Coincidences are memorable.

Alright, so another thing that could improve on the liveliness of the universe are random events. Simple little scripted moments that occur here and there and that allow us players to experience interesting moments. So, let's say that there is a "marriage" random events. 2 ships spawn near 2 gates in the sector the player is in. They both fly towards a station to dock and drop some flares all along the way. There is a bit of dialog in the comms. On it's own, that's not really interesting. Now, say that by chance, a Xenon K randomly happens to pop in the sector. Now that moment is either funny or tragic depending on your perspective, but it's memorable. In this example, the K is not part of the script. And that's where the interaction of the simulation and random events can really add something to the liveliness of the universe.

There is a bunch of stuff that can happen. To start with some astronomical stuff: a comet can come close to the sector for a few days, a local star can go supernova, a large swarm of space flies can move across the place. On the more human side of things: maybe some kids are racing along the highway and they are pursued by cops. A station got a big surplus and announces a sales, or the reverse, they need stuff to keep working. You can have military parades, religious celebrations, funerals, ships loosing control, tourists being lost, pilgrims in need of help with the repairs of their ships, the best pizza place in the Terran sectors just opened, whatever. Just little things that make it so that there is a context to the military industrial complex. The more events you can add, even if they are the simplest thing, the better.