X3: Albion Prelude 3.0 - The best space game actually out

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > X3: Albion Prelude 3.0 - The best space game actually out

turn off the TV: Aug 4, 2010; moderately annoying

program666 posted:

I really hope in the new game using multiple ships is viable right off the bat. In x3 it simply doesn't make sense having a carrier or a TM with fighters since they will probably crash at the enemy as soon as your attack starts. I do fix that using mods, the three mods I think are obligatory: litcube's bounce, ADS and the one that allows the AI ships to use the docking computer extension. But this kind of make using multiple fighters a little bit too powerful for my tastes. If Rebirth came with some reasonable AI for your ships it would be awesome.

I didn't even see the point in using fighters at all because they would just instantly blow up in any combat situation and took like 5 minutes to equip each. gently caress that.

I'm really hoping that the fleet/station management in this game has significantly improved because all of my runs of X series games end when I open up the fleet management tab for the hundredth time and suddenly can't bear to scroll through all those loving menus anymore.

# ? Aug 22, 2013 17:27

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# ? Jun 10, 2024 16:21

wjs5: Aug 22, 2009

program666 posted:

I really hope in the new game using multiple ships is viable right off the bat. In x3 it simply doesn't make sense having a carrier or a TM with fighters since they will probably crash at the enemy as soon as your attack starts. I do fix that using mods, the three mods I think are obligatory: litcube's bounce, ADS and the one that allows the AI ships to use the docking computer extension. But this kind of make using multiple fighters a little bit too powerful for my tastes. If Rebirth came with some reasonable AI for your ships it would be awesome.

It seems there is that one ship in every piece of art work or video so not so sure about being in different ships.

# ? Aug 22, 2013 17:32

Rudi Starnberg: Jul 8, 2012

You yourself only ever fly one ship now (well plus the specialised drones if you count those), but you can still have a fleet of NPC ships, including capital ships which you can board to give orders in some fashion that I don't think we know terribly much about yet.

# ? Aug 22, 2013 17:35

program666: Aug 22, 2013; A giant carnivorous dinosaur

Giggily posted:

they would just instantly blow up in any combat situation

The mods I mentioned fix that, it's really loving awesome fighting a big group of enemies from your corvette having 2 more corvettes and a TL filled with fighters on your side.

Giggily posted:

and took like 5 minutes to equip each. gently caress that.

How? I believe it takes me something like one whole hour to equip 4 fighters with the weapons and shields I want. Unless you're really lucky and have the ships you want and the right weapons/shields factories in the same sector in which case it's really easy.
I remember I actually did a script that gave orders for my fighters go for the right sectors to buy the right equipment.

# ? Aug 22, 2013 17:53

turn off the TV: Aug 4, 2010; moderately annoying

program666 posted:

The mods I mentioned fix that, it's really loving awesome fighting a big group of enemies from your corvette having 2 more corvettes and a TL filled with fighters on your side.

How? I believe it takes me something like one whole hour to equip 4 fighters with the weapons and shields I want. Unless you're really lucky and have the ships you want and the right weapons/shields factories in the same sector in which case it's really easy.
I remember I actually did a script that gave orders for my fighters go for the right sectors to buy the right equipment.

One of the scripts that comes with AP is something like "equip ships like," so if you have a bunch of empty fighters in a system, and one equipped, you can just give your TM the right order and it'll automatically equip all your fighters.

# ? Aug 22, 2013 17:58

Koboje: Sep 20, 2005; Quack

What i would like is some kind of really expensive Emergency Transport System, so if the ship you are in is about to blow up you get auto-teleported onto a nearby friendly ship, with or without such a system. I loved flying around in a fighter during huge capital ship battles in previous games, but 1 stray shot was always insta death, or if they had flak or such weapons you were almost as screwed. Would also make having wingmen way more attractive.

# ? Aug 22, 2013 18:45

Lord Booga: Sep 23, 2007; Huh?; Grimey Drawer

Pretty sure you remote control fighter-type ships in Rebirth, so no risk of dying to flak or something like that.

# ? Aug 22, 2013 20:03

Shalebridge Cradle: Apr 23, 2008

The Vikings posted:

Can anyone link a summary of the terran conflict/Albion prelude story? Don't see much about them on the wiki or anything.

I never made it more than halfway through the campaigns before getting distracted by spaceships

If I remember correctly the TC plot is really a couple unrelated plots. The discovery of the Xenon hub and the destruction of the Khaak are the two big ones. Also the Terran plot has you find a long lost human colony and the ancient terraformer fleet that mutated into the Xenon. AP plot is basically someone blew up the torus shipyard around Earth and now the Terrans are at war with everyone. The company that is building the highway network that will be in Rebirth is getting attacked and you need to protect them. Then the Argon and Terran kiss and make up.

The end.

# ? Aug 22, 2013 22:52

Shalebridge Cradle: Apr 23, 2008

I just found this interview on a German game site.

http://www.golem.de/news/x-rebirth-wir-wollen-gta-in-space-1308-101011.html

Some small bits of info I hadn't heard before: All the ammo and missiles shot in the game need to be produced at factories. The game starts with only one sector (Albion) and the gate network disabled. At the end of the first chapter the gate network restarts and the game opens up.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 02:02

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

What's the overall consensus on X Rebirth so far? The only thing i'm uneasy about is that you only fly one ship now. But i'm pretty excited about being able to walk around space stations and capital ships, assuming its done well.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 02:05

program666: Aug 22, 2013; A giant carnivorous dinosaur

I said come in! posted:

What's the overall consensus on X Rebirth so far?

It's pretty hard to even have a educated opinion when the actual info we have is so little. Even the "one ship" bit can mean a whole lot of stuff.
It seems that they are probably not releasing too much information until the release of the game.
Personally I'm waiting for the release to even talk about rebirth on anything but some features I expect it to have (like non-retarded AI on your fighters).
The only thing I can say so far is that I'm glad that it seems to be a very different game. We don't need a new version that just updates graphics over X3.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 03:31

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

program666 posted:

The only thing I can say so far is that I'm glad that it seems to be a very different game. We don't need a new version that just updates graphics over X3.

I feel the same as you. I'm glad we are getting something new, and the changes so far seem to be positive. When taking a long running series in a new direction, it can be tricky, a lot of the time it backfires because the developer makes too many sweeping changes which get rid of the soul of what made the series popular in the first place. I feel that X Rebirth is not going to have that problem.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 03:34

program666: Aug 22, 2013; A giant carnivorous dinosaur

I said come in! posted:

changes which get rid of the soul of what made the series popular in the first place

The funny thing is that even the fearful "streamlining" that was perceived from the trailers was well received by some people (on /v/) since it's such a complex game.
I'm just painfully holding back on being anything more than slightly optimistic.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 03:46

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

program666 posted:

The funny thing is that even the fearful "streamlining" that was perceived from the trailers was well received by some people (on /v/) since it's such a complex game.
I'm just painfully holding back on being anything more than slightly optimistic.

I think even the hardcore fans have been wanting a more streamlined game. I know i've been asking for it since X2. I think X Rebirth is working because we are getting the streamlined features that we requested, not what the developer thinks we want.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 03:47

GorgeOnMySyphilis: Mar 3, 2012

program666 posted:

I really hope in the new game using multiple ships is viable right off the bat. In x3 it simply doesn't make sense having a carrier or a TM with fighters since they will probably crash at the enemy as soon as your attack starts. I do fix that using mods, the three mods I think are obligatory: litcube's bounce, ADS and the one that allows the AI ships to use the docking computer extension. But this kind of make using multiple fighters a little bit too powerful for my tastes. If Rebirth came with some reasonable AI for your ships it would be awesome.

This video suggests that they've improved the path finding for AI ships at the very least:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt4B4e3i5_0

# ? Aug 23, 2013 03:52

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

I said come in! posted:

What's the overall consensus on X Rebirth so far? The only thing i'm uneasy about is that you only fly one ship now. But i'm pretty excited about being able to walk around space stations and capital ships, assuming its done well.

It looks gorgeous, it seems to have an impressive sense of scale, it's a space game with the shooting and the flying and now with the added bonus of getting out and walking. There's the exploration, there's the trading, and there's the starting off with just one ship and ending up with your own empire.

It's also an Egosoft game, so expect wonky looking characters, wonky animations, wonky dialogue, wonky accents, wonky story, wonky interface, wonky controls and wonky performance. Egosoft say that they've worked really hard on the story this time around, the controls include gamepad support, the menu interfaces will be a lot more intuitive, and no DX11 but Rebirth supports big rear end resolutions.

As a person who pretty much sticks to the one ship, the Albion Skunk seems like it'll be fine, with it's upgrading and crew having specific roles and all that jazz. Remote controlling drones seems horribly sensible in a universe where fighters tend to have lifespans measured in minutes. Not directly flying capital ships works for me as well, although I'll be the first to admit that standing on the bridge of one in the middle of a bigass fleet action would be pretty sweet.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 03:55

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

ZombyDog posted:

although I'll be the first to admit that standing on the bridge of one in the middle of a bigass fleet action would be pretty sweet.

Hopefully we can actually still do this. It would be really cool if we can dock on a capital ship, and stay on board as it carries out a mission.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 04:04

Blast of Confetti: Apr 21, 2008; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

I'm up for only having one ship cockpit as long as I really do feel like I'm still controlling capital ships when I suction myself to them. I can play it off as not wanting to be bothered by my annoying underlings because I'm too busy waging war against everything in the universe. Being able to customize the cockpit is going to be pretty important to me though. If I'm going to be spending hundreds of hours having the stare at the loving thing, adding a bobble-head doll or some new paint would go a lot towards making it feel more my own.

I'd be willing to bet we only get to mill around in one cockpit because it has to be rendered at all times. If every ship had its own cockpit that needed to have its own poo poo going on, it'd rip apart a computer trying to handle all that while big rear end battles are going on.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 04:04

Anticheese: Feb 13, 2008; $60,000,000 sexbot

Fuzzy dice.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 04:06

GreatGreen: Jul 3, 2007; That's not what gaslighting means you hyperbolic dipshit.

Seeing as the game will feature full mod support, I can't imagine too much time going by before somebody comes up with a mod that lets us directly control any ship in the universe we own, cap ships included.

That said, I can't see directly steering a slow-as-christmas capital ship being more fun that docking on it, telling it where to go and what to attack, then watching while you direct your escort carriers to deploy dozens of fighters at your disposal. And then while you're watching the battle unfold in your big captain's chair on your cap ship's bridge, if poo poo really starts to hit the fan, you can go run to your fully upgraded Skunk, then let loose and really tear poo poo up in the middle of a heated space battle.

GreatGreen fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Aug 23, 2013

# ? Aug 23, 2013 04:27

Blast of Confetti: Apr 21, 2008; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

GreatGreen posted:

you're watching the battle unfold in your big captain's chair

I think this is what really bugs me about the cockpit. Way too cramped and dingy for future Emperor of Everything. Not really a problem as long as I can mod the cockpit its self. I'd just tweak the inside a bit and add some leopard spot wallpaper. After that I won't have any problems with not being on the bridge of a cap.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 04:31

staberind: Feb 20, 2008; but i dont wanna be a spaceship; Fun Shoe

Anticheese posted:

Fuzzy dice.

Magic tree's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Mxs6A1byIo

# ? Aug 23, 2013 05:09

Synthbuttrange: May 6, 2007

I enjoyed the hell out of TC, but AP just sat in my library waiting til I got around to it. Sorry AP!

# ? Aug 23, 2013 05:12

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

SynthOrange posted:

I enjoyed the hell out of TC, but AP just sat in my library waiting til I got around to it. Sorry AP!

Functionally the two are near identical, the major differences being AP introducing the War sectors, new storylines, stock exchanges and tweaking the poo poo out of missiles. AP starts with the intro movie of some bird blowing up the Earth Torus but there's little context as to why and bam there's a war going on. I'm assuming there's lots and lots of background info in the German novelizations that are written for the games, but only one has been translated to English

# ? Aug 23, 2013 05:33

Thom12255: Feb 23, 2013; WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

Soundtrack - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcfnSKc4J2U

# ? Aug 23, 2013 20:07

turn off the TV: Aug 4, 2010; moderately annoying

I said come in! posted:

What's the overall consensus on X Rebirth so far? The only thing i'm uneasy about is that you only fly one ship now. But i'm pretty excited about being able to walk around space stations and capital ships, assuming its done well.

My biggest fear right now is that they've simplified the flight model too much. The lack of SETA could also be kind of awful.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 20:20

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Giggily posted:

My biggest fear right now is that they've simplified the flight model too much. The lack of SETA could also be kind of awful.

I was uneasy about SETA being removed too, but the space highway thing sounds like a better alternative.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 20:22

turn off the TV: Aug 4, 2010; moderately annoying

I said come in! posted:

I was uneasy about SETA being removed too, but the space highway thing sounds like a better alternative.

There were still times where I was basically sitting around waiting for a ship to get from point A to point B that still took obnoxious amounts of time even in SETA, but I suppose that if I'm not going to have to be babysitting every single one of my ships now it won't be so bad.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 20:26

I said come in!: Jun 22, 2004

Giggily posted:

There were still times where I was basically sitting around waiting for a ship to get from point A to point B that still took obnoxious amounts of time even in SETA, but I suppose that if I'm not going to have to be babysitting every single one of my ships now it won't be so bad.

Yeah this removes the random nature of the A.I. getting you killed during SETA.

# ? Aug 23, 2013 20:27

Shalebridge Cradle: Apr 23, 2008

Giggily posted:

My biggest fear right now is that they've simplified the flight model too much. The lack of SETA could also be kind of awful.

My understanding of the removal is that the game is now structured in a way to make SETA unnecessary, or at least not mandatory. If they actually pulled it off its great. I always thought time acceleration was a crutch more than anything. Instead of cutting out tedium you should be adding interesting things to do.

# ? Aug 24, 2013 01:19

Overwined: Sep 22, 2008; Wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile.

Shalebridge Cradle posted:

My understanding of the removal is that the game is now structured in a way to make SETA unnecessary, or at least not mandatory. If they actually pulled it off its great. I always thought time acceleration was a crutch more than anything. Instead of cutting out tedium you should be adding interesting things to do.

I always understood SETA as necessary due to the confluence of two limitations:

1.) That systems could not be realistically large due to system constraints.
2.) Relating to one, given small sectors ships are RIDICULOUSLY slow given the overall technology level. It seems odd that almost every ship in game can be outrun by terrestrial modern-day jets.

Obviously if you can clear both of these up, there's no need for SETA.

# ? Aug 24, 2013 01:34

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Another thing to point out, apart from highways and gates, The Albion Skunk also has an afterburner for high speed boosting ( as demonstrated in the controller video ).

# ? Aug 24, 2013 02:48

ZombyDog: Jul 11, 2001; Ere to fix yer gubbinz

Rebirth info from the demo at Gamescom here

# ? Aug 24, 2013 08:03

Someguy: Jul 15, 2001; by Lowtax

ZombyDog posted:

Rebirth info from the demo at Gamescom here

"Ship is very fast and very agile. Strafing speed is enormous. It's very easy to orbit big ships while avoiding fire. Feels like springblossom with spacesuit agility."

Well if they were determined to only allow you to pilot one ship the entire game, I'm glad it's that one.

# ? Aug 24, 2013 11:51

Leal: Oct 2, 2009

Giggily posted:

I didn't even see the point in using fighters at all because they would just instantly blow up in any combat situation and took like 5 minutes to equip each.

I remember my first TM with a full set of 4 fighters in it. I jumped through a warpgate and on the other side was hostiles. All of my fighters undocked from the TM.... and promptly smacked into the edges of the warpgate and died. :sigh:

And ever since then I would manually send my fighters out instead of setting them to defend the TM so they'll automatically jump out.

# ? Aug 24, 2013 12:12

GreatGreen: Jul 3, 2007; That's not what gaslighting means you hyperbolic dipshit.

ZombyDog posted:

Rebirth info from the demo at Gamescom here

If you follow a few links in that forum, you eventually find this page (http://www.gamestar.de/videos/specials,20/x-rebirth,71543.html) with a video of the player fighting a capital ship.

It's in German so most of us probably won't be able to tell what's going on exactly, but the cap ship fight is pretty cool.

# ? Aug 24, 2013 16:41

turn off the TV: Aug 4, 2010; moderately annoying

GreatGreen posted:

If you follow a few links in that forum, you eventually find this page (http://www.gamestar.de/videos/specials,20/x-rebirth,71543.html) with a video of the player fighting a capital ship.

It's in German so most of us probably won't be able to tell what's going on exactly, but the cap ship fight is pretty cool.

I am not pleased by this flight model so far.

# ? Aug 24, 2013 16:51