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TjyvTompa
Jun 1, 2001

im gay
I hope they have done something about the mid-game grind where you are travelling the universe over trying to find the specific ships you need and the equipment to outfit them. I always resorted to cheat-scripts to create my trading empire after having saved up enough funds with a couple universe traders to "make it ok to cheat".

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DancingShade
Jul 26, 2007

by Fluffdaddy

(and can't post for 25 days!)

I've played and enjoyed the X series games since X2. Own every one except the original. Fan of Egosoft's work. Lived and laughed through many a bug and broken game, restarted main plots many times, always had fun. That's so I can provide context to what I'm about to say.

DO NOT pre-order X4. loving don't do it.

X: Rebirth (the last one) was a loving abomination and many, many people including myself (obviously) had buyers remorse in the days before Steam refunds were a thing.

Hopefully X4 is everything promised. That would be wonderful, I'll happily buy it once that's confirmed. Independently. But the marketing for Rebirth was equally excellent and the product was a steaming dog turd and many promises turned out to be complete lies.

Fingers crossed this isn't a repeat of the Rebirth fiasco.

Temaukel
Mar 28, 2010

by Nyc_Tattoo

The Butcher posted:

I deffo remember in either X3 for another early iteration wrapping a hair elastic around my trigger and walking away for awhile.
lol you could repair using SETA x10 (eject SETA, then install it in spacesuit).

big nipples big life
May 12, 2014

DancingShade posted:


DO NOT pre-order X4. loving don't do it.


I'm gonna do it.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Me too maybe.

I mean I'm gonna buy it anyway, I fully expect it to be a bit rough but it can't be worse than rebirth and I enjoyed rebirth so why not.

Even if it's pretty bad, rebirth got plenty of post-release support so I don't mind chucking them a few extra quid while I wait for it. Again they're basically the only people making this sort of game so I'm gonna be a bit more generous than I normally am.

Hav
Dec 11, 2009

Fun Shoe

Me too. It's disposable income, and as an established guy, I afford to take a chance on a game on pre-release.

Plus an X game with a trouble-free release wouldn't have the pleasing aroma of an egosoft title.

OwlFancier posted:

and I enjoyed rebirth so why not.

Burn the witch

CBN_Shaggy
Aug 6, 2001

WHAMMIED! :(
Did they bring back ships with moving/rotating bits or is that still lost from X2?

This means everything.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

CBN_Shaggy posted:

Did they bring back ships with moving/rotating bits or is that still lost from X2?

This means everything.

The engines on some of the fighter craft do actually gimbal to give them extra roll authority, and the flight model will supposedly change depending on whether your ship can do this, with ships rolling into turns if they are faster that way.

Weapons also gimbal a bit and I think the degre to which they can is dependent on the weapon.

But no artificial G sections that I've seen so far. Probably because they just have magic space gravity.

Stations though, In Rebirth alone they had a lot of really cool animated sections for most of the modules, especially industrial ones, they look really cool in motion.

Hav posted:

Burn the witch

I'm definitely not going to say it's a good sequel to X3 but I liked it as a fun space story game with X themes.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Oct 5, 2018

Zutaten
May 8, 2007

What the shit.

Rebirth is actually a good game now, hth. Just treat it as a game in the X universe rather than an X game, and it's a good time now that they fixed it up.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Yeah really, it'd be a real disappointment coming from X3 but, like, it's far from a bad game on its own merits.

Hav
Dec 11, 2009

Fun Shoe

OwlFancier posted:

Yeah really, it'd be a real disappointment coming from X3 but, like, it's far from a bad game on its own merits.

They really should have called it something else to avoid that whole brand confusion between X3, and _that_.

I need to give it another start. I've not really given it another chance since launch and the first three restarts (First two, freighters and the economy would grind to a halt after a few hours; the second try also had freighters that would just get lost, and this was back when you'd have to fly to the station and wait for the freighter to arrive before you could unload it. After that, boob window just grates.)

Oh, and the endless station running was painful. Did they ever find a role for the UAV thing?

Edit: And some positive notes: I liked the new stations for the sense of scale, the environments were great and distinctive, and the ships didn't look terrible.

OwlFancier posted:

I'm definitely not going to say it's a good sequel to X3 but I liked it as a fun space story game with X themes.

Sounds like something a witch would say.

Nah, I'm not that bitter and Bernd was so damned contrite after the whole debacle (although those early weak defenses of 'not a console port' got blown away fairly quickly) that I'm happy to throw money in to keep egosoft alive; even after Reunion. There was nothing like X-beyond when it came out.

Kerberos Productions can choke on dicks, though.

Hav fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Oct 5, 2018

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

One nice thing about having multiple ships is not having to feel like a giant space pervert because I have big titty boob window catsuit sat next to me.

Conskill
May 7, 2007

I got an 'F' in Geometry.

Zutaten posted:

Rebirth is actually a good game now, hth. Just treat it as a game in the X universe rather than an X game, and it's a good time now that they fixed it up.

This is a good and correct opinion. Rebirth's remaining serious gameplay problem is UI issues and, well, let the Egosoft game without sin cast the first stone.

It's a complete shame that they tried to take the X franchise in that direction, but on its lonesome Rebirth did not turn out horrible.

Sway Grunt
May 15, 2004

Tenochtitlan, looking east.
Of all the games I've had to miss out on over the past few years because of my potato computer (still on an i5-750...), this is probably the most painful. :( Maybe by the time all the expansions and patches come out my system will have croaked and forced my hand. I'd love to sink another 300+ hours into a new X game, but I might have to instead load up an old X3 save and zip around Olmanketslat's Treaty in my Kestrel for old time's sake.

I hope they hired the same voice actress for the ship computer because the way she enunciated some of those sector names will forever be burned into my brain. THE. VAULT.

Siets
Sep 19, 2006

by FactsAreUseless

Zutaten posted:

Rebirth is actually a good game now, hth. Just treat it as a game in the X universe rather than an X game, and it's a good time now that they fixed it up.

Any good Let's Plays of X: Rebirth that feature the updated version of the game anyone can recommend? Would be interesting to get a feel for the gameplay and universe and tide me over while waiting for X4.

I said come in!
Jun 22, 2004

OwlFancier posted:

Yeah really, it'd be a real disappointment coming from X3 but, like, it's far from a bad game on its own merits.

This is crazy talk.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

Glare Seethe posted:

Of all the games I've had to miss out on over the past few years because of my potato computer (still on an i5-750...), this is probably the most painful. :( Maybe by the time all the expansions and patches come out my system will have croaked and forced my hand. I'd love to sink another 300+ hours into a new X game, but I might have to instead load up an old X3 save and zip around Olmanketslat's Treaty in my Kestrel for old time's sake.

I hope they hired the same voice actress for the ship computer because the way she enunciated some of those sector names will forever be burned into my brain. THE. VAULT.

COCK

SCOUT

Garfu
Mar 6, 2008

Much like buttholes, families are meant to be tight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkJa-FOF6ME&t=17s

big nipples big life
May 12, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Liu9SBeNJT4&t=55s

Siets
Sep 19, 2006

by FactsAreUseless

This is a treasure. God drat I miss Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb. :unsmith:

Filthy Monkey
Jun 25, 2007

Glare Seethe posted:

I hope they hired the same voice actress for the ship computer because the way she enunciated some of those sector names will forever be burned into my brain. THE. VAULT.
Was it actually voiced by a person? I figured it was just some sort of synthesized text to speech thing, what with the dead tone and weird pronunciations.

Sway Grunt
May 15, 2004

Tenochtitlan, looking east.
It was. I remember looking it up once, and I just did another quick search and found some posts on the Egosoft forum confirming it's actual voice acting. If I recall correctly there are instances in the game where there are inconsistencies in the pronunciation / intonation of the same word as well, but I can't off the top of my head give any examples.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013



Paranid interiors look pretty dope. Capital ship bridge going by layout.

Inverness
Feb 4, 2009

Fully configurable personal assistant.
A lot of interesting tidbits in this Q&A thread: https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=146&t=396292

Some analysis about the universe map here: https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=4675505

They are improving sector and highway design to be more like the Home of Light DLC for XR. Highways are either straight or simple curves. In HoL they were directly connected to superhighways. In recent videos I saw them directly going into jump gates.

limaCAT
Dec 22, 2007

il pistone e male
Slippery Tilde
With all the systems they could have scrapped why didn't they scrap SETA?

Orv
May 4, 2011

limaCAT posted:

With all the systems they could have scrapped why didn't they scrap SETA?

It depends honestly. If the game is balanced around using SETA then it becomes an issue. I'm fine with it being there as a tool because sometimes you're doing your initial e-cell import on your factories and that takes a hot minute.

Gorelab
Dec 26, 2006

Yeah, making basic getting around not need SETA to not be painful even for short distances is cool, but sometimes you just want to wait for a trade or construction to finish.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

limaCAT posted:

With all the systems they could have scrapped why didn't they scrap SETA?

They did, for Rebirth, people hated it, so they put it back in.

They've tried to add alternatives such as a high speed travel drive and the highway system but a lot of people really want SETA.

Personally my hope is we can set it and then get out of the chair and wander around. Least you've got something to look at then. Also that menus won't occasionally knock you out of it.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Oct 8, 2018

Leal
Oct 2, 2009
SETA was great because I could set it to 10x speed then alt tab as my bank account fattened up.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

X: Rebirth being what it is is unfortunately but poking around using even just cheat/debug menus at Albion Prelude reveals pretty much instantly how necessary it is because holy poo poo did they get a lot of mileage out of that engine.

Inverness
Feb 4, 2009

Fully configurable personal assistant.

limaCAT posted:

With all the systems they could have scrapped why didn't they scrap SETA?
People want it to speed up non-travel things too.

Orv
May 4, 2011

RBA Starblade posted:

X: Rebirth being what it is is unfortunately but poking around using even just cheat/debug menus at Albion Prelude reveals pretty much instantly how necessary it is because holy poo poo did they get a lot of mileage out of that engine.

2000 loving 5.

Meme Poker Party
Sep 1, 2006

by Azathoth
I'll be watching this game with some interested.

I'll skip talking about Rebirth because it was obviously a huge tire fire and poo poo for the birds. As for X3, it was a game I simultaneously loved and hated. I loved the open galaxy and even the goofy charm of the low production values on aliens and stuff. I enjoyed flying around, and the combat was fun enough. But I HATED the garbage UI that was near impenetrable as a new player, and to be honest too much poo poo just didn't work. You'd capture ships and command them to dock somewhere and they'd just blow themselves up making the attempt, for example.

I know you can mod some of that to make it better, but modding was also an arcane process full of trouble. You shouldn't have to be a computer expert to play a computer game. Mods are supposed to be for customization and fun extras, not fixing basic functionality. My biggest hope for this game is that it's basically X3 but with a greatly enhanced user experience and QOL improvements, including a UI overhaul. I just want to poo poo to work right, be intuitive, and run smoothly without having to download mod packs to do it. If they deliver that I'll probably buy it and be happy.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

That's kinda what I want and it looks to be where they've put some effort, the ship/station UIs look miles better than anything in previous games.

Siets
Sep 19, 2006

by FactsAreUseless
So I'm trying to understand the X games and their mechanism of travel and exploration. Sounds like X1-X3 used jump gates that took you to big system bubbles (not unlike EVE Online) that took some time to fly around and explore in. Then in X: Rebirth, they did some weird highway thing instead of the gates? What is the functional difference here?

For me, gates between systems always made the game universe feel small. EVE Online feels extremely small to me since you can gate between systems in seconds and similarly warp around anywhere you want inside the system in seconds. I like space games that feel bigger, even if it means taking minutes at a time to get between locations and objectives. Any chance X4 is going to lean in the latter direction?

Good Dumplings
Mar 30, 2011

Excuse my worthless shitposting because all I can ever hope to accomplish in life is to rot away the braincells of strangers on the internet with my irredeemable brainworms.
That's kind of like asking if the next Bethesda game will remove fast travel, there's going to be some kind of sector system, either like existing X3 gates/highways or Elite's method of letting you jump to systems within range. Though saying EVE feels small is... odd. Have you never done a run from nullsec to Jita for instance? It's not exactly a quick experience.

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Siets posted:

So I'm trying to understand the X games and their mechanism of travel and exploration. Sounds like X1-X3 used jump gates that took you to big system bubbles (not unlike EVE Online) that took some time to fly around and explore in. Then in X: Rebirth, they did some weird highway thing instead of the gates? What is the functional difference here?

For me, gates between systems always made the game universe feel small. EVE Online feels extremely small to me since you can gate between systems in seconds and similarly warp around anywhere you want inside the system in seconds. I like space games that feel bigger, even if it means taking minutes at a time to get between locations and objectives. Any chance X4 is going to lean in the latter direction?

X1-3 used jump gates yes and each system was a largely empty void with gates at the edges, populated by some stations, a skybox, and traffic travelling through the gate network. Systems on busy trade routes were populated, systems on the edges far less so.

X Rebirth used a quite complex system. Jumpgates jumped you between star systems but there were only 4 at launch. Instead, each system had highways which basically boosted you around. Superhighways generally moved you noticeably closer or further away from the star or around massive system features such as Albion which was dominated by a giant fractured planet. Normal highways you could get on and leave at any time and basically allowed you movement around the "system" equivalent from X1-3, which were renamed zones.

X4 keeps that hierarchy of systems > superhighways > zones but the highways are much more consistent, in Rebirth they were deliberately one way in many places which made navigation tedious because you relied on them to quickly navigate through space. Now they're supposedly more two way and usefully located, and your ship in addition has a high speed mode you can use to travel fast on your own, so highways form the hub of zones but not necessarily everything needs to be around them to be accessible easily.

We also had SETA, which is basically time speed up, so in X3 you would drop SETA on and the world went at 10x speed so you could get places easier. X Rebirth dropped that, so navigating was very time consuming.

In 4 they've supposedly improved highway utility, given a proper speed boost to ships wanting to travel in a straight line for a while, put SETA back in, and given us a teleporter so we personally can jump around the place even if our ships can't. It should hopefully be an improvement on X3.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Oct 8, 2018

Gorelab
Dec 26, 2006

Good Dumplings posted:

That's kind of like asking if the next Bethesda game will remove fast travel, there's going to be some kind of sector system, either like existing X3 gates/highways or Elite's method of letting you jump to systems within range. Though saying EVE feels small is... odd. Have you never done a run from nullsec to Jita for instance? It's not exactly a quick experience.

I do think the old x3 system did feel small mostly because everything was generally a 50x50x50 cube between gates. The gates are still in X:R and will be in X4 but the systems themselves should be larger.

Psycho Landlord
Oct 10, 2012

What are you gonna do, dance with me?

Siets posted:

So I'm trying to understand the X games and their mechanism of travel and exploration. Sounds like X1-X3 used jump gates that took you to big system bubbles (not unlike EVE Online) that took some time to fly around and explore in. Then in X: Rebirth, they did some weird highway thing instead of the gates? What is the functional difference here?

For me, gates between systems always made the game universe feel small. EVE Online feels extremely small to me since you can gate between systems in seconds and similarly warp around anywhere you want inside the system in seconds. I like space games that feel bigger, even if it means taking minutes at a time to get between locations and objectives. Any chance X4 is going to lean in the latter direction?

If this one takes after Rebirth then sorta. X1-3 had just space bubbles with pretty backgrounds and gates, Rebirth still technically had the space bubbles but instead of there being a gate in every sector you had a highway system that you could use to visibly move around the system to different hubs, like outer planets, asteroid belts, upper atmosphere of a capital world, things like that, and I think technically you could fly around without the highways but it took a stupidly long time and wouldn't always load places correctly. Then you could take one of the actual jump gates to a different system that did the same thing with different locations.

So systems for sure felt larger and more alive in Rebirth, but were functionally much the same as they had been for the last three games.

e:fb

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OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

I personally really liked the Rebirth structure, it was super cool to enter the jumpgate to devries and come in at the edge of the system, then enter the superhighway which catapults you winding through space into the corona of the sun, then you can get the other one right out to the far reaches of the system in the shadow of one of the planets.

Gave you a real sense of place and all the system had super cool themes.

The problems were really just that there were few systems and navigating them was actively annoying if you just wanted to go somewhere. But that's all to do with layout and options, not the actual concepts which were, in some ways, very similar to the trans orbital accelerators used in X3AP.

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