Damocles wrote:Lets just hope that this time a console version is nowhere attempted in the engine design.
Targeting a PC centered user interface and gamedesign from the start.

With the upcoming X: Rebirth VR and the recent announcement of X4, things got a bit stirred up on the official forums with people coming in to snatch some extra info. Luckily, Egosoft devs were ready to talk.

A forum user by the name of Mr. WHO started the topic with multiple questions about the upcoming game, and the rest of the members pitched in. Here’s what the devs had to say.

> Will X4 include proper carriers (or even Carrier scripts and GUI) to ferry fighters around?

Linolafett: Cautious yes. Capital ships will have docks at which small/medium ships can dock at.

> Will drone ship logic be rebalanced/tweaked?

Linolafett: Drone gameplay has changed a bit. Can’t say much as stuff may change at will.

> Will station destruction logic be adapted?

Linolafett: Stations (aside of special landmarks) will be destructible and will not reappear after leaving the zone.

Xenon_Slayer: As Lino said, yes, they will be destructible. New stations will be built, but not carbon-copies of the stations which were lost (as it was in X3).

> Will you equalize the repair times between IS and OOS?

Linolafett: Tech stuff, no idea.

Xenon_Slayer: We do strive to keep IS and OOS calculations as close as they can be (usually limited by performance). We have made some changes which should have repairs of sub-components closer than they were in XR.

> You occasionally mentioned that you plan to adjust the universe and universe travel (something with highways tweaks I presume) - can you share some details?

Linolafett: The highways will be mostly in straight lines or single radius curves. Not all zones will have highways and you will be able to boost over longer distances. It following the steps we did in the HOL DLC.

> Will we finally be able to buy, build and operate Shipyard?

Linolafett: Yes. That’s the plan.

> Will X4 continue story/region of X-Rebirth?

Linolafett: No/No.

> Will any missing race from X3 return (I don't ask which one, simply yes or no)?

Linolafett: Yes. In XR we had a full argon and Teladi set with ships/stations and chars. In X4 a full new set is being added.

> Are there any plans to replace "spawn out of thin air" system for NPC and hostiles (like pirate/Xenon) with something more physical that player can impact?

Linolafett: The plan is to use shipyards to create the ships. The xenon will try to use an own shipyard to spawn the ships by consuming own resources. If the plan works out, I don’t know. Haven’t seen any data about that.

Xenon_Slayer: For the majority of ships, yes. We do want the ships to come from a source such as a shipyard. Some missions may be a special case, but far less than before.

> Will you improve generic mission variety and review their logic?

Linolafett: No idea. Can’t answer.

Xenon_Slayer: There should be more happening in the universe which can than trigger missions based on those events. There will still be generic missions which may 'fabricate' the scenario as it was in previous games, but we do of course want these to have as little fakery as possible.

> Will station construction be realistic this time? By that I mean that for a new station to be constructed AI will have to construct CV first, move it to the build spot and then build station from materials. Or stations will be spawned out of thin air by a reincarnation of the G.O.D. script from X3?

Xenon_Slayer: Just as it is with ships, stations will also have a full process to be built, resources and all. The process is somewhat different to XR but not spawning like X3 God.

> If stations can be destroyed would it be possible for the player to completely wipe out a faction by destroying all of their assets?

Xenon_Slayer: Well, the player (and others) can of course decimate property from another faction. Whether a faction at rock-bottom can find a way to begin again is a big question I won't address now. Faction wipe-out's are common in 4X games such as Stellaris, which have things such as victory conditions and an actual end. X games are an open-ended sandbox with much longer game times.

> Is it still too early to share a screenshot of a new stuff? Or even a fragment of a screenshot?

Linolafett: Too early. Too much will change, so a screenshot won’t be comparable to the version, which will be released.

wizaerd wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 23, 2017 3:11 pm

I wish they'd build a console version.

Cornflakes_91 wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 24, 2017 4:57 am

a controller is simply fundamentally unsuited for rts equivalent play.