What is Egosoft's vision for X5?

[geldonyetich]

It is an interesting thing that we once speculated about how amazing it would be to have huge, massively multiplayer games with fully modeled planetary landings and solar system scales...

... and then recent advances in technology gave us Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous, Space Engineers, Starbound, and No Man's Sky demonstrating how little that feature brings to enrich the gameplay.

How we imagine a game feature holds little bearing on how it actually turns out.

In Egosoft's X games it's the ability to land and walk around starbases. Not all that useful or beneficial to gameplay on its own. You would basically have to add the depth of the Odyssey expansion to Elite Dangerous. Even then, Odyssey turned out to be a bit too grindy for too little return.

Maybe Odyssey level game loops with X4 level metagame ramifications would do the trick. Because the thing that bothers me about Odyssey is that I could sabotage the generator on 2,000 colonies and it would be a drop in the bucket of all the staggering size of their galaxy. Drop the scale down to the gate network and I have a reason to care.

Personal level combat would have a niche. We can already board ships, why not storm them firsthand alongside our marines? Maybe take over space stations too.

[mr.WHO]

I think one of the reasons why there is little to no purpose in sitting on stations is the fact, for soem damn reason, no soundtrack playing there - not even bar or player office
7.0 brings nice observation module, but as long as there is no music it will be just a gimmic


On the other hand, I love to constantly just to stand in cokpits/bridges of my command ships, looking how crew pilot the ship, doing empire management, fleet command and simply enjoying the soundtrack.

[eedden]

I think one of the reasons why there is little to no purpose in sitting on stations is the fact, for soem damn reason, no soundtrack playing there - not even bar or player office
7.0 brings nice observation module, but as long as there is no music it will be just a gimmic


On the other hand, I love to constantly just to stand in cokpits/bridges of my command ships, looking how crew pilot the ship, doing empire management, fleet command and simply enjoying the soundtrack.

The reason there is no purpose in being on a station is that you can do everything, from everywhere, in real time.

If you could only manage a fleet from the screen in the war room in the fleet HQ then you'd need to be there during an engagement.
If news would spread slowly you'd maybe want to travel from trade station to trade station to get the latest status on profits and pirate raids to issue new orders.

As long as most of the games happens in abstract menus station interiors will remain almost pointless.

[flywlyx]

As long as most of the games happens in abstract menus station interiors will remain almost pointless.

Viewing the ship from the station provides an excellent perspective on its scale.
Personally, my favorite is watching the XL ships depart from the production module.

[mr.WHO]

Personally, my favorite is watching the XL ships depart from the production module.

That will be my first use for observation module - with a good view on my XL Shipyard section.

[Socratatus]

I dunno if I want to wait another 6 years from release, starting all over again, while the game slooowly gets better... Do you know all the things that have happened in that time? We almost didn't make it!

I'd rather they just keep working on X4 and add any visions to that.

[Crimsonraziel]

1 - X-Rebirth
2 - X4: Foundation + DLCs
3 - X5 brings back X-Rebirth region and factions into X4 galaxy

I really do believe Albion sectors will become a DLC for X4, probably the final one.

[rudi_pioneer]

I dunno if I want to wait another 6 years from release, starting all over again, while the game slooowly gets better... Do you know all the things that have happened in that time? We almost didn't make it!

I'd rather they just keep working on X4 and add any visions to that.

This. In X3 I see what "finalized" x game looks like, and it's glorious (especially in X3FL & Guilds). Can't wait for X4 to get there! (examples: recycle for blueprints, diplomacy, dynamic rep, etc)

[alt3rn1ty]

I dunno if I want to wait another 6 years from release, starting all over again, while the game slooowly gets better... Do you know all the things that have happened in that time? We almost didn't make it!

I'd rather they just keep working on X4 and add any visions to that.

This. In X3 I see what "finalized" x game looks like, and it's glorious (especially in X3FL & Guilds). Can't wait for X4 to get there! (examples: recycle for blueprints, diplomacy, dynamic rep, etc)

This, X3FL updates (to me anyway) was a total surprise. I mean we have seen Egosoft update old games years after we thought they were done and dusted, but X3FL was something else .. And very much appreciated. Though I wish the X 'verse map had not turned into a square checkerboard of addon systems ...
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With regard to the topic title, we know they have an X5 folder on Egosoft hard drives, but hells know what it contains.

Without a doubt it is ambitious waaay beyond the machines we can buy now. Even now I think we all anticipate buying a machine which can handle every aspect of X4 smoothly one day. X5 at the moment is just a dream.

Biggest thing I would hope for is far more storyline. Even if its split up into DLCs like X4. X4 DLCs in my humble opinion are far too short, so here's hoping X5 takes stories and multiple missions for each story line to another level. I know thats the hardest thing for Egosoft to bring together though, its a huge process for a limited developer to bring together, and especially in X games where they have to inovatively/imaginatevly utilise the games engine capabilities to create plot content which is not only believable, but also engaging / intruiging for the fan base.

There's a bit of negative perception about puzzles, but I love them, Egosoft shine with their inventiveness.

[vincentus]

Really, not one is mentioning that they should finally redo their technology around the safegame that is still from the 90s and the reason you can't really have safegames for long games because it takes 40seconds to 2 minutes to load?

[Alan Phipps]

@ vincentus: It has certainly been mentioned, replied to by devs, and many players think the times are improved in recent versions. Example thread.. That said, one can assume that X5 would likely be superior in such respects.

[SirLosealot]

How do you guys think about switching the main batteries of destroyers from fixed to a slow moving turret? I think this would enrich both the player's and AI's experience.

In terms of the AI, they struggle to use their main batteries against other capitals because they like to keep a minimum distance between them and will stop shooting and flee when the enemy capital is "too close" (around 5km usually). Now if the main batteries became a turret, running like that would be preferable.

But what if the player want to have some action like aiming and shooting with the main batteries? Maybe a separate screen can be introduced which is the view of the main batteries turret when piloting a capital ship. To make things easier, the turret can even lock on an enemy so just point it at the enemy ship, lock on and shoot. With it, the player can skirmish the enemy ( aim and shoot with the turret while keep moving to avoid enemy fire).

[GCU Grey Area]

How do you guys think about switching the main batteries of destroyers from fixed to a slow moving turret?

Sincerely hope they don't do that in X5. Those fixed guns are the main reason I enjoy flying L ships in X4. Without them the entire class would be AI use only for me, just as they were in X2 & X3. Just don't find flying a capital fun if I don't have manual control over their main guns. Manual control over a turret would not be the same - X2 & X3 had that, but still didn't make flying a capital an enjoyable experience for me.

[Flippi]

Sincerely hope they don't do that in X5. Those fixed guns are the main reason I enjoy flying L ships in X4. Without them the entire class would be AI use only for me, just as they were in X2 & X3. Just don't find flying a capital fun if I don't have manual control over their main guns. Manual control over a turret would not be the same - X2 & X3 had that, but still didn't make flying a capital an enjoyable experience for me.

Sorry, but I don't understand that post. X3 literally had countless capital ships with main guns. Pretty much all M7 Frigates bar the missile ones (X3's equivalent to X4 Destroyers), used main guns. Not as pronounced as it is in X4 (except for the old Thresher), but nonetheless there were there. So if you found them uninteresting in X3, then that is honestly on you. Because I flew quite a couple of them. And they are very clearly functionally similar to X4's current destroyers (just with better turrets). Also, no one wants to delete or change the old ships, just that some of the new ones should be made for turrets, instead of always making them main gun based.

Battleships (which are XL sized) with main guns don't make too much sense and don't work too well (X3 had the Pteranodon, which fits the bill here). And the AI is clearly not as good with them as the player. I personally use Asgards in X4 nearly completely in OOS, because of the main gun aiming issue (and also a little bit because of other reasons).

Personally, I want to see proper battleships again. What used to be Destroyers in X2 and X3, are now called that way. I understand that some people would want to use main guns. So it makes sense to keep the current ships around to provide that. But there's also the reality that the AI doesn't use them really well, and that more variety is key. No one wants the old ships be deleted or changed, but quite a few people would like to see some proper turret based ships again. And X4 or a future X5 definitely needs some ship variety. Because it is very lacking in my opinion compared to X3. Not that X3 was doing everything perfect either.

[GCU Grey Area]

X3 literally had countless capital ships with main guns. Pretty much all M7 Frigates bar the missile ones (X3's equivalent to X4 Destroyers), used main guns. Not as pronounced as it is in X4 (except for the old Thresher), but nonetheless there were there

That's true, forgot about the M7s. Tried them briefly but did not find them remotely enjoyable to fly either - their turn rates were all abysmally slow. X4's the first X game in which I enjoy flying ships bigger than an M6. Absolutely adore the Ray I'm using in my current game; fast, deadly precise with it's Ion Projector & (with it's Whirlygig mod) it's even got pretty good steering: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bekyvtnl ... 9nb5m&dl=0

[SirLosealot]

How do you guys think about switching the main batteries of destroyers from fixed to a slow moving turret?

Sincerely hope they don't do that in X5. Those fixed guns are the main reason I enjoy flying L ships in X4. Without them the entire class would be AI use only for me, just as they were in X2 & X3. Just don't find flying a capital fun if I don't have manual control over their main guns. Manual control over a turret would not be the same - X2 & X3 had that, but still didn't make flying a capital an enjoyable experience for me.

I think you misunderstood me. I mean make the main gun as a turret that YOU manually control. Leave the other turrets as they are currently. So you control both the ship AND the main gun like driving a tank in other games. For example, using the keyboard for movement, mouse scroll for speed adjustment, and the mouse to control the main turret (main gun).

Better yet, have an option to assign the main turret to the AI too for some people who want to only focus on movement or just want to fly around and enjoying the spectacle. A win-win situation I would say.

[GCU Grey Area]

I think you misunderstood me. I mean make the main gun as a turret that YOU manually control. Leave the other turrets as they are currently. So you control both the ship AND the main gun like driving a tank in other games. For example, using the keyboard for movement, mouse scroll for speed adjustment, and the mouse to control the main turret (main gun).

I don't play flight sims with mouse & keyboard.

[Flippi]

That's true, forgot about the M7s. Tried them briefly but did not find them remotely enjoyable to fly either - their turn rates were all abysmally slow. X4's the first X game in which I enjoy flying ships bigger than an M6. Absolutely adore the Ray I'm using in my current game; fast, deadly precise with it's Ion Projector & (with it's Whirlygig mod) it's even got pretty good steering: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bekyvtnl ... 9nb5m&dl=0

Well to be honest, X3's flight mechanics are definitely inferior to X4's. Flying anything at all in X4 feels quite a bit better compared to X3 (also no lethal collision damage).

I just hope that Egosoft brings back the variety of X3, or even does it better than that. StarSector for example (a 2d Game), has capital ships with main guns, others with turrets only. They have broadsiders, where the main batteries can't shoot that well to the front, but can fire a deadly barrage from the sides. If a 2d Space game has better variety than a 3d Game with literally hundreds of different ships, then there is something wrong going on.

I think you misunderstood me. I mean make the main gun as a turret that YOU manually control. Leave the other turrets as they are currently. So you control both the ship AND the main gun like driving a tank in other games. For example, using the keyboard for movement, mouse scroll for speed adjustment, and the mouse to control the main turret (main gun).

Egosoft could also allow us to become turret gunners again. You know, like the older games used to do? That would also be something. But anyway, this idea sounds interesting enough to make a ship or two with such a weapon.

[SirLosealot]

I think you misunderstood me. I mean make the main gun as a turret that YOU manually control. Leave the other turrets as they are currently. So you control both the ship AND the main gun like driving a tank in other games. For example, using the keyboard for movement, mouse scroll for speed adjustment, and the mouse to control the main turret (main gun).

I don't play flight sims with mouse & keyboard.

So what are you using instead if you don't mind sharing?

[SirLosealot]

That's true, forgot about the M7s. Tried them briefly but did not find them remotely enjoyable to fly either - their turn rates were all abysmally slow. X4's the first X game in which I enjoy flying ships bigger than an M6. Absolutely adore the Ray I'm using in my current game; fast, deadly precise with it's Ion Projector & (with it's Whirlygig mod) it's even got pretty good steering: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bekyvtnl ... 9nb5m&dl=0

Well to be honest, X3's flight mechanics are definitely inferior to X4's. Flying anything at all in X4 feels quite a bit better compared to X3 (also no lethal collision damage).

I just hope that Egosoft brings back the variety of X3, or even does it better than that. StarSector for example (a 2d Game), has capital ships with main guns, others with turrets only. They have broadsiders, where the main batteries can't shoot that well to the front, but can fire a deadly barrage from the sides. If a 2d Space game has better variety than a 3d Game with literally hundreds of different ships, then there is something wrong going on.

I think you misunderstood me. I mean make the main gun as a turret that YOU manually control. Leave the other turrets as they are currently. So you control both the ship AND the main gun like driving a tank in other games. For example, using the keyboard for movement, mouse scroll for speed adjustment, and the mouse to control the main turret (main gun).

Egosoft could also allow us to become turret gunners again. You know, like the older games used to do? That would also be something. But anyway, this idea sounds interesting enough to make a ship or two with such a weapon.

Starsector is different than this game but I gotta say, they did fleet combat well. Is it perfect? No, but consider the variety of ships and the combinations of weapons on such ships, the AI is quite competent.

If they make some ships that way, those would be the ships I build for the AI . That is unnless they fix the AI and make them reliably use their fixed gun in a fleet battle.