X-Tended - Terran Conflict (XTC) (Update: - Manual available! - 12/10/10)

[zombie-uk]

Hey Im curious... I know you added most of thes X3R XTM ships into the Vanilla X3TC and now Useing the XTM Valhalla too....

Shall you be using Rougey's fabulous Terran Aurora M2 found on his X3R Mod? I love that ship and love adding it to the X3R XTM Terran Arsenal.

I think It fits well with the AGI fleet and it can hold its own against any thing.

Ill add a pic of it when I can for yall to see its glory.

[unknown1]

any news to expect in the near future? probably not but...i would like some new screenies with the some space landscapes...

[Ravenholme]

Oh, if you guys ever end up making a Boron M0, can I suggest you name it "Architeuthis" (It's the genus of the giant squid. Yes, I am a zoology student :3)

[Unserene]

Heh, one of my claims to fame is that way back in the day I came up with the name for the Otas M0 (Castrum). I suggested it, back when I was involved in a lore role in the old X-tended for Reunion.

And I named the Ollerus
*waves at Aragon*

[Playbahnosh]

Woah, wading through that 26 or so pages of drool was nothing sort of tedious...

Anyway, let me fist say that WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!! YEAH!!!! AWESOME!!!! WANT!!! You are GODS among men!!!

Now, with that out of the way, I'd like to ask some things. I know you are not supposed to tell much, but still...

As I saw, most people are concerned with ships and weapons and such, but I want to know about some of the more "interesting" (as in totally non-ship and weapon related) parts. So, here is my multi-pronged (albeit feeble) attempt at trying to pry valuable information out of you guys

Mining. More precisely, mobile mining and resource gathering in general. I always wanted to make use of the MMBS and make it true to it's namesake, automated mobile mining with it's own small fleet of mining ships, but with the vanila game I failed miserably many times (and I can't get the Prospector script working). Is mobile mining getting revamped as well? Or more interesting resource gathering added instead of just building boring mining stations and leaving it at that?

Sounds and voice. I know that sounds and voices are low on the dev list, but will there be new stuff added to it? Such as the computer lady's speech identifying stations, ships, wares, sectors? Or will the new plot have new characters with spoken dialog or cutscenes with spoken lines, or just plain text everything? Voice adds a LOT to the immersion factor I think.

Also, music. I know there are some new tracks, but I theorized about a new feature: Space Radio. Much like in other sandbox games, like the GTA series, where you can switch to different stations and listen to pseudo-real radio broadcasts with actual DJs and talkshows. There could be different broadcasts in different sectors, like Teladi Business FM with some fake business news, Paranid Techno News or PDDC (Pirate Deathmetal Destruction Channel), or the regular chill, spaced out music. There could be different genres for each races. As much I LOVE the music in TC, to be honest, it gets boring after a few months of playtime, and it's generic, it doesn't really add to the immersion, it's just "stock" space music, what one would expect of a space game, but nothing really interesting.
Another thing related. For some time now, I play with the in-game music turned off and listening to Space Station Soma, an internet radio station (google it), it plays some excellent space music, almost exactly like the original in-game music in R and TC, it's awesome, always fresh and never gets dull or annoying. Granted, there are no music changes like fighting music or docking or whatever, but that's a trade-off well worth it. It would be an awesome feature to incorporate something like this, like having an online XTC radio playing when nothing really happens (optional, it needs internet connection after all), and turn to the fight music when the fun starts, etc. I know it's a pretty advanced feature, I'm just theorizing here

(Also, I'm also a fledgling composer, so if you want some more tunes for the mod, I'm willing to give it a shot if you are interested )

[Trickmov]

Mining. More precisely, mobile mining and resource gathering in general. I always wanted to make use of the MMBS and make it true to it's namesake, automated mobile mining with it's own small fleet of mining ships, but with the vanila game I failed miserably many times (and I can't get the Prospector script working). Is mobile mining getting revamped as well? Or more interesting resource gathering added instead of just building boring mining stations and leaving it at that?

Sounds and voice. I know that sounds and voices are low on the dev list, but will there be new stuff added to it? Such as the computer lady's speech identifying stations, ships, wares, sectors? Or will the new plot have new characters with spoken dialog or cutscenes with spoken lines, or just plain text everything? Voice adds a LOT to the immersion factor I think.

Also, music. I know there are some new tracks, but I theorized about a new feature: Space Radio. Much like in other sandbox games, like the GTA series, where you can switch to different stations and listen to pseudo-real radio broadcasts with actual DJs and talkshows. There could be different broadcasts in different sectors, like Teladi Business FM with some fake business news, Paranid Techno News or PDDC (Pirate Deathmetal Destruction Channel), or the regular chill, spaced out music. There could be different genres for each races. As much I LOVE the music in TC, to be honest, it gets boring after a few months of playtime, and it's generic, it doesn't really add to the immersion, it's just "stock" space music, what one would expect of a space game, but nothing really interesting.
Another thing related. For some time now, I play with the in-game music turned off and listening to Space Station Soma, an internet radio station (google it), it plays some excellent space music, almost exactly like the original in-game music in R and TC, it's awesome, always fresh and never gets dull or annoying. Granted, there are no music changes like fighting music or docking or whatever, but that's a trade-off well worth it. It would be an awesome feature to incorporate something like this, like having an online XTC radio playing when nothing really happens (optional, it needs internet connection after all), and turn to the fight music when the fun starts, etc. I know it's a pretty advanced feature, I'm just theorizing here

(Also, I'm also a fledgling composer, so if you want some more tunes for the mod, I'm willing to give it a shot if you are interested )

Mining: No, we didn't take care of that. We know, that the Vanilla Mobile Mining is not really good, but as Lucike's Prospector does a good job there, we didn't see a reason to script our own version. Try to get it running

Sounds and Voice: Music and voice do have a high priority, as they enhance the gamefeeling, but unfortunatly the Vanilla-soundfile is quite big (260MB) and could only be extended by us. Also it's very much work (if possibe at all) to get a voice sounding similar to the normal "Betty", so we didn't do this. Perhaps there will be some custom speech later
There will be plenty of new weapon-sounds and many new sector tracks.

Space Radio: Internet-connection is not available from inside the game and a space radio would be possible... but why spending cpu-time for an idea, which can be reached by using external sound-players? So we decided, not to do this, sorry

[Playbahnosh]

Mining: No, we didn't take care of that. We know, that the Vanilla Mobile Mining is not really good, but as Lucike's Prospector does a good job there, we didn't see a reason to script our own version. Try to get it running

Fair enough, but maybe you could incorporate the Prospector or a little reworked version in XTC maybe? I only ask because I don't think the Prospector would be compatible with that huge mod, it just changes too many things I guess. I'd love myself some mobile mining

Sounds and Voice: Music and voice do have a high priority, as they enhance the gamefeeling, but unfortunatly the Vanilla-soundfile is quite big (260MB) and could only be extended by us. Also it's very much work (if possibe at all) to get a voice sounding similar to the normal "Betty", so we didn't do this. Perhaps there will be some custom speech later
There will be plenty of new weapon-sounds and many new sector tracks.

I don't really care about weapons sounds, explosions or effects like that (blasphemy, I know) I'm more of a music loving person, but sounds and voice could make or brake a game IMHO. In TC we already have two kinds of "Betties", so I don't think a third one would be too much out of place Also, it's not really Betty I'm concerned about, rather the cutscenes and character voices. A plain text plot would be even more out of place than some missing Betty descriptions I think...

Space Radio: Internet-connection is not available from inside the game and a space radio would be possible... but why spending cpu-time for an idea, which can be reached by using external sound-players? So we decided, not to do this, sorry

It was just an idea. But the external media players also consume their fair share of CPU-time , possibly even more than the built in media system would. Also, it is already made to play dynamic music based on situations and sectors (which the external player cannot), it would only need some tweaking to make a GTA style radio. That type uses long mp3 files with complete, at times hour long broadcasts, a timer runs in the background (it's already present in TC) and it does not play the file from the beginning, rather start to play at the timeframe you switch to them (or enter the corresponding sector space for instance). It's not a complicated concept, but it would add a huge sense of immersion and would give the universe a more "organic", living-breathing feel. It's like the audio version of the BBS with some fake news and stuff, but it also plays cool music. I could be able to make such a radio station (the sound part, not the scripting) if needed. The audio could be compressed or downsampled to save disk space, it wouldn't be such a huge addition in terms or technicalities I think.

Also, how bout the music proposal?

[Trickmov]

Mining: No, we didn't take care of that. We know, that the Vanilla Mobile Mining is not really good, but as Lucike's Prospector does a good job there, we didn't see a reason to script our own version. Try to get it running

Fair enough, but maybe you could incorporate the Prospector or a little reworked version in XTC maybe? I only ask because I don't think the Prospector would be compatible with that huge mod, it just changes too many things I guess. I'd love myself some mobile mining

We are not responsible for Lucike's Prospector-script, but currently I don't see any reason, why it shouldn't run.

Sounds and Voice: Music and voice do have a high priority, as they enhance the gamefeeling, but unfortunatly the Vanilla-soundfile is quite big (260MB) and could only be extended by us. Also it's very much work (if possibe at all) to get a voice sounding similar to the normal "Betty", so we didn't do this. Perhaps there will be some custom speech later
There will be plenty of new weapon-sounds and many new sector tracks.

I don't really care about weapons sounds, explosions or effects like that (blasphemy, I know) I'm more of a music loving person, but sounds and voice could make or brake a game IMHO. In TC we already have two kinds of "Betties", so I don't think a third one would be too much out of place Also, it's not really Betty I'm concerned about, rather the cutscenes and character voices. A plain text plot would be even more out of place than some missing Betty descriptions I think...

There are other restrictions with that:
- including a new (emotionless) betty could be done with a computergenerated voice... but even then it would make problems with the filesize and many overworks of the generated voice would be necessary
- character voices need emotion, so a female speaker with a high quality microphone would be needed... that's out of our resources... also it would mean that we would have to do this for localized versions of the game, too.
- are you willing to wait another 6 months for that feature (yes, that's the time it would take to make it good)

Space Radio: Internet-connection is not available from inside the game and a space radio would be possible... but why spending cpu-time for an idea, which can be reached by using external sound-players? So we decided, not to do this, sorry

It was just an idea. But the external media players also consume their fair share of CPU-time , possibly even more than the built in media system would. Also, it is already made to play dynamic music based on situations and sectors (which the external player cannot), it would only need some tweaking to make a GTA style radio. That type uses long mp3 files with complete, at times hour long broadcasts, a timer runs in the background (it's already present in TC) and it does not play the file from the beginning, rather start to play at the timeframe you switch to them (or enter the corresponding sector space for instance). It's not a complicated concept, but it would add a huge sense of immersion and would give the universe a more "organic", living-breathing feel. It's like the audio version of the BBS with some fake news and stuff, but it also plays cool music. I could be able to make such a radio station (the sound part, not the scripting) if needed. The audio could be compressed or downsampled to save disk space, it wouldn't be such a huge addition in terms or technicalities I think.

With CPU-time I meant the inGame CPU-time... that's different from the system-CPU-time. Possible, that it would make fun to use that... but that's no discussion about it. We already decided in this way.
There are also some other restrictions in using/scripting, I don't want to specify now... it's by far not as easy as you think.
Also we are generally now at a point, where we try to get a working (releasable) version together, doing new stuff is not possible now... or you will have to wait longer for the mod.

Also, how bout the music proposal?

I hadn't answered that, because:
a) we already have a sound-expert
b) I can't decide for the team, if we are interested, we will PM you.

[Playbahnosh]

I see, so no new additions, understood.

But:

6 months for plot voiceovers? DAMN! Exactly how long are your cutscenes and missions briefings are?! A good voiceover job shouldn't take half a year, even if you are doing a long plot like all of TC's main plots combined. And I don't see how getting a good female voice with a mic is out of your league. Given the popularity of TC and this mod, it's as easy as posting an ad for voice talents in X forums, and I know there'll be volunteers. As for Betty, computer generated voice would work fine, pull some filters and compressors on that and you are set, it's not rocket science. Really, ANY voice would do wonders for the immersion, even a little amateur-ish voiceover is a LOT better than complete silence. It doesn't have to be absolutely, totally professional to be fun and entertaining, quite the opposite, sometimes the amateur work is more fun than the pro. But it's your mod, so I finish backseat driving now

I have complete faith in you guys, keep up the good work! And if you need my services, I'll be here.

[Aragon Speed]

Heh, one of my claims to fame is that way back in the day I came up with the name for the Otas M0 (Castrum). I suggested it, back when I was involved in a lore role in the old X-tended for Reunion.

And I named the Ollerus
*waves at Aragon*

*Waves back*

[ubica]

Thanks for radio tip PLaybahnosh. Just tried SomaFM and I like those tunes they broadcast. Makes really good background for internet surfing and such, but to be honest, when trying to incorporate it in X3 universe it just doesn't fit right. One should really have music that works well with current situation in game, thus enhancing overall experience.

[costi]

On the other hand, a big furball to the tune of some slow, classical piece is also kinda nice

[Playbahnosh]

Thanks for radio tip PLaybahnosh. Just tried SomaFM and I like those tunes they broadcast. Makes really good background for internet surfing and such, but to be honest, when trying to incorporate it in X3 universe it just doesn't fit right. One should really have music that works well with current situation in game, thus enhancing overall experience.

Yes, that's my problem also, that the external player can't handle dynamic music, too bad though. But Space Station Soma (the space channel in SomaFM) is just awesome for TC, it plays the same kind of music that's in the game most of the time, and I already found some pretty awesome bands I never knew existed, like Future Sounds of London, Vibrashpere, etc.

I wonder if the game could issue external commands outside of the game engine, like [OPEN something.pls] thus switching to a different radio station in Winamp for example, dynamically changing the music. Space Station Soma for general ambient music, some pounding DnB for fights, some eerie classical pieces for cap-ship battles (Thanks costi, I'll try that ) etc. I don't know if it's possible or if it's hardcoded (the game issuing SHELL commands in windows), but in theory it sounds awesome to me

[stemardue]

At the time, and to our knowledge, there is no possibility to have X games engine issue outer shell commands, so no, not possible to command a radio player, winamp or the like. And since we already covered widely the 'necessity' of new tracks in the mod, we won't develop that idea.

But it could be a suggestion for some other mod...

Please folks let's keep this thread focused on the XTC mod discussion.

[Playbahnosh]

At the time, and to our knowledge, there is no possibility to have X games engine issue outer shell commands, so no, not possible to command a radio player, winamp or the like. And since we already covered widely the 'necessity' of new tracks in the mod, we won't develop that idea.

But it could be a suggestion for some other mod...

Please folks let's keep this thread focused on the XTC mod discussion.

Thanks for the info. It seems I had too high hopes for the game engine then...

It seemed like a good idea though, heh, I need to lower my expectations, right? Well, carry on guys, I eagerly await XTC!

[Gavrushka]

From what I've pieced together from the trickle of information so far I don't think anything needs lowering - finding out something is impossible should merely be considered a reality check - but as for the rest it seems that TC has been poked. cajoled, threatened and reshaped in every single way it was possible to do so, and some it probably wasn't too!

It's a day closer to release and I, for one, will be taking an impromptu 2 or 3 days holiday when it comes out.

[unknown1]

hope we will have some "new" news about X-TC now that the easter holiday is comming

[Aragon Speed]

hope we will have some "new" news about X-TC now that the easter holiday is comming

How is this?
*Click Me*

[MadMan983]

ok that just wierd. you have too much spere time

[stemardue]

ok that just wierd. you have too much spere time

3 mins on photoshop not so much i'd say ^^