Xenon Cap ships look like Paranid designs.

[RAVEN.myst]

Would there be a design over function ... in machine intelligence it would be purely function and not designed to be menacing... otherwise that would indicate emotion or an understanding of it.

That was precisely my point - the evil-looking bug motif seems too emotive to me - the "ugly" and unstylish jagged J- and K-bricks of old speak to me more of emotionless functionality - just lump together the components that are needed, make sure they are not in each other's way, and presto!-Bob's-your-cross-dressing-auntie.

Then again, that *opinion* is, unavoidably, coloured by my own aesthetic and preconceptional predilections. After all, who knows, maybe the Xenon decided that, with all the mass-driven weaponry around, a smooth round hull gives the best chance of deflection, thus serving a defensive role (I suspect this may have been covered among the posts I skipped, being rather obvious.) Perhaps, somewhere deep in the uncharted (by organics!) void of space, there are some massive base-ships to which the new! rounder! Ks dock with their more vulnerable undersides, this leaving only the rounded and hard-looking shell-hulls outward, thereby also enhancing the base-ship's resilience.


Or maybe it simply helps them navigate asteroid fields with less bouncy-bouncy!

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Perhaps, somewhere deep in the uncharted (by organics!) void of space, there are some massive base-ships to which the new! rounder! Ks dock with their more vulnerable undersides, this leaving only the rounded and hard-looking shell-hulls outward, thereby also enhancing the base-ship's resilience.

Funny you should say that because the massive Xenon station in the DLCs (different to Maelstrom station, which are organic race-style) are composed of interesting bits in the middle and what seem like Xenon Is arranged around the outside, carapace-outward

[Killjaeden]

That was precisely my point - the evil-looking bug motif seems too emotive to me - the "ugly" and unstylish jagged J- and K-bricks of old speak to me more of emotionless functionality - just lump together the components that are needed, make sure they are not in each other's way, and presto!

ALso, their clunky boxy look suggests/ looks like modular builds that can quickly be exchanged / upgraded - like a motherboard^^

[RAVEN.myst]

Funny you should say that because the massive Xenon station in the DLCs (different to Maelstrom station, which are organic race-style) are composed of interesting bits in the middle and what seem like Xenon Is arranged around the outside, carapace-outward

Are we talking in the HoL DLC? If so, sweet! I look forward to finding that (I'm slow-rolling a plot playthrough, as is my usual MO, and my Empire Builder game is on the back burner - it may get abandoned altogether, as this time around, my campaign game is looking to be definitive [until next major update, lol!], and when I get to OL shortly that will tread on my EB's turf.)

ALso, their clunky boxy look suggests/ looks like modular builds that can quickly be exchanged / upgraded - like a motherboard^^

I like that reasoning - it does rather look that way, huh? Who needs a case anyhow! ^^ I also like the old (Threat/Reunion) style of Xenon stations - they looked unfinished at the ends, or rather, left open to expansion, more stuff to be added on an as-needed basis. That being said, the look introduced in TC is not bad at all, but the older variant looked more "computer-componenty" to me - and so spiky, careful no to touch!

[birdtable]

I will grudgingly accept that artistic flair has gone maybe a little to far over functionality with regard to the K and I but the I is still very menacing in design....
Myself I would prefer the return of the Q,, the weaponry on the K is to easily nullified leaving a dead mass to be destroyed,,, and stick a few khaak on the back of a P.......

[palm911]

it would make perfect Sense to have the old K and J back in the game,

move the actual K to Q, and leave the I as it is.

- i miss paranid and boron, but it looks to me, they got wiped out of the universe.

- map logic makes no sense either, HOL and OL are that close now Really?

- Teladi Design, horrible. (still wonders why they did not imported their old Ship Designs. it is better than the UFO type of ship (design really bad)

-about argon there is a huge gap between OL and Albion, being Both Argon , the ship designs tells otherwise. like being from two different species. whats in common, are they argon?

- no able to choose different load outs for my ships, there was more flexibility in previous games, it is black or white now, no weapon options at all.

don't get me wrong, i play the game, there are lots of really cool ideas behind X rebirths, some really well implemented, some others OK,. and some really bad.

sadly i think there are quite a few game decisions that were totally wrong. it is like playing a game in another universe, sadly some of those decision were really bad , (such as the graphic design of some of the ships) , if you look into rahanas, or the Taranis, or the Arawn, and compare to OL ships, you will notice that OL ships are far (design wise) behind the OL ships.

quite a few of those OL ships looks like Stations parts that got engines, and a bridge. (sorry for mentioning it)

- what happened with all of the trader ships ? (how come they did not use the old Trader ships such Mercury ?)

-what happened with the Titan, and other capital ship designs from previous games ?

- what happened with other races such as?

* boron
* Terran
* paranid
* Goners

What happened with all the ship designs (list too large to list)
- i see the Terran corvette, and the split Raptor in game. (meaning it should be possible to have ships from older games)

-hayabusa is now a combat corvette, in previous game was a terran Trade ship.

there are simply too many "What happened".

[strude]

also always keep in mind that machine evolution can come out in the weirdest ways... because the way which works best is chosen, even if counter-intuitive
Example from RL:
have a FPGA (Free Programmable Gate Array - simply said a small circuit board which can "execute" simple programs) and put randomly generated "progrmas" on it to create an oscillator. Mix & Match the best canidates, intoduce some random factor and do this over and over till you have the best oscillator that can be made from this Part - a Radio! (yep, it catched some random oscillation from nearby and amplified it - and the Program which kept watch over the evolution decided this is the best oscilator )

Or another example. The recent release of Microsoft's Tay AI on Twitter, that was supposed to learn by interacting with people. Within 24 hours, it had become a nazi whore that preferred PS4 over XBox.

[RAVEN.myst]

@palm911: Regarding the gate/map logic, it is actually totally covered in the lore - right from the start (or, at least, as early as X2/X3) the lore indicated that the positions of sectors relative to one another was unrelated to actual geography - adjacent sectors could be many light years apart, while others that were "far apart" might in fact be in the same solar system (the Terran sectors in TC/AP were an exception, but they weren't linked by gates.) The Rebirth story refers to the gate shutdown, and then the rearrangement or scrambling of the gate connections upon reactivation - in X3AP Albion's gate connected to Belt of Aguilar, not to DeVries, a fact referenced in conversation between Ren and Annoyisha.

Regarding the lack of ship design continuity, I totally agree with you. Also, while I absolutely love how the economy has been complicated in terms of the wares/goods dependencies, I absolutely DON'T love how they simplified the ships and weapons. I used to thoroughly enjoy the undertaking of equipping that first capital ship - scraping up the funds to buy the weapons (or go looking for them to be accidentally "dropped" ^^), and watching those slots slowly fill up, sometimes putting lesser weapons in those places temporarily. I used to enjoy figuring out where the stuff was being made, and making sure that production was uninterrupted: to that end, in X3AP I would make sure to supply the SSC Forges in Jupiter (a war zone, so it struggled to get supplied by NPCs) and Mars (cut off from the Terran resource economy by war sectors, thus never getting supplies without player help), or feeding FAA or CFA forges to make sure I'd have enough of those.

Also, the ability to choose unconventional weapon loadouts was most welcome, as opposed to the current "black or white" (as you put it) system, where there's only one option (because, really, not fitting a gun is NOT an option.) I also really miss specialised weapons, like the ion weapons and the mass drivers. Hmmm, typing all this is actually putting me in the mood to play some X3AP again, even though I'm currently in the middle of, and very much enjoying, a slow plot playthrough and exploration of new content in Rebirth...

[Lander1979]

I have completed the Beta of my Paranid Zeus Concept Mod using the Xenon I hull.

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I'm very happy with the results, and have uploaded it to the Scripts and Modding Forum for all to enjoy. I have seriously never had this much fun watching a cap ship attack things, this ship is gorgeous.

[Chris0132]

....
The argument is why the Xenon have a curved design for their ships?
Curves enforce a structure, make it stronger as well as in terms of speed and drag, allot faster as well.....

Which would be important, I guess, if drag was an issue in space. However, even on Earth with an atmosphere, the slowest airships are blimps, big roundish things, like the K. The fastest, and meanest, are thin, flat things with a very small profile when facing a target. Kinda more like the Xenon of old rather than the 'new breed'.

One could argue that drag is a very important consideration for ships in the X universe where 300m/s is considered fast for a spacecraft.

[jack775544]

One could argue that drag is a very important consideration for ships in the X universe where 300m/s is considered fast for a spacecraft.

Didn't you know, Space is an ocean

[Earth Ultimatum IV.]

I liked the Xenon designs in X1, in X2, in X3 as well and I like them now in XR too (with a few exceptions).

I can't really tell which ones I liked more, I'm simply fascinated by Xenon.
But one thing is sure to me, the P and Q in X3 were just terrible!
Also the Xenon M0 in Beyond the Frontier. It was completly off and didn't fit in with other xenon ships at all.

And don't get me started on the #deca, they must have designed it in a pretty drunk state

That being said, I love the Xenon M (known as N in Rebirth), P, S and K in XR. The i is fine, but its look doesn't correspond with what it is (it looks sleeky and speedy, should have been named "J" and should have been a carrier).
The K and J in X3 were a beauty. In X2, The L and K looked good.

To me, Xenon were always like ants. Hard working units without fear, building on a shared goal, with zero sign of selfishness. Living purely for the goal.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Xenon fighters are a bit bug-like.

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/sta ... 0710022209