X3TC / X3AP Patch 2015

[Nhatorama]

I haven't played X3 TC/AP in a long time, so I apologize if my memory is wonky.

From what I can remember, it is pretty much impossible to capture a Xenon ship unless using a full contingent (maybe multiple waves) of 5 star only marines, and even then you have to pray that it doesn't blow up as a result of internal damage caused by the internal skirmish.

Is it M1s or M2s that have the highest marine capacity of 40?
I understand that it's probably a headache trying to balance the attackers' and defenders' fighting strength when it comes to boarding, but only being able to insert up to a target ship's holding capacity seems wrong to me. It's as if I'm following some sort of Geneva convention that says I have to fight fair and can only send as many marines as the enemy is allowed to have on board. Come on!

I'd like to see boarding mechanics be changed to make capturing a ship possible through brute force. By brute force I mean sending wave after wave of marines and/or overwhelming numbers on the target ship .

Allow the player to send more marines on the target ship's deck (taking into consideration the ship's class/size. I don't expect to be able to pack them like sardines). Introduce an upkeep/garrison cost for marines, where the more experienced/skilled they are, the more they cost to have (acts as a deterrent to sending waves of marines to their death).

Allow ships to have additional marines/civilians on board by using additional Cargo Life Support (CLS) modules. These additional CLS modules take up a reasonable amount of cargo space, so one has to find a balance between space for additional marines, weapons (some capital weapons are pretty hefty), missiles, cargo, etc.

[X2-Illuminatus]

Is it M1s or M2s that have the highest marine capacity of 40?

No, TP ships have the highest marine capacity of 40. Capital ships (M1, M2, M7, TL) can transport up to 20 marines.

I'd like to see boarding mechanics be changed to make capturing a ship possible through brute force. By brute force I mean sending wave after wave of marines on the target ship.

You can already do that. As soon as a marine dies in a boarding operation, you can send in a new one. Also you can usually send in one more marine to board than the amount of marines the ship can actually carry. So for capital ships your initial boarding team can have up to 21 marines.

[AleksMain]

I haven't played X3 TC/AP in a long time, so I apologize if my memory is wonky.

From what I can remember, it is pretty much impossible to capture a Xenon ship unless using a full contingent (maybe multiple waves) of 5 star only marines, and even then you have to pray that it doesn't blow up as a result of internal damage caused by the internal skirmish...

Look for my post about boarding of Xenon I.

I used 30 of 5 star (or almost 5 star) marines (see screenshots). There were 2 waves of boarding pods total: 4 boarding pods, then yet 2 boarding pods.

2 marines had been killed outside Xenon ship, because of limited capacity of M2 (21 marine maximum during boarding operation).

Also all damage to Xenon ship had been caused by my own missiles only (to drop down shields of Xenon ship), because I used 5 star marines, which could not damage boarding ship.

[Nhatorama]

I'd like to see boarding mechanics be changed to make capturing a ship possible through brute force. By brute force I mean sending wave after wave of marines on the target ship.

You can already do that. As soon as a marine dies in a boarding operation, you can send in a new one. Also you can usually send in one more marine to board than the amount of marines the ship can actually carry. So for capital ships your initial boarding team can have up to 21 marines.

I should have added "and/or overwhelming numbers". I'm thinking of an attackers to defenders ratio of at least 3:1.

"Traditionally it is accepted that a defending force has a 3:1 advantage over an attacker. In other words, a defending force can hold off three times its own number of attackers."
Force concentration

Look for my post about boarding of Xenon I.

I used 30 of 5 star (or almost 5 star) marines (see screenshots). There were 2 waves of boarding pods total: 4 boarding pods, then yet 2 boarding pods.

2 marines had been killed outside Xenon ship, because of limited capacity of M2 (21 marine maximum during boarding operation).

Also all damage to Xenon ship had been caused by my own missiles only (to drop down shields of Xenon ship), because I used 5 star marines, which could not damage boarding ship.

Congrats on the capture! I have yet to capture a boardable Xenon ship .
As you've said though, you could only have a maximum of 21 marines on board at any one time. A minor tweak would be to allow the excess marines to wait on the exterior of the ship and have them automatically enter as soon as replacements are needed.

[Cycrow]

With Xenon Boarding its about the challenge. IF you could send in any number of marines to guarantee success, then it completely removes any challenge

[Cursed Ghost]

Tornadoes aren't corvette level though, several fighters can shoot these so I see their lack of guidance system a balancing factor.

I guess this is one area where we will have to agree to disagree given the destructive power of tornados they are clearly in the same league as a corvette level weapon and the fact that they can be used by a few fighters is irrelevant there are several fighters that can use hammerheads but that doesn’t change the fact that there pay load places them squarely in the anti capital category so trying to argue that Tornadoes aren’t a corvette level weapon is just silly

With regards to the changes to there tracking system this would be needed if they are to replace Tomahawks on the m8

Can't say I agree with much of what else you've written re missiles, sorry to say. You say there's missile spam but don't really set out to explain how your suggestions address/balance this apart from nerfing a whole load of stuff.

Well for a start most of the missiles are pointless since there are no factories that make them so you can’t buy them or make them your self therefore there completely redundant and should be removed to lessen confusion because there are simply too many missiles and frankly there is no need for it the game is complex enough even for a veteran X pilot that has been playing since the very first game in the series plus of all the different missiles in the game there are only a few that are actually useful anyway the rest are never or very rarely used which is yet another reason to prune them

Second since turrets shoot at missiles in ap single shot missiles are now completely useless and therefore should be upgrade to swarm having said this there is no need to do this since flails already do the job nicely therefore the simplest easiest thing to do is simply retire the obsolete missiles and replace with flails as I suggested because this addresses multiple points in one fix

Missile defences are very effective

In what universe is that exactly if missile defences where very effective then we would be having this discussion.

I hear you saying that too many ships use missiles now and some that do are overpowered. That may be true but there are real world parallels that make this a valid tactic and missiles are extremely overpowered.

Be that as it may this is one of them areas where reality and game play collide and for me personally the missile spam completely ruined AP and clearly I’m not the only one that thinks so just look round the web you will see no end of people complaining about getting spammed to death by missiles and personally I don’t find it amusing when I get spammed by so many missiles that even in a ship as tough as a Xenon I can’t survive legitimate real world parallel or not m7ms and m8s are completely overpowered

M8s particularly so there is no way in hell what is effectively a modified m3 should be able to take out an m2 much less from the other side of the sector therefore my suggestion for the m8 makes perfect sense because tornados are not as powerful and because they have no shielding they can be easily shot down making m8s far less overpowered because you have to fire may more warheads and the way tornadoes work there already perfectly designed as a salvo fire munitions which is exactly what I used them for in my Hyperion so again it makes perfect sense to replace tomahawks on m8s thus addressing one of the massively overpower units without completely removing them from the game.

With regards to m7ms the fact of the matter is there is no way to balance these end of story so they should be removed and the missiles barrage should simply be added to standard m7s in a massively nurfed form it still keeps the basic concept as part of the game but in a manor that’s not so overpowered that its in instant I win button.

There are many fighter/bombers in the real world (M8s) and full-on heavy bombers (M7Ms) and rarely are these expected to defend themselves. What the game lacks is a mechanic to achieve this effectively (protect commands etc. aren't great).

Be that as it may this is utterly irrelevant and serves only to unbalance the game to such a degree that it becomes effectively unplayable and frankly it is my opinion that it was utterly irresponsible of Egosoft to add m8s and m7ms in to the game without providing an equally effective countermeasure because frankly being able to program your turrets to shoot at missiles is in no way effective when you are facing multiple opponents as the player so often does

while the moz missile defence is a nice attempt at addressing this massive imbalance it fails catastrophically first and for most because it doesn’t have unlimited ammo having limited ammo is fine when it’s the player shooting missiles at the computer because the player doesn’t have unlimited missiles but when it’s the computer spamming the player with missiles limited ammo is a crippling weakness since the computer does have unlimited ammo and before you say it doesn’t try doing battle with Rapid Response Fleets

further more the moz missile defence system has the annoying habit of missing because moz missiles are so small and fast all the happen is that the moz missile goes in to orbit around the missile its supposed to be destroying therefore giving them proximity fusing and a small blast zone makes perfect sense and addresses this problem and again don’t try and say that it doesn’t happen because I’ve watched it happen as my Xenon I tries and fails to shoot down incoming firestorm torpedoes with moz missiles from the rear missile tubes.

if you fire a powerful missile at close range (<1km) you'll get your hair singed - fair enough

One problem with this if you fire say firestorms at anything less then point blank range it wont hit the target because its to slow and not armoured enough to get past the turrets resulting in instant death fair enough I think not

hence my point about removing them they are useless if you cant hit targets with them look I could accept from a salvo of a dozen firestorms loosing say 6 to the turrets counter fire the problem is when 1 goes the whole salvo goes and that’s assuming that you could even get 12 in the air at the same time give there slow rate of fire

the only way I see these having any use in game is if the blast wave didn’t destroy the rest of the salvo, the speed, manoeuvrability, armour and rate of fire was upgraded significantly which clearly is not going to happen as that is overpower as hell

either that of you make them a true WMD such that they are designed to be fired from a long distance way but detonate with a massive 20km blast zone like a nuke but again I cant see this happening because that’s is just as overpowered

hence my point about removing them and replacing them with Tomahawks these are less powerful yes but they are faster more manoeuvrable and have a faster rate of fire which actually make them better anti capital torpedoes then firestorms wraiths or hammerheads and unlike firestorms when 1 tomahawk gets shot down it doesn’t take out the whole salvo so again my suggestion actually makes perfect sense and since these would be limited to being fired by m7s and above they would be far less overpowered

M8 Bombers are sup'd up M3's - fair enough these are fighter bombers that have traded laser hard-points for missile tubes

fair enough - not when there firing munitions which should only be usable by m7s and above its not.

M8's are useless as only 1/16 torpedoes get through missile defences – not cool unless your target has forgotten to bring flak or PSG to the party M8's are pointless against anything other than a station. they were OP in TC but there's little point to them now and I'm at a loss to suggest how to address this so it's balanced

This is so inaccurate I don’t even know where to start I have seen RRF m8s take down entire fleets single handily while it is more common to see commonwealth m8s doing this to Terran fleets due to the slow rate of fire of Terran weapons

I have seen the Terran m8s do the same thing to commonwealth fleets but given that commonwealth ships have a faster rate of fire and the terran missiles are a bit slower its usually less effective then when commonwealth ships do it to the terran

NPC M7Ms spam flails at me on sight - fair enough why should this only be a tactic for the player? let's face it, you've probably been a very naughty boy/girl to get this type of reaction

Id like to know just how you are supposed to defend your self against this even a Springblossom fast as it is can’t escape that and this is exactly the sort of missile spam that I have massive issues with which is why m7ms should be removed

After reading your proposed changes for missiles I thought it would be interesting to see, until I got to #8. Because now all you proposed changes are rendered obsolete. You want to add an automated missile defence system which uses instant-hitting lasers which out-range even HEPT's? And it also fires at drones.

I can accept all your proposed changes except this one. It is far to powerful.

Not really since this is a low powered system the beams from this would be no more powerful than PACs obviously the power would need to be adjusted up or down slightly from this point until proper balance was achieved because if the beams are to strong then its going to take out the missiles to fast making it overpowered but if the beams are to weak then its not effective defeating the purpose but I think power wise around the same level of damage as PACs would be a good starting point

Therefore missile like Hammers/Tomahawks that have armour would need several hits each to destroy and as for flails while they don’t have armour and would be easier to shoot down the fact that they have an almost instantaneous re-fire rate would mitigate this as a flail storm could overwhelm even the most overpowered antimissile system

As for the range 2km isn’t overpowered and is actually the same as FAA which most people currently use for missile defence on there bigger ships so I don’t see this being OP

Don’t get me wrong there is always the potential that this could be hugely overpowered if it wasn’t balance right but that is what testing is for so you can get the right balance between range damage and re-fire rate

About the best analogy I can give you is it would be like equipping a number of PRGs turrets to ships in addition to the ships normal complement of turrets except these turrets would be exclusivity for missile and drone defence and thus would be handled by the ships computer.

And obviously the number of extra anti missile turrets you get would depend on the size of the ship the bigger the ship the more turrets that would be need to provide proper protection so fighters would only get say 2 top 1 and bottom 1 where as a ship like the Hyperion might get say 10 top 2 bottom 2 left 2 right and 2 back 2 and a ship like an m7 might get say 15 top 3 bottom 3 left 3 right and 3 back 3

While I understand why people would consider something like this as OP when you look at it objectively you quickly realise its nothing of the sort especially when all ships are now using swarm missile because the old obsolete single shot missiles have been retired as per my previous suggestion

I have to say, I disagree with every single point about missiles, pretty much. For one thing, such sweeping changes would fundamentally change the game, and I suspect to many players' dislike - I know that I would certainly have to come up with a way (software piracy, perhaps?) to avoid patching mine - I would HATE the changes you propose, they would ruin the game for me. Such major overhauls would find better traction in a mod, in my opinion - that would render them the totally voluntary optional conversion that they ought to be.

Oh I don’t doubt there would be some resistance to change but for the sake of playability there needs to be changes like this because the missile spam in AP is way over the top and needs to be fixed and m8s and m7ms need to be toned down big time because they are way overpowered and are an instant I win button that completely spoils the game.

while I don’t expect that everyone would like it this I think it would achieve the aim without causing to much disruption yes people would need to come up with some new tactics because they can no longer just press the instant I win button but in the long run its for the best and while I don’t expect that everyone will agree I am at the very least trying to be constructive by coming up with a coherent plan to deal with this problem, because I don’t think anyone would disagree that this is a problem.

Also with regards to:

I know that I would certainly have to come up with a way (software piracy, perhaps?) to avoid patching mine

No need for that just use the no steam patch I’m also pretty sure you can turn off steam updates as well.

Incidentally, M8s are no longer overpowered, not like they were in X3TC - hark back to the previous title, when a Claymore's Phantoms occupied 1 cargo unit each, and M8s fired EIGHT missiles at the same time - in AP they only fire 2 per salvo, which is a huge nerf already (and the poor Claymore gets double-nerfed, with its Phantoms putting on 5 cargo units' worth of weight, becoming the same size as Tommies, but slower moving.) I agree with Marvin in that M8s are, in fact, now too WEAK.

Even with that they are still overpowered there missiles are to powerful and they can fire them to quickly and there is no way a couple of m8s should be able to wipe out enter fleets single handed and if you don’t believe my just spend some time hanging around in the war sectors and watch while RRF m8s decimate entire enemy fleets single handily if that’s not the very definition of overpowered I don’t know what is

I also totally agree with the fact that the AI should also use missiles, not just reserve them as a win button for the player - I found it rather boring when there were all these cool ships and they don't use their whole point for existing (M8s and M7Ms), and other ships limiting themselves. And it still happens in AP, to a somewhat lesser extent - it's not uncommon to come across an M7M with no ammo, just sitting there (this used to happen ALL THE TIME in X3TC - final mission of Operation Final Fury, anyone? Two allied M7Ms in play that accomplish nothing more than being decoys - sometimes.) And yes, the armed missile selection AI could do with some improvement, as currently we are limited to specialising each of our "drone" ships with one type of missiles, lest the switch to hornet or spectres when engaging M5s

Oh I agree that the computer should use missiles just not to the extent that they are right now because its makes the game unplayable I cant count the number of times I’ve been killed not because the computer out piloted me and not because the computer massively out numbers me but purely because of the constant missile spam when I go in to combat in AP all I ever hear is missile lunch detected is missile lunch detected is missile lunch detected is missile lunch detected admittedly it’s worse with RRF ships as they all come fully armed with a compliment of missiles and they all seem to have there missile fire rate set at 100% so even a tough ship like a Hyperion will get plastered in a matter of seconds and that’s just with the missile spam from fighters

M8 are much worse I cant count the number of times I have been one shotted by m8s and what’s even more annoying is when you blow them up if you are anywhere within a 3km range you are instantly dead even in a ship as tough as a Hyperion because there missiles explode in your face meaning that if you want to take them out you have to do it with missiles which are never going to hit the target because they keep shooting them down I have seem me fire 30 silkworms at an m8s which should be more than enough to take them down yet I cant score a single hit

And as for M7Ms if you meet one of these and its hostile jump away immediately because not even an M2s with there 6GJ of shielding can stand up to one of these

What you describe here is the specific trade-off in the balancing of an M8 ship. These are not overpowered, because they are rather defenceless. They are great ships to use from a distance, especially against slower targets. But horrible in close distance combat. This is what balancing should achieve: trade-offs: you trade one (or more) good against one (or more) bad properties.

I’m curious you and others say m8s and not overpowered yet a couple of m8s are able to wipe out entire fleets from the other side of the sector single handily and I’ve actually seen exactly this happen when I’ve watched Terran and Commonwealth fleets face off against each other in the war sectors

So how is a pair of m8s wiping out entire fleets single handily from the other side of the sector not the very definition of overpowered as hell.

Look I get that m8s are vulnerable and I accept m8s are not as overpowered as they where but they aren’t even in the same galaxy as not overpowered

with regards to players specific issues using m8s that's probably down to not firing enough missiles close enough to the target piloting an m8 I can take down m2s in a matter of second by launching volleys of missiles from between 4 and 7 km far enough away they cant get me with FLAK, GIGS or M/AML but close enough that they have no hope of stopping my attack because I'm launching to many missile to close and they don't have enough time to take them out

generally I don't use this tactic though because it makes the game way to easy having an instant I WIN ! button and it leave me vulnerable to attack by fighters which is why I prefair using the Hyperion and Tornados

either that or I call in my Xenon I and typhoon them

[Honved]

Somehow, it sounds like the proposed cure would be worse than the problem.

Granted, something does need to be adjusted. Even in TC, I've been in situations where the missile launch warning triggered repeatedly to the point where I couldn't even begin to count how many missiles were being fired at me (it sounded like someone stuttering: M-m-m-missile L-l-l-l-launch), and there was no possible way to avoid them. We're talking on the order of 20-30 missiles fired from a distance of 2-4km in a span of around 5-10 seconds. At that point, how do you even begin to choose what to shoot at in the couple of seconds before they all hit?

[Graaf]

After reading your proposed changes for missiles I thought it would be interesting to see, until I got to #8. Because now all you proposed changes are rendered obsolete. You want to add an automated missile defence system which uses instant-hitting lasers which out-range even HEPT's? And it also fires at drones.

I can accept all your proposed changes except this one. It is far to powerful.

Not really since this is a low powered system the beams from this would be no more powerful than PACs obviously the power would need to be adjusted up or down slightly from this point until proper balance was achieved because if the beams are to strong then its going to take out the missiles to fast making it overpowered but if the beams are to weak then its not effective defeating the purpose but I think power wise around the same level of damage as PACs would be a good starting point

Therefore missile like Hammers/Tomahawks that have armour would need several hits each to destroy and as for flails while they don’t have armour and would be easier to shoot down the fact that they have an almost instantaneous re-fire rate would mitigate this as a flail storm could overwhelm even the most overpowered antimissile system

As for the range 2km isn’t overpowered and is actually the same as FAA which most people currently use for missile defence on there bigger ships so I don’t see this being OP

Don’t get me wrong there is always the potential that this could be hugely overpowered if it wasn’t balance right but that is what testing is for so you can get the right balance between range damage and re-fire rate

About the best analogy I can give you is it would be like equipping a number of PRGs turrets to ships in addition to the ships normal complement of turrets except these turrets would be exclusivity for missile and drone defence and thus would be handled by the ships computer.

And obviously the number of extra anti missile turrets you get would depend on the size of the ship the bigger the ship the more turrets that would be need to provide proper protection so fighters would only get say 2 top 1 and bottom 1 where as a ship like the Hyperion might get say 10 top 2 bottom 2 left 2 right and 2 back 2 and a ship like an m7 might get say 15 top 3 bottom 3 left 3 right and 3 back 3

While I understand why people would consider something like this as OP when you look at it objectively you quickly realise its nothing of the sort especially when all ships are now using swarm missile because the old obsolete single shot missiles have been retired as per my previous suggestion

In your original proposition you mentioned all ships, which does make the system overpowered. Now you mostly talk about turreted and capital ships.

But if you need an additional missile defence system along the Mosquito Missile Defence and Anti-Fighters Point Defence Turrets (set to missile defence), then I say you are doing something wrong.

[Cursed Ghost]

In your original proposition you mentioned all ships, which does make the system overpowered. Now you mostly talk about turreted and capital ships..

clearly there is a little confusion here so let me try and clarify

the way me idea would work is that you each ship would come equipped with the antimissile/drone system that system would add a number of point automated point defense turrets each of these point defense turrets would equipped with a beam laser which has a range of around 2km and the damage of this beam would be around that of PAC which i think is a reasonable starting point and then the range, damage, rate of fire etc can be tuned up or down from this point depending on test results

the point defense turrets that this system adds to a ship would be in addition to a ships normal turrets the difference however is that these point defense turrets would only shoot at missiles and drones the number of point defense turrets the system would add to the ship would depend on the size of the ship fighters being small craft would only need a couple where as big ships like the Xenon I for example would need many more to provide proper coverage or you could provide less point defense turrets but increase the range for bigger ships depending on which way you wanted to go and as with other countermeasures like the hull polarizing device this could be removed in the same way as other ships equipment.

the idea of this system is that it is supposed to work in conjunction with and as a back up for or replacement of the moz missile defense system while this doesn't have the range or power of the moz missile defense system it also doesn't suffer the crippling limitation of relying on ammo which means if you are up against a lot of missile fire as is the case when battling RRF ships or when invading enemy sectors you wont be left defenseless

it also bares pointing out here that this is supposed to be implemented in conjunction with me previous subjection for changes to missiles and the full implementation of drone frigates

for the sake of argument lets just say me idea with regards to missiles was adopted and lets also say that drone frigates get fully implemented

which means that now all fighters fire swarm missiles now lets say you run in to a pack of say 6 m3s a fairly common occurrence and normally not a problem for a decent pilot now let say that each of those 6 ships have 10 flails each each flail splits in to 8 warheads so that's 10 x 6 x 8 = 480 warheads coming at you

honestly how much ammo are you going to carry with you to defend against missiles when every pack of fighters you run in to is spamming you with over 400 warheads and flails are fast and agile so you can't out run them even in a quick ship like the springblossom so how are you going to defend your self when your ammo keeps running out in the middle of the fight and that is where my idea for an anti missile system comes in while it doesn't have quiet the range of the moz missile system nor is it as powerful it also doesn't suffer the issue of being left completely defenseless when you run out of ammo and because the point defense turrets are firing beams they are far less likely to miss making this system far more reliable.

if you need an additional missile defense system along the Mosquito Missile Defence and Anti-Fighters Point Defence Turrets (set to missile defense), then I say you are doing something wrong

with regards this all i have to say is you obviously haven't gone up again 4 m7ms at the same time i have and it is no laughing matter because these things can wipe out whole fleets of ships if given half a chance and m8s are just as bad if not worse because tomahawks are more powerful and when you blow up an m8 it usually detonates and one shots you I've had this happen to me on countless occasions and that is tremendously irritating and should be swiftly fixed

as for not needing extra missile defense well all i have to say is that obliviously have never tried invading a sector where you aren't allowed to go i have and it usually results a in a very swift and unceremonious end as multiple RRF m7ms and m8s jump in and barrage me to death with missiles also you must not have tried flying some of the new big ships like the Xenon I and the Kyoto because extra missile defense is indeed needed on these ships because there so big and slow and when using flak for missile defense the range is insufficient to fully cover the ship and more over i have watched the moz missile system fail to shot down incoming firestorms/tomahawks on countless occasions that's got nothing to do with me doing something wrong that's an issue with the game hence my suggestion about giving moz missile a small blast radius so they don't have to score direct hit to do there work

like I've already said the missile spam faced by players in AP is way over the top and completely overpowered and unbalance and there needs to be an effective counter to it or m7ms and m8s need to be removed for being completely overpowered

with regards to drone frigates these could potentially be worse then m7ms depending on how they are implemented since drones stick around for a while and a large numbers of fighter drones can bring down even capital ships so a proper counter to drone spam would also be needed otherwise M7Cs would be just as overpowered as M7Ms and m8s

I'm also of the opinion that Ego got hammers and tomahawks the wrong way round

[Ovni]

I'd like to see the return of the BBS News Articles, with hopefully new text not just the same recycled from X2. The game is really dry without that illusion of stuff happening in the universe. Now the only life is trade ships going around or military ships shooting each other.

To simplify the work you could look at what the galactic news network (name?) and X-tended mods did.

Of course, any change has to somehow break a minimum of mods. Most mod authors are inactive and I'd rather, say, still be able to install Xtended than getting a few minor tweaks to the game. Perhaps the new content can be modular so we can deactivate conflicting stuff. Otherwise the ability to play an older version on Steam would be appreciated.

[Honved]

I don't think I want to play Cursed Ghost's ideal version of the game. While some rebalancing would be a good thing, gutting the game mechanics to do something which I can't see ever working as intended seems like a disaster in the making.

[UnknownObject]

I'd like to see the return of the BBS News Articles, with hopefully new text not just the same recycled from X2. The game is really dry without that illusion of stuff happening in the universe. Now the only life is trade ships going around or military ships shooting each other.

To simplify the work you could look at what the galactic news network (name?) and X-tended mods did.

Information war, mutual accusation and slander in the news - it would make X3AP more atmospheric.
But BBS missions have already been replaced by "icon" missions, and if BBS has no useful information, a player would less often open it. Maybe, there could be announcements such as "[sectorname] is short of [resourcename]", "Danger! A Pirate/Xenon capship spotted in [sectorname]", etc. Or something more useful.

[Graaf]

Well, getting rid of the absurd lack of comm-range and implementing a system-wide BBS would be a good solution.

[Greenhorn]

good thoughts players i have one egosoft please, increase npc ship bailings and more loot droprate,Wreckage to scavenge to give more atmosphere life.increase terran mission jobs .More responses to player.when shooting ai ships.responses like;im coming after you/drop dead/can you scream in space?/this is your lucky day, ai ship withdrawing from battle.good day devs and players.

[Ovni]

Well, getting rid of the absurd lack of comm-range and implementing a system-wide BBS would be a good solution.

Personally immersion-wise I prefer the X2 way of having to dock at a station to consult the local sector's BBS. But what you suggest would work fine as well.

[Graaf]

Well, getting rid of the absurd lack of comm-range and implementing a system-wide BBS would be a good solution.

Personally immersion-wise I prefer the X2 way of having to dock at a station to consult the local sector's BBS. But what you suggest would work fine as well.

So do I. However X3 doesn't have internal docking.
The best way would be to have internal docking and system-wide BBS. But that is not a viable option for this patch.

[Ovni]

I'd like to see improvements to the ability to do stuff while in SETA. While going through huge sectors I want to target stuff and check out things along the way, but it's way to easy to disable SETA, by accidental mouse movement or some other commands. An option to leave it active unless you press a specific key would be perfect.

[Jimmy C]

Personally immersion-wise I prefer the X2 way of having to dock at a station to consult the local sector's BBS. But what you suggest would work fine as well.

I wouldn't have minded how it worked in X2... were it not for the fact that many missions required you to be piloting a specific ship type before you could accept the mission. As a result, I could only ever accept a fraction of the missions I would have liked to because it was usually impossible to get the correct ship type over to the station before the mission timed out.
In TC/AP, at least you had extra time to make preparations due to being able to com the station and seeing what missions were offered from 25km away and without docking.

[RAVEN.myst]

I don't think I want to play Cursed Ghost's ideal version of the game. While some rebalancing would be a good thing, gutting the game mechanics to do something which I can't see ever working as intended seems like a disaster in the making.

+1

On another topic: regarding the 25km comms range (which is obviously very silly in any sort of "realism" sense - but perhaps it's not about the physics, but about regulations/laws), I would like to see something a bit more interesting than the simple abolition of the range limit proposed by some folks - instead, I propose a system whereby a player's property objects could relay the signal - no range limit of comms to own ships (as is effectively already the case, including with hired TLs), but the current 25km radius applied both around the player-ship and the relaying object. Perhaps the types of objects able to carry out the relay could be limited - satellites certainly, and perhaps capital ships. Alternatively, other ships could also be allowed to act as relays depending on their scanner level. Ultimately, there could be a dedicated ship equipment item (purchaseable perhaps only from the "secret" installations, and a couple of other select locations, possibly) that enables relaying on the ship it's installed on - but I'm sure this would be beyond the scope of a mere patch. (Just thinking "out loud" here, as it were...)

[Morndenkainen]

I dont know if you guys are ever going to do another update, but if you do, PLEASE fix the pathing and collisions for the ships. I have to play a patched/MODDED version of the game because I kept loosing fighters due to collisions. It really sucks to start a new game, build up a fleet, and watch $100,000,000 worth of fighters explode trying to dock or go through a jump gate.