X4 - whispers....please please.

[Honved]

As delray and others have pointed out, the economy is in need of "completion". Having goods vanish down proverbial sinkholes (which we call "Trade Stations") and vanish from the game, because there is no actual "consumption" of many types of items, leaves an inherently one-sided economy. Having Shipyards use massive amounts of resources and sub-systems to complete new ships (which then get blown up) provides an alternative method, and a home for all of those exotic weapons the player generally either constructs or ferries resources for.

That whole mechanism could also ultimately allow one to "defeat" or marginalize various races or factions, by destroying or limiting the availability of resources, as well as taking out all of their Shipyards. It could still be extremely difficult to manage, particularly if some minimal supply of the required resources was generated "offboard" (at planets), so you couldn't actually wipe them out 100%, but could essentially remove their military presence in space.

Planets could essentially provide some amount of resources (brought from the surface to trade stations by re-entry capable landers), and would buy variable amounts of certain products (so there would still be some product "sinks", just less than in the current game), but not a lot of weapons and other ship-specific goods that would be used by the Shipyards.

I'd also like to see "secondary resources" affect the build speed of products, so they wouldn't be "essential", but would significantly speed up production if available, and slow it if not. A NPC-owned SPP (or player owned), for example, should be able to produce a trickle of E-cells without a supply of fresh Crystals, but would run at 3x or 4x the output with them. That way, the economy wouldn't stall completely for lack of E-cells if the chain breaks, but the E-cell supply would still be critical for any serious production.

The Space Suit Repair Laser, and other repair lasers, should require a small amount of Teladianium (for Commonwealth ships) or Hull Plating (for Terran ships), like 1 unit for 100 hull points, or else work at a fraction of normal speed without. That would make self-repair much cheaper than paying at a shipyard, but not free (unless you're flat broke, in which case it takes a long time to fix things without parts). Using a dedicated Engineering ship with (buyable) repair lasers could fix a damaged capital ship over time, but would consume materials to do so. Serious damage to internal systems could require Computer Components or other items to fix, rather than having them totally destroyed and removed from the game.

The only other issue I'd like to point out would be certain area-effect missile types, where the AI tends to launch them from point-blank range. The result is that either there's no time to knock them down, or else your rear turret hits the missile as it's launched and it explodes, so either way, the unavoidable explosion destroys both the target and the shooter. There REALLY shouldn't be that many suicidal killers out there, perfectly willing to blow themselves up to attack an enemy. Most of them are supposed to be Pirates, and there's no fortune to be had by blowing yourself up. Xenon I could understand doing it, by deactivating their self-preservation routines in order to accomplish an objective, but that should be a rare thing for sentient living beings.

[Triaxx2]

Arming time solves the missile problem largely. A 2-second delay is enough to stop most missiles from killing you if you launch them under fire, though the Hammerhead for example will still turn you into your component atoms.

[Timsup2nothin]

The Space Suit Repair Laser, and other repair lasers, should require a small amount of Teladianium (for Commonwealth ships) or Hull Plating (for Terran ships), like 1 unit for 100 hull points, or else work at a fraction of normal speed without. That would make self-repair much cheaper than paying at a shipyard, but not free (unless you're flat broke, in which case it takes a long time to fix things without parts). Using a dedicated Engineering ship with (buyable) repair lasers could fix a damaged capital ship over time, but would consume materials to do so. Serious damage to internal systems could require Computer Components or other items to fix, rather than having them totally destroyed and removed from the game.

I'd like to see this implemented based on damage. If a ship is a little dinged up, like maybe 20% damage or less, then a dude in a suit welding up the cracks makes some sense. And if that dude uses a scout craft of some kind with bigger and better welding units attached so he can work faster, great. But more than 20% damage should require some sort of docking at a repair facility.

[Snafu_X3]

Counter proposal: Docking fees. Fighters, sitting in dock, are basically charged rent. Downside, you can't just park your fighters in some random Free Argon Trading Station. Upside, it counts for NPC's who will pay you to park in your stations if they are waiting for cargo.

Both of these sound like really good ideas to me:[...] I would then expect the wear and tear factor to be non-trivial, though not cripplingly difficult

Agreed!

I like the docking fees notion, and particularly the even-handedness/fairness and plausibility of the fact that it would *cut both ways*, so while it would be something of a liability for the player early on, it could contribute toward a player's income later on. In fact, this notion could introduce a new dimension to station ownership: a trade station (or equivalent) could be made profitable (albeit modestly so) on its docking charges alone - picture current trade ports in X3: without active CLS2 or CAG involvement, if NPCs come and go trading wares, zero profit is made - however, docking fees (and also transaction charges/taxes, as a different concept) could then be the way to make the station profitable - and it sounds pretty plausible too: it's a service that traders pay for and that makes the administration's income.

Docking fees were a part of X2 IIRC (& maybe before, but I've not played them); they're certainly a useful mechanic to think about. Perhaps they could offer minimal ship repair as an option, with repair %age depending upon station type? So Trade Stations may be only able to repair (say) 20%, while EQDs might repair 50% (Shipyards, ofc, can repair to 100%)?

The Space Suit Repair Laser, and other repair lasers, should require a small amount of Teladianium (for Commonwealth ships) or Hull Plating (for Terran ships), like 1 unit for 100 hull points, or else work at a fraction of normal speed without

While a nice idea, this would require a space suit to have a suitable cargo slot (which could then be abused/gamed in numerous ways). Repair ships are much more appropriate IMO, & bordering on OP unless strict wep restrictions were in force (make them all Boron TS?)

@Timsup2nothin: Good point about factory/station running costs - it's often bothered me that a station flashing yellow is simply in a state of limbo

If dedicated repair ships make it into the game, repairing stations becomes viable..

[jorganos]

As someone who spends too much time spacewalking to patch up ships, I would love to see customizable space suits (like e.g. the speed-maxed marine suits, equippable with hand weapons, blasting charges, first aid kits and repair patches).

Equipping stations with non-dedicated public services like repair shops, small stores catering for the needs of station personnel etc. would be nice - Freelancer had its maybe slightly superfluous but nice to look at station interiors with local trader, bar, guild offices and repair shops.

Hiring personnel for ships and stations could be a roleplay element extending the "Think" aspect. To keep your personnel happy, you need to provide entertainment chips, luxury foods, and education (of dependents, too).

The problem of yellow blinking stations is one of perspective, I guess. In my story-telling, a basic habitat will provide basic (unappetizing) food along the lines of protein paste or carbo cake that will ensure survival but won't inspire the work force to do their jobs. That's what Cahoonas or MREs are for - the little bit of luxury that makes those workers productive. In the case of non-food foods (majaglit, rimes) or strange choices (massom for drones?)

I would love to see tech intermediate products reducing production time and primary resource consumption. Quantum tubes, microchips, computer modules and crystals should matter, especially in player-owned facilities. For ease of play, one may still manufacture everything on site from basic resources, but that individual manufacturing should be penalized by longer production times and greater basic resource consumption.

The "money for nothing but energy" concept for biologicals is something I would like to see addressed, too. In X3, Terran stations built by the AI consumed water. If they also collected recycling material from ship maintenance (like CO2 scrubbed from the pilot's atmosphere) or imported sources of carbon and water (like e.g. methane and oxides), this would feel a lot more realistic. Again, an "I don't care" mode using just energy cells (non-recyclable ones might provide the matter for the stuff mentioned earlier) should be possible, but penalized (or rather, dealing with the details should be rewarded). Dedicated personnel might be necessary to give these advantages.

Training and software: players should be able to hire instructors,engineers and programmers to produce ship upgrades or tunings or to train their personnel. This could easily be more expensive than using the services provided by the AI, but the cost could be offset by saving travel times.

Once personnel comes into play, consumption of non-weapon final products will close the gaping hole in the X economy that has only weapons and ships as final products. Consumer software, consumer luxuries (other than the all time favourite illegals), medical benefits (like e.g. rejuvenation benefits for the workforce) all could contribute to the productivity of the workers. Players who don't want to deal with this side of economy could hire indentured work force slaving off to pay off their debts, at lower efficiency rates but easily automatted.

Casinos, arenas and hospital ships would become an economic factor - by sending the workforce or flight personnel on R&R, their morale (and productivity) could be boosted. And providing such services can recoup these expenses, closing another hole in the X economy. Again, only as an option, the game should remain playable without attending to such details.

The roleplayer in me would get a kick out of managing my staff's loyalty and efficiency providing luxuries, and by offering such services to the AI factories could generate income, too.

[delray]

I'd do repairs similar to how healing was done in Jagged Alliance 2:

1. Ship takes hull damage in combat, or from usual wear and tear.
2. Ship is patched up by the crew and the marines on board (each ship should have some amount of materials stored for such immediate repairs) and can largely keep flying though malfunctions are possible.
3. Ship must still go to proper shipyard/HQ for servicing before it can be restored to its 100% reliability.

This of course assumes that ship's HP, and % of that HP that was "patched up" is also tied to how the systems on that ship work (or don't work). At the moment we only have a link between hull % and speed and that's not nearly enough.

[RAVEN.myst]

3. Ship must still go to proper shipyard/HQ for servicing before it can be restored to its 100% reliability.

This was tried in X Rebirth and proved to be nothing more than a nuisance, and eventually got patched out (thank God! And this is coming from a gaming-wise masochist, please understand )

[gbjbaanb]

I'd do repairs similar to how healing was done in Jagged Alliance 2:

1. Ship takes hull damage in combat, or from usual wear and tear.
2. Ship is patched up by the crew and the marines on board (each ship should have some amount of materials stored for such immediate repairs) and can largely keep flying though malfunctions are possible.
3. Ship must still go to proper shipyard/HQ for servicing before it can be restored to its 100% reliability.

This of course assumes that ship's HP, and % of that HP that was "patched up" is also tied to how the systems on that ship work (or don't work). At the moment we only have a link between hull % and speed and that's not nearly enough.

so all damage taken can be repaired by 50% by the crew, requiring docking and equipment (or new components) to repair the remaining 50%. Sounds fair, easy to implement after all - damage effectively gets recorded as repairable and unrepairable in equal measure. So the crew can weld bit together and hold bits with ducktape, but at some point they'll need to buy a new one.

Now, would you also have the same damage stats for components too? That scanner burst into sparks during combat and the bridge crew doused it in the fire extinguisher (like we see in many scifi battles on TV), and now its a bit on the blink. Similar to how engine speed varies according to damage (though I'd have engines as discrete components that take damage individually than just be part of the hull)

[jorganos]

There might be an easy fix for having to bring back damaged hulls to a repair facility - hull damage could and shoud damage the (current) tunings of a ship. (Overtunings could be protected by raising the individual tuning max of a vessel.)

That said, the player ought to be able to acquire facilities (whether on station or repair ships) that allow him to pour resources and manpower (i.e. money) into tuning or at least re-tuning his ships.

[Nanook]

3. Ship must still go to proper shipyard/HQ for servicing before it can be restored to its 100% reliability.

This was tried in X Rebirth and proved to be nothing more than a nuisance, and eventually got patched out (thank God! And this is coming from a gaming-wise masochist, please understand )

The main reason, I presume, that it got patched out was the inability to get a ship to a shipyard due to the NPC's building new ships and running out of supplies in the meantime. If the shipyards functioned more like in past games, i.e., no long queue to dock, then I'd be quite happy to have this feature. It makes more sense than having everything done shipboard, IMO.

[RAVEN.myst]

3. Ship must still go to proper shipyard/HQ for servicing before it can be restored to its 100% reliability.

This was tried in X Rebirth and proved to be nothing more than a nuisance, and eventually got patched out (thank God! And this is coming from a gaming-wise masochist, please understand )

The main reason, I presume, that it got patched out was the inability to get a ship to a shipyard due to the NPC's building new ships and running out of supplies in the meantime. If the shipyards functioned more like in past games, i.e., no long queue to dock, then I'd be quite happy to have this feature. It makes more sense than having everything done shipboard, IMO.

From a realism point of view, I completely agree. However, given the way ships are tasked, and particularly in light of how they are assigned superiors, interrupting their workflow in order to divert them to a shipyard is MOST undesirable - for me, it was never an issue of there not being an available dock (for in most regions except De Vries, there is ALWAYS an L-sized dock, as those come in pairs and never have I seen both be tied up by NPCs) - for me it was always the logistical inconvenience of diverting the ship, and the somewhat awkward interface for ordering it there (having had to first unassign it), then after waiting for it to arrive and be repaired, remember that it's now sitting idle (or, worse yet, now following me if I forgot to take it out my squad after unassigning it, since there is no "Assign new superior -> None" command, necessitating unassignment via player's squad), then having to assign it again through clumsy interface.

However, if there were controllable means to automate such behaviour, I wouldn't be opposed to it: set a threshold below which the ship's superior sends it a suitable nearby facility (which range should also be configurable), and for the repairs to come out of that superior's budget; also, the ability to completely disable this behaviour (simple to achieve through a low enough decision threshold, perhaps.) However, such an automated system would always have room for things to go horribly wrong - such as the ship being sent off for repairs while carrying a vital and/or highly valuable load in or out, perhaps stalling production in the process, or exposing itself to excessive risk, for example.

Overall, I really think that, while utterly unrealistic, having engineers repair to full is still the best option unless the system gets a major overhaul and an ingenious solution that hasn't presented itself so far. Then again, even "unrealistic" is, really, total bollocks if we simply assume that the repairs involve, say, nanotech or perhaps some form or semi-organic process - in that case, repairs to 100% on the fly are completely plausible, requiring perhaps only an adequate supply of raw materials and energy. To assert that repairs HAVE to be effected in dry-dock for all the various reasons presented merely restricts the scope of a science fiction premise to the limitations of our present technology - hardly a reasonable proposition.

[jorganos]

The obvious solution would be to offer repair modules as parts of stations/complexes or as service docks on carriers, eating up resources like HQ repair jobs do in X3.

Likewise for tunings - finally a way to dump all those tech products productively.

Wages for engineers etc. might be caught up with something like a company store that supplies leisure articles. And the company store might be opened for the public, too. (There migth be NSC stores that need to be stocked, too. And getting shares (that pay dividend rather than rise in stock) in casinos, hospitals, arenas...)

[Dreez]

To all you who wants the capitalships to take all kinds of damage from comba, you need to consider this,
the AI is too stupid to avoid damage, it just goes face first into volleys of enemy fire and doesn't dodge it,
as can be seen in X3:TC when carrier-fighters would fly straight into enemy PPC, IBL, Gauss and get instantly melted... costing
more money then the missions paid out.
Another example is during Very hard missions in X3 when they start spawning M2's,
the AI just sits there and has a sluggingmatch, taking a facefull of damage,
which is why it's best to take direct controll over the owned capitalship so you can actually dodge
most of the incoming damage, otherwise the cost of the damage done will
easily overshadow the payout for the mission.

So if the capitalships in this new X4 will take hull and component damage from enemy fire even with shields up,
then either the AI needs to be some kind of miracle, or no player is going to let the AI pilot them.

Just something to think about .

[Honved]

The problem with making hull repairs require down time at a shipyard means that as fleets grow, you start to have to micromanage fleet movements both to and from shipyards for repairs.

I'd much rather see a maintenance ship type with a repair beam, that takes hours to fix up a capital ship, and uses some consumables in the process, but doesn't require sending portions of the fleet off for the work. Making the suit laser use consumables might be another plus, but as said, either it needs a dedicated "repair parts" slot, or else it becomes abusable.

The repair ship could alternatively latch onto the target, forming a sealed work environment. Repair crews would then be able to do whatever they could have done at a shipyard. Basically, you give the repair ship a target, it latches on, and then both are essentially out of action for a few minutes or several hours, maybe even up to a day or so for an M1 or M2, depending on the amount of damage points. If necessary, you stop repairs and move the ships if something hostile shows up.

The repair rate needs to be gradual enough to make it worthless while actually in combat, so you can't park a repair ship behind your fleet to patch them up while they're still taking damage.

We already have Hull Plating and Teladianium in the game, why not use them for something constructive?

[RAVEN.myst]

To all you who wants the capitalships to take all kinds of damage from comba, you need to consider this,
the AI is too stupid to avoid damage, it just goes face first into volleys of enemy fire and doesn't dodge it,

This is true - and yet what is also true is that it needn't be. I for one, am very much hoping for vastly improved bahaviour of AI-controlled ships in combat in the next title - I can honestly say that I wouldn't consider anything less acceptable, and I think this ought to be considered a top priority in X4's development. As far as I'm concerned, (EgoSoft) please don't spend time polishing the knobs until the underlying mechanisms are sound. Graphics and such cosmetic elements are incidental to the core mechanics and interactions (in my opinion, anyhow.)

[Triaxx2]

I still feel that shipyards should repair instantly. Other methods take time and material, but shipyards, you're shelling out cash, both for materials and for it to be an absolute, drop everything, rush job. Someone parks their capital ship, walks up to the desk and drops the entire quote for repairs, everyone else is suddenly at the back of the line. Even if it's Ban Danna ahead, if he's still shaking loose change out of senators, he's now second fiddle to Paid in Full.

[Nanook]

....
However, if there were controllable means to automate such behaviour, I wouldn't be opposed to it...

Ah, you mean like even the 'dumb' AI in TC and AP.

I feel that requiring a ship to be repaired at some sort of repair dock should be a necessary part of the gameplay. If the player is willing to send their ships into certain danger, they should accept that some of those ships may be out of commission for a while. It should NOT be easy to get a capital ship back in full working order. It should be costly and a bit painful, forcing the player to think twice about the orders they're giving their ships. You know, kinda like real life.

[Dreez]

It should NOT be easy to get a capital ship back in full working order. It should be costly and a bit painful, forcing the player to think twice about the orders they're giving their ships. You know, kinda like real life.

I already think twice before sending my capitals into a mission, because i know the AI's too stupid for any missions involving killing M2/M1s
without taking a severe beating from facetanking enemyfire.

More often then not i will personally pilot my M2 during those missions.

If anythingi i would say the entire crew of a capitalship could work like boardingmarines does in X3,
with rankingsystem. Higher ranks means better piloting, better shooting, better engineering/mechanics.

I would vote for a system like that. Makes it important to actually keep a ship and it's crew alive, sending it to many missions to get experience.

/thumbs up.

[jlehtone]

If anythingi i would say the entire crew of a capitalship could work like boardingmarines does in X3, with rankingsystem. Higher ranks means better piloting, better shooting, better engineering/mechanics.

That is easy. The unmodified AI is the top rank (100%). All lower ranks make it worse. For example, 50% crew misses twice as many shots as the 100% crew.

It only takes the smart AI to start with ...

[RAVEN.myst]

You know, kinda like real life.

I'm afraid I have to refer you back to something I said earlier:

Then again, even "unrealistic" is, really, total bollocks if we simply assume that the repairs involve, say, nanotech or perhaps some form or semi-organic process - in that case, repairs to 100% on the fly are completely plausible, requiring perhaps only an adequate supply of raw materials and energy. To assert that repairs HAVE to be effected in dry-dock for all the various reasons presented merely restricts the scope of a science fiction premise to the limitations of our present technology - hardly a reasonable proposition.

Ie. I really don't think that the notion of "real life" applies in the least here, or at least necessarily NEEDS to (I suppose it *can*, but only optionally.)