Trade and resource extraction in X Rebirth presented in a new video

[Artean]

This looks seriously awesome! This video did NOTHING to calm my hype for Rebirth.

[GebürtigerTerraner]

So i was right.I didn't expect that myself.

[Dupin]

I think he's talking about how the police ship suddenly exits stage left at the speed of light........

Exactly.

[Sam97531]

Of course the Albion has to maneuver better than any previous game's M5! We have one ship - so it has be borderline unbelievable for those people who want to have space dogfights for example...

At least, until some expansion allows for new ships and then... does what? Nerf the Albion? hah!

[Chris0132]

Bernd says several times that things can be done by the ai.If he doesn't say that it can be completely automatic i assume it is not possible. Don't you think that if it is possible he would have said it?It is not like it would take another tne minutes to say "you can tell the pilot to find good offers himself".

What I showed in the video is manual trading. The alternative to this is to assign ships to a station that you own. Then you give up control over manually giving orders to the ship and instead this ship will work for the station manager. This however is not trading anymore but operating a player owned station and not covered in this video.

So are stations like, command and control facilities for ships now?

So even if a station doesn't have anything to do with the ships you assign it, you could give it a ship and tell the station to use that ship for trading, or use it to patrol an area or something?

That'd be cool if so.

The key difference is that GTA traffic didn't do anything. It was a free loot RNG with less permanence than a 2 year old.

One of the important things about X is that just about every ship has some sort of function. Even the civilian ships moved NPCs around, putting up trades on the BBS system (which was really easy to forget about). Other transports could move marines or small amounts of goods, ultimately "busy work" and "magic demand" stuff, but still tasks that shaped the game world.

It is still the same, those filler ships are the ones that do that, but now in a orderly fashion, you still have lots of ships that operate with full AI, security forces, traders, drones etc.. By separating the amount of AI each ship has, you can increase massively the number of them without taxing the game engine too much.

You have to notice that there are two kinds of traffic on the videos, local traffic (the filler ships) and free traffic (scanning drones, fighters, and big trade ships).

Actually from watching the other videos the little streams of ships are (sometimes, at least) moving goods around. That's how you move stuff from a capship to a station for example.

It might well be that blowing them up would be like sort of shooting a hole in a pipe, disrupting the flow of stuff around the station.

[RichardDaborn]

One thing that I do have a concern about is the NPCs you interact with look well... dull. Thunderbirds puppets have more character to them. However I am only going by the footage released and the NPC's looks a little sterile and vacant to me.

Also do we have to get up and physically walk to see a client on a station or even your own crew? First few times will be fun, after 20 times Kirk never had this problem with Scotty. Press button on the Capt. chair and you have all the interactivity you need.

[Graaf]

You never wanted crews for your ships in X?

Way back in X2 it was requested by the playerbase to fill our capital cockpits with visible crews. But when Reunion was launched, we lost all cockpits. That was 7 years ago. So now, after almost 10 years playing X-games, I don’t need crews.

Or ship subsystems?

Especially targetable sybsystems, yes.

Or environments more complex than boxes with gates?

Now that you mention it, the boxed environment is the most logical layout there is. Having all the stations inside the box was convenient. But if Egosoft had placed all stations outside that box, then everyone would be calling it inconvenient and it would take to long to travel there…moan, moan, etc

Or interaction more than a menu (and not even a bulletin board in x3tc)?

First part is strange to hear, in this “always online smartphone age”. Second part could have been added as a seperate request in the comms menu.
But a better question: will the BBS be back?

Or an economy where things actually happen?

GOD is still removing stations due to a bad economy. Prices are going up and down due to supply and demand. And they can add numerous variations to the formula, but the base is still: Supply and Demand.
With less then 1 ingame day my current game has a “working” economy…no shortages in food, energy or minerals. All supply and hardly any demand…awaiting the market crash.

I really like the X games but there have always been massive flaws (which aren't excused by competing games being so simplistic). Autopilot is awful, nonsense cludges abound like seta, cargo compression, docking computer etc. Factions never felt right especially pirates... list goes on.

Autopilot isn’t that bad. Most times it comes down to too many variables to keep track off. When AI starts to act perfect, we are in trouble.
SETA: no-one is forcing you to use it. Its the first thing to eject from the ship…still stuck with Betty…
Docking Computer: same as SETA, but it does come in handy when you’re running out of time.


However, thus far nothing was shown to convince me to buy the game.

[Alci]

Now that you mention it, the boxed environment is the most logical layout there is. Having all the stations inside the box was convenient. But if Egosoft had placed all stations outside that box, then everyone would be calling it inconvenient and it would take to long to travel there…moan, moan, etc

this is short view. Not boxed environment doesn't mean boxed with everything outside. Elite 2 made the best model that could be done in space games. That was model that should have been followed to some degree in all games. X games has the worst case shown. EVE is somewhere in between. And all three work "well" on their own without moaning.

And my dream is having Elite 2 universe model with EVE map and EVE warp drive mechanics.

[CutterJohn1]

this is short view. Not boxed environment doesn't mean boxed with everything outside. Elite 2 made the best model that could be done in space games. That was model that should have been followed to some degree in all games. X games has the worst case shown. EVE is somewhere in between. And all three work "well" on their own without moaning.

And my dream is having Elite 2 universe model with EVE map and EVE warp drive mechanics.

I found Independence War 2 warp mechanics to be niftier. You would actually path around celestial bodies...

It also allowed for free warp, was throttleable, and had a very nifty interdiction missile that would warp after targets, drop them out of warp, and throw up a beacon for you to warp to.

But I totally agree.. Xs economy and empire building in a realistic solar system environment would be spectacular. I don't get why they want to encourage so much traffic congestion... The magic of space is sitting there mining a rock and knowing there isn't another soul for a billion km.

Just give me a decent map and long range sensors so I can see all the ships flying around the system real time, like X3s map, and fly after targets if I wish.

[Shootist]

How did that police ship suddenly engage warp factor 9?

Are there finally warp drives in the game????

Boost drive.

[Shootist]

I found Independence War 2 warp mechanics to be niftier. You would actually path around celestial bodies...

And I liked Sid Meyer's Railroad Tycoon, but it is obsolete, just like IW2.

[CutterJohn1]

this is short view. Not boxed environment doesn't mean boxed with everything outside. Elite 2 made the best model that could be done in space games. That was model that should have been followed to some degree in all games. X games has the worst case shown. EVE is somewhere in between. And all three work "well" on their own without moaning.

And my dream is having Elite 2 universe model with EVE map and EVE warp drive mechanics.

I found Independence War 2 warp mechanics to be niftier. You would actually path around celestial bodies...

It also allowed for free warp, was throttleable, and had a very nifty interdiction missile that would warp after targets, drop them out of warp, and throw up a beacon for you to warp to.

But I totally agree.. Xs economy and empire building in a realistic solar system environment would be spectacular. I don't get why they want to encourage so much traffic congestion... The magic of space is sitting there mining a rock and knowing there isn't another soul for a billion km.

Just give me a decent map and long range sensors so I can see all the ships flying around the system real time, like X3s map, and fly after targets if I wish.

[Mike2988]

hmm from video it said it takes time when u give the order to a ship and that ship takes like 10 mins to receive the orders i dont think they are using radio waves to be that slow

[Bobucles]

You misheard. He said that the cargo ships would take 10-20'ish minutes to complete the order, as it takes physical time to reach a station and load/unload goods one crate at a time. Such orders could be queued up to keep them busy for a long time.

[Ulfarus]

Well I thought the one ship thing was the only reason to not buy this game, how wrong was I.

The trading looks rubbish.

Item trading I have to go find some stiff who is sat in a station. Do we not have phones or advanced communications any more in the X universe.

Commodity trading, well I used to like flying a space truck. That avenue of game play is gone. The whole searching outside stations for offers, erm same as above the whole point of advanced communications.

I would expect a space station to have a bulletin board with post from multiple traders.

What next we have to use carrier pigeon for ship to ship communication.

As for having crew, nope never wanted this they just get annoying as they break immersion as they never look real enough, also didn't want to be able to walk around my ship again just tedious. Also cockpits can they be optional, I actually prefer just a hud not some rubbish cockpit.

[jasonbarron]

@Ulfarus

In my business (moderately large construction contractor) I have a smart phone jammed full of contacts for various products/services that I can call at a moments notice when in need...but I also had to do a lot of research and personally meet face to face with a lot of people before I was able to load up my phone book with useful contacts as it were. Without doing some legwork, how is a business man supposed to know who to call in the first place?

[Bazza]

I found Independence War 2 warp mechanics to be niftier. You would actually path around celestial bodies...

It also allowed for free warp, was throttleable, and had a very nifty interdiction missile that would warp after targets, drop them out of warp, and throw up a beacon for you to warp to.

Yep, completely agree. It was a great setup and allowed to to take advantage of both manual flight and easier computer assisted flight. They also did a great job with the inertial force feedback on the joystick too.

[nap_rz]

distance : 0G - 0J

[pjknibbs]

And I liked Sid Meyer's Railroad Tycoon, but it is obsolete, just like IW2.

How can a game concept be obsolete? I'd have no problem at all with Egosoft nicking the best ideas from such "obsolete" titles as Freelancer, Independence War 2, Escape Velocity: Nova and Freespace 2...

[stilgarpl]

distance : 0G - 0J

0 gates, 0 jumps, it means it's in the same zone.