is it me or X4 modding community is dying?

[Warnoise]

We are almost 2 years from release, and there are still like 3~4 big mods by the same 2 or 3 people.

After split DLC the playerbase has increaed so i was expecting a big surge in mods, but no.

Always the same 7 or 8 modders who keep popping content (god bless them).

Is there something happening that I am not aware about? I remember X3 modding community used to be waaaay bigger than x4

[Shuulo]

i dont believe its dying, there was a wave of mods when 3.0 released and its just calmed down a bit.
Modders still work on their projects, minor ones were released, major ones are just in development, so there is a gap.

[Scoob]

While I don't think it's dying - there are still some pretty active modders around (one above) - I have noticed that a number of the mods I use and love have gone a little quiet. I.e. the creator hasn't been around or posted for a while. Of course their reasons are there own, whatever they may be, but it'd be a shame if these mods were to die.

The one I'm currently most concerned about is the excellent Better Piracy. The creator was very active and responsive to user posts but seems to have vanished. I hope all is well with them. There are other mods I use like this, but I don't want to go listing them all.

Still, if it weren't for COVID-19 and spending more time at home, I expect I'd hardly be on the computer if the sun is shining... Traditionally my PC's gather dust during the summer months through disuse, though things have been a little different of late.

Scoob.

[Perkel]

Blame Egosoft insane push for FPP module which basically complicated everything for everyone, for modders, for Egosoft and for community. They learned lesson with X-rebirth but they didn't seem full understand that lesson.

If FPP wasn't present, stuff like adding ships would be easy, AI would be much simpler and so on.

It is great to see your ships in FPP or sit in cockpit but if you primary faction has like 7 ships total then obviously cost for FPP was not worth it.

I still think that Ego sits on fence and doesn't really know what to do with their X series.

I really hope for X5 they will finally say goodbye to X-Rebirth and they will remove FPP. FPP makes sense when you have resources for it not when you run on shoestring budget and you try to make space game at the same time.

[Zeron-mk7]

It's my thoughts about X4 modding:
I thin X4 modding community is not dying, it is almost dead. Even in the Russian game forum, X4 modding section is almost dead (there also has only few active modmakers), no big mods in developing, no one to interested to make big mods or even new mods.
X4 modding are too complicated, in X2/X3 modding was billion times easiest and there was normal modding tools, like X2/X3 editor and DBOX 2, therefore modding was quite easy and with these tools it was very easy to create new mods and therefore there was so many mods for X2/X3.
In X4 modding you need to do everything manually or using command line tools or other tools, that has too complicated and very time spending.
Egosoft worked on the new game engine more than 10 years, as far I remember and still working on it (X4) and not released any modding tools (except mod manager) to make modding much easiest.
Egosoft know that X4 has very complicated for modding, but they nothing to do, to make modmakers life easest and therefore we get such result, that only few active modmakers are still here.

In my opinion, if Egosoft not released new modding tools, then X4 modding will be no future, it will dead after some time, sooner than it was for X2 or X3.

[Shuulo]

It's my thoughts about X4 modding:

i quite disagree on this, modding in X4 is way easier due to XML, way simpler to debug and make mods compatible one with another, that was never the case in X3. I was never able to get into X3 modding, but X4 is much easier for me.
And there ARE good tools for modding, like SirNukes tools are very powerful, but i didnt even seen mention of them in russian community (elite games etc) as it tends to sit in its own seashell as always.

On 3.0 release few months ago when many major mods were about to see the world modding discord was extremely active, and it is such from time to time now as well. As for russian community - its X4 part was dead from the start IMO

My real though on this is when X3 was around there were almost 0 games like this and most people interested played X3, right now the market has numerous space games with modding support and taking into account the buggy nature of X4 pre-3.0 many people tried it once and never came back as there are many other options on the market, there was no such thing in X3 days.

[adeine]

I think there are three big roadblocks that have helped keep X4 from having a thriving modding community:

- The game actively discourages people from playing modded with being permanently locked out of ventures (and the promise to be locked out of more and more content as this side of the game is more developed).

- The game's core gameplay loop is still broken enough that there are major changes with each main release. Little point in spending hundreds of hours developing mods when the next version of the game is going to completely upend all your work. Similarly, not much point in attempting to make big mods when fundamental parts of the game don't work properly (like when IS/OOS was completely broken, no way of balancing gameplay).

- Any of the ways to add meaningful content to the game are either very poorly documented or very complicated. A good example would be collision meshes, etc. There's a reason we haven't seen new station modules, cockpits, let alone docking areas.

[Mr.Freud]

The game needs more content and more/better/expanded features. If the game becomes bigger in every sense then people will be more interested and will stay in it for longer and then we'll see more/bigger/better mods which will prolong the games lifespan even more. If not for mods such as VRO, FE, FOCW - I personally would stop playing the game long ago. IMO right now 50% of playerbase is still there only thx to mods. IMO vanilla is too small and lacks content to keep players occupied/interested for long.

[Drewgamer]

Blame Egosoft insane push for FPP module which basically complicated everything for everyone, for modders, for Egosoft and for community. They learned lesson with X-rebirth but they didn't seem full understand that lesson.

If FPP wasn't present, stuff like adding ships would be easy, AI would be much simpler and so on.

It is great to see your ships in FPP or sit in cockpit but if you primary faction has like 7 ships total then obviously cost for FPP was not worth it.

I still think that Ego sits on fence and doesn't really know what to do with their X series.

I really hope for X5 they will finally say goodbye to X-Rebirth and they will remove FPP. FPP makes sense when you have resources for it not when you run on shoestring budget and you try to make space game at the same time.

While I agree that First Person (I'm assuming FPP = First Person Perspective) makes creating new assets a lot more tedious, I don't think it was the wrong decision.

Having first person was one of the huge driving factors drawing me towards this game in the first place. I personally hope Ego continues with the first person perspective for the next game, but of course tools to help facilitate working with the interior spaces and ships would be a plus

With everything added since release, this is my favorite X game by far.

[BrummBear02]

- Any of the ways to add meaningful content to the game are either very poorly documented or very complicated. A good example would be collision meshes, etc. There's a reason we haven't seen new station modules, cockpits, let alone docking areas.

we can do all that. its just that nobody wants to do it/is interested in it.

[facc00]

While I agree that First Person (I'm assuming FPP = First Person Perspective) makes creating new assets a lot more tedious, I don't think it was the wrong decision.

Having first person was one of the huge driving factors drawing me towards this game in the first place. I personally hope Ego continues with the first person perspective for the next game, but of course tools to help facilitate working with the interior spaces and ships would be a plus

With everything added since release, this is my favorite X game by far.

I agree the FPP is what makes this game standout. It needs more things on the FPP level but as it stands the game is great.

Alot of games hit 1.0 and become abandonware, or in paradoxs money scheme become content locked behind money. However the content isnt great, 5 bucks for a red shirt, 5 bucks for a green shirt and so on.

This game still has issues and some may be the person sitting their playing the game ie hardware issue or the game has a bug itself. But have you been active on the forum or the devs with a savefile to have said issue fixed or did you alt F4 to desktop and proceed to trash the game because you didnt troubleshoot?

[StopBanningMe7_III]

XML might be easier to implement and generally more expressive, but I just can't get past the disgusting verbosity of it all. It looks awful and writing it is the worst kind of chore. The model that's used doesn't allow basic concepts like subroutines so code duplication is rampant. I just hate, hate, hate it all.

I might be the only one though. I wrote a translator a while back to convert the XML code to something I find more readable and exactly nobody cared.

[Scoob]

XML might be easier to implement and generally more expressive, but I just can't get past the disgusting verbosity of it all. It looks awful and writing it is the worst kind of chore. The model that's used doesn't allow basic concepts like subroutines so code duplication is rampant. I just hate, hate, hate it all.

I might be the only one though. I wrote a translator a while back to convert the XML code to something I find more readable and exactly nobody cared.

I must admit, despite being a web developers for years, I find working with XML pretty horrible lol. That said, the old scripting language used previously was pretty horrible too. While I regularly tinkered in the past, making various little mods for myself, I've doe nothing in X4 and did very little in Rebirth.

Scoob.

[BlackRain]

The scripting/coding in X4 is way easier than X3. I don’t see how anyone can say differently. I could understand being more familiar/comfortable though. It may be more difficult to add ships and such though, not sure on that end.

I think that the main issue is that the people who made mods for X3 are just older now, like myself. I have spent some time modding because I may have a bit more free time than others during the summer but soon I will be busy again. I had more time when Rebirth was around because that is many years ago now and things were different for me then. I was even younger obviously when X3 was new and i did a little dabbling then. The point I am trying to make is that those who were willing to mod got older and the younger players don’t seem to be interested in modding and this is a niche game.

[facc00]

The scripting/coding in X4 is way easier than X3. I don’t see how anyone can say differently. I could understand being more familiar/comfortable though. It may be more difficult to add ships and such though, not sure on that end.

I think that the main issue is that the people who made mods for X3 are just older now, like myself. I have spent some time modding because I may have a bit more free time than others during the summer but soon I will be busy again. I had more time when Rebirth was around because that is many years ago now and things were different for me then. I was even younger obviously when X3 was new and i did a little dabbling then. The point I am trying to make is that those who were willing to mod got older and the younger players don’t seem to be interested in modding and this is a niche game.

I really do wish I could mod. I can install,troubleshoot, ect them all day but, whenever I goto make one. I get all the needed programs make a nice folder and then Im lost. This is for alot of games I play.
I wanted to make a simple mod for this game way back when egosoft released a orange cursor mod and I wanted to take that and give an option for more colors, or a single mod in which you could change from an array of colors. But even what seems like such a simple mod is just ___ Im lost.

Ive been installing mods since the original doom on floppy disks.

[BlackRain]

The scripting/coding in X4 is way easier than X3. I don’t see how anyone can say differently. I could understand being more familiar/comfortable though. It may be more difficult to add ships and such though, not sure on that end.

I think that the main issue is that the people who made mods for X3 are just older now, like myself. I have spent some time modding because I may have a bit more free time than others during the summer but soon I will be busy again. I had more time when Rebirth was around because that is many years ago now and things were different for me then. I was even younger obviously when X3 was new and i did a little dabbling then. The point I am trying to make is that those who were willing to mod got older and the younger players don’t seem to be interested in modding and this is a niche game.

I really do wish I could mod. I can install,troubleshoot, ect them all day but, whenever I goto make one. I get all the needed programs make a nice folder and then Im lost. This is for alot of games I play.
I wanted to make a simple mod for this game way back when egosoft released a orange cursor mod and I wanted to take that and give an option for more colors, or a single mod in which you could change from an array of colors. But even what seems like such a simple mod is just ___ Im lost.

Ive been installing mods since the original doom on floppy disks.

It takes quite a bit of studying existing code and trial and error to get started. It is definitely something you have to devote a lot of time to if you are just getting started depending on what you want to do.

[Malakie]

Been wondering this myself.. I modded in X3 series because of the built in language and built in editor etc. X4 is too complicated for me to just sit down and throw something together if I want. Sadly, that is one change I do NOT like about X4 and I firmly believe it is the reason we are seeing a LOT less modding today.

The other problem is modders supporting what they make.. It is irritating as heck for them to put a mod out then abandon it.. Just one example, Custodia Fighter mod.. Nice mod, loved the ship but now it is broken to the point when you try to enter the thing, you get stuck in place and can't move. And not a word from the dev or anyone else that might be able to fix it. And this is just one example.

Because of things like that, people lose interest in playing and playing mods.. And sadly I see that trend already in X4...

[BrummBear02]

Been wondering this myself.. I modded in X3 series because of the built in language and built in editor etc. X4 is too complicated for me to just sit down and throw something together if I want. Sadly, that is one change I do NOT like about X4 and I firmly believe it is the reason we are seeing a LOT less modding today.

The other problem is modders supporting what they make.. It is irritating as heck for them to put a mod out then abandon it.. Just one example, Custodia Fighter mod.. Nice mod, loved the ship but now it is broken to the point when you try to enter the thing, you get stuck in place and can't move. And not a word from the dev or anyone else that might be able to fix it. And this is just one example.

Because of things like that, people lose interest in playing and playing mods.. And sadly I see that trend already in X4...

its also a lot of work to keep mods "updated" im guilty of what you complain about myself. well my ships should still work but i have a half finished update on all of them on my harddrive and get sidetracked soon after i started to work on them again

[Drewgamer]

Been wondering this myself.. I modded in X3 series because of the built in language and built in editor etc. X4 is too complicated for me to just sit down and throw something together if I want. Sadly, that is one change I do NOT like about X4 and I firmly believe it is the reason we are seeing a LOT less modding today.

The other problem is modders supporting what they make.. It is irritating as heck for them to put a mod out then abandon it.. Just one example, Custodia Fighter mod.. Nice mod, loved the ship but now it is broken to the point when you try to enter the thing, you get stuck in place and can't move. And not a word from the dev or anyone else that might be able to fix it. And this is just one example.

Because of things like that, people lose interest in playing and playing mods.. And sadly I see that trend already in X4...

its also a lot of work to keep mods "updated" im guilty of what you complain about myself. well my ships should still work but i have a half finished update on all of them on my harddrive and get sidetracked soon after i started to work on them again

I don't think you're the only one guilty of that
It's rough too when X4 isn't the only game you play. There are many times where I will put the game on the back-burner in favor of another. I tend not to check on my mod very often then.

I do tend to come back for major updates to check out what's new though, so I give it some love then.

[Revolution Rising]

i dont believe its dying, there was a wave of mods when 3.0 released and its just calmed down a bit.
Modders still work on their projects, minor ones were released, major ones are just in development, so there is a gap.

idk X3 had a LOT more scripts for things like mining... there's very little going on here.

I remember a bunch of scripts just for dealing with your inter-empire style logistics.

Right now I have been looking for a script to replace the station manager stuff (So that I can manually set ore vs silicon etc), but there's nothing