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X3AP » X3 AP, Rebirth and some other thoughts
Posted by NetHawk on Tuesday 21st February, 2012     1 comments

Heyo everyone!

So, yeah long time no see. Had a lot of work going on for school and some personal BS to top it off.
Well, now Im hopefully back. A couple things changed, and a couple didnt. I still code, and I still prefer my operating systems to be Linux, but I got a copy of Windows 7 now, and a copy of X3 AP too.

X3 AP:
As some might know, Ive played only X2 and X3R, because they were available on linux. For X3AP, I actually installed a copy of windows, started a new game, and was pleasantly surprised.

GUI: The GUI redesign was a smart move, its much easier to play on 26inch screens now. I also seem to have less trouble navigating the menus (but thats probably just imagined. About the siderbar, well...I dont like it. it obstructs my view, and takes away some immersion. So, I keep "classic flight mode" on.
The sector map is now much more useful, especially in battles, the new zooming configuration is pretty neat. Station/Complex building still sucks, but we got FCC and Complex Cleaner installed for that.

There are a couple of things I would like to change, especially wing and fleet commands. Dunno about you, but Id like to have a sidebar option for configuring/commanding those.

Graphics:
Those are much better now, cant argue with that, and never will. Especially the new "big" stations (Military outpost, Shipyard) look beautiful now. Ships look better too, through we can argue about the ship design, cant argue about the graphic representation

Sound:
Some weapons are too loud (still in 1.1), atleast for my taste and the Jump sound still sounds like a gdamn missile launch. Oh and please pretty please, just cut that damn landing music, or atleast give it some more tracks...Im using a Docking Computer just to avoid that sound. The music is beautiful as always, its immersive, full and yet doesnt distract you. Through I really wish for more songs, or even a "my music" directory.

Storyline:
Well its nothing special...or rather, its a let down. its short, uninteresting and doesnt explain anything. Like roguey mentioned, I still dont know why Saya had to blow the earth torus. And why she didnt keep the dress from X2

Universe Map:
Well, I dont think it changed much...but then again, I dont really know, played Rogueys mod for too long to rememmber the original map
Its the classic X universe map, what can I say.

Fighting:
Fighting got a lot harder, and ship diversity made that possible. Sadly the command interface is still lacking a lot of features, so its very hard to use the new tactical possibilities. M3 ships dont blow everything up anymore, and M6 dont either...all in all its pretty balanced, through the M7Ms are a bit overpowered, unless you got "missile defence mosquito" installed. But since that is in the bonus pack, I think it should be considered a part of the game.

Trading and other stuff:
Recon and Freight Drones are a very welcome edition. The later make TLs much more useful, without making them too powerfull (yes, Im looking at you Bulk transporter). Jump beacons, Recon Drones, Explorer Command Software, will be great in X Rebirth, once you cant use the gate network with a jumpdrive anymore. Right now, those dont make much of a difference.
While first I got a bit annoyed to see even more weapons systems, once I understood that the Alpha, Beta, Gamma versions were dropped out, I realized that now there are less weapons systems, but they are more specialized. Wouldnt want it any other way now. About the missions in Space, while I still would like to have a bulletin board, to read news, or even better give me real-time news on whats happening in the universe, The way you accept missions now, is much simpler. Instead of docking to every single station in a sector, you just fly-by, hail the station, and check what they got. Also, accepting missions from other ships, is pretty nice, gives the universe a bit more life. I just wish they'd take the time and make a couple more missions. But thats what we got a community for.
I didnt try the stock exchange, I probably wont. Its not my style.

Ships:
new ship classes are a great addition to the game, allowing your fleets to have more variation, and thus becomming better at their job. Gotta love the Light Carrier class ships (Griffon, Panther Raider), which again will become very important once the Gate network shuts down.



Okay I think thats it for X3AP, Ive probably left out some of my thoughts, but we can discuss that later anyway


X:Rebirth
Now, we dont really have much info about Rebirth, but since AP is suppossed to be a "prelude" I think its safe to base some things on it.

1. Gateless universe: I think we all agree, that having a HUGE place to travel around is much nicer than having hundreds of small sectors. Personally I see a lot of potential in that, from the Pirate, that's laying low close to some Space-Highway, waiting for the next prey, to the explorer, searching distant, un-populated space for the treasure of a life-time. It changes the tactical aspect of the game a lot, since now ship speed WILL be important, as will inteligently placed Jump Beacons.

2. Mega-Complexes: Not bothering with the creation of complexes, and still having them look great, sounds great to me. Station turrets will also help make the game more enjoyable and less micro-management. Another thing I noticed, the collision detection seems to be a lot better now, so flying close to a huge station, in a M3 dogfight is possible, and speaking from experience, beautiful!
Transfer drones will make it possible to buy wares off stations without docking, making your TL's much more important, and useful. You can use a TL to supply your factories (complexes), and it has enough shielding and ships docked to keep it pretty safe from pirates. But back to stations, did I mention that using a complex hub and "modules" directly will make the stations look MUCH better?
Doesnt sound important? Well it probably isn't, but I think once we'll make a couple fly-by's our huge complexes, in the background a cracked planet looming above it, I dont think anyone will want to miss that.

3. Corporations: Having corporations in-game, will allow for a much more vibrant universe, not just the old Races fighting it out, but corporations fighting for resources, or just trying to get rid of their adversaries. Also there is someone really directly competing with you on the economic, and probably also military market.

4. Single ship: Yeah I dont really agree either, but let's see how they'll implement it. If done good enough it just might be better then having 100s of ships that all fly the same.
Oh and...yeah I agree with no-capital one-man-army flight too...it really aint no fun, and for those who like it...well I'm sorry guys, I'd much rather hang on the bridge, watch my minnions struggle to keep the ship flying and sip another glass of Space Fuel, then to try and manouver such a beast on my own


Okay, yeah, it's a long post, and I don't have internet connection at home, so...I'll trz to read the comments and post some more if I get some time

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Back in Black!
Posted by NetHawk on Monday 4th July, 2011     3 comments

Heyo everyone!

It has been a while since I had the time to troll the forums
So, yeah my semester is closing up, and I will have much more time in the close future.
Now, I checked, and it seems I didn't miss much, atleast not on the X-Rebirth part. No news seem to have emerged, except for a single picture (*sigh*).

So, what are the plans?
Well I'm starting a blog (another one), as a diary to what I'm working on and project technologies etc.
What's the first project? The blog itself!

So, where do we go from here? Well I did promise quite a few things for the X3Reunion Mod, and I will get to work on that. For now the plan:
- BBS messages program.
- New Missions
- New features (ship-repair, ship building and Capture technology!).
- A new campaign (no more info then this).

Well, other then that, I've relaunched Live For Speed, and we got a new update, so I'm playing it here and there, and I'm out buying ArmA2. Now if you folks would join, it would be great

Back on topic, It's nice to be back, and I can't wait to get started working on things.
I'll post a link to the blog once it's atleast partially up. Now if there is anyone here with CSS skills, some help in that departement would be great

Peace-out

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What Makes a Game?
Posted by NetHawk on Friday 24th June, 2011     1 comments

It's been a while since I considered switching to windows, mainly because for a work envirement linux is just better. So, why would you even go for windows, well, because of the games of course!
I've been playing games for a while, started out with NASCAR and DOOM, then simCopter, IL-2 Sturmovik, UT, Operation Flashpoint, etc. etc.

Now, Unreal Tournament was the first "online" game I played, through honestly it was more on LAN parties
And playing with real people, shouting at eachother really got to me, so when I started playing IL-2 Sturmovik, it took me all of a week to join a clan (Partizanska Eskadrilia).
Let me tell you, being 3 months in the status of "recruit" until you're allowed to fly (passed full flight license) is intense, and rewarding. So I've been flying IL-2 for about a year, before I had to start learning again, that and my joystick broke...

So, fast forward a year or two, and I joined Project Torque, a car racing game, quite nice, MMO even. This didn't have a long effect as some german !@#$!$@#@! company decided to take licensing for europe in their hands. The last day on the server was nice through.
So, where did we go from there? CoD and BF came out with crap, Console racers are arcadish and most everything wen't for graphics. So I did what every geek would do, and burried myself in an endless maze of terminals and ASCII characters, silently lurking in the dark. Now X3:Reunion with Roguey's Mod woke me up, and relit the gamer in me. Now, I'm looking at LFS again, ARMA 2 (and 3), Bohemia also announced Take On Helicopters, there is a new Deus Ex coming and LFS got a nice update.

Looks like a good year to dual-boot with windows!

But the question is, why this games? What makes them special?
Is it the graphics? Is it the names, the associations with our childhood? Is it just that these companies know how to make gameplay?
I don't think so, for me it's always been the community, friendly mature people just playing a game having fun, helping eachother, and not taking everything too serious.
I have not once heard in LFS or IL-2 "OMGZ you'z a N00B!", rather "hey NetHawk, you should try to take that curve just about 2m more to the left, so you'll get a faster exit speed for the straight" or "NetHawk, it might be that your joystick sensitivity is too high, try setting it lower, and you'll have less problems with stall".

And this my dear friends is what makes a game. graphics are nice, but a game get's forgotten fast if that's all it has. Gameplay is something we all talk about, and consider important, BUT the REAL trick is having a good community, as most everything is forgiven if the community is great.

Thanks and peace-out.

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Bad Mojo
Posted by NetHawk on Wednesday 18th May, 2011     1 comments

Heyo to everyone reading this
Lately, I got tons of stuff to do. it's a hell for me at the moment, school is going into final rounds of tests, project deadlines are closing with FTL (faster then light), and I'm tired.
Nonetheless I started work on a TShip editor for X3 Reunion and possibly X3 Terran Conflict.
While all info I need has been provided by Roguey, I still found some issues with it. For starters there is anything from 63 to 295 entries for a single ship. Many are Turret and Front Gun points and definitions, and while this isn't a big deal per se, it kinda destroyed my illusion of it being a simple parsing program.
I'm kinda known by now for over-engineering things, but most of the time, somehow the project gets done, better then the initial idea (what-the-ship magazine for example).
This one is no exception, I want to support X3R, X3TC, multiple languages (as in..english, german etc.), and different mods. Sounds simple 'eh?
well it's not all that complicated, really, it's doable...but there is a slight problem.
For the last 2 months, any project I touch seems to get more complicated each time I just think about it. Usually, the more you work on a project, the easier it gets...but lately....well things are different for me. Me being tired and in dire need of some vacation isn't helping at all.
So why am I writing about this? I have no idea....just kinda need to let it go...let it flow into the universe...
Well, it seems my Mo-Jo is turning against me this time...

Doesn't matter now....work is there, and it needs to be done, it needs to be done by me.
Ok, going to drag my sorry a** back to work now..

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X3 » Introduction, and X3 Reunion stuff
Posted by NetHawk on Monday 9th May, 2011     1 comments

Ok, this seems to be my first blog entry. Well hello to everyone who reads this, and without bothering you too much, this is what's going to be happening around here: I'm going to ramble about anything I feel about.
Sounds good doesn't it?

A couple of things I want to tell everyone, first off, If you like anything I create, please drop by and say hello.
Seondly if you DON'T like something, or would change something, drop by, say hello, explain what and why you would change it. Maybe I'll feel the same way, or maybe I'll make a special version for that.
Thirdly, I will NOT bother scripting for TC. I haven't played it, and unless it gets ported to linux I probably won't. For this matter I cannot be bothered to script for it.
And lastly, I will keep my scripts working for Roguey's Mod WITH classic rules.
Now this might seem strange, but when I won't have much choice but decide on particular stuff, I will work for that. My stuff will be probably working with anything else, but might be a little un-balanced. Every mod and script that is tailored to these will have it noted IN the readme and in the description.

I guess that's it for introduction, now to the beef.
I'm waiting to get a working (WINE or otherwise) external script editor, since the in-game is painfully slow, and I simply cannot be bothered to use it (how did you folks get the nerves for that is beyond me). In this time, I will post here what will be created, Also I'll make forum posts on scripts/mods so you can comment and maybe correct me when I'm completely wrong. And that can happen

Another thing we've been talking around here is a What-The-Ship magazine. Now we have 4 implementation ideas so far. And would REALLY appreciate input from you folks.
Head over to the forum, under Roguey's X3 Mod, there is the What-The-Ship magazine topic.

Ok that's it for now, I might drop by later and give more details if anything gets a more real form.
PS: Almost forgot, you can join the chat on IRC, the server is irc.wyldryde.org, channel #Rogueys. This is also available from the web-paga, look up in the menu for "Chat".

Have fun everyone!