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Roguey's X3 Mod explanation (Page 4 of 8)
Written by NetHawk,
Features explained
A couple of features deserve explanation and mentioning so here goes.
New ships and ship classes
As explained in the foreword, the ship classes in the vanilla game are quite unbalanced. And as this mod is trying to improve things it was necessary to add new ship classes and ships. Now there are M6+ and M3+ ship classes available, as is the new M0 and the Tender class. Furthermore, there are now more M3+ ships (not just he 3 from Vanilla), and there are more M7 class ships. Every ship that was added is trying to visually and performance wise fit the respective owner/production race.For more info on this, look further down there is chapter about the ship classes and their uses/explanations.
New Sectors, and improved old ones
Roguey's mod features over 71 new sectors. There are now Terran sectors, there are now Khaak sectors, new Yaki sectors, and Terracorp now really fits the Huge Enterprise role with their own sectors. There is a lot more, but I'm sure you'd rather explore yourself.The first thing one notices about the Sectors is how much better they look. A lot (I am almost certain all) have been improves with new backgrounds, changes to the clouds, different planets etc.
One of the things explorer and I guess all other will like a lot but doesn't get mentioned often is, that the sector rehaul resultet in a better feel for the universe. Most sectors now cirlce some object (planet) in space, so the feeling of being inthe same universe is much better, for example you are in one sector and you see this beautiful planet in the distance, and then fly 2 sectors north and it's farther away but it's definetelly the same planet, you recognize it, and you get another perspective for it. Also the sector backgrounds feel more connected in the way that even when you go out of some "system" (I prefer to call it that way) you are entering a different system, but it's not like you entered a new universe rather a feeling that it's all connected.
Okay I rambled way too much about this, but you can see it's beautifuly done, so go and check it out, keep your eyes open and enjoy.
New life for the old universe
Well there is a lot of new life going on in the mod. Folks are getting married, they actually work, it's not just civilian ships floating around,but rather ships with their own stories, their own lifes. The new billboards in some sectors add to the feeling of a living, breathing universe. "Be teladi, be rich" :DNews report system and other BBS stuff
The mod dropped the same old insignificant stories from the Vanilla game, and rather adds new, interesting, funny, modern or valuable stories. For example you could find that some factory is flooding the local market with goods, so you know it's cheap there, or you might read about new sectors that have been found or other things that "just happen". In addition there are new missions and other trading opportunities just waiting to be found on the BBS boards.All in all, it makes reading the BBS board more fun, and more useful.Almost forgot to mention, there is a news ticker system in place. What this means is that you don't need to hop from station to station just to find 1~2 BBS messages, but they are getting refreshed every once in a while, so if you want a bit around new ones come up.
General game speed ups
This is probably the first thing everyone will notice. The game runs better. Even through I have no idea whatsoever how they accomplished this, the game runs a lot better now. In addition to this the no-mini-asteroids mini-mod makes the game run ever so much faster. The best part about this is, there is no graphical paymentfor this, meaning that everything will look the same, well actually it will look even better.Graphical and Sound improvements
I did promise it will look better, now didn't I?Well for one some sounds have been changed, now one can actually listen to a fight going on. Another thing there are now missile trails, making spotting them easier. Even better the trails are kind of color-coded, so you have an idea what missile you are looking at. Some ships are leaving trails now too (M5's), but even better is that the ship engines now have colors instead of the same color for everyone. They are not much diff but enough to learn them with time. The weapons have been updated too, they now fire in slight color variations (Alpha being less color intensive then Beta generally), and they generally have a better look when firing (check screenshots on the site if you don't believe me). On another note the turrets have been finally animated (like I said, some things you'd expect from Vanilla, but no biggie :D ).
Game improvements
Except the new ships and their respective new classes, there are more game changes.
Auto Hull Repair System: it has been found that most players reload as soon as they
get hull damage (even with 1%) on anything bigger then the M6 (including those).
This is due to the immense repair costs for such ships, as a XI mission will just
not pay enough to repair a ship of that class. So the Auto Hull Repair System has been brought into the game.
Now honestly said I was a bit sceptic in the beginning, but considering it costs 16M to install it for each ship, I find it fair, hope you will too.
Once installed on the ship it will repair it's hull as soon as the shields are at full load. Repairing takes a lot of time, and I mean a LOT of time.But hey it's free, so what did you expect? Want it to go fast, drop it at a shipyard and pay for the repairs!
New shield Classes: A couple new shield classes have been added. Most noticably the 500 and 800 MJ. This shield classes are mostly used by M6+/M7 class ships, and they have been added to close the gap between the 125MJ and 1GJ shields.
Also some shields now have military variants. Those are hard to come by, but so are ships that can equip those. This shields are meant for fighters, they recharge faster then normal shields, but the ships that can use them don't equip as much shielding.
EMP built in: This doesn't really change the game, but it makes room for other mods and scripts to be added, as most mods/scripts use it. This might not sound like much, but this way it's easier to install additional scripts, and more compatible too.
Salvage Claim Software: Most X players know this. It's the same thing, and works the same. It just means that you don't have to add this as another mod/script to your game, as you will definetelly want this installed.
For those who don't know the SCS, it's a ship upgrade (quite costly too), that allows you to claim ships from the comfortable safety of your own ship. No more space walks...well once you can afford this.
Sector Claiming: Now you can have your own sector without buying it. Well, if you can take it.
There are 2 variants of sector claiming, depending on which start position you choose (see below). First the normal claiming, you can claim any sector that is not an Unknown Sector (Sector name that is), but the owning race must have no ships in the sector your claiming.
Note: Lasertowers are considered ships.
The other version applies if you play as khaak or xenon, where you can claim ANY sector you want, except that again the owning race must not have any ships left in that sector.
Note: Check your interface options ingame, look for "claim sector". Note: If you have any more questions about this, feel free to write on the forum or contact on IRC.
Complex Hub: The mod has an upgraded complex hub, which allows you to dock Capital ships and Tls there.
It also sports rotating billboards showing... well whatever you want.
Working with the complex hub is simple, you set it up like the normal one. Nothing special required.
Now for setting the billboard, it get a tad more complicated (not really). You have to have a program that supports .dds files, and can save them. So you make a logo of 256x128 pixels, and save it in DXT1 format.
Don't worry about it too much, it is probably very easy in whatever program you use.
If you don't know which program to use, take GIMP, it's free and works with DXT1 out of the box.
Ok, so you have this setup? Good, now just open the game folder (wherever you installed the game and the mod), and look for the dds folder. Inside of that should be a file named: ddsmy_billboard.dds. Don't worry too much, it's one of 2 files, and you can't break anything with changing it, rememmber it's just a picture.
Now edit to your preference and save the file in the same place, with the same name (just hit "save"). All set-up! You should see the billboard as soon as you restart the game! Have fun!
Now honestly said I was a bit sceptic in the beginning, but considering it costs 16M to install it for each ship, I find it fair, hope you will too.
Once installed on the ship it will repair it's hull as soon as the shields are at full load. Repairing takes a lot of time, and I mean a LOT of time.But hey it's free, so what did you expect? Want it to go fast, drop it at a shipyard and pay for the repairs!
New shield Classes: A couple new shield classes have been added. Most noticably the 500 and 800 MJ. This shield classes are mostly used by M6+/M7 class ships, and they have been added to close the gap between the 125MJ and 1GJ shields.
Also some shields now have military variants. Those are hard to come by, but so are ships that can equip those. This shields are meant for fighters, they recharge faster then normal shields, but the ships that can use them don't equip as much shielding.
EMP built in: This doesn't really change the game, but it makes room for other mods and scripts to be added, as most mods/scripts use it. This might not sound like much, but this way it's easier to install additional scripts, and more compatible too.
Salvage Claim Software: Most X players know this. It's the same thing, and works the same. It just means that you don't have to add this as another mod/script to your game, as you will definetelly want this installed.
For those who don't know the SCS, it's a ship upgrade (quite costly too), that allows you to claim ships from the comfortable safety of your own ship. No more space walks...well once you can afford this.
Sector Claiming: Now you can have your own sector without buying it. Well, if you can take it.
There are 2 variants of sector claiming, depending on which start position you choose (see below). First the normal claiming, you can claim any sector that is not an Unknown Sector (Sector name that is), but the owning race must have no ships in the sector your claiming.
Note: Lasertowers are considered ships.
The other version applies if you play as khaak or xenon, where you can claim ANY sector you want, except that again the owning race must not have any ships left in that sector.
Note: Check your interface options ingame, look for "claim sector". Note: If you have any more questions about this, feel free to write on the forum or contact on IRC.
Complex Hub: The mod has an upgraded complex hub, which allows you to dock Capital ships and Tls there.
It also sports rotating billboards showing... well whatever you want.
Working with the complex hub is simple, you set it up like the normal one. Nothing special required.
Now for setting the billboard, it get a tad more complicated (not really). You have to have a program that supports .dds files, and can save them. So you make a logo of 256x128 pixels, and save it in DXT1 format.
Don't worry about it too much, it is probably very easy in whatever program you use.
If you don't know which program to use, take GIMP, it's free and works with DXT1 out of the box.
Ok, so you have this setup? Good, now just open the game folder (wherever you installed the game and the mod), and look for the dds folder. Inside of that should be a file named: ddsmy_billboard.dds. Don't worry too much, it's one of 2 files, and you can't break anything with changing it, rememmber it's just a picture.
Now edit to your preference and save the file in the same place, with the same name (just hit "save"). All set-up! You should see the billboard as soon as you restart the game! Have fun!
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