|
That is one of the things I love about Egosoft. They really do support their titles. Plus they often add all kinds of bonuses and other things, that other companies would try to sell as DLC.
I also love how Elite Dangerous is charging more money for beta access. It is normally the other way around. But it could be worse, it could be Star Citizen... |
With version 3.0 in Decembre, there comes a first addon as DLC that will be free for players who had bought X-R before November 1st. The Teladi Outpost will add two completely new sectors and a new storyline (for which I will care as much as for the main quest: not at all, that is :D ), and must be logged for early order already now however, from the game's Steamshop site, since the subscription must be made before a certain date that already has been moved back (originally the offer ended on Nov. 1st). After that it seems to cost money even for those who bought the game before November.
So if you already own the game, make sure you check that you have the Teladi Outpost early-ordered in your Steam account. I'm still enjoying my second visit in the X-B universe. It is far more active, there far more events and movements, far more action, raids, battles. The new menu system works still not ideal, but much better than originally, one can work with it. No more repetitive running through the station tunnels. Oh, and the zombie-looks of the faces are gone as well. The whole universe interacts far more dynamically than before. And boy, is it running super-smooth now! Memory may fool me or not, but there is more environment sounds, I think. Unrealistic in space, IknowIknow, but so is thecolourful Blade-Runner-looks of the giant space stations as well. It all adds tremendously to the atmosphere. New cockpit variations available as well, from fighter pits with extra vision and as little cockpit obstacles as possible, to transporter bridges. Every refit costs coins, however. :smug: |
Quote:
At any rate, I'd guess that the extra cost is due to the need to set up the server infrastructure early. Without it those costs would have to be covered by funds that would normally go towards development. Considering they don't have publisher backing, it seems reasonable, though indeed rather counterintuitive. |
Today I got a taste of how much has changed indeed. I flew into a new sector - and stumbled right into a huge space battle between 8 or 9 capital ships by Plutarch and Alliance of Free Worlds. These capital monsters - and their attached fighter wings. If you never have experienced something like that in X-R, then it is hard to describe and even harder to believe. Remember the huge, the really huge battles in later seasons of Babylon-5? It looked like that. Tracers and missiles from here to the horizon, at all vectors. Bombing drones humming by and getting shot down before they could impact. Huge beam weapons by the capitals. The huge ships maneuvering to get alongside their enemies, exchanging kind of broadsides, or trying to get their monster beamers aiming alongside their axis on their enemies. Fighters criss-crossing back and forth everywhere, hushing over the hulls of the big ships, avoiding Flak-laser and trying to get rid of swarms of Hydra missiles in their necks, while firing at other fighters. It was colourful, it was chaotic, it was different from any battle I have seen before. Since the scene was away from a station, the capitals could freely maneuver without getting deadlocked when slamming into station structures.
Later, when Plutarch gained the upper hand, new enemies fell out of the cosmic highway slipstream: a huge number of ultra tough and ultra-fast Reaver fighters engaged Plutarch and unfortunately also me. Then another Plutarch carrier arrived, launching more swarms of missiles, Flak, and fighters. I escaped with burning ship and into the arms of Plutarch fighters who engaged the Reavers while I landed on the flightdeck of a Plutarch carrier seconds before my hull would have collapsed, from there I went to the gate and watched the battle outside. It was breathtaking. Before I escaped the battle, fighters hang in my neck like vampires, I have a relatively good equipped ship and a Nivell-4 drive, but these beasts I have never met before, they had hilarious speed, acceleration, agility and sturdiness. I did nit fight, I fled and desperately tried to stay alive. :) Nice to see that it was possible to hide between the burning dead hulls of big ships, or break the enemy's lockon by racing into the huge smoke clouds left by big ships that had exploded earlier. No physics, please. Discussing physics is forbidden in this thread. You may need luck to see such things happening, and they may not happen on that scale too often. But when it happens, don'T play: lean back, watch and enjoy the show. Its breathtaking and shows what the game is capable of and what shine hides under its dusty surface. The huge final battles in the ending episodes of Babylon-5 - take me by my word. If needing to estimate how many ships, big and small, were participating, I would dare to say that it were probably around fifty, I would say. I use several mods, to what degree they are responsible for this or not, I cannot say. But all objects, particles, salvos beams, laser shots were on screen as well, plus debris, ejected cargo, rocks... Frames were not always super-smooth, but always remained absolutely playable. Stuttering means in this context: frames that I felt to be around 30, maybe. Its nice to see that the various factions now actively wage war against each other, in regions that are close to both of them. Or that they launch surprising raids into the heart of the enemy. The Xenons I can deal with. But those Reaver fighters - I need better - I do not know what I need. A sixth sense to avoid them, maybe. After it all was over, space around was a graveyard, and a scene of chaos and destruction. I launched, and went into a good observing posiiton, then monitored how the remaining three Plutarch giants gathered their surviving fighters, maneuvered and charged their jumpdrives. Then they warped away, and I suddenly was alone. After that furious action the 5 minutes before, that felt strange, I tell you. :yeah: |
Ah, and just for the record, since it should be clear by now anyway:
I hereby fully recommend the game (in status 2.51). The criticism of last5 year's release is no longer valid, it has been revamped to a degree I hoped for, and but did not seriously expect. The game is GRRREAT. If they would have released it in this state, they would have triumphed. Version 3.0 coming in December. Things can only become better, I think. |
The Readme for 3.0 Beta2 is here.
3.0 beta 2 • New Feature: Subsystem target cycling. • New Feature: Dangerous regions that can damage your ship. • New Feature: Crafting of special items (menu present but feature not yet fully enabled). • Added new kind of floating crate that must be opened by destroying locks. • Added new trade and targeting software upgrades for the player ship. • Added option to enable automatic refuel when ships call player if they are out of fuel. • Added Patrol Zone order to continuously secure a zone. • Added encyclopedia page showing station build costs. • Added automatic zoom between map levels. • Added new in-game statistics. • Improved smalltalk gameplay. • Improved AI turret avoidance. • Improved AI fuel station selection to reduce queues at the pumps. • Improved AI attack behaviour on fleets of capital ships. • Improved positioning of highway advertising signs to avoid traffic. • Improved price calculation and discount system to make trading viable for a wider range of wares (new base prices to come). • Improved balancing of police licence prices, bounty rewards and mission rewards. • Fixed occasional highway-related sound cut-out. • Fixed builder ship positioning. • Fixed further cases of production getting stuck when storage for some products is full. • Fixed attack/defend configuration of Defence Officer not working in some cases. • Fixed Refuel command being displayed twice in the pilot info. • Fixed wares being listed as available for resource gathering on ships not capable of mining them. • Fixed ships with trade orders stuck in following player ship (stuck trades will be completed after current task). • Fixed capital ships not shooting at some stations. • Fixed remote controlled missiles not moving if player stops controlling them. • Fixed ships not finishing planned trade trips in certain situations. • Fixed ships behaving as though moving while actually standing still. • Fixed at least one cause of unexpected warping of player ship to a new location. • Fixed cockpit camera movement not working when loading a savegame. • Fixed missing voice feedback for some orders. • Fixed incorrect NPC voice feedback when there are no explicit orders. • Fixed object positions on map when viewing a different sector. • Fixed random initial mouse position when mouse cursor activated on platform. • Fixed target cycling sometimes skipping a target or selecting the wrong one. • Fixed rare case of current target being lost when cycling targets. • Fixed repaired surface elements not being targetable. • Fixed capital ships not showing target elements directly after having been constructed, refueled, or repaired. • Fixed several other rare problems with target elements. • Fixed various problems with "re-pinging" of mission targets. • Fixed various problems with crosshair information display. • Fixed ability menu not updating if new drone is installed while menu is open. • Fixed several other minor menu behaviour issues. • Fixed various causes of the most common causes of crashes, and improved crash reporting. • Optimisations resulting in performance improvements, especially in busy areas. --- And since they were not posted but illustrate how many things have been worked on, some of the earlier readmes for the major patch releases: Version 2.50 (187052) - 2014-10-09
64-bit The system requirements for the game have always stated that it requires a 64-bit version of Windows, and the 64-bit version of the game is now successfully in general use. This is likely to be the last major version for which a 32-bit executable is available. --- Version 2.20 (184360) - 2014-06-27
Version 2.00 (183618) - 2014-05-20
Patch 1.30 - 2014-04-15 Localisations for text relating to the new Joystick Deadzone option are not yet included. These will be added as soon as possible.
--- Patch 1.25 - 2014-02-26 Russian and French localisations of texts that are new to patch 1.25 are not yet included. These will be added as soon as possible.
Patch 1.24 - 2014-02-04 Includes changes from Patch 1.23 that was not released outside the Beta process.
Some smaller ones there were before, but I skip them, they came very early after release. One cannot say that they have been lazy over this year. |
Quote:
|
You can still buy the other ships in-game. SC's model isn't like that of Rise of Flight or DCS.
|
It's a fair point currently though, I guess. If you want the fancier ones in your hangar or in Arena Commander then yes, you'll have to pay for them. I'd say it's just marketing though; as noted all of these ships will be in-game, no real money nescesary beyond purchasing the game. Insurance costs and such will be negligable, making the LTI and free hangar costs that came as a bonus for early backers a rather minor perk.
- Wasn't expecting a turn around in opinion on Rebirth yet to be honest. Guess it's back on the watch list. :hmmm: |
Quote:
X-R now compares to a game that sees a more or less solid first release. Which shows that they released it ONE YEAR TOO EARLY. For fans of space shooters and traders: enjoy it. All others: Check and examine. I personally have a very good time with it. Now worth the money I paid. Running a mining ship now, seeing it manouvering by itself, lasering asteroids, drones collecting it, and then shuttling it back to the station. Or that battleship two days ago: after the battle, with smoke and fires blasting from several wounds into space, swarms of astronauts and drones got launched and started to work on the hull. I think X-R competes even better with other such titles if you sooner or later realise that the others also boil their tea with water only. |
Well I'm not running off to get it right now, but it seems to be getting to the point where it's worth considering again.
With regards to being released too early: the damn thing was already in development for 7 years when it was released. They probably reached a point where they either had to release it or drop it. It's holding with their tradition at least; all their games I've played got rather a lot better over time. Rebirth seems to have had a particularly rough start, but with them rebuilding the thing from the ground up it was somewhat to be expected. |
Quote:
Quote:
As for XR, I will probably pick it up once I am working again, as I have always been a big fan of the X series and Egosoft. I just hope they learn from all of this and never go with a single ship concept again. One of the biggest draws in the X Series was the ability to physically pilot any ship you wanted. |
I so far never felt the one-player-ship-concept stopping me from having fun with this one. What I would prefer is to have the fleet management system (the way you buy or order the building of ships and must provide resources) simplified, not in idea, but regarding the ergonomy of the interface. It is not a very accessible process, and anything but self-explanatory. Same is true for building your own space stations. Intuitive is something different, there still is room for substantial improvement in the interface.
The new side bar menu for the most works quite well on other aspects, on the other hand. Just the buttons could be increased, its all a bit small and tiny. Trading runs smooth now, and it is a relief that as long as you do not sell on the black market or want your ship systems being altered you do not need to board stations anymore. What they must learn however is that their mechanics should not sit in bars or any random place of the station, but should be expected to hang around in the hangar. Why do they have those repair facilities, if not for that purpose? - All in all the new menus are a big improvement already. There is space for more. The look of the highways has been changed, although in practical gameplay it makes not much a difference. In general with the going for an X64 exe, the game runs smoother and looks better. It still has that Blade Runner look, and is very colourful (sometimes even tooo much so). Those space stations still are impressive, they leave their dull Elite counterparts in the dust, imo. Ship designs also are showing plenty of imagination and often visual beauty. Explosion and weapon effects however sometimes remind a bit too much of old school FX from several years ago, they are not up to date. No wonder when considering that they are working on this game since 8 years now. |
Version 3.0 has been released two days ago, along with free addon (for old customers) of "The Teladi Outpost".
Quite some changes: Readme 3.0 Egosoft is delighted to announce the release of the X Rebirth 3.0 update along with a new DLC, The Teladi Outpost. The DLC is available free to players who download it before 15th December. http://youtu.be/K75uEQV1YMwl video overviewHighlights of the 3.0 release include: • Interactive holomap. • Ability to build stations in Empty Space. • Dangerous regions that can damage your ship. • Crafting of special items. • New non-plot mission chains. • Employee training to improve skills. • Ware exchange between player ships and stations. • Subsystem target cycling. The Teladi Outpost DLC introduces a whole Teladi-controlled system containing two new sectors and over a dozen zones of interest, along with new Teladi and pirate factions, and various new Teladi ships, stations and weapon types. Be sure to also check out our new , and also our X Rebirth 3.0 features explained guide. Readme Teladi Outpost Faster Playing Abort cutscenes All cutscenes can now be aborted by pressing escape (e.g getting out of the Albion Skunk). Running To run on platforms double tap the “walk” button (w by default). Exploration and Rare Items Rare items: Complete redesign of all items found in the universe. Many new rare items were added including some that can be used for special missions. Lockboxes: Objects are now found in different types of “lockboxes”. To open these containers, the player has to first shoot locks without damaging the container. Crafting: Some items can be used in crafting. Once you find one craftable item, the inventory menu will show the other missing items and the product that you can build out of it. Read the objects’ encyclopedia entries for hints of what unique missions and activities can be unlocked with these objects. Gifts and Bribing (Unlocking Rewards on Platforms) Gifts: After a successful smalltalk conversation on a platform, not only do people (NPCs) offer valuable rewards, such as the option to update your trade computer with live trade offer updates from this station permanently (2.0: Trade agents), but you can now also give them a gift to play an extended conversation and unlock special rewards. Several gifts can be crafted from rare items. Among the rewards are:
Station Sabotage (New Hack Panels) Hacking on platforms: A range of new control panels and security terminals on stations allow you to skilfully sabotage all areas of station operation on your opponents space station: Sabotage station defence: Successfully sabotaging station defence systems can give you a limited period of time in which a station is weaker or even defenceless. This requires a security decryption system, which can be crafted in your inventory once you found all of its components. Sabotaging Station Repair: Successfully sabotaging a station's repair facility will greatly increase the time the crew needs to rebuild the station after an attack. You need a temporary local security ID to access this terminal, which can be crafted from items sometimes found on platforms. Hack trade offers: Hacking into a trade terminal can be used to gain illegal long-term discounts or commissions. You need a temporary local security ID to access this terminal, which can be crafted from items sometimes found on platforms. Sabotaging Production: Successfully sabotaging a station's production will cripple it for a long period of time. You need a temporary local security ID to access this terminal, which can be crafted from items sometimes found on platforms. Blocking station security: Successfully sabotaging station security will increase the time for stealing containers after hacking. This requires a security decryption system, which can be crafted in your inventory once you found all of its components. Stealing Goods from Stations (Improved Trojan ROV) First preparation: Before you start your career as a thief, you should have several security decryption systems.
Skill Improvements Virtual seminars: You can now improve the skill set of your workers (NPCs) in relevant categories (those in bold) by giving them virtual seminars. These seminars can be acquired from experienced NPCs by giving them crafted gifts. You can give a virtual seminar to an NPC either by visiting them personally or, in the case of active pilots in your ships, remotely when talking to them (COMM from NPC details menu) Improving your NPCs: Levelling up your workers' skills can now improve important features of the game. Examples:
Boarding Promoting marines: Marines are now promoted through successful boarding operations. Look to board weaker targets first to train your marines. With a full compliment of marines (50) and with some of them promoted to Veteran or even Elite status, you will be able to take on increasingly stronger ships. With these changes, only Recruit marines are available to acquire at Recruiting Officers. Educate the Marine Officer: Further improve your chances in boarding by educating your Marine Officer with virtual seminars (—> Skill improvements). The Marine Officer will also gain experience after a successful boarding operation. Marine losses: Marines can now be lost on boarding operations, even those which are ultimately successful. Increase your chances of zero casualties by training your marines. Boarding resistance: Capital ships now display a 'Boarding resistance' value in their info menu. The resistance will affect how effective your marines are and how many casualties you may suffer. The more expensive and upgraded the ship, the higher the resistance. Lower it by destroying surface elements and damaging the hull. Of course, the more damaged the ship is, the less it will be worth. Boarding missions: Throughout a boarding operation your Marine Officer may suggest targets to be hacked or destroyed to help aid their progress. Fail these tasks and you risk more Marine casualties. Missions Chain missions: Occasionally you will see this new mission offer type. These are groups of missions offered by various factions. They do not just give you the usual mission reward, but often promise a special reward at the end of the chain. Some unique discounts and unlocks are only available through these new missions. Many new missions: The set of missions offered on stations has been improved. If you enjoy playing missions, you can accept many missions at the same time and try to play them simultaneously. This is especially useful when multiple missions send you in the same direction. Be careful however when missions introduce time restrictions. Losing the mission may cost you some reputation. Map Improvements Mouse interface: The map system has been greatly improved to allow more interactive control.
Trade Improvements Trading with non squad ships: All your ships that are not currently assigned to a superior (e.g: They are working for a manager to supply a station or are part of a squad protecting another ship), will now be selectable in the TRADE MENU. This means you have now two options to manage your trade ships:
Set your own prices: The managers of your factories now have the new option to “Manage trade offer prices”. This can overwrite the default automatic price choice, which is based on the stations current storage of resources and products. Ware exchange: It is now possible to order to transfer wares directly between all of your property. This always starts with a ship in your squad. From the conversation with the pilot or captain, you will find the“Transfer wares” option in the “New order” section. In the following step, you can select any other object to transfer wares TO or FROM. This also includes wares that are not available as trade offers, allowing you to get resources out of a station again, or even move drones from one station to another. The ship will of course have to fly to the other station, or in the case of two ships exchanging wares directly, have to meet somewhere in space. Capital ships will then exchange wares using their cargo vessel drones, while small ships have to pick up the wares as containers floating in space. Trade computer MK2 and MK3: These extensions now improve your trade computer's memory. This means that all your trade ships will have a longer command queue. With the trade computer MK2, for example, you can assign 5 orders to each of your trade ships. The trade computer extension is not cheap and therefore reserved for expert traders. Commanding Squadrons Broadcast commands to entire squad: The property owned menu now has a new“Broadcast” button when you select your own Albion Skunk. This will allow you to select orders that can be sent to all ships currently in your squad at the same time! (All that appear if you click on the “plus” symbol of the Albion Skunk. Attack command: An “Attack” action was added to the interact menu of many targetable objects, such as ships and info points of stations. This action replaces the “Hail” action in many places, which is still available through the C hotkey and in the info menu by selecting the NPC you want to talk to. Giving this “attack” order behaves exactly like giving a BROADCAST command from the property owned menu, selecting “Attack object” under new commands and selecting this same object from the map. Note that in both cases, your order is sent to all the ships in your squad that can fight, not matter where they currently are. If you want to exclude ships, you can remove them from your squad and still use them for trading or alternatively you can —> form squads. (next point) Creating sub squads: To make controlling large amounts of ships easier, you should consider organising them into groups. Instead of commanding each ship individually, you will only deal with the “boss” and all ships assigned to him will follow his command. Withdraw command: One of the new commands available from the “ORDERS” group in conversations with your pilots or captains is the simple order to withdraw from battles. This could be especially important when trying to sabotage stations and steal their goods without ending up in all-out open war. New Weapon Types and Ship Upgrades Pulsed Maser Mk3 : This is the Teladi take on the popular Pulsed Maser. It fires from alternating barrels and at a lower fire rate than the regular masers, but the projectiles stick to the target and continue giving off energy for some time. Heavy Laser Mk1: The Heavy Laser Mk1 is a powerful beam weapon that delivers enough energy to damage ships. However, it is still an improved version of the Mk2 Mining Laser and as such also makes for an effective mining tool. Particle Repeater Mk3 : The Particle Repeater Mk3 has a longer reach and does more damage, but comes at the cost of a slightly reduced fire rate. Constrictor Missile: This unguided missile is used by security forces and pirates, disabling the boost capabilities of all known engines and stranding ships for easier looting and boarding. Engine Mk5 Upgrades : All engine variants can be upgraded to Mk5 versions - if you manage to find the components that are needed for this, and complete the "Treasure Hunt" crafting mission centred around the "Rare Engine". Building Stations Build spots in empty space have been added. This now allows you to start construction anywhere in empty space, no matter if you just leave a local highway in the middle of nowhere or simply boost far out of a normal zone. This works like with any normal build spot. Once you have a construction vessel with architect in your squad, the HUD will show build spots. Select the one you want to use and select the “Build here” action, then follow the instructions in the conversation with your architect. Switching between automatic and manual management of building and trading. Both architects and managers can be freely switched from a mode where you manually execute every necessary transport and trade operation to a fully automatic mode, where you just give the NPC the money and they order all required resources for you. To do this, just switch the “Only trade with OWN faction” option in the NPC's info menu and add or remove funds to the NPC's budget. An architect with a budget and permission to trade with all factions will build the station you ordered completely or until he runs out of money. Money left after building will always remain on their account and you can move it back to your own account any time. You can now also exclude individual factions from potential trading partners for architects and managers. |
When science meets fiction: :88)
Quote:
|
| All times are GMT -5. The time now is 02:11 AM. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © 1995- 2025 Subsim®
"Subsim" is a registered trademark, all rights reserved.