[h=1]X Rebirth community questions answered by Bernd[/h]
If you don't ask, you'll never know
After answering questions about X Rebirth in the forums and the
big Gamescom interview featuring lots of community questions already, Bernd took some time again to answer some more questions about X Rebirth that were asked by users in the forums:
How does upgrading the ships work?
The player's ship is a special case; it can be reconstructed and upgraded by experts in different ways. Stations and bigger ships however can be upgraded based on construction plans, which function in a similar way to a tech tree; in some cases it may be linear sequence of upgrades, while in others it can be a tree with many alternatives.
Will there be a limit as to the amount of modules you can build on a station or carrier ship?
There is always a limit. As mentioned before, this limit depends on the actual construction plan.
We know a little about Virtual Reality and remote control of drones, that's great I'm on-board with that, but how do I control a fleet of ships in the new world of Rebirth?
Indirectly. Controlling a capital ship happens by commanding it. In a large battle this happens mostly by planning your battle ahead of time and then focussing on smaller tasks like disabling a critical weapon system while the large ships execute the job you planned for them.
Will we be able to run a hardcore economical game?
In X Rebirth it is very common to trade with capital ships. This is in fact one of the main reasons why we wanted to re-invent the way capital ships are controlled. So trading with large capital traders and whole fleets is very easy and happens while you can play anything you want in parallel.
To what extent are new, currently unknown station types planned to give the player additional new options?
Actually, almost all stations will be new in X Rebirth. This starts with the completely new economic system; only a few wares and resources from previous games are still around. As every station module can be equipped with a wide array of turrets, shields and many other elements, there is a much bigger difference between the combat ability of stations, which you may not always be able to see right away, and the ability to add different manufacturing and production modules means a greater variety as in the old complex building system.
Where do we stand with big complexes, will we be able to build the whole complex from just expanding one station or won't there be anything like that?
When you start building a station you decide for a specific plan. The plan of that station can allow you many alternatives, but it always starts with a single core station. Over time you make decisions how to expand the complex and you play missions to help building it bigger and stronger. You have a lot more freedom and a lot more decisions and building a complex is a much slower process than it was in previous games. But even though it can take a long time to create a huge complex, it never gets boring, because you have so many things to do and you never have to wait for anything because most things can happen while you play at the opposite side of the universe.
Will there be a Stock Exchange, as in Albion Prelude?
First of all, we try to reduce features that a very complicated and need a lot of menus to ones that are easy to use. During that process we deliberately omit things too.
Although I'm a big fan of the Stock Exchange in X3: Albion Prelude, there won't be something like that in X Rebirth, when it will be released. However, that doesn't mean that we might not find a solution for that later, for example in an extension. The interface would be different then, though.
Will it be possible to incorporate the environment into the fights?
Enabling fights in complex 3D environments was one of our most important goals. The new gigantic stations, which are much more detailed than those of the past, can serve as exciting settings for fights.
Will it be possible to play as a pirate?
Absolutely. Especially in this area there are big differences to the previous X-games. The reputation of the player towards a certain faction depends less on what he did, but rather on what he was caught at. ;-)
Putting this in other words, smugglers for example are much harder to identify in the game now. Whether the player sides with one party or has more than one iron in the fire is, apart from some exceptions in the plot, totally up to him. The freedom of being able to decide on my own what my relations to others are and which parts of the game I'm more interested in, is from my point of view one of the key points of the X-series.
Do capital ships use the same highways as smaller crafts?
No. Highways are reserved for ship only up to a maximum size. Larger ships use jump drives that require fuel.
How will scanners work in the new game? Will it be the same as X3 where everything within range is picked up or will there be items that could block your scanners?
In X Rebirth there is a big difference between being in scanner range for a quick ID and being REALLY scanned deeply. There are several levels of scanning. Your true identification for example is something that requires a deeper scan. If you attack a station or shoot down a small transport vessel near a station, the law enforcement of that station may immediately start to hunt you, but they do not know exactly who you are (YET). Hiding in the right place, for long enough can help you not being punished for your evil deeds
This works vice versa for your own map system too. You can see whats going on around your stations and ships, but you may not know all the details unless you scan for them.
What about endgame content?
The same as in all X games before. When the plot ends, what happens next is entirely up to you. You can if you want, set your own master plan to make big changes to the universe and eliminate an entire faction if you like, or you continue building up your empire peacefully. You can continue playing missions, or you continue exploring the more remote areas of the huge universe. We do not decide this for you, we only want to provide the universe, and leave these questions to you.
Was the gamepad support removed?
Removed? Quite the contrary. We attach great importance to the ability to also play the game entirely with a gamepad. As you might have read already, we want to update the current X3 games with the same functionality as well. Since the interface for the X3 games is much more complex, it's not possible to make gamepad control quite as smooth as in X Rebirth, but nevertheless it should be possible to fully control all aspects of your game with one.
I'm a big fan of the new Steam "Big Picture" mode, which tries to bring gaming PCs to the living room and I want that our games work optimally there as well. In
this thread we're currently looking for feedback and testers to help us to create an optimal controller profile for X3: Terran Conflict and X3: Albion Prelude.
