Click here for more information about Transcend 2. X-Tended - Terran Conflict Mod. After a lengthy development phase this modification, which uses the Terran Conflict game engine and is set in an entirely new universe of nearly two hundred sectors sees its official public unveiling.
This massive mod features a completely new ship and weapon balance, numerous gameplay enhancements, streamlined asset management, many new weapons, wares, missiles, ships and missions. There is also a completely new map and a setting that is faithful to the official lore laid out by the books and games. The scope of this development marks it out as being one of the most extensive mods created for an X-series game.
The mod's team leader, Aragon Speed, said of its release, "The X-Tended Team would like to thank the community for their patience during the long development time of X-Tended - Terran Conflict. We hope you all agree with us that the wait was worth it. Of course our development of X-Tended does not stop here; the mod will continue to evolve and grow over time until we can create something truly memorable for the last game in the X series.
I interrupted Aragon Speed's post-Christmas reverie with a few questions about the project. Here's what he had to say:. With a large-scale mod like this how difficult was it to build a totally new universe while trying to remain faithful to the existing lore?
Instead we decided to create a new universe, but unfortunately this left us with the problem of making it at least plausible rather than "Here's a new universe just because we wanted to make one, it has absolutely nothing to do with the old one, so deal with it! We could have just created a new universe and the community would probably have liked it, but we felt that would be cheap and we also wanted it to fit into a possible branch of the X lore. To cut a long story short, Aldrin was chosen as the point of connection between the commonwealth sectors that everyone knew and the new sectors we have in XTC.
As an area that was from before the Terraformer wars, Aldrin must have originally had connections to the old gate network that Earth had built during that time period and thus wouldn't the races be interested in opening those connections up again? As the X-Tended team have always liked to push the boundaries of the game's engine, this lead to the idea of having a universe that was actually expanding around the player while they were playing the game to simulate the fact that this was a new area of space that the races were exploring and expanding into.
A simple idea, but it's the simple ones that can quickly turn into more work than anyone expects. Working out station placement so the economy is stable is a huge problem. Creating an economy that works not only in the short term, but also over the long term, is no easy task when all the sectors are available from the start of the game. To create one that is stable when you have a universe that is dynamically changing all around you while you are playing So to answer your original question, not easy at all.
In a universe so new and different there is still so much that is familiar; in your view what is the most jaw-dropping or eye-popping in-game feature? Man, I hate this sort of question, there is never a definitive answer as it depends on your point of view. As a developer I have to say the answer is fairly easy, it would be the massive amount of work that went into re-balancing the game.
Between the economy, weapons, missiles and ships, that really is an eye-popping amount of work to both do and to test. From a player's point of view the answer is less easy. I would have to say the most 'WOW! Combat is probably the most immediately-noticeable change for the player. It's no longer easy as the ships have now had balancing done on them to not only fit into much tighter class definitions M5, M4, M3 etc. They have also been tweaked to make them more effective in the hands of the AI.
The new weapons and how they are placed on ships have also been changed as we now use custom-built equipment lists that will adapt to the new difficulty settings we have added. We also expanded the tools available to the trader and streamlined the interface as much as possible so anything we have added feels like it was a part of the original game rather than a tacked-on after-thought that was added just because it was needed.
The amount of script work going on behind the scenes to make everything look and feel right is not inconsiderable either. The music was carefully chosen for each sector, and the amount of music work we chucked away just because it didn't fit the feel of the mod, the race, or the sector, has probably given the sound team more stress than joy for the most part.
Even the background textures for the sectors were chosen or created to help convey a specific feeling for the sector they were placed in. The sector descriptions and the Galactic News Service both add an extra level of immersion for the player and actually give the new universe a depth that is perceptible. What is the appeal of playing X-Tended — Terran Conflict to a player who is still enjoying their Terran Conflict game? Aragon Speed The challenge.
The type of person who plays a game like Terran Conflict is in it for the long haul. They are not after a quick five-minute fix of something fun that's what the Wii is for.
They invest a large amount of time into the game. Nothing quite compares to dragging your sorry butt up from nothing to become ruler of the universe. XTC makes this process more rewarding for the player. Gaining your first M6, for example, now actually feels like a well-earned achievement.
I am filled with respect for EGOSOFT for continuing on with a type of game that is currently out of fashion in the larger gaming community, for not bowing to the whim of the masses and for creating games that have a depth and long-term appeal that most modern games severely lack.
However, I think most people would agree with me when I say that Terran Conflict was pushed towards the mainstream a little too much, and thus lost some of its appeal due to the rewards being far too easily gained to cater to the more casual gamer.
You lost that sense of achievement the earlier games in the series gave you and became bored with playing much quicker as a result. XTC aims to add the challenge and sense of achievement back into the game.
All of them? OK, I'm not going to get away with that answer, am I? It looks great, plus I like the little internal tunnel you can fly an M5 through - a nice little feature I don't think anyone has found yet. A very close second has to be the new USC ships. My favourite ship-related feature, however, is not a new model, it is the way we have improved all the capital ships in the game by making them act more like capital ships.
Attack an M1 and it will not only fire back at you like they did in a vanilla game, it will also give you a face full of fighters to deal with as it will launch its ships to help defend itself. Damaged fighters are repaired by the M1 when they dock and, depending on their pilot aggression, will bug out and fly back to the M1 for repairs, then launch again when they are ready. If you actually destroy a capital ship, then the crew will try to escape in escape pods before the whole ship blows.
Overall, capital ships feel a little bit more 'real' than they did before. I don't want to give away too much information here however I can say that there are multiple new plots planned. One involves the cold war between Aldrin and the Terrans, another involves the Xenon, and a third involves the Kha'ak. We have ideas for other plots as well, but they are just that at the moment, ideas.
We won't begin work on those until the current three are done and out to the public, otherwise we will become snowed under with work and the player will be kept waiting longer than is needed. If you had to name one feature in X-Tended — Terran Conflict that you feel players may find annoying, what would it be?
Probably the larger sector sizes, they are massive compared to Terran Conflict's. They can range from about seventy kilometres to one-hundred-and-twenty kilometres between gates and take a long time to cross.
From a lore perspective, in the original universe the Teladi had moved the gates in sectors closer together to allow trade to be more efficient, but this is a new area of space and the Teladi haven't been able to drag gates around yet. From a game-play point of view, we wanted to return to the feeling you had way back in the original X — Beyond the Frontier game.
It took time to cross sectors. You actually had the feeling of being lost in a very small ship in a very large universe. This is also reflected in another potentially annoying at first feature - targets in missions can and will be attacked by race police and military if they are an enemy of that race or a known criminal, resulting in the mission target being destroyed before the player can even reach it - annoying mainly because the player will be trying to compare XTC to the vanilla experience.
As I mentioned before, the universe no longer revolves around the player and the player will have to work harder to make his mark on it. You can view a trailer video of this new modification by clicking here and read more about the project by clicking here. Hi, folks. I would like to tell you a bit more about me. What I like, for example, is good movies, my Wacom graphic tablet, my XBOX, swimming and other sports, having a beer after work and I love my wife and my budgies.
What I don't like are people who are arrogant, ignorant, frustrated with their whole life or just simply stupid. So what about my work? I love my job. So I would like to show you what a typical day in my life looks like and I hope you enjoy it. The daily fight for the bathroom is on and unfortunately my wife wins every time.
Coffee time. I am still not per cent awake but I try to help my body a bit with an injection of pure black and damn hot coffee before I even can think about going to work. Dropbox mirror A simple script that show you some useful informations when you have an advanced satellite and when the object either an enemy ship, an enemy station, an abandoned ship, a potential smuggler or a flying ware is in its range.
Phanon's essentially. You need a freight scanner to reveal them. If you have EMS installed, that will give you a mission. Smugglers are only scanned if you own a Police license. You have three options when you click on a sector : View sector, Send the reaper, Jump.
Be aware of the fact that the Community Key is often printed a little bit unclear. So, if the code is not accepted the first time, check if you may have confused a letter with a number or vice versa e. S instead of 5, Z instead of 2. After you have found your code, you have to enter it into Steam. Click here to see an explanation about the necessary steps. What about a retail version? X3: Albion Prelude will be available in two retail box forms on the 24th of February Currently confirmed locations for this product include Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
This consists of a selection of scripts written by members of the playing community. As usual Egosoft has selected them as extensions that fit well into the game and do not destroy its balance. Part of the new BP is the Hephaistos Corp. Station building service that will relieve entrepreneurs of exhausting construction work by purchasing and building stations as compact as possible.
Those who would rather let autonomous traders earn their money instead of investing in station construction will be pleased by the new Trade Command Mk3 Blacklist Manager feature, which prohibits Mk3 traders from trading in specific stations or sectors. With war raging across large areas of the X Universe, it has become increasingly difficult for those with vast empires to manually check all of their occupied sectors for signs of enemy activity.
Therefore the Satellite Early Warning Network will provide a means to inform the player about enemy ships and initiate, where possible, appropriate countermeasures.
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