Simon: Scripts, Outposts and more

Hello guys,

I’m Simon Schütz, and I’m also part of the X3TC developer team. In the egosoft forum and the DevChat, you might know me under the nickname SymTec ltd.. Regular visitors to the Egosoft Scripts and Modding forum will know me as a heart and soul scripter, always keen on extending the game’s possibilities with the powers of the game-internal script editor – and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since I started working on X3: Terran Conflict.

With all the new ship types, some of them with very special functionality, we needed scripts telling them what to do. If you command your missile frigate to fire a deadly array of missiles on your target, it will now use every single missile tube to bring death and destruction over your enemy, and at the same time show you the most beautiful fireworks in the known universe. In X3: Terran Conflict, missiles are more important than ever before – but to fire them, you first need to buy or produce them. To simplify the process, we created new resupply options and trade commands. You can now have every single one of your missile forges deliver their products to your personal equipment dock automatically, and use that dock to supply your whole fleet with cheap missiles. Or you just take a ship, install the new Resupply Command Software, and let the AI work out the rest. It’s all your choice.

However, new ship commands were not the only thing I took a close look at: I also made sure that the Flight Wings are not just a group of ships flying around together and doing the same thing, but work together as a unit that roams the universe to take out enemies. Be aware that members of the other races are profiting from new commands just as much as you do: The Military Outposts, big security installations with their own sector defence fleets, have full control over security in their systems. See their fighters patrol the area, respond to enemy threats over several sectors and punish illegal activity more than you would probably like. See the freighters build up and maintain their own supply chains, visible to you in one place, invisible in others. And watch the Terran economy closely if you can – they do some things different from what you’d expect… even after hours and hours of playing X3: Terran Conflict, you can still find something new, and that’s what makes the X-series so unique.

-Simon

The X Girl at GC Leipzig

Life as a game developer is tough ;-)

Well actually the show is not JUST about flirting with pretty girls unfortunately and so there are also a number of interviews and presentations I did at the show.


This is actually a very bad quality video (in four parts) of the first presentation I had to do. Be warned this is in German! It was not as good as the later presentations where I had a bit more practice, but if you can stand the shaky camera have a look.

THINK video now released.

TRADE, FIGHT, BUILD, THINK
These are the four keywords which stand for the freedom to do what you want inside the X Universe. So there will also be four trailer videos talking about the game features, one for each topic.

BUILD was already released a few weeks ago, and today we added THINK.

Here are the (low quality) Youtube versions, but to seriously watch them, please download the high quality XVID versions from egosoft.com under DOWNLOADS (also available are German localised versions!).


Think Trailer: English version


Build Trailer: English version

Alex about past and present

Hello folks,

my name is Alexander Preuss and I am a brand new staff member at Egosoft... well... in fact my career here started almost 13 years ago! That might sound a bit confusing, but let me explain:

I joined Egosoft in 1996 for the first time, and worked on a lot of 2D based advertising games as well as the adventure game Imperium Romanum. Until 2002 I worked on the Egosoft games X-Beyond the Frontier, X-tension, and X²-The Threat.

Imperium Romanum 1995

Intro XTension 2001, Intro X-Beyond the Frontier 1999

Unfortunately I left Egosoft in Mai 2002 because of family related issues. I went to the IT and
Internet business and spent most of my time in designing websites, artworks for magazines and a lot of uninteresting stuff which reminded me of how I missed working in the games industry.

During the past 3-4 years I was practicing a lot on 3D/2D artworks in my free time, and in 2005 I won the cgnetworks "Grand Space Opera" challenge with my artwork "The broken Armistice over Abalakin", and also some smaller follow up challenges.

Well... luckily and due to a chain of some funny events it happened that Bernd Lehahn and I met again... and... what should i say... I am back on board! :)

My first big Job here at Egosoft was to create the new Intro for X3 Terran Conflict. It is based on a concept by Helge Kautz and shows the line of events between the original Terraformer attack on Earth and the events which will lead to the new story.


Intro X3:Terran Conflict

Intro X3:Terran Conflict

I also worked on some of the new models which will appear in X3: Terran Conflict.



Some examples are a big Terraformer CPU Ship, a secret Terraformer object,
the Khaak Hive and the new Xenon station.



Finally I can say I am having a great time right now and doing all this cool stuff for X3TC is pure fun and it makes me proud to be a member of the Egosoft team again.

-Alex

Bobby: from fan to developer

For the next issue of the X Universe News, our regular email to the community, Bernd has asked some of the developers of X3: Terran Conflict to write a bit about their experiences over the past two years. The team that worked on this grand finale to the X series has been the biggest team to work on an X game ever, and the reason for this is that our core team was joined by some guys you may already know. So without further ado, let this series start:

Hi, I’m Bobby Wilkinson, one of the developers of X3: Terran Conflict, although some in the community probably know me better as Syklon, one of the developers behind the XTended mod. Some of the more observant may have already noticed a few XTended ships show up in some of the X3:TC screenshots shown so far. X3:TC includes what we felt were some of the best ships from XTended, which, even after being reworked to look and feel even better, should be familiar to XTended’s wonderful fans, while providing new, fun content for the rest of the players to enjoy. To mention some specifically, I’m sure all of our fans will be happy to hear about the inclusion of XTended’s Frigates (M7) and Heavy Corvettes, but with the massive amount of stuff X3:TC is adding, these are just a drop in the bucket of new stuff for X3:TC.

Before I started working on the X-series, and before I started modding the X-series, I was a player of the X-series, which goes for a lot of the other developers on the X3:TC team as well. If we weren’t making or modifying the games, we were playing them, and that gave us a great mix of ideas for improvement from multiple perspectives. A lot of the new features you’ll see talked about more as we move towards release were things that we, as both players and developers, felt were missing from previous games in the series.

Don’t let the numbering fool you, X3: Terran Conflict is more than just X3: Reunion with a bunch of new ships and missions, although there’s plenty of those as well! You’ve already seen and read hints about some of the new stuff, like boarding parties, bombers, flight wing groups, missile frigates, and a new User Interface, but there’s still plenty more you haven’t heard about yet, like non-player corporations, new and improved mission-handling, military outposts, and a bunch of new weapons. So get ready to find out about even more cool stuff as we get closer to release, not to mention get more details about stuff we’ve already mentioned, because, as both a player and a developer, I have to say X3: Terran Conflict is going to be the best game in the X-series yet.

What is X3:Terran Conflict anyway?

Hi everybody,

some of you may know the X space simulation series for PC. It started in 1999 with X:Beyond the Frontier, followed by X-TENSION, X2: The Threat and then X3: Reunion in late 2005.

Now almost 10 years after the first game was released, we are close to the release of the final chapter of this series: X3:Terran Conflict.

I have asked the guys who worked on this game for such a long time, to write a little about their work, post a few pictures and describe the features of this great new game. We are sure that X3:Terran Conflict will be the best game of the series and probably the best space simulation game today.

The X games have always been about freedom. We provide a universe and the player decides what to do inside of it. TRADE, FIGHT, BUILD, THINK are always printed in capital letters on the box and, everything you can do in the X Universe roughly fits into one of these categories.

To catch up on the old X games have a look at http://www.egosoft.com

This is the X3:Terran Conflict teaser video. It was the first piece of information released early 2008. The next few postings will show, where we went from there ;)


-Bernd