[SkycladGuardian]

Looks like the guys of the B5 X3 Mod put out another trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FJ0TTTU00E
Very sexy 
Enjoy! 

[Flipside]

Looks very nice indeed

[MR_T3D]

Quite sexy indeed.
Release timeframe?
scenarios?

[Trivial Psychic]

Agreed.  If it wasn't for the fact that weapons aren't doing any visible damage, I'd assume that these were cut-scene renders.

[SkycladGuardian]

@MR_T3D: release timeframe: when its done  I think they started the mod before the release of Terran Conflict, so I hope they'll finish it before the release of Rebirth, but no garantees 

regarding scenarios, afik it will be a sandbox game akin to the original X game with working economy and stuff, there will be a campaign or several campaigns since I think they plan to implement several starting scenarios for different races and companies (EA, Narn, Centauri, Psi Corp etc.), but I'm not sure about that.

@Trivial Psychic: I'm pretty sure these are ingame shots, as weapons do no visible damage in the X3 games.

[Commander Zane]

The thing that offsets X3's beautiful backgrounds and ships is the atrocious graphics pertaining to combat, you are indeed looking at in-game trailers.

[Flipside]

Well, in honesty, I always felt that X3, in particular, was a trading game with combat tagged on because otherwise the game would get too boring too quickly. This is often highlighted by the fact that trading vessels will nonchalantly attempt to fly through Xenon sectors despite the fact they might as well try to fly through a cheese-grater.

[phatosealpha]

The strength of the game was certainly in it's economy.  Unfortunately, if it was meant as a trading game with combat tacked on ala old school Taipan, nobody bothered to tell the UI designers.  Run your own interstellar corporation from the backseat of a space Volkswagen.  It's got it's attractions, certainly, but the game always felt like there were two development teams and couldn't agree on what they were making.

[Trivial Psychic]

@Trivial Psychic: I'm pretty sure these are ingame shots, as weapons do no visible damage in the X3 games.

That's what I meant.  The only indication that these weren't rendered custscenes or something, was the fact that the weapons weren't causing any visible damage to the target hull.  Also, I'm not sure that I'm entirely sold on the Shadow skin effect... it seems a bit overdone.

[SkycladGuardian]

@Trivial Psychic: I'm pretty sure these are ingame shots, as weapons do no visible damage in the X3 games.

That's what I meant.  The only indication that these weren't rendered custscenes or something, was the fact that the weapons weren't causing any visible damage to the target hull.  Also, I'm not sure that I'm entirely sold on the Shadow skin effect... it seems a bit overdone.

D'oh. I misunderstood you there. The X Games could be so much better if there was any optical feedback about the damage you do with your weapons. Let's hope Egosoft changes that in Rebirth.
Concerning the Shadow skin, I actually was surprised that they got that animated texture thing to work so well.

[Belisarius]

@Trivial Psychic: I'm pretty sure these are ingame shots, as weapons do no visible damage in the X3 games.

That's what I meant.  The only indication that these weren't rendered custscenes or something, was the fact that the weapons weren't causing any visible damage to the target hull.  Also, I'm not sure that I'm entirely sold on the Shadow skin effect... it seems a bit overdone.

D'oh. I misunderstood you there. The X Games could be so much better if there was any optical feedback about the damage you do with your weapons. Let's hope Egosoft changes that in Rebirth.

They did. But as long as the fight-part in this game is as crap as in all games before I don't give a damn.

[Commander Zane]

I hope the fighting portion is actually good for a change. Capital ships are anti-climatic as all hell only being able to handle one target at a time per flank.
And the missiles...for ****'s sake the missiles...

[Flipside]

Well, the most effective missile in the game, for me, was the Beluga, you could take out most of a squad by simply sitting outside aggro range and firing them off at the targets

In X's defence, it needs to be remembered that the game did try to control, quite literally, thousands of ships in hundreds of sectors all at the same time, and anything going on OOS was done on a grid (from the looks of things) and used 'dice roll' mechanics in order to facilitate that. The problem was that this led to really weird combat situations where I would lose ships in battles that should have been incredibly in their favour.

As much as I am loathe to think of the responses this will generate, in some ways X reminds me of some of Derek Smarts work, a brilliant idea that is held back by both hardware and UI limitations. When I had X3 running on my old computer it used to get really jerky as the game matured, my i7 handles it a lot better, but these really are games that are designed to by played on computers more powerful than the current average, so I'm hoping that Rebirth will follow that same trend.

[SkycladGuardian]

I hope the fighting portion is actually good for a change. Capital ships are anti-climatic as all hell only being able to handle one target at a time per flank.
And the missiles...for ****'s sake the missiles...

Hm, I never played long enough to own a M2 or M1, but in X3 Reunion I'm currently flying a M7 Hyperion and it handles small to medium groups of Khaak and Xenon quite well. I once fought an Xenon Invasion with two M2 and a bunch of M3 - it was a piece of cake and very satisfying (especially the pay check after the battle)