Super Highway..Wow

[ShadowTek]

Been playing for 100+ hours (GOG) and I never got the super Highway until now, I only ever played X2 so when I went into a "super highway" I always moved (thus breaking the flow) Only now do I realize (cause I had to take a pi$$ after I went into a super highway) that they take you on a massive huge tour of 10 or so sectors.

LOL how cool is that! Also I'm an idiot for always moving after 1 jump thus cancelling the whole "trip"

[DasWulf]

Not very cool tbh, though I personally hate the magical space highways from a conceptual standpoint. When Egosoft designed them, they said they did so with the intent for players to be able to get immediate gratification. In a way, its a means of dumbing down the game, and if the goal is to travel from one point to the next quickly, there are better ways to do it. Hyperdrive to a distant beacon, wormholes in a distant place...ect just no damn highways with their off ramps.

[Defektiv]

I never got how some people get so triggered over the highway concept. It's not that hard to imagine people colonizing space to set up convenient travel systems in the colonized area. Maybe the technology is not exactly "realistic" but neither is any of this. I'm not advocating for anime mech spaceships by any means but none of this stuff actually exists. You gotta meet immersion halfway to enable the feeling.

[DasWulf]

I never got how some people get triggered at other people not liking space highways. See how easy it is to apply "triggered" to someone you don't agree with?

Space highways are a gimmick. They were not necessary, and there many ways to achieve the same result that is less of said gimmick.

Do you think all races some how decided "hey lets make space roads to get you from point A to B"... in the vast expanse of space. Like I said, the same result could be accomplished with wormholes, hyperdrive like transport to beacons which each race sets up, a coordinate system, anything but literal roads in space.

[Malkuth]

The super highways in X4 only share a name with the ones in XR. They have no mini game and it’s not to hard to believe that it’s one step closer to the races understanding the gates and how they work, and how to build them. Only they represent a lower tech version of gate with limits.

Read the Lore of C universe the gates are not made by any of the races. And the races are at the mercy of the gates builders. It’s all pretty cool story.

[ShadowTek]

Well, I think they are really cool despite other opinions

[Zothen]

Originally posted by DasWulf:

Do you think all races some how decided "hey lets make space roads to get you from point A to B"... in the vast expanse of space. Like I said, the same result could be accomplished with wormholes, hyperdrive like transport to beacons which each race sets up, a coordinate system, anything but literal roads in space.

Do you think any alien race could somehow invent artifical gravity? Or warping or hyperdrive?
See how easy it is to apply a false "like in reality"- argument that has no meaning when a applied to a game? Becaues games are by defaut not reality.
So yeah, your argument vs. space roads it empty.
By your own "logic" all means of transport are the same.

[ZombieHunter]

I love the new highways and how they are more like racetracks than tubes. They function very well and you can get almost anywhere in the game within minutes. Very nice.

[Axeface]

Yes the highways are great fun, and its awesome how they link right into gates and super highways seamlessly. The improvements to them in Rebirth (especially home of light) lead to the ones we see in X4.
And yeh, its hillarious how many people I see complaining about them. I just dont get it (that isnt an invitation to tell me why, Ive seen all the 'arguements').

[ThatOneGuyYouKnow]

...I think they're cool and the janky stations for that matter lol. Even though it's pointless I like walking up to buy a new ship it's like going to a car lot :D

[Defektiv]

Originally posted by DasWulf:

I never got how some people get triggered at other people not liking space highways. See how easy it is to apply "triggered" to someone you don't agree with?

Space highways are a gimmick. They were not necessary, and there many ways to achieve the same result that is less of said gimmick.

Do you think all races some how decided "hey lets make space roads to get you from point A to B"... in the vast expanse of space. Like I said, the same result could be accomplished with wormholes, hyperdrive like transport to beacons which each race sets up, a coordinate system, anything but literal roads in space.

So you prefer a feature that is different than the feature a developer chose to use. I don't think there's a lot of races in space, nor energy strips that propel ships along them in space, or even spaceships. But I do know humanity has never been very far in space either, so getting torn up about how fictional aliens might or might not travel in a video game just seems a bit silly to me. You just said that one fictional technology would never exist and then named several other fictional technologies as more logical replacements.

[Zothen]

Am I the only one who gets strong Wipeout feelings from this new highways?
Cant help, but this picture shouldnt come up when playing a game with spaceships.. ;)

[Defektiv]

Not really. Since the major highway goes along the outside of the map its not really even convenient for anything other than fast(er) overall travel time in autopilot. When I'm manually flying I almost always use the gates internal to the map. I do enjoy the New Jersey Turnpike in Nopileos' Fortune II that all the shady dealers build in the shadows around though.

[ZombieHunter]

Originally posted by Zothen:

Am I the only one who gets strong Wipeout feelings from this new highways?
Cant help, but this picture shouldnt come up when playing a game with spaceships.. ;)

Now that you mention it yes. And some of the old space racing games from the 90's.

[CodeDJ]

Originally posted by DasWulf:

I never got how some people get triggered at other people not liking space highways. See how easy it is to apply "triggered" to someone you don't agree with?

Space highways are a gimmick. They were not necessary, and there many ways to achieve the same result that is less of said gimmick.

Do you think all races some how decided "hey lets make space roads to get you from point A to B"... in the vast expanse of space. Like I said, the same result could be accomplished with wormholes, hyperdrive like transport to beacons which each race sets up, a coordinate system, anything but literal roads in space.

So we should have a system where you come from a gate to go into another gate immediately, to reach the gate on the other side of the sector. Wormholes sounds worse than space highways.
Hyperdrive doesnt make sense just to use it between gates when hyperdrive itself is faster and has more freedom than the gates system in the X series.

They did highways so they dont have to put some sort of gate or accelerator at each station and at each gate. Any other way to move your ship faster in any direction woud dumb down the game even further.

[Toxo]

It's a game.
And for gameplay's sake, they are an awesome feature.
Buy any shiphull, take it for a tour on the highway past all other races shipyards to get the best components.
Snap the best trading offers within a few minutes or less
Circle around the map while in your mission log, to pick and choose the best mission offers from all the stations you zoom by
a.s.o.

and about it being a ridiculous tech: it is. Like teleporters, artificial gravity, open-ceiling docking ports, warp-gates, etc.

also, there are rl-plans to build space highways in our solar system in the future: huge lasers powered by solar energy, focusing their beams on ships with solar sails. The concept of spacehighways surely isn't outlandish, even tho their representation in this game is, along with everything else, pure fiction.