A New Home
Development Reflections
With the release of Update 2.6 of Terran Conflict, we
saw the release of another EGOSOFT-approved community-developed quest in
an official update. Now the dust has begun to settle on that event, I
asked some of the members of A New Home's (ANH) development team to
share some of their reflections on the development process. Here's what
they had to say:
Ketraar
I'm an old-school X-addict and this whole thing started
in early 2008 with the release of the Mission Director (MD). It didn't
take me long to get addicted to that too, particularly with the
improvements that were made for it for Terran Conflict. Becoming for
familiar with it over time, I started to daydream about all the
possibilities that were available for changing or adding content to the
game and even now it still feels like I've only just scratched the
surface. Combine all that potential with some nostalgia about past X
games and soon ideas start popping out like crazy.
One of those ideas led to the Treasure Hunt mission, a
mission based exclusively on THINK, where you are challenged to solve
some puzzles and riddles, some of which were hard, but most based again
on nostalgic times from X Beyond the Frontier, which for the sake of
something a little different, will provide a challenge.
The second mission, A New Home, was based on the simple
premise of giving the player his or her own sector. We all know that
this is the ultimate statement of wealth and prestige, having a place in
the X Universe called 'home'. This dream came true for many players of
X3: Reunion with the sector auction and we didn't want to miss such an
opportunity in Terran Conflict. So we put our heads together and came up
with a few ideas and what could have been a simple sector auction soon
morphed into a respectable plot. We also added a few gimmicks to make
things interesting and fun, but still challenging. We also decided to
give players the option to choose the layout of the sector, with 5
different layouts to choose from... it's your home, so it's only fair
you should have one you like. For my part, I'd like to thank all that
were involved in this endeavour and also EGOSOFT for the great game and
its boundless modding possibilities.
Jens Ka
I was actually added to a group Skype chat without being
asked. I was a bit shocked because Ketraar, MADxHAWK and Belisarius
were already there and as all of them are forum moderators, my first
thought was 'What have I done?'. I really couldn't think of anything I'd
done (good or bad) which would explain my presence among this group of
moderators, other than working with the MD. It became immediately
apparent when the question was asked, 'How do we reward the player with
his own sector?'
After the plot was nearly through the concept phase, I
started working on the MD code. After a few days the idea was floated to
get this quest signed by EGOSOFT. Everyone was happy with that idea,
apart from me, because at the time I was a DevNet Level 3 user and I was
worried that that I could not be involved further in the development
process. Just as I was convinced this wouldn't be a problem, the next
problem arose. In order to get the mission signed we had to provide Owen
at EGOSOFT with a working Alpha build within nine days! Only 10% of the
code had been written at that point and I started coding 12-14 hours
per day. It was a really hard time, but it's a time I won't forget.
What do I like about this mission? Well, from the
coder's point of view the implementation of the CPU ship hack brought
some interesting variety to the code. From the player's point of view,
it's the fact that it's based on the THINK element of the game and
doesn't need too much fighting.
Alex Vanderbilt
I was part of the ANH team right from the start when
Ketraar had his wild idea. Since I can neither write a script nor use
the MD, and the mapping tasks hadn't been assigned at that point, I
grasped the opportunity and started with creating the different sectors.
Every race in the X-Universe has its own requirements
for a suitable sector: the Boron like water, the Teladi - mud, the Split
- barren planets with load of dangerous places and species, the Argon -
average worlds, and the Paranid - hot and arid worlds. According to
these preferences, I started designing the sectors and stuffed them with
suns, planets and moons. The sectors, however, shouldn’t be just empty
shells; hence I also placed some rocks and asteroids in them, nothing
special and with more or less average values. The sun value is also
higher than in common sectors to facilitate the sector for Solar Power
Plants. Special contents are the Nividium-Asteroids in some versions and
the moons. Normally, the Moons in the X-Universe are barren and
lifeless balls of rock or ice, but to be honest, I’m not too keen on
that, which is why the moons in the player sectors are either small
planets or ringed disasters. I especially like the Paranid sector,
because you are in the orbit of a moon and you can fly behind it easily,
which is a nice gimmick and offers some good locations for stations if
you want to hide them.
Another of my roles was the development of the Character
Alexmanckvanbilt, the Paranid in the Imperial Cartography Agency, to
whom you must pay the horrendous 333 million Credits. Unfortunately,
there was some resistance from other team members and especially EGOSOFT
to my suggestion to squeeze 666 Million Credits out of the player. What
a pity! 
Belisarius
One day Ketraar came up with the idea to write a plot
that rewards the player with his own sector, but not like it was in X3:
Reunion, with an auction, but with a nice storyline behind it. There we
faced our problem of having no idea what this plot should look like. We
shared hundreds of ideas, but all of them were more unconnectable parts
of a possible plotline than a real concept for it. MADxHAWK, also part
of the dev team, then came up with following statement that made me
laugh the first time I read it: "I want a CPU ship in that plot!"
As funny as it sounds, this was the birth of our
plotline. Of course, the plot wasn't done at this time, so we proceeded
sharing ideas and quite soon we had a base where we could build a story
around the CPU ship. Since MADxHAWK is a real coffee-addict we called
the CPU ship #cafe. Ogerboss and Iifrit Tambuur-san wrote a nice little
script that ensured #cafe had self-defence. That script was really
sadistic and therefore didn't made it into the final version, but let me
at least tell you what this nice little script did to the player and to
NPC ships that came too close. These ships were taken over and then
used to protect the CPU ship. For the player this resulted a long
spacesuit ride, a little sadistic, you'll probably agree, hence it
didn't make it into the final, released version, although I really liked
it.
I wrote a list of 29 plot steps that contained the
entire plotline, then Ketraar and Jens Ka, our two Mission Director
professionals, started coding the plot. Due to my list I got the plot
writer position and ensured that everything remained of a certain
quality and logic level. We also put ourselves in certain positions in
the plot, so I choose to be the Teladi on the Trading Station in
Freedom's Reach. You'll have to play it to find out where all the others
can be found.
Once the green light had been given for it to be a
signed mission for the game a few things had to be changed, but in the
end it made into the patch 2.6 and I was quite happy about the final
outcome and also proud being part of the developer team. I hope everyone
enjoys that mission and is happy with the reward. 
