r/X4Foundations

I have been working the last few months on a passion project. A encyclopedia for X4, I got annoyed having 5 tabs open (various websites and tools) and switching through them for info that will support me in funding all sides of the war, and also taking over all the terran territory (i just dont like their attitude, although i do have respect for them).

I am incredibly in love with X4, with over 1000+ hours and counting! A big shoutout to all the people over at EgoSoft (managers, designers, developers, marketers etc.) you guys have created an absolute treasure of an experience for me and I am sure to the community as well. There is nothing quite like it.

I am happy to announce Torus, a full encyclopedia (+tools) for X4!

=== WHAT IS IT? ===

I like to call it a next-gen wikipedia, and what that means for me is having a single source of truth of all the games information (ships, stations, wares, storyline, sectors, factions etc.) and being able to use that info to calculate things. 

=== WHY DID I CREATE IT? ===

I understand that there are plenty of sources for various topics and calculations but what I disliked about that is that it was either outdated, hard to find, spread out and not so easy (visually) on the eyes. And also passion!

Passion for design, passion for the game and passion for creating something that will help me solve what annoyed me.

=== WHAT DOES IT DO? ===

It has all the games information such as gameplay mechanics, items, locations, descriptions and more nicely and visually organized for easy and quick searching and reading. 

It also uses that information to help you calculate, compare and plan through useful tools (Station production, ship comparison, map exploration, ship outfitting and more)

P.S. it has a Dark & Light theme switch!

=== HOW DID I CREATE IT? ===

I used a tool to extract the game’s XML files then I used AI to create scripts that extracts that information and categorizes and structures it the way I want. 

For the design, I created the design system (everything visual) myself, in Figma ( I am a designer :D ) as a long standing task I have always wanted to do (a thorough, modern and compliant design system). And wanted to use it and ofcourse test it on Torus!

Then once my design system was ready both in figma and in code, I got AI to use the extracted and structured information and create the website using the design system code and figma designs for the page layouts. After countless hours going back and forth, I was happy with the result as it looked exactly the way I imagined it. And lastly, I made it create calculation scripts to be used for the tools I wanted (so that everything is calculated accurately and always linked to the source information) - this was so painful but a great learning experience nonetheless.

=== AI DISCLAIMER ===

Before anyone attacks me for using AI and making “SLOP”, I would like to say that the process of this whole creation isnt a 1 shot prompt to create it. The Design and the extraction are manual (and it took time because it was challenging to understand how and which XML files to extract from the game files and which tool to use doing so - nor is it easy creating a design system of this scale, manually)… I utilized AI to create scripts for the extraction of information (because I am not a developer, although I do understand a bit of development). And converting the design system from figma into code is also a long process (structure, rules, compliance, language, standards, philosophy etc. are part of that process), it took me about 3 months to design and convert this and another 2 months to help me create the website pages (designed first in figma) to produce Torus. The tools themselves are also quite difficult to do without the help of AI which of course it helped with! I hope you understand that I used AI to multiply my skills, help me find solutions to my problems and help me produce what I wanted for a quite a while. It is only slop if you dont know what you are doing or what you want, and expect it to do everything with 3-5 prompts… perfectly.

=== INFORMATION ===

As it stands, I cant say all the information is 100% accurate, yes it did extract from the game files, but some information extracted is articulated differently (groups, labels, structure, numbers) so it becomes tricky to understand what it means exactly. Nevertheless, from what I have tested and compared, it seems to be accurate. And I am constantly reviewing when I get a chance, improving the scripts and info on how they interlink to the information.

=== TOOLS ===

There are 8 tools: Production chain explorer, Station production calculator, Map explorer, Ship loadout, Compare tool, Equipment browser, Ware profit finder and Research planner.

Those 8 tools are not final, especially the UI for some (Compare tool, map exploerer, research planner, ship loadout) need at least a month or 2 for me to make them have a better user experience and UI layout and I’m really excited to do so, it will be a nice challenge that I want to take it on! 

The MAP tool is not 100% accurate - mainly the placements of the free/derelict ships, and some other issues. Will work on fixing that first before i touch the other tools.

Each tool has a label (ALPHA, BETA, CANDIDATE, STABLE) 

- ALPHA means it has UI/UX and calculation issues (probably) and not heavily tested.

- BETA means it has smaller issues but works decently and tested to some extent.

=== FEEDBACK AND UPDATES ===

First and foremost, all the ship pictures are missing except for the Xenon H (which I took myself) - i will have to take pictures of all the ships at some point! If you are willing to help with that, please do! I want each ship to have an awesome picture representing it :D (now that I think of it I should have taken the Xenon H picture with its swarm of drones coming out)

The Torus website is currently at alpha v0.1.1 which means that I will continue to improve and update it (design, UI/UX, information, tools etc.) and I would really appreciate any feedback for improvement! 

=== FUTURE PLANS ===

-UI/UX updates to the tools

-More tools

-100% Information Accuracy

-More images / supporting visuals

-More lore information

-And anything else the community wants 

-(The big one and not related to torus) I want to test my UI/UX skills in game UI, and X4 is the perfect game to try on since one of the community complaints is commonly the UI, even though I got used to it and it doesn’t bother me all that much.

=== LAST DISCLAIMER ===

I will never add advertising or monetize this, this is and always will be 100% free for myself and the x4 community. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Thank you for reading this far! And if you have any questions, please ask away…

Visit it here: torus.simbolik.ai  (it is a subdomain of my website, which I will change to its own soon)