I made a mod like that for X Rebirth (Though with just 6 connection) and I can tell you the ways sectors, gates, & highways are set up on the script side is a royal pain in the butt. Mostly because you have to translate about 3-4 different types of coordinate systems (Universe, Sector, Local, Object Alignment... all have different 0,0,0 points) in order to keep everything aligned (so you don't come out of gates backwards for example).

For a full Expanse like setup you would have to touch every Gate & Highway in the game in some fashion.

On top of that you will have to pick a sector hex to place it and hope Egosoft's next universe expansion doesn't shuffle things around enough to invalidate your choice (forcing you to figure out an entirely new set of coordinate alignments)

From a balance perspective its actually not a terrible idea, but you would have to put some sort of fortress station in the center of it to keep the Xenon out. The last thing you need is the Xenon to decide to throw a defense station in, claim the sector, and proceed to murder the universe's supply of trade ships as they try to use the shortcuts :P

EDIT: I know my experience is from X Rebirth, but I can't see them rewriting the core systems in X4 to be THAT different from what X3 & XR used. They really like their X Scripting language lol

So I'm assuming orienting these gates like a sphere would be even more painful? I've never seen a non-"horizontal" gate. I guess there's a reason for it haha

Originally posted by Byter:

So I'm assuming orienting these gates like a sphere would be even more painful? I've never seen a non-"horizontal" gate. I guess there's a reason for it haha

Unless they changed it in X4 (which I doubt) the object rotation uses quaternion based rotation math on top of the standard x,y,z coordinaate system for local space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternion

You would need a REALLY good scientific calculator to get them all aligned into an Expanse style sphere pointed into the center :P

Its the main reason alot of people don't bother with sector editing. There are some ways to jury rig it to work, but if you are OCD about placement it becomes a major headache quickly.

Well I think I might just give this a shot and create an empty sector somewhere at the bottom of the map and try to add gates to it. At this point I'd even set out a mod-reward of a few hundred euros lol. I *really* hate how X4 does its modding :P

Tiny update for you: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2956067199

Went ahead and made it :)