X3 Terran Conflict

[Ashaman DeRouge]

Any good? getting it off steam right now...staring at the loading bar...

[SinisterDeath]

Any good? getting it off steam right now...staring at the loading bar...

 

I like it, but its in a certain Niche market.

Its not very plot intensive.

It is a HUGE game.

IT is HARD even on the easiest of difficulties.

X3:TC has the easier to use UI and control scheme.

 

You can go about blowing stuff up, or becoming a trade tycoon.

It is a slow paced game.

 

It is and it isn't combat heavy, aiming is ridiculously hard until you figure it out, and even then its not all that easy.

Some have issues with joysticks (I can get mine to work just fine) but since I played it mostly with the mouse and keyboard I find that they work the best. Theres a ton of hotkeys that are programed, and more that you can program, making straight up joystick a bit difficult for all the hotkeys. Shoulda seen the orginal, that had 5x as many hotkeys. ;)

 

ITs definately not the kind of game you'll pick up and love it in the first hour. I think most people tend to hate it in the first hour. :P

 

To put it into perspective.

Even CHEATING, It took me 60 hours to get to about part 6 of a 30 part mission.

 

If you do get the game, add me to your steam list so if you need any help you can bug me. ;)

 

[Ashaman DeRouge]

I went into it thinking it's a technical version of x-wing vs tie fighter and got it pretty quick.

 

I played it as a merchant and just did the flight school and then floated around for about an hour, I plan on starting a proper game today. I think I'm in love!

 

One question I have though, if I start this as the um...Terran Defender? I think it is, does that stop me from doing other things like being a trader as well? I get my ship will be kitted out differently, but would it stop me buying another ship and trading using that?

 

My joystick works fine, thank god, it's got about 15 buttons on it I think so I can do combat/general flight actions just fine.

[SinisterDeath]

I went into it thinking it's a technical version of x-wing vs tie fighter and got it pretty quick.

 

I played it as a merchant and just did the flight school and then floated around for about an hour, I plan on starting a proper game today. I think I'm in love!

 

One question I have though, if I start this as the um...Terran Defender? I think it is, does that stop me from doing other things like being a trader as well? I get my ship will be kitted out differently, but would it stop me buying another ship and trading using that?

 

My joystick works fine, thank god, it's got about 15 buttons on it I think so I can do combat/general flight actions just fine.

 

Yea, you can buy an entire fleets of ships, war ships and trade ships.

The main difference in the startups is what you get.

Trader gets more money and a ship that has bigger cargo holds.

Terran Defender gets a ship with more weapons that kill things.

 

The economy in the game is pretty dynamic, but the main thing you have to remember is that when it stars, Its like the universe just 'started', so you can make a ton if your fast. But if you don't watch out the AI will actually out pace you on the trade if your not careful.

 

When buying things, always check the price you buy it at, Always try to buy from a place that has full stock, and sell it at a place that has low stock.

Easy place to start out is the Giant Solar panels. Buy the Energy Cells from them, since they are ussually full on them. They sell em low.

Then go to a manufacturing place, and sell them energy cells since they are low.

If you do this enough times you'll eventually be able to afford a Mammoth tanker ship, so you can buy more than a 10,000 energy cells and sell them.

Course, the big bucks are in the more expensive commodities. But more expense also means more risk.

Best bet is to supply a station with commodities until it actually produces all of what it produces until its full. Then buy them out at the lowest price, then sell them to the next guy.

 

The end product however like Ammo (stay away) doesn't really sell very well. have to constaly factor in things like, how far it is from one place to another, is it work buying low one place, then traveling 15 sectors to another and sell high there, when you can travel 3 sectors for a medium price?

 

You can actually build stations that produce goods. I always start with Energy and Crystal fabs, you can also buy connective 'tubes' that basically cuts the middle man (your ships) from transfering goods, pretty much making it so you have a steady supply that costs 'nothing' to make. All the Energy cell places require crystal, but they don't consume them. So you'll los emoney if you just sell that.

 

Can also mine in several different methods, theres a mining component you can add to your ship, or you can just nuke astroids. Or build a mining outpost and plop it down there.

 

 

 

Combat can also rack up the cash pretty quickly, argueably faster, but like all fast things they tend to go capoot pretty fast to. Going the trading route you'll eanr money slowly, but it'll exponentially increase. The shere numbers you get to deal with will constantly increaes, and unless you screw up on the sell, you'll near always double your money...

 

But back to combat, there is a way to gain money fast that way, and thats whats termed as Capping a ship.

Capping is the process by which, you

1st Destroy the enemies shields

2nd destroy there hull to a %, and wait for the enemy to escape

3rd destroy the guy escaping (you do NOT want him taking yoru ship!)

4th, eject from your ship, and float over to theres. get in

 

That ship is now yours.

 

How will you know if they escape?

well, they tell you.

And the 'red' enemy icon switches to a white color. So be careful of it.

 

THe Xenon ships that you probably already encountered, can fetch a cool 25k or more.

Bigger class ships, assuming you can cap them, fetch even more.

Do Not pay to repair your ship, just eject and left click on it. Use yoru own repair beam, even if it takes an hour. 100% hull is like, 20x the value of 50%.

 

Save up your money and find a Jump Drive.

It consumes energy to instantly warp you to a given sector. put this on a few of your trade vessels, and you'll be rolling in the dough, assuming you can afford the needed energy cells, and they are well above your profit margin.

If you know any scripting, you can actually write your own scripts to get yoru ships to react how you want them to, In game.

 

Tons of info here

http://forum.egosoft.com/index.php

and this is a much needed resource to

http://eng.x3tc.ru/

[Ashaman DeRouge]

holy hell, man, that is awesome.

[SinisterDeath]

holy hell, man, that is awesome.

 

In many ways its like a single player eve online. o_O

Only, more grind.

[Ashaman DeRouge]

I thought eve online was a crappy subscription browser game, but judging by the comparison I assume I'm wrong?

[SinisterDeath]

I thought eve online was a crappy subscription browser game, but judging by the comparison I assume I'm wrong?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/89219-More-EVE-Online-Shenanigans-GoonSwarm-Ganks-Band-Of-Brothers

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/88880-EVE-Online-Banker-Scams-Over-80-Billion-ISK

 

Its similar but different.

Personally, I think X3 looks 100% better.

[Barmacral]

I thought eve online was a crappy subscription browser game, but judging by the comparison I assume I'm wrong?

 

Eve is a fullscreen game. The slowest most boring fullscreen game I've ever watched. My roommate played it last year, and he usually had it playing in the background while he did other things like watch youtube videos or play Halo 3 on his xbox. For every hour he spent on there, he'd often be playing the game for maybe 5-20 minutes

[Silver]

That's pretty much what I got from the hour I played it, Barm.

[SinisterDeath]

I thought eve online was a crappy subscription browser game, but judging by the comparison I assume I'm wrong?

 

Eve is a fullscreen game. The slowest most boring fullscreen game I've ever watched. My roommate played it last year, and he usually had it playing in the background while he did other things like watch youtube videos or play Halo 3 on his xbox. For every hour he spent on there, he'd often be playing the game for maybe 5-20 minutes

 

Course, in that game if you become the CEO of a company(guild) well, put it simply its like downing the final boss in wow. :P

What X3, and Eve have in common is you have to 'work' for your goals. They are slow, but they are good. The game would become even more boring if they sped up travel, the economy would be far more cut throat, and for a single player game, the AI in X3 has a real dynamic economy. The AI can build ships, and trade just as easilly as you can.

[SinisterDeath]

Talking about the game got me addicted to it again.

Thanks Ashaman DeRouge. :P

 

One thing about X3, is that you almost have to cheat.

Several reasons why.

1) You play wow? You know how everyone downloads mods and stuff that makes the games interface better? Like Auctioneer? well, techniaclly, thats cheating, for pureists. They have mods like that for X3, makes things slightly simpler, adds things that vannila should have had, or fix things that didn't quite work, or quite simply, add new things that make it just that much easier.

One mod for instance, allows you to keep track of all your trade ships, and sets it up so you can more efficiently send em off to do things you need done, while you do things that are more worthy of yoru attention 'blowing stuff up'.

 

2) There are bugs in the game, given how vast this game is, theres bound to be a few here and there. Sometimes you need a cheat to get you through that bug, Others times, like saving at a bad location at along gap, sometimes cheating is your only way to survive.

Some cheats are harmless.

Like ones that reveal all the sectors.

Others are game breaking.

God Mode, infinite laser power, Credits.

 

Eventually like alot of slow games like this eventually you get impatient and want to see exactly what your missing out on.

Given this games Difficult level curve, Its almost like you have to cheat, just to understand the basic ideas of the game, so when you finally wheen your self off of it, your know a ton of tricks and such that you didn't know on your first playthrough.

 

If you want any mod/script sugjestions I got a few, some are almost required. :P

 

Forgot to mention.

 

Took me 3 days, or about 20 hours of gameplay to make my first legit 6M. At least, thats what my bank account reads now, If I were to take my total intake vs expenditares, it could be upwards of 7M but gotta buy ships every now and again...

 

Piece of advice.

Sometimes when you attack a ship, it'll turn red to blue, that means the pilot bailed.

You can 'claim' this ship, by hitting Shift-E, or bottom pannel left side 'eject', do so only when all enemies are dealt with. When you claim it, you might as well right click shoot/your new ship, as you got a repair laser. If you repair the ship you captured, it can sell for many times its initial value...

 

Heres where the tip comes in,

Occasionally you'll find an NPC willing to hock a damaged ship to you at a reduced price.

I thought Hey! Fixing = free! I can earn a profit repairing it!

Wrong! The price you buy it is about 20% higher than the cost of selling it. But thats also about 40% lower than if you were to buy it.