X3: Terran Conflict - Like Freelancer on steroids

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Fatrick: Jul 19, 2003; *Jumping Peppers!* *Enjoy the Sauce!*

Important EDIT:

Should I buy the X3 bundle on steam?
NO! Just buy Terran Conflict. There is nothing in X3 Reunion that you do not get in Terran Conflict, unless you want to play the really, really crappy storyline missions (which is not why you play X3 in the first place), there's no reason to own Reunion.

/end edit

What is X3: Terran Conflict?

X3: Terran Conflict is a new stand alone expansion for the X3 universe. Egosoft has hired many of the talented members of the team that made the popular Xtended mod for the game, and integrated a lot of their ideas into the game, making it bigger and better in almost every way. They've redone the mission system, reworked the UI, and have even worked in better fleet management and command.

What exactly is X3?

X3 was the 3rd part of the long running series X of games based on space flight, exploration, trade, and combat. You can do almost anything in this game, from flying a fighter and hunt down pirates, or be a trader making money and building a trading empire, or you can be a fleet captain commanding capital ships waging war across the galaxy.

If you could think about it in comparison with other games, think of it like Freelancer, only much more detailed on every level. The space flight feels more like a flight sim, the trading is much more detailed. It is also claimed to be EvE Online the single player version. The scale of your ships, the size of your fleets, and the empires you create are on roughly the same scale as EvE. If you're oldschool, you can think of it as Elite for this generation.

If you see a ship in this game, with very few exceptions, you can purchase, command, and fly that ship, including the largest of battleships. Combat can be as small as you in a light fighter dog-fighting a single opponent, to your fleet of battleships and carriers deploying wings of fighters and frigates into massive frays of cannons and missiles flying everywhere. If you're good, you can even force pilots to eject, and you can steal their ships from them for yourself...

The trading in this game is very involved. You can ship goods between stations, or even build your own stations and manufacture goods. You can automate massive trading fleets to earn you money while you're off fighting the good fight. The economy is very alive, and will carry on without you. There are even AI corporations in Terran Conflict that will actively compete.

It's a very large game with a very large scale. Since it is such a large game, there can be a rather steep learning curve, but if you persevere, you can have one of the most amazing experiences in gaming.

What's so great about these Egosoft guys?

When X3 first came out, it received many bad reviews for being a buggy piece of poo poo. They poured over the game for a long time and fixed the game and re-released it in it's 2.0 version, and it was a much smoother, well polished game that was incredible to play. So, some of the bad review scores for the game will reflect the older broken game.

Egosoft as a company are great, they are very active in their community, spend a lot of time pouring through the user created content and actively support the content that is well polished and fits the game. They even hosted the Xtended mod on their website, and ended up hiring several of the mod team to work on Terran Conflict.

X3 was also one of the first games to drop Starforce protection from disc copies, and also to favor the Steam distribution method.

Since these changes, they've consistently released solid updates and incorporated plenty of good new content, some original, and some from the community itself giving lots of recognition to the community members who contribute.

So, what does this game look like?

Well, for a game with such scale, you would think it would sacrifice things visually. You would be wrong to think so, as this is one of the most gorgeous games I have ever played:

Click here for the full 1680x1050 image.

Click here for the full 1920x1200 image.

Click here for the full 1680x1050 image.

Screenshots mean nothing if you can't see it in action:

Trailer

Facility building

Think trailer, new mission system, and other features

The game really does look that good in gameplay. In fact, most of the cinematics in the game look pretty crap by comparison.

Alright, so is there Multiplayer, can I pirate my limpwristed trader friends?

Unfortunately, the one glaring flaw of X3 is a complete lack of multiplayer.
Egosoft has had the idea of Multiplayer on the drawing board for a while. But with a game of this scale, it's easy to see why that may be a challenge.

I'm sold, where do I get this?

On Steam right for $19.99, or get both X3: Reunion, and X3: Terran Conflict for $29.98

There are disc versions available.

What the hell do I do in this game I am so lost!

The learning curve with this game is huge, and it can take a long time to sort things out, but it's worth it. Just take baby steps as you play the game, and you should come out okay.

I've posted this before in the original X3 thread, it may help new players to pace themselves through the game:

Take everything one slow step at a time. The world around you is patient enough for you to expand slowly. Don't feel like you need to learn the game all at once.

Here's pretty much the order of things you will want to do:

Get good enough to stay alive in a dogfight and you can go a long way (hint: be sure to use WASD to strafe). Start out small attacking some of the lighter Pirate ships that are flying alone or in very small groups. Learn when to disengage to keep your shields up and avoid Hull damage. Repairing ships at stations is prohibitively expensive, so use your repair laser, no matter how long it takes, until you can afford to fix things.
Learn how to upgrade your ship properly and help keep it in tip-top shape with good weapons that work well for you.
Do some station defense missions. Most stations have little icons next to them. The red target is combat missions, go to the "comms" section of the station and find out what they want. If it's a station defense: do it. The ships attacking are focused on the station and not you, so you will not get swarmed, and you can take your time. You can earn a lot of money this way, and get better at fighting.
Learn to capture a ship next, it'll be a good source of upgrades and free lumps of cash. Sell anything you get unless it's much better than yours, and you can afford to fix it. Learn how to transfer things between ships, so you can get wares and weapons off of captured ships, or transfer your weapons onto a better ship you have captured. The station defense missions should give you lots of opportunities to do this.
Learn how to have an AI wingman. Keep one or two around, sell any other ships you capture till you earn some extra cash.
Learn to explore, maybe buy yourself a light, REALLY fast ship (The Teladi Kestrel is the perfect choice for this), dock your combat ship somewhere (don't sell it) and go flying around to different sectors. Get to know where places are, places to stay away from, know where the right stations are to get the goods and gear you want. If you want to, map the whole galaxy. This will help later when you start trading, which leads to:
Install EST and Learn how AI traders work. There's some good guides out there on how to get started. I personally think you should avoid doing trading yourself because it's REALLY slow. The ships are slow, the process is slow, and while you make a lot of money with relatively low risk... it's SLOW, and NOT FUN, like combat missions are!
Learn how to manage a fleet of traders, and keep them running properly. Money will start flowing in quickly. Also, be aware that sometimes they will be destroyed, and there's very little you can do about it. Roll with it, replace the ships and keep going.
Buy a TM class ship (like the Argon Magnetar). They're cheap. Get used to using a mobile base a bit, and how to manage your ships with a mobile home base.
Buy your first Capital Class ship, one of the TL class Facility deployers and learn how to use Facilities, buying, deploying, and linking them. There's great guides for this as well. Do some station deploy missions with your new TS, they earn you a LOT of money with little investment of time and resources. Don't worry so much about Capital Class combat, because you're not in a position to do so yet with just a TL or TM.
Buy an M6 to get a bigger, stronger ship. Get used to fighting in larger ships with turrets as a primary mode of combat.
Buy a Destroyer (you will probably have to rep up quite a bit before you can). Learn how to outfit your ship with good weapons and how to use a Capital class ship in combat. There's some great guides for this too.
Buy a Carrier - Learn how to use fighters as support weapons and managing a larger fleet, giving fleet orders to other ships and ordering them into combat effectively.
Buy more Cap ships, buy a VARIETY of Cap ships, buy lots of facilities and Conquer the Galaxy / Start actually PLAYING the single player campaign.

Do these one step at a time as you feel comfortable moving through them. I spent a very large amount of time in the beginning killing pirates and capping ships for money. I had a Destroyer by the time I started doing the 3rd or 4th story mission.

There's no hurry to do ANYTHING in this game, take your time, and move at your own pace.

The Terran Single Player campaign gives you a lot of good freebies, and is certainly worth it to complete, even though some of the missions are kind of dumb, and some are a little buggy. Very few of the Terran missions have timers of any kind, so if you want to take a break, then do so.

List of ship classes:

Here is the list from the Manual, from largest to smallest

M1 = Carrier
M2 = Destroyer
M7 = Frigate
M7M = Missile Frigate
M8 = Bomber
M6 = Corvette
M3+ = Advanced Heavy Fighter
M3 = Heavy Fighter
M4+ = Advanced Medium Fighter
M4 = Medium Fighter
M5 = Light Fighter/Recon

Transports:

TL = Large Transport/Station Deployer (same class as M1/2, can carry 5-15 fighters)
TM = Military Transport (Carries 3-6 fighters, Marines, support ships)
TS = Freight Transport (Sector/Universe Traders)
TP = Transports (Useful for transporting people. Can transport and deploy Marines)

What does an S/M/L mean in the Shipyard?

S = Unequipped. Base model ship with no weapons or shields.
M = Basic equipment - Usually a lighter shield or two, (usually a class below the best that can be equipped). A light set of weapons
L = Fully equipped - full shields and a good set of weaponry

Regardless of S, M, or L, all of the ships base stats are still the same, only equipment is different. An Eclipse M3 S is going to be just as fast as the L version once they're fully upgraded.

Additionally, the base model of a ship can vary depending on the classification:

Raider: Faster, lighter shields, less cargo space.
Vanguard: Slightly faster, equal shields, better energy capacity
Sentinel: Slower, Heavy shields, less cargo
Hauler: Heavier Hull, Larger cargo capacity

Terran Campaign
How do I scan the Pirate Station?

Get within 500m of the station and stop, a "scanning" message should appear. Wait, and it will complete on it's own.

How do I know what ships to smuggler ships to scan?

Mission critical craft are shown at the TOP of the sector list, separate from the regular ships floating around.

Follow the ones at the top of the list and scan them.
They turn red, and are now attackable, kill them (slowly if you want to capture them (I've had a 50% capture rate so far})
DO NOT scan any of the ships that are in the full list of ships at the bottom of the list. Those are regular innocent people.

There are usually a bunch of Dukes transports there, they are already red, but they are NOT the guys you need to scan and kill. Kill them anyways (slowly for capturing of course), because it's good karma with the Teladi

How do I capture things?

Fly close to the ship you want to capture. 60-100m at least. Make sure not to collide with it, as you will blow it up.
Press "Shift+E" to bring up the eject confirmation. Select "Yes"
Target the ship by clicking on it. Start moving forward slowly, and keep approaching slowly.
At about 50m, with the ship targeted, press "i"
As you close to about 40-30m the "Claim" option will appear. Press "Backspace" to stop moving.
Select "Claim"
If the ship is damaged, pull the trigger to fire your repair beam
Repair the ship to full (this can take some time on large ships)

Candida albicans posted:

If someone is really looking for a jumpstart with a rocket strapped around your rear end, someone on official forums posted locations of all the "hidden" ships.

massive spoilers ahead
Menelaus' Frontier - Toucan Hauler - x 43000 - y -7000 - z 35000
Family Whi - Iguana Vanguard - x 38000 - y 0 - z 35500
The Vault - Harrier Sentinel - x -18000 - y -375 - z -51625
Unknown Sector - Falcon Sentinel - x -20000 - y 3000 - z 2000
Tkr's Deprivation - Buzzard Hauler - x -4204 - y -58 - z 62714
Hila's Joy - Advanced Barracuda - x -33000 - y 1500 - z 36000
Akeela's Beacon - Buster Sentinel - x 100125 - y -10000 - z 77242
Treasure Chest - Buster Sentinel - x -32675 - y -5400 - z -33520
Savage Spur - Enhanced Pericles - x 44750 - y 9125 - z -28062
Xenon Sector 101 - Scorpion Raider - x 20125 - y 0 - z 61625
Ocracoke's Storm - Advanced Eclipse - x 30100 - y -1500 - z -8000
Gaian Star - Elite - x 66000 - y 0 - z -10000
LooManckStrat's Legacy - Mamba - x -12061 - y 1163 - z -19316
Depths Of Silence - Mako Raider - x 2349 - y 729 - z 40383
Duke's Citadel - Advanced Perseus - x 42250 - y -250 - z 31000
Unknown Sector - Pericles Vanguard - x 13754 - y 17303 - z -27013
Menelaus' Oasis - Skate Prototype - x 38500 - y 1000 - z 32500
Vestibule of Creation - Eclipse - x -7000 - y -13500 - z 37500
Veil of Delusion - Blastclaw Prototype - x 47600 - y 3500 - z -41500

Devian666 posted:

Universe Trader Requirements:
TL, TS, or M3 class ship (probably TM in X3TC (but I don't have that yet)).
The ship MUST NOT be the ship you are flying for this work.
Flight Command Software MkI & MkII
Trading MkIII
1 x 25MJ Shield
(without any of the above only the sector trader option is available)

Sector trade with the software until the trader reaches Level 8 then switch to universe trader.

At level 12 the trader will start using a jumpdrive, however if there isn't one on the ship already apparently the trader will buy one at an inflated price.

HALP MY TRADER IS LOSING MONEY
No. Your trader dips into your cash to upgrade the ship if the ship isn't already fully upgraded.

Candida albicans posted:

Universe Map is out
Made by some Egosoft mod called Ketraar. Spoiler alert on the link: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=217881

Links in case Egosoft forums go down again: 45Mb, 32Mb and 7Mb

McGrady posted:

Scripts:

english:
EST
CLS
CAG

CAG will buy/sell for your Complexes and will use jumpdrives to get around. These are very efficient compared to using the buy or sell commands. For example, I was able to use a single Caiman Super Tanker to Sell goods from a 6 station L wheat farm complex at maximum value and buy all the energy it needed at minimum value. Multiple CAGs on one complex will also be intelligent and not all go to the same station at once which helps prevent wasted trips.

CLS allows you to supply your Stations automatically between each other. For example, if you have a Silicon Mine in one sector but you have your SPP/Crystal Complex in another, you can have a ship ferry goods back and forth.

The EST is a Universal Trader replacement. It should be a lot smarter and prevent most of the stand-by issues that UTs currently have.

bgreman posted:

BGreman's guide to setting up an EST

Make sure your personal trading rank is at least Trader. Do some manual trades if you need to boost it.

Buy a ship to use as the transport (M3, M4, M5, M8, TM, TS, TP, or M6)

Fit it with: Navigation Software Mk1, Trade Software Mk1 and Mk2

Open the ship's command console, and do the following:

Select 'Trade'

Select 'Economy and Supply Trader

Select 'Start Economy and Supply Trader', it will back you up one menu tier

Select 'Economy and Supply Trader' again

Select 'Ware lists'

Select 'Ware list'

Select '-add ware-'

Select a sector on the universe map and a station on the sector map and a type of ware that that station produces or consumes. As the EST levels you can add more wares to this list.

Go back to the main 'Economy and Supply Trader' menu

Select 'Start Economy and Supply Trader'

It may take a little while for the thing to start actually trading. There are also other optional things to add to the ship

Jumpdrive: Makes the ship use a jumpdrive. It will buy one itself if it can find one once it reaches a level where it can use it.

Fight Command Software Mk1 and/or Mk2. Allows the ship to try to defend itself if it can or run away if it can't.

Trade Command Software Mk3. Allows you to automatically configure the ware list so you don't have to keep adding new wares. It will add the most profitable wares and keep them updated for max moneys.

Another Trader setup list:

Bhodi posted:

Initial cost per trader is about 1.5 million. (650k for mistral, 100k jumpdrive, 500k ESTmk3, plus tuning) Break even point on EST automated traders is about 6 hours. You don't need a base of operations or to own a factory. That's a different script.

Approximate set up time is about 15 minutes per 5 ships with appropriate use of SETA. You should do as much as you can / are willing to afford. You can buy them by the 10s.

Speed is the most important stat, followed by cargo bay. Most of their trades will be 2k-3k cargo, no more. Mistral TS are the best ships, since everyone has argon rep, they are the fastest @ 130 m/s, and they hold 4k cargo (2nd best is either split caiman (124 m/s, 3500 cargo) or terran baldric (110 m/s, 4500 cargo), both of which are inferior IMO.

1) Download and install the EST script.
2) purchase 5 REGULAR Mistral TS (not superfreighters) from Legend's Home, OTAS HQ - L class. If there are no L, reload your game until there are.
3) Equip them with a jumpdrive, triplex scanner
4) Put them all in a wing together (max of 5 ships per wing for proper docking)
5) For each wing, Turn on Autojump, minimum of 0 jumps
6) Tell the wing to dock one sector north at Akeela's Beacon, XL solar plant, Buy them each 1-2k solar cells (cargo/stocks permitting)
7) If you have a lot of ships, the next nearest solar plants are in Aladna Hill (there are 2). Send max of 1 wing to each plant.
8) Tell the wing to dock @ Red Light, Argon Equipment Dock (they should jump automatically)
9) Buy engine tuning for each, or engine+cargo+rudder if you have a load of cash
10) Buy Flight command mk1, Flight command mk2, trade mk2, navigation software mk1 for each
11) Tell the wing to dock next door at Home of Light, Terracorp HQ
12) Buy Trade Command Software mk3, SETA (because it's cheap and you never know if you might need to take command) for each
13) Remove all ships from wings
14) Go into EST (Ship command->Trade->Economy and Supply Trader)
15) EST -> "starting sector" as desired. (This will also become home sector)
16) EST -> Jumpdrive Settings -> Jumpdrive ON, minimum jump 1
17) EST -> Automatic Naming -> Configure automatic naming, Variant 6
18) THEN, EST -> Start EST (In this order; you can't set the stuff after you start EST or the settings don't stick). Repeat steaps 14-18 for each ship.

If done properly, EST will think for a minute and you'll see your ships jump to their home sectors and start trading. Watch your owned ship pane and make sure that all ships have left Terracorp HQ after about 30 seconds on SETA.
* To restart EST, you need to select command NONE, then "Start EST". You can't 'restart' EST by simply starting it again.
* If EST is grayed out, they are too near a station or gate. DOCK them and restart EST. (Or you didn't buy the prereq software)
* Watch that they have automatically renamed themselves. If any didn't, re-configure and restart EST.
* If any are slowboating (Destination is far away from Home of Light) Jump them manually and restart EST.
* If they aren't moving anywhere and just say "EST on standby", you picked a poor starting sector - they can't find any trades. Change their starting sector.

They should be at different home sectors so they can level up faster and in parallel (there are 5 "levels", the higher the more jumps away and the smarter deals they find), and the first 2 levels suck so you want them to level through those as fast as possible.

Good Initial Home Sectors:
Ore Belt
Empire's Edge
Shores of Infinity
Light of Heart
Omicron Lyrae
Paranid Prime
Seizewell
Spring of Belief
Tkr's Deprivation
Barren Shores

Basically, for home sectors you are looking for raw materials in that sector (Solar/Ore/Silicon) and then plants that take those raw materials one sector away - this lets your trader level up very quickly since the first thing he does is empty out the raw materials and put them in the trading station the center of the sector, which gets him a level, and then the next thing he does is refill the stations that use those raw materials in the sectors around it.

This jumpstarts the EST to where he can start to use jumpdrivers to get around and will go from there - at this level, the spacing is fairly important so your traders don't step on each other's toes. A satellite network is also helpful, the more sectors you have sats in the better trades it will find.

You give them nav and flight command software since if you have it, EST will fight and run for itself - this GREATLY increases their survivability - they will jump away from combat and use combat drones automatically.

Over time, they may get "stuck", especially after running from combat - you may have to repair them automatically and restart EST. It's very rare for a Mistral to get destroyed - they can generally outrun ships long enough to jump away. Just look at your owned ships every once in a while and make sure none of them say "Idle" or "EST is waiting..." for any length of time.

You'll need to babysit EST for the first bit, as there will be roaming pirates you'll need to destroy to clear the trade lanes. The easiest way to do this is to have autojump set on your current ship, wait for the noise that says a ship is under attack, then hit R, find the one with the ! icon, click on it, autopilot to. That'll jump you to the sector under attack.

If you need any stats or details on anything in the game, this is the website for you:

http://eng.x3tc.ru/

This link has full stats for all ships, locations and stats for Asteroids, full interactive maps of every sector in the game, factory details, etc. It has everything.

Original X3:Reunion Thread

Fatrick fucked around with this message at Dec 26, 2009 around 20:06

# ? Oct 15, 2008 23:49

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# ? Feb 09, 2010 20:40

TotalBiscuit: Sep 17, 2007; Pip-Bloody-Pip.

X is wonderful, I'm hoping Terran Conflict will be the game that rounds the series off and addresses it's issues. Since Xtended fixed most of those issues, I think that's likely. Looking forward to this one very much.

# ? Oct 15, 2008 23:51

ShineDog: May 21, 2007; It is inevitable!

Do they have voice acting and writing that isnt completley terrible yet?

# ? Oct 15, 2008 23:53

Nervous: Jan 25, 2005; Why, hello, my little slice of pecan pie.

Egosoft actually went and took Starforce out as a copy protection scheme, and this game doesn't have it either? The only thing that kept me from playing X3 before was the atrocity that is Starforce.

# ? Oct 15, 2008 23:55

Fatrick: Jul 19, 2003; *Jumping Peppers!* *Enjoy the Sauce!*

ShineDog posted:

Do they have voice acting and writing that isnt completley terrible yet?

It will probably still be god-awful.

If they do manage to get a good script, then it would be icing on an already very sweet cake.

# ? Oct 15, 2008 23:55

Fatrick: Jul 19, 2003; *Jumping Peppers!* *Enjoy the Sauce!*

Nervous posted:

Egosoft actually went and took Starforce out as a copy protection scheme, and this game doesn't have it either? The only thing that kept me from playing X3 before was the atrocity that is Starforce.

They completely removed it. X3 has it on the disc, but if you update it with all of the patches before you run the game, it removes Starforce.

The Steam version does not have Starforce either, they removed Starforce and put it on Steam at the same time.

# ? Oct 15, 2008 23:56

I SAID LISTEN: Jan 10, 2007; I don't *do* up.

Yeah, no more Starforce. If you got the original game version, one of the most recent patches removed it.

I haven't followed TC too much, but how does the universe compare to X3? If it's a standalone expansion I'm assuming it's entirely separate from X3, which would hopefully mean an entirely different but similarly sized universe.

# ? Oct 15, 2008 23:56

Fatrick: Jul 19, 2003; *Jumping Peppers!* *Enjoy the Sauce!*

Faleran posted:

Yeah, no more Starforce. If you got the original game version, one of the most recent patches removed it.

I haven't followed TC too much, but how does the universe compare to X3? If it's a standalone expansion I'm assuming it's entirely separate from X3, which would hopefully mean an entirely different but similarly sized universe.

It's supposed to be the existing universe plus the Terran sectors, and a few more. I'm guessing it will be very similar to what Xtended added to the original game.

# ? Oct 15, 2008 23:58

THS: Jun 23, 2002

is it easy to pilot ships with a mouse or is a joystick preferred?

# ? Oct 15, 2008 23:58

Loveline: Dec 30, 2005; Can't post for 126 hours!

I have a disc version of X3, can I use the steam version if I have the Cd Key?

I think I'm going to get this since I really couldn't get into X3 because of the learning curve, but man the visuals were amazing and I think it's worth a second shot.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 00:01

Fatrick: Jul 19, 2003; *Jumping Peppers!* *Enjoy the Sauce!*

THS posted:

is it easy to pilot ships with a mouse or is a joystick preferred?

They added Freelancer style mouse controls. It used to be flight sim controls with the mouse.
Eventually, once you get a big enough group of ships, you end up just giving commands rather than manually flying. (ie: Move ship to station X)

I prefer joysticks personally.

Republican Scientologist posted:

I have a disc version of X3, can I use the steam version if I have the Cd Key?

I think I'm going to get this since I really couldn't get into X3 because of the learning curve, but man the visuals were amazing and I think it's worth a second shot.

You can't use your CD key to get the Steam version, but if you download all the updates from Egosoft, it will be the same starforce free version that the people on Steam are using.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 00:02

Dominic White: Nov 01, 2005; We're marooned on a small island in an endless sea, confined to a tiny spit of sand, unable to escape. But tonight, on this small planet, we're gonna rock civilization.

I so wish I had the free time to buy this anytime soon. Sadly, real life (a house and business move, and plans beyond that) mean that I'll probably be putting Terran Conflict off for at least a couple of months.

Even more of a pity, because it sounds like they've basically smoothed out almost everything wrong with X3. Thanks for making the thread though, Fatrick.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 00:03

Fatrick: Jul 19, 2003; *Jumping Peppers!* *Enjoy the Sauce!*

Dominic White posted:

Thanks for making the thread though, Fatrick.

I haven't played X3 in months, but this game sucked my soul for so long that I can close my eyes and picture everything and just write it out.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 00:05

Georg LeBoui: Feb 10, 2006; Wearing a Monocle Since 1987

There are supposedly not just one, but 5 campaigns with their own story and rewards. Also there are a lot of corporations in this game, way more than predicted 2 or 3. Seriously, this and Fallout 3 are my most anticipated games of the year.

Also, I wonder how well the planetary side of things will be handled.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 00:06

rt4: Feb 19, 2008; A powerful and vigorous movement is impossible without differences.

Georg LeBoui posted:

Also, I wonder how well the planetary side of things will be handled.

I'm betting not at all. Empty space is already pretty complicated in this game. I can't imagine what it would be like with planetary interaction!

# ? Oct 16, 2008 00:08

Fatrick: Jul 19, 2003; *Jumping Peppers!* *Enjoy the Sauce!*

royallthefourth posted:

I'm betting not at all. Empty space is already pretty complicated in this game. I can't imagine what it would be like with planetary interaction!

Seeing how this is just an expansion, I'm pretty sure that Planets are left out completely. Maybe in X4 they might, but the point of the game is space exploration, not planetside stuff (as cool as that would be). I think they just don't want to have to deal with Gravity at this point.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 00:10

Georg LeBoui: Feb 10, 2006; Wearing a Monocle Since 1987

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait, what? I distinctly remember them showing off planets and how you can build factories on them. poo poo, I'm gonna go find a video of it now.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 00:25

IRQ: Sep 09, 2001; RELEASE .... THE KITTIES!

Fatrick posted:

They added Freelancer style mouse controls. It used to be flight sim controls with the mouse.
Eventually, once you get a big enough group of ships, you end up just giving commands rather than manually flying. (ie: Move ship to station X)

I prefer joysticks personally.

Sweet, this might be worth a shot then. I haven't been able to find a decent joystick since the early 90s.

Does it still have X3's horribly steep learning curve?

# ? Oct 16, 2008 00:29

rt4: Feb 19, 2008; A powerful and vigorous movement is impossible without differences.

IRQ posted:

Sweet, this might be worth a shot then. I haven't been able to find a decent joystick since the early 90s.

I only played this type of game with a joystick until I got my 360 controller. Now I use it for everything instead.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 00:45

Trustworthy: Dec 28, 2004; tenbux dumbfucks budum budum budum

I play with a big flight stick/throttle just for the atmosphere, fully realizing that I'd probably be more efficient with a mouse.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 00:47

The Vikings: Jul 03, 2004; ODIN!!!!!

I hope they've made it easier to place complexes this time around. It was a nightmare to get anything sensible in Reunion.

I'm pretty psyched for this though, I had tons of fun with Reunion (I even liked the plot missions for the most part).

# ? Oct 16, 2008 00:57

Visidan: Jul 24, 2000; ██████
them rhizomes is shit
-viviane 2010
██

The manual that came with the steam version mentions new ship classes.

TM - Transport which carries fighters instead of cargo
M4+ - Improved M4
M7M - Missile frigate
M8 - Bomber

Each race has its own weapons this time round, and it looks like there are a few new weapon types which use ammo.

Also, your own ship can be boarded!

# ? Oct 16, 2008 00:59

Kessel: Mar 06, 2007

I've always been interested in this series but never really came around to actually playing it.

I'm not that intrigued by running a large fleet of spaceships or creating a space empire. If I basically want to fly a tiny fleet of ships and be the galaxy's most notorious space pirate, looting and pillaging for a living, will this game let me do that?

# ? Oct 16, 2008 01:04

Dominic White: Nov 01, 2005; We're marooned on a small island in an endless sea, confined to a tiny spit of sand, unable to escape. But tonight, on this small planet, we're gonna rock civilization.

Visidan posted:

TM - Transport which carries fighters instead of cargo
M4+ - Improved M4
M7M - Missile frigate
M8 - Bomber

For the sake of everyones minds, I wish they'd just 'reset' the whole classification system, and make it linear. M1 for scouts/drones, and M9 (or whatever) for supercapital types.

Perhaps for X4, then.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 01:04

fnordcircle: Jul 07, 2004; The lion is most handsome when looking for food.

Kessel posted:

I'm not that intrigued by running a large fleet of spaceships or creating a space empire. If I basically want to fly a tiny fleet of ships and be the galaxy's most notorious space pirate, looting and pillaging for a living, will this game let me do that?

Yes, you can certainly get on everyone's bad side without bothering to build up a huge fleet. I've played the game for hours and I've never bought a big battleship, I just built out my own Falcon and destroyed everyone who crossed my path that was a similar size.

Bear in mind I don't think it's very likely that as a guy in a little ship you'll have an easy time of it taking out a battleship. I'm sure it's theoretically possible but I'm not sure how plausible it is. Maybe someone who has played since the X3 Extended edition can say because I haven't.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 01:07

Fatrick: Jul 19, 2003; *Jumping Peppers!* *Enjoy the Sauce!*

fnordcircle posted:

Yes, you can certainly get on everyone's bad side without bothering to build up a huge fleet. I've played the game for hours and I've never bought a big battleship, I just built out my own Falcon and destroyed everyone who crossed my path that was a similar size.

Bear in mind I don't think it's very likely that as a guy in a little ship you'll have an easy time of it taking out a battleship. I'm sure it's theoretically possible but I'm not sure how plausible it is. Maybe someone who has played since the X3 Extended edition can say because I haven't.

As long as the cap ship doesn't have flak, you're usually agile enough to take down the capital ships from a fighter, it just takes a LONG TIME, as your weapons are usually like pin-pricks to it's massive shields and armor.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 01:09

Kessel: Mar 06, 2007

fnordcircle posted:

Yes, you can certainly get on everyone's bad side without bothering to build up a huge fleet. I've played the game for hours and I've never bought a big battleship, I just built out my own Falcon and destroyed everyone who crossed my path that was a similar size.

Bear in mind I don't think it's very likely that as a guy in a little ship you'll have an easy time of it taking out a battleship. I'm sure it's theoretically possible but I'm not sure how plausible it is. Maybe someone who has played since the X3 Extended edition can say because I haven't.

I don't mind flying a fuckoff huge battleship, I just want to fly a very, very small fleet and terrorise traders throughout the galaxy.

I used to do that all the time in Space Trader for the Palm Pilot. Trade? gently caress this, I'ma gonna blow poo poo up!

# ? Oct 16, 2008 01:14

KillzoneNET: Oct 08, 2005; Oh yea... I see how it is...

Kessel posted:

I've always been interested in this series but never really came around to actually playing it.

I'm not that intrigued by running a large fleet of spaceships or creating a space empire. If I basically want to fly a tiny fleet of ships and be the galaxy's most notorious space pirate, looting and pillaging for a living, will this game let me do that?

Definitely yes. You can run around the entire galaxy being a bad rear end. The only problem is getting a race to declare you their mortal enemy, so they attack you on sight. It makes the game that more fun at that point.

X3 for me was fun, I just killed myself doing practically everything there was to do in the end. I started a huge base and had a 100 trading ship corporation to fund it all. I then got a large enough fleet to take on any system's defenses, cap the system, then claim it as my own. Micromanagement is what kept me from playing any further.

I'll definitely be checking this game out again after the expansion. XTended was godly, so I'll be hoping to see much more from something with Egosoft's touch to it.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 01:20

Visidan: Jul 24, 2000; ██████
them rhizomes is shit
-viviane 2010
██

Kessel posted:

I don't mind flying a fuckoff huge battleship, I just want to fly a very, very small fleet and terrorise traders throughout the galaxy.

I played my last game of X3:XTM pretty much doing just this, just make sure you keep friendly relations with atleast one race (Teladi is a good choice) so you can sell ships you capture.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 01:21

Trustworthy: Dec 28, 2004; tenbux dumbfucks budum budum budum

Kessel posted:

I don't mind flying a fuckoff huge battleship, I just want to fly a very, very small fleet and terrorise traders throughout the galaxy.

I used to do that all the time in Space Trader for the Palm Pilot. Trade? gently caress this, I'ma gonna blow poo poo up!

The game can be tough if you're an rear end in a top hat to everyone; you'll quickly rack up a bad rep, and be very limited in the equipment you can buy. Hell, I freak out if I piss off a single race, because each nation has a piece or two of specialized schwag that nobody else has. But that's just me.

If you're aiming to misbehave, your best bet is to be a privateer of sorts, i.e., cozy up to a race or two and blast away at someone else that they don't like so much.

efb

# ? Oct 16, 2008 01:36

rt4: Feb 19, 2008; A powerful and vigorous movement is impossible without differences.

Visidan posted:

I played my last game of X3:XTM pretty much doing just this, just make sure you keep friendly relations with atleast one race (Teladi is a good choice) so you can sell ships you capture.

Couldn't you just sell ships at pirate shipyards (included in XTM)?

# ? Oct 16, 2008 01:42

Derekman: Dec 16, 2005; I like to move it move it!

is there a way to have a targetting reticule in 3rd person?

I think i would enjoy the game a ton more if I could play 3rd person the whole time.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 01:48

Trustworthy: Dec 28, 2004; tenbux dumbfucks budum budum budum

Now that I think more about it, is there something about being an X3 pirate that I'm missing?

Piss off the Boron and Paranid and you're permanently stuck with lovely scanners. Declare war on the Teladi? No more Best Buy and Best Sell extensions. Etc., i.e., every race sells something nice.

How do you kill-all-nations pirate types thrive? By just dealing with ill-equipped ships, for the fun and challenge of it? Or is there some other sneaky way to acquire race exclusive equipment?

edit: Sorry, I've played a ton of X3, but always as a goody two-shoes trader/empire builder who only attacks Pirates/Xenon/Cock.

Trustworthy fucked around with this message at Oct 16, 2008 around 01:57

# ? Oct 16, 2008 01:50

Visidan: Jul 24, 2000; ██████
them rhizomes is shit
-viviane 2010
██

royallthefourth posted:

Couldn't you just sell ships at pirate shipyards (included in XTM)?

In XTM I was only friendly with the yaki since they also have shipyards, but I'm not sure if yaki or pirates have shipyards in TC.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 01:58

Bizarro Kale: Oct 15, 2005

Regarding the DRM situation in X3:TC, apparently it uses something called TAGES in both the steam and disc releases.
-removed errant information-

Anyway feel free to look it up.
TAGES homepage Wikipedia

Egosoft newsletter posted:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
-= DOES X3TC USE A COPYPROTECTION SYSTEM? =-
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes. X3:Terran Conflict uses the so called "TAGES" system for disk as
well as for online versions.

As was the case for all X games, we will release a version without
copy protection at a later point.

Important: The DVD version does not require online activation!

Bizarro Kale fucked around with this message at Oct 16, 2008 around 14:16

# ? Oct 16, 2008 02:51

Naturally Selected: Nov 28, 2007; forum integrity=$10, coming back from the ban=priceless

Trustworthy posted:

Now that I think more about it, is there something about being an X3 pirate that I'm missing?

Piss off the Boron and Paranid and you're permanently stuck with lovely scanners. Declare war on the Teladi? No more Best Buy and Best Sell extensions. Etc., i.e., every race sells something nice.

How do you kill-all-nations pirate types thrive? By just dealing with ill-equipped ships, for the fun and challenge of it? Or is there some other sneaky way to acquire race exclusive equipment?

edit: Sorry, I've played a ton of X3, but always as a goody two-shoes trader/empire builder who only attacks Pirates/Xenon/Cock.

IIRC, you could sometimes capture ships with some of that technology intact-but that was with a couple capture scripts that set capture chance above .001... My strategy was always to be goody two-shoes trader for a bit so i could stock up on techs and quality weaponry, then at one point go apeshit on all of my "friends" and hunt them to extinction. Xenon? hah, you ain't seen nothing yet!

I did not know that egosoft was hiring the Xtended guys to work on TC... this is going to be awesome.

On the topic of Cap ships vs fighters-in the original X3 it was a suicide mission 99% of the time, in Xtended it was extremely hard but possible to do. I ended up just scripting in a new type of missile that could be mounted on only very light fighters, short-range (~350M launch to self-detonation. Meters, not KM) but 4 direct hits were enough to take out any cap ship.

Sounds overpowered, but try getting a scout ship (Arrow, for example) through 4-8 KM of flak and beam fire FOUR TIMES (it took about 30 sec between shots, didn't make it too easy on meself), then outrun the blast wave (Xtended-cap ships blew and took everything close with them), and it is probably one of the greatest things I've witnessed in any game.

One of the great things about X3 was how easily moddable it was. Eagerly waiting for this, should tide me over until FO3 and FC2.. Ah, who am I kidding, this game will probably consume my time and soul for months.

EDIT: and I played it with KB/mouse exclusively-takes a bit of getting used to, but 2 hours in i was dodging beam fire and pulling hairpin turns/whips with no problems

Naturally Selected fucked around with this message at Oct 16, 2008 around 05:25

# ? Oct 16, 2008 02:56

Dr. Video Games 0031: Jul 17, 2004

Bizarro Kale posted:

Regarding the DRM situation in X3:TC, apparently it uses something called TAGES in both the steam and disc releases.
I don't really know much about it but as far as I know it's something to do with encryption and not online activations and no install limits.

Anyway feel free to look it up and correct me.
TAGES homepage Wikipedia

TAGES was notorious for screwing over legitimate owners. If I recall the myriad of DRM correctly, TAGES is the one that fucks with the actual mechanics of the game if you have an improperly cracked copy. You'll get poo poo like invincible enemies, weapons that do almost no damage, etc. Although I haven't actually heard of anyone using TAGES in a long time, so I don't know how it's changed over the years.

# ? Oct 16, 2008 03:07

Mr. Wookums: May 27, 2007; Golden *

nevermind

# ? Oct 16, 2008 04:13

IRQ: Sep 09, 2001; RELEASE .... THE KITTIES!

royallthefourth posted:

I only played this type of game with a joystick until I got my 360 controller. Now I use it for everything instead.

I don't even dislike joysticks, it's more that all 5 or so I've bought since the times I played X-wing, Jetfighter 1/2, and Tie-Fighter, etc. have been horrid. Either they broke after a couple hours of use or just never worked. It really turned me off flight/space sims other than Freelancer, which I loved (mouse control!).

# ? Oct 16, 2008 04:49

Chunk: Feb 12, 2003; ARE YOU THERE ALLAH IT'S ME JIM THOME

So will this version have some sort of tutorial in it so I'm not completely without thought of what to do?

# ? Oct 16, 2008 04:57

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