X3: Albion Prelude

Figured I would just make a new thread for this surprising release

From the Terran Conflict Thread:

-------

Wild: http://www.egosoft.com/x/xnews/20111...

Egosoft wrote:

Egosoft is pleased to announce X3: Albion Prelude, which provides a welcome bridge from the X Universe we know and love to the X Universe that will be experienced in X Rebirth. This new adventure will also feature more than 30 new ships and stations. A new Stock Exchange feature will enable players to speculate in local markets in a bid to increase their wealth. With this will also come tools to monitor and analyse economic developments and progress. Users with high-end machines will also benefit from some improved graphical quality settings. It is important to note that X3: Albion Prelude will NOT feature savegame compatibility with X3: Terran Conflict.

PAR

Saw a Facebook teaser yesterday for something big. Today I saw the email. Wow.

Awesome!

I have no time for this.

Any word on if the Boron extermination from my previous game will be persistent?

Grubber788 wrote:

Any word on if the Boron extermination from my previous game will be persistent?

Yes, and no. The email says X3TC save files are not compatible.

My damage has been undone! I must steel myself for a cold winter.

Edit: I wonder if I short-sold a ton of Boron corporate stocks (if that's even possible--I hope to hell it is), and then commenced a series of terrorist attacks against said corporation, I would profit from that.

Grubber788 wrote:

My damage has been undone! I must steel myself for a cold winter.

Edit: I wonder if I short-sold a ton of Boron corporate stocks (if that's even possible--I hope to hell it is), and then commenced a series of terrorist attacks against said corporation, I would profit from that.

Genius.

Another approach, buy a bunch of stock in boron food (squid?) then destroy all the factories

Profit.

It would be so awesome if this was also Fable 4.

So, any early impressions now that it's out?

I need to play these friggin games.

They're made for me. Why I no play?

I'll have some impressions when I get to work in an hour or so. The short answer is that it's more of the same, and that's not a bad thing. I'm hearing from other people that the "war" scenarios are epic in scale, but I haven't encountered any yet.

They still haven't fixed the stupid repair laser. It should have infinite energy!

Journal of Hans Pushere, son of Orange Pushere, Scourage of the Heavens

Day 1 -
My father was a hero. He knew that the Argon government was shortsighted in its belief that an alliance with the Boron would benefit our people. They were fools and my father needed to stop the Boron.

Some would still call him a terrorist, but I know he was a good man, doing what was necessary to preserve Argons across the universe. He died a hero, in a major suicidal attack that left an entire Boron fleet in ruins. He might have lived were it not for that Boron M2. At least my father managed to take down the bastard before his own capital ship was destroyed.

When I heard about rising tensions between the united races and the Terrans, I knew that this could only be a ploy by the Boron to subjugate the Argons once and for all. I could not let my father's dream die.

I took to space like my father and started hunting Boron.

I spent all my money on that M3 Mamba, just like my father did, all those years ago. I had one 25MJ shield, two HEPT's and no money.

I started in Aladna Hill, just like my father and using his notes, flew through the south gate to Light of Heart, Montalaar and finally to Rolk's Legacy, a core Boron sector. Immediately upon entering this sector, the Boron security forces sent me a message asking me to leave their sector.

(I may have killed a few Borons before starting my journey)

I ignored their warnings and put my ship near the north gate. I turned on time acceleration and waited.

My first target was a Boron Dolphin (TS) prisoner transport flying toward the north gate. I waited until he was within range and opened fire. To my surprise, the pilot bailed out nearly immediately. Coward.

I let the bastard float away as I parked my own ship (named "Absolution") near the now empty freighter and claimed it as my own. I made some repairs to the hull of my new ship and decided to check its cargo.

10 Argon prisoners. "Do not worry, comrades," I muttered, "You are free from the fish now."

I ordered the ship to fly back to Light of Heart, to the shipyard. That ship would be worth a lot of credits, enough to upgrade my ship--I hoped.

As the Dolphin auto-piloted itself away from Rolk's Legacy, I flew back to the north gate and waited. Finally, a pair of agricultural transports started to fly toward the gates. I attacked the first, and immediately it launched seven fighter drones. The pesky drones started to take down my shield strength. I was suddenly keenly aware of the fact that the Argons did not appreciate me enough to sell me another 25MJ shield--ungrateful fools--as the drones brought my shields to 75%.

I admit at this point, I panicked. I focused all of my firepower on the freighter, bringing its hull strength to 30%. He wasn't bailing.

I had forgotten that when you damage an enemy, they slow down. I had forgetten that when they slow down, you can't strafe them like you would if they were going fast.

I rammed the ship by mistake.

It exploded, killing all aboard, but I lost my shields and my hull took 40% damage. The drones were still attacking me. Thankfully, I was near the north gate so I made a beeline for the gate and Argon territory.

I made it.

I repaired my ship and flew back into Rolk's Legacy, seeking revenge. The enemy drones had flown away, leaving me with empty space. Once again, I waited. After a few minutes, a Boron freighter flew toward me. I attacked and her bailed fairly quickly. I got out of my ship, claimed the new one and began repairs.

I didn't notice the second Boron ship flying toward me. It was another freighter. Even though I wasn't in my Mamba and was not in a position to attack the ship, it felt threatened (or maybe it knew how lofty my ambitions were). It launched a batch of fighter drones, and continued to fly toward the north gate. The drones attacked me directly, which, given the fact I was still in a space suit, would have meant the death of me. I dodge laser bolts until I got back into my Mamba. At this point, the drones started to attack my newly captured freighter. I ordered the freighter to make a break for the gate, but since it was unshielded, I knew it didn't have long before the drones forced it to a halt.

I attacked the drones, but they were flying irratically, preferring to stay out of line of my shots as they attacked the freighter. Eventually, I destroyed two and the rest started attacking me isntead of the freighter. Eventually, the Boron freighter that had launched the drones left the system, causing the rest of the drones to self-destruct.

I ordered my freighter to halt its evacuation and I repaired its hull to about 80%--enough to get back to Light of Heart.

I then left Rolk's Legacy and flew to Light of Heart myself, to sell the first ship I captured and upgrade Absolution.

I am now aboard the Argon equipment dock, waiting for my second freighter to dock at the shipyard so I can sell it. I plan to continue hunting in Rolk's Legacy. Once I get about 5 million credits, I want to fly to Split space and earn reputation with them. They have fast, deadly ships. Once I have my M6, I will purchase a jump drive and do some assassinations to earn money for an M2. Once I have an M2, the Boron will all know my name.

And they will pay.

(My next entry should come with pictures)

I loaded it up and played the..."tutorial"...horrid, it was.

And the righteous Boron cleansing begins! Looking forward to more stories.

In X3:TC I played as a mostly peaceful trader type that did the story missions. Might be worth checking out a campaign of mayhem this time.

Veloxi wrote:

I loaded it up and played the..."tutorial"...horrid, it was.

Care to elaborate? Still gun shy on this...

PAR

Basically, here's the tutorial in AP:

"Hey, target my ship.
Communicate with me.
Accelerate.
Decelerate.
Target this container.
Dock with this station.
Undock.
Shoot this container.
Shoot this container.

There ya go, have fun storming the castle!"

Yeah...n00b friendly, this ain't. IIRC, the Terran Conflict tutorial was a bit more in-depth, so you might wanna start there.

Actually, I think it actually says "You can learn the rest on your own" or some such at the end of it. I wanted to reach in and smack the guy.

Grubber788 wrote:

I'll have some impressions when I get to work in an hour or so. The short answer is that it's more of the same, and that's not a bad thing. I'm hearing from other people that the "war" scenarios are epic in scale, but I haven't encountered any yet.

They still haven't fixed the stupid repair laser. It should have infinite energy!

Yeah I had to mod the heck out of that thing to make it useful. I assume the X3TC mod tools will still work with this and I can "fix" it again.

Think I'm going to hold off until the Steam holiday sale to grab this, even if it's just $2-3 off. I'll be so busy visiting family for a few days that it'll be tough to play next week anyway.

Probably should drop a link to this thread in the TC/Rebirth threads so that people focus here. There was a lot of talk in both of those about this instead.

Veloxi wrote:

Basically, here's the tutorial in AP:

"Hey, target my ship.
Communicate with me.
Accelerate.
Decelerate.
Target this container.
Dock with this station.
Undock.
Shoot this container.
Shoot this container.

There ya go, have fun storming the castle!"

Yeah...n00b friendly, this ain't. IIRC, the Terran Conflict tutorial was a bit more in-depth, so you might wanna start there.

Actually, I think it actually says "You can learn the rest on your own" or some such at the end of it. I wanted to reach in and smack the guy.

Ahhh... well noob to X I am not but I can see how that's frustrating. Although this is a DLC for Terran Conflict so you should pretty much have the basics down.

Thanks for the feedback tho!

PAR

So, what is this exactly? Just a plot line? New game entirely?

Shoal07 wrote:

So, what is this exactly? Just a plot line? New game entirely?

Add-on to X3TC. New plot bridging TC to the new universe coming in Rebirth, new stock market economy, new multi-sector war/battle engine... anything else?

And only $10.

There are 30 new ships. Haven't found them yet though.

How's the war scenario stuff playing out so far?

Did they fix their sound engine? It caused no end of problems for me in TC, and the developers plainly stated that they were never going back to fix it. I can just hope that they decided to code something that actually works reliably on a modern OS.

What sort of sound issues did you have? I remember getting some voice/sound "truncation" or cut outs with X3TC, but, re-installing windows media player fixed it for me on Win XP. Not sure if that's an option for Vista or 7 users, though. Apparently the game is finicky when it comes to audio codecs.

Here's a common fix they listed over at the tech support forum for voice/sound issues in the game:

Music and sound effects working but there are no voices or voices are present but garbled.
This is normally an audio codec issue. The game does everything in its power to select the correct codecs to play back sounds, but certain badly-behaved codecs can still interfere. The most common culprits are ffdshow, Nero, Haali and Ulead. For ffdshow see these instructions on how to disable it. For Nero Showtime, and other Nero software which installs codecs, the only known solution at the moment is to uninstall. Similarly for Ulead and Haali codecs, these simply have to be removed. In all of these cases, if you are running Windows XP, it is also worth reinstalling WMP 10 or 11. Unfortunately this last option does not seem to be available for those running Vista.

I installed WMP 12 and it fixed the voices. You can also turn on subtitles too--that helps regardless of sound issues.

Anyone messed with the stock exchange yet? I've made some 40 million off of it over the course of a few hours. (Hint: invest in the "natural" section, as it changes the fastest. As a reference point, weapons stocks haven't changed a bit since I started trading a full game day ago.)

As far as new ships, I'm flying an Argon Griffon Sentinel, which is the bane of M6's or smaller. Its a 14-million-credit M7 with 4 turrets (left-2, right-2, back-2, front-2) and 4 main guns. I equipped the left, right, and back turrets with Flak Artillery Arrays and the forward turret with Cluster Flak Arrays. Missiles and fighters don't last long, and a concentrated attack on an M6 will kill it in under a minute.
It also has 4x1GJ shields and 9 external docking clamps. (I've got 2 Teladi Falcon Haulers for carrying XL-type cargo, like shields. It is the only M3 in the game that can do so.)
Unfortunately, my ship can only kill M7's with assistance from other capital ships, or by kiting them for 10 minutes (Knocked out two Terran M7's that way).

For those of you who are on the fence, its like Terran Conflict, but with new ships, an easier start (due to the stock market), and much more frequent capital ship fights.

Anyone know of a good tutorial for this game? Albion Prelude is my first foray into X3. Someone said it was like FreeSpace but I wasn't expecting it to literally dump me in the middle of the universe with no idea what I'm supposed to do or how to do it.

I attacked a few of the haulers I'm supposedly in charge of protecting, apparently got promoted for it, then got chewed up by fighter drones as I waited for the pilot to eject. I guess having no life support isn't that big a deal to some people.

For those interested, gamepad control's pretty awful. You only get the most basic controls on the actual pad. It's definitely gamepad + keyboard.

But all that stuff Taidaan said sounds pretty cool so I'd like to one day understand what he's talking about.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Anyone know of a good tutorial for this game? Albion Prelude is my first foray into X3. Someone said it was like FreeSpace but I wasn't expecting it to literally dump me in the middle of the universe with no idea what I'm supposed to do or how to do it.

There's a "guides" sticky on Egosoft's forum, though the only AP-specific thing up so far (labelled a "survival guide") is designed for people who know their way around TC.

I haven't gotten a chance to fire up AP yet, so I don't know how much of the stuff in the TC guides does and doesn't apply.

I've been reading through the X3:TC for Dummies pdf. Pretty helpful so far. I'm determined to get good at this game.

Thanks to Niseg I'm on board with this. Now If Only I could find the time to play.

Prozac wrote:

Thanks to Niseg I'm on board with this. Now If Only I could find the time to play.

You managed like 150 hours in TC. Take a break from Blood Bowl.