X3: Terran Conflict

Well hell.

Had an awesome morning and a slightly terrible morning. I picked up a Perseus and Mamba Raider both used for like 6-800k each. Pretty solid M3s for that price. Stuck them in trading dock as I had decided to take dual patrol missions in that paranid sector. On my way to Split space for cap ships but figured I might as well do some race relations as I go.

So dual patrols... and a station defense, all 3 at the same time. I think that way I get bonus for patrols too? But either way I have a paranid license so I was doing fine. The groups from each patrol had 4 Yaki Centaurs or 4 Xenon Ps depending on the group. After a couple waves of each I thought I would check on my fighters. Instead of saving first or waiting until I was docked at station they were at to auto-save, I decided to have them follow me when I was about 20km from the station. I thought I would meet them, top off their repairs, and send them back. A few seconds after they undocked, Xenon appeared at the edge of radar 25km away, right behind them.

Needless to say they didn't make it. But it had been nearly an hour since my previous save with all the fighting...

Anyway I continued the patrols. Altogether I made around 6 million. Station defense paid 1 mil, one patrol was 200k, one was 900k. Bounty bonuses for patrols were 2.4 and 1.3 mil. And some bonus for the station defense kills too.

So now I'm up to 67 million. Maybe I'll buy an Elephant and a Panther both instead of having to choose one.

Also I had some experimenting last night. I decided to try the Paranid Deimos M7. Since it did have some (6?) hangar slots and had special PSG weapons that it could stock I thought it might be fun. And it was a nice practice in buying cap ship weapons, which I found was a pain in the ass.

Right before that I saw this:
IMAGE(http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac80/NyxStele/X3-TC/x3screen00085.jpg)
Pirate Brigantine M2, with a lot of Blastclaw escorts.

So I bought this Deimos:
IMAGE(http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac80/NyxStele/X3-TC/x3screen00086.jpg)

And then I went back looking for pirates... but found their Rehabilitation Center instead. So I shot it:
IMAGE(http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac80/NyxStele/X3-TC/x3screen00087.jpg)

Until it went BOOM.
IMAGE(http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac80/NyxStele/X3-TC/x3screen00088.jpg)

Free slaves! Well, mostly...

Anyway, I decided against the Deimos. As it turns out those PSGs are ridiculous with friendly fire. They just shoot out this shockwave, which doesn't miss ANYTHING. Yeah that's actually a bad thing. :p Oh well.

I did one station defense mission in Split space, and ended up going from Split rank 7 down to Split rank -1, just from the friendly fire. I couldn't apologize fast enough and then my turrets would auto-shoot the enemy targets, and it just snowballed into madness. Bad, bad PSGs.

So after that little bit of fun, I'm definitely going with my Panther still. Heading over there soon.

PSGs are great if you are going solo into Xenon territory or something like that, where you expect to find few if any friendlies and aren't using your own fighters. In any other situation...

The only real thing I use for PSGs on my Deimos is missile defense. Otherwise, they stay silent, while I have 2 Ion Shard railguns, and 6 PBE's in the main, and 8 FFA's, 2 in each turrent but the back. And yes, quite the pain. :/

So much power...

...not being used against Boron...

I can't watch....

Checking my UT logs from earlier, as I hit day 4 in game:

12.5 million
15.8
12.1
3.4
1.0
1.3
0.5
2.8

Odd the one that is only 500k. Those last 3 started at the same time, but the 3rd one is the one that got to start in Empire's Edge. He clearly has a big lead thanks to that, and getting to level 8 so fast.

That's nearly 50 million for sitting back and letting these guys work. Sure it cost at least a million to set each one up, but they've more than paid for themselves, even individually (except that one guy :p )

Are you paying these guys on commission? Maybe you can change incentives to try to get some more productivity out of him. He may also be having problems outside of work, do you offer good health care services, or child care options for parents?

Of course he may just be lazy, he's not Boron is he?

There's a ton of fanfic waiting to be written about UTs and their sordid lives. He probably got an angry call from an estranged spouse demanding alimony or child support.

Well he's flying UT Mistral 4. And his name is Nu t'Hnk. Currently rank 11 Chief Paymaster. Have at him.

Stele wrote:

Well he's flying UT Mistral 4. And his name is Nu t'Hnk. Currently rank 11 Chief Paymaster. Have at him. :D

Nu t'Hnk lived an ordinary life until one day, Fate thrust upon him the most impossible mission: To be the Hnkiest trader in the galaxy.

"My wife and children need me," bemoaned the Hnk. "And yet, the money I could make working off-world would more than pay for my sensitive yet wise-beyond-his-years son's education at Major Metropolitan University. He could become so much more than I can ever be. What with my crippling addiction to Spaceweed and my prissy Argon wife who demands the finer things in life. I just can't seem to get ahead!"

It was then that Fortune came knocking.

Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion of Chapter 1 in our 537 part series, "Paymaster in Da Skies"

Dude, Nu t'Hnk is skimming off the top. That money is just what he's reported. Did you ever ask how a guy living on a UT salary afforded a place in the Hamptons and a brand new Mercedes M3+?

mercedes m3+? lol

I could only wish. I would buy one, no matter the cost

Ok, I've played this game now for about 2 hours total. (never played any of the other "X" games) Wow, it's very intimidating, but I like the challenge so far. I don't know what the hell anything is, but I like shooting lasers at ship looking things, and watching them blow up. That makes me happy. That, and the hookers.

Quick pics from earlier:

IMAGE(http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac80/NyxStele/X3-TC/x3screen00089.jpg)
Split Elephant destroyed by Xenon. I was in-sector trying to save their TL, but couldn't get there in time. 3 or 4 Ps did that.

IMAGE(http://i887.photobucket.com/albums/ac80/NyxStele/X3-TC/x3screen00090.jpg)
My shiny new Elephant. I went ahead and grabbed one. Between the docking computer and jump drive, it makes station building missions ridiculously easy. I can build any race's station in any race's sector in a matter of minutes, for several million in profit.

Also, I ran into Mahi Ma, the Boron. He wants me to check out Xenon sector 23. I guess this is the HUB plot? Think I better buy my Split Panther before I head in there. I don't think my Vidar will be up to it. Besides I'm nearly out of ammo, even from my TS stash I was holding in reserve. Killing all the Ps and Pirate Centaurs the last few times I've played has drained me. Terran space was empty of ammo the last time I checked... seems no one trades up there since there are no jump gates. My UTs certainly haven't ventured north at all.

Tempted to run the script that changes their trans-orbital gates or whatever into normal jump gates. I hate to take away the flavor of the terran sectors though. Maybe I should just get one of the advanced jump drive scripts that will let me jump there anyway. Or I think I saw one script that uses jump beacons, where I could set up some reasonable jumps. One to the Moon, with shipyard, and one up to Jupiter somewhere in that corner.

I just don't want the terran sector economy to wither and die. But I'm afraid it will without jump gates.

I guess I need to go exploring the Terran sectors again, now that I know what I am doing. What makes the gates so different?

Well this is the part when all of us saying "the story in the previous X games is worthless" comes to bite us in the butt.

The Earth Solar System only has one true gate, that's the one that you can hyperspace jump to, and it's the one that connects the Earth sectors with the rest of the Universe. All of the other gates in that solar system are actually built by Terrans, they are much simpler gates with the ability to send ships around the Solar System, but they aren't Hyperspace gates, it's a completely isolated system. In the rest of the Universe this wide gate network meant that each individual solar system isn't used that much at all. The huge number of planets available meant that there was no reason to set up (or invent probably) the smaller accelerators like the Terrans use, and without them it's not very cost effective to colonize the rest of the system. Who wants a colony that is a three month flight away, when a two hour flight can take you to any one of dozens of habitable planets?

That's also why the Terrans have such massive stations, they only have a handful of habitable bodies accessible to them. The stations in the rest of the Universe are strictly commercial or military, but Terran stations all support an enormous colonial population, that's their primary purpose.

Hermler wrote:

I guess I need to go exploring the Terran sectors again, now that I know what I am doing. What makes the gates so different?

You can't jump to any of them using a jumpdrive.

Yonder wrote:

good history

What's he's really saying is that the Terrans are mildly {ableist slur}. Some might say they're even less valuable than Borons who I think get an unfair rap from some people around these parts.

garion333 wrote:
Yonder wrote:

good history

What's he's really saying is that the Terrans are mildly {ableist slur}. Some might say they're even less valuable than Borons who I think get an unfair rap from some people around these parts. :P

Boron sympathizer!

Call grubber. We need an extermination.

garion333 wrote:
Yonder wrote:

good history

What's he's really saying is that the Terrans are mildly {ableist slur}. Some might say they're even less valuable than Borons who I think get an unfair rap from some people around these parts. :P

I said nothing of the sort! It's not their fault that they were isolated from the Galaxy for so many years. In fact their wicked awesome stations and mini gates seem to be more engineering intensive than anything the others have. Their ships are mostly substandard because they aren't compatible with the weapons of the rest of the Universe, which also makes sense considering they only came into contact with those weapons around six months (less?) before the even with this game.

Yonder wrote:
garion333 wrote:
Yonder wrote:

good history

What's he's really saying is that the Terrans are mildly {ableist slur}. Some might say they're even less valuable than Borons who I think get an unfair rap from some people around these parts. :P

I said nothing of the sort! It's not their fault that they were isolated from the Galaxy for so many years. In fact their wicked awesome stations and mini gates seem to be more engineering intensive than anything the others have. Their ships are mostly substandard because they aren't compatible with the weapons of the rest of the Universe, which also makes sense considering they only came into contact with those weapons around six months (less?) before the even with this game.

Another word for this is {ableist slur}.

I'm not a plant. I'm not a spy. There's nothing to see here. Move along.

I hear the Springblossom and Spitfyre are non- {ableist slur}. But Aldrin != Terran. :p

I just know one of these days, I'm going to hear a warbling voice whisper into my ear, "For the Queen," as a knife is plunged into my spine. I'll die a martry's death.

Yonder wrote:

I said nothing of the sort! It's not their fault that they were isolated from the Galaxy for so many years. In fact their wicked awesome stations and mini gates seem to be more engineering intensive than anything the others have. Their ships are mostly substandard because they aren't compatible with the weapons of the rest of the Universe, which also makes sense considering they only came into contact with those weapons around six months (less?) before the even with this game.

I thought it was their fault. They isolated themselves, didn't they?

Grubber788 wrote:

I just know one of these days, I'm going to hear a warbling voice whisper into my ear, "For the Queen," as a knife is plunged into my spine. I'll die a martry's death.

That'll just leave you paralyzed. They don't want you to die a quick death.

You know, so I've heard.

Yonder wrote:

It's not their fault that they were isolated from the Galaxy for so many years. In fact their wicked awesome stations and mini gates seem to be more engineering intensive than anything the others have.

Well, they did deliberately cut the Solar System off from the gate network in order to hide from the Xenon. Which they'd accidentally created. So it's totally their fault, but paranoia is perfectly understandable after narrowly escaping extinction.

(FWIW, most of this backstory is in the intro movie to TC. The earlier games in the series give the story of how Earth got re-connected to the jumpgates -- a Terran pilot testing an experimental jump drive ended up in the X-Universe, discovered the descendants of a lost human colony [the Argons], etc. -- among other things, but TC is pretty self-contained.)

Thanks for the info

About time I go visit the terrans, start to pick up their factories and ships for myself

Got my Panther. Pics later. When I blow some Xenon up.

Thinking about that boarding script... I think one of Apricot's? For letting TS, TP, and stuff in my hangar. Too annoying so far having to coordinate one of my TS to meet me and buy stuff and all that. Much easier if it was homebased to me.

Especially my TL. It's ludicrous that I can carry around 2 stations, but can't dock a TS.

Their factories, too, only work with other Terran stuff.

I figured. Its their bass asswarks way they do things. Instead of complying with the rest of the universe, they have to try and protect their manufacturing rights by not making anything else compatiable.

239 files failed again. At the moment I'm Error Checking my 300GB games harddrive, the only thing on there is Steam and other games, so while it scans for bad sectors I am completely gameless.

If that doesn't fix my issue I'll try what Taidaan suggested and delete client.blob

EDIT: Harddrive passed all tests, no errors at all. So now I'm angry and wondering why this isn't working.