X3: Terran Conflict

Thank you Steam sale! I had X3:TC on my wishlist for a while. Subscribing to the thread.

So is it really worth spending time on this thing? Man I would love a good space sim but this is killing me. Have played for about 10 hours so far. About 4 hours have been lost to death and restart.

The lack of a functioning save system is just inexcusable. I can put up with everything else but not being able to save at will is just a dumb design. Especially early on when you are getting a feel for the game.

What kills me about the combat is I can take out five or six fighters with no issues most of the time. But as soon as I run into one guy with missiles... bam dead in 5 seconds. And it seems to be totally random as to who has them and not.

Think I will try for one of those abandoned ships to see if that helps get the game rolling. Can anyone advise to which is the easiest to get to from the Terran start?

Yeah I dislike the save system as well. Buying items to be able to save in space is pretty silly. For such a complex game, with so many things that could go wrong, the basic function of only saving when you dock adds some unnecessary difficulty.

I think there's probably a mod that makes the save items cost 1 credit or something and you can probably even mod that yourself pretty easily. Still, an annoyance to be sure.

sapman wrote:

The lack of a functioning save system is just inexcusable. I can put up with everything else but not being able to save at will is just a dumb design. Especially early on when you are getting a feel for the game.

In-cockpit saving is achieved through purchasing "flight insurance." It's part of the game design. I don't know if I like it, but I remember getting 1 million credits and buying a ton of it and forgetting all about the save system after. In fact, if you buy 30 at 3000 credits (?) you'll be set for at least 10-12 hours.

Cycrow's cheat package has an option for unlimited salvage insurance.

misplacedbravado wrote:

Cycrow's cheat package has an option for unlimited salvage insurance.

I did see that. was a little concerned about the executable required to install it. Tend to be a bit paranoid about that stuff.

Also noticed there is something about enabling script editing that flags your game as "modified" or something. Is that just a vanity thing to let folks know you cheated or does it alter the game in someway?

sapman wrote:

I did see that. was a little concerned about the executable required to install it. Tend to be a bit paranoid about that stuff.

The plugin manager? IME, it's harmless.

Also noticed there is something about enabling script editing that flags your game as "modified" or something. Is that just a vanity thing to let folks know you cheated or does it alter the game in someway?

Any mod or script except the Bonus Pack will set that flag, and it's basically a vanity thing. It does also disable Steam achievements.

Yeah I think modified disables Steam achievements and keeps your stats from being uploaded to whatever thing Egosoft has for that.

But honestly there are so many useful and great mods out there, that it isn't worth it. Some cool stuff even to help performance, like a Tubeless Complex Mod that helps you build complexes but makes all the tubes connecting them invisible. People sometimes end up with such a huge complex that they can't even enter the sector without massive slowdown.

I personally use a mod for longer radio communication. If you're in-sector you should be able to talk to a station, 25km distance be damned. Got tired of missing missions or watching them change by the time I would get in range of a station to communicate.

Lots of little tweaks to the game as well. I made my own mod that increases the repair rate of the repair laser. Early on when I had no cash I couldn't afford repairs, and I also wasn't going to sit outside my ship for hours letting the game idle. Kick up the repair rate, hop out, zap my ship, go on with the game.

There's hundreds more mods for various things. Some make the game easier, harder, perform better. Others add in sectors, missions, and so on. All well worth the modified tag.

I can personally vouch for X Plugin Manager by Cycrow. It works great. Just be sure the game isn't running when you use it.

Mods are totally the way to go. Had a hell of a time getting them disabled for the Summer Sale achievement though. Ended up having to re-download twice.

Concerning the save situation, I totally agree that it's a silly and stupid system. The price is low enough that it essentially costs nothing once you get going, meaning that all the feature does is punish you when you first start out and have no idea what is going on. Did it used to be more expensive in earlier games and just got nerfed to this state over time?

Gunner wrote:

Did it used to be more expensive in earlier games and just got nerfed to this state over time?

If I've heard right, salvage insurance was always inexpensive, but before X2, it was the only way to save the game. Which must have been really annoying when you're just getting started.

I don't find it hard to dock from time to time and save . I think the only time I ever used salvage insurance was when I was doing plot missions . Loading the game takes a long time on my PC I'm not exactly sure why but I'd rather not use that feature too much :lol:.

Due to the fact I lost all my games I need to restart . I might actually have a backup on steam since they started the cloud thing ( great feature). Last time I played I restarted as a humble merchant. I made a lot cash by taking advantage of an Ka'ahk Destroyer VS Argon battle to salvage missiles. I think I talked about that in this thread ;).

If you are new to this game and you see an enemy M2(destroyer),M1(carrier), M6(corvette) or M7(frigate) avoid it . I Don't think it's even smart to get close to enemy TLs or TMs . I highly recommend getting an M3+(specific M3 ships are heavy fighters the rest are medium) for battle . You can probably take out an m6 with an m3+ but it may take a while. Anything bigger than an M6s would have big guns that would tear your ship to shreds before you get into weapon range unless you approach from a blind spot. Don't bother fighting using anything smaller than an m4. I remember I found it really difficult to fight using the Sabre(m4) you get in Terran defender. Terran weapons are hard to use if you are not in close range and the M4 can easily get exterminated .

Hi Folks,

My first post. I am, as the site is named, a gamer with a job

Found this thread thru google on the subject of TC.

I played Beyond the Frontier back in the day. Decent game but my interest drifted away eventually.

I'm about 2-3 hours into TC. I picked the trader option and promptly sold my 2nd ship to get some trading up and running.

I found a script that allows you to see the best buying and selling price for ALL items in ANY sector. Very handy if you don't want to fly around each sector taking notes of the cost of every commodity. More EVE-like if you will.

http://www.mediafire.com/?09wdidyjxg...

So I have 180k in the bank, where should I take my Mercury now?

quarryman wrote:

Hi Folks,

My first post. I am, as the site is named, a gamer with a job

Found this thread thru google on the subject of TC.

Welcome to our growing community .

quarryman wrote:

I'm about 2-3 hours into TC. I picked the trader option and promptly sold my 2nd ship to get some trading up and running.

I found a script that allows you to see the best buying and selling price for ALL items in ANY sector. Very handy if you don't want to fly around each sector taking notes of the cost of every commodity. More EVE-like if you will.

http://www.mediafire.com/?09wdidyjxg...

So I have 180k in the bank, where should I take my Mercury now?

That script might have gave your game the modified tag.There is a pack of mods that are digitally signed by EgoSoft that are still considered vanilla.

Going back to your humble merchant beginning The main problem is to get funds to get a serious fighter. You can control your mercury by remote control and make it land at different stations then sell it's cargo. Once you get about 500K credits you can start sector/universe traders but that would take some time( you also need money for the ST/UT to use for trading).

Selling that Discoverer is usually not that recommended but you can get a new ship instead. Most people suggest both asteroid scanning and taxi service missions (ones that don't require a TP) using a fast M5 (M class cargo and cargo life support taxi). The best ship for both is a Teladi Kestrel (600m/s speed + 55~cargo) . A Discoverer is your only other easy option with M cargo (the others are hard to get) . You can taxi with a bigger ship using a jump drive but a TP would be more suitable (covers more missions). An M3 fighters is suitable for most starting missions.

A recommended Fighter is a Nova Raider - M3+. It's also good to get a TM (Magnitar is about 300k and has around 1000 XL cargo fly at 110m/s) once you start capturing ship or want to do ship recovery mission (usually use 2 jump drives and transporter devices are good idea too ). I'd suggest you get a jump drive with 100k credits ASAP if you are doing trading it would save a lot of headaches of traveling in a slow ship (also change setting of SETA to 10X instead of 6X) .

You should look for "trade missions" too which have the orange credit symbol . It sometimes mean someone has a ship for sale (sometimes a guy flying a ship has that symbol and that means they want to sell it). If the ship is damaged (around 60% and below) it's worth getting and spending the time to repair it while ejected ( you got a repair laser as a weapon). It's better to concentrate on smaller ones because big ones take a while . Still The price is usually scaled to the amount of damage. You can then command that ship to fly to a space dock and sell it for cash. I think that's how I got my first nova raider .

Once you have an m3 you can do some combat missions and capture ships and do plot stuff. I'm not sure about M4s they are generally harder to fight with because they can't handle the punishment of combat.

I've picked up X3 again and started my campaign against the Boron again. Here are some things I noticed initially.

- I freaking love the Bankrupt Assassin start. It's the only start where you don't feel absolutely impotent in combat. I highly recommend it for people without the patience to slowly build an economic empire.
- Bounty Hunters suck, but they are manageable. You start off very close to pirate territories and with large bounties against your head, but I learned two things about them that really made me suffer against them a year ago when I was playing. First, they do stop attacking eventually. I don't know if it is based on how many of them you kill, or how high your combat rank goes, but they stop attacking you at gates eventually. Second, the best way to defeat them is when immediately entering a new sector, move to the side of the gate you just entered and wait for them to spawn in at that gate. You should be able to tag one before it even gets to speed. Concentrate on the M3's first and the M4's and M5's will be easy to clean up. I remember a year ago, I actually waited until I bought an Argon Centaur (M6) before venturing into Aladna Hill.
- I earned money more quickly this time around. I remember now why I went after the Boron in my first game. You start out as enemies of them, so you might as well profit (/Teladi expression of the day). I followed my old route of flying to Rolk's Legacy and preying on Boron transporters. After I bagged and repaired a couple, I had enough money to fly to Aladna Hill and purchase another shield (1 x 25MJ). At this point, I focus on Argon missions involving protecting stations, which gets me a pirate to bail out of an M3 with 5 High Energy Plasma Throwers - I sell the ship and keep the weapons.
- I also bought 100 flight insurance. Never fly without it.
- Then I moved through pirate space, to Argon prime, north through Boron territory (where I almost get burned by a Boron Military Ray, losing some hull points and a single HEPT) and east into Split territory. I have decided for this game, I am only going to fly Split ships, so I am now running around their space completing missions, attacking Boron transporters and building reputation. I have over 3 million credits. I'll need about double that for a Cobra and quadruple that for a Heavy Cobra.

So yes, I like this game again.

Heavy Dragon:
IMAGE(http://x3tc.ru/x3_img_ship/6b51bf077a69sc.jpg)
Dragon:
IMAGE(http://x3tc.ru/x3_img_ship/98b1683c7d68sc.jpg)

ah grubber the enabler and his posts of awesomeness. i agree, bankrupt assassin is the best way to start if u dont want to feel like a gimp

I'll consider bankrupt assassin start if steam didn't keep my save games. If I remember correctly you get 2 HEPTs and an M3 which is a pretty strong start. I think I played it in parallel with my merchant start.

Is there any way to make the game load saved game a little faster?

The Dragon is definitely the way to go for a generalist. I made my fortune in that thing, as it's fast enough to fight in, tough enough to not die against more than one enemy, and can also run taxi missions. Having the flexibility means that if there is only one type of decent mission available in a system, you don't have to take the time to change to another ship. And time is really the precious resource in this game.

I never tried the Heavy Dragon, as I didn't want to sacrifice any more speed for the timed taxi missions, even with a jump drive.

This might have been asked before (and possibly by me...), but is there an idiot's starting guide for X3-TC ?

Going from an M3+(heavy fighter ) to an M6 ( corvette ) is a huge upgrade. M6s are still fairly maneuverable but they pack a huge amount of fire power compare to a puny M3+. It also has a huge cargo bay so you can do lots of missions with it.

davet010 wrote:

This might have been asked before (and possibly by me...), but is there an idiot's starting guide for X3-TC ?

There is, and it's been posted multiple times in this thread... but honestly, reading it just makes me feel like more of an idiot.

I don't know what it is about this game, but it just seems completely impenetrable for me. I played EVE for quite a while, so I thought this should be natural to jump into. Maybe I just haven't given it enough time. Maybe I can't wrap my head around the totally f*cked ship numbering convention. Maybe it's designed to be impenetrable.

I want to love it; really I do.

Niseg wrote:
quarryman wrote:

Hi Folks,

My first post. I am, as the site is named, a gamer with a job

Found this thread thru google on the subject of TC.

Welcome to our growing community .

quarryman wrote:

I'm about 2-3 hours into TC. I picked the trader option and promptly sold my 2nd ship to get some trading up and running.

I found a script that allows you to see the best buying and selling price for ALL items in ANY sector. Very handy if you don't want to fly around each sector taking notes of the cost of every commodity. More EVE-like if you will.

http://www.mediafire.com/?09wdidyjxg...

So I have 180k in the bank, where should I take my Mercury now?

That script might have gave your game the modified tag.There is a pack of mods that are digitally signed by EgoSoft that are still considered vanilla.

Going back to your humble merchant beginning The main problem is to get funds to get a serious fighter. You can control your mercury by remote control and make it land at different stations then sell it's cargo. Once you get about 500K credits you can start sector/universe traders but that would take some time( you also need money for the ST/UT to use for trading).

Selling that Discoverer is usually not that recommended but you can get a new ship instead. Most people suggest both asteroid scanning and taxi service missions (ones that don't require a TP) using a fast M5 (M class cargo and cargo life support taxi). The best ship for both is a Teladi Kestrel (600m/s speed + 55~cargo) . A Discoverer is your only other easy option with M cargo (the others are hard to get) . You can taxi with a bigger ship using a jump drive but a TP would be more suitable (covers more missions). An M3 fighters is suitable for most starting missions.

Yes, welcome!

And actually selling that fighter is recommend in one of the guides I read. You dump the fighter and fly cargo/trading runs in the Mercury for a while and build up money very fast. Then you can buy a better fighter down the line. Works pretty well.

breander wrote:

May have been posted here before but bares repeating. The X-Tended mod looks pretty cool.

Hmm, it appears that that Summer Sale DLC from Steam makes X3TC incompatible with the X-Tended mod. I thought I read somewhere, though, that there was a workaround.

So thanks to Grubber being a jerk I'm back playing X3 again. So thanks. Jerk.

I'm thinking it's time to start in on X3, again. It's been a while; what mods should I consider to enjoy the game anew, without losing the X-feel? (Pity that X-Tended looks like it is not compatible with the current Steam version...)

TheHipGamer wrote:

I'm thinking it's time to start in on X3, again. It's been a while; what mods should I consider to enjoy the game anew, without losing the X-feel? (Pity that X-Tended looks like it is not compatible with the current Steam version...)

I've spent a little time lately with the combination of Ship Rebalance Mod Continued and Combat Mod 4. SRM adds new ships, but the main focus of both mods is tweaking the game balance rather than adding new stuff.

Prozac wrote:

So thanks to Grubber being a jerk I'm back playing X3 again. So thanks. Jerk.

The urge is grasping at me as well. What does the xtended mod offer? My copy isn't linked to steam and is only 3.0, so I can still load the mod if it sounds interesting

Cycrow's Advanced Jumpdrive is a must for mid to late-game players. Early game you will find the prices prohibitive and the use not as necessary.
All of Cycrow's stuff is great, depending on your wants.
Complex calculator is canon.
X3 TC site has ware and station search functions in order to more easily find a sector with the items you are looking for.
Remember that this is the bonus material officially supported by Egosoft. These are all quality scripts, though you may not notice their usefulness until mid to late game. The missile defense mosquito script is essential software. Stock 20 mosquitos or however many you want, and enable the script in the ship command menu.
The X3 Wiki sometimes has the info you want, sometimes not.
The All Guides Thread, which is canon.
This thread explains the Commercial Agent software, if you have the time to read it.
The Prospector script for Lucike, if you ever get into mobile mining.
Remember that Cycrow has improved boarding scripts, once you have messed around trying to board and realized you want something easier.
You can read through this weapons guide if you want, but in my experience, you generally want HEPTs on M3 fighters (like the Nova) and M6s (like the Split Dragon), and PPCs on larger ships. The PPC is the bread and butter of capital fleets, the HEPT is the mid power weapon of choice, generally speaking.

Here's my X Universe Plugin Manager from Cycrow as I have it currently installed. The extra wing mod is great if you want more than just the set number of colored wings. Look it up in the Mod section of the forums.
IMAGE(http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/3708/44782952.jpg)

Edit: If you ever get into supplying stations and moving goods between stations, ships, and the HUB for the insane HUB requirements, let me know. I can do a writeup on what I learned. I finally figured out all the CAG software and it's very useful, but like most things, takes a long time to figure out.

downloaded xtended.....loading x3tc..... dammit grubber!

Prozac wrote:

So thanks to Grubber being a jerk I'm back playing X3 again. So thanks. Jerk.

primer28 wrote:

downloaded xtended.....loading x3tc..... dammit grubber!

Yes. Yes... Let the hate course through you... Yes!