X3: Terran Conflict

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IMAGE(http://ve3dmedia.ign.com/images/02/30/23019_normal.jpg)

I saw this game posted on Steam. It looks interesting, seeing as how I am a fan of Space Sims, but I can't find any info on this game. I been googling it quite a bit and all I can find are screenshots that don't show much or forums answering very very specific questions about the game. I have yet to see anything that gives a broad overview of the game and how it is supposed to play.

I'm really interested in the game and want to give it a shot, but I can't justify paying $40 for a game I know absolutley nothing about. Has anyone heard of it before?

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Grubber's Game

X3:TC Beginner's Guide by elewis17

Welcome newcomers to X3:TC
*Here is your guide to the Universe of X3*
Welcome to "a world of complex economy management, piracy and something about a Skiron!"

First the disclaimers:

1. This is not my work. I am merely standing on the shoulders of the greats in this thread: Shoal, Grubber, Evo, Yonder, and many others. Be sure and thank them for all their contributions after you call them filthy bastards enablers.

2. X3 is NOT EVE Online. If you disagree, create a new thread for Shoal to shame you in. It has been addressed too many times in the past.

3. Everything below this line could be considered a spoiler. View at your own risk.

Now the Substance:

1. IMO I think the best thing to do once you purchase the game is to play until you are utterly confused. This may take 10 minutes or 3 hours.

2. Now that you are confused and in over your head read this. Bookmark this, and return to it often. It will be handy for the first few days you are playing.

3. This is the X3 "Wiki". It isn't really a wiki nor does it call itself one, but it is the most valuable X3 related site on the net, besides this thread of course. IF I am playing this game I also have a browser open to this site. Alt+Tab is you second best friend only to dual monitors.

4. The X3:TC map is located here. To download a PDF map (and the best TC map I've found (Thanks Evo for reminding me) click here). This map is printed on 11X17 on the wall next to my desk. The PDF map does contain blatant spoilers by the way. It shows sectors where derelict ships reside, and it shows which sectors contain Shipyards, Equipment Docks, HQs, Pirate Bases, and special facilities.

5. The list of "ownerless" or derelict ships is located here.

6. Yes, you should go grab a few of the derelict ships, and no you shouldn't sell most of them. A good portion of them are unique.

7. Find a sexy ship you want? Looking to upgrade? Type the name of the ship here and all stats will be displayed.

8. Yes, Grubber HATES the Boron, and yes, I'm sure he will post more sexy screenies of him opening a can on the fish people.

9. Here is the list of military ships 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

10. Here is a list of X Universe guides. Some of the links are dead, but there is a lot of good information here. Just remember that only the green links apply to Terran Conflict.

11. Manually Operated Remote Traders (MORT) Take player direction, but will make you a lot of Spacebucks if tended to properly. Depending on your playstyle you'll want to start Sector Traders or MORTs.

12. Software can be confusing. Refer to this.

13. Get on Vent. I'm frequently on, and am always willing to lend a helping hand. Don't be afraid to jump on the Single Player channel and ask me a question. It is a lot easier to explain something using the spoken language than it is for someone to type up a response while they are supposed to be working.

14. You still need to read through this thread in its entirety. There is so much valuable information it would be a waste not to.

15. Kiss your social life goodbye.

16. To scan the pirate base to need to be ~500 away from it.

17. Save often! Every chance you get you should save.

18. Repair Laser- I'm posing this here so there is no excuse. "you can eject in some safe space and repair your ship with a repair laser in your space suit (press fire). It takes a bloody age and is obviously easier to dock at shipyard and pay for repairs but in the early stages its a viable option to make more cash on that knackered out pirate ship you just captured." Remember a captured ship that is fully repaired is worth MUCH more money, and moves much faster.

19. *Important* The Auto-pilot in X3 is not by any means perfect. Use it at your own risk. You will crash and burn from time to time. That is why you save often.

20. Nowhere is safe. Typically core sectors are safer than border sectors (you'll understand this once you look at the map). Pirates and Kha'ak can show up at any time and wipe out a sector. Don't cry though; GOD will fix everything in due time. GOD is the unseen higher power in the game that keeps everything working as it should (besides Auto-pilot). Your unused ships are much safer docked at a station rather than sitting in space somewhere.

21. The higher your combat rank the harder combat will be, and the more ass you kick the higher you combat rank will get. Your combat rank will slowly drop if you are not engaging enemies. Try not to get ahead of yourself.

I have omitted including any mods in this post. I have used a few of them, and I think they add a lot of handy features. I may do another write up in the future with all the mods linked.

It certainly looks pretty. The X series is one I've always meant to play but have never gotten to. From what I've read the games are some of the better Elite-type trading/exploration/combat space sims out there - definitely up my alley but it always seemed like it would require an absolutely huge time commitment.

I played the hell out of X3: Reunion two years ago. I love the X series, but it's super quirky, at least from an non-european gamer's point of view. It's essentially a single player EVE-Online, and in order to develop your "huge galactic corporation" you have to do a lot of what most people would call "work" instead of "play." Example: Earn money fighting/running missions --> buy a solar power station --> find an appropriate solar system to put it in (one that doesn't already have too many power stations --> invest more money to buy and upgrade freighters to take your power cells and sell them at other stations --> eventually earn enough money to buy a fancier station --> rinse --> repeat. To a certain point I enjoy that sort of thing, especially since there aren't any other multiplayer griefers to make your life difficult while you're doing it.

That said, the galactic corporation building is just one option, and you can just focus on fighting and mercenary work to make your money and buy fancier ships. The storyline for X3: Reunion was cliched, but better than X2. I really just advanced the storyline enough to unlock some content and make it easier on myself.

Mild spoilers wrote:

[color=white]The storyline for Reunion is investigating rumors of Earth, and this expansion, it's pretty plain to see, is using Earth as the next jumping off point.[/color]

The graphics are absolutely gorgeous, and the combat is extremely enjoyable (assuming you have a rig capable of running it), especially when you get bigger ships and have a group of smaller ships flying around with you. They are the strongest and most enjoyable aspects of the game, unless you're really into putting the hours in to build an empire and dominate the rest of the NPCs in the universe, which by the way, is massive. There are a few ships/weapons/tactics that you can eventually upgrade to that make combat much easier and more profitable. At the start, you have to pick your fights carefully and make sure the situation doesn't get out of hand. It's usually pretty clear when you have bitten off more than you can chew.

X3: Reunion ran very well at 1024x768 on my P4 dual core 3.2ghz 2gb RAM NVIDIA 7800GTX 256mb. A joystick was a must-have, even though the box said you could just play it with a mouse. For this update it looks like they're trying to make the mouse a feasible control style.

I'm not sure how much of the first X3 will be showing up in this expansion. I haven't done much research. But if it is the previous universe and all those systems/races/ships plus the added content, then it will be a monstrous area to explore and play in.

In other words, I won't be picking this up because I no longer have 130 hours to enjoy with a game.

Edit: If you buy the original X3: Reunion, there are a ton of great mods to make certain repetitive tasks easier, as well as add ships and systems. Check out Cycrow's Script Manager and the X3 Bonus Package. The modding community is very active, and the developers occasionally compile user mods and make them official patches for the game.

Montalban wrote:

Stuff...

Thank you, sir. You have single-handedly convinced me to buy this game. It sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

So there's no form of multiplayer...co-op or otherwise?

CrashedHardrive wrote:

So there's no form of multiplayer...co-op or otherwise?

According to the Steam page:

IMAGE(http://lh3.ggpht.com/Scott.Boeckmann/SPT-4I-ah1I/AAAAAAAAABQ/7g3orSIFD5c/TerranConflictSP.jpg)

No multiplayer which is a shame. But this game is purely awesome. Take all the other space flight sims, add them together and you might come up to half as big of a game. Reunion was HUGE and this is supposed to be even bigger.

Years ago before EVE went live, it was supposed to be the MMO successor to X and X2 (rumors). Unfortunately its not even close. If X3 was an MMO, it would be probably the only game I would play. As for a single player game, its damn fun as well

But Montalban is correct, there is *work* to do no doubt about it. But if you play it as its supposed to be played and dont grind, its just like every other game. You can grind to the end or you can have fun playing. X2, X3 and X3 Reunion I never did finish the story line because I was just so fascinated with everything else. And it doesnt mess around either, if you cant fly your ship into a hanger... well you'll learn haha

PAR

Not to mention the completely vertical learning curve of X3: Reunion. There was a TON of stuff in that game you'll never learn without going to the forums. Even stuff as simple as what button docks with a station is either buried deep in the documentation or isnt there at all.

Once you've spent that 11 hours learning how to play the game, and attaching a few good mods to help manage your just-emerging empire, the game becomes pretty freaking amazing. It has a scope that's simply unrivaled in gaming. There's a point where you might be managing an empire of hundreds of trade ships, twisting space complexes involving dozens of individual stations connected together. You'll command fleets of ships to attack enemies. You'll be raking in billions or trillions of credits... And it all started from you in your podunk freighter or fighter and a few thousand credits.

I'd be very interested in seeing what they've done different with Terran Conflict.

Do you still have to deal with the Khak? Because I remember in my younger days when the Khak would pop up seemingly for no reason at all, often causing trouble and/or creating a mess.

Penis.

Seriously, who in the hell greenlighted that name for the English release?

I remember Xplay having some fun with that one. (That was probably a line for it, I just dont remember the show THAT well)

The Kha'ak (mild snicker) do show up in X3: Reunion if I remember correctly. But it should be a good sign to you folks that I don't really remember them. It might have been because I only got half way through the storyline, but compared to X2 the Kha'ak are only a minor nuisance instead of the game-destroying, rage-quitting menace they turned out to be for me in X2. Why should I bother to build a trade empire if a largely unbeatable AI is going to show up at my stations and obliterate things I spent hours to work toward? If I want to lose hours of my life in a single moment I'll play EVE Online where it is much more compelling and called "PvP."

I believe they show up in certain systems, but you can mostly predict where and avoid them if you pay attention. This is true for a lot of the enemies in X3. They also tend to get in fights with other NPCs and you'll come across some fights where its nice just to sit back and watch. I also believe they are more beatable (ok, stop laughing) in X3. I remember not standing a chance in X2.

Changing topics, I'm almost tempted to try the game just to see if they have really figured out a way to make space combat enjoyable with just a mouse and keyboard. I'll be interested to hear what goodjers think.

Tkyl wrote:
Montalban wrote:

Changing topics, I'm almost tempted to try the game just to see if they have really figured out a way to make space combat enjoyable with just a mouse and keyboard. I'll be interested to hear what goodjers think.

I'd let you know, but I have every intention of laying it with a joystick.

Ditto, its not a space sim w/out a good joystick. Ahhh the nostalgia of Xwing vs Tie Fighter...

PAR

Tonight on OOCT:

Tkyl wrote:

I'd let you know, but I have every intention of laying it with a joystick.

Montalban wrote:

Changing topics, I'm almost tempted to try the game just to see if they have really figured out a way to make space combat enjoyable with just a mouse and keyboard. I'll be interested to hear what goodjers think.

I'd let you know, but I have every intention of playing it with a joystick.

I really can't recommend playing X3 with a stick. So much of the game is UI based that you'll be switching back and forth constantly. It's fine when it's just your ship, however once you've got a few ships running trade routes for you and you are building your empire you spend a fair amount of time clicking through menus.

Regarding the learning curve, yes X3 is damn near verticle, and there really isn't much in the way of tutorial information to help out. That said there's a plethora of information online to get you started if you want to dive in.

Here's some sites that helped me:

Ultimate resource list

Sector map

The official website has some interesting tidbits on it. Turns out that this iteration of the game is primarily due to popularity of one MOD. The company ended up hiring the developers behind the mod and commercializing it.

I'm also curious, can X3 be modded for Newtonian physics?

I'm also curious, can X3 be modded for Newtonian physics?

As I understand it no, they can't. The ships however respond very realistically to movement, with tiny jets positions around the ship which fire off whenever you are changing your heading. It's all done very well.

I'm going to submit an AAR (After Action Report) on my first 10 hours or so of my game, which started as a lowly pilot, and had some harrowing moments where my badly damaged ship that I couldn't afford to repair still pulled me through the rough times. I've earned around 640,000 credits or so so far, have 1 entry level freighter running manual shipping runs for me and I'm now concentrating on taking out pirates for the policing bounty. While the storyline in game isn't phenomenal, the stories you come away with are often legendary.

Ive had my eye on this series for awhile, and you guys have convinced me this is exactly the game I wanna be playing right now!

So, is Terran Conflict gonna be everything Reunion is, plus more? Or would you recommend that I play Reunion first, or just jump right into the new one

If you look at that sector map, there's a sector named Mists of Elysium, bottom left.

I want to play just to explore.

EDIT: Double post.

Game releases on Steam the 17th. X3 was truly complicated, but enjoyable. I plan to pick this one up as well.

Finally found a tiny bit of information about what's new in this game thanks to (edit: I can't make this dumb link work!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X³:_Terran_Conflict

The interesting bits:

Wikipedia wrote:

New ships and missions
Boarding parties
Bombers
Flight wing groups
Missile frigates
A new User Interface
Non-player corporations
New and improved mission-handling
Military outposts
New weapons

... as well as a new gameplay feature to control large numbers of ships.

Sounds cool! If they've improved building complexes (it was COMPLEX! and usually turned out really ugly too) I'm sold.

Yeah, it's looking promising. Check out the FAQ as well. Looks like they're mainly adding a storyline to the XTended mod that was released a couple years ago, as previously mentioned. That mod added in a bunch of new systems and ships and was really well done, so I'm guessing this is going to be great.

FAQ wrote:

What is really NEW in X3:Terran Conflict?

Some people incorrectly describe the new content mainly by focussing on the new Terran race. Yes, the Terran introduce an entire new economy with two factions (military and secret service ATF), but there is a whole lot more: There are now a number of corporations which you can find in different places of the "old" X universe. They have HQ stations, operate their own ships and offer unique missions.

Most importantly, there are several new ship classes which exists for ALL races and also greatly change and upgrade the known X universe. In addition to that there is of course also a lot of re-design in established systems and new sectors are added in many places. Last but not least there is yet another unique new faction that you can find by playing one of the five main campaigns.

That addresses my main concern, which was that they might be limiting the expansion to new areas. Looks like the old starmap will still be there, which is fantastic.

Steam has some pretty decent source material and the bundle package isnt bad if you havent played X3.

Edit: You will only be able to get the new X3 on Steam in North America according to the developers. This was in the newsletter I receive every month or so from the Egosoft.

Montalban wrote:

Yeah, it's looking promising. Check out the FAQ as well. Looks like they're mainly adding a storyline to the XTended mod that was released a couple years ago, as previously mentioned. That mod added in a bunch of new systems and ships and was really well done, so I'm guessing this is going to be great.

FAQ wrote:

What is really NEW in X3:Terran Conflict?

Some people incorrectly describe the new content mainly by focussing on the new Terran race. Yes, the Terran introduce an entire new economy with two factions (military and secret service ATF), but there is a whole lot more: There are now a number of corporations which you can find in different places of the "old" X universe. They have HQ stations, operate their own ships and offer unique missions.

Most importantly, there are several new ship classes which exists for ALL races and also greatly change and upgrade the known X universe. In addition to that there is of course also a lot of re-design in established systems and new sectors are added in many places. Last but not least there is yet another unique new faction that you can find by playing one of the five main campaigns.

That addresses my main concern, which was that they might be limiting the expansion to new areas. Looks like the old starmap will still be there, which is fantastic.

Yes this definitely heightens my need to have this game. Dusting off the Saitek right now!

PAR

Sounds great! I will be coming back to this after the Console Madness of the next two months wears off.

Arrggh.

Darned enabling threads.

Now I'm gonna have to pick up X3.

So, the only point in the bundle would be to be able to play the storyline in the original X3, since the universe is the same plus more. I'll skip the bundle then since I'm more interested in the sandbox aspect than the storyline.

Barab wrote:

So, the only point in the bundle would be to be able to play the storyline in the original X3, since the universe is the same plus more. I'll skip the bundle then since I'm more interested in the sandbox aspect than the storyline.

Yeah, I was going to say...while Reunion is great, if there's an expansion releasing in 3 days that includes all the same content apart from the storyline, and adds additional features and content on top of that, just wait. You'll barely be getting used to the controls in Reunion before the expansion drops.

I want to play this game so bad now. I hate you guys!

Man, how did I miss this one? I only have 2 days to clear my schedule before X3 takes over my life again? Dammit.

Montalban wrote:

It's essentially a single player EVE-Online

Heathen! Seriously, I don't think that is a quite fair comparison, apart from the setting and free market part. There are so may different ways to play the X series I think it's in a completely different class. Other than that you were completely dead on.

I would definitely suggest playing this game with a joystick, especially a HOTAS style stick. I tried the mouse piloting and it never worked for me. You do need the mouse for navigation of the menus (and there are a LOT of menus, and menus within menus) but the actual piloting is easier with a stick. I actually had mine configured at one point to where I could scroll through just about everything I needed using the hat switches, but that took a really long time to figure out.

I love to describe X3 as the best game I didn't have to play, because once I got my trading empire up to a point where it was self sufficient I could go park somewhere and let the game run overnight or while I was at work, come back and have earned enough money for a new capital ship/space station/whatever. Good times. Of course there were times when I'd come back and my empire would be decimated by a random Kha'ak or Pirate attack. But rebuilding was fun too.

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