X3: Reunion

[XLjedi]

So after trying to find a decent X-Com clone and failing miserably, I had low expectations for a game that I was hoping might be like the old game "Elite".

What a pleasant surprise it turned out to be! X3 is just like the old Elite gameplay and significantly improved upon! :up:

I'm just starting to get into exploring (what seems to be) a very large, highly active, beautifully rendered, and dangerous galaxy. The game seems quite deep and the controls are fantastic (I'm using my X52 FCS quite happily with this one :yep: ). Did I mention the graphics are breathtaking. Overall it has a very 2001-ish quality to it, serene and perhaps even slow moving at times. Love the way the planets are in-your-face large. Really gives you a feeling of being in orbit like no other game I've come across.

The slower pace, space trade route genre may turn off some. But if you liked Elite, I gotta think you'd really appreciate this one. I hope the next version might somehow allow you to enter the atmospheres of some of the amazing planets they've rendered.

I think I'll be spending a lot of time with this one in the coming months. :smug:

[ReallyDedPoet]

Nice aaronblood :yep: You know I have had this game for over a year and have never loaded it up, perhaps its time to shake off the dust and give it ago.


RDP

[NeonSamurai]

Egosoft just annonced their next game btw, X3 Terran Conflict, due out 3rd quarter of 2008

http://www.egosoft.com/games/x3_tc/info_en.php


Also for X3 Reunion you may want to check out the XTM mod
http://www.thexuniverse.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=18

I think though the biggest problem alot of people who dont care for the game is due to the sandbox setup of the game where other then a short storyline quest series, there is no "end" to the game.

Me however I love x3

[XLjedi]

Nice aaronblood :yep: You know I have had this game for over a year and have never loaded it up, perhaps its time to shake off the dust and give it ago.


RDP

Yeah, actually... that was me too. I had it laying around and loaded it like once and tried playing it with the mouse and had trouble with targetting and just shelved it. Then I decided to pull it back out this past weekend and spend a little time configuring my X52 and new 22" monitor to work with it and what a difference! This game plays fluidly (on a single nvidia 6800 ultra) at 1650x1050 without distortion! I get a nice widescreen view that is just spectacular. :up:

The controls are really crisp, although the default deadzone stick setting of 20% clearly did not suit my taste. After I set that to zero I was very happy.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Nice aaronblood :yep: You know I have had this game for over a year and have never loaded it up, perhaps its time to shake off the dust and give it ago.


RDP
Yeah, actually... that was me too. I had it laying around and loaded it like once and tried playing it with the mouse and had trouble with targetting and just shelved it. Then I decided to pull it back out this past weekend and spend a little time configuring my X52 and new 22" monitor to work with it and what a difference! This game plays fluidly (on a single nvidia 6800 ultra) at 1650x1050 without distortion! I get a nice widescreen view that is just spectacular. :up:

The controls are really crisp, although the default deadzone stick setting of 20% clearly did not suit my taste. After I set that to zero I was very happy.
Nice, the X52 and new monitor sound like they have made the difference :yep::up: I'll have to settle for my 17" Monitor and mouse and keyboard :shifty:

@ NeonSamurai: thanks for the links to the new stuff & the mod :up:


RDP

[Egan]

I loved the first two versions. Might have to track a copy down. Does it support TrackIR at all?

[Dowly]

The ships look gorgeus and quite massive in X3:R. :up:

[ReallyDedPoet]

Also for X3 Reunion you may want to check out the XTM mod
http://www.thexuniverse.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=18

A ship from that mod, nice :yep:

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/3669/galleonxq0qj9.jpg


RDP

[XLjedi]

Nice, the X52 and new monitor sound like they have made the difference :yep::up: I'll have to settle for my 17" Monitor and mouse and keyboard :shifty:


Flying with the mouse isn't too bad. Targeting is pretty good... my biggest gripe was with 180° turns. The mouse had to be picked up and dragged several times to get the ship pointing in the right direction, which sorta took me outta the fight. That may just've needed some sensitivity adjustment?

I couldn't really get a feel for my relative position with the mouse and it turned dogfights into the kind I don't really like... just turning toward the offscreen target reticle until you see it in front (far away) and you start shooting at each other head on. ...and of course the throttle pretty much was just pegged at 80% or whatever.

With an FCS, you'll be able to jump on their tails and stay on em. I find that I need to constantly adjust throttle to keep em in my sights. When you do have those head on confrontations, you can also use directional thrusters to side-skid (or strafe) away from the tracing line of laser fire. Coordinating that control is a bit difficult with just the mouse and keyboard.

Right now though, I'm trying to find some at least moderately profitable trade routes and haven't had much luck. I do better killing pirates and selling their abandoned ships or the bits of equipment they happen to drop.

[NeonSamurai]

Heh good luck finding any trade routes per say. They don't realy exist.

Keep in mind that the ai also buys and sells resources, so you can never rely on any one place being full of a certain resource, or needing another resource, as some other pilot may have beat you to it. The universe is about as living and breathing as it gets. Though this is a good thing as with out the ai, factories would be constantly running out of the resources needed to produce things.

Personaly I usualy start off with selling energy, energy is usualy a good one to start off on, as alot of factories use energy, also in the default universe, solar energy factories are not very spread out and tend to be clumped in certain sectors, which meens there is usualy high demand for it further out from the solar energy facs (a couple of sectors away). Though energy doesnt pull in massive profit per run.

Another tip is to find out about all the freebies (ships and other stuff) and go get them (2 good ones in the stock game is the toucan hauler, and the split mamba raider)

Pricing is pretty easy to figure out though, if they got lots of the item, they will sell it for less, if they hardly have any then they will sell for alot


As for the mouse, well personaly i cant stand it in x3 reunion, they should have made it simulate a joystick like most other games like this.

[XLjedi]

Yeah with my piddly little cargo bay of 90-ish units those energy runs where I'm netting (on a good run) 5/unit, it's gettin me like 400 creds...

Whereas if I happen to blast a pirate and he drops a missile; I can sell the thing for like 4000. ...or if he bails, I can salvage the ship.

I've also been bouncing around the stations reading the bulletin boards. Occasionally I see little side missions that pay in the 1000-5000 range (saw one bounty for over 20k, but managed to screw that one up and miss the big payday).

Did anyone else notice those ships in the X-Fleet mod?

[NeonSamurai]

Thats why i suggested you find out about the freebie cayman hauler (its a small transport ship) ;)


Not familiar with X-Fleet

[XLjedi]

Not familiar with X-Fleet

It's like a retro-space fleet ship mod kinda thing...

Here's a pic of the Yorktown capital ship/carrier:
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff273/Grev77/x3screen00012.jpg

And the VF103 Jolly Rogers flying CAP...
http://i236.photobucket.com/albums/ff273/Grev77/x3screen00006.jpg
(air intakes for spaceflight, gotta love it)


And more pics here:
http://www.thexuniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6947

[Dowly]

Is there a mod to add Babylon 5 ships to it? I'd love to see them in X3. :rock:

EDIT: nevermind, found out already.

*drool*

http://b5.hc-gamer.de/mods/gallery/image.php?pic=64

[Laffertytig]

so what do people here think is better? eve online or x-fire?

[NeonSamurai]

X-Fire?


I didn't like Eve much myself, far to hands off for my tastes.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Played X3 a bit the other night, it sure is nice to look at, great visuals :yep:


RDP

[Egan]

Picked up the Game of the year edition for a fiver. Going to get tore in to it tonight if I can be bothered getting my x52 and TrackIR set up.

[XLjedi]

Get the new drivers and SST software for the X52 and you should be set.

I only mapped a couple items different from the default X52 settings.

For the X52 profile:

1) The target acquisition/interrogation key "T" I put that on the top of the joystick (I think the "C" or comms button?).

2) There's a primary and secondary hat switch on top of the joystick. The one you would typically use for looking around... I mapped that to the side and top thrusters for skidding or straffing. I set my look-around hat as the other one which is a little further away from my thumb as I don't find that I need to use it too much.

For the in-game joystick settings I recommend using zero joystick deadzone and turn on the auto-center feature so your view returns to normal automatically if you happen to look around.

[NeonSamurai]

So how all you new x3 players managing? At some point you should look into the player made scripts, alot of them i can't live with out :) though be warned if you ever thought the sh3 modlist was a nightmare.. this one is worse

[XLjedi]

I'm gonna first play a career thru with just the latest patched stock version...

Then I'll start investigating the X-tended mod.

My play time at the moment has unfortunately been curtailed due to an untimely (are they ever timely?) HD crash... I'll probably have my system back in working order within a week or so. I do anticipate at least 3 days of pure agony once my new HDs arrive. :nope:

[kiwi_2005]

Whats the sys specs to play this game with everything on highest settings? With space sims unless you running the game on highest detail no matter how good the gameplay the low/medium detail will ruin it for me cause being in space you want crazy eye poping graphics. I know you need a beast to run X3 on highest.

Will this PC play the game well:
intel 3500 dual core, 2gigs ram, 7800gtx, winxp

Ive played X2 the threat, found i just didn't have the time to get all the cash to buy huge fleets and go raiding, so cheated with the cash trainer but then i got bored cause i went the easy way - I had massive fleets and didn't know what to do with them.
In X3 is the cash thing going to take me yrs of collecting conputer chips and reselling them etc., or have they tweaked this.

[Egan]

So how all you new x3 players managing? At some point you should look into the player made scripts, alot of them i can't live with out :) though be warned if you ever thought the sh3 modlist was a nightmare.. this one is worse
Jeez...It's been a long while since I last played an X game and I had kinda forgotten how much of a grind the early part can be....:rotfl:Getting there slowly was always the name of the game but there is an undoubted feeling of accomplishment when you make your first million.. I wish I hadn't started off by playing the storyline as it is an element of the series that has never really interested me.

I'm drifting around here and there buying and selling Silicon and zapping the occasional pirate. I tell you, there aren't many games where you can sit there and say 'how boring is this?' only to realise that six hours of real time have gone by. :D There really is very little like it although it does make me want to download an emulator and so I can give the original Elite one more spin.

As for mods. I'm usually a mod nut but I'm going to lay off on this one until I'm more familiar with what I am doing. Having said that, does anyone know if there is a Battlestar Galactica mod around? I have a hankering to zoom around in a Mk.2 Viper after watching Razor and the pilot movie last night.

Oh yeah, If anyone has a decent x52 profile set up I'd be interested in having a look..;):up:

[Egan]

Whats the sys specs to play this game with everything on highest settings? With space sims unless you running the game on highest detail no matter how good the gameplay the low/medium detail will ruin it for me cause being in space you want crazy eye poping graphics. I know you need a beast to run X3 on highest.

Will this PC play the game well:
intel 3500 dual core, 2gigs ram, 7800gtx, winxp

Ive played X2 the threat, found i just didn't have the time to get all the cash to buy huge fleets and go raiding, so cheated with the cash trainer but then i got bored cause i went the easy way - I had massive fleets and didn't know what to do with them.
In X3 is the cash thing going to take me yrs of collecting conputer chips and reselling them etc., or have they tweaked this.
I'm running it on a p4 3.8 ghz, with a 7950 gt and 2 gig of ram and I'm running it at 16 x 12 with 4x AA, 4xAF and everything else turned all the way up. It looks almost painfully pretty at times and I only get a hint of slowdown in the very busiest systems like Argon Prime. I'd say you would be fine with what you have there.

Like I said in my previous post, I have always found the start of an X game to be a real drag. There are various starts available though so you could play the 'Bankrupt assassin' one and use the half- decent fighter you get to hunt and capture ships. Thats one way to make some good money quite quickly. Of course, you could always trade manually until you have decent enough software to automate the process. Sending a ship away set up as a universal trader seems to be a way to get very rich very quickly but I suspect you need some fairly heavy investment first.

[XLjedi]

Oh yeah, If anyone has a decent x52 profile set up I'd be interested in having a look..;):up:

I'll post mine once I get my system back online... having to start from scratch since my HD gave out last week.

[NeonSamurai]

Hardware failures are plaguing me as well right now, just finished remodding x3 to the way i like it, and my video card gave out (its i think 4 years old now), and half the screen is full of lines and junk.

So now im considering getting a brand new system, though ill have to order it from dell.ca or something as i just dont have time to build one myself from scratch.

For those who might be curious its a dell XPS 720 im looking at with the following hardware.

Intel core 2 q6600 quad core (2.4ghz 1066fsb, 8mb l2 cache)
4gb ddr2 800mhz ram
2x250gb sata seagate 7200rpm drives, raid 0
Geforce 8800 GT 512mb video card
22 inch "ultrasharp" widescreen Digital flat pannel
7.1 onboard audio
Windows Vista Home Premium (Ya, i know, i know, but i already own XP pro, and supposedly vista is far better at handling multiple cores)


Anyhow back on topic...

Ah money, the easiest and yet the most difficult commodity to get, all depending on what stage of the game your at.

There are piles of x3 money making guides out there, but ill give ya some of the basics. One of the first ways to make quick money is to claim all the freebie ships and sell the ones you dont want (personaly i keep the split mamba raider and the toucan hauler and sell the rest). The second way is to go out to the pirate sectors and start ship capping (which is an art in itself), you can also make good money selling off the equipment you pick up in space, and throw on a license for the race your hunting in and you get a bit more. You can also start doing manual trade runs with the toucan you captured. When you have enough money you should start up a universal trader (i would avoid the super freighter class ships untill you have 5 or so UT's running, some people suggest to avoid them all together). Once you have a large fleet of 20+ UT's then i would look into buying a TL class ship and building factories. Your TL also makes a great poor mans capitol ship/carrier, mobile base (with massive storage), and can be used for massive trade deals (though you would want the bulk transporter script to go with it).

If you know what your doing you can make a small fortune in 6 game days or so. Money making tends to follow a bit of a curve where its slow starting off then rapidly spikes upward if you do it right.

Egan, you may have to turn the settings down a bit when you get to capitol ship fights, as those can cause major lag (due to all the shells being thrown around), if your system can run smoothly with 2 M2 Destroyers fighting it out in Argon Prime then your good. If you want to test it, grab the cheat script from the scripting forum at egosoft, start a new game and give yourself an m2 using the script (money + reputation cheats, then buy the m2 and outfit it), then pick a fight with the m2 that is always in Argon Prime. Which will quickly cause all the military ships in the system to agro on you, and the shells will be flying everywhere (and you will die). If your system can handle that, then your ready to take on the Xenon, which can result in battles just as big (or bigger)

Kiwi you should be fine with those specs


To close i wanted to say something about scripts and mods and X games. Scripts are not considered mods in X, a mod is something which adds/changes many new things to the game including graphics, ship stats, weapon stats, etc. Mods can contain scripts, but scripts are not in themselves mods, they are just code. You can also have as many scripts as you want installed at once, but only one mod at a time (unless its acting as a false patch). Scripts though can be very powerfull and are often used to enhance the game, most often by adding new ship or station commands, such as carrier commands (for creating ship board squadrons and ordering them around, equiping them), or exploration commands, etc. The also in a sense can add new hardware to the game (which are often tied to the new commands they may add, ie you need x hardware for y commands), They can also add new bbs missions, and a wide range of other stuff.

I myself use a pile of scripts (58 different scripts not including the bonus pack) in adition to my own vanilla mod. My advice is to start looking into them now, as it will take you a while to filter out all the ones you dont realy want or need. Start off with just finding the scripts you absolutly must have.

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=96340 script and mod list (may not have all the mods or scripts though)

[Egan]

Some good tips there. I'm not too worried about how the game runs right now, to be honest, but you're right, I expect, about lag when things get heavy. It is something I shall bare in mind. Thanks for that.

As for money making, well I started a new game sans storyline and have just got a Universal trader up and running for the first time. The pilot is currently on his first run after working up from sector trader so I shall see how it works out. I'm also flying around in a tricked out Boron Mako zapping pirates but have only been able to cap one Harrier so far. No idea what I did different that time to get him to surrender - I think you're right about it being an art in itself.

I've also capped a couple of ships after using my Freight scanner to find smugglers out of the spacefuel distil in Herron's Nebula. A combination of selling ships and decent trading has got me away again.

As for mods I've already started looking. I'm beginning to wish I spoke German as so much of the community is from there and I hate to feel like i'm missing out..:D I will probably try the XT mod (or whatever it's name is,) at some point soon. I'll keep looking for a Viper mod, though. That will do me as a run around.

Your prospective rig looks nice. Much the sort of thing I'm looking into getting. I read a processor league table thing in a magazine the other day and was flat out horrified by how far down my chip came.:rotfl:Lord know why - I've had it for three years after all.

I notice you're getting DDR2 ram. I thought ddr3 was becoming more common now? Maybe thats just on Graphics cards I don't know. I'm pretty out of touch computer wise these days. I'm thinking of putting it off until I see the requirements of Oleg's Battle of Britain: Storm of war. At least assuming it actually comes out this year. I think that is just about the only one on the horizon I'm at all interested in barring Rome by Paradox and I don't think that title will give my current machine any problems.

[Hellcat]

I purchased this sim sometime last year and was somewhat put off by the soddy performance and the weak manual.

Now that I have my new computer built....
Intel E8400 3.0 ghz
8800 GTS 640 MB
4gb 1066 ddr2
Vista 64 bit

I'm ready to go but again I find the manual lacking, how did you guys learn the ropes?

[XLjedi]

I purchased this sim sometime last year and was somewhat put off by the soddy performance and the weak manual.

Now that I have my new computer built....
Intel E8400 3.0 ghz
8800 GTS 640 MB
4gb 1066 ddr2
Vista 64 bit

I'm ready to go but again I find the manual lacking, how did you guys learn the ropes?

Hey, how does SH3 & SH4 run under Vista 64?

I have an AMD64-FX55 and have been contemplating upgrading to 64-bit.

[NeonSamurai]

I learned by experimentation, and reading all the guides and stuff on the egosoft forum

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=100641 (i would defiantly suggest
apricotslice's X3 Handbook at the top, has most of the others rolled into it)

Actually the game itself is not that hard to learn, most of the concepts are pretty simple once you realize them. Make sure have your guns set to track the target though, to check this look at the bottom left corner where the weapons are listed, you will have the weapons, an icon that shows either - + or *, and 1234 (weapons group). The icon showing - + * is the tracking level, - is none, * is maximum, if * wont show up (you only get - +) then you need better software (i think its one of the flight command softwares). Its very very difficult to hit anything with out full weapon tracking.

[XLjedi]

I learned by experimentation, and reading all the guides and stuff on the egosoft forum

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=100641 (i would defiantly suggest
apricotslice's X3 Handbook at the top, has most of the others rolled into it)

Actually the game itself is not that hard to learn, most of the concepts are pretty simple once you realize them. Make sure have your guns set to track the target though, to check this look at the bottom left corner where the weapons are listed, you will have the weapons, an icon that shows either - + or *, and 1234 (weapons group). The icon showing - + * is the tracking level, - is none, * is maximum, if * wont show up (you only get - +) then you need better software (i think its one of the flight command softwares). Its very very difficult to hit anything with out full weapon tracking.

I think I have mine set at + for now cuz I haven't bought the upgrade yet. But I don't find it to be too difficult to hit the target, just have to aim at the lead reticle rather than the targeting square. But yeah, without at least that lead reticle it would be hard to guesstimate an appropriate lead distance.

Honestly, I just picked it up and pretty much started playing it. I guess I found it fairly intuitive based on past experience with Elite.

If it were up to me I wouldn't even have started the user out with an auto-pilot and docking feature or any targetting computer help. I remember how happy I was in the original Elite when I could afford to buy that docking computer and didn't have to fly my way in. At least they maintained some of that spirit by making the user have to buy a jump drive and the trade module and so forth...

That original idea that you needed to buy your time compression as a ship upgrade in the form of a jump drive was (in my opinion) really a clever and immersive concept. Nowadays people look at that as annoying I s'pose...

[Hellcat]

Hey, how does SH3 & SH4 run under Vista 64?

I have an AMD64-FX55 and have been contemplating upgrading to 64-bit.
For SH IV very well, have not tried SH3 though...

Just to put this out there, I find vista to be a decent OS thus far. If you dont mind a bit of tinkering to get things going then by all means go for it. The comments of it being buggy and crappy remind me much of the same bashing ME and even 98 got at first. If you have the time and knowledge you could get around the majority of the problems with the OS. Anyways I'll get back on track, go for the 64 bit version that way the OS will properly use 4 gb of ram, 32 bit OS dont / can't fully utilize 4gb of ram.

To aaronblood and NeonSamurai, thanks for the advice, I'll crack open the box and give it a go again once I can pry myself away from Battle of Britain 2: Wings of Victory :sunny:

edit: yuck I have the 5 disc version of x3, this is gonna be painfull :D

[NeonSamurai]

I think I have mine set at + for now cuz I haven't bought the upgrade yet. But I don't find it to be too difficult to hit the target, just have to aim at the lead reticle rather than the targeting square. But yeah, without at least that lead reticle it would be hard to guesstimate an appropriate lead distance.

Honestly, I just picked it up and pretty much started playing it. I guess I found it fairly intuitive based on past experience with Elite.
Well your joystick is probably better then mine (my joystick is cheap and rather twitchy) also i tend to pick fights with m5 class ships which are a royal pain to hit, also even in the advanced tracking mode you still need to aim at the lead reticle (if i remember right, can't play atm), its just a question of how close one needs to get to it, where with - you have to be exactly dead on (and the ship not change direction), + gives you a tiny bit of error correction, and * gives you decent error correction.

If it were up to me I wouldn't even have started the user out with an auto-pilot and docking feature or any targetting computer help. I remember how happy I was in the original Elite when I could afford to buy that docking computer and didn't have to fly my way in. At least they maintained some of that spirit by making the user have to buy a jump drive and the trade module and so forth...

That original idea that you needed to buy your time compression as a ship upgrade in the form of a jump drive was (in my opinion) really a clever and immersive concept. Nowadays people look at that as annoying I s'pose...

Hmm if you want that, try out x-treme. Also last i checked no storyline start point comes with a docking computer, a docking computer in x3 will insta dock you if your within 5-6km when you press the docking button. Anyhow from the 1.4 manual

Quickstart Quickstart Normal X-treme
Credits 100,000 5000 450
Ship Buster Mercury Buster Buster
Weapons 4xB-PAC 2xB-PAC 2xB-IRE
5 MJ Shield 3x 2x 2x 1x
Flight Command Soft MK2 X
Flight Command Soft MK1 X
Trade Command Soft MK1 X X
Triplex Scanner X
Duplex Scanner X
Boost Extension X X X
Best Selling Price Locator X X
Best Buys Locator X X
SETA (Time Acceleration) X X X X
Video Enhancement Goggles X X X
Cargo Bay 108-108 3000-4000 108-108 23-108
So if ya want a no frills start with almost nothing but a ship, i would suggest playing x-treme mode. All you get is a m4 buster, 450 credits, 2 Beta Impulse Ray Emitters, a single 5 MJ shield, boost extension, SETA, goggles, no scanner, no flight software, no best buys/sells locator, and hardly any cargo space.

edit: yuck I have the 5 disc version of x3, this is gonna be painfull :D
Ya I have the same thing, i stuck everything from the 5 disks on to a single dvd when Egosoft (or the publisher) decided to drop starforce and the copy protection

[XLjedi]

Well your joystick is probably better then mine (my joystick is cheap and rather twitchy)

I do have a pretty good FCS (X52) but I was very frustrated with the stick control until I changed the default setting in the game from 20% deadzone to 0%. Made a huge difference for me... and I may have inverted the y-axis. I'm deadly with the thing now.

[NeonSamurai]

Btw made a mistake on the targeting stuff

- gives you no lead crosshair
+ gives you a lead crosshair
* gives ya a bit of automatic targeting correction