Has anyone played X3 .....?

[FIREWALL]

X3 Terran Conflict. I looked at a trailer and it looked kinda good.

Looks like it has addons too. Anyone got an opinion on this game ?

[Raptor1]

I played X2 and X3: Reunion and they were both awesome games, I also have TC sitting on my hard drive and fully expect to start it in a few days

[FIREWALL]

Thx Rartor1 :up: I'm thinking about getting the whole set from Steam.

[Tachyon]

I'm not getting Terran Conflict yet, there are still some bugs left out. I'll wait until they release another patch :yep:

[Rilder]

X3: Reunion was ftw, dunno about TC, but my processor is a bit too low for it.

[NeonSamurai]

I'm gonna wait on it a bit, until a couple more patches are out, and the scripting community has put out a lot more stuff.

X3 Reunion was great if you love sandbox games with no set goals or objectives.

[Tachyon]

I'm gonna wait on it a bit, until a couple more patches are out, and the scripting community has put out a lot more stuff.

X3 Reunion was great if you love sandbox games with no set goals or objectives.

Only problem is all the X games are too slow paced. My saved games for X3 Reunion got corrupted, I didn't have the heart or time to start over from the beginning.

[Malakie]

X3 Terran Conflict. I looked at a trailer and it looked kinda good.

Looks like it has addons too. Anyone got an opinion on this game ?


I have been an 'X' series player from the beginning. X-Beyond, X-tension, X2- The Threat, X3- The Reunion and X3 Terrain Conflict.

This IS the premiere space fleet battle and economic universe simulation bar none! From creating your own space stations AND complexes linked for your own economic company and ownership to flying space fighters or merchant ships to commanding your own battleship to commanding your own FLEET of ships, the X series has so much to do and offers so much to the player it is one of those games you will always have installed. You can play it at YOUR own speed. Want to just work on your company building stations? Go for it. Want a little more fast paced action? Hop into one of the fighters docked at one of your stations or on one of your fleet destroyers, carriers or such and take off to do some bounty hunting or enter a war ravaged sector for some system defense. Ship not powerful enough? Change it to whatever you want.. add new weaps, shields, power and more!

BTW, I have only touched on maybe 40% so far and this is the GAME itself....

I have not even started on the add-ons and mods that so dramatically add to the game!! The X series was designed for modders with its built in XML powered full language script engine and plugin engine that you can access IN GAME while flying around if you want. People have created some unbelieveable addons to this series.... from scripts that allow you to control entire fighter wings from a carrier to invasion and defense battle fleet operations to HQ and station managment systems. But even more so is the Galaxy editor where it has allowed the most ambitious to create entire universes and sectors for players..and all just plugin!

Right now in X3 Terrain conflict I am running the base game PLUS 123 ADD-ON scripts and modules PLUS 201 additional ships that people have modeled and created... from Stargate SG1 ships to Battlestar Galactica ships to Wing Commander ships to Space: Above and Beyond Ships to Star Trek and Star Wars ships...

Take all this and add an engine that is not only visually beautiful but is DYNAMIC in game play on top of it and, well there is nothing else that comes close to this space simulation. You might be doing something in one sector but across the universe in another sector there ARE battles and economic things going on. This game does not just run in the sector you happen to be in... It IS a living universe and even for sectors you have never been in or even seen or have any idea where they might even be, things are happening.. Many times I get messages about invasions in certain sectors.. and I have no clue where that sector is in the universe because I have not been there or even located it yet!!

There is one last thing... and that is the support from the devs this game gets. It is second to none in terms of fixing things and releasing official mods and addins. X3TC had some FPS issues at first but two patches have already been released that dramatically help that and give it a bit more time and you will be hard pressed to find any bugs in this game.. X3 Reunion started out with a few issues but now it is rock solid with the main final patch installed. X3TC uses the base engine but is completely revamped. I have seen no major engine bugs. Some scripting errors in missions, the FPS issue and a few other minor things but they quickly address and resolve these things which is why they have such a dedicated fan base and customer base. I got the game about a month ago... they released a patch (1.3) about a week ago and most of my FPS issues and most of the scripting errors in missions are improved... The game was never crash prone or error prone.. just would have some FPS slow downs in battles primarily... some minor slow downs in large battles still occur (we are talking anywhere from 20-300 ships here and in just one sector - and keep in mind OTHER ships and battles are still occuring universe wide... In fact my current game shows around 6000 ships active throughout the universe I am playing in right now whether they be merchants, taxi, bounty hunters, police, military, factions, alien or whatever) but I can tell you they will resolve them over more time. Not only that, last year they released the final patch for X3-reunion... and took out ALL copy protection themselves! Even so I would hope you would still purchase because games like this are rare and the devs can only produce things like this if they get paid for all this work.

Anyhow, enough of this rant... As you can tell I am a huge fan. I do not support many game companies but the ones that support me and produce quality I will fully. I HIGHLY recommend the entire X series... This is one company that has earned my money and support.

if you want to go through the full story line, start with X-Beyond and work your way up. (remember to always patch fully to insure all issues are fixed with missions). Last summer before TC was released I started from the beginning... And although I am playing TC I am NOT playing TC's campaign (which by the way is dynamic and not linear... in other words you can play it or ignore it or go back to it or whatever you want!! This game is completely open ended.... err... no ending!!). I am playing from the beginning again all the way through.. I figure it will take me about 2 years to complete the journey.

[Dogzero1]

What Malakie said.:up:

[Tachyon]

At the moment though, X3 Terran Conflict has one serious bug regarding Out of Sector combat.

For the uninitiated, Out of Sector refers to combat that occurs when you're not present in that sector. Now, in X3 TC , if your ships are equipped with Ammo-based weapons, they WON'T open fire. So, you can kiss your heavily equipped ammo-using Cruiser/Destroyer goodbye since it can't defend itself against a small fighter.

Oddly though, they open fire during In-Sector combat. In fact, I heard OOS combat used some weird Turn-Based algorithm to determine the outcome. It's the same in X3 Reunion too, but it wasn't broken there.

[Raptor1]

Ah, there were some OOS bugs in Reunion as well, like the fact that there were no collisions (So dragging an ore mine in front of the jumpgate with a tractor beam to stop people from entering doesn't work when you're out of town...)

[NeonSamurai]

The no collisions in X3R in OOS wasn't a bug though, The were intentionally not calculated to avoid bringing most computers to their knees if they had been calculated.

The bug with ammo weapons may have also existed in X3R but it would have been largely unnoticed as there was only one ammo using weapon.

[Raptor1]

Hmm, now that I think about it, I read it's not a bug somewhere on their forums as well... :hmm:

Anyway, does the ammo bug effect missiles as well?

[Tachyon]

I'm not sure about missiles, but I am sure about Laser Towers in X3 : TC.

Someone built 30 Laser towers in front of a jumpgate to protect against a Xenon invasion fleet. Later, when the fleet arrived..all of the 30 towers were massacred.

Now, a laser tower is a pretty mean S.O.B. Losing 30 of them with the enemy taking little to no casualties is a joke. So, our player decides to go IN-SECTOR and watch the fun. This time however, the Xenons were ripped to pieces.

Long story short, the bug seems to affect laser towers too.

Anyway, regardless of the bugs.. I have complete faith that Egosoft will eventually polish TC to make it a great experience. They did it with X3 Reunion too, and even removed the bloody Securom protection.

[NeonSamurai]

Not sure if the laser towers are bugged or not, it could be due to how oos combat is resolved..


This is how it was in X3R

OOS combat comes in two slightly different flavors - watchin sector-map
and not-watching sectormap. if sectormatch is watched, then combat timestep is 5 seconds. if not, it is 30 seconds

Turret commands are not required for ship to use installed weapons OOS.
Missiles are consumed OOS.
Missiles do damage OOS.
All weapons are insta hit
All weapons never miss
Missiles can not be shot down due to instantly hitting
Missiles have infinite range
Swarm missiles only do the damage of one warhead
Blast radius of missiles and lasers non existent, damage only done to target ship
Blast radius of squash mines correctly calculated
Squash mines have very low chance to hit hit fast ships OOS due to ships moving (warping) every x second blocks or so.

Damage seems to be calculated on the weapons stats (damage, rate of fire, etc) then randomized over x second blocks
Shield recharge is calculated every 3 seconds
Carriers do not automaticly launch fighters
Hangered fighters do not count towards OOS combat, fighters have to be deployed and attacking.

OOS Combat gets harder for your ships as the number of capital ships you own increases, enemy race ships also have a bonus to oos combat

Old rule of thumb was to put the biggest nastiest weapons you could on any ships going OOS since weapons insta hit. (this also means using biggest nastiest ships you can afford for oos defence)


What may be going on with the laser towers is if the guy has a lot of capital class ships the OOS enemy ship bonus may be making all the difference, or it could be a range thing, Also OOS gamma ppcs and gamma kyon emiters are far more effective then laser tower beams (since they all now insta hit never miss and the two ship weapons do way more damage. It could also be a targeting problem with the laser towers spreading their fire too much.

[Wolfehunter]

I have it. I've posted some pic on another post here. TC has a newer patch 1.3 out but doesn't fix everything.

IF you have X3 Reunion still play it. Its stable and has many many mods out to enhance the game hundreds of times over.

TC will need more time. But you need a major rig for it to get all the nice juicy stuff.

Surprising TC only uses a single core to run. They're going to implement multicore function later down the road in one of the patches I think. :hmm: This should help improve much need performance when in a Xenon sector which alot of ships fighting. :yep:

[AngusJS]

I played a little of X2 a few years ago, and one thing that got to me was the poor combat AI. Enemy fighters seemed to turn randomly when I would get on their 6, oftentimes flying headlong into my ship. I have X3:Reunion, but never got around to playing it. Was this improved in X3: Reunion?

[NeonSamurai]

They behave a bit better then that, but their behavior is somewhat predictable (other then which directions they will turn). They like to do attack runs where they will get about 2km or more away from their target and then turn and do an attack run trying to get on your tail, if you are on their tail then they will turn hard and change direction a lot to make gun hits harder and try to get on your tail, or try to increase the distance so they can do an attack run.

Now if your in a faster ship and suffer from target fixation then yes you will collide a lot, but that would be your fault not the AI.

X3 Reunion is an excellent game if you like sandbox games with no direction. There is a massive number of scripts out for it, and there are mods like XTM (http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=117990) which a lot of people like that adds a lot to the game (personally i use my own personal super mod combined with Ashley's factories).

[wetwarev7]

I've been playing the series since Beyond the Frontier, and it's an excellent series. I actually thought X2 was the best, only because in X3, you can no longer fly inside the stations, which for some reason really took a lot from the gameplay for me. I probably won't be getting TC for this sole reason.

But, yes, if you've never played any of them, I highly recommend them! :up:

[Wolfehunter]

I've been playing the series since Beyond the Frontier, and it's an excellent series. I actually thought X2 was the best, only because in X3, you can no longer fly inside the stations, which for some reason really took a lot from the gameplay for me. I probably won't be getting TC for this sole reason.

But, yes, if you've never played any of them, I highly recommend them! :up:Agreed! I love the idea of flying in the stations to dock. Plus those hidden treasures hehehehe.

When they removed it in X3 Reunion I was pissed. Still X3R is better in other ways.

With the massive collection of mods game rocks on its own. :up:

[Laffertytig]

have u guys played eve online? if u have then what do u rate better?

[Rilder]

have u guys played eve online? if u have then what do u rate better?

Eve online is really a completly different game, for one you really have to depend on other players to get anywhere. X3-(Reunion at least) you do everything yourself pretty much.

Also, x3 is more fighter combat oriented while Eve online is more ship-to-ship combat biased.

[NeonSamurai]

I personally have a strong dislike for EVE, way to hands off for my tastes. I tried the demo once, and for the day I played before I uninstalled it, I found the game pretty much played itself, I might give a command every hour or so, then sit back and the game would do everything. Way too dull for my tastes, plus I've decided I don't much like mmo games anyhow. Also comparing it with X3 is an apple vs orange statement

[Raptor1]

I played EVE for over 2 years (Loved it BTW, kinda slow at start but gets really interesting later on), but it's really a completely different type of game

[Tachyon]

Well, actually X3 is kinda similar. You start off slow but it gets interesting later on.

Btw, I bought X3 : Terran Conflict. It's a fair improvement over Reunion especially in terms of UI, and with the 1.3 patch I only experienced one crash so far after 18 hours of gaming. Most of the bugs and other small niggles aren't really visible though , you can have a pretty good gaming experience.

Oh, and don't forget to get the CAG and CLS scripts from the forums. They were part of the bonus pack in Reunion, but not included for TC. So, they developed new ones for TC.

[Dogzero1]

I love the X series and will get TC but I miss the grand daddy, Elite. I loved Elite : Frontiers with the ability to actually land on most planets and go anywhere with lots of suprises. Now if X3 had the ability to land on any planet, that would seal it for me.:)

[Raptor1]

I love the X series and will get TC but I miss the grand daddy, Elite. I loved Elite : Frontiers with the ability to actually land on most planets and go anywhere with lots of suprises. Now if X3 had the ability to land on any planet, that would seal it for me.:)

He, I still play Frontiers from time to time, it's a classic

[Wolfehunter]

I love the X series and will get TC but I miss the grand daddy, Elite. I loved Elite : Frontiers with the ability to actually land on most planets and go anywhere with lots of suprises. Now if X3 had the ability to land on any planet, that would seal it for me.:)
He, I still play Frontiers from time to time, it's a classicIt was a subject that was bought up at the development stages of TC few years ago. Alot of people wanted to option to land on worlds. But I guess it was too much for ego team to do it.

[She-Wolf]

I have also played the X-series from the beginning. I do not like the storyline so choose custom, and go for X-Universe, which means I have to start from scratch with just a thousand credits to my name, and the Buster. Have to say it is a long slow crawl to where the game gets interesting if you do it that way. I think you are going to need good specs to play Terran Conflict smoothly, espesh when you get a lot going on

[Wolfehunter]

She-wolf you will need a good system to have all to juicy graphics if you want to play like that.

A good system will run TC just fine.


http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff110/WolfeXhunter/x3screen00001.jpg

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff110/WolfeXhunter/x3screen00002.jpg
Earlier pics,

I haven't played it yet in version 1.3. I'm going to wait abit till more mods and patches are out. :up:

[Tachyon]

Well, try going into a system with plenty of space stations. At max. settings even a good graphics card will stutter.

What I like particularly about X3TC is that you can now earn lots of cash through missions and not trading. Helps speed up the pace of the game a lot.

[NeonSamurai]

Ya unfortunately a lot of the stock missions in X3R pay chump change and aren't worth the time, and the good paying ones take a heck of a long time to find (especially xenon invasion missions).

[She-Wolf]

She-wolf you will need a good system to have all to juicy graphics if you want to play like that.

A good system will run TC just fine.

what amounts to a good system I wonder?

I have a a Dell XPS with a Pentium 3.2Ghz processor, 2Gb DDR2 memory, two Nvidia Geforce 7600 GT 512Mb PCI-E cards bridged to run on scaleable link interface. The processor thinks it is two processors, and the board supports hyperthreading.

That was pretty high spec when we bought this machine, specifically so I could play X Reunion, and though it does, I have always seen slight pauses every now and then when playing XR, which I have never been able to eradicate, and which is annoying ( and yes, I shut everything else down, including explorer.exe when I play).

Now I have XTC and again, I can play it, but still there is that little lag every few seconds.

So what IS a good system nowadays I wonder?

[Tachyon]

The occasional lag is normal. X3 TC is still poorly optimized, so don't worry. If you want a good rig, go Dual-Core with the Intel E8400. Get the ATI HD 4870 card and you're all set. Your RAM is already good.

I wish I could afford the HD 4870, unfortunately though I'll have to settle with the Geforce 9600 GT (Which is also a good card, it ran Crysis at high settings while still maintaining a very decent frame rate)

[She-Wolf]

ahh, I have just made an interesting discovery ( for me, anyway).

I installed XBTF - the very first game in the X-series -, and couldn't get it to run properly, which didn't bother me because the game I wanted to play is X-Tension ( remember that anyone?) which requires you have the XBTF disk in the drive. Well that loaded OK, but the skies - which I really thought were quite awesome when I first got X-tension all those years ago are now displayed as thin and flat blotches of dim colour where before there were shining nebula in beautiful translucent colours.

Now that has to be down to my graphics cards doesn't it? When this game first came out, bog standard PCI cards ( not PCI-E) were common, and AGP was the bees knees - and the skies looked lovely. Why does it not appear like that now? It is the exactly the same effect I get in the night skies of SH3. Daytime graphics are fine, but night - rubbish.

I do not understand about graphics (sigh). I have nHancer.:cry:

[She-Wolf]

The occasional lag is normal. X3 TC is still poorly optimized, so don't worry. If you want a good rig, go Dual-Core with the Intel E8400. Get the ATI HD 4870 card and you're all set. Your RAM is already good.

Thank you Tachyon. I have bought myself a dual core board but can't afford to get the processor to go with it yet - but you have encouraged me :)

[Wolfehunter]

Your rigs fine She-Wolf. My old rig was older than yours playing X3 Reunion maxed out.

TC will work perfect for yours. And at the moment is only support a single processor.

Like Tachyon said their is alot of work needed still on TC. ;)

[She-Wolf]

thank you Wolfie - I had a bit of a play last night and it seemed OK. Quite like the new way of finding missions. :)

[Tachyon]

Here's a great tip for making money :

Now, there are patrol missions offered sometimes. Depending on the difficulty, you may have to travel to a few sectors to wreck ships.

Ok, so choose a patrol mission.
If the sector you're in has a "Defend Station" mission, accept it immediately! It'll spawn a wave of pirates/xenon and you'll get the extra cash bonuses since the ships'll be considered as part of the previous patrol mission you chose. I made 3 million on a single patrol using this trick. Those Xenon ships are worth a lot of money.

Recommended Ship for early level pwnage :

Argon Nova Raider (available from Omicron Lyrae) , equip with 4 HEPTs and watch everyone burn in radiation. Make sure you get 3x25MJ shields, it'll almost be unstoppable. I did the aforementioned 3 million run using the Nova.

Oh, and there's another variant of the Nova called the Vanguard available from Argon prime. It sucks because it's maximum speed is considerably less than the Raider variant.

[Tachyon]

Patch 1.4 is out, it addresses a few issues but OOS combat is still a problem.

Another thing is the payouts for ships shot down during Patrols have been reduced SEVERELY. So you no longer get an insane amount of cash for shooting down that Xenon P . Instead you get an INSANELY LOW amount of cash :nope:

Hopefully, this will be balanced in the next version.

[CaptainHaplo]

Stupid question as I never played these games. It looked like it was all scripted - is there an option to play without a scripted campaign? I am not into running around saving space damsels and such. If there is the ability to play kind of like the old Elite game, I might have to rethink this game.

[Tachyon]

In X3 , the only thing that's scripted is the campaign. You are free to leave the storyline at any time and do what you want. You can always go back to it later at any time.

X3 is truly the successor to Elite. More than what Frontier/Frontier : First Encounters tried to be.

[atraangelis]

The main patch was just released for X3:TC that corrects many if not all of the major bug issues in the game while also adding new content.