X3
 

Anyone got a starting point for me. I want to get into it but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around everything.

I started last Wednesday. Tried several different starts before settling on Humble Merchant. This is the easiest start as you start with 8,000K and two ships(although a lack of weapons).
I Spent a while trading and upgrading my M5 Scout, and Mercury. Although I have a tendency to take my scout out looking for a fight, which usually ends in my death. And a loss of profit. I'm currently waiting to get an M3 or m4 before I start actual combat.

If you decide to go merchant the first things you should do is get the following upgrades for your Mercury:
Duplex or Triplex Scanner
Full Rudder and Engine Tuning
50% of the cargo space upgrade(Arclight recommends 40-50%)
Best Buy(Let's you see what the best buying prices are in the current sector)
Best Sell(Like Best Buy but in reverse)
Trade Extension(Let's you see station prices without docking, believe you need it for Best buy/Best Sell to work)
Stick to the Argon Sectors around Argon Prime(Cloudbases, Power Circle, Herron Nebula, The Wall, The Hole)


Eventually buy Trade Software Mk2, which will allow you to tell your Mercury to find Best Buys/Best Sales. This allows you to do something else in another ship(Take on missions or explore). Make sure to turn on notifications in the Command console so you know when the ship is done buying/selling and it's not just sitting idle somewhere. Eventually you want to work your way up to MK3 trade software(which costs a whopping 500k, and it's wise to have atleast 100k afterwords to continue trading)

With Trade Software Mark 3, you can designate your ship to be a Sector Trader. It will get its own pilot and seek out Best Buys/Best Sells automatically. As the pilot trades he will automatically upgrade allowing him to trade in more sectors and eventually search the entire Universe for Profitsss.

Right now I'm letting my merchant rake in some money, and then I'll work on buying upgrades for my other two Mercury's and getting them on their own trade sections too.


Also keep an eye out for Cent signs, especially on ships and Shipyards. These have a tendency to be people selling their ships for cheap.
I picked up 1 Mercury trader for 16k, which I then sold for 63k. Picked up another two for about 45k and 47k Sold one for 79k and kept the other. Recently I just picked up my third for 112k. The default price for a Mercury is 189k so you can see the savings. I also picked up a Discoverer Hauler, a 59K ship for 8k. All it needed was some repairs with the repair beam. Usually when you buy them they have damaged hulls. But 5-10 minutes spent with your repair beam and they'll be good as new.

Also around the Humble Merchant start, there is an abandoned Toucan Hauler equipped with 3X25MJ shields, life support systems, and weapon(forget which). I had mine for a while, but due to it's small cargo holds I striped it(gave the shields to my trader) and sold it for 700k. If you want I can tell you the location(some people count it as cheating, I count it as using a guide to find hidden stuff. :haha:)

Anyways, if you have any questions you can ask me on steam or on here, I may not have the knowledge of Arclight, or Lionclaw, but I've taught myself over the last couple days, and I'm in the same boat as you.

Which of those X3 games I ought to buy for best playing experience?

Might help if you mention which X3 game you mean Falkirion, reunion or the more recent one?

X3:TC is better out of box, atleast so I've heard.

X3:Gold.

And just because it's two games for one. Here's a run down of the prices in USD:
X3:Gold Retail 19.99
X3:TC Steam 19.99
X3:R Steam 9.99
X3:Gold Steam 24.99


The great thing about the Retail(although I bought Steam version) is that if you like using steam, you can open your steam library and click add a steam product. Insert the CD-key that came with your box and you now legally own the game on CD and the game via steam.


But when it comes down to playing the games. X3TC is the better game. Since release two trailers have been released just to showcase Patches.

I've got Gold. Its been daunting trying to get my head around how the game works. Which probably explains why its on the back burner at the moment since I'm playing AC:Brotherhood and WoW.

Still once I get a little more gaming time I want to try and get into X3, and enjoy it.

The interface in X3:Reunion was abysmal. It took more time to issue commands and more headache to figure out how to do very simple things than you actually spent playing the game proper (and you needed to download command mods to have the most basic fleet control), and the whole thing was so cumbersome you wouldn't be able to issue commands in the heat of battle at all.

I read TC has improved the interface, but I wonder if it's indeed better and not just a cosmetic surgery with the same cumbersomeness underneath.

If only I could try a demo...

What exactly is this game about, and what is it like?

It's an open world game where you go around trading and or taking place in combat. There is a main story to follow, but if you choose you can ignore it and pretty much do anything you want. Oh and it takes place in space.

I think the closest game I've played to it would be Eve.

I can record gameplay if you want. :hmmm:

Is it single or multi? It sounds fascinating.

Strictly single player. And it is fascinating, though a huge timesink. :lol:

Ya you can do what ever you want in it, from set up massive factory loops, trading, fighting, piracy, whatever. You can own just about any ship you see in the game (well other than the capital ships from the 2 enemy races, which you can't capture unless you have certain scripts or that super mod).

Player made scripts add a whole lot to the game though.

Someday I will make the transition over to x3tc, but I am in no rush as I will have to recalculate all the ship's stats like I did for the first game (which took me a month to do last time).

Speaking of Modding, It's possible to get ships such as Mass Effect's Normandy and different classes of Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Wing Commander, Battlestar Galactica, ETC on the X3TC forums.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0yxpQTxK-I Watch in HD for a brief video of X3.

There's a Babylon 5 mod for X3:TC
http://b5.hc-gamer.de/

Haven't tried it, tho.

X3 and X3TC are definitely excellent games, though X3:TC's plots annoy me.

There is also a battlestar galactica mod.

This.

To really get the most out of X3 (Reunion or TC), you really need to install all of Lucike's scripts. They massively overhaul what you can do with your traders, stations, miners and so on. He also has a pretty nice script setup for managing a Carrier task force as well as logistics ships. It takes a bit to set up, but once it's in place things are a breeze to manage.

Another must have is the MARS turret script.

X3-TC borrows quite heavily from the X3-R Xtended Universe mod, which is currently in developement for X3-TC. A sub group of Xtended is also working on probably the most involved BSG mod outside of Disporia. In same ways, perhaps bigger since Disporia won't allow you to actually command big ships. X3 on the otherhand, that's where things really start to get interesting.

That said, there are quite a few mods that go hand in hand with forging your own empire through conquest.

http://forum.egosoft.com/index.php

That should get ya started on info and mods for any of the X series of games.