X3 Reunion - Big and beautiful

I've noticed your problem in other games Raziaar, and in every instance turning off vertical synchronization (V-sync) fixed it every time. Of course there's always exceptions, but I hope this helps.

I should point out though that I don't have the game yet. Like Iced_Eagle I'm not prepared to pay to be a beta tester.
 
Finally gonna play X3 in earnest*. Just installed the new patch; thanks for the heads-up.

* Unless Jimbo comes online; I'm his BF2-bitch ....
 
CptStern, those ain't news, the XB vers was announced along with the PC vers, but was then cancelled from what I've heard, and what several game sites reported.
 
Shakermaker said:
Finally gonna play X3 in earnest*. Just installed the new patch; thanks for the heads-up.

* Unless Jimbo comes online; I'm his BF2-bitch ....
lol i am online dumbass, where are you?
 
I am hooked. The story is a bit clunky but the exploring is great. It's so cool how the planets revolve around their axis while clouds move at different speeds. It's awesome. I didn't encounter any bugs yet. The stuttering seems to be due to RAM; 2 gigs is recommended atm which I have. However Egosoft says they're solving this issue in the 1.3 patch thats coming out in about a week.

I included some HUD-less pics for your viewing pleasure.
 

Attachments

  • station.jpg
    station.jpg
    53.4 KB · Views: 268
  • freighter.jpg
    freighter.jpg
    54.5 KB · Views: 266
  • blackmoon.jpg
    blackmoon.jpg
    37.6 KB · Views: 286
Noone else has had the problems I have with the latest patch ruining my game to where the FPS got much, MUCH worse?


I reinstalled the game... repatched... the game still seems slower, but not as much now. I significantly lowered my graphics as well, so that might be the reason.

However... I am doing successful trading missions now! as a merchant, I started with a discoverer and mercury. I sold the discoverer... and had about 60000 credits. This allowed me to make a nice trade run, bought energy crystals at 12. sold for 20.... And I was excited! I found another deal, and bought silicon wafers for 300 something and sold at 700 something, and now my profits are in the 130 thousand range... I'm pumped, and feel a sense of accomplishment. The ship trading extension REALLY helps, trust me.
 
Update on my experiences over the weekend:

After the initial 2 or 3 minute stuttering as stuff loads the game is stutter free, but suddenly needing 2 gig ram as standard for games is ridiculous imo.

The graphics are really nice, the reflective surfaces look great and the dust clouds as your ship moves are very well done. I started playing as a merchant with no storyline, those childish cut scenes and horrible voice acting / spaghetti western lip synching is too painfull to watch, besides i always prefer to make my own choices in games instead of following a fixed path.

Bit disappointed you can't fly around inside stations anymore, but the whole trade system is a lot cleaner and polished - font size on 1280 res is tiny though, should be an option to resize it. Should also be an option to switch off PARTS of the hud, not all or nothing... but switching it off DOES improve framerates dramatically on my system. I keep it off as much as I can.

Still no cockpit interiors, but I found the camera keys. flicking to cinematic is niiiiice :)

Haven't installed patch 1.2.1 yet as the game runs ok after the first few minutes, not gonna break it if it doesn't need fixing. When 1.3 comes out tho i'll probably update.

Tonight I make lotsa da money
 
metacritic reveals fairly average scores
so it may be pretty but the game hasnt moved on :(
 
CR0M: Actually the HUD is vastly optimized in the new patch, so you should check that out... Backup your saved game if you find the new patch to suck though :p
 
@ Stern
Having played for about 6 or 7 hours now I can safely say this will be on my GOTY shortlist*. There's quite a bit to complain: cut scenes that hurt the eye, lack of optimisation, and a near-vertical learning curve to name a few, but I still find it a joy to play. I'll re-iterate that I am a sucker for open ended space games like this, so my opinion is biased. But there's nothing better than entering a new system and being in awe for the first 20 to 30 seconds. Let me put it this way: if you like space games so much that you're prepared to go through a bit of irritation, you should get it.

@ John
You're right: the game hasn't moved on that much since X2, but for people that haven't played that game (like me) that doesn't matter too much.


* The shortlist so far: Silent Hunter III & Battlefield 2.
 
Everybody play Freespace 2 while you wait for X3 to be released. :)
 
Iced_Eagle said:
CR0M: Actually the HUD is vastly optimized in the new patch, so you should check that out... Backup your saved game if you find the new patch to suck though :p

Caved in and took your advice last night, and you're right - no slowdown with the hud switched on now :thumbs: smooth as silk, after the initial loading stutter.

I am confused with 1 thing though - how do you get the trade extensions to work? I've got them installed on both my ships and tried commanding my mercury to trade but the option is unavailable...

john3571000 said:
metacritic reveals fairly average scores
so it may be pretty but the game hasnt moved on :(

hmm... i was thinking last night how the engine runs EXACTLY like x2 - right down to the little glitches that x2 had, like flying your ship on autopilot thru a gate - it always aims right for the edge and leaves you sweating... and the way it forgets the throttle after a gate jump so you have to tweak it slightly to activate it again...
and the sound of laser fire in some sectors that seems to come from nothing in particular. Could x3 be just a graphics overhaul of x2?
and does anyone care when it looks soooooo purty?
 
The trade extensions let you see what all of the prices are in a sector, if you have a presence in that sector. For instance, say you're in Herron's Nebula, just north of Argon's prime. You've already visited Argon prime in the past, so you can access it on the universe map. You go into it, and select argon prime, and look at station info to see whats available and what prices are. You can see what they have for sale, but you can't see what the prices are at.

With the trading extension, it allows you to do this. So whether you have a ship in different sectors, or navigation relay satelites(which I use), you can see all the prices, and thus don't have to guess if going there will be a big waste of time. Great for finding opportunities to buy and sell. Except that the computer often beats you, but hey... its a race sometimes, i've been like 2 seconds late to a station to buy stuff at an amazing price which would make my profits soar, but a damn super freighter beat me to it, and buying the stuff after that would have netted in a loss. Can't wait until I amass a military might, to start exacting revenge on the traders that wronged me in the past!



Ohhhh, I made my first million last night! WOOOOT! I started on HUmble Merchant, which is just starting with like 8-10k, with a discoverer, and a mercury. The discoverer only sold for 50 thousand... but selling that helped me along greatly by being able to buy more stuff off the bat.




EDIT: I must say, this game is really starting to grow on me!
 
I just started a game on the normal mode where the story is still enabled.

Any recommendations on how I should go forward? If I do a bunch of missions in the main story can I make some good money or should I just ditch the story and start trading or something? This game seems pretty big and I have no idea where to begin :p
 
Well... I am playing a mode with the story disabled. I'm not gonna play it, cause I read about alot of bugs, and quite frankly, I think it'd suck.

So I stuck with humble merchant mode. It took me a good while to understand trading and the game as a whole, and I was SUPER confused, but after a while, I really got into it and i'm micro managing everything, and really coming along in great strides. Just recently I bought and outfitted nearly fully, a buster... and have used it to kill at least 20 pirate ships, and capturing 5 for myself... which are AWESOME money when you sell them.

I even attacked a teladi vulture super freighter, at the risk of getting them on me... I wanted a super freighter and didnt want to pay the millions of credits. I'm soooo evil. Also lucky that he bailed out fast.

Anyways... yeah, I would reccomend trying to trade first.Start on a mode that isn't so difficult. And one word of advice... trading extension is a godsend. GODSEND.
 
Raziaar said:
Well... I am playing a mode with the story disabled. I'm not gonna play it, cause I read about alot of bugs, and quite frankly, I think it'd suck.

So I stuck with humble merchant mode. It took me a good while to understand trading and the game as a whole, and I was SUPER confused, but after a while, I really got into it and i'm micro managing everything, and really coming along in great strides. Just recently I bought and outfitted nearly fully, a buster... and have used it to kill at least 20 pirate ships, and capturing 5 for myself... which are AWESOME money when you sell them.

I even attacked a teladi vulture super freighter, at the risk of getting them on me... I wanted a super freighter and didnt want to pay the millions of credits. I'm soooo evil. Also lucky that he bailed out fast.

Anyways... yeah, I would reccomend trying to trade first.Start on a mode that isn't so difficult. And one word of advice... trading extension is a godsend. GODSEND.

Arg :p Now I find out after having played for like 2 hours.

Ok, I'll probably just start over with the trading start. What kinds of trade routes should I start on when I first start?

Also, if I got that police license, do you know how much money I'd make per kill?

And how do you capture ships? Do you need personnel to man the ships in order to get them somewhere to sell them?

Side note - Performance was so-so on high for me...then I turned on AA and AF and it's improved :D Damn this game is sexy.
 
AmishSlayer said:
Arg :p Now I find out after having played for like 2 hours.

You dont have to end your game if you dont want. I dont know what mode you started on... but humble merchant starts you with a mercury, and a discoverer. And about 8-10k credits, cant remember. NOT alot despite what it looks like. Your ships have just about no upgrades on them... and if you plan on making money without spending forever, I reccomend selling your discoverer at the shipyards which is south of herron's nebula, in argon prime. That'll net you 50k more credits.


Ok, I'll probably just start over with the trading start. What kinds of trade routes should I start on when I first start?

Like I said, you dont have to start over. As for trade routes... its kinda hard, it'll take a good eye after time to remember what is good buying prices, what is good selling prices. If you look at a station/factories inventory, the more the bar is to the right, the more they have in stock, and thus, the cheaper the price will be. Opposite for the left. However, be warned, stations, like free trading stations etc, the prices dont change. They'll always remain the same, no matter how much you buy or sell from them.

Another note, you can't sell products to a factory that it produces. You can buy their products, to sell as resources to other factories... a factory consists of products, primary resources, and secondary resources(maybe). Go around to stations, to get a feel for what they buy or sell. A good place to start making money, is up north one from Herron's nebula, in power circle. THey have two power stations there, a medium, and an extra large. I found out that the absolute best deal to buy energy cells at, is 12, and they get their quite often, though maybe not as much in the earlier game. I am not sure. Its always a race to beat the other traders to it, for them. So yeah... 12 or 13 for energy cells, is great to buy from... Cahoona bakeries, I think they had one in the starting position, Herron's Nebula... that had them available for a relatively good price... maybe 50 or something. Although 50 is pretty high, and can get as low as the high high 30's. Best place to sell these, is at free trading stations, which buy them always at a fixed price of 72. If you can buy alot of the meatsteak cahoonas for that low price and sell them at the free trading stations, it'll net you some good money to start with.

Silicone mines... there's one in herron's nebula, and up north in power circle... these are the ULTIMATE thing to buy and sell as a newbie, and still the most bang for your money i've found, even as far as I am now. If you can buy it at anything below 500, you're bound to make an awesome profit. If you get lucky, and buy it for its lowest prices in the mid-high 200's, you're going to make a KILLING. What you do, is fly around to the sectors, like argon prime, red light etc... which have things like chip plants, crystal factories, etc.... and sell them their. If you're lucky, the station will have a low stock on silicone wafers, and they'll sell for low-mid 700's, which is an absolutely ****ing amazing profit if you think about it.

Also, if I got that police license, do you know how much money I'd make per kill?

Not sure, to be honest. I only have a teladi security license... and it says as much as 5000 per pirate kill... but i think it depends on your standing with the faction, cause when I got mine, I was only getting 500 per kill.

And how do you capture ships? Do you need personnel to man the ships in order to get them somewhere to sell them?

To capture ships... hmm, its an artform so i've been told, but I think its more on luck. THe key is, to get the shields down to nothing, and slowly wither away at the enemies hull... depending on what weapons you use. If you use something like a mass driver, which bypasses shields and damages hull, I dont think the enemy will ever bail, cause they're still confident that they have their shields intact... I think its a matter of luck if they bail or not. Sometimes they bail if you just fire all your crap at them and damage their hull rapidly... but i've never had an enemy bail on me for just piddling away at their shields. I think they're either going to bail, or not gonna bail. Lets just say though, in my upgraded buster, i've gotten lucky, and captured several ships so far. awesome profit if you can manage it, and then sell it. WAY more than the time it takes to manually trade.

TO claim a captured ship, fly close, stop your ship. eject, and fly over to within a distance of the ship. Open info by selecting the ship and pushing I, and you'll see a claim button. Push it, and its yours! Fly back to your ship, and get in. You dont need to put pilots in there, you can just click on your new ship, and give it commands, either by the short list it gives, or going into the command console button for a far more detailed list of commands.

Side note - Performance was so-so on high for me...then I turned on AA and AF and it's improved :D Damn this game is sexy.

I play with AA and AF on... I cant stand games without them now... Jagged edges are the work of the devil. :sniper: :flame:
 
Thx a ton for the info.

The normal story starting mode you just get your basic ship and 5k credits so it's not much to work with. I've done a few taxi-like missions to earn a bit more money but it's really not much (only like 1.5k for each mission and they're not easy to find). I'll start looking into silicon mines for trading :)

Also, do you recommend I get those satellites early and place 1 in each sector so I can keep an eye on prices easier with the trading thingy (where do I get that anyways?).

Another thing - is it better to just travel through gates for trading and such or do you just use your jump drive (it seems like paying for energy cells for jumping would start to cost too much from constant jumping).
 
Yes, the satelites are an AMAZING tool. I'm now placing one in nearly every safe sector I can... so I can jump to when I see an amazing deal, and try to beat the competition(jump drives are amazing when you can afford them.)

The satelites however, are pretty pricey. buy them around the high 6000 range, which is the lowest I can seem to find them... but to do this, you need quite a bit of money, so that you still have enough to trade with after buying one or two. I have bought mine in phases... one or two here... another two or so here... and slow, but surely... i'll build up my satelite network in all of argon and boron space.
 
I was messing around with the new game options you can choose from. There's a quickstart option that starts you with 100k credits, a pretty tricked out argon buster and a mercury that's also with you - also story is enabled if you wanna do it.

I couldn't get that silicon stuff because it's XL and my cargo holds can only hold M stuff :( I guess I could use the slow-ass mercury to help trade but it's tedius.

I would like to kinda follow the story just so I can kill stuff and upgrade my standings with various factions (so I can get the police licenses as well).

I still don't know exactly how to progress in the game. Sure I can make some money and keep buying more transports, but is there a way to have them buy stuff for you via remote control so I can be doing my own stuff while my transports keep doing runs? I docked my mercury at a station only to find I couldn't do anything with it anymore. I had to dock at the station too and change ships before I could buy or sell stuff. I'm just wondering if you have to be with your ships at all times to have them do the actual trading and if you can make it automated.
 
Upgrade the mercury's engine... it can go 100. Its not actually that bad, a little faster than half the buster's speed.


You do know about the seta drive right? It basically accelerates game time, and you use it often when doing lots of slow travelling. Makes the mercury not seem as slow.
 
Yeah, hit j and it goes to 600% speed.

Just out of curiosity...can you describe your fleet and operation and how you got there (in general)?

I still don't even know the full potential of this game. All I know that you can do is trade and earn money, build space stations and stuff, get fleets, but I dunno what for. Can you take control of regions of space and everything or if you start attacking places will factions just start wars with you or what?
 
Yeah man, i'll do it tomorrow... going to bed now.

Oh, and you can change the seta factor. I have mine at 10x so it goes at 1000%.
 
Raziaar said:
Yeah man, i'll do it tomorrow... going to bed now.

Oh, and you can change the seta factor. I have mine at 10x so it goes at 1000%.

Sweet, thanks.

Also, how did you change the SETA factor?
 
Ummm... havnet gone to bed yet. And actually, before I do. i'll make a write up. As for changing the seta factor, its in the options.
 
AmishSlayer said:
I was messing around with the new game options you can choose from. There's a quickstart option that starts you with 100k credits, a pretty tricked out argon buster and a mercury that's also with you - also story is enabled if you wanna do it.

I couldn't get that silicon stuff because it's XL and my cargo holds can only hold M stuff :( I guess I could use the slow-ass mercury to help trade but it's tedius.

I would like to kinda follow the story just so I can kill stuff and upgrade my standings with various factions (so I can get the police licenses as well).

I still don't know exactly how to progress in the game. Sure I can make some money and keep buying more transports, but is there a way to have them buy stuff for you via remote control so I can be doing my own stuff while my transports keep doing runs? I docked my mercury at a station only to find I couldn't do anything with it anymore. I had to dock at the station too and change ships before I could buy or sell stuff. I'm just wondering if you have to be with your ships at all times to have them do the actual trading and if you can make it automated.

You can automate trading. Go to Terracorp Headquarters in the uhh, I forgot the name of the sector... It's the one south of argon prime. Anyway, they have trading software mk3 there. It lets you have a ship go around finding good deals and trading for you. What I do, is buy a mercury, buy 1 gun for it, then buy all the diferent software and 3 25kw shields. Then go over to Terracorp and get the mk3 software, a jump drive, and some Ecells and have it jump over to priests pitty. Once there, go to the comunications station there and get a triplex scanner.

After all this, go into the command console under trade and select sector trader, then pick a sector. I suggest Rolks Drift. Then the ship will get a new pilot at level 0, as it trades more it will increase in level and get better at trading. Once it hits level 8, you can start the universe trader so it can fly to different sectors looking for deals automaticly.

I have 5 ships set up like that, making me shitloads of cash by themselves.
 
Okay...


Starting off the game, I have to say I was VERY confused. First I was assaulted with my performance issues, which thankfully I resolved. Once in game, I found myself to be greatly annoyed by everything, including the music, and the voice of the woman. I dont know why exactly I was agitated, but I was.

Everything was so massive, and confusing... and I started many times over to get a feel for things.

So, after a while, what I did... was take my mercury, and fly over to one of the meatsteak cahoona factories in Herron's nebula, the sector I started in. While I was doing that, I gave my discoverer the command to go south to argon prime, and dock at the ship station there. Once there, I had it sell itself, to give me 50 thousand credits about. Using that money, I purchased as many meatsteak cahoons as I could afford. I hauled them back to the trading station, and sold them off at a relatively nice profit, but I wasnt too picky as this was my FIRST trading opportunity, and previous to this I spent 10 hours just figuring out how to buy and sell stuff and make a profit, cause everything else failed. Once I made this profit, I went ahead and did it a few more times until the factory no longer gave me a decent deal for the time invested, because the more you buy, the higher the price at the factory gets, and if you're not careful, you'll lose money. Which is why it is a good idea to memorize good high and low prices... which you'll learn as you go along.

After I did everything I could in that sector, or at least all I wanted to, I went to an equipment dock, and bought a ship trading extension, which now allowed me to quickly push the period key to bring up the sector map, right arrow key over to the stations, and select each one, pressing U to quickly see what contents they had, and at what price. No longer did I have to go to a station in a sector to see what it sold... as long as I made sure to target a station previously in time so that it stays permanently on my map

(and on an aside note, thats what I do when I enter a new sector, I fly around and make sure to target everything to update it to my map, which is invaluable... because what you havent scanned, isnt available on the map. See that far off jump gate? Unless you fly over there and either target it or have the reticle pop up on it, you wont have it on your map... but once you've done that, it'll stay there forever.)


So... anyways, I then went around sector to sector, getting a feel and memorizing just what was in each of those sectors. I found out that some sectors were good for buying certain things, like energy cells or silicone, while others were great for selling those particular products... Enough of doing this, and you'll start to memorize the Argon space by heart. After amassing enough wealth, I bought navigation relay satelites, and dropped them off in the sectors I went through, until I eventually had the whole thing under surveilance. I made sure to eject them(you do it by going into your freight bay, eject the satelite, and do only one) near stations and stuff, so the local military would be able to protect them.

Getting a great feel for how trading works, I ramped up my efforts, and eventually had enough to buy and outfit a second mercury. I then traded with it JUST as I would myself, since I couldnt afford the trading MK3 software, which would let you do sector and universe traders... and as a matter of fact, as of yet I still havent. To give them orders, first i'd hit comma, and go to each sector and see what the deals were there... if I found a great buy, i'd push r to go into my properties page, and click my new ship and give it an order to navigate and dock at that particular station. He'd do that, as I was doing my stuff, and i'd be sure to occasionally keep track of my properties screen, to see when he has docked. If he docked, and I lucked out that the AI traders didnt get all my goods before I could buy em... i'd purchase them, by having him trade with station(just as you would), and then find a good place for him to sell... i'd send him there, while at the same time trading. Over time, I ventured into boron space, and purchased an octopus. A cheap little ship initially, but once outfitting it, it became RATHER expensive. I got into the octopus, and prepared to explore more of the galaxy.

Its a fast little bugger, so it was a bit more difficult to micromanage my freighters as I explored, but I managed to do it relatively well. Over time, I made my first million, and decided it was FACTORY TIME! Flying back to argon prime, I tried to buy a factory, and realized that I had to talk to an argon mammoth, and tell them I wanted em to transport something. Once hiring em, the ship became mine, and I had him move to the station, bought and loaded my new wheat farm factory onto it... and told him to move to a place in boron space, where there were lots of places that needed delaxian wheat, but no wheat farms immediately nearby. I had my freighters buy energy cells at the CHEAPEST price I could, which was 12, the lowest... and fly to my station to offload the energy cells. It took a LONG time until I figured out a decent price to sell my stuff at, since nobody was buying it, but at 1 credit lower than the average, I managed to get them to buy my stocks... and sometimes I would find a place to buy delaxian wheat cheap, and transport it to my station to sell it at a better price. LOL.


By this time, I purchased jump drives, and they became an awesome boon to my ability to trade, because if I had the energy cells in my ship, 10 per sector about... I could jump to a far off sector almost instantly, and buy up a cheap product with a better chance of getting it before the AI. I'd then jump to the sector to buy it, and over time, the immense profits greatly outweighed the energy cell costs(which arent that much). Now, whenever I manually trade my ship and my AI ship... I always be sure to jump, and keep at least 200-300 crystals on board.

Over time... I bought and purchased a buster, and not having experienced combat, I was ready to go at it. I outfitted it, and it cost me probably around 700 thousand or so... maybe a bit more. CRAZY expensive to fully outfit the thing... but it was worth it. I flew to teladi space, and had my first encounter with a falcon and a harrier... and I won! Destroyed the harrier, and the falcon bailed before too much of the shields were destroyed! I was excited, and more pirates were coming from far away, so I ejected, and claimed the shi... commanding it to fly to boron space(the nearest shipyard I knew about) to get repaired. After forever and a half, it managed to get there, and by that time I captured a couple more ships, and ordered them to fly to a station so I could either repair and outfit them, or sell them... and let me tell you, selling ships is an awesome profit. Not to mention, killing pirates now allows you to trade with those previously untradable races, because your faction improved when killing pirates in their space!


I got bold once, and jumped a teladi vulture super freighter in a space where he was alone, a far distance away from help. I unloaded alot of my firepower on him, and to my surprise, he bailed out when it was at like 85% hull. Thrilled, I commanded him to fly to the boron shipyard(which he is still on his way by the way, escorted by 2 more ships I capped... another falcon, and a buster.


And thats about where I am now, actually... It took me a long time, but I slowly, SLOWLY built up what I have now, which still isnt much... just about 2 million credits to my name in all my monetary assets not counting ships, one station, about half a dozen ships. But I feel a GREAT sense of accomplishment in what i've done so far, starting with just a mercury, and a discoverer.
 
compared to x2, is it any more advanced or indepth ? i found x2 easy to figure out and i'm assuming x3 won't be any harder ..
 
I just got back from the store with this and was ready to install it and I noticed I had 2 of disc's 3 4 and 5. 1 2 and 6 were no where to be found. This made me sad. ;(
 
Thanks a ton for the info Raziaar.

How much is that mk3 trading software anyways?
 
I'm glad they included MK3 trading in X3, that was made as a custom script you had to install for X2.
 
AmishSlayer said:
Thanks a ton for the info Raziaar.

How much is that mk3 trading software anyways?

It's about 500K.

So how's everyone doing in the game so far?

I've managed to build up quite an armada (1 Centaur, 3 Falcon, 4 Buster, 1 Mamba, 1 Octopus, 2 Nova, 1 Pericles, 5 Caimen S, 1 Toucan, 1 Iguana, 2 Mercury) plus 2 stations (Delexian Wheat Farm and a Boron BoFu Plant) and 56 Million Credits in cash.

Only another 30 million credits or so, and a couple of jumps in my reputation with the Argon / Boron / Paranid and i can get my first M1 Destroyer class ship!!! Muahahahahaha. :smoking:
 
I just picked this up: and downloaded patch will give my thoughts later.
 
LOL!
The "X" space games are FAR HARDER and more complex than Freelancer.:)
In terms of complexity and pwnage, Freelancer is a slingshot and X3 a huge ****ing railgun.:p
 
hooolly crap..so many freaking controls I dont know how to even control the ship. graphics look great, but Im getting some stutter on my 6800 GT on max settings.
 
Do you have the latest patch installed and AA/AF on? Getting those gave my performance a BIG boost.
 
Back
Top