Ustwo

Don't ignore the cock?

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Ustwo

I WANT MY ELEPHANT!

Bah need another level of race reputation for it and I can't find any baddies to take down.

Once I get it, building factories will be 150% easier.

Capital ship, 34000 cargo, 16 ships can dock in the hanger, turrets all over and well crappy shields, but it is more of an industrial ship, not a combat one.

It will be my pocket carrier until I can afford the big boys.

Did I mention I like this game?

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Baraka_Guru

If I didn't just get a Wii, I'd own this game by now. One day.

I like these kinds of games. I like the idea of empire management. Throw in some fighting in outer space and I'm sold.

One day.

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Ustwo

Its 7.95 on amazon last I looked.

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Baraka_Guru

I already looked. It's Amazon.com. Amazon.ca lists it at much higher ($39.99 for the CDROM). I don't want to go through the trouble and expense of ordering it from the States.

I'd order it through Steam, but I'm short on resources: time and money. Besides, like I say, I have a Wii.

What hurts my soul, though, is that X3 sounds like a game designed for someone like me.

Like I said: One day.

Keep it coming with the updates. I like to hear what you can do in this game.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

CyCo PL

I thought X3 was pretty fun, but it just takes way too long to get going. I'm more of a fan of games like Freelancer or Darkstar One, which are infinitely easier and shallower, but provide a somewhat similar experience without requiring nearly as much dedication and time.

Ustwo

Yea it is slow. I WANTED to play this one the slow way and its been good but you could always use the XTM mod (which is pretty great) and use any of the quick starts.

I might have to try the pirate galleon start next. You start with a pirate carrier and every political group besides the pirates hating you.

I got my Elephant today, I just flew it into a pirate sector, and watched the turrets go on autofire until they finally brought it down, nicely cinematic.

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Apokx

I'm not too impressed by the Elephants. I can stroke one with a single Split Mamba(best fighter ship in the game imo).

The only complaint I have is that they can't use Ion Disruptors.


I am slowly beginning to build my empire with sector traders. I vow to dominate every pirate sector as payback for everytime they ganked my crappy Argon Buster with their Nova squadrons.


This game is alot more fun once you get a ship that isn't complete garbage.

Ustwo

All of the transport type capital ships are pretty easy to toast, I'm using a Pirate Kea for my main fighter type which I really like, 2 turrets and 125mj shield.

The Elephant is pretty much a mobile base, and I'm using it to set up industry easier and quicker than the 'dock here, fly here, unload here' method when you don't own one.

I was a bit disappointed to discover it could dock 14 ships but only ONE could be a transport size ship. My idea was to set up say a mine, drop off 2 CAG's and move to the next. Instead I gotta do it with multiple jumps.

I experimented with the turrets last night and due to the AI tracking limitations the best were the fast velocity type guns. Alpha particle something or other worked better than the bigger more damaging ones as they almost never hit. I'm sure mass drivers would be good for the same reason.

Long story less long, it was able to hold its own pretty well vrs multiple fighters, but once a pirate cap ship showed up it was more like a Babylon 5 cinematic moment where painful looking balls of light slammed into my hull and I went poof. Shame the external default view on death is always from the back.

And ya the Buster sucks. Even fully upgraded its hard to kill anything with a turret and not take 100k worth of hull damage. My first real upgrade was a Argon Nova Vanguard and it was night and day.

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Apokx

Right now the biggest hurdle is finding equipment docks with Jump drives and the right shields/weapons so I can start some universal traders.

It's still faster profit for me to just fly into split sectors and take their freighters/fighters, but hopefully that will change.

Ustwo

I've got a bunch of UT's right now, they are nice as they are fire and forget, AI isn't that bad either. I did download a sector lock script so I don't have them trying to sell in the pirate sectors. All the races love me, I'm playing as a space hero this game, my next one will be pirate.

The next step for me will be complexes, something I've only played with but never worked out.

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Apokx

Do you know of a script that just makes any ship captureable?

It seems that they always add something extra like "the crew may only be faking or self destruct the ship!" or they increase the chance of bailing by 50% or something.


I just want the basic rules with the ability to capture any ship. I figured there would be some simple script option somewhere that has a value of 1 or 0 flagging a ship as captureable or not.

Ustwo

There is a script that lets you take prisoners etc with marines I read and I'm pretty sure there is a capture all script but I haven't looked at them yet.

I'm still trying to figure out the group scripts (which are very nice) and getting my screwy wingman commands to work.

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MPower

Blast a ship down to about 20% health, let it regen a bit up over half then blast it a bit more. I can capture about 1 in every 6 ships or so by doing that.

Ustwo

TBH ship bailing seems to be a bit nutty.

Yesterday I had 3 all bail almost instantly when I started to fire, and I captured the entire patrol, but normally very little luck, even doing the 'beat the crap out of them' method.

I'm up to 85 million cash, I want my first real cap ship next.

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Ustwo

While I'm a fan of the XTM mod (though it does have a few workable bugs) and I installed the bonus pact scripts (a must once you get the hang of the game) if you don't have LV's Race response fleets, get it. It makes the game far more realistic. You can't just beat on a station without fear of hostiles jumping in to save it. Also it makes the AI fight the AI and have rather epic style battles. It also adds more BBS missions.

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Apokx

I was referring to Capital Class ships that are hardcoded to not be captureable. You need a script/mod for people in M1 or higher(I think?)ships to bail before it blows up.

For whatever reason it was taking forever for my UTs to make much cash, and I had Stations pretty much selling their resources nonstop and I wasn't really getting anywhere.
Awesome game but it was getting boring because I couldn't make any progress.

I had a SPP(M), and a Plankton farm(M) in Kingdom's End. With two traders assigned to each one(with Jumpdrives, and every single software you can buy) they would sell the resources nonstop but it just took forever to make any profit.

Ustwo

First, set up mines with CAG sellers and managers. Don't count on the NPC's buying your wares very fast, so they will actively and automatically sell.

Second, make sure you UT's are at least mercury transport sized and have jump drives. These make me a good amount of money.

Third, space fuel. I set up a space fuel complex and the NPC's flock to it like sailors on leave. I now have 3 large spacefuel factories going supplied by 3 L wheat farms. I can't keep it stocked, it sells out that fast. Big time money maker. From what I gather space weed sells equally well and its a very cheap complex to set up. Just let the NPC's buy it so you don't get it confiscated on your trade ships.

Solar plants are good money makers too but they require active selling and are expensive to buy, still they WILL make more than they cost.

Finally if you want to get a leg up. Fly to argon prime, go about 100km away from the gate (to avoid getting scanned) and hit your time compression. Go to bed, wake up much richer. Its a hit to your combat rating (not to bad) and you might lose a couple of ships but you will have more than enough to replace losses. I've done this twice, and I do feel a bit dirty. Once was to see how much my first UT would make. It was 8 million for the night by itself. Another was to see how much my spacefuel complex would make, it was 17 million (I made like 50 million total) and that was only with 4 hours of sleep. Now that I installed some more dangerous scripts I won't be doing that again, but it is a nice way to get a quick head start.

I've been hovering at about 100 million + close to that in assets. I've been losing some freighters lately so I'm retooling a bit. I'm more annoyed I don't have the reps for an M1 yet, I want my Galleon. I played around with a M7 tonight and while its got VERY nice firepower its small cargo bay is really a pain keeping it jump fueled so I reverted to an old save and decided to wait it out.

Once I get tired of this game I'll install that capital ship capture script and try a more violent style of money making.

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Ustwo

Hah this was awesome.

Saw my first real fleet battle using the LV fleet script.

I had an merchant ship under attack in ore belt, 2 M3's and a M4.

So I jump in but the local Argon police had attacked them.

So they jump in a corvette.

So Argon jumps in a M7.

So they keep jumping in and out corvettes. The pirates lose like 2 corvettes when a pirate Carrack shows up.

The argon M7 is hurting, so they jump in a titan.

Then about 4 more pirate corvettes lock in.

I decided to help out the M7 by attacking the pirate Carrack, got me shot up badly, I want to see how the battle unfolds so I eject just so I can observe.

Well apparently pirates don't believe in not shooting ejected pilots so it ended just as it was getting very interesting.

This is the war the game was lacking for me, gives you something to use all these ships on.

Edit: Same thing happened in my save game only this time I didn't die stupidly, turns out what I thought was a Carrack was really a reaper, a pirate destroyer, which is why I got taken out so fast.

Anyways same thing started it, they took out the M7 and then I started to assault a Carrack, I had it down to 1/3 shield and it jumped out. The reaper chased out 3 more M7's and finally jumped out itself. I figured the fight was over, but still some corvettes were jumping in. Finally the Reaver shows back up, but this time the Argons had two capital ships on either side of it. They destroyed it and jumped out. Now all is quiet.

I lost about 3 ore merchant ships but it was worth it to see a real fight. If you have this game you are really missing out without the LV script (and I know a few of you got it who arn't posting

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Apokx

Have you tried the XTM? I installed it for the first time last night, and I think they're may be a memory leak regarding their ships or the custom stations.

I can run normal X3 on max settings in 1900x1200 resolution, but any setting with the mod results in the worst FPS if I use the SETA.


The new ships+stations look A+ though.

Apokx

Apparently the SETA thing is a known issue with the xtm, so until they fix it I will be stuck with vanilla.

Ustwo

I played my first vanilla game about 10 game hours before discovering XTM and have been using it since.

Make sure you are using the 7.3 scripts with it, they fix a lot of the performance issues. Manually delete the old ones from the mod manager first, because the manager thinks the older scripts are actually newer (no clue why).

When I first installed it I was using older scripts and the fps was pretty bad at 10* seta, now its mostly 100% ok, though occasionally you will find a system like argon prime a bit fps laggy but not a problem playing with.

XTM actually fixed a lag issue vanilla has with some wonky graphics on the capital ship guns.

My specs are 2.4 ghz dual core, 4 gig mem, XP, and 2 8800 GT cards so ymmv. I play at 1680*1025

I do see SOME lag now but only because of the race response fleet scripts. Sometimes the battles get BIG.

XTM is a good mod but it does have a few issues you need to work around. They made terran shipyards but somehow screwed it up a bit so they spawn with zero health in home of light. You can deal with them remotely but DON"T LAND as after you it screws up your game in terms of things like auto pilot etc. There are other issues with their custom ship yards (which look very nice) being so big they can mess with collisions with capital ships. I have only had the issue once, but you need to go out of system to undock when it happens.

XTM adds so much though its worth putting up with a few minor glitches. If the problem is your graphics card not being able to handle the new graphics at that resolution is most likely worth trying to turn down the texture/anti-aliasing settings, it will still look better than vanilla.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

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Apokx

It's not an issue with settings, it happens on any setting/resolution.

Someone mentioned Race Response Fleets being an issue but there is an entire thread on the XTM forum where people are having the same issue as me(with or without race response fleet)lagging when SETA is active, otherwise it runs fine.

I will just have to wait until its fixed/patched and I'll redownload it.

Ustwo

If you are playing this I gotta recommend these scripts, all work with XTM mod.

This one pretty much fixes your retarded wingman AI. Before using it my wingmen had to be used VERY carefully or they fly straight into enemy fire. They also seemed to never hit anything unless it was flying in a straight line. Now they evade incoming fire, actually use their aiming computers, and cause your personal wing to be a force to be reckoned with. The software costs a million a pop, so I only use it on M3's. Its nice having your wingman bail out YOUR ass for once.

This completely transforms your game. Prior to using it, everything seemed quite stale, the AI empires were retards letting 3 pirate ships randomly shoot at stations without doing anything. Now they bring in their fleets, including pirates. For example, I just got my first M1 (Pirate Galleon) and decided to test it taking out a pirate base sector. I jump into sector and start to take out the fighter swarm. Suddenly there is an enemy M7 below me and its beating the crap out of my shields. I think I'm doomed but it has to turn away and in so doing turns its main guns off me and flies into the path of mine. I take it down with almost no shields left on me. I fly away from the battle and launch my fighters which deal with the incoming M6's while I slowly recharge my shields. I take out enough of them with my fighter wing and head to the bases. I destroy one pirate factory base, and decide to head to the main base. On the way another pirate capital ship jumps in but its a weak one and I take it out without much effort. I finally take out the pirate base and move to another factory (I've been losing a fighter here and there and now I'm down to 2). While there, suddenly another pirate M7 jumps in and opens fire. This time I'm in a better spot and open fire on it as well. We are both at almost zero shields, but I think I got the upper hand and then 'poof' it jumps out of system, saving itself. I go about finishing off the last pirate factory.

Without this script, this battle just doesn't happen. I'd have jumped in, killed a few fighters, killed the bases and left.

Note: If you want to play as a pirate, and you use this script, be warned you will need to act like a pirate and only hit weak systems and do a lot of hit and run. Otherwise you will be overwhelmed.

I'm running more scripts than this, and there are other VERY good ones that create guilds etc, but these two I'd use in any/every game.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

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