Hey fellow Siners
Has anyone played X3 terran conflict or for that matter any of the X games such as X2 the Reunion 2.0?the reason why I ask is because of the graphics that I saw on YouTube and wondered if this game is similar to Sins in game play ?
It is nothing like Sins in gameplay. It isn't even strategy! It is, more or less, the ultimate single-player Sandbox game. You fly a ship and can do anything from trading, pirating, fighting, building stations and hiring traders to do all the manufacturing and trading for you.. so on, so forth. There are several different "starts" available that set up the game universe and there's a semi-loose main mission chain that explores the conflict that's the backdrop for the universe but you're not even required to complete it.
Since you have not played the X games before, I would recommend starting with Terran Conflict. The universe is pretty much the same as in X3: Reunion, just extra Terran stuff added. But the gem in it is that the UI received a much needed overhaul to make it easier to manage. It is a very complex game, and it was incredibly easy to get lost in all the windows in the earlier games. Terran Conflict streamlines the UI a lot and makes it much less of a headache to learn.
Actually it can become a strategy game once you're far enough into it. An entire network of factories, satellites and defences can be purchased and spread across dozens of sectors, and there is no limit (other than the money you can earn) to the size of the fleet you can accumulate. You can create patrols, haulers and escorts, and all can be managed from within your own ship if you have the right ingame software. Even capital ships and carriers can be bought.
It takes an effort to get into; you'll probably feel pretty insignificant and lost in the beginning. But it's worth it. The only downside other than the learning curve, is that it's mainly geared towards economy as a way of earning money. You can earn money in other ways, such as bounties, missions, piracy etc; but you really need to develop factories etc to earn enough money for the bigger ships. But that's rewarding in itself anyway.
I have the game, and played here and there. From my experience, i can say the following, it is not a game for someone who just want something as simple as freelancer or Darkstar One. It is even more complex in control than Freespace series of games, though not as bad as the battlecrusier series type games. The combat can be intense or as handsoff as you want, what i mean by this is that you can do a lot of things by hitting the autopilot button and if you have the right flight software installed within the game universe, you can tell your ship to attack the enemy you are targeting.
As far as strategy goes..i will say this, like the previous poster says, there is strategy in building your empire and having your own fleets of ships etc. What makes this iteration different than say X2 the threat, or X3 the reunion are two main things, one, you can train your own marines to capture ships, what i mean is boarding and capture ships, two, the controls are mouse driven. However, given that it is mouse driven controls, you still have to know where everything is as far as the various menus so that you can make full use of your ships.
One last thing is that you can receive various missions from different stations, but in previous iterations, there is a BBS (bulletein board system) where you can read up on the various news of the X-Universe, but now, that is gone now, so the universe is not as lively as people once felt it should be. Having said that, there are a lot of things you can do in the game, as far as missions goes. Also, there are five different plots you can play through, but how to activate them remains to be something that a player have to discover for herself.
Now for the battles, well..what can i say, the battles are gigantic, what i mean is you can have carrier and destroyers pounding at each other on a scale that is bigger than any of the previous iterations. You can even take out gigantic stations and factories if you want. But....if your rig or graphics card is not up to par, then it might turn into a mild power point slide show at times. Oh yeah, those big battles, you can participate yourself, or you can command a fleet of a few thousand ships in sector and just wipe the floor against the NPC factions.
The graphics are amazing in X3. But don't expect a game where you can have a carrier and hundreds of fighters in a week. Or a month. Or maybe even i year. Its pretty slow and you have to work hard to get money. I suggest getting X3 and dowmloading the xtm mod. It basically makes the game into X3 terran conflict without the huge fps drop TC gave. I can play X3 Reunion on max with an average fps of 45 and I can play X3 TC with an average fps of 20. So I decided to stick with X3 Reunion.
As a proud owner of both X3:Reunion and X3:TC, I'd say that TC is not mature. Yet. There are still some bugs to correct, some missions difficulty and rewards to balance, some scripts to add (need a Bonus Pack like Reunion), etc...
X3:R (with the latest version of the Bonus Pack) is more complete.
And I don't like the new interface & control of Terran Conflict (and give us back the BBS )
Thanks for the heads up on X3 games everyone, even though I play Sins alot, now and then I still like to go at another game and thats why I started looking at the X3 series, I guess that I still miss Nexus the Jupiter incident game and it interface and graphics
Three quick questions
1. Does the game come with a instruction book and or tutoriual on how to play?
2. Can I micromanage my ships down to even controlling engines and manuel control over targeting and firing on other ships?
3. Do I have a choice of point of view when flying a ship, ie in the pilot's chair looking out through the canopy or if I chose from outside the ship so I can watch any action from different angles?
Well, there is one more advantage of X3: Reunion - after aplying the last official patch it does not require a DVD in the drive (X3: terran conflict does at the moment).
Both are excellent games. I bought both, but now I am playing Reunion.
For trading it is not necessary to use a mouse or a joystick, but for combat the good joystick is an advantage.
Oh 1 more question
Are all the X3 games stand alones that can be played by themselves ie. will I need to have X2 in order to play X3?
Yes, the manual is fairly good and there are lots and lots of tutorials on the web for everything - how to fight, how to set up stations and production chains, how to set up and hire traders, etc. There is a ton of info out there. I'll reiterate what was posted already, though: it isn't an easy game to get into. There's really not much of an in-game tutorial other than "this is how you fly your ship", so it will take a bit of effort to learn the ins and outs.
For the most part, yes. But you also aren't required to in a lot of cases. You can buy various computer software upgrades for your ships (Flight Command, Trade Command, Special Command marks 1-3, etc) that enables you to automate the AI for ships you own by issuing orders to it. For example, you can order a ship you own to sweep the current sector and pick up all the floating cargo. Or you can remotely order a trade ship to buy a certain cargo in one station and fly it to the other end of the galaxy. For your AI-combat ships you can designate individual targets, or just say "protect me". So it allows for a lot of micromanagement, but doesn't force it.
There are other views, but I don't use them much.. you can get good camera angles of your ship, but if you're flying around fighting you'll need the HUD so you'll probably be in the "cockpit" view for most of the time.
They're all standalone, even X3 Reunion and X3 Terran Conflict.
You may post the statistics the same way as in Galactic Civilisation games. You may also see top lists for various aspects of the game. Look here!
As you can see there is a lot of things you may achieve and you are free to choose the playstyle or the goal you want.
I hear from some that X3:TC is very playable with keyboard/mouse and from others that you're insane if you buy it and don't own a joystick.
What's your take Annatar?
I'm kinda regretting not getting it for $27 during the Steam Holiday sale now.
i only heard about the X series when x3: Terran Conflict was released... i read alot about it after that and heard that it's very difficult to learn, since there's no tutorial or anything easy-learning system, producers just assume all customers are familiar with the game i guess,
anyways, becuase i didnt want to waste any mooney on something that i might not even be able to play becuase of it's learning curve, i dled x3: Reunion, "unable to find the TC, + i heard if you could play Reunion you can probably play TC
anyways, i got stuck, knew how to move n all that, no idea what to do, said i had to meet up, with someone somewhere, goto specific system wich is a few jumps away
after having this intro with some people chat "even tough i was only able to hear sound after 2/3 seconds character voices switched so think i missed alot of important stuff ":/
figured out how to fly, bit clumsy, but it worked played around a lil restarted 15 or so times shooting some stuff and dieing in the process
how to jump?? (figured id just fly through a jump gate .. it worked ... "duh")
what next? "got stuck here, it said something about a west gate never found it tough"
got annoyed cuase i knew i like these types of games, goggled some tips hints walkthroughs, FAQ's even went to the main site to check the forum, not much help there, just explenation on what stuff means "some time deaccelerator thingy, wich actualy was a time ACcelerator, something anyways didnt help me...
so decided not to buy, even tough i still think the concept is great, i just couldnt grasp the basics of the game within 4 hours of searching trying and playing
guess how annoyed i got when i read some quote on the main site.. something like: "People who can't figure it out just didnt bother trying for more then an hour and are plainly to dumb to play this"
im not dumb, im smart enough not to spend more then 4 hours in trying to fly a ship, and NOT having wasted money
so try b4 u buy, apparently this is very hard to learn, and u dont want to have a game wich u cant play becuase you dont grasp the basics.... that's even worse then the CD not working becuase of DRM, "atleast i get to blame someone else for that "
I was perfectly fine with keyboard and mouse. There are some really quick and nimble ships out there, but the new control scheme for TC allows you to point your weapons with the mouse without moving your ship, so I found it quite easy to be precise.
I had a problem with searching stargates too. I was very happy they make it so. X2 had all sectors the same. You new exactly where to find them even in the uncharted systems. Since X3 the solar systems become unique and there was a possibility to get lost. There are two solutions for your problem. 1) you can buy detailed the maps of sectors from local dealers, 2) you may buy better sensors (there is a variant with double or triple range). You may also buy the scout software and send some scout ship to survey unknown sectors.
It may be difficult to learn the user interface without reading a manual. However if you do this, you will be fine. It is not necessary in this game to start to build and automate starbases. Actually, it is not possible at the beginning. You start with single ship and you will learn it.
As for the main plot: you don't need to hurry. Actually after some missions from the main plot you must complete some other missions and slowly buy new tougher ships. It may be also good to steal few ships. If you don't want to be a bad boy, attack pirates. However choose the target well. Or you will realize very soon, that your ship is being destroyed.
The X series has been Mouse friendly (and player friendly) since X2. However, Terran Conflict adds a second control option (and makes it the default) that is lifted whole from Freelancer (ship orientation strives toward crosshair, fire is directed to the crosshair). So really, if you could play Freelancer without a joystick, then you can play TC without one - and if you're inventive you can easily configure the controls to work like Privateer 2 (to get the best of both control schemes).
Really, all the people recommending X3 over X3:TC are doing a newcomer to the series a huge disservice. It's like recommending X1 because it had better cockpit models - yeah sure, but the rest of the game is a simulation of an actual job, not a game.
TC makes getting ships and money far easier by offering very well paid combat missions, the interface is far easier to learn, and there's an in-game encyclopedia from which you can check all sorts of data on nearly everything - all things that make getting into the game easier.
Note that the DVD-in-drive requirement of TC (if it still exists) will be patched out shortly as has been the case with previous X titles - or you just buy Steam and get rid of that DVD requirement right then.
Not to mention you can actually see said missions by the scanner/sector map and on the main HUD, rather than having to dock with each single station and read the news.
I have X3 was a really good game i just got bored.
Thanks guys for all of your helpful answers, the X series seems to be a complex game but with some chill time I think that this could be a game that I could get into because I love long indepth games that you can build up your forces slowly and add new tech and software as you go deeper into the game and I simply love being on the outside of a big ship like a heavy cruiser or destroyer and watch the battle from that angle, after all that is one of the reasons that I love Sins so much
How did this thread evade me? How did I not see it before?
..damn, I'm getting old. Getting slow...
In X3, you can actually buy fleets of capital ships to do your bidding.
Like these babies.
http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/20/odinkl4.jpg
*hands you a napkin to wipe the drool*
My favorite kind of ship is a carrier with swarms of flighters flying around it. Do they have those too? Bonus points if the carrier also has big guns.
Yes. There are carriers and they have large bays for fighters. The stats vary by races of course, but they do also have big guns - fewer than the combat-focused capitals, but still!
The X-series games are also massively improved by the fluff associated with it - but unless you know german, you won't be able to read it.
There is a rather large forum too, and it's filled with both english and german, as well as polish and whatever, fans of the game. And thus, fanfiction. Some is quite good!
X3: Terran Conflict is a Great Game, but the best "space ship" game there is would have to be freelancer. I am quite perplexed by why that game faded into obscurity. I read somewhere about a Freelancer 2 but obviously it never came into existance. If only there was a game that combined the combat of Freelancer and the GTA space feeling of X3. Oh and does anyone know where to get boarding pods for x3 TC?
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