X3 - Terran Conflict

[tommers]

which ship are you using at the moment?

 

[Epona]

Sorry, having trouble with my internet for the last few days - sometimes it lets me post and sometimes it doesn't!

I'm currently using a Springblossom as my personal ship. I ended up finishing the Hub missions and getting income again (despite my fears early on I only actually lost 5 million or so credits during the time I was supplying it to get the gates set up, drop in the ocean) so I bought a Tokyo carrier once I was sure my bank account was stable - I am enjoying having somewhere to organise my fleet of fighters.

 

[Mooncat]

Feel like I'm cheating when flying around in a Springblossom - its just so damn fast you can out run anything that can hurt you.

(I load out with matter/antimatter for killing things and electro-magnetic plasma cannons for missile defence)

I'm currently running scared in an Argon Elite - damn you restart required!

Just noticed there's an X3 wiki http://www.x3wiki.com/

 

[Cid]

I've played this for some ridiculous amount of time and still only have a couple of Mercuries and a couple of Discoverers... It's an absurd game. Great though once you start to get the hang of basics, I've found the easy ownerless ships now, so might actually be able to do a couple of missions!

 

[Epona]

I keep finding mods that I want to try that require a restart

Just installed DDTC - for those who haven't tried it, it adds various shipyards each with a line of missions (sort of like the Corporation missions) leading to them building new ships that you can buy. Also added an Advanced Jumpdrive script which adds (expensive) jumpdrives that generate their own energy, I was finding e-cell management a bit of a headache tbh so I'm quite enthusiastic about that even though I haven't really tried it out yet!

 

[Cid]

Is there a mod that separates ships from satellites on the property console? it's irritating to say the least.

 

[Epona]

Is there a mod that separates ships from satellites on the property console? it's irritating to say the least.

Just hit r to open the property owned page, go to the "options" tab, and change "show satellites" to NO. This takes them out of the all/ships displays, but if you want to view a sector that you have a satellite in you can do it in the "sectors" tab instead - all sectors in which you have property (be it a ship, satellite, or factory) will be listed there. (Or you can do it on the universe map, sectors you have property in have a just-visible green box around them).

 

[Cid]

Can't believe I missed that...

Too much to take in...

Got my mercurys running as STs now, supplemented by the odd mission and raids on pirate space. Have been flying an advanced Barracuda for the speed, but might try the Eclipse now that I've nicked a couple. Have also taken to doing my own repairs on them by taping down right mouse, might be more sensible to up a macro or something... . Next task is to get a few stations up and running, looks like a whole new leap in working shit out again though.

 

[Epona]

I'm really not keen on the Eclipse as a personal ship, it's so ridiculously slow for an M3 - any enemies are off your radar before you can catch up to them (bear in mind that combat missions will generate hostile/target ships based upon your combat level and your current ship class, if you have an M3 and an average combat level you will by and large be up against varying numbers/waves of M3-M5s in missions, and the Eclipse is the slowest of all of them, you'll be at a distinct disadvantage in for example timed assassination missions and escort missions) - it's ok if you're going to shoot a couple of missiles (something cheap like mosquito, they do at least have a decent cargo bay for missile storage) to get their attention so they come to you, but IMO they're really not that fun to fly and combat comes down to either trying to get them to come to you, or watching them disappear into the distance - if you're wanting an M3 for dogfighting you'd be better of stripping them down and selling them so you can buy something a little faster IMO - the Split Mamba is better in terms of action, it's shields aren't anywhere near as good but it's very fast and agile, the Argon Nova Raider is a superb player M3 with a good balance of speed, shields, and weaponry, and if you can get one (they're not for sale, but there's an unclaimed one that you can get for free in the vanilla game and you can sometimes capture one from pirates if the pilot ejects) the Blastclaw Prototype is a well shielded M3 with 4 front mounted weapons (if you can get hold of any, put Plasma Burst Generators in those 4 slots, they're short range but very powerful) + 4 turret mounted weapons, an absolutely ginormous cargo bay (650), and although it's not the fastest ship, it has a bit better speed (159 m/s) than the Eclipse and its other features make it far better ship to fly.

The Eclipse does have uses - they are ideal for short-range station defence under AI control (once you have your own stations), escorting your freighters, or because they have a decent cargo bay manual trade runs of expensive high-tech low-volume goods such as crystals (or once you have stations of your own, selling high-tech goods that you have produced, or moving them between stations), or to patrol a small area or sector - but as a player M3 I don't really rate them highly.

 

[Epona]

I have just started getting into building factories and complexes. My head hurts again!

 

[ruffneck23]

OK right , I thought id bump this as Ive just taken the plunge and didn't want to derail the newer thread,

so....

I can even open the game yet , im on a Win 7 machine, I have full admin rights but it says I need to have admin to start the game for the first time , Ive turned UAC off, set permission on the folder and tried what has been suggested around and about the internets ( mind you I was quite pissed last night when I tried it ) anyone else encounter this ?

good start not

 

[ruffneck23]

Its ok , Ive been told i need to patch it up first, il giver it a go again tonight and lose the weekend...

 

[ruffneck23]

im taking a look at the forums etc but in your view what are the best mods to start with or should i just go for the origianl game , all advice will be greatly recieved

 

[Mooncat]

I think there's a mod pack of all the best ones Ruffneck - Apricotslice merge mod I think its called What you wanna get first is Cycrows mod manager as it makes it easy installing the others. Other than that the ones I use the most are the tubeless complex mod and one whose name escapes me that allows you to re-position factories.

One you don't wanna get just yet is the X-Tended mod as I've just spent the last few months playing it only to discover the saves won't be compatible with version 2

 

[ruffneck23]

ok im rubbish, decided to follow the manual and do some trading via ' the hole ' to ' argon prime ' via the south jumpgate, but can i find the basrtard gate ? ive trawled around for ages looking for the bugger

 

[tommers]

you could look at the map of the sector and target it from the list....

is there def a south gate?

 

[ruffneck23]

yeah it mentions it in the manual , thing is about ' the hole' is you cant see any thing til its right on top of you and nothing shows up on the sector map til you've found it from what I can tell. Saying that ive literally just got co-ordinates for it in the manual so il give it another try tonight , Im not giving up on it yet....

 

[Epona]

There is a south gate there, it's just not where you'd expect it and it's a bit of a bugger to locate. You should be ok now you've got the co-ordinates. As it's a fairly busy sector it's also worth seeing whether you can see on the map any patterns in the traffic heading in a particular direction and follow them, if there are a load of other ships travelling in a line in that portion of the map they're probably heading towards the gate themselves.

Oh and if you haven't already, buy a triplex scanner as soon as you can afford it!

 

[ruffneck23]

cheers for the advice

 

[Epona]

Oh and if all else fails, you can always go East then South to get to Argon Prime.

 

[ruffneck23]

yeah , funny you should say that i was just looking up info about the triplex scanner, took a look at the map, and noticed that route , that's it , me and the manual are over

 

[Epona]

Put the manual down! If you're following the trading suggested in the manual tutorial you could find yourself buying high and selling low, because the economy is dynamic and the prices at factories will not be the same as in the manual. Just check the average price, minimum, and maximum price for the commodity you want to trade (you can find this info in the Pilot's Encyclopedia which you can find from the top button on the small bar at the left of your screen) to check prices before you buy and sell.

ETA: Best to start off with something like energy cells because many factories need them and you won't have too much trouble finding somewhere to sell them at a decent price. Also as you're in Argon space, Meatsteak Cahoonas and Delexian Wheat are fairly easy to start with.

 

[ruffneck23]

thanks , the manual is going in the bin , well at least being put away in the draw..

 

[tommers]

Burn it!

 

[ruffneck23]

it has crossed my mind...

 

[Mooncat]

Your better of with the handbook from http://apricotmappingservice.com/

 

[Mungy]

bought this the other day. installed cheat. was playing for a few hours and thought it was taking ages to do anything. then discovered the joys of pressing "j"