X Series (before EVE, Freelancer, or Star Citizen...)

It's the plan. We'll know more when X Rebirth comes out. But I expect you'll get the similar kind of giant fleet as you'd do in X3.

So I could skip the other games and just jump into X3? Cause I'd like the game to be easier, myself. Just a bit.

It'd be pretty neat to actually BE the Admiral, sitting on the command ship and giving orders, listening to reports and contacting other ships from long range. Rather than having to run from ship to ship telling them what to do.

I wish there'd be a Tac screen the Admiral could command from while on board the flagship.

Yes you can skip the other games and get to X Rebirth.

As for Tac control from capital ships... There might be. If there isn't... Just wait. I can guarantee someone will mod it in.

What'd be really kinda cool is to have tactical control...while actually sitting on your capitol ship's captain's chair. XD Sure, you can't PILOT, but it'd be nice if they at least let you play captain.

So played a few hours.

I overall like it, but there's an asterisk at the end of that statement. Also I haven't obviously finished it, or even gone very far, so I can't speak of everything there is to do.

The good: The space piloting and shooting and trading is pretty fun. The game does reward a more in depth exploration of places you go, it's a lot less "mindelessly driven from menus" than X3 was. It's more newbie friendly (Though IMHO the menus and tutorial could still have used more work). It also has a more involved story than the barebones stuff from the first time game. Travel is faster paced, you don't quite spend as much time travelling through empty space as you did in X3. Space cities and the various areas make the game feel less repetitive. You fly around some very starkly contrasting vistas. Overall, the core of the game is solid.

The Bad: A lot of the new features so heavily touted are, well, barebone, bordering or inexistent. A lot of the backlash the game has, I feel, is due to these. I think they'd not bothered putting a lot of this in, the game would've been better recieved, than having it in and be so... blah. The Skunk is your only ship, and its decently customizable (Though not possible to alter its appearance). But its two rooms. Only one of which you can actually walk into (And it does nothing). The Bridge itself exists solely for the sake of animation where you stand and go back to your seat The only crewmember is your co-pilot, and anyone you bring onboard the ship vanishes into hammerspace the moment you bring them in. Listen, if you're gonna limit me to one ship, then MAKE THAT ONE SHIP INTERESTING. At this point, other than the dialogue needing to refer to the Skunk by name, I honestly don't see why the game needs to be set on this one generic ship.

Similarly, the large capital ships you own are pretty much just a hangar, with corridors. For the most part they look identical to stations. No bridge. No chance to see your crew at work. Dock in a ship and find that ship being attacked? Well you'll find all the crew is doing the exact same lounging in corridors and in the hangar as they usually do.

Also all the environments you can visit on foot (Ie stations) are made of the same cut and paste rooms. Seen a bar? You've seen all bars. The only variation comes in the fact of if the station has a bar, and where it is in said station. Some are pretty sizeable, so that's nice - but they all look the same. Nothing inside, say, an energy cell power plant serves to differentiate it from being inside a logisitics dock. But honestly, the station exploring feels so shallow it becomes an hindrance. Looking for crew people for your other ships, or merchants, becomes a chore of running around the same boring repetitive environments looking for where they planted the NPC you're looking for. The NP Cs are generic and utterly interchangeable too.

There's a conversation system to allow you to get discounts by striking friendships with people that is so bad, it honestly makes the "I compliment/coerce/joke/placate you several times in a row" system from Oblivion feel natural by comparison. The bad scripting doesn't help. Talk to someone about the upcomming Xenon assault and they are only responding about how glib and charismatic I am, rather than addressing anything I've said.

The return of a cockpit view should be a boon, but honestly, I sort of loathe it now. The main screen will switch what it's showing, and I've still not managed to figure out HOW to get it to display the area map. It sometimes does. On its own. Then it changes to displaying nothing.

The voice acting ranges from Meh to Terrible. Weird accents all around. Look, Egosoft, I know you guys are German, but in this day and age, if you're planing to release a game in English, there's no reason you can't do the recording in England or the USA or wherever. Plenty of recording studios can be hired and send you the recordings by the internet. I mean, I don't mind accents, but honestly, it feels like only the PC's comfortable speaking english. Weak voiceacting only outlines the weak writing.

There's also been reports of performance issues. I've not had them myself, except for occasional stuttering during highway segments (And I know those aren't from my rig hitting its limits).

Still, it's not a bad game, I'm enjoying it, and I know Egosoft enough to know most of the concerns will be addressed in due time (There's already been two patches today to handle some issues some people've reported, and Egosoft has a history of massive game changing updates). I can also see the weaker sections being improved by modders, but on the other hand, I do feel it's sort of sad that many of the most expected features turn into liabilities and weaknesses.

If you're one of those who said they'd wait a bit before getting it, it's probably the best move. I think we'll see some improvements come in the future.

edited 15th Nov '13 1:00:56 PM by Ghilz

I shall wait. The game I'm looking for will be a single-player version of Artemis Bridge Simulator where you can build the fleet and run an Industrial Empire.

So it's garbage, then. What a shame.

I just...can't wrap my head around the Albion Skunk. I mean, if the game were smaller in scope and set more as just a sci-fi adventure, than fine, a rust bucket ship with a silly name is fine. But confining the player to one ship while still allowing you to build massive fleets and command them just makes it all the more jarring that you're stuck with that thing. The way the devs shilled it kinda rubbed mt the wrong way from day one.

from what I hear of the previous X games, they all improved over time. by the time I have the disposable cash to sink into it, I'm hoping it's had some serious patches.

Aye. I don't care about being able to fly a capital ship, but I wanna be able to sit in the command chair and use a tac screen to issue orders, then look out a cockpit-style viewscreen and watch the battle. Is that too much to ask for?

In all fairness. The skunk IS sort of badass. It'll tear through groups of interceptors and is amazingly flexible. Later as you get more drones and better guns, it can pretty much take out heavily armed transports solo.

It's just that the Skunk is BORING. If you want to give me one ship, then let me walk around the bridge. I can't do that. Give me the captain's quarters. None of that. Give me a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits for a crew. No. You get one co-pilot (Who won't even pilot the ship while I man drones BTW. Meaning if someone starts shooting at you while you pilot Drones, you're not only defenseless, but you might not even know till the low shield alarms ring). Let me talk to the people im ferrying. Well no. Can't do that. Lemme customize its appearance to my tastes? Fuck no

Seriously, had the Skunk been interesting, the one ship thing would've been FAR easier to swallow.

Also. the Skunk's UI sucks. Seriously, It's annoying as fuck not to have a map. Or even the name of the place im in. I need to open the main universe map (Which also sucks BTW) to see where I am!

Not garbage, but heavily flawed.

Yeah, Egosoft has a good history of improving games, I just hope X Rebirth doesn't leave them in a financial situation where they can't do that. It'd be a shame. There's potential for a very good game in there, it just needs more work.

edited 16th Nov '13 7:07:45 AM by Ghilz

So I bought it, I should probably start with the Campaign first.. Free Play doesn't have any tutorials and I'm basically left going "Huh?"

I managed to kill some random pirate guy and have credits transferred to me.. Then I managed to figure out how to dock with a station, upon which I stole everything in the lockers and found a crawlspace I could get into with tons of credits.

Graphics on the ships and shit are just sort of.. choppy? And piloting with a mouse and keyboard is kind of problematic.

Also wish I had a third person view. That would be nice.

To be fair, it is an Egosoft game. The games aren't really stable and complete until like 6 months after the game is released.

That isn't really a good status quo, but it does explain things.

Ok. Think I'm done with this game until I decide to pick it up again.

Why is there no fucking autosave feature? At least do it every time I dock!

I had a crash about 45 minutes into campaign mode, no big deal, I'll just start at my save at 21 minutes in. But then I played for like an hour, and the game got stuck on a trade screen and it would let me hit escape and mess with settings, but not save, and ingame it wouldn't let me close the tab or manipulate anything at all.

If it's like the first game, you have to BUY your saves with in-game cash. Some kind of insurance, I think.

I bought Reunion, Terran Conflict, and Albion Prelude a while back, recently remembered I had them (while feeling nostalgic for Freelancer but not really wanting to play it again...).

Started with Terran Conflict, since the consensus on the official forums was it's the easiest/most refined for a newbie.

I was rather confused for a while, but I've been playing for a couple of weeks now and having great fun. Shame most feedback on Rebirth sounds so negative.

Completed the Terran, Goner, and Final Fury plots, with the Hub, Treasure Hunt, and New Home in-progress. Flying the M 7 C Griffon as my personal ship, and just completed my first successful capital ship boarding op — a pirate Brigantine, using a Split Cobra, the Griffon, and a Hades bomber.

Would it be worth going back and playing Reunion at some point for the story? Or the first two games, for any reason?

Does Terran Conflict have the same learning curve as rebirth? That kind of makes me want to play it.

Also, I haven't found a way to tweak the graphics on Rebirth at all. I was expecting an Eve Online level of detail, and honestly the whole thing looks sort of grainy and choppy and shit, and I have a pretty good computer that runs most newer games on high detail. Rebirth doesn't give me shit in the way of options. Hell, screenshots of Terran Conflict look better than my ingame experience with Rebirth so far.

Also, can someone suggest some good mod packages for Terran Conflict if it is just as easy to learn as rebirth(or easier)?

I tried play it...the performance is rather crappy...

Guess I'll wait till there's patch that optimize the game better...

^ I dunno, Rebirth does have rather extensive tutorial...Terran Conflict? Hell no...

edited 16th Nov '13 6:39:55 PM by onyhow

I was thinking about grabbing this if it ever went on sale but looking at the issue of bug reports and the fact that it has a 33 on Metacritic (not a single Mixed or Positive review) has sort of put me off it.

edited 15th Dec '13 9:04:44 PM by Rationalinsanity

So they give this game low ratings for being a buggy mess at launch, but not Total War Rome II?

Thread revival go!

Terran Conflict is being a pain and refusing to give me non-plot missions. I tried removing all my mods, but to no avail.

Other than that issue, I'm having fun.

And I just reinstall Albion Prelude...and have no idea what to do next. Got myself Skiron, and have several Drakes and Caiman Hauler doing Universal Trading...not sure what to do next. Setting up factories? How and where should I do that?

I suggest go in the Argon systems. Find a big asteroid with a lot of silicon. Like you want a value in the 40s at least (Look around President's End and Red Light as well as the various Cloudbases). Buy a silicon mine (larger the better), a crystal fab, and a Solar power plant (All Argons ideally so they use the same food). You'll just need to supply it food and an initial loadout of power cells. Use the initial profits to add a Meatsteak Cahoonas production line. You can end up making a complex that is entirely self-sufficient, producing energy cells without requiring any goods to be imported. That will rake in a TON of dough you can then use for more ambitious complexes.

And when it's self sufficient you can even afford to set the price of your cells below galactic average so your station becomes a favored stop for NPC traders over any npc solar power plant. You make the things for free at that point!

The argon sectors are fairly safe (No risk of your station getting stuck in a terran vs Argon fight, and the occasional pirate raid is easily defeated), and there's a ton of stations to sell energy cells to, and a ton of stations to supply you till your complex becomes self sufficent.

Use one of the online complex calculator to figure out how many of each stations you need.

As for how you set up stations, buy a TL transport or hire one by talking to it via commlink. Buy a station, order your TL to dock where you bought it and transfer it there, then go to your destination, get the TL there, order it place the station. There's online videos showing you the details.

edited 27th Jan '15 10:52:09 AM by Ghilz

A while back I began my first X game in Terran Conflict, starting rather appropriately as the basic Terran. Completed several of the quests, was working on my first complex for the Hub, had a nice fleet...but I haven't played in many months.

Now I'm wondering if I should pick that up again, likely not remembering where I was going or specifically why, try a new start, or move on to Albion Prelude.

Since TC is fairly massive and likely Albion as well, it'd probably be best to just pick one and master it. Is AP a straightforward upgrade or are there drawbacks (bugs, bad mechanics, anything)?

AP is a straightfoward upgrade. there's really no real reason to go back to TC after AP.