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

...there was this series. How it managed to slip under my radar until now I will never know, given that it is more or less one of my dream games.

So, I'm about to dive in to X3: Albion Prelude, because I hear it's the easiest and I'm kind of a wuss. Anything to know starting off, any recommended mods, that sort of thing?

From what I've tried a bit of Albion Prelude, both Argon Peacekeeper and Terran Commander should immediately start you with an M6 and decent cash, and probably the start of both their plot...that's one good start for decent combat...I'm playing Terran Conflict and start with a dinky M4!

Can't tell you much else though, I'm still trying to get the damn jumpdrive from Boron shop in Terran Conflict...at least managed to get good amount of cash capping the Xenon L in one of the Terran plot mission, and capped a TS from yet another Terran plot mission...need to give the dang thing some shields though, which I can't find...

edited 18th Jul '13 6:11:00 AM by onyhow

...but after Privateer and Elite...

I actually bought the Superbox last year, since it wasn't too expensive and I found the first game good (although it's many years ago since I played it). However, while I tried out the third game, I didn't play much. Not sure why, since I found it rather interesting.

Manufacturing your own stuff is your friend.

Finally got an M2+ Boron Megalodon fully kitted out. Using it for the campaign. It's awesome. "Oh no, a Terran Destroyer! Pull back!" "Oh Rly?" *Frontal Ion Cannon Volleys takes out shield, Broadside of Gauss Cannons finishes it off.*

^ My rep is rather low right now (highest is 4 with ATF, Argon, and Teladi)...also only have around 4m in cred...I'm thinking of getting a high capacity TS and start doing some trade runs...or maybe I should do that Terran rescue mission and continue till I'm done with it and got the Vidar and Claymore...?

Plus I'm not sure what to put and where to place em well...

I wonder should I get Mistral Super Heavy or not...

edited 18th Jul '13 9:29:32 AM by onyhow

Oh, I love this series. Except for the first one. It is such a slog.

Managed to get my hand on Spitfyre in AP (start Terran, earn some money and rank then sold my Katana and get the Spitfyre)...holy crap this thing is awesome...

I just reinstalled AP recently and have been playing a Bankrupt Assassin. My plan is to slowly work my way up until I control my own star empire. So far it only consists of a small fighter and a broken down hauler, though.

Mod recommendations you say?

salvage command suite. A ton of commands related to salvaging ships/stations/asteriods. With this installed being a salvager is a viable option.

NPC bailing. Ships taken out by NP Cs have a chance to bailout. Options available to allow bigger ships to bail.

X3AP bonus pack a pack of signed mods that are endorsed (Read: no modified mark) by the X dev team.

plugin manager. Manages your files.

bounty boost. Killing ships worth more money.

removes your prefix from everything.

Marine training. Oh god seriously fuck vanilla marine training.

mobile ship repairs REPAR LAZERZ! Stick eight of em on a vidar and fix up ships in seconds. Out of sector it seems to do so instantly.

There's more I use but those are pretty useful in any playthrough.

Damn, for some reason my TC save is marked as as modified, and my last nonmarked save is quite a long while ago...

The only thing I remember is Installing the bonus package...or did I accidentally open script editor before?

Hell, my current AP game suddenly got tagged while playing for no reason...just what the heck? At least the save I had isn't tagged...

Update: HOLY CRAP! A Q died and I found Ion Shard Railgun and Photon Pulse Cannon as drop! Too bad I'm in Centaur, can't use any...and looks like I lost all of my marine when the damn Q managed to get minor breach on my Centaur...or something.

Update: did a kill mission for 2m...I finished, and what happened? GAME CRASH! It hates me!

edited 24th Jul '13 12:51:52 AM by onyhow

Holy crap, Rebirth looks awesome

Also seems like they'll be no more SETA, but they'll be booster for your ship instead...

edited 8th Aug '13 5:16:01 AM by onyhow

Eyegasm indeed

I'm not familiar with the series, I may have seen it before, but I never actually looked into it.

That being Said, I'm terribly excited for X Rebirth to come out.

This game series is infected with some of the worst DURM Hurhur on the market. TAGES. I want that nowhere near my system so the one and only time I installed the game, I got rid of it as fast as I possibly could, but the DURM Hurhur was a bloody nightmare to nuke.

...what? TAGES and Starforce is gone from the series like ages ago...at least 2 years...did you even keep up with that?

edited 9th Aug '13 10:09:14 PM by onyhow

Are you sure about that? It was one of the reasons why I didn't go near the games when they were on sale during the last Steam sale, so if it is really gone I feel a tad foolish.

Plus all the games I have on DVD still have either TAGES or Starforce and I don't want to install either of those because I don't trust removal utilities to get rid of them.

edited 9th Aug '13 10:11:14 PM by TamH70

also your avatar reminded me I eventually need to get Kerbal Space Program too...

^^Then buy it on Steam, and the game on DVD OF COURSE is going to have it (it's burnt onto disc after all), but it'll be removed/disabled when you install newest patches...it's what happened when I got Reunion originally on DVD back on '09...but I got Steam version of Superbox now anyway...still best get from online store I guess if you don't want to be bothered with initial DRM install from DVD version...

^ Oh hell yeah try it!

BTW Rebirth should only use Steamworks...

edited 10th Aug '13 5:27:51 AM by onyhow

In fact, Egosoft actually released a patch that means you don't even need to use the Steam DRM if you don't want to.

so... I checked the wiki and it was singularly unhelpful, can I get a basic rundown of mechanics and a readers digest backstory?

Okay, so this is a space trading sim type thing. Ever played Freelancer? It's kind of like that, but less barebones in terms of the trading system and more barebones in terms of story. At least the previous ones were. The thing is that Rebirth is apparently streamlining the mechanisms, so I'm not sure what will stay the same. Try watching this, it's a controls video:

Backstory: Okay, so way in the future, Earth's common language is Japanese (for some reason). Earth creates a jumpgate that links to a pre-existing network scattered across the universe and they make a bunch of terraformers to make planets habitable. Unfortunately, a buggy update meant that the terraformers continuously doubled their intelligence until they rebelled and started terraforming planets that were inhabited.

So, what happens is that when the terraformers, now called the Xenon, try to attack Earth, a group of people escape through the Earth jumpgate with the Xenon in tow and blow it. And Earth stays isolated for centuries while the people who lured the Xenon create the Argon civilization.

A guy from Earth ends up in the X Universe after the X-Perimental Shuttle (It's where the name came from) and proceeds to found Terracorp and fight against the Xenon. This is X: Beyond the Frontier. In X-2, a new threat shows up in the Kha'ak, who may or may not be an alien race of A.I.s. Anyway, through the course of X-2, X3: Reunion, X3: Terran Conflict and X3: Albion Prelude, the aliens who created the jumpgate system were watching what happened. And they shut the entire system down. X: Rebirth takes place a thousand years later, before they have turned the system back on.

edited 10th Aug '13 2:14:19 PM by Zendervai

I did watch the controls thing, but there still seems to be a great deal I'm missing.

I look forward to digging into it.

One interesting little twist to the formula I love is that no one knows where the different sectors actually are in space. They just know how the gates connect to each other. It's part of the reason shutting the gates down is such a disaster. The only two planets where the locations are confirmed are Earth and one of it's colonies.

I dunno, the controls doesn't seem too different from X3...and I think Freelancer is...well, much more simplistic than X...really fun, but if you compared to X, much smaller in scope...

Also, actually there's some other systems are known in physical space...Company Pride is actually Alpha Centauri, for one...and the Paranid managed to find physical location of Boron and Argon homeworld after the gate collapse and send message drones in...plus it's confirmed that at least, all the systems we know in X games are on Milky Way galaxy...

Also also: the Xenon didn't rebel due to double intelligence thing, it's due to goal drift...only #efaa and #deff became truly sapient, and that takes a LONG time...

Also: @Lanceleoghauni: if you want a comprehensive backstory (but with potential spoilers) try find X-Encyclopedia...

edited 10th Aug '13 8:48:30 PM by onyhow

BTW, preorder is up. If you get from Egosoft store you'll also get soundtrack download too...

edited 22nd Aug '13 6:24:23 AM by onyhow