[Space Sim] X3: Reunion

[TimberWolf]

Expect me to be posting again in this thread after spring break. I will have a new computer system that should play this very well. I will probably start from scratch and not transfer my saves over.

Any new adventures for anyone?

[TimberWolf]

Got my new system up and running. Haven't finished transfering data between the computer by far but decided I needed a break before bed last night/this morning.

And so it begins. I installed X3 on the new system, patched it, defraged the system, and rebooted, the loaded it up. The default settings are all maxed out and the game went running like a well tunned machine. The intro sequence was not one bit jumpy like on my old machine. The mission when your flying through the city was so nice that I destroyed every enemy ship that came within my guns reach. So far the game only studdered once wail transitioning from a cinamatic scene to instant combat durring the first mission. Beyond that, its been perfect.

Here is where my new game stands:
Normal Game

Just completed the Talon Mission, during which I captured 2 Busters. One is badly damaged and the other is not below 50% hull. Neither gave me any equipment. Went off and got the two free ships up north and recovered two BPAC's for my own use, the other 2 weapons I left on the ship they were found on. All those ships were ordered back to Argon Prime where I will start figuring out how to make money and which ship to do that with. Nothing else planned so far. Thought about going after more free ships but my current one isn't even maxed out or fully armed so even if I got a ship I wanted I couldn't even kit it out to be worth it yet.

After breakfest, I will play some more again.

*EDIT*

At this very moment I am escorting 4 captured ships back to Argon Prime.
2 Falcon Vanguards
1 Falcon
1 Buzzard

All captured from the pirates in my little Buster. Either this game has gotten easier with the patches or because it runs better, or most likely its just a string of good luck for so early on. Been also running some trades back in Argon space for some money, not much. Was never good at long distance manual trading. Cant wait till I can get a transport going around under the control of UT.

*EDIT 2*

Argon Prime has been attacked by the Khaak, taking out a couple of stations and many ships. Argon One was the only capital ship left standing. Beyond that, nothing big has gone on. Captured a few more ships on my way out to Freedoms Reach and need to secure a path for them to get to Argon Space and get sold. Everything I have captured so far I have sold and also sold off one of the Free TP's I got and kept the other one for storage. I now have 2.25 million or so credits in my pocket.

I have taken on Pirate Nova's and they never came alone. It really hasn't been a challenge taking on two Nova's at the same time or a Nova with multiple escorts. In the past I use to run when I saw them in my Discoverer, but this time around I haven't. Still haven't maxed out the weapons on my ship, fighting with 4 BPAC's. Went to buy 2 BIRE's but found out I didn't have the relations with the Split high enough yet.

If it wasn't for the Bala gi missions, I would have started as a Bankrupt Assasin again. Later on I will go back through this thread and look at the limitations I had on myself on my other game and revamp them for this new round. It will be interesting to see what happens later on after having already seen how easy things currently are.

* EDIT 3*

On my way out of the Pirate sectors with my captures, which had a few addon along the way, I won a very powerful prize. I captured a Pirate Nova in reasonable shape. The funds to repair the thing exist and I can take the shields off out of the storage ship I have, currently holding 5 25 MW shields. The only problem is I don't have the weapons for it nor can I get the right one's any time soon. Right now I am just trying to make enough money to build a 1MW shield station in Ore Belt and have it running smoothly. I will then do as I had planned in my other game and make it self sufficent.

I am still following the plot, a bit slowly though. I'm at the point that I have to escort the Terracorp convoy to Paranid space. After that is the spy drone. I will probably hold off on the spy drone for a bit after I finish the escort and get my station complex started. I am going to have to look over what Argon space wants and start building them to earn some more money. I will then have to do more business with the split so I can get IRE's for my ships. Can't wait to get that Pirate Nova up and running fully armed.

[TimberWolf]

Got the pirate Nova decked out with weapons and equipment. It has some more staying power and better weapons then my original Buster but its speed is a huge disadvantage. I have found myself going back to my Buster for battle and leaving my Nova as a Wingman.

Completed the Black crystal mission yesterday. It took me 3 tries to get out of Xenon sector 101 alive without loosing a wingman. It was hard enough to just get to the gate, after sustaining some hull damage, let alone get past the patrol on the other side of the gate that seemed to have been waiting for me. My first attempted ended with me dieing there. The second attempt was the same but my Wingmen died on the way to help. The third was different as I was able to get to the gate faster and before the Xenon got to the other side so I was able to fly past them without being detected and get my Wingmen to me to help with the couple that didn't just fly by.

College Classes have started again so my game time will be little and limited to the weekends. But I am really enjoying myself in the game again.

[Starmage21]

Starshatter: The Gathering Storm is similar and fun

[TimberWolf]

These pictures are from when I started playing on my new system up to last weekend. I only just now downloaded a program to convert them into jpg. Over all I took 120 screen shots as I played. Here are some of the best with a little description of them.



One of the first Buzzards I saw. Never knew they had glowing paint on them until this new system.



The first of this type I captured, with only the two starter weapons. For a while I took a picture of every ship I captured next to my own, but not so much now.



Argon Prime under attack from a Khaak invasion. Moved all of my ships (5 at the time including myself) out of the system for a bit. The threat is gone now but so are several of the stations.



Another nice looking capture.



This capture got me completely by surprise. I had been killing them easy enough but to actually get one to turn blue was a wonder. I now have it kitted out and fly it when I am in hard fights. It isn't as good as the free Nova hiding out there but I haven't been out to get it. Need to build up my escorts for a while.



Went to get the Buster Sentinel in Adladna Hill (sp?) and found the Khaak invading here. By the time I left with the ship they had destroyed a solar power plant and was working on the teladi trading station.



All the dots you see around the station are Khaak scouts or fighters.



This ship nearly jumped into me when it entered the system.



Here is another look at it as I pass over it.



Another shot of my Nova, with weapons.



I did the crystal mission in Xenon Sector 101 in my Buster, which was both smart and dumb. Smart for the speed, dumb because I put the jump drive into the Nova and didn't get another one for the Buster. I had to fly out through all of that and then past a patrol on the other side of the gate without dieing as every Xenon in the sector turn against me when I grabbed the crystal. So many weapons were being dropped by the Xenon as they died, but I couldn't get to them safely.



My "Fleet" as it currently stands. I moved back over to the Nova. You can see that the Buster does have hull damage from the escape of Xenon might, but now I am surrounded by my ships and have extra fire power (not much in energy though).

As for Starshatter, I am currently not able to put money into anything right now after building this new system. So until it goes on the $10 shelf, I can't consider it. Looks nice, but also sounds very structured. X3 is open and allows you to do what ever you want as it is built as a sandbox style game.

[XMEN Iceman]

Man...your new system does a MUCH better job on graphics than before. I am enjoying the pics. VERY cool.

So the system stable and running good?

[TimberWolf]

There have been a couple of small, and so for unreproducible problems. I did have the system suddenly reboot when I turned my printer off earlier this week. The game did have some problems in X3 once, but can't duplicate it. Beyond that its been great. Haven't tried recording TV shows yet, but the TV tuner card is working as good as it did on the other system. During combat in X3 I will see very little to no lag in the frames. Only in Sector 101 did I see prolonged frame gaps only when I looked where 100+ ships were fighting it out.

I haven't tried any other high end games on it yet even though I have installed Age of Empires 2, Sim City 4, and The Sims 2. This weekend I may try another high end game to give it a try. Over all I have been very happy. I play Joint Operations with my room-mate and two other friends and have been able to run that game on full graphics with no problems or lag on my end which I do see on my room-mates computer (which is also the server).

[TimberWolf]

This is one destroyer of the Khaak invasion of Emperors Mines which I had to repeatedly fly into and dock at the Trading station for the story missions. Surprising nothing has been destroyed besides trade ships.



Here is my "New" ship, called Speed Star. It is a captured Pirate Buster with a top speed of 199 m/s. It is the fastest thing I own and it packs a good punch with its 8 BIRE's. Its weak on shields though.



Went back to Sector 101 and picked up the Freebie ship there. It has a tiny cargo hold and just as much shields as my new buster.



Captured a Xenon ship on the way out with shields still on board. Its currently heading over to Teladi space where I will choose its fate.



Another look at my new M as it flies off to safety, after passing through yet another Pirate sector.



Another look at Emperors Mines later on after having done some things else where.



Passing through Paranid Prime to get to the next trigger for the story to continue.

*EDIT*

I have reached the final battle of the story plot. The missions quickly threw me across the universe where I have yet to explore and in a ship thats not maxed out. I have my Speed Star flying to me so I can jump into it if needed. My computer is having some problems with so many cut scenes. At one point it caused my system to restart. After I finish the plot, onto building up my economic empire (which I have nothing laid out for it), and to start the Bala Gi missions. I think the first thing I'm going to do since I'm out here is to pick up some more free ships, such as the second Buster Sentinel and the Nova.

*EDIT 2*

Finished the story last night, picked up the second Buster Sentinel, and Nova. Finished selling some ships that have been hanging around for a while to be stripped. So now my fleet consists of 2 Nova's and 4 Busters, all fully equipped. I have to do some capturing and earn some money to start building stations. So time to go out hunting with my escorts. Maybe a visit to Pirate Alley is in order and pick up that freebie ship down there along with any donations the locals are willing to hand over.

[Spinning Hat]

After all this talk of EVE online, I decided it might be worth a second look at X3, since I got a new vid card, and the 2.0.02 patch and all... Any tips? Advice? is it worth playing through the storyline, or should I just venture out on my own right away? I think X3 will be able to fill the need of a "sandbox" type game without having to pay a monthly fee, but some multiplayer would sure be nice.. Maybe in X4? Who knows....

[TimberWolf]

The story line is a decent way to explore parts of the universe and introduce you to some features. This new game of mine is the first time I actually did the story all the way through. If you just want to have a sandbox game then I would choose one of the non-story line starts. That way there are no leftovers from the story line floating around like in my game.

My suggestions when starting, do some basic trading and max out your starting ship with a good weapons load and full tunings. Once you get that far you can venture off into Pirate space east of Argon sectors and try your hand at capturing ships, which can bring in more money per hour at that stage if your lucky. Once you get about a million credits, head into Split space and buy a Caimen Transport from them, the L model (most expensive) is little under 350,000 credits. Max it out, install Trading software, fight software, and then send it to a Teladi equipment dock to install it with the Trading Mark 3 software and any software you couldn't get from the Split. Have it stop by a Boron equipment dock for a Triplex scanner, and if needed stop by an Argon equipment dock for anything you couldn't get from anyone else. With that done have it fly to Empires Edge and start him as a Sector Trader. Soon enough it will be high enough level to be a Universal Trader. Rinse and repeat until you feel like you have enough, but only have one Sector trader in each sector.

As for my current game, I have it a slump. Only got one capture last night but I have started up one Universal Trader and another Sector Trader. The worthless mine the plot gave me is acting as my Bank for them to operate from. I currently have no credits in my own hands and about 200,000 credits for those two ships to play with. I fly around with 5 wingmen and have a freebie ship doing some exploration for me. I have been looking for assassination missions or Xenon invasion missions but no luck on either count. Once I get a couple of UT's going I plan on introducing Bo gas factories (cost about 180,000 credits I think) to Argon Prime where there are about 9 factories in surrounding sectors that will use it as a secondary resource. With luck I can build about 4 or 5 of them in a complex and let that run on its own. I will then look around and find other gaps in the economy to start filling up in other races to help jump start some dead areas (Argon Prime is rather dead in my game after a Kha'ak invasion early on).

My personal goal in this game is to conquer pirate ally (all three sectors) and make that my home sectors. I will populate them with massive complexes for the production of ships and arming of them. I intend to wipe out the Pirates and then maintain their nearly zero population across the universe. I will then start to conquer the Xenon, starting with sector 101. I hope to then be at a point where I can launch a full scale invasion of Kha'ak space and start clearing them out. All of this will probably take a couple of years in real life at the current rate I am going. Once I get my financial feet planted and those small complexes running smoothly, I expect rapid expansion of my combat fleet and some sector defenses starting to be assembled for those complexes. Initial sector defense will consist of an Argon Centaur and two Eclipses. Eventually they will be augmented with Xenon LX's as they become available. Sector defenses will eventually expand to the the surrounding systems. Once ample defenses are in place I will begin the clearing of Pirate ally, which will spawn pirates across the universe in an attempt to maintain their population. My sector defenses should be enough to protect my assets and help prevent some of them from returning to Pirate ally. There are a lot more details I have to get pinned down to make this all work, but those are for later. Also I hope to have a couple of capital ships in my fleet to help in my en devour. Once I get the Player Headquarters placed, I will begin pumping out Xenon LX's to provide protection for my new sectors until I can spare my M7 (when I get the Bala Gi missions) to be reversed engineered and then massed produced.

[XMEN Gambit]

Is the X3 AI capable of effectively holding/defending multiple sectors for you?

[TimberWolf]

From what I have read and seen, a patrol consisting of an M6 and 2 or more M3's or M3+'s is able to hold their own. There is a script, I think its part of the bonus pack, that allows you to assign an M6 or greater to patrol multiple sectors (but it costs you a maintenance fee for the crew). I currently don't plan on doing that as that could allow more pirates to sneak through.

A player on the X-forums said he used an Elephant to patrol 5 Pirate sectors and the only times it ever called for help was when the rare Xenon P Patrol came in. Another player said he blocked off Pirate ally with an M7 an two M3+'s with only the rare Harrier making it through. The only times I have read about were the AI fails is when a Pirate, Xenon, or Kha'ak invasion force passes through. At those times the defense patrols are just over whelmed. Beyond that there is only the occasional loss of an M3 or M3+.

[TimberWolf]

The following pics are from last night:



My first assassination mission ended with a big boom (from them not me)



A fresh capture, shortly after this I captured a Pirate Buster. They will both be sold to fund my space station construction projects.



Here the Buster I received from a nice boron fella.

Currently in my Game:
I have two Plankton farms linked together in Argon Prime. They have a single Mercury using the Commercial Agent software to buy and sell for it. Currently that ship is dumb but its slowly leveling up. Before building those stations I was in the process of exploring the North East region of the Universe but was called back by my first UT who was attacked in Pirate space. Since then I haven't gotten very but have continued to use the Exploration software to map out more sectors.

[TimberWolf]

Another Friday night of playing when I should have been studying.

Here is whats going on in my Universe:
1. My prior venture into pirate ally has caused pirate activities in all sectors to increase by 100%. Because of this I spent the better part of my time jumping around the Universe protecting my two UT's.

2. I have picked up the free Falcon Sentinel and Harrier Sentinel.

3. Started training a third UT.

4. Destroyed my first Xenon patrol.

5. Captured a Pirate Nova is very good condition, but sold it because of lack of funds for my station building.

6. My first two UT's are almost max level and are raking in the credits. I have all UT's based out of the un-usable ore mine you get from the plot so i can easily see their profits. Currently I have it set to start transferring credits to me when it goes above 5 million.

7. My Plankton farms are now working well. I originally had a Commercial Agent serving it but due to its low level all it would do is buy energy cells. When the AI didn't come picking up the plankton I ended up having to buy my own seller to work.

8. Kha'ak clusters have been doing more sight seeing through out the Universe. Originally they didn't appear much and they still don't really do much damage to the ships flying by as they don't go in and attack everything. But they have gotten a lot bigger.

9. Trying to figure out why Kingdoms End has no energy cells in it but every sector around it are maxed out. The economy in that strip or Boron space is at a stand still because of it. All the low end products are maxed out in everything but the high end can't produce until they get energy cells. I may have to by a freighter to manually do this to get them running again. Either that or save up and build a SPP in Kingdoms End to supply them directly. There are plenty of Crystal fabs around there to handle it.

10. Once I get a good stream of credits rolling in I will begin construction of my Ore Belt complex which will be the corner stone of my economic empire in that region of space. I just have to ship some mines over from half way across the universe to get the max out of the asteroids I have chosen.

11. Once the Ore Belt complex is done I will construct similar complexes in one sector for each of the four races. Each of these will be surrounded by smaller complexes or stand alone stations to further reinforce the surrounding economy to help produce even more profit.

12. Due to the low amount of money in my personal pocket the Bala Gi missions haven't started yet. I would like to get them going soon just to get the M7 and M3+'s but I don't want to start it with out ample supply of money on hand. I have read and heard from other players that the Bala Gi missions cost millions but pay back far more in the end.

*EDIT*

Ok, I couldn't resist it:

as part of the Bala Gi mission I had to go into this


I eventually get to a sector where I find this


Getting closer I see the treasure


I'm told I have to tow it to a shipyard 3 sectors away, but I don't have a ship that can mount the right equipment, until now (the one towards the top)


I had a freighter jump in with shields, weapons, and the towing laser of the Nemesis


The first gate passing, on the other side is a mine field I never cleared and then another two sectors beyond that is my target station


Everything that looks like it should be dead was found with the Nemesis and Yacht (the Nemesis top speed was 17 due to only having 1% hull left like the rest). All other damaged ships were captured on my way back out


Now the Yacht is mine


After I returned to Kingdoms End I was given an M3+ but took no pics.

*EDIT*

Took the Yacht for a spin around Emperors Mines, where a Kha'ak fleet has been since I don't know when. Destroyed the fighters and a Carrier on one shield charge. Sorry no pictures of that since I was busy trying to stay in the Carriers shadow and was painfully watching the shields edge towards failure. After that I did a quick peek into Xenon Sector 101 and took out two of their capital ships before having to retreat.

Post Kha'ak carrier battle:


Beauty shot with my eclipse docked:


One of two assassination missions done in the M7, the first was a freighter:


The Split Dragon is slowly making its way across the universe with my Fighter fleet in tow (some what). Still in the process of going through the captured and claimed ships to determine what stays and what goes.

Using the money that was collecting in my account, while I was baby sitting the Dragon as it towed the M7 at a snails speed, and have bought the ground work to my Ore Belt Complex. The two mines should arrive there some time next year from half way across the Universe. I have another Mammoth waiting in Ore Belt with a shield fab, Wheat farm, and something else I can't remember. When they all get there I will have 1 Silicone Mine L, 1 Ore Mine L, 1 Cahoona Bakery L, 1 Cattle Ranch L, 1 Wheat Farm L, and a 1 MW Shield Fab, along with anything else I forgot. All of that will cost me about 10 million credits when it gets constructed and loaded.

*EDIT* 5/5/07

Umm, this pic sums up last night:


That is Xenon sector 101 and that is the last Xenon ship left in it. Thats all I did last night.

[TimberWolf]

A Kha'ak Carrier in Akeela's Beacon meeting its maker, finally. Its been there for a long time, since I got the freebie ship from there.



A view I had for about an hour. Note, my hull is less than a third of full. This destroyer would accelerate, turn, decelerate, and stop to try to get me to get out of its blind spot or run into it.





There was one station left when I got there, but I had to use it for cover to even approach the Kha'ak destroyer.



Decided for a "Family" shot:







In the above Fleet shots are (name):
1 Hyperion Yacht (Command Cruiser)
1 Paranid Nemesis (Nemesis)
1 Argon Eclipse (Eclipse)
1 Xenon LX (LX Guard)
1 Argon Buster (Quick Strike)
1 Pirate Buster (Speed Star)
2 Argon Buster Sentinels (Sentinel 1&2)
1 Argon Nova (White Night)
1 Pirate Nova (Red Night)

The LX and Eclipse both ride with the Command Cruiser.

I have about another 6 ships waiting in line to either be repaired or scrapped. But after repairing the Eclipse after the Kha'ak battle, which cost me over 3 million credits, I was forced to sell many fighters waiting including two other Xenon LX's. Now I am working on rebuilding my funds to continue expanding my Ore Belt Complex. I have started a sector patrol in Ore Belt with the Nemesis, the two Nova's and the two Sentinels. On their first loop around they found two Kha'ak clusters. I think they have it out for me now since I have been destroying their fleets in known space.