Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2BYxSivFZEI started writting up a huge thing about this, then i remembered the friendly people at somethingawful posted a huge threada bout this, i've snipped it up abit but the full review and everything posted bellow this goes to them.
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2985240I honestly suggest reading the original thread, but this also skims the basics of that thread. Enjoy :)
My own thoughts on the game... Very complex, think of it as a space game where you are building a empire and military is second on your mind, you can cruise around in a single ship or control a giant fleet from your capital ship. Nothing beats cruising along to find a huge AI battle going on with capital ships.
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Argons: Humanity, separated from the Sol system several hundred years prior to X3: Terran Conflict. Their ships are average in every way, capable of doing any task but not being particularly great at it. Capital ships are huge monolithic bricks, while their small fighters resemble jet fighters in space. Allied with the Boron, and dislike the Paranid
Boron: Space hippy squids, pretty much. Their fighters are fast and poorly armed but have special weapons, and their capital ships are very powerful but usually have a big achilles heel. All their ships resemble aquatic life, and have iridescent hulls. Allied with the Argon, and dislike the Split
Teladi: Hyper-capitalistic amphibians. Their craft are slow as stuff and look like they were cobbled together from junk, but they have a forgetton of shields and huge cargo bays. Neutral to all races, including Pirates.
Paranid: Theocracy of beetle-like aliens. Their ships are some of the most powerful of all races, but have pathetic cargo bays and are usually very expensive. Ships look like something out of Star Trek. Allied with the Split, dislike the Argon.
Split: Humanoids obsessed with fighting (think Klingons). Their ships are very fast and powerful, but have poor shield strength. Ships are very angular and blade-like. Allied with the Paranid, and dislike the Boron.
Terrans: The human government residing in the Sol System, separated for hundreds of years from the Argon. Their ships are far superior in every way to the other races, but lack variety in weapons and are extremely expensive. All their ships are blindingly white, with their fighters looking like a futuristic jet-fighter and their capital ships looking like uh, LEGOs.
ATF: Not a race, but the military of the Terran government, specifically for dealing with the Xenon. Their ships are a mash of odd angles, and look somewhat like the Forerunner technology of Halo. They can easily overpower any single ship in the game.
Goner: Not a race, but a faction of Argon citizens that believed in the existance of
Earth. Their ships are unarmed and slow, but their capital ships are massive and can dock other capital ships to them.
Pirates: Not a race, but a faction comprised of every species in the X-universe. Their ships are old and outdated, with flame paintjobs. Their ships are usually stolen Argon, Teladi, and Split ships, with the occassional unique pirate-built ship. Attacks all races, except Teladi.
Xenon: Terraformer drones sent out by the Terrans hundreds of years ago, software glitch caused them to start "terraforming" everything, including stations and ships. Their ships have no generic stats, with each class having wildly different stats. Ships resemble partially finished buildings with their innards exposed. Attacks all races.
Kha'ak: Hive mind bugs. Their light fighters have paper armor and weak weaponry, but their capital ships are extremely powerful. Fighters look like flying pyramids, while the capital ships look like hives. Their fighter craft also tends to come into battle linked up, and then split when engaged. Attacks all races.
Yaki: Pirate faction. Their ships are usually customized Paranid ships, mixed with unique Yaki capital ships. Attacks all races, including Pirates
Race info done by saber15
Important info everyone asks about, read this first before you go any further:
Should I buy the X3: Gold bundle on steam?
NO! Just buy Terran Conflict. The games are mostly identical, and there is nothing in X3 Reunion that you do not get in Terran Conflict, unless you want to play the really, really crappy storyline missions (which is not why you play X3 in the first place), there's no reason to own Reunion AND Terran Conflict.
Should I do a custom start?
NO! Custom starts have none of the story content in it, and it cannot be enabled or turned on later, which means that there are many things in the game that you will not be able to get, such as the Player HQ. If you are just starting for the first time, pick the Terran Defender or Argon Patriot start. It has a basic tutorial and it gives you several excellent freebies to get you started. Do this start even if you want to be a trader, as it can be a long, slow, boring process to start becoming even remotely successful as a trader, this start will give you a leg up.
What is X3: Terran Conflict?
X3: Terran Conflict is a new stand alone expansion for the X3 universe. Egosoft has hired many of the talented members of the team that made the popular Xtended mod for the game, and integrated a lot of their ideas into the game, making it bigger and better in almost every way. They've redone the mission system, reworked the UI, and have even worked in better fleet management and command.
What exactly is X3?
X3 was the 3rd part of the long running series X of games based on space flight, exploration, trade, and combat. You can do almost anything in this game, from flying a fighter and hunt down pirates, or be a trader making money and building a trading empire, or you can be a fleet captain commanding capital ships waging war across the galaxy.
If you could think about it in comparison with other games, think of it like Freelancer, only much more detailed on every level. The space flight feels more like a flight sim, the trading is much more detailed. It is also claimed to be EvE Online the single player version. The scale of your ships, the size of your fleets, and the empires you create are on roughly the same scale as EvE. If you're oldschool, you can think of it as Elite for this generation.
If you see a ship in this game, with very few exceptions, you can purchase, command, and fly that ship, including the largest of battleships. Combat can be as small as you in a light fighter dog-fighting a single opponent, to your fleet of battleships and carriers deploying wings of fighters and frigates into massive frays of cannons and missiles flying everywhere. If you're good, you can even force pilots to eject, and you can steal their ships from them for yourself...
The trading in this game is very involved. You can ship goods between stations, or even build your own stations and manufacture goods. You can automate massive trading fleets to earn you money while you're off fighting the good fight. The economy is very alive, and will carry on without you. There are even AI corporations in Terran Conflict that will actively compete.
It's a very large game with a very large scale. Since it is such a large game, there can be a rather steep learning curve, but if you persevere, you can have one of the most amazing experiences in gaming.
What's so great about these Egosoft guys?
When X3 first came out, it received many bad reviews for being a buggy piece of poo poo. They poured over the game for a long time and fixed the game and re-released it in it's 2.0 version, and it was a much smoother, well polished game that was incredible to play. So, some of the bad review scores for the game will reflect the older broken game.
Egosoft as a company are great, they are very active in their community, spend a lot of time pouring through the user created content and actively support the content that is well polished and fits the game. They even hosted the Xtended mod on their website, and ended up hiring several of the mod team to work on Terran Conflict.
X3 was also one of the first games to drop Starforce protection from disc copies, and also to favor the Steam distribution method.
Since these changes, they've consistently released solid updates and incorporated plenty of good new content, some original, and some from the community itself giving lots of recognition to the community members who contribute.
So, what does this game look like?
Well, for a game with such scale, you would think it would sacrifice things visually. You would be wrong to think so, as this is one of the most gorgeous games I have ever played:
I'm sold, where do I get this?
On Steam right for $19.99, or get both X3: Reunion, and X3: Terran Conflict for $29.99
Should I buy the X3: Gold bundle on steam?
NO! Just buy Terran Conflict. The games are mostly identical, and there is nothing in X3 Reunion that you do not get in Terran Conflict, unless you want to play the really, really crappy storyline missions (which is not why you play X3 in the first place), there's no reason to own Reunion AND Terran Conflict.
There are disc versions available, and you can now enter your registration code from your disc version to activate the game on Steam!
What the hell do I do in this game I am so lost!
Turbo D posted:
This is pretty handy - Dummies Guide to X3:TC
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=268611
The learning curve with this game is huge, and it can take a long time to sort things out, but it's worth it. Just take baby steps as you play the game, and you should come out okay.
Take everything one slow step at a time. The world around you is patient enough for you to expand slowly. Don't feel like you need to learn the game all at once.
Here's pretty much the order of things you will want to do:
* Get good enough to stay alive in a dogfight and you can go a long way (hint: be sure to use WASD to strafe). Start out small attacking some of the lighter Pirate ships that are flying alone or in very small groups. Learn when to disengage to keep your shields up and avoid Hull damage. Repairing ships at stations is prohibitively expensive, so use your repair laser, no matter how long it takes, until you can afford to fix things.
* Learn how to upgrade your ship properly and help keep it in tip-top shape with good weapons that work well for you.
* Do some station defense missions. Most stations have little icons next to them. The red target is combat missions, go to the "comms" section of the station and find out what they want. If it's a station defense: do it. The ships attacking are focused on the station and not you, so you will not get swarmed, and you can take your time. You can earn a lot of money this way, and get better at fighting.
* Learn to capture a ship next, it'll be a good source of upgrades and free lumps of cash. Sell anything you get unless it's much better than yours, and you can afford to fix it. Learn how to transfer things between ships, so you can get wares and weapons off of captured ships, or transfer your weapons onto a better ship you have captured. The station defense missions should give you lots of opportunities to do this.
* Learn how to have an AI wingman. Keep one or two around, sell any other ships you capture till you earn some extra cash.
* Learn to explore, maybe buy yourself a light, REALLY fast ship (The Teladi Kestrel is the perfect choice for this), dock your combat ship somewhere (don't sell it) and go flying around to different sectors. Get to know where places are, places to stay away from, know where the right stations are to get the goods and gear you want. If you want to, map the whole galaxy. This will help later when you start trading, which leads to:
* Install EST and Learn how AI traders work. There's some good guides out there on how to get started. I personally think you should avoid doing trading yourself because it's REALLY slow. The ships are slow, the process is slow, and while you make a lot of money with relatively low risk... it's SLOW, and NOT FUN, like combat missions are!
* Learn how to manage a fleet of traders, and keep them running properly. Money will start flowing in quickly. Also, be aware that sometimes they will be destroyed, and there's very little you can do about it. Roll with it, replace the ships and keep going.
* Buy a TM class ship (like the Argon Magnetar). They're cheap. Get used to using a mobile base a bit, and how to manage your ships with a mobile home base.
* Buy your first Capital Class ship, one of the TL class Facility deployers and learn how to use Facilities, buying, deploying, and linking them. There's great guides for this as well. Do some station deploy missions with your new TS, they earn you a LOT of money with little investment of time and resources. Don't worry so much about Capital Class combat, because you're not in a position to do so yet with just a TL or TM.
* Buy an M6 to get a bigger, stronger ship. Get used to fighting in larger ships with turrets as a primary mode of combat.
* Buy a Destroyer (you will probably have to rep up quite a bit before you can). Learn how to outfit your ship with good weapons and how to use a Capital class ship in combat. There's some great guides for this too.
* Buy a Carrier - Learn how to use fighters as support weapons and managing a larger fleet, giving fleet orders to other ships and ordering them into combat effectively.
* Buy more Cap ships, buy a VARIETY of Cap ships, buy lots of facilities and Conquer the Galaxy / Start actually PLAYING the single player campaign.
There's no hurry to do ANYTHING in this game, take your time, and move at your own pace.
Combat Tips
Make sure that you're using "boresight shooting" (default to CTRL) when in a dogfight. All of the auto-aim systems in the game are disabled when you use mouse shooting (default right click)
Auto-aim has 3 modes: Off, Semi, and Full. Semi gives you a target leading point you can aim at, and full is proper Auto-aim that does most of the work for you. You need Fight Command Software MK1 for Semi, and MK2 for Full. You may have to turn on Auto-aim after you install the ware (default to K)
Use strafing! Especially against capital ships and their slower moving projectiles. Enemies shoot at where you're GOING to be, so even a slight adjustment to the left or right may save you a tonne of damage.
M5's are NOT for combat. Some people enjoy flying them because they're so fast, but they have absolutely no durability, and will be plinked out of the sky before you even know it. Unless you're a fantastic pilot, make sure you're flying at least an M4, preferably an M3. This rule is especially true for AI ships, if you assign them as wingmen, or launch them from a carrier, they will probably get killed really fast. There are some mods and wares that set them into recon modes, which is what they're best at.
Out Of Sector combat is determined by a turn based system. It's based on the power of the guns on your ship, and the armour and shields that it has. There's no consideration for mobility, or accuracy. A ship built for in sector fighting will die OOS, and an OOS set ship will die in sector. It's a bullstuff system, but that's how they built it. Make sure your OOS ships (the ones you have protecting your stations) have high damage capacity weapons (HEPT, PSP, etc.) and the best shielding. This system is why Xenon Q's run into your sector and wreck everything in sight, even much larger battleships and carriers.
This game is so SLOOOOOOW, it took me an hour to fly from one gate to another!
Turn on Time Compression, or SETA (Singularity Engine Time Accelerator). Default button is 'J'
You can change the amount of compression in the general options, anything above 10x is not recommended, as it has been known to cause problems.
Should I do a custom start?
NO! Custom starts have none of the story content in it, and it cannot be enabled or turned on later, which means that there are many things in the game that you will not be able to get, such as the Player HQ. If you are just starting for the first time, pick the Terran Defender or Argon Patriot start. It has a basic tutorial and it gives you several excellent freebies to get you started. Do this start even if you want to be a trader, as it can be a long, slow, boring process to start becoming even remotely successful as a trader, this start will give you a leg up.
List of ship classes:
Here is the list from the Manual, from largest to smallest
M1 = Carrier
M2 = Destroyer
M7 = Frigate
M7M = Missile Frigate
M8 = Bomber
M6 = Corvette
M3+ = Advanced Heavy Fighter
M3 = Heavy Fighter
M4+ = Advanced Medium Fighter
M4 = Medium Fighter
M5 = Light Fighter/Recon
Transports:
TL = Large Transport/Station Deployer (same class as M1/2, can carry 5-15 fighters)
TM = Military Transport (Carries 3-6 fighters, Marines, support ships)
TS = Freight Transport (Sector/Universe Traders)
TP = Transports (Useful for transporting people. Can transport and deploy Marines)
What does an S/M/L mean in the Shipyard?
S = Unequipped. Base model ship with no weapons or shields.
M = Basic equipment - Usually a lighter shield or two, (usually a class below the best that can be equipped). A light set of weapons
L = Fully equipped - full shields and a good set of weaponry
Regardless of S, M, or L, all of the ships base stats are still the same, only equipment is different. An Eclipse M3 S is going to be just as fast as the L version once they're fully upgraded.
Additionally, the base model of a ship can vary depending on the classification:
Raider: Faster, lighter shields, less cargo space.
Vanguard: Slightly faster, equal shields, better energy capacity
Sentinel: Slower, Heavy shields, less cargo
Hauler: Heavier Hull, Larger cargo capacity
Terran Campaign
How do I scan the Pirate Station?
Get within 500m of the station and stop, a "scanning" message should appear. Wait, and it will complete on it's own.
How do I know what ships to smuggler ships to scan?
Mission critical craft are shown at the TOP of the sector list, separate from the regular ships floating around.
Follow the ones at the top of the list and scan them.
They turn red, and are now attackable, kill them (slowly if you want to capture them (I've had a 50% capture rate so far})
DO NOT scan any of the ships that are in the full list of ships at the bottom of the list. Those are regular innocent people.
There are usually a bunch of Dukes transports there, they are already red, but they are NOT the guys you need to scan and kill. Kill them anyways (slowly for capturing of course), because it's good karma with the Teladi
How do I capture things?
* Fly close to the ship you want to capture. 60-100m at least. Make sure not to collide with it, as you will blow it up.
* Press "Shift+E" to bring up the eject confirmation. Select "Yes"
* Target the ship by clicking on it. Start moving forward slowly, and keep approaching slowly.
* At about 50m, with the ship targeted, press "i"
* As you close to about 40-30m the "Claim" option will appear. Press "Backspace" to stop moving.
* Select "Claim"
* If the ship is damaged, pull the trigger to fire your repair beam
* Repair the ship to full (this can take some time on large ships)
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