X3 is nothing like Freelancer

mwmorph

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2004
8,877
1
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So I played through Freelancer and it was fantastic, pick u[ and play controls, action oriented, and most of all fun.

On that note, I picked up X3 and holy mother of god, it has more controls than anything else I have ever seen. At least Steel Battalion had it's own controller. I played around for 30 minutes with no idea where to go and what to do before I quit, hell I couldn't even master the controls since, conservatively, there's at least 200 keys to be mapped in that game.

No I enjoy space combat games like Descent, Freespace, Freelancer, etc, but X3 was just too complex and sim like, lacking in that whole action/fun aspect. Does anyone have any recommendations for arcadey space combat games that aren't so imposing to play and preferably have some sort of trade/ship upgrade system and possibly an open world? I can grasp complex elements, but I want a game, not some sort of spaceflight/life/work simulator.
 

ZzZGuy

Golden Member
Nov 15, 2006
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Go to the egosoft forums and look for threads with people asking questions that you have. Be aware that any question you have has already been asked a few hundred times.

Your best bet is to play the skirmish "tutorial" and look through the control options to find out how to do what you want (like turning on a rear turret). Also be aware that X3 does not have a learning curve, it's a sheer cliff which you are pushed off of at the start of the game.

Along with the learning curve, I hope you know that it will take you a minimum of a month to build a fleet, a few months to a year to build one big enough to conquer the entire galaxy without using cheats. Do NOT be afraid to use cheats. You also can't be in the same system as your big fleet is as all your fighters will suicide themselves on various objects due to bad collision detection and it will be horribly laggy. It's a single player MMO. You may want to try X3: Terran Conflict as they claim that it is faster paced, but the Steam version (and only the steam version) has online activation AND install limits, the DVD has a CD check but both use seucrom.
 

ConstipatedVigilante

Diamond Member
Feb 22, 2006
7,670
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X2/X3 have the learning curve of trying to actually fly a spaceship - it's ridiculous. But once you get the hang of it, the games are really fun - there's just so much to do. Unfortunately, there aren't very many straight space combat games today. If you haven't played it already, try the Freespace series; it's gotten a graphical overhaul from the mod community and it's incredible.
 

AmberClad

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2005
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If you don't mind older games, there's Tachyon: The Fringe. I've also played the demo for Independence War, and that's an action-oriented space sim -- not sure how "open" it is though.
 

IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,520
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X3 takes too damn long.

I used a German trainer when I played to get some creds after beating the SP campaign. Even then it's a pain to outfit a bunch of capital ships and warp into a xenon cluster.
 

Liet

Golden Member
Jun 9, 2001
1,529
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Independence War 2 is one of the finest space sims ever created. You need a few minor mods to get the most out of it though.
 

ConstipatedVigilante

Diamond Member
Feb 22, 2006
7,670
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Originally posted by: Liet
Independence War 2 is one of the finest space sims ever created. You need a few minor mods to get the most out of it though.

So true. That game just plain kicks ass.
 

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
6,278
6
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Originally posted by: PepperBreath
Darkstar One is very similar to Freelancer. If you liked Freelancer, you'll like Darkstar One.

DSO is an inferior Freelancer in pretty much every way, but not by much.

Its almost like a carbon copy with the minor imperfections that carbon paper often comes with.

Definately worth picking up and its available on Steam.
 

mwmorph

Diamond Member
Dec 27, 2004
8,877
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Originally posted by: Liet
Independence War 2 is one of the finest space sims ever created. You need a few minor mods to get the most out of it though.

What mods?

I'll look into getting Tachyon sometime, no idea from where though since it's from u8 years ago. Maybe I'll get Darkstar one instead.
 

Mem

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
21,476
13
81
Originally posted by: PepperBreath
Darkstar One is very similar to Freelancer. If you liked Freelancer, you'll like Darkstar One.

Darkstar One is not as good as Freelancer ,I even tried SpaceForce Rogue Universe which was a let down too.

X3 is very hard and daunting for a beginner but actually quite easy to play once you know what to do,the trick is save money by doing trading until you can afford a Mecury transporter(dont forget engine tune for max speed,time is money) then send it out earning money then repeat until you have 10 or 11 of these(dont forget trade software mk3 which is 500k but worth every penny), as to energy cells which are needed everywhere so find a sector that has demand for these and has no energy cell factory(Solar Power Plant) within 2 or 3 sectors and plant it there,again keep repeating the process.


I'm making so much money now I wonder why players find this game hard,its not ,just takes time to know the basics.

Trick with trading is to buy cheap and sell for a profit,I was buying ore and energy cells cheap then selling them to factories for a profit within a sector or two,its tedious at first since you need to build up your cash but with time and effort its well worth it.

Plenty of beginner's guide at the X3 forums,got me on the right track and not far off a billionaire ;).

You can buy a police licence if your ranking is high enough so everytime you kill a pirate ship you earn cash,don't forget to pick up any loot they drop and sell it.

X3 Basics.

Great thing about X3 is you can play it like you want,want to build an empire or kill pirates and get a rep,explore/trade it has it all.
 

lozina

Lifer
Sep 10, 2001
11,711
8
81
Yeah X3 has quite the learning curve but it is definitely a worthwhile investment IMO. It comes close to the fun I had in Independence War 2 which is at the top of my list. One of my favorite things in X3 was getting other pilots to abandon their ships so that I can sell them and building complex space stations.

One problem I had is once I found out the game has a detailed scripting engine players can tap into I started spending all my time coding instead of playing and it kind of wore the game out for me!
 

Liet

Golden Member
Jun 9, 2001
1,529
0
0
Originally posted by: mwmorph
Originally posted by: Liet
Independence War 2 is one of the finest space sims ever created. You need a few minor mods to get the most out of it though.

What mods?

I'll look into getting Tachyon sometime, no idea from where though since it's from u8 years ago. Maybe I'll get Darkstar one instead.

The only one I remember specifically is one that changes Jaf's silly 6-container tug to a 20-container ship, so you don't have to hang around aimlessly for 20 minutes while he collects cargo.

Hrm, let's see...
Ok, I just checked http://www.i-war2.com/downloads.htm (GREAT for mods)
I remember using the Custom Jafs, Manual Countermeasures, No Launch Sequence, Location Finder (AWESOME), and a few minor ones to screw around with (like one that replaces the Command Section with a Police PatCom, complete with supercool red and blue lights! Wheeee! Stop that vessel, you're over the speed limit!)

Ton of cool custom mods for that game... God, I miss the sound of that engine warming up as you double-clicked the Launcher... Sigh.
 

brandonb

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 2006
3,731
2
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I just started playing X3 about a month ago. I bought it way back when, didn't like it for the same reasons as you, just didn't have any clue about what the hell is going on, so I uninstalled and shelved it. But then I heard so many good things about it once you get over the learning curve, so I tried again a month ago.

Now I feel sad that I gave up on it so early. Its really a good game, but it does have its flaws.

I watched some tutorial videos about the UI. There was a 3 parter someone wrote up, but I do not see them on Youtube, try searching egosoft site. It helped alot.

Here are my pointers to help you get on your feet:

1) If you want a story (well something to do) you have to play with storymode enabled. When you start a new game, it lists storymode or not. Keep in mind, even with storymode enabled, it's hard to know exactly whats going on. I pretty much beat the game before restarting (didnt get to the end but close), and I really still have no idea what happened.

From what I believe happened: You start the game and are delivering a crystal so some goner guys, and in the process of delivering it, it gets stolen by a pirate. You have to then go beat that pirate up and get info out of him, and found out it was stolen by some Yaki (a race of pirates rather than random pirates) and they are building a gate (warp gate) to earth. I won't give out anymore, but as you play with story mode, just keep that in mind.

2) The controls aren't really all that hard once you figure it out. The hardest thing to get over the learning curve is to realize theres 2 modes with the mouse. "Flight mode" and "Cursor mode" you right click between the two. Once you get into cursor mode, you can click on things on the screen, like your target, and click little icons on the screen, such as dock. Then it goes and docks you at the target. There is also a little icon on the bottom right of the screen that looks like a "<" or email icon. You can click that and it brings up a list of menus or other screens. The main one being is "Command console".

3) Remember that in flight mode, you are the pilot of the space craft. Using the command console is like being a captain on star trek. You give orders to your ship or your crew and they execute the plan. If you go to command console with your ship, you can order it to dock at a certain place and then the computer/ship takes control with autopilot and does the operation. You can do many things with the command console. If you visit the equipment docks, and other places, you can buy ship upgrades, this is basically software you install on your ship to expand the command console to do more things.

4) If you click through that lower right icon and find the menu, the first one has things like "pilot", "property", "ship". Thats the main thing to look up info about you, the things you own, and your ship, obviously. Pillot lets you see your stats, your factions with other races, reading your email. The property ill get into in a minute. Ship lets you look at what weapons are installed, whats in your cargo bay, and lets you eject whatever.

5) Property or the "r" key on the keyboard lets you bring up property screen. Thats going to be your ship, or any other things you own. If you click on these, you can bring up the command console, or other things and is probably the main screen I have up at all times when having a fleet. Keep in mind, this is an empire building game first, a real time strategy, and a space "shoot em up" 2nd. But that was more of my preference, you could focus on the shootem up aspect entirely. Usually after I get about 5 ships, I usually just take my ship near a space station and bark orders the rest of my gametime, and fly around very little.

6) Goal of the game: To make money, build up a fleet, take over the world. Or whatever you want it to be. If you want to beat the story only, then play story and forget the rest. If you want to make a billion credits, then make that your objective. Want to kill all enemies or have a fleet of destroyers, thats up to you. You get out of the game what you put into it. There are some cool missions with the storemode mode enabled. Like sneaking through an asteroid in your spacesuit avoiding security monitors to find objects, or to fly a spaceship through a big spacestation insides to blow up its reactor (think star wars death stars fighting xwing through the thing and going through tunnels and crap). So, it can be pretty cool at times.

7) When you first start the world, every race has a ton of ships, pirates, bad guys, good guys. And they are placed accordingly. But the pirates will go into good sectors and get destroyed, so it seems after time the amount of "easy pickings" becomes harder. You won't find pirates in good sectors very much later on because they've all been killed. So the first thing to do is this: Fly around good sectors that are "border" worlds. (hitting the , (comma) key will bring up the world map and tell you if its border security or not). It only lists where you've been so you have to fly through jump gates. Find some pirates or bad guys. And shoot em up. Certain races are more "wimps" than others. For example, boron pirates will likely bail out of their ship alot more likely than teladi. Once they bail, steal their ship and sell it. You can't really tell which race is what, but when you fight them they usually say something like "Now you know what it will be like to face a boron in battle." Once you get them down on shields and start killing their hull, they are more likely to bail than the others, so start taking small shots at them, instead of unloading. Because if they bail you might blow up their ship anyways. They usually tell you when they bail "Take my ship, leave me alone!" and they eject so stop firing.

8) To claim a ship as yours once they eject, you have to bring up the little menu in the bottom right, and click eject. That puts you in the spacesuit. Fly within 30 meters of the ship, click the button right button again, click target, and then click claim. Now fly back to your ship and re-enter it. Now you can command it with teh command console and the property screen.

9) Shields are important and probably the most important thing to get for your ship to live. You need about 50mj worth of shields to take on most groups of pirates. You won't get that with normal sized fighter, only about 15 mj, so its likely until you get a bigger ship or more shields, you won't be able to take on very much. For this reason I usually start on the mode "bankrupt assassin" which is a non story mode game mode. They give you a bigger fighter to start off with.

10) Ship types. If you click on a ship on the screen and hit "i" for information, it will list the ship type.

TS is transport small
TL is transport large
M5 scout ships usually about 5mj shields at most and a small laser but very fast.
M4 normal fighter about 15 mj shields and a few lasers.
M3 a large fighter, 50-75mj shields and 8 lasers, maybe a turret (rear gunner). (Think Defiant in Star Trek)
M6 a small capital ship. 125 mj shields, usually 3 turrets. (Think Enterprise in star trek TNG)
M2 is a carrier, has hanger bays for M5-M3's I think.
M1 is a destroyer, lots of guns.
M0 is a battleship.

If you are an M4, you can usually take on a lone M3 provided it does not have a turret, and manuouver around it and take it out. I usually hunt these when I start because they sell for alot. Once you claim it, order it to a shipyard and sell it.

11) Remote control trading. Once you have something to trade with (another ship, hopefully TS), you have to install "Trade system extension" on the ship you are flying. This allows you to bring up the property screen and right below "command console" you can select "trade with station" That way you can trade remotely from another ship and have them buy things as you would in your own ship.

Thats enough for now! But with those 11 things you should get through most things and find more happiness within the game.
 

Martimus

Diamond Member
Apr 24, 2007
4,488
153
106
Wing Commander IV was my favorite space fighter game, although that was back in '96. (It doesn't seem like that long ago ... )

I think I might try out X3 and Freelancer though.
 

brandonb

Diamond Member
Oct 17, 2006
3,731
2
0
Originally posted by: Mem


X3 is very hard and daunting for a beginner but actually quite easy to play once you know what to do,the trick is save money by doing trading until you can afford a Mecury transporter(dont forget engine tune for max speed,time is money) then send it out earning money then repeat until you have 10 or 11 of these(dont forget trade software mk3 which is 500k but worth every penny), as to energy cells which are needed everywhere so find a sector that has demand for these and has no energy cell factory(Solar Power Plant) within 2 or 3 sectors and plant it there,again keep repeating the process.

Hey Mem, do you ever find that your traders get stuck in a loop buying/selling between two stations and only like 2 quantity at a time with the unviersal trader?
 

IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,520
5,712
136
You can also install mods like X-tended and the real space backgrounds mod, but be warned, they slow the game down a LOT. Although that was with my X850XT, I doubt I'll be getting much slowdown with the HD3850...
 

Malladine

Diamond Member
Mar 31, 2003
4,618
0
71
best game of this type was Frontier: Elite II :)

there was one that had the guy from evil dead in it...Tr...something....UGH, i didn't play it but always wanted to...

Also +1 for Wing Commander.

Freelancer was good but I didn't complete it, seemed to get too repetitive. Or i didn't have the patience, or both!
 

Mem

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
21,476
13
81
Originally posted by: brandonb
Originally posted by: Mem


X3 is very hard and daunting for a beginner but actually quite easy to play once you know what to do,the trick is save money by doing trading until you can afford a Mecury transporter(dont forget engine tune for max speed,time is money) then send it out earning money then repeat until you have 10 or 11 of these(dont forget trade software mk3 which is 500k but worth every penny), as to energy cells which are needed everywhere so find a sector that has demand for these and has no energy cell factory(Solar Power Plant) within 2 or 3 sectors and plant it there,again keep repeating the process.

Hey Mem, do you ever find that your traders get stuck in a loop buying/selling between two stations and only like 2 quantity at a time with the unviersal trader?

Not yet,you got the latest patch installed?
 

ZzZGuy

Golden Member
Nov 15, 2006
1,855
0
0
Originally posted by: Mem
Originally posted by: brandonb
Originally posted by: Mem


X3 is very hard and daunting for a beginner but actually quite easy to play once you know what to do,the trick is save money by doing trading until you can afford a Mecury transporter(dont forget engine tune for max speed,time is money) then send it out earning money then repeat until you have 10 or 11 of these(dont forget trade software mk3 which is 500k but worth every penny), as to energy cells which are needed everywhere so find a sector that has demand for these and has no energy cell factory(Solar Power Plant) within 2 or 3 sectors and plant it there,again keep repeating the process.

Hey Mem, do you ever find that your traders get stuck in a loop buying/selling between two stations and only like 2 quantity at a time with the unviersal trader?

Not yet,you got the latest patch installed?

They do that sometimes, you have to reset them somehow but I've forgotten how to do that.

-Edit- Oh and as they level up they search more sectors for goods to buy and sell, so if they are low level UT's then those two stations might be the only thing available to them where you left them at. I found the best sector to level them up in is the one directly below [something] prime, that race below the argons on the map where you start off at.