X3: Terran Conflict

Trade rep won't regress for eons. Battle rep regresses a little faster but it's still very slow. I think that feature is mostly designed to discourage parking yourself in some out-of-the-way sector, turning on the fast speed, and just leaving the game running overnight while your factories churn out money.

800K is quite a bit! That's actually enough to buy a small factory but probably not enough to get it on its feet.

Right now I think the thing to do would be to buy a tricked-out scout and do some scouting. Be sure to get a trade extension on it so you can keep telling your trader to buy and sell goods (having best buys/sells on the trade ship helps that out a lot). A mineral scanner is handy, too, as that will let you do asteroid scan missions. Those missions can pay out nicely and, since you are going to want to scan the sector anyway, you might as well do them.

Another thing on the "to do" list would be placing satellites. Having a nav or advanced satellite anywhere in a sector lets you see the prices for all the factories you know about in that sector. Personally, I like to place these in "safe" sectors only. Later on, I can tell all my traders to only trade in sectors that have a satellite in them as an easy way to keep them out of the danger zones.

Third thing on my 'to do' list would be to make nice with the Yaki. You'll see the occasional Yaki sitting in a sector offering a battle mission. It will likely be an assassination mission. The mission should be really easy early in the game so it shouldn't do much damage to your reputation. It only takes one or two of those for the Yaki to like you and that will pay off down the line.

Oh you could start going toward the battle route. You can get yourself a decent M4 with that kind of cash and start blasting pirates/xenon/kha'ak for cash.

The jump drive burns some energy cells to take you to the sector gate of any sector. The further away the sector is the more cells it burns. Works great for trade ships. Doesn't work at all well for small fighters because they don't have enough cargo space to carry many energy cells. (Though it can still be enough to pop the fighter over a nasty Xenon sector.)

You could certainly start the "main" Terran Conflict quest right now, assuming you know where Omincron Lyre is located, but you will need a fighter to do that one. An M4 would be more than enough. The Gonar's quest (which starts in a sector pretty close to Omincron Lyre) might fit your style a little better. Or you could do both at the same time if you like. Both of them are actually disguised advanced tutorials.

Egosoft's main quests are a bit like Bethesda's - there are plenty of opportunities to put the quest down. In fact, you're expected to do so. You definitely don't have enough on hand to finish either quest but you aren't supposed to have that much. If you did, the first two thirds of each quest would be really trivial.

P.S. Be nice to pirates and they will be nice to you! Well, that's over stating it. Be nice to pirates and they won't shoot you on sight ALL the time, just some of the time.

P.P.S. I wouldn't try starting the expansion until you were comfortable using TLs and M7s or M2s. You get an M6 in that game very quickly and an M7 not long after that. Those are some pretty serious ships for brand new players to be trying to control.
 
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Thanks for all the advice!

Right now I think the thing to do would be to buy a tricked-out scout and do some scouting. Be sure to get a trade extension on it so you can keep telling your trader to buy and sell goods (having best buys/sells on the trade ship helps that out a lot). A mineral scanner is handy, too, as that will let you do asteroid scan missions. Those missions can pay out nicely and, since you are going to want to scan the sector anyway, you might as well do them.

Do I need the MK3 trade extension to have my transport trade autonomously while I pilot the scout? Right now my argon rep isn't high enough to buy a MK3.
 
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MK3 makes it completely autonomous. Drop it in a sector that's good for trading and it will toodle around inside the sector, trying to make money. After some time, the trader will advance in level and be able to go around in 2 sectors. Then more sectors. Then ANY sector.

Mk3 traders do a lot better if they have a jump drive. Having lots of satellites around the world helps, too.

I wouldn't worry about the Mk3 yet, though. You've only got a fleet of 2. It's easy enough to just to control the trader by hand. Wait until you've got a few more ships and then put the Mk3 trader in on a superfreighter with a jump drive.

By the way, have you noticed the people selling beat-up ships? The little ones (and some of the not so little ones) are often a good buy if they are more than, oh, 30% damaged or so. After you buy the ship you can repair it with your repair laser (get out of your ship and in your space suit then 'shoot' the ship with your repair laser). It's a nice way to get your first ships. You can make a profit this way, too, though it's likely the most boring way you could possibly make money.

Have you gotten the bonus pack yet from Egosoft? Those CAG traders are great for maintaining factories.
 
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Just get an Argon Mercury Express and max it's speed and get a jump drive. Then look for passenger missions - they are easy and make huge amounts of money in the early game. I think I made roughly 100 million in less than 8 hours.

Look for the "$" signs on bases, those are normally passenger runs. Just look around argon prime and 4 adjoining sectors - just pop in and out of gates till the missions appear. Before accepting the mission pre charge your jump drive to the closest gate to the base the passengers want to go to. When docking with the base don't use autodock, come in at full speed and cut your quite close to the dock. The missions will start off paying only a couple of hundred credits but quickly they will build up to 3-4 million a run (which takes about 2 minutes to complete).

While your doing these runs keep an eye out for M3's for sale (also the '$' sign) - they are fast to repair and can easily net you 500k+ in a minute or 2 of using the repair laser. Ignore TP's or TS's as they take far too long to repair and there are faster ways to make money. You might want to keep a Nova Raider or Mamba Raider if you find one as they make for good starting combat ship.
 
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Thanks for the tips!

@Zloth

Do you need any special software to manual control a transport remotely to do trading? It's not clear from the software descriptions what commands are provided by the upgrades and which commands are needed to do each task.

I tried buying a beat up Nova, but after fixing it, it still sold for less than I bought it. :/ How do you what's a good selling price for a ship?

So I thought I would try one more time. Someone was selling a Buster that had 50% shield damage. I think that's an M5? Fixing this one and selling it got me 200K profit. Yes!

I did download and install the bonus pack with the CAG trading software. Looks like it will be a while for I can use it though.

So I got a jump drive (expensive bugger), but it was worth it. I was able to do a couple of ship retrieval missions without running out of time, and also some delivery missions. I would have failed all these without the jump drive. In a few hours my account reached $1.5 M after some missions and some trading. I bought a mineral scanner too, but no one is offering me asteroid scanning missions. :/

@bjon How much will an Argon Mercury Express cost? Are shields, rudders on it needed? I'd like to try that out.

Cheers!
 
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Do you need any special software to manual control a transport remotely to do trading? It's not clear from the software descriptions what commands are provided by the upgrades and which commands are needed to do each task.
You need the trading extension software on the ship you are flying. (That means you can't do the trading stuff when you're in your space suit.) Best buys/sells software and Mk1/2 trading software goes in the trade ship.
I tried buying a beat up Nova, but after fixing it, it still sold for less than I bought it. :/ How do you what's a good selling price for a ship?
Well, if you have satellites spread around, the easiest way is to just look at a space dock that sells the ship. If you aren't sure where the ship is sold, look it up in your encyclopedia. (That encyclopedia is VERY handy. It tracks everything that is being sold everywhere. Of course, you have to actually find the factories and stations first to get them into the encyclopedia.) I think ships sell for half the price of a new one.

That 70% figure is for getting ships you intend on using. If you are going to re-sell them, I'm not sure what the rough % health should be. Probably below 50. Ships that are near 100% health aren't always bad as some of those will include some features instead of being bare bones.
So I thought I would try one more time. Someone was selling a Buster that had 50% shield damage. I think that's an M5? Fixing this one and selling it got me 200K profit. Yes!
Aw man, you could have used that for exploring! Teladi Kestrals are even better but they aren't so easy to get your hands on. The earthers have a good one, too, and doing the TC plot will give you a free one pretty fast.
I did download and install the bonus pack with the CAG trading software. Looks like it will be a while for I can use it though.
Yeah, those are space factory specialists. You can drop one (or two) trade ship on a factory, start it running as a CAG pilot, and the trader will automatically start hunting down all the raw materials needed to get the factory going. Once the raw materials are filled up, it will start selling the product as well as keeping the raw materials flowing. After the pilot gains some levels, he'll start using his jump drive to speed things up (assuming the ship has one).
So I got a jump drive (expensive bugger), but it was worth it. I was able to do a couple of ship retrieval missions without running out of time, and also some delivery missions. I would have failed all these without the jump drive. In a few hours my account reached $1.5 M after some missions and some trading. I bought a mineral scanner too, but no one is offering me asteroid scanning missions. :/
The jump drive is key to many things. Unfortunately, a ship can only have one.
@bjon How much will an Argon Mercury Express cost? Are shields, rudders on it needed? I'd like to try that out.

Cheers!
That's another good one. The ships are a bit pricey but, after doing a few of them, you can get a lot of cash this way. You'll definitely want a jump drive for it. If you're driving it then you can get away with really light shields - just be sure to jump away if you see anything that looks like it might shoot at you. Triplex scanners will make it easier to see evil before it sees you. Docking computers will also speed up the docking process a ton (though only for a ship you are driving).

Station building missions are my favorite. You actually have enough to do those now, though just barely. Its best if you have a lot of the region explored and a good rep built up, too, so you can buy a requested station. Once you own your own TL with a jump drive the station building missions become very easy money plus you can actually build customers for your own stations.
 
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Argon Express Hauler costs around 400k but there is a hauler variant that is quite a bit more expensive but it is better as it has a much higher max speed (165 vs 150). However you can do it with the regular express. Like i said before one the key things is to precharge your jump drive. Check where the mission destination is, then start jumping to the closest jump gate, then comm the mission giver again and accept the mission just before you jump out. Then soon as you jump into the zone "tab" to get your ship to max speed as fast as possible and set a direct course and dock manually.

If you get into split space pick up an Iguana Vanguard as it is the fastest TP in the game and costs only 400k.
 
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My piloting skills suck. I do everything on autopilot. If I need to do those missions by docking manually, I'm not interested. BTW, how can you pre-charge your jump drive if you haven't even picked up your passenger yet? Don't you have to be docked to get the passenger? I have noticed that if you jump too close to a station you die in a brilliant explosion. I imagine trying to jump while docked or docking would do the same.

Thanks for the heads up on the docking computer. I was wondering what it did, since autopilot was docking for me already. Sounds like a good investment.

BTW, I didn't see ship prices in the encyclopedia. I guess satellites is the way to go, assuming selling price is half that of buying.
 
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The well paying passenger missions never start on the base you comm - those missions pay far less and are generally not worthwhile doing. The good ones always involve picking passengers up from X station and deliver to Y station.

To elaborate: Find a mission you like the sound of and note which sector/gate station X is in then reject the mission. Start to jump to that location. Comm and then accept the mission just before you actually jump.

Note: it does not take any piloting skills to speed dock - just press "C" then "1" then "1" again when you are about 1 click out then fly directly towards the docking clamp. Then cut down to about 60 speed when you get closer. If you have 3x 15MJ shields then you can actually survive the collision with a station without losing hull as long as you are not going too fast.
 
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The prices aren't in the encyclopedia but the locations are. Then you just bring up your galaxy map, select the sector, select the station, and right click to get the prices. You'll need a satellite (or some kind of presence - I've been known to leave cheap M5s in sectors for this reason) in the sector and I think you might need trade extension software.

I've never bothered to try and start my jump before accepting any kind of mission. 5 seconds has never made a difference as I recall.

I'm not sure why you would mess with 'speed docking' - though it does sound like it might be fun just for the challenge. If you've got a docking computer you just do control-D and you're teleported right onto the clamp or into the bay.

I like the Boron Angel myself. It costs a heck of a lot more but it makes for a great personal ship to fly around in. It isn't as fast but it's got much more cargo space. More cargo space means more room for energy cells which means more jumps before I have to refuel. Plus it's green.

Of course, there's more than one way to get these ships. I'm pretty certain there's an abandoned Iguana up in the northern sectors. Or you could just…. you know… shoot at one until the pilot bails out.

That reminds me. If you haven't figured it out yet - AVOID the 'return my stolen ship' missions. Getting the thief to bail is far too hard to mess with. Covert follow missions are also much harder than they are worth if your battle level is anything at all, though they do reveal where pirate bases are located. 'Protect the convoy' missions are another one that are OK really early on but become downright ridiculous in the late game. Scan ships given by police don't earn much money but they can give you a reputation boost. Scan ships given by pirates do earn a good bit of cash. I tend to ignore the 'deliver items to me' missions except in the first hours of playing the game but the 'deliver these items to another station' can sometimes be OK. Just watch out for those hazerdous materials.
 
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Yeah, it sounds like I need to establish a presence in sectors with more ships. Right now my single Mercury is exploring Teladi space and building up a little trading and local rep. I've got about $2.2M now. Once done in this area maybe I should get a passenger ship or should I setup a factory?

What's the scoop on the hazardous material transports I've done at least one of those with no noticeable effects. Have I missed something?

BTW I have a hard time with the covert missions. Once I get to the location, the prey inevitably moves towards me faster than I can keep a safe distance and he discovers me… It seems those missions need a faster ship.

Also the get resources missions always need a transport ship with more hold space than my Mercury so I decline them. I did finally did get and do an asteroid scanning mission. :) BTW, strangely, docking computers have disappeared from supply depot selling inventories…
 
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I never realised that is what a docking computer did, it certainly sounds like it would make things a lot easier.
 
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Once done in this area maybe I should get a passenger ship or should I setup a factory?
Hehe, that's like asking if you should do the fighters' guild or mages' guild quests next. Do whichever sounds fun! Or get yourself a nice M4 (with docking computer) and go do the Terran Conflict / Gonar story lines. Or grab some satellites and go exploring with them.

Covert missions are bad that way. Once it starts, the target will head for a gate. If it's the gate you just came through, you've really got to move fast to get out of the way. You can also get ambushed as you go through gates.

Docking computers are like trade software, there's no supply of them. They aren't real common, though. Explore to the south from where you started.

Last time I tried to transport hazardous materials for a mission, it started burning my ship! It paid great but I had to spend some not-at-all-quality time with my repair laser afterwards.

Edit: Just in! You can use Kinect with X: Rebirth! http://www.egosoft.com/news/images/news_2012_03_29_001.jpg
 
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OK, thanks again everyone for your help!

2 weeks later, and I may have half the universe explored. Not bad. :p

I found an abandoned Iguana Vanguard (a passenger transport - i.e. TP in X3 parlance), that is wicked fast, and am now able to actually win most time limited missions. Yay! Not only that, the passenger transport missions I couldn't do before are now very lucrative. I installed a mineral scanner, and can do the asteroid scanning missions, too. I used this ship, building up rep with the races while exploring the galaxy. Trading went on the backburner. Rather obsessive about making sure all stations are mapped in all sectors, and have found about 6 abandoned ships now, a few M3s, a M4, 2 M5s. I sent them all back to argon prime (loaded up on found missiles from scavenging pirate attack sites). I've now got a small fleet back at Argon Prime hanging around with my Mercury. And I finally found another docking computer. Very nice to instantly dock when close enough to a station.

My rep with Argon, Born, Teladi, and Paranid as now maxed (Split is close). I've stayed friendly with the pirates and Yaki for now. Asteroid and taxi missions are quite lucrative at an average of 400K credits a pop whit my high rep, and have built my account to 22M credits. Is it worth it to build a factory?

To do so, I figure I need another TS and have money to burn, so I traveled to Legend's Home to get a Mistral Superfreighter. With that and my original Mercury I can supply/sell stuff from a factory. Figuring to be based around Argon Prime. Probably have enough cash to create a complex loop with multiple factories?

I have also stumbled across some quest lines, I think. One regarding missing Boron explorers in a Xenon sector, and another regarding a missing Argon Colossus TL. Maybe I should try them out.

I figure I should get some combat experience before trying out these quests, but don't want to annoy the pirates, Yaki, or other factions. Recommendations for doing so without annoying factions?
 
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One regarding missing Boron explorers in a Xenon sector…
That is THE main plot for trader types. This is the plot that will push you toward building a real space empire. After the first few steps it becomes a "background" plot - meaning you don't actively work on it. Instead, you set up factories and/or trade ships to keep it going. You could start that now just fine.

Have you started up the Terran Conflict plot yet? You're more than ready. Grab an M3 with a docking computer and you'll be able to do the first few steps easily. (Hint: SAVE GAME before starting on the quest to follow a pirate.) It starts in Omnicron Lyre. The Goner quest would give your trade ships something to do and starts close by, in Elysium of Light.

You've got more than enough rep and cash to do station building missions. It sounds like you've explored a lot, too, which will help.

You can certainly start up some factories, too. I like cranking out nostrop oil around Profit Center Alpha for my first stations but there are possibilities all over the universe. The Ore Belt has lots of possibilities, for instance.

There's a tricky thing to those complexes that I didn't understand for a long time. When you start a complex you pick two stations that are close (ish) to each other then select the location for the docking hub. That hub is like any other station and can be rotated around! I've got a couple of complexes where the docking pipe comes out then suddenly makes a u-turn to connect to the docking hub because I didn't know that trick.

You'll be wanting to know about tractor beams sometime soon - especially if you are building ore/silicon mines. A ship can fire a tractor beam at any station (preferably one you own) then drag the station around. This is mostly done with mines so you can bring all of them close together in a complex. For instance, you might pull some choice rocks to the south side of the Ore Belt so transport ships can get to the two solar power plants there. Or pull the rocks near one of the gates so ships jumping in won't have far to drive before docking.

Oh, I think the Mercury is listed as being able to use a tractor beam. I'm thinking that's a lie. If you want to try it, be sure to save first.
 
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Well I bought that super freighter and outfitted it. It took a while since it was so slow moving between stations and sectors. And, by God, why can't I tell it to buy upgrades and install them remotely. My PC seems to need to be onboard for it to do it. Is there a UI trick to it? Really sometime this game can be unnecessary tedious. It took 2 hours to get this new freighter outfitted!

EDIT: Also, re station building missions. Not sure I understand them. When you do them do the stations remain yours, or become the property of the quest giver?
 
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Xenon sector? Nah, you don't do that. You just escort some ships from Omnicron up a few sectors to the north. Combat tends to scale up as you get more combat experience … hmmm… which means quick little M5s buzzing around. Those can be tricky to hit in a big'ol M3. Maybe an M4 would be better? Well, you can try and see.

Oh wait, you mean the Boron quest? I was talking about the Terran Conflict quest. The Boron quest might actually be easier in your Iguana with a bunch of energy cells and a jump drive.
The mission has you go through a couple of Xenon sectors but you don't have to shoot anything. Remember, your jump drive can also jump within the same sector! As soon as the next gate pops up on your map you can jump to it, do a quick 180, and fly on to the next sector! If you're having trouble getting the gate on the map, well, you've got a spare M5, right?

Outfitting gets to be pretty much a background thing, too. When you buy the ship you can outfit all sorts of stuff right from the start - especially at Legends where they can instantly buy a jump drive. If you can't up the engine speed right then and there, send the ship to a trading station or something and get that cranked up. Then send it off after some energy. Then it's ready to jump wherever you want.

You MUST have trade extension software installed on your ship to trade remotely. (And your tiny little space suit doesn't have it so you won't be able to remote trade outside of a ship.) The software is cheap and easy to find so you can just drop that into any ship you think you might pilot some day. (SETA is even more plentiful and cheap - I put that on everything.)
 
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Ah, OK. Well I am at Argon Prime and have a ton of ships floating around with all sorts of collected missiles. It's a bit overwhelming to manage them all. I suppose I should share some of these found missiles.

I think I am going to build an Ore Mine in Antigone Memorial and base my starter Mercury and the bought Mistral Super Freighter there, then try out that hub mission. :)
 
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That should work nicely - there's a couple of amazing asteroids in that sector and it's right next to the Power Circle, plus I think it has a solar power plant of it's own.

If you've got any distrupter missiles, you might want to keep those. Corporation missions sometimes demand those things and the ONLY way to get them is as salvage. I don't think they are sold anywhere!
 
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