X3: Terran Conflict

I'm impressed by the large number patches to the various Xn, and the content they add!

I recently received their newsletter, and I must say that this is FAR the BIGGEST newsletter I've EVER received from/about a game ! So much text …

I don't know whether there is an English-language newsletter, too …

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
I don't know whether there is an English-language newsletter, too …

Yep, I get their newsletter as well, the X-Universe News…

The basic idea of the X games remains the same throughout. It's a highly detailed space sim. I actually pre-ordered the original X game. It was a buggy mess. After one night I swore off buying ANY games pre-order and stuck with that oath for many years. Definitely a sad thing.

Normally I would say start with X2 and move on through the games to get a feel for the story but with this game…. I don't think so. You see, these games are huge. I remember one of the devs saying they aim for the game to take around six months to complete all the plots. HUGE. So, when you finish X2, I really doubt you're going to want to dive right in to X3:R then follow that with X3:TC. Plus the plot is a pretty minor point in the game.

Personally, I just went with X3: Terran Conflict. They improved the interface to give more mouse options, which makes the game eaiser to learn IMHO. I've gotten several months of enjoyment out of it already. When I bought it from Steam they tossed in X3:Reunion for free but I really haven't played it.

The game is definitely not for everyone. It takes a lot of patience and there are some nasty bugs you need to avoid (do NOT trust that autopilot!). If you're the type of person the game does click with, though, the X series is one of a kind.

6 MONTHS!!! At the rate I complete games, that will probably actually be a couple years. Hmmm, yes, playing the latest and greatest seems like the best approach in this case. Thanks for the context!

The only thing that holds me back is… it appears to be real-time combat. After WC3 I rather despise that kind of frantic clicking and keyboard shortcut wizardry challenge…Strategy, not mouse/keyboard dexterity for me.

EDIT: Does it come with a printed manual? At 3.3 ozs. on Amazon, it seems unlikely… For a game of this complexity a printed manual is an absolute must.

The manual to X2 was crap. You're better off with the tutorial missions, ingame help and trial-n-error in that game. The manual for X3:R was better, but still unimpressive. Admittedly, I didn't spend much time with the X3 manual since I assumed a million billion hours with X2 was sufficient training (which proved very wrong), but it wasn't a massive tome of knowledge or anything. More like an overgrown music cd insert.

You don't have to be a good pilot to play the game. It helps quite a bit if you want to be a pirate or a serious pirate hunter, but building your economic empire (a significant portion of the game regardless of your role) and capturing the occasional freighter doesn't require mad skilz. Trust me--I had well over 100 hours on X2 and I'm a horrible pilot. Couldn't even tell you which buttons did the strafe drive, let alone actually use them in combat.

Thanks for the info, DTE! Good to hear that mad skillz aren't required for RT combat.

I wonder if the X3 manual is better?

Well heck, the manual is free for anybody. Pick your language from here: http://www.egosoft.com/download/x3tc…en.php?list=97

The game starts out very first persony. You're in your little fighter shooting up NPCs in their little fighters. As the game moves on, though, you tend to find yourself in big, slow ships shooting at other big, slow ships while your turrets and escorts take care of the little stuff. It's still first person but you're spending a lot more time picking targets and deciding what ships are worth pulling into the battle.

I'll check it out! Thanks!

EDIT: It requires me to login and register my game first before showing me the links.

D'oh!

Steam has it, too, at http://cdn.steampowered.com/Manuals/…al_english.pdf

Ah, great! Over a hundred pages! It wins on length, certainly.

I've fond memories of exploring the universe with my mini-carrier thing (carries a fighter wing), but I haven't played it since the early builds. Has the economy been fixed? It was broken in the early days. Terran production was particularly broken. Also, how is performance now? My system struggled even on the lowest settings during system invasion combat.

I'm not sure how the economy was broken for you - though I've never paid much attention to the Terran space. Big sectors with no jump drive? Yeah… I think I'll just go over to one of the 200+ other sectors to play around, thanks.

Performance has always been good for me until I started building huge 50+ station complexes. Though the dang thing does flush memory at annoying times sometimes. What are your system stats?

A very addictive game. Terribly addictive, actually. I don't really have that much time to play games, but I spent about 25 days real time in my main game that I uploaded to the Egosoft site, and I have since modified the game and not uploaded anything in quite a while. Plus, I started several others.

I'm afraid that I missed all the new RPGs .

One of the recent patches lets the game continue even when you alt-tab out of the game. That makes it easy to, say, play through all of Mass Effect 2 while your traders work on the crystal portion of the hub plot. Then play through Dragon Age while they work on the silicon wafer portion.

I'd try this game if it didn't seem like an eternal lonely grind in a computer generated world.

I'm waiting for the day when they'll finally combine the scope of something like this or Frontier, with the story of Privateer or Freelancer.

Cooperative multiplayer as well, by the way.

Oh, and let me land on planets seamlessly.

The story if you are following the series since X-BTF is very nice .
Also it has nothing to do with grind , i played X2 for months without even shooting (no guns at all) , if you can set up patrols in your sectors you can move around in a fast scout ship avoiding fights .

I was in Freelancer's MP for years so if X ever goes online i will avoid it , got enough of lunacy and campers already .

Originally Posted by Tragos
The story if you are following the series since X-BTF is very nice .
Also it has nothing to do with grind , i played X2 for months without even shooting (no guns at all) , if you can set up patrols in your sectors you can move around in a fast scout ship avoiding fights .

I was in Freelancer's MP for years so if X ever goes online i will avoid it , got enough of lunacy and campers already .

No shooting? That sounds even worse than just grinding

What exactly ARE you doing in this game, if not mining, trading, or running errands?

About MP - I would exclusively play with friends - so I can deal with whatever lunacy that entails

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
What exactly ARE you doing in this game, if not mining, trading, or running errands ?

Now, this is the point. Most of that actually IS what makes these games - and others like the Settlers and the Anno series - so much popular here in Germany . We call it a "business simulation", alsthough this term doesn't transport everything that's in there in the German language into the english language. Like the "Wusel-Factor", for example.

And yes, it is partly because you do nothing but business !

I think that outside of Germany there isn't this genre - we (and this means magazines, too) actually call of this as a genre - that much popular than here in Germany. It's kind of a Germany-specific nieche only German developers managed to fulfill this far. Foreign developers aren't that interested or/and don't want to fulfill this niche. Perhaps it doesn't seem to give them enough profits.

Actually, apart from Civilization I don't know a singly non-DACH game developer having made a similar "business simulation" game.
Majesty and Hinterland maybe come close to that, or the famous Caesar series. But they aren't that much business-related.

If one was to describe the German gaming market, this would stand out. Because I don't know any country where this genre is as popular.

I wish they would make a game similar to the X series that was based more on exploration than economy.