X3: Reunion

[TinCow]

I've suddenly gotten an itch for a great space combat game. I've played Freespace, Homeworld, Freelancer, X-Wing Alliance, etc. to death and need something new. While browsing, I came across X3: Reunion, which looks like it's exactly what I'm looking for. However, the metacritic score on it is 71, and there are a lot of reviews saying the game isn't finished.

Has anyone played this? If so, can you give your thoughts on it?

[Greyblades]

Its definitely a good game but you might want to get the sequel called X3 terran conflict instead, It's alot easier to get to grips with.
As for whether its a good space combat sim its quite competent the ships are many and varied you can fly anything, from space suits through to fighters, Cargo transports, bombers, frigates all the way to huge battleships and carrier ships like this one:
http://people.freenet.de/glista/x3-ships-Dateien/colossus_800.jpg

[Veho Nex]

Flying big ships is such a pain, atleast... for me it is, i can't ever seem to get the controls down.

[aimlesswanderer]

The controls are exactly the same as if you were flying a normal ship - and a docking computer is your friend! The biggest problem is that the interface is clunky, and it is really quite complex. If you are the kind of person who loves (or can bear with) complexity you'll love it. The economy is very intricate, and everything affects everything else in some way. So if half the power plants get wiped out, the energy price will go ballistic. It can be fun to have fleets and factories of your own, but they are difficult to manage I have found.

[Whacker]

The controls are exactly the same as if you were flying a normal ship - and a docking computer is your friend! The biggest problem is that the interface is clunky, and it is really quite complex. If you are the kind of person who loves (or can bear with) complexity you'll love it. The economy is very intricate, and everything affects everything else in some way. So if half the power plants get wiped out, the energy price will go ballistic. It can be fun to have fleets and factories of your own, but they are difficult to manage I have found.

This.

The game was great fun for a good amount of time.

The big thing for me was mods saved the overall game. X3 Xtended was originally rather buggy, but by the end they fixed quite a few of the problems. You can try playing the base game, but I'd highly recommend installing the Xtended mod at some point. Further, this is one flight game that I used the mouse/WASD to fly, because it was just much easier that way. You can certainly use a joystick if you want.

As aimlesswanderer said, it is ridiculously complex. There's no one good tutorial either. I don't remember what I was following, but you will need to Google for some guides and sources to learn how to play it. There weren't any terribly outstanding ones IIRC. There is a basic fighter mission you can play that does give you somewhat of a 'playground' to learn the flight controls at least. Learning how to buy, build, and maintain factories and stations is a nightmare unto itself. Truthfully I never really got into this aspect of the game much, because it really is complex.

It's also somewhat modable, BUT be warned, if you try to install too many mods they can heavily conflict. Modding for that game is an honest nightmare. The scripting can ONLY be done in game using their very clunky scripting engine, and adding assets or making changes is mind numbing to say the least. Thankfully, there are a good number of major and minor mods to be had that can enhance the game. I ended up installing a few on top of Xtended and modified them a bit to suit my needs.

tl;dr. Try it, if you have the patience. You'll like it.

[aimlesswanderer]

Yeah, I remember when I first started the first X, and it was a massive challenge to figure out WTF was going on. If not for my brother and I combining our knowledge about every Privateer type game we'd ever played we would have given up after an hour. I'd have to agree that you should find some guides, or else you'll be flailing around in the dark. Normally I like to figure out games by myself, but the X series is far to complex for that!! Maps of the universe, factory guides and some strategy guides are a must, unless you love an extremely long hard slog! And the games require a serious amount of computing power too.

Yep, investigate some mods after you've played it for a while, so you can get some which suit your style of play.

[TinCow]

I ended up buying X3: Terran Conflict for $20 on Steam. Installed and patched without issues. The complaints of stability appear to have been patched out, because the game is so far very stable and it is still visually impressive despite being a few years old. Runs well too, even on my old dual core w/ a 9800 GTS. Let's hear it for buying games late, so that all the major problems are fixed. :2thumbsup:

The complexity complaints are definitely justified for this game. It's a bit daunting at first and I had to read a lot of online guides just to figure out how to play. I've played several space trader games before, so I understand the concepts of what has to be done, but a lot of the UI in this game is non-intuitive and difficult to understand. I decided to start as a trader in the beginning, to learn the economy and geography before I focused on combat. It took me over THREE DAYS of real time play (probably 20+ hours total) to learn the basics and amass enough money to buy the 'starter' combat ship I wanted to buy. I probably spent 1/3 of that time exploring instead of trading, and I bought a more expensive starter ship than I needed to, but even so that was a lot of work.

However, having now purchased a combat ship, things are really starting to click. My extensive early trading and exploration paid off with the ability to buy a very decent, fully upgraded fighter and knowledge of sectors where I could find pirates to kill. I also had enough extra money to outfit my starting freighter as an independent trader instead of just selling off that ship, so he's off making money while I go and kill pirates, which is a great feature and something I've never seen in another space trading game. This has opened my eyes to the stupendous possibilities for amassing large war fleets and trading empires. X3: TC gets two big thumbs up for this aspect. :yes:

Combat is taking some getting used to, but my ship is decent and I've got enough flight sim experience to learn quickly. This morning I finally captured my first ship, which was just a low-end fighter, but the sale of that single ship earned me 3x the amount of even the most profitable trading runs in my freighter. A few more of those, and I'll be able to start buying more trading vessels for my fleet, as well as my own factories. The costs no longer seem daunting when I have the prospect of high-level income like this.

So, in summary, everything I've read seems to be accurate. It is very hard to get into this game, and can be immensely frustrating at first, but once you learn the ropes suddenly a gigantic sandbox game opens up before you. I'm looking forward to several months of entertainment from this game. Will update this thread as I progress.

[Greyblades]

Hey I'm glad that its working out for you X3 was pretty intimidating to me on my first try too. Just out of interest are you making manual trading runs?

[TinCow]

Just out of interest are you making manual trading runs?

I was when I was in my starting freighter. Did that until I had about 4 million credits. My old freighter is currently doing sector trading, using the Mk 3 Trader Software upgrade. He's based in a sector that I was able to do a lot of intra-sector trading in (Company Pride, I think...) and is doing reasonably well. He certainly has not paid back the 500k credit cost of the Mk 3 software, but I don't need that cash right now and it looks like he'll pay for himself in the long-run. After a couple more ship captures, I'll probably put up another sector trader or two in different areas, before starting on station construction.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

It sounds vaguely like Mount&Blade in space.

God that sounds good.

[Veho Nex]

It sounds vaguely like Mount&Blade in space.

God that sounds good.
I just wish you could customize the way your character looked.


The controls are exactly the same as if you were flying a normal ship - and a docking computer is your friend! The biggest problem is that the interface is clunky, and it is really quite complex. If you are the kind of person who loves (or can bear with) complexity you'll love it. The economy is very intricate, and everything affects everything else in some way. So if half the power plants get wiped out, the energy price will go ballistic. It can be fun to have fleets and factories of your own, but they are difficult to manage I have found.

Its that I never figured out how to get my turrets to auto fire, not to have my drones and stuff launch themselves. But of course I kinda cheated to get the ship so maybe I was missing something.

[aimlesswanderer]

I just wish you could customize the way your character looked.



Its that I never figured out how to get my turrets to auto fire, not to have my drones and stuff launch themselves. But of course I kinda cheated to get the ship so maybe I was missing something.

In previous games you could at least upload your own logo/symbol which would be on all your ships and stations. I thought that was awesome!

I think there are scripts or at least settings that enable you to not worry about your turrets just admiring the enemy.

Tincow, I'm glad you like it. As you said, it takes a long time, and requires patience and a love of detail. Guides are a must! Or you could be missing out on whole slabs of the game.

Capturing ships, while profitable, is extremely variable. Good ol pirate falcons are excellent prey, being fat, slow and very valuable! Also, their transports make good freighters for your factories. I like hoarding the good and healthy captured ships to eventually use them as my fleet. I also like hoarding the best ones for my personal use! I have so many advanced satellites scattered around so that I can find the best place to go hunting.

And I love how you could pick up and fire deadly "unknown objects"!! Pick up as many as you can, as you can't buy or manufacture them. I always have at least 1 transport which carries around my spare arsenal and other miscellaneous things I've picked up.

What kind of fighter do you prefer to fly? I like the ones which are reasonably fast with good shields and ok guns. With enough cargo to have a few missiles and at least 100 NRG for the jumpdrive.

[TinCow]

Finally bought my first station, a silicon mine which I've stuck on a 40-something yield asteroid in Herron's Nebula. I'm currently outfitting two new merchantmen to buy energy for it and sell its goods. I also plan on making Herron's Nebula my home area for early development. There's an acceptable ore asteroid there as well, so I'll eventually add on an ore mine and a solar power plant, and expand from there. I'll probably pick a different system for when I want to start working on a serious empire, but Herron's will do for my current low-level financial goals.


What kind of fighter do you prefer to fly? I like the ones which are reasonably fast with good shields and ok guns. With enough cargo to have a few missiles and at least 100 NRG for the jumpdrive.

I'm currently in a heavily upgraded M3 Nova Vanguard, and I like it a lot. Yeah, I'm a lot slower than many other fighters, but I like having the shielding to stand up in a firefight as well as a whole lot of guns. I ended up ditching the heavy guns that came with the L version because they were too inaccurate at range and chewed through energy way too fast. Right now I'm sporting 8 PACs with a PRG in my turret for missile defense. I find those are accurate enough to take out even fast moving M5s and with 8 firing at once I can chew through a M6 with a little patience. After a little more experimentation, I'll probably swap out 4 of the PACs for 4 heavier guns and switch between the sets depending on target. I plan on upgrading to a M3+ eventually, but that's a ways off. My ultimate objective is to get myself into a fast M6.

[aimlesswanderer]

Interesting what people decide to do with their factories. I concentrated on secondary products like soja, wheat, teladianium, stott spices, bogas and nostrop. Built hubs in Queen's Space, Duke's Domain, Trinity Sanctum, Dark Waters, Lucky Planets, Cardinal's Domain, Profit Share, Tharka's Sun and Power Circle. I built a few mines if there was a local shortage, but didn't build any SPPs. X3 R was the game where I built up the largest business empire and largest fleet (played till I got my own TS and several M6s, and of course the all important Hyperion - best ship ever!).

I stayed away from Xenon areas to the 'east' of the map with my factories because it was just too dangerous. Random swarms of xenon were a bit dangerous for me - and I found the protection cost prohibitive.

I think I had about 6 universal traders going, though bizarrely the only way you can figure out how much money they have made it if they got stumped and stopped!

Whatever I fly I like it to be one of the faster ships in its class, so I can either outrun a mob of pursuers or catch up to prey. I think I was flying a Mamba for a while, though the crap shields gave me trouble. I then got myself an LX and flew that for ages, before finally getting my hands on the Hyperion, which, once you get it, is all you need! Since it has massive shield, lotsa guns, is fairly agile and also carries 2 fighters, what more could you want? It can massacre M6s. From memory you can only get it via a mission, so you might want to research how to get it.

I must admit that I never really used the more exotic weapons, mostly just stuck to PACs and HEPTs. HEPTs are useless for killing M5s and fast ships, but good for slow fat targets, of which you will increasingly run into. By the time I got myself M6s+ I had picked up enough weapons to outfit them all and start a large war. I had a whole fat transport full of the weapons I'd scavenged - you can never have enough weapons, and sometimes they are damn hard to find.

I've moved on to X TC, but there are still heaps of things which are the same. Getting a nice big printout of the universe is an excellent idea. And system override software (can claim ships at range without getting into a bloody spacesuit but illegal) and the software signature scrambler to mask it are must haves if you cap lots of ships.

Have fun.