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[CiSTM]

I have this sitting in my Steam cart, and I'm trying to decide if I should pull the trigger >.>

I want a new 4X game and I kinda want a space one and this thread does a good job of hyping me up. On the other hand, I've been looking at Europa Universalis as well. I tried the demo and enjoyed the small amount of (confused) time I spent with it. No demo for this though....

I hope I'm not late but DON'T PULL THE TRIGGER! It's a good game but you can do better. Buy Sword of the Stars and the expansions. It poor as X3 without the expansions but with 'em it's a blast or better yet wait for Sword of the Stars II: The Lords of Winter. Very impressive looking game and overall it just sounds awesome and the first game wasn't bad either and with the expansions it's one of the best 4x games around.


...X3 is good too, not just good as SotS Sorry op. Gotta give shot for some mods tho.

 

[Sye d'Burns]

I hope I'm not late but DON'T PULL THE TRIGGER! It's a good game but you can do better. Buy Sword of the Stars and the expansions. It poor as X3 without the expansions but with 'em it's a blast or better yet wait for Sword of the Stars II: The Lords of Winter. Very impressive looking game and overall it just sounds awesome and the first game wasn't bad either and with the expansions it's one of the best 4x games around.


...X3 is good too, not just good as SotS Sorry op. Gotta give shot for some mods tho.

That post was from 2009. I'd say you may have just missed him.

 

[Lafiel]

That post was from 2009. I'd say you may have just missed him.

On the bright-side i now know that this "sword of the stars" and it's upcoming sequel exists. And it looks like a pretty tight game! will haft to check it out sometime.

 

[Orgun]

Really on a roll now Just bought 7 more stations, 4 Ore mines and 3 Silicon mines and 2 Mercurys per staition to keep them supplied and sell the goods (at the start).

After that I plan to get some production fabs going to get stocked up for some cruisers/carriers i've been eyeing up Then i'll take it to some of the species...i've never liked the Boron ya know

 

[tyagi]

Really on a roll now Just bought 7 more stations, 4 Ore mines and 3 Silicon mines and 2 Mercurys per staition to keep them supplied and sell the goods (at the start).

How are you managing your trading etc., are you using mods/scripts or doing it all manually?

I'm just starting out in X3 and following some of the tutorials to get myself up and running.

 

[Orgun]

How are you managing your trading etc., are you using mods/scripts or doing it all manually?

I'm just starting out in X3 and following some of the tutorials to get myself up and running.

I started off doing it manually but when I got to the point when I was controlling 7 ships it got to be too much, I was having to stop and order the ships every 20 seconds. I looked into automating them and found that the ingame autotrader (MK3) was supposed to be a bit rubbish so I download a script - EST. Lots of options (took some getting used to) but it gives you a lot of control over what/where and how your ships trade.

For a tutorial I can't recommend this guys video series enough! - http://www.youtube.com/user/CdrDave#p/a/2BC4835802365FF1/0/p73C60btBi8

I've never been able to get more than 2/3 hours into the X3 games before but i'm now on hour 30 thanks to the start I got from those videos

 

[dionysus]

How are you managing your trading etc., are you using mods/scripts or doing it all manually?

I'm just starting out in X3 and following some of the tutorials to get myself up and running.

Definitely have to use scripts. Pretty much everything in X3 will need to be scripted to achieve efficiency.

Missile management, turret management, universe trading, sector trading, station supply, station selling, satellite networks, even station configuration scripts to make your stations not look like freakish mechanical octopi spanning entire sectors.

Some of the scripts are really game mechanic altering though. Especially when it comes to capital ship vs. fighter balance. But the commercial scripts are almost universally awesome and make the game less tedious, and they don't change how the game plays.

Edit. Also, while sword of the stars is awesome, it is in a completely different genre. X3 and SotS are not substitutes for each other.

 

[KongRudi]

Hah, I had to go out for a couple hours so I just left SETA on with my 7 EST traders going - came back to 10mil

I also now have my own personal escort ships

I allmost only use SETA when travelling from A to B.

I usually prefer to make most of my money with combat-missions and piracy, so I need highest possible combat-rank.

Leaving the game on, without doing combat missions will drop the combat-rank, and that will lead to lower paying combat-missions.
I sometimes use SETA while charging the jumpdrive to flee from battles where I'm outmatched, or when firing missiles at bigships, the reasons for this is that turrets isn't as effective when using SETA insystem.

 

[dionysus]

Picked up playing again last night because of the bump to this thread. Trying to finish the hub missions, damn getting 500 microchips takes a long time. I broke down and built a couple of stations to make them and it is still going to take many days to accumulate that maney, not too mention at least 15 million in investment.

People asked what scripts to use to make the commercial stuff easier.


Commercial Agent (CAG)
Commodity Logistics Software (CLS)
Economy and Supply Trader (EST)
Universal Best Buys/Sells Locator

I personally absolutely rely on EST and CAG. I dont have CLS or the universal best buys installed.

 

[Confidence Man]

I have 150 hours in TC, I've never used any scripts. I guess I'm doing things the hard way. Maybe that's why I have 150 hours in, now that I think about it.

 

[Fitz]

I hear a lot about EST, what kind of benefits does it have over just using Trade Command Software MK3 and setting up Sector/Universal traders? It seems like a lot of the features are already obtainable without it.

 

[dionysus]

You can play X3 in a myriad of ways. Scripts make certain playstyles less tedious. I personally prefer to have an industrial and trading empire as my base to support my fleets. I rarely do missions outside of story missions so I don't get any money that way. I couldn't imagine managing 20+ freighters and 5+ manufacturing complexes without scripts. I'd never do anything but manually intervene to keep my complexes from filling up and stopping production.

 

[oneils]

I've tried this series multiple times. However, the tutorial was just terrible. Stuff like "push the 'thrust' key to move forward." Thanks, that is a lot of help. I dunno, if I felt like I could actually control the ship within an hour or so of gameplay, and not weeks I might give it a shot again.

 

[glaurung]

I played X-Tension when it was first released for many a good hundred hours and when the X Super Box was on sale in Steam a while back, I grabbed it.

But the truth is, I cannot see myself facing the grind and getting things going again in X3. Learning the (new) ropes takes time and time is something that has become stupidly expensive as of late.

But that does not mean I won't buy into X Rebirth when it is released later this year and spend some good time again.

 

[dionysus]

I hear a lot about EST, what kind of benefits does it have over just using Trade Command Software MK3 and setting up Sector/Universal traders? It seems like a lot of the features are already obtainable without it.

From the EST Faq.

The Economy and Supply Trader ensures lively trade and keeps NPC factories running in its territory.

The Economy and Supply Trader can trade in specified goods. He can help factories with resource problems. You can exclude unprofitable wares

The Economy and Supply Trader has a defined territory, which he will not leave.

The Economy and Supply Trader coordinates with other EST pilots serving the same station. He won't purchase goods that another trader is about to meet demand for, this happens a lot with vanilla universe and sector trader

The Economy and Supply Trader can use the Jump Drive and will keep his ship repaired.

The Economy and Supply Trader keeps in contact with clients and other traders and can find prices and news in other sectors. The Economy and Supply Trader is not a fighter and avoids sectors where enemies have been reported

 

[Fitz]

The Economy and Supply Trader coordinates with other EST pilots serving the same station. He won't purchase goods that another trader is about to meet demand for, this happens a lot with vanilla universe and sector trader

That's pretty sexy, coordination between pilots would be really useful. Going to have to try this out tonight I think.

 

[Orgun]

I've decided to annex 'Presidents End' from the Argon I setup a few ore mines there, next up I'll setup a few solar plants and go from there.

 

[dionysus]

I've decided to annex 'Presidents End' from the Argon I setup a few ore mines there, next up I'll setup a few solar plants and go from there.

I don't think there is anything to annex there. I was always curious how hard it would be to wipe out a sector and claim it as your own, would the original sector's owners send a continous stream of ships to take it back? Ships and stations respawn after all.

Anyone know if there are any good quest rewards for doing the corporation quests? I have done a ton of Terracorp and Atreus quests thinking I would get something good, but it just seems to be generic quests with no end in sight.

 

[tyagi]

Despite owning X3TC for a year or more, I've only just got in to it thanks to those tutorial YouTube videos.

I now have about 3 remote trader ships which I'm managing manually. However, they have a range of speeds, and at least one of the larger ones is really quite slow even when upgraded. This means that for remote Best Buy/Sell it gets quite frustrating as the ship often arrives only to find that the situation's changed. So I'm constantly re-issuing the same Best Buy/Sell commands to an empty (or full) ship that's decided to travel slowly across a long distance to get a good price.

What's the best solution to this? Use one of those trading scripts? Any recommendations?

 

[moojito]

Despite owning X3TC for a year or more, I've only just got in to it thanks to those tutorial YouTube videos.

I now have about 3 remote trader ships which I'm managing manually. However, they have a range of speeds, and at least one of the larger ones is really quite slow even when upgraded. This means that for remote Best Buy/Sell it gets quite frustrating as the ship often arrives only to find that the situation's changed. So I'm constantly re-issuing the same Best Buy/Sell commands to an empty (or full) ship that's decided to travel slowly across a long distance to get a good price.

What's the best solution to this? Use one of those trading scripts? Any recommendations?

Yip, I'd go with the EST. I believe it constantly checks the prices and avoids unecessary trips, though it might only do that once you have the trading software mkIII, I can't remember. Once you've done a fair amount of manual trading I think it's perfectly fine to upgrade to the EST and let your traders get on with it while you focus on new things.

 

[Aselith]

The EST link on the X3 forums is broken. Does anyone know a place that I can download it right now or could some dropbox the file for me or something?

 

[moojito]

The EST link on the X3 forums is broken. Does anyone know a place that I can download it right now or could some dropbox the file for me or something?

It looks like Lucike's script collection is still available and that includes the EST and a bunch of his other mods.

 

[KongRudi]

just passed 1006 hours..



Think this is the single-player game I've spent most time on.
Looking forward to the sequel..

 

[moojito]

just passed 1006 hours..



Think this is the single-player game I've spent most time on.
Looking forward to the sequel..

Damn! That must be some empire you have there. And aye, the next one is looking pretty sweet indeed.