It's that kind of game... apparently. My copy has been resting in its box for a few months now. But when the weather turns gray, humid and cold and you don't know what to do, this is time well spent.
the fighter drones are basically a freighters best friend if you get jumped by pirates.
launch your drones and run like hell. The drones will attack the enemy ships, and they in turn will be forced to fight the drones. :)
Also, try going to the mineing platforms in Ore Belt. :) Usually can get it for 55/60 a peice, sell for a max of 120 IIRC. (been a long time since i've messed with trade runs myself, they are all automated in my little world. Well...when I played. Currently in Witcher, THEN TC. :) )
[QUOTE=A2597;177089]Also, try going to the mineing platforms in Ore Belt. :)[/QUOTE]
Great idea... but I had to backpedal yet again. No point in going to a gun fight armed only with a knife. It's extremely tedious to do any sort of ore mining with only a mineral scanner in your toolbox.
I need both an ore collector and a mining laser before heading to the asteroid field. The Ore collector can apparently only be purchased from a Teladi or Split equipment dock... I'm glad I kept my Argon buster to run those errands. The Teladi sectors are closer, so I'll head out there to find the gear I need.
I wonder if a mobile drilling system is what they mean by mining laser. :( That's an 78K investment right there... I don't even know if I got enough cash to get the ore collector... the drilling system uses up 100 units of space in the cargo hold. Which means I'll have to take out the back seats of my Argon buster if I am to even haul this gear back to my freighter... or I need to get the Toucan hauler into Teladi space... or I sell the buster to buy something bigger... or I'll postpone my mining project until I've made some cash. Or I'll try to fetch another derelict vessel.
Oh my...
[I]Note to next self: don't write text messages to a bulletin board while being parked directly in front of a jump gate. [/I]:D
I ment that there are usually 2-3 already established Ore Mines with Ore in production...
dock there, buy the ore, and run it to Argon prime, most of the stations need Ore, and it fetches a decent price. Usually about 10 runs and I can afford my MkIII trading software. (which means the ship can run itself, looking for deals, buying and selling all by itself, freeing me up to go explore. :) )
The problem is, the ore mine doesn't want to sell me any ore. The label is RED in the trade menu. Who do I have to bribe to get the ball rolling? :D (This may be linked to reputation restrictions... but then I don't know where to start there either...)
The Toucan hauler is a "luxury line transport" and I want to abuse it by hauling ore minerals. :D It does have 1,035 storage units for Large Containers L.
When I bought a whole load of Energy Cells from the Solar Power Pant in the sector, I received a new rank (Profiteer). Maybe it's linked to that. I suppose I need to rise in business rank as well as in reputation. Who knows...
Second purchase earned me the trade rank of "Hawker"... :D
I believe ore is only traded in XL Containers. [Sigh!]
Dammit! In Argon space no one can hear you scream either!! (At least now I know what those tags mean. :D)
Yeah and now I know what "space fuel" is for and why you need all that wheat to make it. :D
I did some manual trading for a while and made about 20K profit, but that's taking way too much time. So I took the buster for another spin and located the buster sentinel in the Akeela's Beacon sector. Basically it's the sedan version of my buster coupe. :D It came with a few complementary gifts, some of which I don't know what they are good for, others can only be mounted on bigger ships.
I did well to add a few more canons to my fighter as well as an additional shield generator as I've had to fight off a few pirates along the way. You just can't ignore those buggers as you have a tendency to blow up after a few too many hits.
It was worth the trip though, not necessarily for the buster sentinel, but for the Scorpion Raider which is located in the Xenon Sector 101, a sector adjacent to one on my way back, more on that later. I went through the trouble to pin point all known abandoned ships and that paid off too. I located a Harrier Sentinel not too far off a sector that seems to be connected to my home quadrant through some kind of worm hole. I'll have to investigate, more on that later too.
The more I play this game, the more I feel like we don't really have to wait for Elite IV at this point. Even though X3 is not an Elite game, it makes up for it in other ways. Maybe X3 is a bit too much like a business simulation, and perhaps it is, but so far, I'm not bored yet. :D
Darn it, getting that Scorpion Raider out of sector Xenon 101 seems to be quite a bit harder than I expected. There's a Xenon pirate base in the middle of it with, you've guessed it, a bunch of pirates swarming the only jump gate into and out of this sector.
Getting in is easy enough and I've managed to get both ships out only to get fragged in the adjacent sector by said pirates.
The game lets you sneak around somewhat and my strategy worked to get to the jump gate unchallenged, if not undetected. The problem is, once I come out on the other end of the jump, I land right into a fur ball and that means I'm pretty much toast, I see no way of escape.
The only thing I could try is lay low in the Xenon sector and wait for the pirates to return from their raid and try slipping through the gate when no one's watching. This seems like a scripted event, but I haven't figured out the pattern (if any) yet.
I'd love to have this Scorpion Raider, it's a somewhat odd shaped (kinda stealthy) fighter which comes equipped with some potential fire power that appears to be superior to what is mountable on my buster.
It's my fifth failed attempt, but I got through the gate for the first time, so I might actually make it... but the odds aren't looking good.
Yea, the pirates will go on raids from time to time, but it's not scripted. Only scripted events in the game are the missions.
I've seen some crazy stuff though.
-Pirate migration from Pirate Ally to Kingdoms End...just like one long cargo train of pirate ships. Was crazy. Lasted about 4 days in game. Took me that long to get curious enough to see where they were going. When I finally got to kingdom end, there were so many fraking pirates there in the astroid areas, it was crazy. Not hostile either, just hanging out. I brought in about 40 ships including two M3s and tore them a new one. The combat got the local authorities to take note and kill of the rest.
Never did figure out why they did that.
I've also seen all of Kingdom End destroyed, and Paranid Prime. Sector was just WIPED. Nothing left. Guessing Khakk.
pirates raiding a base, I picked them off 1 by 1 to cap ships. :)
Hehehe, my strategy paid off, once I saw the Xenon posse camped in the vicinity of the jump gate, I knew the other side would be safe and so now I'm a proud owner of a Scorpion Raider. :D
I scratched two pirates in the process (on the way in) and picked up a hurricane missile that one of them had dropped. I don't like "dropping my pants" though every time I open my bay doors to pick up battle loot (i.e. lowering my shields).
Another lesson learned today, it's not a good idea to run from a fight once hostilities have started, as you usually end up dead in this game. As Sheridan's dad said, never start a fight, but always finish it. :D
As you can see the Scorpion Raider won't win any beauty contests and right now it's also quite a bit slower than my buster coupe, but it has a pair of those radioactive Alpha HEPT guns mounted, so I can off any pirate with a few well placed shots (for now), which is a nice touch. :D
Ok, so this (Split) Scorpion Raider has some internal beauty after all. The cockpit has some interesting lines and with some tuning at the Equipment Dock in the Thuruk's Beard sector I was able to get its maximum speed to 296m/s, which tops the buster's by 121m/s. :D
The downside is that I'm flat broke again, I'll have to sell off one of my busters. I'll have to figure out which one's better first though.
The word I was looking for earlier to describe the Scorpion Raider was, fugly. It's a fugly fighter. :D I also have to see what its maximum shield strength is.
Nope, the Scorpion is an M4 class fighter, the Mamba would be an M3, at least according to the [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X%C2%B3:_Reunion#Ship_classifications"]X3 Wiki.[/URL]
I'm not that ambitious... right now I'm just refurbishing my scavenged ships.
it's a good way to make money, selling capped ships / rehabing them.
Ah...yes...once you get an M3 you will be a happy camper for awhile. My M3 was my main ship LONG after I had some M6s floating about. :)
Then again I also had a script that let you (For a VERY hefty price, with a risk of flat out breaking the ship adding repair cost as well) occasionally find mechanics that could adjust your engines / rudders past 100%...
I think I dumped close to 100mil into my M3. It was a friggin BEAST of a ship. Same shield power, but as fast as some M5s, and could turn on a dime. Add 5 Beta HEPT and well...
Well, I sold my Buster Sentinel after all, but kept the Buster I started the game with for now (as I spent quite a bit on upgrades on it and it has got a bigger trunk to haul my stuff around, I will try to keep it somewhat close as a mobile base of operation and a safety net while I go on my exploration trips).
I'm a bit annoyed by the fact that I can hardly buy anything anywhere even if I have the cash to do so, just because I don't have a sufficiently high reputation with that particular alien race.
Funny thing is by offing a few pirates in a Teladi sector, I earned the right to buy a Teladi Police license. Since I can see myself fighting those buggers more often, I might as well get paid for it. Looks like I need to do some freelancing for a while before I can buy one for every new alien sector I run across.
I'm starting to get better at aiming with the mouse... it's making the whole process a little easier than doing it with a joystick.
Got X3:TC on steam. I just got my second UT but I had no idea on what kind of fighter is good to fight pirates, so I just baught a buster and som weapon to just have fun playing the game while my UT make money. Seems like it isn't the best idea just to buy things without knowing how good they are. It takes ages for me to kill a pirate with a buster. :)
Either I'm doing something wrong, or this is a serious flaw.
I'm trying to swap a trading upgrade from my buster to my hauler. Both ships are docked at the same shipyard. I'm trying to do this remotely from the other side of the map.
Is this at all possible, or do I have to travel all the way back and do this manually? That would seriously suck.
I was afraid of that. Looks like this has been bugging people for a while, someone actually made a mod of a mod for this as can be seen in this [URL="http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=212031&start=0"]Egosoft forum thread.[/URL]
I'm not sure I want to mess with the game itself at this point. It's odd that the devs didn't include this functionality out of the box.
I salvaged the Harrier Sentinel in the Vault and the Buzzard Hauler in the Family Tkr sectors. As they weren't better than anything I own right now, I went and sold them for cash to buy the Mk3 Trade upgrade (that's 500k cwedits, ouch!)... which explains my current predicament.
Turn on your sector trader someplace SAFE to level it up. I always did the sector between Argone Prime and Ore Belt. It leveld up FAST there, and made some nice money to boot.
As soon as the pilot is level 10, he'll become a universe trader. Do NOT spend all your money at this point, keep a good 10K for the trader in reserve. Very soon he'll be making you good money. But until then...explore and have fun.
He'll also purchase a jump drive for himself so shipments go faster. :)
I was a bit grumpy with X3 recently. I purchased a ship out in Heart of Light, a Mercury Hauler, only to find that I was now the victim of harassment by a spontaneous Xenon invasion of every adjacent sector (which my unfortunate ships were trapped within). My ships were too weak and slow, and their craft strong enough to obliterate entire stations. I spent about two real-world hours attempting (and re-attempting) to make an escape through one route or another. Idling around failed to work, as they'd eventually decide to attack the [B]station[/B] I was hiding in and obliterate it. The solution was, after many dozen ideas were tried and dropped, was to lure them one at a time through the gate to Heart of Light where the titan would hopefully be near enough to make a proper attack. Half of the time it worked, half of the time I died. Doh! But I made it out and now have two UTs and am on my way to a third and fourth.
Anyone playing should get on IRC, as a few of us there either have experience with the game or are just now getting into it.
The game can be interesting at some times, unbearably frustrating at others.
[QUOTE=A2597;177299]Turn on your sector trader someplace SAFE to level it up. I always did the sector between Argone Prime and Ore Belt. It leveld up FAST there, and made some nice money to boot.
As soon as the pilot is level 10, he'll become a universe trader. Do NOT spend all your money at this point, keep a good 10K for the trader in reserve. Very soon he'll be making you good money. But until then...explore and have fun.
He'll also purchase a jump drive for himself so shipments go faster. :)[/QUOTE]
Ok, so I sent the hauler to one of the solar power plants in the Ore Belt and let the auto trader do its thing. It bought solar cells and sold them at the nearby ore mine and then headed back. So far so good.
One thing that bothers me is that any smart logistics person worth its money would tell you is that you don't want your ships to run around empty on their way back. So basically, I'm doing suboptimal trade runs right now. Not sure yet if I can fix this without having to do it manually.
I sent my buster to the Ore Belt as well, just to keep some fighter coverage handy, just in case someone would think of doing something stupid to my hauler. :D
I hope this will get the cash flowing. So far I've been doing more business selling salvaged ships and equipment.
The next ship on my list is the Mamba. Of course it's located in a pirate sector. The scorpion is going to give me a speed advantage I didn't have before. The drawback is that my shields are far less stronger than those of my buster. Either way, I don't really stand a chance against them as I'm usually vastly outnumbered, if not outgunned.
Ore Belt isn't the best place to start off..no sector patrols, and a pirate base there. I'd really suggest home of light. Meatsteak cahunas make money! :D
and you speed is a bigger advantage than you know. in that case, don't fight, straff and run. Once you get a couple clicks away, they will never catch you. :)
Other thing to do is get a tri-plex scanner and just avoid them alltogether. :)
Ok, I've relocated the hauler back to Home of Light and let it loose. For now the trader keeps dealing with energy cells for some reason. Not sure if it's the best deal, but he does it with different stations so I'm hoping he's not stuck on the commodity. Maybe I will have to do some manual trading just to make sure.
I keep rising in the trading ranks, so that's a good sign. In the meantime I will keep on exploring the Teladi sectors east of Argon space before looking for that lost Mamba Raider.
In my enthusiasm I accidentally sold two of my alpha PPC's and I'd like to get some bigger guns to arm myself to the fullest capacity just in case. :D
All in all this approach to learning the game is quite satisfying. The learning curve is not as steep as it might appear at first. I think, it's a mistake to follow the main plot, as it misrepresents the game and what it is really about.
indeed. Although many people say to follow the game through to about mission 6 or so when you get a free jumpdrive. That does help...but I've never done more than 2-3 missions before just making my own way in the world. :)
My trader was dealing with "Stott Spices" and is now hauling Meatsteak Cahoonas... :D I guess, I'll let him take care of business as long as the credits are flowing. Cool.
Once I know my way around I'll check out the main quest, but until then, I've still got some ground left to cover.
Comments
launch your drones and run like hell. The drones will attack the enemy ships, and they in turn will be forced to fight the drones. :)
Also, try going to the mineing platforms in Ore Belt. :) Usually can get it for 55/60 a peice, sell for a max of 120 IIRC. (been a long time since i've messed with trade runs myself, they are all automated in my little world. Well...when I played. Currently in Witcher, THEN TC. :) )
Great idea... but I had to backpedal yet again. No point in going to a gun fight armed only with a knife. It's extremely tedious to do any sort of ore mining with only a mineral scanner in your toolbox.
I need both an ore collector and a mining laser before heading to the asteroid field. The Ore collector can apparently only be purchased from a Teladi or Split equipment dock... I'm glad I kept my Argon buster to run those errands. The Teladi sectors are closer, so I'll head out there to find the gear I need.
I wonder if a mobile drilling system is what they mean by mining laser. :( That's an 78K investment right there... I don't even know if I got enough cash to get the ore collector... the drilling system uses up 100 units of space in the cargo hold. Which means I'll have to take out the back seats of my Argon buster if I am to even haul this gear back to my freighter... or I need to get the Toucan hauler into Teladi space... or I sell the buster to buy something bigger... or I'll postpone my mining project until I've made some cash. Or I'll try to fetch another derelict vessel.
Oh my...
[I]Note to next self: don't write text messages to a bulletin board while being parked directly in front of a jump gate. [/I]:D
I ment that there are usually 2-3 already established Ore Mines with Ore in production...
dock there, buy the ore, and run it to Argon prime, most of the stations need Ore, and it fetches a decent price. Usually about 10 runs and I can afford my MkIII trading software. (which means the ship can run itself, looking for deals, buying and selling all by itself, freeing me up to go explore. :) )
I think Ore requires large containers, which might be the problem.
When I bought a whole load of Energy Cells from the Solar Power Pant in the sector, I received a new rank (Profiteer). Maybe it's linked to that. I suppose I need to rise in business rank as well as in reputation. Who knows...
Second purchase earned me the trade rank of "Hawker"... :D
I believe ore is only traded in XL Containers. [Sigh!]
Dammit! In Argon space no one can hear you scream either!! (At least now I know what those tags mean. :D)
Once you do, you relize how much they put into this game!
wait until you have to learn weapons! Hahaha!!
Alpha HEPT
Beta IRE
Alpha PSG....
etc etc....oh gosh ...
I did some manual trading for a while and made about 20K profit, but that's taking way too much time. So I took the buster for another spin and located the buster sentinel in the Akeela's Beacon sector. Basically it's the sedan version of my buster coupe. :D It came with a few complementary gifts, some of which I don't know what they are good for, others can only be mounted on bigger ships.
I did well to add a few more canons to my fighter as well as an additional shield generator as I've had to fight off a few pirates along the way. You just can't ignore those buggers as you have a tendency to blow up after a few too many hits.
It was worth the trip though, not necessarily for the buster sentinel, but for the Scorpion Raider which is located in the Xenon Sector 101, a sector adjacent to one on my way back, more on that later. I went through the trouble to pin point all known abandoned ships and that paid off too. I located a Harrier Sentinel not too far off a sector that seems to be connected to my home quadrant through some kind of worm hole. I'll have to investigate, more on that later too.
The more I play this game, the more I feel like we don't really have to wait for Elite IV at this point. Even though X3 is not an Elite game, it makes up for it in other ways. Maybe X3 is a bit too much like a business simulation, and perhaps it is, but so far, I'm not bored yet. :D
Getting in is easy enough and I've managed to get both ships out only to get fragged in the adjacent sector by said pirates.
The game lets you sneak around somewhat and my strategy worked to get to the jump gate unchallenged, if not undetected. The problem is, once I come out on the other end of the jump, I land right into a fur ball and that means I'm pretty much toast, I see no way of escape.
The only thing I could try is lay low in the Xenon sector and wait for the pirates to return from their raid and try slipping through the gate when no one's watching. This seems like a scripted event, but I haven't figured out the pattern (if any) yet.
I'd love to have this Scorpion Raider, it's a somewhat odd shaped (kinda stealthy) fighter which comes equipped with some potential fire power that appears to be superior to what is mountable on my buster.
It's my fifth failed attempt, but I got through the gate for the first time, so I might actually make it... but the odds aren't looking good.
I've seen some crazy stuff though.
-Pirate migration from Pirate Ally to Kingdoms End...just like one long cargo train of pirate ships. Was crazy. Lasted about 4 days in game. Took me that long to get curious enough to see where they were going. When I finally got to kingdom end, there were so many fraking pirates there in the astroid areas, it was crazy. Not hostile either, just hanging out. I brought in about 40 ships including two M3s and tore them a new one. The combat got the local authorities to take note and kill of the rest.
Never did figure out why they did that.
I've also seen all of Kingdom End destroyed, and Paranid Prime. Sector was just WIPED. Nothing left. Guessing Khakk.
pirates raiding a base, I picked them off 1 by 1 to cap ships. :)
I scratched two pirates in the process (on the way in) and picked up a hurricane missile that one of them had dropped. I don't like "dropping my pants" though every time I open my bay doors to pick up battle loot (i.e. lowering my shields).
Another lesson learned today, it's not a good idea to run from a fight once hostilities have started, as you usually end up dead in this game. As Sheridan's dad said, never start a fight, but always finish it. :D
[IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y79/stingray_b5/x3screen00054_8b6c_80pc.jpg[/IMG]
As you can see the Scorpion Raider won't win any beauty contests and right now it's also quite a bit slower than my buster coupe, but it has a pair of those radioactive Alpha HEPT guns mounted, so I can off any pirate with a few well placed shots (for now), which is a nice touch. :D
[IMG]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y79/stingray_b5/x3screen00058_8b6_80pc.jpg[/IMG]
The downside is that I'm flat broke again, I'll have to sell off one of my busters. I'll have to figure out which one's better first though.
The word I was looking for earlier to describe the Scorpion Raider was, fugly. It's a fugly fighter. :D I also have to see what its maximum shield strength is.
If so, I think it's the 3rd most powerful M3 in the game. (Paranid have the best, Argon #2) But they all have strengths and weaknesses.
sheilds should be 2 25MJ shields IIRC. If it's three, you can rock out most sectors safely in that ship. :)
and cockpits?!? I don't recall any ships having cockpits without a mod in X3....
I'm not that ambitious... right now I'm just refurbishing my scavenged ships.
Ah...yes...once you get an M3 you will be a happy camper for awhile. My M3 was my main ship LONG after I had some M6s floating about. :)
Then again I also had a script that let you (For a VERY hefty price, with a risk of flat out breaking the ship adding repair cost as well) occasionally find mechanics that could adjust your engines / rudders past 100%...
I think I dumped close to 100mil into my M3. It was a friggin BEAST of a ship. Same shield power, but as fast as some M5s, and could turn on a dime. Add 5 Beta HEPT and well...
Try and stop me. :) was fun.
I'm a bit annoyed by the fact that I can hardly buy anything anywhere even if I have the cash to do so, just because I don't have a sufficiently high reputation with that particular alien race.
Funny thing is by offing a few pirates in a Teladi sector, I earned the right to buy a Teladi Police license. Since I can see myself fighting those buggers more often, I might as well get paid for it. Looks like I need to do some freelancing for a while before I can buy one for every new alien sector I run across.
I'm starting to get better at aiming with the mouse... it's making the whole process a little easier than doing it with a joystick.
I'm trying to swap a trading upgrade from my buster to my hauler. Both ships are docked at the same shipyard. I'm trying to do this remotely from the other side of the map.
Is this at all possible, or do I have to travel all the way back and do this manually? That would seriously suck.
I'm not sure I want to mess with the game itself at this point. It's odd that the devs didn't include this functionality out of the box.
I salvaged the Harrier Sentinel in the Vault and the Buzzard Hauler in the Family Tkr sectors. As they weren't better than anything I own right now, I went and sold them for cash to buy the Mk3 Trade upgrade (that's 500k cwedits, ouch!)... which explains my current predicament.
As soon as the pilot is level 10, he'll become a universe trader. Do NOT spend all your money at this point, keep a good 10K for the trader in reserve. Very soon he'll be making you good money. But until then...explore and have fun.
He'll also purchase a jump drive for himself so shipments go faster. :)
Anyone playing should get on IRC, as a few of us there either have experience with the game or are just now getting into it.
The game can be interesting at some times, unbearably frustrating at others.
Not that I've ever owned an M1...
But jumpdrives help. Those I did have. Situation went something like "OH FRAK! JUMP JUMP!!!! Whew....made it. :)"
And man, you guys are making me want to play again, and I still have about 40 hours of witcher to complete...
As soon as the pilot is level 10, he'll become a universe trader. Do NOT spend all your money at this point, keep a good 10K for the trader in reserve. Very soon he'll be making you good money. But until then...explore and have fun.
He'll also purchase a jump drive for himself so shipments go faster. :)[/QUOTE]
Ok, so I sent the hauler to one of the solar power plants in the Ore Belt and let the auto trader do its thing. It bought solar cells and sold them at the nearby ore mine and then headed back. So far so good.
One thing that bothers me is that any smart logistics person worth its money would tell you is that you don't want your ships to run around empty on their way back. So basically, I'm doing suboptimal trade runs right now. Not sure yet if I can fix this without having to do it manually.
I sent my buster to the Ore Belt as well, just to keep some fighter coverage handy, just in case someone would think of doing something stupid to my hauler. :D
I hope this will get the cash flowing. So far I've been doing more business selling salvaged ships and equipment.
The next ship on my list is the Mamba. Of course it's located in a pirate sector. The scorpion is going to give me a speed advantage I didn't have before. The drawback is that my shields are far less stronger than those of my buster. Either way, I don't really stand a chance against them as I'm usually vastly outnumbered, if not outgunned.
and you speed is a bigger advantage than you know. in that case, don't fight, straff and run. Once you get a couple clicks away, they will never catch you. :)
Other thing to do is get a tri-plex scanner and just avoid them alltogether. :)
I keep rising in the trading ranks, so that's a good sign. In the meantime I will keep on exploring the Teladi sectors east of Argon space before looking for that lost Mamba Raider.
In my enthusiasm I accidentally sold two of my alpha PPC's and I'd like to get some bigger guns to arm myself to the fullest capacity just in case. :D
All in all this approach to learning the game is quite satisfying. The learning curve is not as steep as it might appear at first. I think, it's a mistake to follow the main plot, as it misrepresents the game and what it is really about.
Once I know my way around I'll check out the main quest, but until then, I've still got some ground left to cover.