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X3: Reunion
Heir
Ausitn, TXRegistered User regular
Ausitn, TXRegistered User regular
So apparently this game isn't anything like I expected.
I purchased it on Steam last night after seeing some beautiful screen shots of it on another thread http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=58273
For whatever reason, I was expecting something along the lines of GalCiv. Nope, this is an actual space flight sim with an open-ended world ala Oblivion.
Actually reminds me of Privateer some.
Anyways, a couple of questions:
1: How the hell do I play this? I unfortunately don't have a working joystick right now.
2: Any tips for this game? I'm really not sure where to start.
I purchased it on Steam last night after seeing some beautiful screen shots of it on another thread http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=58273
For whatever reason, I was expecting something along the lines of GalCiv. Nope, this is an actual space flight sim with an open-ended world ala Oblivion.
Actually reminds me of Privateer some.
Anyways, a couple of questions:
1: How the hell do I play this? I unfortunately don't have a working joystick right now.
2: Any tips for this game? I'm really not sure where to start.
Heir on
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I'm pretty sure this game is kind of like freelancer, IE it's played almost entirely with the mouse. I don't want to sound dismissive and say read the manual, but having looked over the reviews, I'd advise you to read the manual because it sounds like the controls are by no means intuitive.
There is a wealth of information in archived threads on this game right here on this board. Search them out and you will find almost everything you need to know. This game has a terrifying learning curve, but it is worth it in the end. It is truly a phenomenal game.
I've installed x3 (6 disks, pre-dvds!) about 3 times (no pun intended). And each time I get about an hour in and just end up giving up.
You'll be fine with just a mouse/kb, but I've allways found the game much more enjoyable with a good joystick.
You don't need a joystick in order to enjoy X3. I found myself using KB+M the most, even when I had a joystick. The only time I was using the mouse and keyboard for flight was in combat. All the other times I was in interface mode, or whatever they call it, using automated navigation to get from A to B.
Hitting the enter key (I believe) brings up the quick menu which you can navigate with the arrow keys. From there you can access essentially everything. Saving or loading your game, checking the properties on ships or stations, accessing fleet/squad/wingman commands etc etc.
I believe it's the right mouse button, or could be spacebar you'll have to check it, that switches you from flight controls to interface controls, or whatever they call it.
In flight mode the mouse controls the pitch and yaw of your ship, while in interface mode you have a cursor you can use to point and click to interact with objects and windows.
As with any sim, there's lots of keys to digest. Just take 'em few at a time to familiarize yourself. Browse the manual (Steam version should have a PDF manual) a bit and stick around the starting sector(s) while you acquaint yourself with the game.
As for game tips themselves, I never played the storyline so I can't comment on it. I always started custom games which threw you into a Buster with a few credits to start off with. From there I just did very minor trade runs with the Buster. Then I upgraded the Buster with the credits I earned from that so I could carry more inventory to trade.
Eventually I earned enough to buy a cargo ship which allowed me to carry more crap to sell. Then I bought another transport ship which I made an automated trader out of.. then another. On and on it went till I had dozens of stations, trading ships and a fleet that could wipe out everything in the universe.
It's slow going, particularly at the beginning but it all pays off in the end.
If you go to egosoft's website, they have an official manual you can download.
Player Community Made Guide <-Has tutorials that show you command by command how to start out.
In true masochist fashion, I started a game on X-Treme. After some futile attempts at trading with almost no cargo space, I decided to just sell the Buster they start you with and buy a proper Mercury. Trading in X3 is so much more cutthroat then in most space sims.
Question: What's the cheapest ship that can go asteroid mining?
Ancillary Question: Is mining profitable at all?
Unrelated Question: Are there any mods that are absolutely recommended for a more enjoyable play-through?
http://forum.egosoft.com/index.php?c=2
And forget Freelancer. It's an incredibly static experience when you compare it to the constantly changing universe in X3. The only thing Freelancer has over X3 is a better campaign.
Limed for truth, yellow chiffon'ed for irony. The campaign was simply okay. But it's absolutely true that once you find one planet that buys a commodity for more than another planet sells it, you never have to find another one again, provided you're willing to spend the time grinding it, because buy and sell prices never change.
The real selling point for me with freelancer was multiplayer piracy of NPC trade ships with my brother and some friends.
So true. I want to love this game, but fucking shit its complicated and I just go play FreeLancer instead or something after failing to leave a space station for 15 minutes.
This is not irony. It is a coincidence.
I will never forgive myself.
Yeah, my problem was that I never quite felt in control, like if I needed to actually do anything in a hurry, I could. That was entirely down to me not fully understanding what was going on, but it just felt like I was scraping through more on luck than judgement.
That, and I still hold a daily vigil for Elite 4.
Time to read the manual. I'm getting tired of hearing "incoming message" and not knowing what the crap to do.
Beautiful game though.
Yeah that was one of my turn offs too. I tried really hard, on multiple occasions to get into X3, and some parts of it really were beautiful, but it's just got the steepest learning curve I've ever seen in a game. It's not often I'm unable to get into the flow of a game that I actually want to play.
Whoa, I did the same two days ago (well almost, I bought it on Steam, only $19.95). Never played a "X" game before, but thought I'd give it a try, people seem to like them. Haven't played a space sim since Tachyon (voiced by Bruce Campbell!), so I guess it's about time.
Downloaded and installed it and thought "k, I'll blow some shit up for an hour and a half before my gf comes home, let's go".
Yeah.
It took me that long just to figure out the basic controls and fly through a gate and back. So yeah, it feels like you need an extended period of peace and quiet to be able to get into this game. But I guess the general consensus is that it's worth it, so I'll definitely give it a try.
While most official forums are utter trash, the nature of Egosoft's games has bred a decent community and they've written tons of useful and informative guides that cover ever single aspect of the game from piloting your ship to making money to how the entire in-game economy functions.
Essentially it's an Elite clone. But probably only the older gamers here will know of it.
X2 and X1 gave a little help in introducing you to stuff. X3 (if memory serves) was originally intended as an addon to X2, which kind of explains how it chucks you in the deep end. It sort of assumes you already know the controls.
Elite 4 will be coming out in a few years, so CT will never know sunlight again when it appears.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
I'm pretty sure I tried a demo of this game when it first came out. What was remarkable to me at the time was that I occassional play a space shuttle sim called Orbiter. Orbiter uses real physics, so if you want to get from point A to point B, you have to understand vector geometry in a rotating system, occassionally in a system with two or more centers of gravity (in the case of interplanetary transits). And yet I still got the impression that Orbiter was easier to play, though I confess part of this was that the PC I was using at the time was just barely up to specs to run it.
It sure looks like there's something in there worth playing when you get a handle on it all, though!
This should work.
didn't think to maybe check the key bindings
Elite 2 & 3 also got released as free downloads too.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
8800gt vanilla, for the price to performance ratio you just can't go fucking wrong and it really is a beast of a card. In canada you can get an xfx geforce 8800gt from tigerdirect.ca for $149.00...go that is rediculous!
It will run crysis quite nicely to. Just remember you need a PCI-E connector (One comes in the box, requires to standard 4 pin connectors).
It is a hefty card, quite big, but so nice. Hope that helps CT
Did I wake up in backwards world today?
We're coming at this from opposite directions; I literally started playing EVE yesterday. My experience thus far is that flying the ship is somewhat more-involved in these single-player titles than in EVE (almost all flying in EVE that I've done so far is akin to using autopilot in other games, pick a target and hit approach or orbit, or double click a direction to go). But the basic gameplay is very similar--trading, mining, pirate mob hunting at asteroid belts.
I actually have avoided EVE for two years because of the community--for whatever reason that game excels at exporting its asshats to other MMOs who frequently express the desire for something like EVE, only with more griefing.
No.
Because it's backwards world, that actually means yes. And by posting this it now means no.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.