X3: Terran Conflict

On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:53:25 +1000, Lazarus <devnull.DeleteThis@lukewarmmail.com> wrote:

>Memnoch wrote:
>> So, who is going to be buying this in October?
>
>Yup. Would prefer X4 but beggars can't be choosers... and us Space Sim
>fans are obviously at the bottom of all the developer's lists. [sigh]

It's a shame that. Their could be a greater market for this type of game if
the few developers that do try their hands at it don't screw it up! Look at
that Rogue Universe game that got released a while back. That was so bad. The
only two I can think of that I played and enjoyed, apart from X3, were
Freelancer and Darkstar One. The ability to change the way your ship is
configured, as opposed to actually purchasing a new ship was quite novel I
thought.

"Memnoch" <memnoch.TakeThisOut@nospampleaseimbritish.ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:2iaqd4hep1l1llutn9r4a7ooagndug8sfj@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:53:25 +1000, Lazarus <devnull.TakeThisOut@lukewarmmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>Memnoch wrote:
>>> So, who is going to be buying this in October?
>>
>>Yup. Would prefer X4 but beggars can't be choosers... and us Space Sim
>>fans are obviously at the bottom of all the developer's lists. [sigh]
>
> It's a shame that. Their could be a greater market for this type of game
> if
> the few developers that do try their hands at it don't screw it up! Look
> at
> that Rogue Universe game that got released a while back. That was so bad.
> The
> only two I can think of that I played and enjoyed, apart from X3, were
> Freelancer and Darkstar One. The ability to change the way your ship is
> configured, as opposed to actually purchasing a new ship was quite novel I
> thought.

Im not even going to look at X3 after the rubbish of the last games. They
just dont appeal to me at all. Im waiting for Elite.

In article <2iaqd4hep1l1llutn9r4a7ooagndug8sfj RemoveThis @4ax.com>,
memnoch RemoveThis @nospampleaseimbritish.ntlworld.com says...
> On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 00:53:25 +1000, Lazarus <devnull RemoveThis @lukewarmmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Memnoch wrote:
> >> So, who is going to be buying this in October?
> >
> >Yup. Would prefer X4 but beggars can't be choosers... and us Space Sim
> >fans are obviously at the bottom of all the developer's lists. [sigh]
>
> It's a shame that. Their could be a greater market for this type of game if
> the few developers that do try their hands at it don't screw it up! Look at
> that Rogue Universe game that got released a while back. That was so bad. The
> only two I can think of that I played and enjoyed, apart from X3, were
> Freelancer and Darkstar One. The ability to change the way your ship is
> configured, as opposed to actually purchasing a new ship was quite novel I
> thought.
>

Mmmh. I have x3 sitting on my harddrive, I really like the game, but I
haven't played it anywhere near as much as it deserves; mostly because
there's AOnline, there's Civ IV and there's Galciv 2 (Arnor). So I've
had two blasts with X3, in one instance up to owning about 3 or 5 ships
and setting up a small trading business, and hiring my first 'bot'
pilot, but that's it.

I have, in other words, barely scratched the surface. And I'll probably
have to start from the beginning again, next time I want to play,
because it's been months and I won't remember the commands and what I
was up to last time ...

So can you give me any idea what's NEW with this revamp? Is it really
worth getting for someone who has not nearly exhausted X3?

I am for instance not entirely sure that buying the Arnor expansion to
GalCiv 2 was worth the bucks I spent. Well, they promised one big world-
shattering patch for October or so; we'll see.

-Peter

On Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:01:48 +1200, Peter Huebner <no.one DeleteThis @this.address> wrote:

>So can you give me any idea what's NEW with this revamp? Is it really
>worth getting for someone who has not nearly exhausted X3?


That would entirely depend on whether you enjoyed the original. For you, or
anyone who never played X3 to death I would say yes. And for those that did
play it to death, like myself, we will get it anyway!

They have fleshed out the Terran race and made the Sol system available, plus
I expect to see all Terran vessels available for either purchase or capture,
right up to M1s.

There is an overhauled UI, which can be disabled if you preferred the
original, based around a right-click accessible menu. Looks good in the videos
that are available.

One thing I read about were trainable boarding parties. Before you had to
shoot up a ship and keep its shields down long enough that the pilot bails
out. You could then EVA over and capture the ship. Now you can have boarding
parties that can be fired at a target vessel or by another method which
escapes me for the moment. This means that you have the possibility of
capturing a ship that is stilled crewed be the enemy. They have to be trained
in different areas of expertise, which costs of course, to be able to do this.
I'm really looking forward to this one.

I'm not sure if the Sohnen will be in there this time around but the Kha'ak
certainly are and have a new captical ship that looks a lot like one of those
cylindrical Replicator ships from the Stargate series. Expect this to be huge!

Other changes have been made with influences I think from the large amount of
community created scripts that are available like fleet and fighter wing
management etc.

There is plenty of info available on the Egosoft forums of course, much more
than I can remember.

http://forum.egosoft.com/index.php

Memnoch wrote:
>> Yup. Would prefer X4 but beggars can't be choosers... and us Space Sim
>> fans are obviously at the bottom of all the developer's lists. [sigh]
>
> It's a shame that. Their could be a greater market for this type of game if
> the few developers that do try their hands at it don't screw it up! Look at
> that Rogue Universe game that got released a while back. That was so bad. The
> only two I can think of that I played and enjoyed, apart from X3, were
> Freelancer and Darkstar One. The ability to change the way your ship is
> configured, as opposed to actually purchasing a new ship was quite novel I
> thought.

Darkstar One... that's one I've never played. Unfortunately that's
because I haven't ever seen a copy at my local shops. (And I don't buy
online.)

Mebbe I should start looking at torrents? O;-]

Freelancer was fun for what it was, and to fill in some time I've been
playing quite a bit of Starlancer, Tachyon & Vega Strike of late. Hell,
I've even been playing Orbiter!

But they just don't compare to X3.

The improvements for Terran Conflict sound good, but I'm hoping that
they're not going to affect the FPS. X3 gets a bit stuttery as it is
when things get hectic...

On Sun, 28 Sep 2008 02:58:01 +1000, Lazarus <devnull.RemoveThis@lukewarmmail.com>
wrote:
..
>
>Darkstar One... that's one I've never played. Unfortunately that's
>because I haven't ever seen a copy at my local shops. (And I don't buy
>online.)
>
>Mebbe I should start looking at torrents? O;-]
>
>Freelancer was fun for what it was, and to fill in some time I've been
>playing quite a bit of Starlancer, Tachyon & Vega Strike of late. Hell,
>I've even been playing Orbiter!
>
>But they just don't compare to X3.
>
>The improvements for Terran Conflict sound good, but I'm hoping that
>they're not going to affect the FPS. X3 gets a bit stuttery as it is
>when things get hectic...
>
>
Well I haven't played it to death but I've got a couple 100
million and about 4 transports and a fleet of about 10-12 fighting
ships.
Still have it on my HD but...What is the point?

I'm not trying to be glib and I'll admit that maybe it is too
open-ended for me but ...NOW WHAT?!?!?

Where am I supposed to go or who am I supposed to kill or how
many systems do I have to tame or...

Like I said, Maybe too open-ended. I liked the game(though the
learning curve is BRUTAL) and have followed the series for better than
15 years.

Maybe one of the total mods would help me but I'm just stuck
for what/where is it trying to do/go?

Bill

bigbill.TakeThisOut@charter.net wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Sep 2008 02:58:01 +1000, Lazarus <devnull.TakeThisOut@lukewarmmail.com>
> wrote:
> ..
> Well I haven't played it to death but I've got a couple 100
> million and about 4 transports and a fleet of about 10-12 fighting
> ships.
> Still have it on my HD but...What is the point?
>
> I'm not trying to be glib and I'll admit that maybe it is too
> open-ended for me but ...NOW WHAT?!?!?
>
> Where am I supposed to go or who am I supposed to kill or how
> many systems do I have to tame or...
>
> Like I said, Maybe too open-ended. I liked the game(though the
> learning curve is BRUTAL) and have followed the series for better than
> 15 years.
>
> Maybe one of the total mods would help me but I'm just stuck
> for what/where is it trying to do/go?

Ahhhh... but isn't this true of all games eventually?

X3 is the game I go back to most often because the openness of the game
play after the story line (or with non-story starts) strongly appeals to
me. I like experimenting with different factory structures, etc. for
example.

However it does bore after a while... which is why I'm dabbling around
with the other titles and praying fervently for X4 or some other new
title to be released for a bit more variety.

I'm not holding my breath over it though. :shrug:

Memnoch wrote:
> So, who is going to be buying this in October? I can't believe I will be the
> only one. Looking at some of the videos which are available this is going to
> be great, more an evolution of X3 than a revolution.
>
> The interfact appears to have had a major overhaul, which it really needed in
> my opinion. It had been lurking around since X:BTF and really should have been
> brought up to date when X3 was released.
>
> Look here for some videos including gameplay ones.
>
> http://www.egosoft.com/download/x3tc/videos_en.php
>
> Or alternatively look here:
>
> http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?hl=en&safe=off&q=X3+Terran+Confl...+traile

OK. So it has been out for a week already, according to the egosoft
newsletter.

Long enough for an update (1.2) to be released, anyway!

So who has bought it? Any likes? Dislikes?

Feedback, people, please!?

On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 02:02:50 +1000, Lazarus <devnull.TakeThisOut@lukewarmmail.com> wrote:

>Memnoch wrote:
>> So, who is going to be buying this in October? I can't believe I will be the
>> only one. Looking at some of the videos which are available this is going to
>> be great, more an evolution of X3 than a revolution.
>>
>> The interfact appears to have had a major overhaul, which it really needed in
>> my opinion. It had been lurking around since X:BTF and really should have been
>> brought up to date when X3 was released.
>>
>> Look here for some videos including gameplay ones.
>>
>> http://www.egosoft.com/download/x3tc/videos_en.php
>>
>> Or alternatively look here:
>>
>> http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?hl=en&safe=off&q=X3+Terran+Confl...+traile
>
>OK. So it has been out for a week already, according to the egosoft
>newsletter.
>
>Long enough for an update (1.2) to be released, anyway!
>
>So who has bought it? Any likes? Dislikes?
>
>Feedback, people, please!?

I've been playing it a lot over the last week and it is great fun. I have
nearly 70 million and about another 30 million in assets so far. Now I never
played the XTM mod really. I stopped playing X3 shortly after it was released
I think but as much as the devs. would have you believe, TC is really X3 with
XTM built in as a paid for product, but the devs. have polished things some
more. There are a lot of new features but one of the core things to my mind is
the modified XTM content.

Memnoch wrote:

> I've been playing it a lot over the last week and it is great fun. I have
> nearly 70 million and about another 30 million in assets so far. Now I never
> played the XTM mod really. I stopped playing X3 shortly after it was released
> I think but as much as the devs. would have you believe, TC is really X3 with
> XTM built in as a paid for product, but the devs. have polished things some
> more. There are a lot of new features but one of the core things to my mind is
> the modified XTM content.

No serious problems, obviously. [Phew!]

Ok, that's good enough for me, I'd better pull my finger out and put my
order in.

Geeze... I'm a really hard sell, eh?

On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:33:21 +1000, Lazarus <devnull RemoveThis @lukewarmmail.com> wrote:

>Memnoch wrote:
>
>> I've been playing it a lot over the last week and it is great fun. I have
>> nearly 70 million and about another 30 million in assets so far. Now I never
>> played the XTM mod really. I stopped playing X3 shortly after it was released
>> I think but as much as the devs. would have you believe, TC is really X3 with
>> XTM built in as a paid for product, but the devs. have polished things some
>> more. There are a lot of new features but one of the core things to my mind is
>> the modified XTM content.
>
>No serious problems, obviously. [Phew!]
>
>Ok, that's good enough for me, I'd better pull my finger out and put my
>order in.
>
>Geeze... I'm a really hard sell, eh?

With patch 1.2 and presumably before as well, there are a few problems with
some of the Terran plot missions, which have easy to follow work arounds to
avoid them. Rather than retype all that here, have a look on the official
forums for the Terran plot threads. There are two missions that I am aware of
that I have also personally come across that are somewhat bugged. But
fortunately not complete deal breakers.

Memnoch wrote:
> On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:33:21 +1000, Lazarus <devnull RemoveThis @lukewarmmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Memnoch wrote:
>>
>>> I've been playing it a lot over the last week and it is great fun. I have
>>> nearly 70 million and about another 30 million in assets so far. Now I never
>>> played the XTM mod really. I stopped playing X3 shortly after it was released
>>> I think but as much as the devs. would have you believe, TC is really X3 with
>>> XTM built in as a paid for product, but the devs. have polished things some
>>> more. There are a lot of new features but one of the core things to my mind is
>>> the modified XTM content.
>> No serious problems, obviously. [Phew!]
>>
>> Ok, that's good enough for me, I'd better pull my finger out and put my
>> order in.
>>
>> Geeze... I'm a really hard sell, eh?
>
> With patch 1.2 and presumably before as well, there are a few problems with
> some of the Terran plot missions, which have easy to follow work arounds to
> avoid them. Rather than retype all that here, have a look on the official
> forums for the Terran plot threads. There are two missions that I am aware of
> that I have also personally come across that are somewhat bugged. But
> fortunately not complete deal breakers.

That shouldn't be a problem, I was sort of half-expecting something like
that anyway.

I was a tad concerned about the reworked interface though, there's
always the potential for disaster there.

Still, my order is in. Now comes the waiting game.

On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:19:02 +1100, Lazarus <devnull RemoveThis @lukewarmmail.com> wrote:

>Memnoch wrote:
>> On Sat, 25 Oct 2008 18:33:21 +1000, Lazarus <devnull RemoveThis @lukewarmmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Memnoch wrote:
>>>
>>>> I've been playing it a lot over the last week and it is great fun. I have
>>>> nearly 70 million and about another 30 million in assets so far. Now I never
>>>> played the XTM mod really. I stopped playing X3 shortly after it was released
>>>> I think but as much as the devs. would have you believe, TC is really X3 with
>>>> XTM built in as a paid for product, but the devs. have polished things some
>>>> more. There are a lot of new features but one of the core things to my mind is
>>>> the modified XTM content.
>>> No serious problems, obviously. [Phew!]
>>>
>>> Ok, that's good enough for me, I'd better pull my finger out and put my
>>> order in.
>>>
>>> Geeze... I'm a really hard sell, eh?
>>
>> With patch 1.2 and presumably before as well, there are a few problems with
>> some of the Terran plot missions, which have easy to follow work arounds to
>> avoid them. Rather than retype all that here, have a look on the official
>> forums for the Terran plot threads. There are two missions that I am aware of
>> that I have also personally come across that are somewhat bugged. But
>> fortunately not complete deal breakers.
>
>That shouldn't be a problem, I was sort of half-expecting something like
>that anyway.
>
>I was a tad concerned about the reworked interface though, there's
>always the potential for disaster there.
>
>Still, my order is in. Now comes the waiting game.

The interface is really nice but I still find myself using the keyboard a lot
as it is stil faster if you know the keys to press.