How to get into this game?

[Unturned]

I'm trying to learn this game but the problems I"m seeing are:

1.Very few missions available, 90% of combat missions I've accepted the target gets destroyed before I even get to that sector.

2.Lose too much rank from failing one mission. (deliver abandoned ship)

3. My larger ship was constantly running into ships near the gates, my smaller ship gets destroyed very easily by the same thing. This compounded by the save only when docking feature sucks. Maybe using stock market only for salvage insurance is considered ok?

4. SETI /autopilot doesn't work at all, constantly getting destroyed. Apparently bounce mod marks the game as cheating or something like that?

5. I know how to *its not cheating* using the stock market and what not but I don't really have interest in using the stock market. Maybe that will be a last resort to try to salvage the game as being playable.

6. Does anyone know any other games similar to this that are slightly user friendlier?

[FourGreenFields]

1. Assuming you mean assassination missions, it's best to have a jumpdrive to do them.
If you want other combat missions, I recommend protect station (early on the spawning enemies simply don't have the firepower to kill the station, and they'll crash or get killed by military sooner or later), defend sector from xenon (will also get killed sooner or later; you may not leave the sector during this mission iIrc), patrols (dito, but can leave sector; need at least one kill or you'll only receive very little reward).



2. Delivering abandoned ships is sometimes undoable without jumpdrive and/or a ship capable of carrying the ship. Consider saving before accepting, and then checking where the ship spawns. Or don't do them early on (or sell the ship at a shipyard for extra credits at the cost of relations).



3. If you jump to another gate in the same sector with a capital ship (bigger than M6) you should check if it's clear. Also don't jump if you know there'll be a capital spawning there (i.e. protect station mission) unless you're confident that you can survive the impact. (Ships get repositioned so they're at some distance from everything else when they are spawned in the sector, but that doesn't happen when jumping within one sector)
Other than that, check the flightpath. If there is a ship (or station/asteroid) blocking the way, consider piloting yourself. If you just passed a gate and there is a freighter right beside you, make use of strafing (you should always do that anyway). Also avoid the main "streets" from one gate to another.
You won't be able to avoid every collision, but if you fly smart/carefull it is far from constantly.

Mods don't count as "cheating", but they mark the save as modded, so you can't get achievements anymore.



6. I'd recommend just sticking with it. You'll get the hang of it sooner or later.

[Ketraar]

Originally posted by Unturned:

I'm trying to learn this game

Go back and play the main Plot in Terran Conflict. Ap kinda expects you to know your way around the X Universe and is rather unforgiving.

Not saying you will get good at it by playing the TC Plot but you will at least get familar with things more easely.

MFG

Ketraar

[FourGreenFields]

If you decide to play TC keep in mind that the hull strength of ships is much lower there. Even M3s are generally killed in one short burst once the shield is down, so you'll need to watch your shield even more.

[Unturned]

All who replyed - Thanks for the input I will keep trying at it. One tip I found is if i can find a save before I failed that mission I can try to self destruct the ship and maybe not lose rank.

[Lord_WC]

a) don't pick up missions. Seriously. Build some capital first, it will make your life easier.

b) if you have it unlocked play the poisoned paranid start. It gives you probably the best personal ship for the low-low price of 25 mils. Land on the station before turning the mission in (to autosave). Abuse that save, the ship you get can be overtuned (I personally go for about 200 m/s that's conveniently fast enough)

c) ideally you will start in Heaven's Assertion. Head east to Split space. From now on get used to discovering all the stations and buying stuff. You have quite a lot of time, so build up a small capital. At the start of the game you can make pretty profitable ecell runs in sectors with SPPs. Make your way east to Boron space, still trade, then turn north to Teladis. The cool thing about teladis is that they will sell you anything, so keep an eye out for full weapon factories or high value goods (you can drop off weapons in every space dock for average price).

d) by the time you get to Grand Exchange you should have enough money to buy a Kestrel. Get it. Fly to the trading post. Buy speed upgrades. Undock. Turn to the emptiest space you can find. Press Tab. Cry out from joy. Fall in love.
Weapons optional. Get a Trading System Extension and try to get a Cargo Life Support System if a pirate station spawned near you, it will enable you to do those extremely lucrative 'Need a quick taxi' missions. Always always land on the station before accepting the mission. This will make an autosave and you have to land on the station anyway so saves you time.

e) Keep on going west through Argon then Split space in the direction of Siezewell. Don't be afraid in Xenon sectors nothing can catch you. By now you should have some money, so land on the Stock Exchange, buy a trading permit. Undock, fly a few hundred km away from the pane so you won't get disturbed. Start trading.
The things actually being traded in Siezewell are Artificial Fertilizer, Biological Micro-Organisms, Cartography chips (rare), Construction Equipment, Food Rations, Weapon Interface Chips, Engine Components (rare), Jumpdrive Components, Terran Hight-Tech Goods. Your job is simple - buy stuff the cheapest possible (around 80-90 index) and sell as high as possible (around 50-60 index). You can SETA to wait for refresh. This will quickly raise you the needed 25 millions and some change (I usually stop at 100 mil).

Advanced extra cheesy tactic (I hate raising my first billion for my huge complexes). Go to Perpetual Sin and mine nvidium (I get a TL from the remaining money and mine until it's full). Jump to PTNI. PTNI is a fun sector because it has a stock exchange AND trades nvidium. What you will do now is move out of the traffic and start reversing. Open the stock exchange buy all the nvidium shares you can. It's the lowest possible since you have nvidium - in your hold. Now eject it. Quickly open the Stock Exchange again and sell all your nvidium shares - it will be the highest possible since noone has it in stock anymore. If you are quick enough you will pick the nvidium back up (since you are reversing) and can repeat the process as many times as needed. Can't remember it by heart but it should give you around 24k per nvidium and with about 8k in your hold it will give you a cool 190 millions per round.

I know you don't want SE. But you should do it. There are lots of things to worry about in this game, you can play without SE after you learned how things work.

[Ketraar]

While I can appreciate the effort of writing long posts explaining new players how they should play their games, its a often a bad advise. The best advise veterans can give new players is to find their own way into the games. Exploring the games as they unfold is largely part of the experience, going down a formula to achieve some arbitrary goal is diminishing the experience.

Veterans should give advise to overcome issues player encounter without removing their own eureka moments. That is my advise, play as you like, dont be afraid to fail, its a game you can start over, reload as you like. THINK is a big portion of the games no one should be encouraged to skip.

MFG

Ketraar

[Havok]

Originally posted by Ketraar:

Veterans should give advise to overcome issues player encounter without removing their own eureka moments. That is my advise, play as you like, dont be afraid to fail, its a game you can start over, reload as you like. THINK is a big portion of the games no one should be encouraged to skip.

This exactly. I have a habbit when starting any new game of doing a ton of reaseach first. It might be the best character builds or guides and what not. I originally tried to apporach X3TC in a similar manner. There was soo much content in terms of guides that I got overwhelmed and it turned me off of the game for sounding soo complicated. It was probably a month after this that I started to play the game again with a new approach. I just jumped in and decided to learn for myself. I struggled a bit at first but quickly got the hang of everything. The best thing to do is to take it slow.

That being said, good luck to the OP, I hope you stick around to experince the wonderful things that X3TC and AP have to offer.

[DrSuperEvil]

1. The number of missions depends on how high your race rank with that faction is. Fight missions usually wreck your pirate or yaki rep so stick with taxi and personnel transport missions.

2. Deliver abandoned ship missions are tough. You need to give them a jumpdrive or have a fast transport ship (like a kyoto with pandora tunings) to beat many. I personally try to avoid them unless training marines.

3. Always approach gates from an angle and never head on. Install a Docking Computer to allow for instant docking when under 1.5k. Use the stock market however you feel fit.

4. All mods mark the game as cheating. If you need SETA then you are not doing enough in the game.

5. Yeah, this says it all: http://www.egosoft.com:8292/confluence/display/X3WIKI/Stock+Market+Mechanics The stock market is a good tool for the tormented teladi or poisoned paranid start but you can make money with other methods although it is considerably slower. Also with large complexes costing several hundred million credits while a universal trader/station usually only brings in 300k per hour.

6. Freelancer?

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by DrSuperEvil:

If you need SETA then you are not doing enough in the game.

Early game you do. Have fun having loads of stuff to do when you don't even have the money for an M4.

Originally posted by DrSuperEvil:

Install a Docking Computer to allow for instant docking when under 1.5k.

Docking computer works at up to 5km from the docking bay for me.

Originally posted by DrSuperEvil:

1. The number of missions depends on how high your race rank with that faction is. Fight missions usually wreck your pirate or yaki rep so stick with taxi and personnel transport missions.

Reputation with Yaki and pirates deosn't really matter though. *Maybe* Yaki for their special ships, but you can just as well capture them, and reverse engineer them late-game.

[DrSuperEvil]

Some stations have a smaller proximity sphere than others. Some terran stations can be autodocked at 13km away.

Pirates and yaki tend to have alot of taxi missions. Having pirates not harrassing your universal traders makes life simpler. Also having pirates as friends allows access to the easily manipulated gaian star stock exchange. The PHQ is hardly late game. Reason i keep yaki freindly is I like building complexes in their resource rich sectors.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by DrSuperEvil:

Some stations have a smaller proximity sphere than others. Some terran stations can be autodocked at 13km away.

Originally posted by FourGreenFields:

Docking computer works at up to 5km from the docking bay for me.