Which X Series Game to Play for best intro user experience to series

[DedZedNub]

Ok, first I have these in my library:

X3:Reunion, X3: Terran Confict, X3: Albion Prelude, and all the previous ones. Now, I've played a very little bit of X2, X and X-Tension.

I tend to read manuals and I wanted to do the tutorials. But I really didn't like the X2:Threat initial tutorial when I was going thru the rings (yes I did try it at least 5 times and I actually had it okay one time, but decided to start over since I thought I missed something -- argh -- never again). I messed up, things began to spawn in, and I felt like I missed things. Maybe I should have just ignored that X2 tutorial, but I had read somewhere that doing so makes it much harder.

Now, I've finally upgraded my video card with a card that's been lying around to be installed for 3 years LOL. It's an Nvidia Geforce GTX 750 Ti, I don't think it will have any trouble with any of these, given what I've tested it on and the age of these games.

So, here's some other stuff to consider as you advise:

-- I'll probably start off with Mouse & Keyboard, I've got a Logitech Gamepad of some kind, but I've never used a Gamepad, so that's only a backup plan. My very old DOS age joysticks probably won't run on this, and I think I junked them all last year.

-- Space Sims over the last 4 decades or so tend to have one issue which is a pain -- docking. Now, I read somewhere that some of the X games require you to find some docking enhancing software in the game. Anyway, as long as I can manage the docking early on until I get to that enhancement, and not crash forever into the stations and die -- I'll probably be okay.

-- My limited experience with X2 and earlier X's was separated by close to a decade each. I'd like to try something in the X3 category if docking and the start is not so convoluted and arcane that I'm going to die 22 times before I even hit a station to rest and park my ship. After I get that far, I'm going to high-five the neighbor's cat, which will probably require some first aid for my arm after he retaliates in kind, and rest from the intense ordeal while worrying over how close actual success is in my next session. Whew.

-- I'd like to try one of these and give it maybe 3-5 hours of not giving up just to see if I can get used to what used to be a rather arcane interface. On some levels it does make sense, so I'm not that worried, but I'd like, if possible, to not miss a lot of necessary material by worrying about what is happening while I learn the controls, and I'd like to actually have a chance to learn my ship and do some things before I die 10 times.

-- I promised myself I'd try one of these games and give it a fair shake before I die of old age, and I'm running out of time. So that goes into the mix. Controlling multiple turrets and their views manually while being shot out by 3 superior opponents is probably not going to get me to this goal. So a ship that will let me scoot but also hurt each run at the enemy, might be a good suggestion, or auto-turrets (although shouting get gud old man may make more sense).

-- I'm not probably going to build industries unless it gets that comfortable that I decide, hey cool more keybinds, but I would like to try a few ships, trade a bit, fight a bit, and go to 3-5 star systems before I give up, and do at least 5 missions. I'd also like to win a few combats before I say to heck with it. If all goes well, I pass the familiarity threshold and I can then enjoy the open world sort of thing.

-- Obviously I'm going to be relatively weak at my piloting skills initially. Any simple advice, like what cheap ship or cheap add-ons to put on the ship to aid in my just getting by the learning curve past the 10 hour play mark, for example, would be good. But I will read the whole manual, I will also try and read all the in-game tutorial and messages -- I think in the past being so anal retentive has shown itself to be a negative, so any mindset adjustments you can recommend as how to merge into the gameplay better -- I'd be much obliged. Suggestions of how to improve over a rabbit's foot, such as holing onto an old acorn or freeze drying a 10 hour baked squirrels scalp, will be considered if necessary. I'm sure the neighbors cat can get me one, if I do him some favors in return -- that's usually how he operates, off the grid and stuff easy to fence or digest.

-- I get the feeling that maybe something in the X3 series should work out best, but if I'm in some huge galactic war before I can even get my feet wet, it could be a bad run.

Thanks for any replies. I'm not going to get the newest X game in the interim, I just want to try this in my backlog in a fair way before I can't run it anymore, as it is an expansive game. Graphics don't mean everything to me, I just want to feel like --- whoa X-Series is kinda cool and hey I'm actually getting a hang of this and surviving hopefully before I kick the imaginary box across the room and start trolling these forums with hate in my heart. I'm old enough and experienced enough, but I'm also old enough to have my eyes twitch when I read too long and where I can always move on to the other hundreds of games I've never played and admit defeat too readily.

Thanks. Neighbor's cat scoffs at this whole post. He's trying to pat the X key on the keyboard and acting like he's coughing up hairballs, then walking off disinterested with some knowing smirk on his face. I want him to feel the pain. Prove him wrong. I bet him that if I last 10 hours, he gets to sit in the rain on the patio all night next time it rains. He bet me a can of tuna fillet and some desiccated liver pills plus the right to use my head as a scratch post when I fall asleep on my day off if I fail. I'm tired of his being right, painfully tired LOL. It's like he knows things -- it's scary really. He also wears this djinni like kerchief on his head -- but never mind that. Focus -- take him down, hard. Sure, the neighbor is cute, but she's not open world. Don't feel sorry for the cat if he loses. I get the distinct impression that he's going to be left in charge of the controls once we get to the trading/pirating part anyway.

[Laptop]

750 Ti should be fine to run the game, what CPU you on though? This game is quite CPU demanding also as there's a big breathing universe going on in the X games, it's not just your ship(s) in action.

Controls don't really matter, but generally mouse and keyboard is what I would use so I can quickly point and press where I need to go or what I need to go to. However an experienced controller player could also do the same. Controller support was actually added to X3: TC (X3: AP already had it) not long ago.

As far as docking goes, all the X games allow you to purchase a "docking computer" upgrade for your ship, so once you are within a certain distance of the station you are approaching, you will just "insta-dock" there, so teleporting if you like. Alternatively, the auto-pilot can dock for you, this is generally a lot safer (but can take longer, plus you have no choice until you get the upgrade anyway). You can manually fly into stations, but it's a lot more awkward as you have to slow down and be careful not to crash into the station / other ships.

I agree the older X and X2 titles are a little dated now for new players (but still very good, people say that the cockpit experience in X2 was the only thing that X3 was missing to truely make it a success. As for what to get into now, I would say either X3: Terran Conflict or X3: Albion Prelude. TC is more based around story (but still has a fully functional universe like AP) so you can still begin a trading empire in TC all the same. AP is set a bit more into the future of the TC timeline where many sectors are engaged in constant fighting and battle as a war is raging in the universe. I should note AP added more sectors, ships and the famous "stock exchange" to the X3 universe. Albion Prelude also has a slightly updated version of the X3 engine, so it'll run a little better and the view distance is improved.

There's a lot of ships in the games, I don't feel I should name one and have you just pick that one forever though. Have a look online on X websites and see what you feel is best for you, or you can try and discover a "perfect ship" in the game for yourself if you want to spend the time doing so. Not all ships require multiple turrets etc; to be manned to play and so on.

It depends what you want to get into really, you said do a bit of everything but the combat isn't as easy to get into as the trading. Look at the starter options on "new game and see what you think" Generally "Humble Merchant" is the most common, but the "Terran Defender" is considered the "default" start as this introduces you to the Terran story plot. (note that this is for X3:TC) X3: AP has varied starts too but generally they are mostly similar.

The X community is here if you have questions or queries. A few roam the Steam forums but the official Egosoft forums is the HQ for this sorta stuff and has many more users - https://forum.egosoft.com/

[DedZedNub]

Thanks much.

3.4GHz i-5 CPU with 16 GB RAM on Windows 7-64 bit. I found that with the 750 Ti now instead of just the Intel HD 2500 integrated chip, Planetside 2 no longer says GPU limited ever, so it helps a lot. The CPU may seem a bit slower in estimated clock speed, but it still compares well with the 750 Ti yanking all that extra GPU work off the CPU (that was something I had under-estimated -- it makes the key difference it seems).

I'm not totally clear (I'll read more the store pages) on whether or not TC runs on top of the Reunion Engine and Campaign but with more features and missions/extended map or each is standalone. It seems you are saying that AP and TC are different campaigns/maps/time periods -- so that even if the features are partly different, the real difference is each campaign. I had been thinking (clearly erroneous to some degree) that they were all running on the same engine and just adding features and campaigns -- like say Skyrim and its DLC or Expansions.

I think I'll start with Reunion or TC ... TC if it runs on top of Reunion and allows Reunions campaign and map as options would be ideal. Then I'll either move forward to AP or back to X2 as seems more fitting my mood and desire for story. Going to be hard to go all the way back to X and X-Tension unless I really must see those stories through.

I wonder if there are ports of those earlier campaigns into the newer engines or games of TC and AP, like X2 played in X3 TC or AP engine.

I'm going to read the descriptions better and download X3 and TC then, I've only got X2 currently installed but the rest of the SuperBox is in the library.

[Laptop]

Ursprungligen skrivet av DedZedNub:

Thanks much.

3.4GHz i-5 CPU with 16 GB RAM on Windows 7-64 bit. I found that with the 750 Ti now instead of just the Intel HD 2500 integrated chip, Planetside 2 no longer says GPU limited ever, so it helps a lot. The CPU may seem a bit slower in estimated clock speed, but it still compares well with the 750 Ti yanking all that extra GPU work off the CPU (that was something I had under-estimated -- it makes the key difference it seems).

I'm not totally clear (I'll read more the store pages) on whether or not TC runs on top of the Reunion Engine and Campaign but with more features and missions/extended map or each is standalone. It seems you are saying that AP and TC are different campaigns/maps/time periods -- so that even if the features are partly different, the real difference is each campaign. I had been thinking (clearly erroneous to some degree) that they were all running on the same engine and just adding features and campaigns -- like say Skyrim and its DLC or Expansions.

I think I'll start with Reunion or TC ... TC if it runs on top of Reunion and allows Reunions campaign and map as options would be ideal. Then I'll either move forward to AP or back to X2 as seems more fitting my mood and desire for story. Going to be hard to go all the way back to X and X-Tension unless I really must see those stories through.

I wonder if there are ports of those earlier campaigns into the newer engines or games of TC and AP, like X2 played in X3 TC or AP engine.

I'm going to read the descriptions better and download X3 and TC then, I've only got X2 currently installed but the rest of the SuperBox is in the library.

If it's a K Intel CPU then you can overclock it, but don't go overboard (especially if on a stock cooler), it's okay for the X games but they are naturally a little more CPU intensive than most games because there's more processing involved other than just displaying fancy graphics on the screen.

The X3 engine has been upgraded twice, Reunion was the original engine, TC is a much more updated engine with a lot more to it, especially the UI (TC was actually the most popular out of the X3 trilogy) and AP was essentialy TC but with "polished", essentially everything that they wanted to do but couldn't for TC. Reunion I would say is more story based than anything else, but you can still theroetically build up a trading empire and kill some pirates in any X game. So in theory all three games are the same engine at heart, but was heavily upgraded for TC and then "polished" for AP. And yes, there is a "story" follows from the first game right up to the latest X title, so it progesses throughout the games.

[DedZedNub]

Really hate bugging you this much.

So, it looks from the descriptions that they are saying the controls and UI are updated and more user friendly(?) in TC and AP (and AP requires TC).

Will reunion still work well, in your opinion, on mouse and keyboard ? I would think it would, got to be at least no worse than X2.

Let's say I start with TC, will I be able to play the Reunion campaign in it ... or will I just continue from where that was and then have to go back to Reunion later, if I want to play that?

Seems like you are thinking I should try TC/AP and then move back if happy. Might make sense if I want to be attracted to the series. From the pics all the X3's look pretty good. More than good enough for me. If I can get anything 1280xYYYY or higher, that's plenty. Usually I play at 1366x768, though if the fonts are small, I wouldn't mind trying 1440x900 or so.

Thanks again.

[Laptop]

Ursprungligen skrivet av DedZedNub:

Really hate bugging you this much.

So, it looks from the descriptions that they are saying the controls and UI are updated and more user friendly(?) in TC and AP (and AP requires TC).

Will reunion still work well, in your opinion, on mouse and keyboard ? I would think it would, got to be at least no worse than X2.

Let's say I start with TC, will I be able to play the Reunion campaign in it ... or will I just continue from where that was and then have to go back to Reunion later, if I want to play that?

Seems like you are thinking I should try TC/AP and then move back if happy. Might make sense if I want to be attracted to the series. From the pics all the X3's look pretty good. More than good enough for me. If I can get anything 1280xYYYY or higher, that's plenty. Usually I play at 1366x768, though if the fonts are small, I wouldn't mind trying 1440x900 or so.

Thanks again.

The UI is a hell of a lot more easy to navigate in TC / AP than Reunion, yes.

Reunion works fine on mouse and keyboard.

They are all seperate games (although AP is an expansion to TC, it is still counted as a seperate game). So your saves in Reunion and progress would have no effect whatsoever in TC or AP. It's essentially playing all the Call of Duty games, your campaign progress in Modern Warfare 2 will have nothing to do with CoD4 for instance as they are seperate games.

The font scales with resolution, so the higher the res the smaller the text. For me I would say after 1920 x 1080 it will start to become too small unless I get really close to the screen. But of course it depends on your eye sight. One important point here with the resolution and scaling - AP is the only X3 title that UI will scale with your resolution, the other games will be static UIs regardless of the res, so they will get small on resolutions higher than 1080p.

[markdienekes]

I've only ever playede Reunion - with mouse and keyboard. Great game. I did try TC for a tiny bit (no more than 10 minutes) but went back to X3 R quickly.

[Gim]

Ursprungligen skrivet av markdienekes:

I've only ever playede Reunion - with mouse and keyboard. Great game. I did try TC for a tiny bit (no more than 10 minutes) but went back to X3 R quickly.

Amazing. I find any X title without a joystick almost unplayable, especially as a fighter.

[markdienekes]

I'm a fighter pilot, get into large Xenon invasions in my trusty M3+ Eclipse (having arrived to zone in my M7 Hyperion.) Handles really well in dog fights with keyboard and mouse!

[Gim]

Kudoas for that! How do you take capital ships down? Do you use mass drivers or missiles for them? Personally I prefer the hyperion over M3+ for the most time, but sometimes I use my docked LX to take out huge heaps of ships with hammerheads.

[DedZedNub]

Well, I'm heartened to hear people having some success with keyboard and mouse controls, as that's the way I'm probably going to start playing it.

Delayed starting it as I'm currently working on revamping my Skyrim set-up with the new video card. It's actuall about 3-4 years old a card, but I never got around to using it. Shocked to see myself stuck solid at 60 fps in Ultra, used to go medium at most with many things off at about 20 fps, big difference.

How about the start ship at the beginning, do they maneuver ok with keyboard and mouse?

Does it take a long time to get an M7 Hyperion or an M3+ Eclipse?

I wonder if the bad experiences with keyboard and mouse control have to do with how much experience you have with keyboard and mouse in various set-ups. It's also true that if you have k&m and you have not so great fps then when you get into a battle with a fair number of ships and lots of effects that makes it harder, so maybe with a revisit we'd find that with current video cards the experience would be a lot more smooth, especially if we have experience with k&m now. I mean I was reading some posts which surprised me in Far Cry 1 and 2 forums and even in a game like Xenus 2: White Gold about users finding the vehicle controls difficult and I mean those are easy and good set-ups where you use the mouse to control your view and the keyboard to maneuver the vehicle. If you have a gun on-board it tracks your mouse controlled view -- it's basically the mouse controls the turret style view and the keyboard the movement. I remember that as a common style later one, often it was reversed also. Sometimes also you had the numpad duplicating one of the controls that the mouse or the keyboard (left side did), likewise you might have the right hand keyboard doing something similar to asdw with something like a jkli set-up. There was also a post about The Witcher 1 having difficult controls and combat. I mean it's a bit more involved but nothing you can't get over with a bit of practice in a few hours (5-10 max, as long as you put yourself in various situations to practice them). I don't see how these people could have survived playing ancient DOS games if they find Far Cry 1+2 controls and The Witcher 1 controls so bad they had to refund the game. Then again, I would need probably a good 5 hours or more to even adjust to a gamepad well in some games, as I've never used a GamePad, but I have played on arcade machines over the years, they often have differing controls.

I know the X series has a lot of camera views, probably on F# keys, and maybe number keys above the letter keys also. I may have to make myself a little cheat sheet with lousy drawing of the ship and its various views, but I remember them making sort of sense. You have wing views, a rear view, some racing style follow cameras, probably an enemy back to you view, wingman view, underneath and above views -- like some air simulations had. The big problem is how many keys are used up on the keyboard though, often for additional functions. Those take a while to learn. Like maybe one for sensors and identification, so on. That's realistic but it also sometimes overwhelms the user early on.

[ayrtep]

XA3P with the +TC plot mod http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=324236 although if you don't like mods and dont mind the rougher interface go with X3TC.

Also consider Litcube's X3 remake. http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=365706

[Gim]

Ursprungligen skrivet av DedZedNub:

Does it take a long time to get an M7 Hyperion or an M3+ Eclipse?

Really depends on how good you play the game. Dedicated players (can) get the Hyperion right at the beginning of a new game, quickly after the 10 hour playtime requirement that's needed to start the Bala Gi mission. Thers may take significantly longer.

Honestly i think figuring it out for yourselve is a more joyful experience, and if you don't succeed you can still use online ressources for help. If you know how to do it, it's a very easy task, if you don't it may take quite some effort to get the Hyperion. Same goes for the M3+; you need to do the Bala Gi missions for them to appear in the shipyards. You also get one for for completing one of the missions.

The LX, which is the only unbuyable M3+ can be captured right from the start and is an excellent ship. However, it is so excellent, that even the AI in X3 Reunion kicks ass with them. You better don't mess with them if you don't know what you're doing.

[BEEP]

that ships boarding is annoying for me.
so Reunion is best.