Try X4, Reinstall X3 (try FL) or... what about Rebirth?

[Seinekar]

Hello there!

Back in time i put hundreds of hours on X3 TC/AP, while it was confusing and definitely hard to learn, I somehow learned the hard way on the go and sunk few hundreds hours, set up a fleet with "trader autopilot software" and all that stuff.

Thing is, a lot of years have passed, and felt the itch of going back to a space sim. Elite Dangerous is not bad but is just about you alone on your ship in first person view, jumping countless times and the most you aspire is to get a maxed ship, but not really building an empire.

Tried other titles along the way, as Star Point Gemini 2 / Warlords, not bad in ideas, and simplified stuff was welcome, but again, it lacks stuff to do. Rebel Galaxy was an arcade-ish approach wich i also enjoyed, but again, once you are done in the main story, there is not much more to do (farm, max the best ship, and thats it)

So right now im thinking about trying X3 Farnhams Legacy (wich got for free, as update for X3 TC/AP) but I guess i should also consider try 4 despite getting initially bad reviews (seems recent reviews are more favorable, guess it improved) and also would like to hear opinions on Rebirth (I heard is bad, but no details)


Also, if there are other games on the genre worth noticing, feel free to point them.

-2 extra points if possible:

-Is X4 or (any other game you would like to suggest) playabe with controller?
-Is it playable on Steam Deck?
(Those are not recquirements, but would be worth knowing)

Thanks!

[Hydra_360ci]

X4 plays the same as X3 for the most part (with a shoe horned FPS aspect). Rebirth was it's own thing (with an even more basic FPS aspect) and really has nothing in common with X3 gameplay. A HIghway wormhole acclerator route of Rebirth was kinda added into X4 to kind of connect Rebirth into the X universe and to support the whole old jumpgates are broken lore that rebirth was built on; and was the only form of hyperspeed travel in Rebirth. (which is simular to Terran accelerator gates, I guess, but live traveling not instantanious)

The only thing I didn't care for in X4, is that the story rewards you with a top tier ship, pretty early on and jumps starts you with trader ships, as well. So, it's like... X3 on pernament, easy mode, when it comes to the story stuff.

Farnham's legacy plays more like a Modded X3:AP.. simular to X3:TC or X3:AP was to X3:R, but more user moddish than either TC or AP.

[Blitz4]

Originally posted by Seinekar:

Hello there!

Back in time i put hundreds of hours on X3 TC/AP, while it was confusing and definitely hard to learn, I somehow learned the hard way on the go and sunk few hundreds hours, set up a fleet with "trader autopilot software" and all that stuff.

Thing is, a lot of years have passed, and felt the itch of going back to a space sim. Elite Dangerous is not bad but is just about you alone on your ship in first person view, jumping countless times and the most you aspire is to get a maxed ship, but not really building an empire.

Tried other titles along the way, as Star Point Gemini 2 / Warlords, not bad in ideas, and simplified stuff was welcome, but again, it lacks stuff to do. Rebel Galaxy was an arcade-ish approach wich i also enjoyed, but again, once you are done in the main story, there is not much more to do (farm, max the best ship, and thats it)

So right now im thinking about trying X3 Farnhams Legacy (wich got for free, as update for X3 TC/AP) but I guess i should also consider try 4 despite getting initially bad reviews (seems recent reviews are more favorable, guess it improved) and also would like to hear opinions on Rebirth (I heard is bad, but no details)


Also, if there are other games on the genre worth noticing, feel free to point them.

-2 extra points if possible:

-Is X4 or (any other game you would like to suggest) playabe with controller?
-Is it playable on Steam Deck?
(Those are not recquirements, but would be worth knowing)

Thanks!

X4 playable on steam deck? sure
X4 having a smooth framerate on steam deck? not possible, not even with a super computer streaming onto the steam deck as so far no cpu is able to always have over 60fps in the game in all scenarios, long as egosoft doesn't add more to X4, then should get there using the fastest cpu, cache and ram in 2-4 more years.

on the steam deck? you should play Rebirth. to me, it's built for a controller and X3/X4 is built for kb&m. what you enjoy is up to you and that's the beauty with steam. you get a 2 hour trial window on whatever game you buy.

as far as performance of rebirth on the steam deck. here's a report for you:

Have been able to mantain nearly perfect peformance at normal (medium) graphical settings. The visuals look great while running at a smooth 60fps.

https://www.protondb.com/app/2870?device=steamDeck

And all of Ego's games are on GeForce NOW so if you're willing to pay a monthly fee, you can "rent" a 4080 24GB/5700x/32GB RAM but you can't mod the games. And yes even with that rig, X4 can't hit 60fps constantly. That rig hits closer to 20-25 fps

Also X4, not built for Steam Deck: https://www.protondb.com/app/392160?device=steamDeck

The performance in X3:TC, X3:AP, X3:FL -- that's up to you to find out. Not many tested the game on steam deck.
https://www.protondb.com/

If you do try any X3 game please submit a report. especially for X3:FL

[Seinekar]

Thanks again! Atill reading all this on daily basis.

[Blitz4]

Originally posted by Seinekar:

Thanks again! Atill reading all this on daily basis.

you also nailed the description of Elite Dangerous and the reason I play X-games (to build an empire).

whatever you need. did you know you can even play a game on your gaming pc and stream that over wifi to the steam deck?

top game played 2022? EDF5
awesome game, you're good.


I see Elite Dangerous as a sim, like a flight sim using triple monitors and a joystick, similar to DCS World or Microsoft Flight Simulator, but it's far from complete as the core gameplay loop of ED like you mentioned, it isn't fun, it's only the dogfighting that's fun. That's how I feel about ED. Star Citizen is a more fun version of Elite Dangerous, but there's so many holes and it'll never be finished. What you do in X4 is closer to a fun arcade game, the flight controls that isn't the simulation. It's what you don't see, the economy, that's the simulation. Sadly that's supposed to be the primary reason the game has performance issues, but without that economy, what fun is building an empire? X-Games are just always ahead of their time and it takes years for tech to catch up. I had a blast playing Rebirth, many didn't, who cares. I was able to use a joystick in an X-Game and have fun with it, but it's built for a controller. I'd love to hear some other opinions from others.

You know, you'd get more replies if you asked this question in the X4 forums as over 95% playing Egosoft's games are playing X4 right now.