Rebirth vs X3?

[DazaKiwi]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the general difference between Rebirth and X3? I played X3 not long after it came out and apart from glaring bugs enjoyed it for a bit, but fleet management and being not being able to manage your fleet properly took the wind out of my solar sails so to speak. I still own X3 and some of its expansion packs on Steam, so why would i need to buy Rebirth?

Also since there has been some new patches out recently so i have read that improves the game, is fleet management more streamlined and easier now? the idea of owning fleets and being able to order them in battle ( i personally think the best way to implement this is do what RTS games do since it works) and what not was the main appeal to me but was a the time.

But Rebirth seems to have more negative reviews than positive. But if the new large patch fixes many things i guess reading reviews made after this would be more accurate.

[Ketraar]

There is a demo for X Rebirth that you can try ut and since you already know X3 it would be easy for you to experience the differences yourself. I suggest you do that and trust your own judgement,

MFG

Ketraar

[DazaKiwi]

Thanks for your reply Ketraar. Its been a long time since i have last played X3, I think it was X2 The Threat i played most of, now that i think about it.

I just wanted to know from Rebirth players what the main differences was and if also fleet management is more fluid than the train wreck it used to be?

[Browser_ice]

X3 vanilla is in my opinion a more micro management type of game compared to XRebirth. However, autotrading is easier in XRebirth thanks to some MODs. X3 has MODs but they are not all concentrated in the areas you would want. Playing XRebirth with MODs is a must. It makes it a lot easier to handle and manage.

I played X3AP for over 1700 hours. I realized today that earning money via trades in XRebirth is somewhat faster then in X3 games.

For someone that never played a space sim, I think XRebirth is better to start with then X3 games.

[Afro Luigi]

Two things I adore in X Rebirth that are not in X3 are: Stations can have turrets and defend themselves, also ordering wares and having your ships pick them up. (I hated X3's "First come, first serve" trading. X Rebirth feels much more natural to me).

Piracy is more interactive in X Rebirth as well, you have to cripple the ship a set amount based on your marine's and marine officers skill level. You do this by destroying engines, the jumpdrive, turrets, and damaging the hull, the better your marines, the less damage you have to do. In X3 you just had to keep the shields below a certain percentage, have marines trained to a set level, and you can board basically anything. X Rebirth also lets you hack ships and stations to make them drop their wares.

X3 does allow you to fly multiple ships, where Rebirth only lets you fly the Skunk. But you can still own as many ships as you want. And the Capital Ship Bridge Mod lets you feel as if you were a commander ordering people around.

[DazaKiwi]

Ok thanks guys for your tips and info, im playing X3TC at the moment and relearning how to play it, i might look at getting Rebirth in the near future.

[Pepster]

Depends what your in for, X rebirth is more like freelancer and X3 is well.... X3.
I did hate X rebirth first but now im starting to really like it, but I cant really compare the 2 because they are 2 very different games.
if they could combine the streghts of both and turn it into X4 that would be fcking awesome.

[DazaKiwi]

It would be neat if there was a comparison chart like they have for software with an x or tick if they share the same things. I mean they are all very similar. I played X3TC for most of the day yesterday and spent a bit of time diving into the forums to work out how how to do some quests, for example a 'Deliver a Ship' mission actually required me to buy the ship and deliver it, but it wasn't stated that way when i accepted the mission where i did not have no where near enough funds to do it. Other delivery missions also required me to go find the the stock first, which with only a 20min window made it almost impossible. But i just at that point went straight to Ore trading to earn more credits, the delivery missions are almost a waste of time.

The thing that sucks at the start (will its like this with any game) having such as slow ship (Humble Merchant preset). Seta Time helps a lot, not with time-based missions, so trading seems the best use of time. Now, will i be able to down the track buy an XL ship and fit it out to mine ore and will be able to get the NPC crew to do that by orders?

I read somewhere, although might of been old, that player owned stations seem to get ignored by NPCs? is this still a worthy end goal to buy and manage your own Trading Stations? these questions are for TC mainly, but Rebirth players can also answer to get idea of the two games.

I understand Rebirth has a new DLC in the pipeline will this be paid DLC? I guess it will be.

[cwsumner]

For the Deliver missions (X3), buy or find the thing first, then take the mission and deliver what you have. It's as though figuring it out was part of the game, which I would not put past them. ;-)

[ormac]

In the Later X3s (TC - AP) factories that produce illegal wares are not ignored by government forces. Not sure about the Trading Stations though but all player stations can be indivdually set to trade with NPCs or not.

Yes you can later buy ships and configure them to mine remotely.

Rebirth will be receiving a normal update (4.10) once it's passed the beta test. This will be pushed out as normal.

Rebirth VR will be another game title although current owners of Rebirth can buy it at a discount if they want it.

[Stenk]

You would play X rebirth if you're looking for a more immersive experience. X3 is a business manager for me whereas X rebirth has been closer to an adventure/space opera.

Fleet management is less tedious but also limited to the most important order in X rebirth, generally speaking, they'll follow and defend you most of the time.

Surely there is not as much content in X rebirth as in X3 but it feels vast, varied and certainly beautiful in many aspects (stations, ships, environment).

Also, many reviews sanctioned the state of the game at the time of the release, the fact you pilot only one ship and the disapointed fans expecting a X4 game.

[DazaKiwi]

I found X3TC much easier to play than X2 The Threat, there could be some more polishing as far as the UI goes, but after you get used to the system you can work things out like when you are in the trading menu you can press U to see more detailed info about a product, where its made and which businesses need it etc. But if you right click the product you dont see any options to view this at all.

I think i read somewhere the Dev was aware playes wanted to pilot more than one ship, i think they might change that in an update or perhaps in the next game they release?

I recently installed the X3: Terran Conflict Bonus Package after finding out about that, which will give me more options for commanding ships.

I hope the Devs build upon what works well in all of their games and community mods and makes an X4 game that will be the crown of the series, perhaps forgo a story campaign altogether so they can focus on the game making it sandbox focused, and maybe have proper cockpits and also for larger ships a bridge you can walk around on. I would love to see fleet combat handled in the way you do in RTS space games like Homeworld or Nexus The Jupiter Incident this would make combat in numbers more fluid and fun. It might take a bit of work to implement but would breath some freshness into the game and attract new players who might want to focus on combat or players who want to be able to make use of a large fleet in a better way.

There is probably tons of other ideas the community has for a 4, coop would be nice too, but would take a lot of work i guess.

Sorry i am rambling...

[Grimaldus]

In terms of quality, XR doesn't hold a candle against X3:TC+. X3+Terran Conflict/Albion
is most likely the best product that will ever leave Egosoft, its well polished, fun and
you'll almost never run out of things to do.

Admittedly X3 has it's issues, like the flawed OOS that Egosoft never sorted out,
and the game really needs the stationbuilder-mod to truly shine. Don't try building a station
without that mod... just don't.

I wish i could go back to X3:TC. But i had SO much invested into my last game before
i lost the HD that i can't be bothered to start all over... 1800+ hours invested.

XR is a fail. Egosoft won't say it out loud, but XR was originally developed for consoles
until they backed out, which left Egosoft scrambling to save the game for PC.. hence the
bad performance, stale gameplay, narrowed down freedom... everything is streamlined
and everything that made X3 awesome, was removed in XR..

Trust me, i LOVE Space Sandboxgames.. XR isn't a sandbox, you have ONE ship
and every station you build has to be built in a specific location, and you can't build
your own stations, they're all pre-designed and can't be built self-sustaining.

Stick with X3 until we see news on X4.

[Kestrel Hudson]

Nah, X Rebirth is fine. Personally, I enjoy it more than any other game of the series, though it took devs a couple of years to fix it. I've put the game away after couple of months after its release and got back to it only a few weeks ago. I'm not going to spend a few hundreds hours in it as I'm not really a fan of trading/building your own empire part, but it's fun to do missions and explore locations, figuring out some gameplay mechanics etc.

Mods improve the game to a degree, so I suggest picking some popular ones after some time in it.

[cwsumner]

Dreez: Each area that -could- be a zone, has those build points. The build points are because in X3 we had too much problem with stations colliding after they were built.

When you build in one of the "unknown" zones you also get to name the zone, using the menu in the station.

Building self sustaining needs more than one station, but you can do it. However it destroys the benifits of working within the local economy. And, it is harder to do, besides.

[Xautos]

Don't worry about the XR reviews, it's actually an interesting game but a lot of the complaints are about it not fitting into the X Series or not to specific expectations. It's a fine addition to the series and although it's not to everyones liking, but you can't please everyone.