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Hi I am one of those who bought the game pre release , hated it at release and forgot about it going back to better things like XTC (and recently the great X3LU).

Now I am toying with the idea of playing it a bit more as people seem to suggest its somewhat "fixed" but I would like some specific info if anyone knows and has the time:

1) I hated the map. Some rough visuals that did not really show what a station was where it was etc No clear definition of symbols but rather a rough scale rendering of the station shape that was very counter intuitive to say the least. Is that fixed at all?

2) I hated not being able to bring up the property menus and instruct my other vessels to do things / check the map / run the empire, while my Ship was flying some where. Bringing up the menus would pause the game which was very immersion breaking and counter productive in my mind after the X3 experience. Any option to avoid this?

3) Walking in stations which were really the same one station ... eeek groundhog day. I heard you now can avoid this. But I rememeber you got your first equipment by searching corridors and stuff for things you could then sell. Has ths income source been substituted?

4) Customizing the Skunk - NOT Just 1 gun you could change for another gun. Lame (also shields ok). When I was reading the pre release hyoe I always imagined a vessel you could add mounts to, design etc different turret configurations, main guns and turrets and missile launchers etc. This was already in X3 (by buying different ships) and was supposed to be in XR by "adding" to the Skunk. They did not really do it though... Anything added in this department?

5) Bugs in main quest, cant sell some bloody stuff Vessel take 4 years trying to dock and no joy. Fixed?

6)No combat autopilot on the Skunk. If you try to use the drones (which was promised to be there in lieu of being able to fly other ships) your ship sits still like a duck to be killed. WHY DO I NEED AN EFFING CO-PILOT THEN????? Fixed / not fixed?


Oh well ... some more may come to me along the way but if anyone can answer any of the above you will be helping greatly.

Thanks

(Oh and Egososft should "buy" X3LU/XTC/XRM with some additional elements from other mods and then apply the eye candy and amazing music that is all what XR really does very well... really that would sell like hot cookies and you can even call it X4 without being laughed at...)

I didn't get the game until 3.50, so I don't know how it was upon release. But I have read a lot on this forum and I think I managed to piece enough to answer some questions here.

1) Map: Still no panacea, but it's gotten better. It's not pretty, but at leasy you can rotate it and see your stuff better. You can also use it to set precise destinations for move order. So it's gotten better, but it's not homeworld's tactical screen either.

2) Opening the game menu (the one with the settings options, and the load/save) will pose the game. Opening the in-game menu (assets and traders) will not. There's a game setting that will make the skunk's engine to shut down if your in-game menus are open, but it is now optionnal. Additionally, there is now an auto-pilot. So you can set some destination, then do your empire management while you're traveling. (The autopilot is lame, though. But it's better than nothing)

3) Some plot missions still recquire you to walk on station. Some generic missions as well. However, you can now access most traders / hireable crew / mission contacts directly from space. There's also a mod that allow you to contact people in your crew quarters directly from your cockpit. I barely land on stations anymore. (Just for some equipment specific quests.)

4) Skunk's weapon system didn't change much. There are a few new gun variants, and you now have a weapon mod system that modifies the stats of your weapons. The weapon/missile system, however, didn't change at all.

5) Most bugs on the main quest have been patched since a while. There might be a few quirks left, but that's relating to the game mechanism itself. If you know how the game works, you shouldn't have any problems with the campaign. If you do have some trouble, ask for help. Most of the situations you'll encounter will have already been seen and solved by other players.

6) No luck there, although I never tried launching drones while the skunk is on autopilot or just gliding in space (there's a "inertia mode" now). IMO, the main problem there is that drones have an max operating range from your skunk. If your skunk moves out of that range, you lose control of the drone. So I think that's the main reason while your skunk stops while you're controlling a drone. I too would like to see the skunk keep moving while you're hammering your target with novadrones.

I hope this helps.

Additional info: Stations do not look all the same now, the layout has changed. But they might feel the same, still.

On a more positive tone: station-building works much better than on initial patches, and the AI is doing a rather impressive job on providing supplies for your own stations (condition: maxed out personnel).

1. Map.
Map is the same in-game, but you can print out some decent maps from the internet. Google X-Rebirth maps, and switch to image view.

2. Property Menus.
Now you can issue orders from the property menus, either by clicking a ship and giving an order, or by highlighting the captain, defense officer, engineer, and opening a comm link.

2b. Ship stopping while in menus.
They put an option in the game config panel to have the ship NOT stop when you open the menus; that makes the Skunk keep its speed, but you still cannot steer it because the joystick is disabled while you're in a menu, and the mouse is used for the menu rather than for steering. So you can drift and collide with things.

3. Boring stations.
Yes you can avoid entering stations; you now can open a list of traders and open a comm link with each of them to trade from outside the station. You can open a comm link to trade with the ship sellers from anywhere on the map (buy ships remotely). So you don't need to enter stations.

3b. Station containers.
The station containers are still there, and you can still get your first few hundred k credits from them. You can also use the default beginner scanner, such as it is, and ping for locked containers in space, get a few million that way. In any case, entering stations is optional; they haven't disabled it, they just gave us the option to call all NPCs / shop over the phone.

4. Skunk guns.
Not sure how it was before, but Skunk can carry 4 guns and 1 mining laser, which you can apply mods to. And switch between, during combat. I mostly use the plasma cannon for long range (5k) and the shotgun for huge damage (1.5k range). With the autocannon modified to have 2x projectile speed and 3x firing rate, it goes hot even faster but it kills most things in a short burst, like the A-10 Warthog cannon.

5. Bugs.
Haven't seen many plot bugs. Stuck vessel you can replace the pilot and it fixes the stuck.

6. Combat and drones.
No combat autopilot. Yisha still useless, but there are mods to make her shut up. As far as drones, on the Skunk the only useful drones I use are the scanner drone, 2 or so hacker drones, and 3 or so shield support drones. The shield support you can launch during combat and they'll replenish your shields to full very fast, and mostly not die in the process. For the Skunk, though, it's all in modified guns (for more damage), and actually in the missiles. If you apply the missiles correctly, you can kill anything. Use the light tracking missiles vs. fighters, use the heavy tracking missiles and the novadrones vs. capitals. About 10 novadrones can wipe out all the weapons on even the nastiest M2 capital.

7. Opinions.
You need to install mods to enjoy this game. Look at the list of mods in the mods forum, and get the ones that sound good to you. I have about 10, from shutting Yisha up, to emptier highways, scanning stations from afar, Titurel engine fix, cheated chat minigame, auto trainer, auto loot, automatic trader, etc.

Don't be afraid to take a break from the plot every now and then to capture ships with marines, it's somewhat fun and you can make money and get free ships.

Thank you all for taking the time to answer. These were very helpful answers!

re [6.] Whilst you can set auto-pilot: follow on a target s/m ship, it's a very good way to die quickly.

S/M fighters tend to come in groups, the higher the difficulty setting the larger those groups are. to survive a gun fight against 30-50 fighters you NEED to strafe a lot, the AP set on follow does not strafe, ever.

re [Combat Drones for the skunk] they have situational usability, 5 combat drones will die very, very quickly against a full group of enemy s/m fighters, the only time I found them useful was in cap-ship boarding and only after all the weapon turrets on the cap-ship were reduced.

The level of modding effort by the community has addressed some of the inherent design flaws and omissions in the game, to get the most out of the game, you have to mod it, that's something that the devs should be thinking about for the next X-game.