egosoft.com

Hi,

started a new game (HoL, difficult level). It runs rather smoothly. Bought some M freighters first an took each and every station building mission I could get. Now I'm about to write a program to display all those missions ordered by sector and type of station.

In the meantime I'm building one station, having assigned all the small freighters to the station and have a small fleet of Rahanases and a Titurel(courtesy Atlas pirates) for trading.

I spent a whole of six game hours opening lockboxes in Nirin Treaty and got a total of 70+ Millions from it. Boring, but profitable.

At the moment it looks as if the warehouses in HoL and Cold Star offer more unique missions than other stations - or they can be found more easily.

Still no single authentic spacefly egg.

cu
Rainer

Hi,

three game days in I want to finish the "Diplomacy" Mission series in Cold Star. The first mission of the second part is an escort mission from Philae to longest reign.

The first attempt failed disastrously. Immediately after the start no less than ten fighters showed up, and while I killed five of them the other five killed the freighter.

When I tried it for the second time I had my newly boarded Olmekron close by, but it wasn't needed, since the freighter kept close to the station until all fighters were killed by the station. But when we reached Longest reign, another ten fighters showed up, there wasn't a station close by, and my mighty Olmekron was still lingering in Philae.

So is there a trick apart from putting another destroyer close to the spawn point of those second bunch of fighters? Will that even work?

cu
Rainer

Swarm missiles I've used in missions where there are A lot of enemy fighters. If you play unmodded Astro's will work pretty well. Depending on how many enemies there are I've used up my whole supply before

Requiemfang wrote:Swarm missiles I've used in missions where there are A lot of enemy fighters. If you play unmodded Astro's will work pretty well. Depending on how many enemies there are I've used up my whole supply before

Hi,

But they only have a range of 5km or so. That means I need to fly dab into the middle of that swarm of fighters, hitting r as fast as possible?

cu
Rainer

pretty much, I've done it before, once you run out of missiles as I have before during those situations I just finish up the survivors with the other ship weapons.

Requiemfang wrote:pretty much, I've done it before, once you run out of missiles as I have before during those situations I just finish up the survivors with the other ship weapons.

I must be doing something wrong. While I killed five or six of them with missiles (I always carry ~80 Astrobees) two of the fighters flew straight to the freighter and killed it within seconds.

cu
Rainer

I can only also suggest launching a few fighter URVs, to hopefully distract a couple more of the enemies. I personally don't like the escort missions for precisely the same reason that you're struggling here - ridiculously bad odds, and your ward has no self-preservation instinct or training.

There is one workaround that I've found effective, but it's pretty cheaty in my opinion:

I don't think Egosoft has ever figured out how to balance escort missions. In past games, once your fight rank got up there a bit, you'd get M7's, M8's, and even larger ships going after the poor TS you're trying to save. Those missions are simply impossible. Let's hope they do a better job of it in the next game.

Nanook wrote:I don't think Egosoft has ever figured out how to balance escort missions. In past games, once your fight rank got up there a bit, you'd get M7's, M8's, and even larger ships going after the poor TS you're trying to save. Those missions are simply impossible. Let's hope they do a better job of it in the next game.

It's too bad the missions are limited to M sized freighters and don't encompass the use of L sized. Sure the L sized ships have some teeth on them but compared to some of the things the MD throws at you and the poor freighter at leas the L ships will last longer unless the MD throws a freaking destroyer at you.

RAVEN.myst wrote:I can only also suggest launching a few fighter URVs, to hopefully distract a couple more of the enemies. I personally don't like the escort missions for precisely the same reason that you're struggling here - ridiculously bad odds, and your ward has no self-preservation instinct or training.

There is one workaround that I've found effective, but it's pretty cheaty in my opinion:

Spoiler

Show

I've found that it often works to be nowhere near the action - in this situation (OoZ), the protege seems more willing to use his/her booster, and tends to survive longer in general. I haven't tested this in 4.30, though, so I don't know whether the behaviours are still the same.

Regarding your spoiler: AFAIK M-Freighters don't have boosters. But I'll try your trick.

cu
Rainer

RainerPrem wrote:

RAVEN.myst wrote:I can only also suggest launching a few fighter URVs, to hopefully distract a couple more of the enemies. I personally don't like the escort missions for precisely the same reason that you're struggling here - ridiculously bad odds, and your ward has no self-preservation instinct or training.

There is one workaround that I've found effective, but it's pretty cheaty in my opinion:

Spoiler

Show

I've found that it often works to be nowhere near the action - in this situation (OoZ), the protege seems more willing to use his/her booster, and tends to survive longer in general. I haven't tested this in 4.30, though, so I don't know whether the behaviours are still the same.

Regarding your spoiler: AFAIK M-Freighters don't have boosters. But I'll try your trick.

cu
Rainer

Odd cause I see freighters use boosters all the time when I fire at them. All ships in XR have boosters the AI just sometimes doesn't use them on specific ships. In the case of boosters on M-class freighters I think it's a mission specific thing.

Nanook wrote:I don't think Egosoft has ever figured out how to balance escort missions. In past games, once your fight rank got up there a bit, you'd get M7's, M8's, and even larger ships going after the poor TS you're trying to save. Those missions are simply impossible. Let's hope they do a better job of it in the next game.

Hi,

Are there any escort missions in X3* ? I can't remember.

In XR it should be possible to order my squad to "follow me closely". After they cross the whole universe to come to me wherever I am, they stay at that point until I enter another (named) zone. Correct? Or is there another possibility?

cu
Rainer

The only ways I found to do these missions are
-Take the missions in major NPC strongholds, where the local forces will help take down the pirates
-Figure out where the transport is heading and place significant amounts of your own forces along the way before you get there (the ship you escort stops moving if you're too far away. Use that to get your forces in place)
OR
-To play at a difficulty level where railgunning everything before it gets in range is an option. Weapon mods that increase range and cooling rate are very helpful for that.

That being said, ever since they upgrade the freighter's speed, these missions are way easier than they used to be. At least you now have a chance the freighter will get in range of a friendly station before the attackers reach him.

RainerPrem wrote:

Nanook wrote:I don't think Egosoft has ever figured out how to balance escort missions. In past games, once your fight rank got up there a bit, you'd get M7's, M8's, and even larger ships going after the poor TS you're trying to save. Those missions are simply impossible. Let's hope they do a better job of it in the next game.

Hi,

Are there any escort missions in X3* ? I can't remember.

In XR it should be possible to order my squad to "follow me closely". After they cross the whole universe to come to me wherever I am, they stay at that point until I enter another (named) zone. Correct? Or is there another possibility?

cu
Rainer

yeah there were TS escort missions in X3 and once your fight rank was WAY up there it was a complete circus with what was sent against you while doing those missions.

Hi,

new question: There is a Steam achievement called "We Only Slowed Them (Hard). Help take out key Xenon facilities on Hard difficulty."

What do I have to do to achieve that?

cu
Rainer

@ RainerPrem: That be for completing the main plot Xenon station bombing mission, only this one is for when playing on hard difficulty. There is a similar one for the lesser difficulty plot Xenon station gameplay too.

Alan Phipps wrote:@ RainerPrem: That be for completing the main plot Xenon station bombing mission, only this one is for when playing on hard difficulty. There is a similar one for the lesser difficulty plot Xenon station gameplay too.

No plot, no chance. So I have to start another game ... Not too funny.

Hi,

I stopped playing the last game at one point (~2.5 billion credits, successfully boarded one Arawn, two Olmekrons and an uncountable number of Rahanases, Lyraneas and Lyramekrons). "Hard" wasn't really different from the "easy" game earlier.

I destroyed close to a hundred Nividium asteroids but still haven't seen a single authentic space fly egg. There also weren't any authentic space flies in that game. I also needed an extremely long time to complete the four parts for the SETA. In the same time I constructed about 20 rare engines.

Restarted "Hard" this time with the plot to complete the aforementioned achievement.

cu
Rainer

RainerPrem wrote:Hi,

I stopped playing the last game at one point (~2.5 billion credits, successfully boarded one Arawn, two Olmekrons and an uncountable number of Rahanases, Lyraneas and Lyramekrons). "Hard" wasn't really different from the "easy" game earlier.

I destroyed close to a hundred Nividium asteroids but still haven't seen a single authentic space fly egg. There also weren't any authentic space flies in that game. I also needed an extremely long time to complete the four parts for the SETA. In the same time I constructed about 20 rare engines.

Restarted "Hard" this time with the plot to complete the aforementioned achievement.

cu
Rainer

I couldn't even find the rare engine mission though i had the items ready. guess i gotta loiter around near stations to see my luck.

ajime wrote:
I couldn't even find the rare engine mission though i had the items ready. guess i gotta loiter around near stations to see my luck.

Note that there are two such missions. One for the Mk5 Engine, one for the jump drive.

cu
Rainer