[X3-TC] New player questions

General discussions about the games by Egosoft including X-BTF, XT, X², X³: Reunion, X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

Post Reply
Celthon
Posts: 28
Joined: Mon, 8. Apr 19, 17:20
x4

[X3-TC] New player questions

Post by Celthon » Wed, 10. Apr 19, 06:27

Bought the game yesterday, so have a lot to figure out yet, but have some random unrelated questions:

I understand about the various 'icons' I see on facilities and/or ships from time to time being indicators that a mission/quest is available there (light bulb, green building blocks, etc.)...when I start looking at these missions is there a system to determine if it's easy or hard, before I actually take the mission or quest?

Will the game continue to run if I alt/tab out to another screen?

I started as "Humble Merchant" (I think that was title--might not be remembering exactly right)...anyway I started with 2 ships...if I leave one docked somewhere is there any sort of time limit it can remain there...does it need to be 'refreshed' occasionally, or is it safe parked while I'm exploring in other regions? First few hours in the game and I am realizing the game-world is huge! (I foresee myself getting lost and being gone for extended periods of time, ha-ha)

I saw a youtube video in which the video creator was showing how to find a cpl. 'derelict' ownerless ships that could be claimed and then sold, to get a bump-start of beginning capital...without giving me any spoilers can someone tell me if there is some sort of indication I'd look for on the map when exploring that would tell me whether a ship I see is ownerless/derelict? Or is it just a matter of investigating any ship I see that seems to be motionless and a bit 'off the beaten path' to determine whether it has a crew or not (by trying to communicate once it's targeted I presume)?

If/when I find one of these ownerless/derelict ships...are they uniques (one of a kind) type ships, that one might want to hang onto because once it's sold there won't be another in that play-through? Or are they same as others that can be bought elsewhere?

In the initial set-up when I started the game there is an option to turn on/off something labeled as "Automatic Quality Control" -- what is that, and should it be off/on?

While in-game I see a slight 'flickering' of text in any menus/screens I open...the same flickering effects (at the same time) the text & numbers displayed for my ship in bottom/center of the screen, as well as the text on the buttons in the column on the left-side of the screen (the flickering is all in-synch)...the text does not disappear entirely but changes from normal brightness to gray and back again very rapidly, in a random way. Nothing I am doing (moving mouse cursor, key-presses, etc.) seems to affect it...ie it doesn't speed-up, slow-down or start/stop when I make any input. Anyone have any idea what it might be caused by (sorry I know that's a vague description of the issue, and probably could be caused by any number of things that'd be hard to track down...but I am basically computer-illiterate.) But thought (hoped) someone might have seen same/similar effect and might be able to say it is caused by having setting x, y, or z turned up/down too much...(I can hope it's that simple). (EDIT: Should have googled it first--this "flickering-issue" has been around for a long time and bunch to read now to look for fix, so never-mind)

Thank you for your time and assistance.
Last edited by Celthon on Wed, 10. Apr 19, 08:32, edited 1 time in total.

Hemmingfish
Posts: 435
Joined: Fri, 14. Mar 08, 23:00

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by Hemmingfish » Wed, 10. Apr 19, 07:04

I hate doing it but I think a quote response dissection response is the easiest way to handle this, so here we go
Celthon wrote:
Wed, 10. Apr 19, 06:27
I understand about the various 'icons' I see on facilities and/or ships from time to time being indicators that a mission/quest is available there (light bulb, blue building blocks, etc.)...when I start looking at these missions is there a system to determine if it's easy or hard, before I actually take the mission or quest?
You get a screen with information including difficulty before you accept. Sometimes the difficulty is not completely accurate, especially at very low or very high ranks, but you'll figure out eventually how much you can take.
Celthon wrote:
Wed, 10. Apr 19, 06:27
Will the game continue to run if I alt/tab out to another screen?
You could test this one yourself.
Celthon wrote:
Wed, 10. Apr 19, 06:27
I started as "Humble Merchant" (I think that was title--might not be remembering exactly right)...anyway I started with 2 ships...if I leave one docked somewhere is there any sort of time limit it can remain there...does it need to be 'refreshed' occasionally, or is it safe parked while I'm exploring in other regions? First few hours in the game and I am realizing the game-world is huge! (I foresee myself getting lost and being gone for extended periods of time, ha-ha)
It's safe. There is the (extremely small) possibility that pirates take out the station your ship is on, but it's so small that it's only worth mentioning for completeness.
Celthon wrote:
Wed, 10. Apr 19, 06:27
I saw a youtube video in which the video creator was showing how to find a cpl. 'derelict' ownerless ships that could be claimed and then sold, to get a bump-start of beginning capital...without giving me any spoilers can someone tell me if there is some sort of indication I'd look for on the map when exploring that would tell me whether a ship I see is ownerless/derelict? Or is it just a matter of investigating any ship I see that seems to be motionless and a bit 'off the beaten path' to determine whether it has a crew or not (by trying to communicate once it's targeted I presume)?
Derelict ships won't have a race's name next to them or a job description. It'll just be like "Harrier" if it's a Harrier. They're pretty well hidden, so good luck with your hunt.
Celthon wrote:
Wed, 10. Apr 19, 06:27
If/when I find one of these ownerless/derelict ships...are they uniques (one of a kind) type ships, that one might want to hang onto because once it's sold there won't be another in that play-through? Or are they same as others that can be bought elsewhere?
Some of them are standard, some are unique. If you're the person who absolutely must have all unique variants of ships, hold onto them. I'm pretty sure the special ones are named differently to regular ship models.
Celthon wrote:
Wed, 10. Apr 19, 06:27
In the initial set-up when I started the game there is an option to turn on/off something labeled as "Automatic Quality Control" -- what is that, and should it be off/on?
I'm pretty sure it does optimisation things like changes weapon effects to less detailed versions on the fly if your FPS starts to get too low. I don't know for sure.

zazie
Posts: 3702
Joined: Mon, 7. Mar 05, 14:55
x4

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by zazie » Wed, 10. Apr 19, 10:55

X3TC will not continue running when alt-tabbed. ReBirth does.

For derelict ship: Be careful as there is kind of additional challenge in X3TC: Some pirates or even Xenon might show up on your map at remote places 'pretending' to be derelict (blue, no faction name). If you fly into range (about 4-8 kms) they change colour from blue to red and attack. Iirc on higher ranks there is even a probability that additional ships spawn at nearest sector gate and attacking the Playership.

User avatar
nponoBegHuk
Posts: 474
Joined: Thu, 6. Mar 08, 19:55
x4

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by nponoBegHuk » Wed, 10. Apr 19, 11:58

Celthon wrote:
Wed, 10. Apr 19, 06:27
Will the game continue to run if I alt/tab out to another screen?
There is a setting to allow the game to run in background introduced in one of the patches. Not sure when exactly, but if you are patched to last version (steam, etc), check your ingame settings to toggle the behaviour to your desired value.
Hemmingfish wrote:
Wed, 10. Apr 19, 07:04
Celthon wrote:
Wed, 10. Apr 19, 06:27
If/when I find one of these ownerless/derelict ships...are they uniques (one of a kind) type ships, that one might want to hang onto because once it's sold there won't be another in that play-through? Or are they same as others that can be bought elsewhere?
Some of them are standard, some are unique. If you're the person who absolutely must have all unique variants of ships, hold onto them. I'm pretty sure the special ones are named differently to regular ship models.
Since you don't want spoilers, I won't insist on checking the link in my sig, but let me just second this. You definitely want to hold on to any Advanced/Enhanced/Prototype derelict ships you might come across. A good way to know what deserves keeping without going into spoilers is something like this: if you capture a ship outside of a story mission - may it be during a generic mission or just flying by - you can generally sell it, because it will spawn again at some point. If you happen to be doing a plot mission and see a ship with one of the prefixes mentioned above, you definitely might want to capture and keep that one (sometimes it's possible, and sometimes it's not, but I can't tell you more without spoilers).
Fast sector selection on the Universe Map | Rock locations for Mobile/OOS mining | Botting for max speed Hyperion | Complete list of ship sources | Capturing smaller ships

My current ship collection:
11 out of 11 *retired* ships found
17 out of 17 *unique* ships found
9 out of 9 *limited* ships found
16 out of 16 *rare* ships found

Taylor2008
Posts: 295
Joined: Fri, 20. Mar 09, 16:38
x4

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by Taylor2008 » Wed, 10. Apr 19, 12:06

While in-game I see a slight 'flickering' of text in any menus/screens I open...the same flickering effects (at the same time) the text & numbers displayed for my ship in bottom/center of the screen, as well as the text on the buttons in the column on the left-side of the screen (the flickering is all in-synch)...the text does not disappear entirely but changes from normal brightness to gray and back again very rapidly, in a random way. Nothing I am doing (moving mouse cursor, key-presses, etc.) seems to affect it...ie it doesn't speed-up, slow-down or start/stop when I make any input. Anyone have any idea what it might be caused by (sorry I know that's a vague description of the issue, and probably could be caused by any number of things that'd be hard to track down...but I am basically computer-illiterate.) But thought (hoped) someone might have seen same/similar effect and might be able to say it is caused by having setting x, y, or z turned up/down too much...(I can hope it's that simple). (EDIT: Should have googled it first--this "flickering-issue" has been around for a long time and bunch to read now to look for fix, so never-mind)
Turn off Anti Aliasing in Game and in the settings of the grafik-card.

Celthon
Posts: 28
Joined: Mon, 8. Apr 19, 17:20
x4

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by Celthon » Wed, 10. Apr 19, 16:52

Thank you for the replies and information.

If I "Pause" the game, small window opens center-screen indicating "Game Paused, press any key"... (to break pause/un-pause the game)...as soon as I press first key in alt/tab sequence (alt) the game is "unpaused"...but while in another screen game-sounds are disabled, so I can not determine if the game is still running...which is why I asked if the game continued to run if I alt/tab to something else. I should've given more detail in the original question.

Thank you for your time and assistance.

Honved
Posts: 1252
Joined: Sun, 20. Jun 10, 14:53
x3tc

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by Honved » Wed, 10. Apr 19, 18:15

Some mission types are next to impossible without specialized equipment, regardless of difficulty. If they want you to scan asteroids, you can't do the mission without a mineral scanner, but you CAN take the mission, and then fail it because you can't do it. Same goes for taxi runs, where you need Cargo Life Support for "I need a ride" passengers, or else a TP class ship (your Mercury is a TS) for passengers who ask for "Transport" or "suitable" accommodations.

You CAN take a Fight mission to defend a station, particularly at low rank where the spawned adversaries will have virtually no ability to actually damage a station, and they will be taken out by the local patrols eventually, so you can do the mission without even having guns or missiles. Some missions are nearly impossible to do without a Jump Drive, yet trivial if you do have one. A few of the missions are simply bugged, and the expected ships never spawn. It's a steep learning curve, combined with a quirky game, but I still find it well worth the effort.

To further flesh out the reply about your second ship being "safe", most stations have a maximum docking limit, so if more than that many NPC ships try to dock at the station your ship is parked at, it will be ejected into space, and can then be destroyed by any passing pirates, Xenon, etc. Trade stations have no docking limits for small craft (like your Discoverer), but a fixed number of docking collars for Medium ships (like your Mercury transport).

Taylor2008
Posts: 295
Joined: Fri, 20. Mar 09, 16:38
x4

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by Taylor2008 » Wed, 10. Apr 19, 20:28

If I "Pause" the game, small window opens center-screen indicating "Game Paused, press any key"... (to break pause/un-pause the game)...as soon as I press first key in alt/tab sequence (alt) the game is "unpaused"...but while in another screen game-sounds are disabled, so I can not determine if the game is still running...which is why I asked if the game continued to run if I alt/tab to something else. I should've given more detail in the original question.
When you enable "Run in Background" in the AI-Settings ,then the game run in background when you Alt-Tab.
If you don`t enable this setting ,the game is in pause-mode when you Alt-Tab.

Celthon
Posts: 28
Joined: Mon, 8. Apr 19, 17:20
x4

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by Celthon » Wed, 10. Apr 19, 22:56

Thank you all for replies and information.

Does it matter which side of a gate I go through, when traveling from one sector to another...I ask because I found a sector filled with green fog and I wandered around quite a bit before finding other gates and when I did I'm pretty sure I had circled around to the other side of it...went through OK but do not know if I just got lucky and went through from the correct side...or if there actually is a front/back on the gates? (hope that made sense...) The gates look the same from both sides, so I presume it doesn't matter, but wanted to ask to be sure before I blow-up an expensive ship later by trying to exit through an entrance, etc.

Thank you for your time and assistance.

User avatar
nponoBegHuk
Posts: 474
Joined: Thu, 6. Mar 08, 19:55
x4

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by nponoBegHuk » Thu, 11. Apr 19, 04:18

Celthon wrote:
Wed, 10. Apr 19, 22:56
Does it matter which side of a gate I go through.
It doesn't matter. As far as I can tell, entering gate from any direction and issuing jump to sector (choose gate...) command do exactly the same thing.
Fast sector selection on the Universe Map | Rock locations for Mobile/OOS mining | Botting for max speed Hyperion | Complete list of ship sources | Capturing smaller ships

My current ship collection:
11 out of 11 *retired* ships found
17 out of 17 *unique* ships found
9 out of 9 *limited* ships found
16 out of 16 *rare* ships found

Honved
Posts: 1252
Joined: Sun, 20. Jun 10, 14:53
x3tc

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by Honved » Thu, 11. Apr 19, 16:26

Front or back of the gate doesn't matter, but top and bottom DO. Ships normally exit from the top of the gate, and enter at the bottom, so if you try entering at the top while the lights are flashing in your direction, you're risking collision with whatever comes out of the gate. If it's a large capital ship, and you're in one as well, the odds of collision go way up. If it's a #DECA CPU ship coming through, a collision is practically guaranteed. Of course, figuring out which end of the gate is "up" can be tricky, unless you can see other ships entering or leaving the gate. Watch the lights, and see which directions the inbound and outbound traffic flow.

jlehtone
Posts: 21801
Joined: Sat, 23. Apr 05, 21:42
x4

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by jlehtone » Thu, 11. Apr 19, 16:48

If you use any of the auto-pilot commands ("Fly to *", "Jump to *"), then your ship flies like all the NPC.
They know if someone else is using the Gate and wait for their turn.
Moreover, ships appear from Gate at 120m/s and proceed for a while before reverting to normal ship speed.

However, when you manually steer your ship to Gate or manually activate the Jumpdrive, other ships won't be informed about your actions (and you obviously won't know what they are doing), and you will fly at 10m/s after the "jump". I've crashed both by manually entering a sector that had something big in front of Gate, and by staying too long at the Gate (with next incomer crushing my tailpipes).
Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.

Nuit
Posts: 262
Joined: Wed, 18. Jul 07, 07:22
x3tc

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by Nuit » Mon, 15. Apr 19, 15:32

For identifying derelict ships (at least any M5, M4, M3, M3+, TP or TS Class) there is a pretty easy but pretty illegal way.

It's called "System Override Software", which is obtainable from most Pirate bases. But as long as you do not have the "Software Signature Encryption" as well (only rarely available at some Pirate bases - and bloody expensive for starters) your ship will always be recognised as carrying illegal goods when scanned by the police.

But if you have the "System Override Software" you can just check the "Target Menu" after selecting the ship you want to check as target.
If there is an option in the list called something like "take over controls" (it's usually the second item in the menu), then the targeted ship is actually a derelict ship.
This does not work with TM/M6 or above - these have to be borded using Marines. The option will be greyed out until you are as close as 175m to the target.

The original purpose of the software is to take over ships safely from your ship, without the need (and the asociated danger) to exit your ship in a space suit to take over the derelict ship.

If you are still in save distance and want to check a ship if it is a derelict, you could also just leave your ship in the spacesuit, select the ship as target and check the target Menu. The greyed out menu item will indicate a derelict ship this way too.


Cheers,
Nuit
Hitman - In Space

User avatar
Red-Spot
Posts: 102
Joined: Wed, 9. Jan 19, 10:22
x3ap

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by Red-Spot » Tue, 16. Apr 19, 00:00

Nuit wrote:
Mon, 15. Apr 19, 15:32
For identifying derelict ships (at least any M5, M4, M3, M3+, TP or TS Class) there is a pretty easy but pretty illegal way.

It's called "System Override Software"
Not really, that is for claiming the ships. Identifying is even easier as the ship does not have a race-label.
What I mean is, every Argon ship starts with 'A...' in the ship 'serial-number'. B for Boron, E for Terrans (Huh!), T for Teladi (ah!), and "none" for derelicts.

So ... "AM3-43" is an Argon M3. "M3-43" is a derelict. By looking at the serial-numbers you can quickly see 1 ships has less symbols and that makes them easy to spot.
'Ignoramus et ignorabimus'

jlehtone
Posts: 21801
Joined: Sat, 23. Apr 05, 21:42
x4

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by jlehtone » Tue, 16. Apr 19, 00:12

Nuit wrote:
Mon, 15. Apr 19, 15:32
This does not work with TM/M6 or above - these have to be borded using Marines.
I'm quite sure that all derelicts spawned for "Return Abandoned Ship" missions can be claimed in spacesuit (and thus with SOS). Even the M7's.

That said, those (mission) ships are unarmed, non-moving, and unshielded. Perfect training opportunity for the Marines.
Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.

User avatar
Red-Spot
Posts: 102
Joined: Wed, 9. Jan 19, 10:22
x3ap

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by Red-Spot » Tue, 16. Apr 19, 11:42

jlehtone wrote:
Tue, 16. Apr 19, 00:12
That said, those (mission) ships are unarmed, non-moving, and unshielded. Perfect training opportunity for the Marines.
Heck, why did I never think of that. Train marines, earn huge bucks, and get a minor scuffle with the law for selling a ship I do not own.... :)
'Ignoramus et ignorabimus'

DrSuperEvil
Moderator (English)
Moderator (English)
Posts: 425
Joined: Fri, 2. Mar 18, 12:13
x4

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by DrSuperEvil » Wed, 8. May 19, 00:02

Game does pause when alt tabbing out.

Missions usually say if they are easy or hard as an indicator when you comm the mission giver.

If the station they are docked at is busy it will be kicked out to make room for new ships to dock. This is to stop the player blockading stations with their ships.

For abandoned ships use the map to look for a ship that does not have a race ownership tag or job role. In TC they always spawn in the same locations.

Some of the abandoned ships are uniques or at least extremely rare so should be saved for when you can reverse engineer them with the PHQ.

User avatar
Red-Spot
Posts: 102
Joined: Wed, 9. Jan 19, 10:22
x3ap

Re: [X3-TC] New player questions

Post by Red-Spot » Wed, 8. May 19, 18:38

DrSuperEvil wrote:
Wed, 8. May 19, 00:02
Game does pause when alt tabbing out.
Only when you have not set the game to run in the background :)
'Ignoramus et ignorabimus'

Post Reply

Return to “X Trilogy Universe”