Tips-n-Tricks UPDATED Dec 22

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WetWarev7
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Tips-n-Tricks UPDATED Dec 22

Post by WetWarev7 » Wed, 10. Dec 03, 17:30

Haven't seen one of these yet, maybe if we get enough ideas, the Mods will sticky it.

Stickied. Keep it civil. Steel
UnStickied. Referenced in The Ultimate Guide For Everything. BurnIt!


Secret cargo pods: If you see a cargo pod that is in a location that is too small for your ship, just spacewalk over there and bump it out into the open. If you hit it at a speed of 2-3, you don't recieve too much damage, just keep an eye on your hull indicator!

missles: Cargo pods make halfway decent dumb-fire flares when you are out of Misquito missles. I usually try to keep 5-6 energy cells on hand for emergencies. Just target the offending missle, make sure it's targeting reticle is directly in front of you(the missle behind you) and eject! Gotta be quick if you are in a slow ship though....

Dogfighting: When fighting a tough advesary, if you have the faster ship, get out of range, watch him in your monitor, and when he comes straight after you, turn around and do a chicken run. Start shooting BEFORE he gets into range, and he will recieve a facefull of laser just as he gets into range and starts shooting, allowing you to swerve before his weapon reaches you.

Dogfighting 2: Keep checking the enemies stats! Once you've started in on the hull, sometimes he will lose guns on the front or the back. Knowing when this happens can give you quite an edge against your foe.

Capturing: Keep a light weapon on hand for pirating! Whether a pilot bails out or not seems dependant partially on the type of damage he recieves.(system failures) Since their is always a chance of him losing equipment on every hit against the hull, switching to a quick light gun at the right moment can give you more chances to "persuade" the other pilot to bail while keeping the hull more or less intact.

Capturing 2: Friendly ships don't react immediatly when you start shooting at them, and it doesn't affect your reputation to badly to capture one or two ships at a time. The best ones to capture are ships that don't actually belong to a factory. Check each ships stats, and once you've found one, get right behind them and start shootin'! By the time they figure out that you are'nt just being clumsy, their shields will be down and they will either a) die, or b) bail out. If you use the above method, the latter is much more likely.

Trading: When trading remotely, if you are in the same system, keep an eye on the factory's owned ships. If you see that one is returning, and in system with the product that you want to sell it, go over there and fly REAL close to the front of his ship. He will think you are an idiot, and swerve to avoid you, giving you more time for your transport to make the sale. And don't be shy about doing this numerous times. With the windshield screening on these ships, chances are they'll never recognize you if you happen accross one of them in the local Teladi bar....

Factories: If you want to get rid of the competition without losing rep, use your TL to push an asteroid into it. The AI won't realize it's you, and you can pick up all those cargo pods without having to dodge plasma!
Edit - this no longer works following recent X² updates (1.2 onwards IIRC) Abyss

Khaak: If you have a fast ship, a good way to have the Khaak taken care of is to launch a missle at a cluster at a relativly safe distance, then run like Hell for a station.(preferablly with a docking port on the oppistie side) Wait at the entrance of the docking port untill they start shooting then zip in there. If they hit the factory, it will launch it's fighters and you can sit back and watch the fun on you monitors! (Also note that enemies WILL try to shoot you through the station....if you are outside)\

ADDED 12/11/03
EDITED 12/29/03
***This does not work with Ver. 1.1******
Transports: If you are short on cash, it's sometimes better to pirate a transport rather than buy one(especially since 25MW shields are so expensive). When a transport is captured, it will usually keep it's shield settings, even though you cannot remove or sell those shields. This will save alot of money in the long run.

Spitfire79 wrote:
Ever found yourself in a slow ship enroute to defend your transporter/factory all the way across the sector? Or having too fast and too powerful aggressors at your six? Or just in a hurry? If flying at 200m/s simply doesn't cut it, rely on your strafe drive extension. The top speed strafing sideways is around 1000m/s and you can cross the whole sector within a minute. Of course don't forget to watch where you're going
EDIT - since 1.3 the strafe drive has been toned down, and whilst still useful in combat, won't be able to get you across sectors in seconds anymore. It will not exceed the maximum speed of your ship - Abyss

According to Father Christmas in his thread:
https://www.egosoft.com/x2/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15623
Go to a sector with a large number of factories, and 1 or 2 SPPs. Because the Best Buy stuff tells you where the cheapest E-cells are in that sector, and the Selling software tells you which factory is buying at the highest rate, I have found that the Selling software generally indicates which factory is one of those "EMERGENCY - GET US E-CELLS AND QUICK - WE'LL PAY YOU LOADS", because they are the ones that are willing to pay 25 credits for 1 cell (according to the software). Before you go there, get the cheapest cells you can find using the Best Buy software and head on over to the most desperate factory.

Then, dock at that factory and go straight to the BBS, and do not trade. (I haven't tried trading before going over to the BBS for fear of losing that lucrative trading run - it may be possible to trade first and for the mission to still be there, I don't know to be honest). More often than not there is a request for pilots to transport emergency e-cells (depending on your rank, you may not be able to do them however). Accept the mission and exit the station. Immediately re-enter the station and you will get the message saying "Jolly well done matey, now go get the rest". Having bought the e-cells before you docked with the desperate factory saves you time and effort in getting the cells, leaving you more time to go off and get the second batch if its needed, or if your TS doesn't have a big enough hold for all of the required cells in one go. It also means that you are more or less guaranteed not to miss out on the fat bonus. On one run I worked out that with the raised fee and bonus paymets, the factory was paying 75 credits per cell net ( i.e after taking of the cost of buying the cell). With a 3000 cargo Dolphin that's a lorra lorra cash Cilla.
ADDED Dec 12:

Corvettes: A Barracuda armed with an Ion Disrupter and a Beta HEPT can make short work of a corvette. They are slow enough that after the first 1-2 passes that their shields will be down, and they will take the full brunt of the HEPT on their hull. Also, if you are feeling punchy, try an Ion Disripter and a Alpha PAC. The two 50MW sheilds on the baracuda means you can take your time and see if you can't capture that poor guy! It may not be possible to actually capture it, but we all just HAVE to try, don't we?

GoateeCat Wrote:
Have you heard this one yet? Found it on PC powerplay forums:
Hire a mammoth, 'guide' it close to one of your factories. Command it to stop engines. WALA, instant bodyguard!!! As they only charge when they follow you through a gate, they will wait there FOREVER.
Sinclair4217 Wrote:
Here's a trick to get your slow, captured Pirate ships to a shipyard to sell (without having to slowley escort and protect them). This assumes a few things, namely you are hunting in at least an M4 and have a jump drive installed. Buy a Split Scorpian (fastest and cheapest ship that can hold a Jump Drive). Max out it's speed, 5mw shield as well (if your feeling paranoid). Dock your Scorpian at whatever station is closest to a jump gate, in the sector closest to where you're hunting with a shipyard.
Now, when you've captured a ship, dock it and yourself at the nearest station. Transfer your jump drive and yourself to the Pirate ship.
Leave the station in your Pirate ship and jump it to the sector/gate where your Scorpian is. Dock at the station where your Scorpian is awaiting you.
Transfer the jump drive and yourself to the Scorpian. Command the Pirate ship to be on it's way to the shipyard. Shipyard sectors are always well defended, so no worries (now that it's actually there).
Hop in your Scorpian and jump back to where you left your hunting craft. Transfer your jump drive and yourself back into your hunter-killer. Tell the Scorpian to return from whence it came. By the time you capture another ship, it will in all likelyhood already be back home.
Rinse and repeat.
ADDED Dec 15

Argonaught. wrote:
Heres a BIG tip for new folks,

Don't over do the rudder upgrades......I did on my Mako and now on turning manually its a touch over sensitive.
I'm an oldie too, I shoulda known better.
Pity there's noway to undo upgrades.
Burrito wrote:
Something that I have been doing that I find helpful.

I enjoy spending my evenings (days too...) running around killing pirates and trying to steal their ships. During the process of this I also aquire a lot of junk that can be sold for who knows how much. Instead of flying all around trying to find a place to sell the junk, you can just transfer it to the cargo bay of the pirate ships you are going to sell. The shipyards will purchase anything from you this way.
Pirating: Since you won't get the best price for goods using the above method, another variation is to upgrade one of your captured pirate ships with the Special Command software. You can then just dump your cargo somewhere relativly safe, and order it pick up the goods. You can then have it sell the goods at various stations(remotely) while you spend more time pillaging the pirates.

ADDED Dec 17

Dizzlestix wrote in his thread:
https://www.egosoft.com/x2/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16693
I had very high success with capture rate ever since I armed my Nova with dual Ion. Using fighter drones as damage source (since no pilot will leave ship without hull damage and shield completely down). What I do is release 3-4 drones for M5, 7-8 for M4 and 10-12 for M3s then just follow the ship around, zap them to keep their shield down and let the drones do minimal damage. I've captured ships with 88% hull using this method. Good thing about this is the drones won't overkill your captured ship, they'll automatically stop when the pilot bail
Andergum wrote:
Here's a tip for buying large quantities of hard to find shields/weapons.
When you are buying ships (I typically buy 10 at a time) do your outfitting before you leave the first screen. You can upgrade all 10 at once this way.
Argonaught. wrote:
A tip when running away from an enemy in your ts that only has a mining laser. Target a nearby station and put ship on auto until your in range to call for help....while your ship is doing this grab a seat in the back section with the minig laser and keep firing at the enemy. It won't do any damage to the enemy but it seems to keep lone Khaak M5 fighters far enough away from you that it stops it getting close enough to do your ship serious damage. It also acts as a missile deterent as any missile launched at you is destroyed by the sonic waves from the laser. I did this and survived to tell the tale...ore mine alpha saved the day . NOTE: Turrets with Mining lasers can't be set on auto attack....it's a manual thing all the way.
ADDED Dec 22

BradThorn wrote:
Stuck taking on all those Khaak M5's? Some of them are flying so fast you can't even see the target lead reticle. Having trouble hitting them?
Grab an Ion Distruptor and another weapon with a kick (I was using Beta HEPT) The Ion Disruptor will *always* hit your target as long as it's in front of you somewhere. It'll also strip it's shields in no time flat. Whats more, it also seems to tick'em off. Keep them in front of you, because they'll turn and try to ram you. With no shields you'll only have to hit them 2 or 3 times and they are flying right down your line of fire...
Factories 2: If you want to set up a factory that needs resources that are not nearby, check out the local trading stations when choosing a sector to put it in. You should be able to find a nearby Trading Station that carries that hard to find resource. Then, park one of your transports in it and tell it to get xxxx for best price, with zero jumps allowed. The Trading Station happily sends it's transports out through the void bringing back the needed resource, and your transport will have first dibs on it when it reaches the station!
Last edited by WetWarev7 on Mon, 29. Dec 03, 17:42, edited 15 times in total.
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francium
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Post by francium » Wed, 10. Dec 03, 18:33


Factories: If you want to get rid of the competition without losing rep, either a) use your TL to push an asteroid into it, or b) hire a TL to follow you and see if you can't persuade him to "bump" into the offending factory.
LOL that's so funny
Can't wait to try it :lol:

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Post by ChaosLord » Wed, 10. Dec 03, 18:39

Nice tip on the cargo pods as dumb flares. I gotta try that sometime.
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Spitfire79
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Post by Spitfire79 » Wed, 10. Dec 03, 19:54

Ok, what about this little "bug"(?) you can exploit:

Ever found yourself in a slow ship enroute to defend your transporter/factory all the way across the sector? Or having too fast and too powerful aggressors at your six? Or just in a hurry? If flying at 200m/s simply doesn't cut it, rely on your strafe drive extension. The top speed strafing sideways is around 1000m/s and you can cross the whole sector within a minute. Of course don't forget to watch where you're going :wink:

Well, I'm sure this is an unintentional "feature" (a.k.a. bug) and will be fixed in an upcoming patch, but exploit it while you can :D

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Post by Shifty » Wed, 10. Dec 03, 20:37

1 word..... Jumpdrive


get everywhere from anywhere in no time at all ;) although costs a lill

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Post by Spitfire79 » Wed, 10. Dec 03, 20:56

Shifty wrote:1 word..... Jumpdrive


get everywhere from anywhere in no time at all ;) although costs a lill
Hmm... within a sector? You didn't read my post.

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Post by Dude » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 09:06

Well i don't think thats what Shifty meant... but you could do that as you get to target a sectors gate whan using the Jump Drive. Don't know if you can jump to the same sector right up, but if not two quick jumps and you can be on the other side near a gate.

In a similar way if you always set new factories to be right near gates you could almost anytime get to any station and jump into any sector gone nasty and save the day, nice jump drive.

Like the Strafe bit tho

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Post by ScribbleJ » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 09:41

Dude wrote: Like the Strafe bit tho
I can't do the strafe drive thing - it feels like cheating. But the Jump Drive bit is legit - you can jump to a gate in the sector you're in already. I've used it several times to cross a sector in a jiffy.


I've never looked to see how much energy it consumes though...

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Post by py » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 10:07

It takes 10 energy cells to jump to a gate in the current sector, +10 for every sector you pass through after that. eg 10 for same sector, 20 for a sector next to it.

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Post by Reven » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 10:23

In XT it didn't cost any energy to jump within the same sector. Great way to travel quick for free. Looks like the new "improved" jump drive is a "gas hog". :p
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WetWarev7
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Post by WetWarev7 » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 15:05

Keep 'em coming!!

Added Transports and Spitfire79's strafe bit to original post above
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Post by Reev » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 18:10

I tried for an hour to make a mamoth hit a station. They just wont do it.

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Post by WetWarev7 » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 21:47

The asteriod method is definately easier.......
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Post by WetWarev7 » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 22:20

Updated again......
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Post by GoateeCat » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 22:40

This is the first time I wish thumbs were still available.

Excellent work there, the constant updating increase the value of this thread ten fold.

This is going in Xblog FAQ block. Well done.
:)

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Post by GoateeCat » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 23:07

Have you heard this one yet? Found it on PC powerplay forums:

Hire a mammoth, 'guide' it close to one of your factories. Command it to stop engines. WALA, instant bodyguard!!! As they only charge when they follow you through a gate, they will wait there FOREVER.

Original thread here, look at the second to last post on the page:
http://forums.networknext.com/pcpp/view ... &start=300

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Post by Gandalf The White » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 23:30

Good work.

Keep it up.

If I think of anything tips wise, then I'll post it in.

TO make the game run quicker, you can switch off your monitors and that makes it run that little bit smoother.

Tried it tonight by "accident" and decided that the accident was worth it.
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Post by The_Rock » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 23:47

Lord Souron wrote:Good work.

Keep it up.

...
:thumb_up:
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Post by Reev » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 23:50

There is no way on holy heck I could ever afford to buy one of those Mamoth Class suckers to do that. I am just not as savey as some of you I guess.

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Post by Sinclair4217 » Thu, 11. Dec 03, 23:51

Here's a trick to get your slow, captured Pirate ships to a shipyard to sell (without having to slowley escort and protect them). This assumes a few things, namely you are hunting in at least an M4 and have a jump drive installed.

Buy a Split Scorpian (fastest and cheapest ship that can hold a Jump Drive). Max out it's speed, 5mw shield as well (if your feeling paranoid).

Dock your Scorpian at whatever station is closest to a jump gate, in the sector closest to where you're hunting with a shipyard.

Now, when you've captured a ship, dock it and yourself at the nearest station.

Transfer your jump drive and yourself to the Pirate ship.

Leave the station in your Pirate ship and jump it to the sector/gate where your Scorpian is.

Dock at the station where your Scorpian is awaiting you.

Transfer the jump drive and yourself to the Scorpian. Command the Pirate ship to be on it's way to the shipyard. Shipyard sectors are always well defended, so no worries (now that it's actually there).

Hop in your Scorpian and jump back to where you left your hunting craft. Transfer your jump drive and yourself back into your hunter-killer. Tell the Scorpian to return from whence it came. By the time you capture another ship, it will in all likelyhood already be back home.

Rinse and repeat.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sounds more time consuming and complicated than it actually is. You can speed things up a by having the ship transfer device, ejecting the jump drive in space etc., I just covered the minimalist approach.

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