X3 Terran Conflict - I just can't do it

[S4rab]

I have had X3: Terran Conflict for awhile and I have often sat down and have said "I'm gonna try and play X3 again."

I am at that stage again. The problem I had all the other times and if I don't sort it out I will continue to do so.

I CAN NOT MAKE MONEY

I just need someone to give me as many tips as possible so I can make money, Tell me who to start as, what to do first, who to kill, who to trade with.

I WANT EVERYTHING

Sorry for all the yelling but I am getting annoyed that I just can't do it this is one of the few games I have problems with. I can see this game is epic once you get started I just need to START!!!!

Anything would be appreciated,
Cheers

[johnnywas]

it takes time

think of it like a snowball - starts slowly and gets quicker

theres lots of ways heres mine


start trading e-cells
buy small vessels
picking up missiles and sell at Terracorp HQ


buy another frieghters - use it to trade remote


next

fleet of remote traders
couple of MK3 traders

next

buy your own factory
perhaps a small solar factory

keep adding factories with traders attached

[A5PECT]

Take the Terran Defender start.

Follow the plot missions you're given. They reward you with new ships which you can either sell or use.

[garv222]

I have had similar problems with all starts. It really depends on what you currently have to work with. If you have a ship that has atleast moderate offensive capabilities(some starts give you a decent combat fighter or you can drift to claim a derelict fighter) you can gain some starting cash by attacking freighters in pirate controlled space and hope the pilot abandons ship. Claiming the ship and selling it would give some cash to try and invest in trades and such. Ships might also abandon cargo which you could sell if you're pirating. This is just to get a jump start and usually what I do when I've got next to nothing.

[Rhu]

1. Buy a TP.
2. Take TP-oriented missions.
3. Build closed loop contraband factories where they won't get blown up.

[Catra]

For Terran defender:

Go to heretics end, pick up any defend station / patrol sector missions.
Get rep up until you can buy baldrics.
Go scout out the PTNI EQdock (and make sure you can land there) and the 2 teladi sectors to the west, map all the stations.
Go to treasure chest, pick up the derelict there, the ship has CLS.
Transfer the cargo life support to your sabre. Sell EVERY thing the sabre and the buster sentinel has, except 1 shield(I actually did my taxiing without shields, so your call. =p)
After the ship is stripped, tell the buster sentinel to dock at any terran weapon forge.
After selling all the stuff, you should have enough to outfit a few baldrics with MK3 software, always buy the S version baldric.
Start doing Transport Personell missions in Terran space.

Look for these areas for MK3 pilots to trade in:

SPP and Tier 1 food / Mines.
Tier 1 food(IE: argnu beef) + Tier 2 food(IE: meatsteak cahoona)
Tier 2 food + tech factories(lasers / missiles / shields)
Tech factories + secondaries(IE: warheads)

The more of these in a single sector, the better it is.

Now, as your LTs get to level 6, put them in these sectors in terran space with a +1 trade range:

Jupiter 2
Saturn 2
Venus(later on, you don't have immediate access in terran defender start).

put some in Neptune with a +3 Trade range.

when they get +2 trade range, put some in PTNI HQ. I always have a trader in scale plate green to keep the factories going at optimal efficiency.
And/or
When they get +2 range, put em in omicron lyrae, in which case scout out black hole sun.

[AgamemnonArgon]

I wouls say that it is just the amount of time and direction that one spends in the game that helps make money.
First off for myself, I fly a TS for a week, making little, and slowly making money.
Boring perhaps, but it makes credits.
Then perhaps attack a Dukes freighter to get it to bail, and then keep the ship to use as a second TS.
Fly between two stations using one ship to fly one to use remotely to double the possible profits.

[JAFA_NZ]

If you don't mind wandering around a bit, & selling some otherwise hard to get ships, get a list of all the derelicts, collect them & sell them, IIRC you should net somewhat over 15MCr, especially if you remember to strip them & sell the weapons & sheilds separately.

That's how I used to get my early money anyway (IIRC you might be able to get enough to buy your 1st Elephant).

If you then invest the money you get from selling them, or even just the spare ones (the Blastclaw Prototype, one of the Buster Sentinels, the Mamba, the Elite, & maybe the Eclipse [not sure about that last]), in buying a Mining fleet to collect Nividium from one of the available clusters of debris grade rocks, you can make some fairly rapid money (my niv fleet is minute, only just upgraded to 16 Mobile Miners, & it's probably taken less than 8 hours to make me 80-odd MCr).

[NUKLEAR-SLUG]

It's actually quite difficult to NOT make any money so congratulations on that.

As for getting started the basic and most simplistic way to make some money is simple trading. Initially you don't have access to a few upgrades that make things easier but you don't need them straight away to get going. All you need to know is where there are cheap goods you can buy and who is willing to pay more for them than you paid for them which you can do right from the start by simply querying local stations.

For example, from a Humble Trader start I'm dropped in Herrons Nebula and bringing up the info screen on the local stations I find this one, Ore Mine Alpha..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/1.jpg

Is showing full resource bars in both product and primary Resources. I can't see what the prices are, but I don't need to know that. All I need to know is that tells me it is desperate to sell its Ore product and will do so for a GOOD price. It also tells me that it is full on Energy Cell resources so will give me a BAD price if I try and sell it any.

Elsewhere in the system there is a weapons fab..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/2.jpg

And this one shows that it's nearly full of Hornet missiles for sale so they will be quite GOOD to buy and that its also pretty much empty on resources so will be willing to pay GOOD prices on any resources I can bring it. Weapons fabs as you can see use Ore, so we just found a trade route.

Buy Ore cheap from Ore Mine Alpha -> Sell to Weapons fab for profit.

Eventually you'll ship sufficient ore over to the weapons fab that it won't need any more for a while and that will drive the price down so you aren't making any more profits. But not to worry as the weapons fab needs several other resources as well, for example Meatsteak Cahoonas, and it just so happens that in this same sector..

http://dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/3.jpg

[zyriel]

S4rab you thinking the wrong way
the game has no end
so just try to enjoy the journey not the destination
actually i do envy you as the game is much more interesting when you dont have too much cash and i have too much with many different saves

one of the fastest way to earn cash in unmodified game is the nividium mining

but if you really dont enjoy the slow starts and dont care about modified tag then just use some cheat scripts/mods

X3TC is the easiest in the X-series with getting cash fast

[Legionnaire]

Another quick way to make money to start with iirc is running spacefuel from the distillery in herrons nebula to the trading station there, just avoid the police. Normally you can get a few runs done right at the start of a game without risking being scanned. Certainly enough to get some upgrades, and tuning done on your ship.

I tend to find its best to make a couple of million cash personally before looking at any form of automated trading, whether thats Sector Trader/Local Trader, a wheat farm in The Wall or an ore mine in Ore Belt. theres one nice ore roid in the south part of ore belt that is always my first factory, and seems to always make me money in every game ever since i found its location in X-BTF. Theres also a nice high yield Silicon mine there, but that doesnt seem to be as effective making money.

Legionnaire

[David Howland]

zyriel hit the nail on the head with his first three lines and then screwed up with line four. I remember the agonising impetance of poverty at the start game. I also agree that probably the easiest way to earn credits in the early game is nividium mining. This will involve some research and constant application while doing it. I did no niv. mining until the Hub Plot, I am a complex based billionaire. Once you have enough credids I would buy a silicon mine in Ore Belt and work on building it into a huge Self Sustaining complex! Building factories and complexes is the slowest way of becoming rich, but in the end it can make you richer than anything else in the game!
I am still playing my first game of TC, after two years I am as rich as I want to be but the longer I keep this game running the richer I will get. I look back at how little I could do at the start of the game and it sends a shudder down my spine!
Good Luck and may Egosoft be with you!

[Fattyfat]

I have only started twice, (currently on my second, new player)

I have had great success with trading at the beginning of a game. The usual advice of Humble Merchant is quite good, you get a decent freighter and a decent scout.

In my first game, I sold the scout and used that money to get me trading manually - buy e-cells at 12-13, sell for 18-19, then move up to buying ore at 50-60 and selling for 100-200. That got me started, and all profit I made went to buying a better freighter (Mistral Super Freighter) and then continuing on. All profits after that went to buying another Mistral SF, getting it a mk3 setup, and starting it off to becoming a universe trader. All profits after that went to the same goal, again, and again, until I had 20 of them running at once. This worked well for making money, although the start was slow.

Second game, I changed it up and flew the scout (discoverer) to map all of the sectors around argon prime and eventually beyond. I manually ordered the mercury to run trade routes as described in game 1 while I did this, netting me the same kind of decent starter money while also accomplishing exploration - for me this was a big step up (I still don't know if I could have done it better or not, I assume there is probably an easier way of making the mercury trade without me having to do all the bestbuy/bestsell and navigation work, lol). So when I had enough to make some sector traders, I had a lot of good options for places to start them off.

Honestly, now I'm up to 5 complexes and 30 universe traders, and I'm making around 10 million an hour - but the universe traders seem more reliable than most of the factory complexes. I would suggest focusing on making UT's and then doing what seems fun after that (or during, I've proved for myself that I can "trade" while doing something else).

[ancienthighway]