So without SETA how do you not get utterly fed up building a trading empire?

[Typee]

Not expecting anything, I just don't understand what "realistic proportions" means.

[Hektos]

[Typee]

That's quite likely yes. Well, let's wait and see.

[SilentcontrolSXM]

Even with realistic proportions a travel from the sun to
earth would take minutes at light speed, so imagine it with a highway from X Rebirth acceleration a ship flying at 100m/s 1000 times => 1/3 light speed so you will spend 24 minutes in a tunnel ... unbelieveable.
Personnaly thinking that maximum time traveling in a highway will take 3 minutes or it will be very boring.
Superhighways between 2 planets would be in that way unrealisticly fast, making ship moving faster than light.

[Morkonan]

[porkchop76]

I could not agree more.

[Notchi]

I've on the other hand used both SETA and steam browser ( or sometimes switching to windows) to pass my time. My usual start of the game involves getting a TS and shuttling ore... which can take a while. SETA is not necessary if ES manages to provide:
1. Same time difference - meaning that if the time needed to get to a location in X3 series so far was 2 minutes with SETA, it should take the same time now without SETA.
2. Better (even different one will do ) UI - provides something to do while you are traveling.

[notaterran]

If we're talking about passing the time, how about minigames? GTA had them, and the Silent Hunter series (which had the equivalent of SETA) could've used a chess or poker minigame -you can actually see the crew playing cards in the WWII footage. Perhaps it's not too expensive to license one of those old chess engines from the 90s.

And how about the highways themselves? A few seconds close to the speed of light means that a longer time has passed elsewhere. Maybe SETA might be implemented after all.

[Kofa]

I use SETA a lot. Whether it's when I go from A to B, or I want a small break from the game but would still like to earn some creds. I also use SETA to speed up jumping times. But really, it would take forever to build up your empire without SETA, and I have a hard time believing those who say they never use it.

For me, playing the game is not doing all the work by my self.
I find doing missions or just trading to be repetitive and boring after a while.
Thus I like to set up a trading empire, automate whatever I can automate and watch it all in SETA. When I build my empire I tend to switch to playing X3 as a strategy game, which I think is great fun.