Your best early game enemy?

[Bill Huntington]

Who do you like for an early game enemy in TC? Pirates? Paranid? All?

I’ve been doing the starts where you have a small ship to begin. I find the Disco a good starter ship, then working your way up to an M3. I find the pirates too tough until later. A good early game target is Paranid civilian ships. In Humble Merchant, I sell the Mercury after a trade or two, outfit the Disco, and hunt. A few civilian Paranids gets everything going. You can get a Pericles easily, which can get you an M3.

Just like the pirates later, you can hunt the Paranid even in their own territory if you do missions for them. I don’t even lose the Paranid license if I cap their ships outside their territory.

Once I get my M3, I only cap the M3s that sell for $3 Mil, unless I want it for myself. I put sats up over a wide area, and do missions until there is an M3 worth $3 Mil. At that stage, I will take an M3 from ALL the major races, and do missions for them to keep the rep up. When I get to $21 Mil, I’ll get an Elephant to get to top rep with all the races. I really enjoy mixing it up with an M3+ that has Plasma Burst Generators. If you make a mistake, you are toast. Burnt toast. But if you stay on his tail, you can get a $3 Mil prize.

Who is your favorite enemy?

[RayF]

Can i say xenon?
I find The no rep loss and the difficulty to capture their ships very challenging.(and for the no rep loss a plus+)

[Timsup2nothin]

Paranids, hands down. Paranid freighters passing through Argon space supply my freighter fleet. Their fighter drones provide vast amounts of Argon rep. Plus, their arrogant dialog always makes me feel better about killing them.

[hisazul]

Argon.

[Bill Huntington]

Thanks, all.

hisazul, that is so good. I found a certain formala for the paranid, but it will work for Argon and all. Early you cap civilian ships, and when your rep is up to license level or so, you can cap anything with minor rep loss. So many targets!

[LTerSlash]

Paranid is a bad enemy to have, their ships carry PSGs from M7 onwards, and that weapon kick ass.
And they also control the entire Hurricane, Hornet production, and its kinda a usefull missile.

The Argon is a no-no, they have excelent access to most upgrades (jumpdrive,bioscanner at Terracorp, dock comp at OTAS), also come with doble ammount of ships (OTAS).

The Split have some VERY good ships to use, too, and the Scorpion raider is an excelent carrier fighter to have in numbers. They also have control over the Thunderbolt missile.

The Teladi ships kinda sucks. but they control the Typhoon missile, GC, Flak and EBC production...! So they are good very late enemy.

Now the Borons... thats a good enemy, the Borons have a few good things, the Megalodon, only M2 that is able to use Flail missiles, but you are better off boarding them(and you dont have it on TC), every one of their ships are useless, their only good ship is the Hydra, its the best ship to use it in groups with typhoons, and the Tempest missile production.

--- ABout the pirates ill highly recomend to pick 1 pirate group to attack, and just 1.

- Yakis, they just give you ships for free all the time

-The pirates on Maelstrom area are kinda a good target for ships.

-The Dukes pirates gives you a lots of free ships too.

So ill say, 1st option Boron, 2nd option a Pirate group, 3er option Split
Remember that Boron and Split fight each other, so only pick one.

[hisazul]

Bioscanner is the only thing I can think of that you actually lose. Terrans for instance sell every essential ship extension.

And as far as making largest amount of money goes... argon are like cockroaches... they are everywhere and they always have plethora of fat traders. Their ships are also some of the easiest to capture and board.

Yes argon have one too many corporations... but so what. OTAS doesn't sell anything noteworthy, imo, so again no loss there.

Teladi on the other hand is one of those races I'd never go hostile with same as Terrans.

[LTerSlash]

I know the terrans sell it, but the Argons always have a good place close by.

[Morkonan]

..Terrans for instance sell every essential ship extension.

Supply Command Software?

(X3TC) As far as hostilities go, the only thing you ever have to worry about is software/ship command packs. Unless you're really into tractor beams. But, once you've got all the software you will need from someone, feel free to tank the rep as low as it will go.

[Albany]

I've been thinking about picking a race to wipe out myself, and have my sights set (or aimed, rather) on (at) the Boron. Main problem here is twofold.

1. I have a station in Kingdom End; would it be toast?

2. If I do this, wouldn't it mean that all Boron would immediately attack my poor traders on sight? I wouldn't want my trade empire to be crippled in such a devastating way.

Thanks!

[Black_hole_suN]

Yes, Boron military will attack your station if your rep dropped to -2

Set Borons as foe in global Friend/Foe and broadcast it to all reachable properties. your traders will avoid Boron sectors and your stations will not accept Borons to dock. Your traders are still in danger to wandering Boron military ships just like how susceptible they are to pirate attacks


All your patrol ships, laser towers, all military assets will shoot Borons on sight..

[Jimmy C]

Borons are not a good enemy to have if you want to build an empire of complexes.
Their bio/food combo is the cheapest. Their SPP and Crystal are the cheapest unless you can get them from the Terrans.
The fact that the bio/food combo is the cheapest also means that, for building complexes with stations everyone sells for the same price, the Boron version becomes the cheapest.

I try to make it to the best ranking with all the major races. Though I do go after Paranids for their Hyperions and Agamemnons. Capping them and rebuilding rep afterwards is still faster than waiting for one ship to finish construction.

[Graaf]

As a trader there are no best enemies. Unless they harass the competition.

[Albany]

Hmm...I see. How else do you shoulder the incredible cost of having a sizable military fleet?

[Jimmy C]

AP - Nividium stock price manipulation.
TC - unlimited Nividium mining.

[Morkonan]

Hmm...I see. How else do you shoulder the incredible cost of having a sizable military fleet?

Without abusing Nividium mining in TC, I can support a fairly large fleet. (I don't remember how many ships, since it has been awhile since I played. It's likely 700-1000 ships. I do have very small Nividium mining operation that I created "just for funsies." But, I don't need the cash from it to sustain anything.)

But, I have a lot of complexes. I also don't do any "illicit" dealings, so no booze, no weed, no slaves and no boarding actions or piracy...

But, I regularly do "Build" missions, back-to-back and cycle several TLs, in and out, at the same time. Those millions add up very quickly.

But, getting to that point is hard. It takes a great deal of work to build enough complexes AND to build up the rep you need. However, once you do reach such a point, you're a force to be feared. Then, you can start taking on really difficult tasks, like blocking off Xenon sectors. Or, you can try your hand at fighting other races, but in X3TC, they'll just respawn. (Without mods. With certain mods, you can conquer sectors/stations, but I think they will still respawn patrols/fleets and such, from time to time. Not sure.)

[Graaf]

Hmm...I see. How else do you shoulder the incredible cost of having a sizable military fleet?

I don't need a sizable military fleet to protect my single Transport.

But when that time comes I will have several M6's (or bigger) guarding my Tech Fab's.
- 1 MJ Shields
- Crystals
- Microchips
- Quantum Tubes
- Computer Components

And ofcourse the supporting factories for food and minerals.

These Tech Fab's make quite a nice profit, but it will take some time. Meanwhile I'll build Stations for the NPC's, deliver wares when needed and transport personnel around.

Trust me, you can also make a fortune without the fighting part.