Starting out in X3TC

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

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Triaxx2
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Post by Triaxx2 » Sun, 11. Jun 17, 02:54

Why would you need to recharge shields? Just don't get hit. It's surprisingly easy. Though honestly, if you get some Terran Rapiers and fit them with Poltergeists, they'll act like a poor man's M7M and splatter entire Xenon Invasion.
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Post by RAVEN.myst » Sun, 11. Jun 17, 07:58

Good advice all-round from ubuntufreakdragon.
Triaxx2 wrote:Why would you need to recharge shields? Just don't get hit. It's surprisingly easy.
That's a rather elitist thing to say, innit? A newcomer to the game may not find it quite so trivially easy to pull this off. Hell, even with years upon years of X2, X3R, X3TC, and X3AP (and XR, but irrelevant here) experience, I sometimes get into furballs where incoming damage is downright unavoidable at times, and being able to perform a fast combat docking at my TM in order to refill my shields is crucial - or perhaps to jump into an alternate fighter (my preferred option these days, as I eventually decided that instant shield-recharge is "exploity" hehehe.) ;)
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Post by Monkspeed » Sun, 11. Jun 17, 10:21

Guy's I need some help, a couple of my freighters in Split Space keep getting attacked by what seems a randomly spawning group of pirates. 3 of them I can defeat, but one of them is a bigger ship, much bigger than me and goes through me like a hot knife through butter if I try to engage it 1-on-1, even my 17 wasps wasn't enough..

Pirates don't usually attack me, but this group does, and always targeting my Caimen Super Freighter or Caimen Miner (yes I bought a Miner :D ).

My freighter is currently parked in a solar panel factory in Tharka's Sun with the pirates outside waiting. And my miner in another split sector Patriarch's Retreat, can't do an uninterrupted run from gate to gate, I'm currently docking in each station along the way. It's really bringing me down :(

Any advice greatly appreciated.

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Post by RAVEN.myst » Sun, 11. Jun 17, 11:36

Monkspeed wrote:Guy's I need some help, a couple of my freighters in Split Space keep getting attacked by what seems a randomly spawning group of pirates. 3 of them I can defeat, but one of them is a bigger ship, much bigger than me and goes through me like a hot knife through butter if I try to engage it 1-on-1, even my 17 wasps wasn't enough..

Pirates don't usually attack me, but this group does, and always targeting my Caimen Super Freighter or Caimen Miner (yes I bought a Miner :D ).

My freighter is currently parked in a solar panel factory in Tharka's Sun with the pirates outside waiting. And my miner in another split sector Patriarch's Retreat, can't do an uninterrupted run from gate to gate, I'm currently docking in each station along the way. It's really bringing me down :(

Any advice greatly appreciated.
OK, time for a primer on "indirect handling of enemies", let's call it :D This may or may not be possible in the place where you are, depending on the precise current situation (if not, you MAY be able to wait for circumstances to become more favourable.) The basic idea is to make those pirates someone else's problem. Here are some thoughts:

- If you are able to outrun the bigger ship that you can't fight off, then deal with the ones that you can, then make the bully chase you into the main traffic through the sector. If you are lucky, you may get passersby to engage them (though trade ships tend not to aggress first - however, their escorts sometimes do.)
- A variation on this theme is to lure the nasty into the local law enforcement, if any is present. So, police or military.
- Once you have done this, it's up to you whether you entirely wash your hands of the affair, or whether you participate. So you either totally foist the problem off onto some others, or you stick around and help (carefully!)
- A more limited version of the above is to engage the group, deal with the ones that you can, and draw the remainder away somewhere - just lead them on a merry chase. While that's happening, you've opened the way for your freighter/s, allowing it/them to make a getaway.
- You can combine both approaches, of course - lure the pirates into a trap, and in the meanwhile, get your trucks clear.

Happy hunting! :)

EDIT: If you apply the decoy approach and it looks like your freighter may get intercepted, just order it to dock at a station appropriately (and note that if you are not in the sector at the time, the docking goes more smoothly - however, you'll need to evaluate whether your presence running interference is more valuable on a case by case basis.)
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Post by Triaxx2 » Sun, 11. Jun 17, 12:11

It sounds elitist, but it's actually the simplest trick to learn and use, because you see the AI use it all the time. Watch the M5's and you'll see them attack you, and then race away at top speed until they're well out of reach, then turn and come back. Those sorts of long, sprinting attacks make you hard to hit and keep you from being killed by other ships that get behind you, if you stick close in a turning fight.

If you're attempting to punch above your weight class, there are two options:

Option 1) The Wasp Shotgun. this is extremely dangerous, but if you can close to less than 800m on the target you can fire your Wasp as a single mass missile. It only splits into swarm mode if fired from more than 800m away, and that vastly increases the damage done giving the target less time to shoot them down.

Option 2) Fighter Drones. Go load up as many as you can carry, and as soon as the enemies turn up, drop them all and use the commands to say Attack My Target (You'll have to go into the options and set a hotkey, I like Numpad +). Point at the big ship you can't hand, tell the drones to hit it and they'll start wearing it down while you deal with it's friends. If you're lucky, they'll have the shields down by the time you're ready to deal with it. If not, they'll have done damage enough that you should be able to finish it off.

If you're feeling suicidal and have the ability to outrun it, you can lure it into following you, and drop a SQUASH Mine in it's face. That should kill anything short of a capital ship. Or at least cripple it by doing hull damage enough to slow it and destroy equipment.
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Post by RAVEN.myst » Sun, 11. Jun 17, 12:31

Triaxx2 wrote:It sounds elitist, but it's actually the simplest trick to learn and use, because you see the AI use it all the time. Watch the M5's and you'll see them attack you, and then race away at top speed until they're well out of reach, then turn and come back. Those sorts of long, sprinting attacks make you hard to hit and keep you from being killed by other ships that get behind you, if you stick close in a turning fight.

If you're attempting to punch above your weight class...
Yes, but all this assumes that the player is flying a M5 or fast M4 - anything heavier and it stops applying. If you review the OP's chronicle, you will see that he is flying a Perseus variant, and hence the above doesn't apply - he is not generally "punching above his weight", and thus subject to being pecked by smaller, faster, more nimble ships. Granted, "run away to fight another day" (or minute, heheheh) is also doable in heavier ships equipped with a Turbo Booster - but that's a pricey piece of hardware for a brand-new player to invest in (Monkspeed is focusing, correctly in my opinion, on trade ships - of course, a combat pilot's priorities would lie elsewhere.) Context - it has been said to be "everything" ;)

However, pointing out and explaining ('putting in context') this approach as you have done is, in my opinion, VERY useful to a new player - whether it be relevant now, or at some later point (as the same principles do still apply all the way into capital ship combat, when there is a "weight class" difference) :)

Happy hunting!
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Post by jlehtone » Sun, 11. Jun 17, 13:51

Triaxx2 wrote:It sounds elitist, but it's actually the simplest trick to learn and use, because you see the AI use it all the time. Watch the M5's and you'll see them attack you, and then race away at top speed until they're well out of reach, then turn and come back.
Oh yes, that is how I can kill them. Me in slow and sluggish M6, they in fast M5/M4 doing boom and zoom / Lassie (how the dog fights a man in the novel) / joust. They come in, head on, into my burst of shots and die.

What the player, and only the player, can do is the use of Strafe Drive. To not fly straight forward. Barrel roll. The fast M5 is the easiest way to learn those moves. There is no question about shield recharge in M5, for being hit is fatal. One has to dodge and one has to hit consistently, for weapon energy is in short supply.


Bigger, slower ships can dodge too, but not as much. Assuming one already knows the moves.


Xenon M4/M3 do use PBE a lot. That hits and eats shields of almost everyone. Dodging is not effective.

That leads to "know thine enemy". The "one of them is a bigger ship, much bigger than me". Target it from distance. Look up its class, model, shielding, hull-strength and top speed. You can see all that from safe distance. (From within 4km range you can Scan a ship to see what weaponry it has onboard.) Everyone here has their (more or less elitist) opinions about how to fight enemy type foo.
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Post by ubuntufreakdragon » Sun, 11. Jun 17, 14:40

What class is the undefeatable ship of?

Distraction like RAVEN.myst mentioned is one of your best options.
But I want you give you some more:
- swarm the enemy with terran keris (they are cheap an 10 can take out an M6 if you are lucky)
- buy an M8 and bomb the hell out of them, costs about 4mil
ships: opt for terran claymore(only if you manage to get enough phantom missiles the can prove to be quite rare) or paranid hades, the main points of m8 are speed and cargo.
take the other ships out first as M8 missiles are quite expensive.
launch enough missiles+2 to kill them (as fast as possible) and activate seta so they can't shoot them down effectively. the M8 class has an extreme range so keep a decent distance of at least 2 km.
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Post by Imgran » Sun, 11. Jun 17, 16:46

If you're having trouble facing a heavier ship in an M3, you can get some mileage out of numbers. Invest in a Zephyrus TM which has 600mj shielding, and a couple cheap escort fighters and fill your bay with fighter drones and Wasps.

I actually took out a Xenon Q (smallest grade of Xenon capital ship) using that strategy with a trio of Nova Raiders and a Chokaro. The result was very spammy, I'm not normally a combat pilot, but I had to settle that Q's hash before I could get where I was trying to go. I popped my fighters, popped the drones to serve as chaff for the fighters, and lit into the Q with every wasp I had while closing to point blank range to give his big old IBL less play and bring my own pewpews into play.

Once my fighters stripped his shields, I rammed with the Chokaro, using my TM's 200MJ shields as a primary weapon. I still had more than half shields because I was in the fastest TM in the game and was doing my best to jink, I think the Q only squared me up with his IBL once. Still took some hull damage doing that, but I survived at the cost of my cargo of fighter drones and 1 Nova Raider. Got the job done though.

I guess the lessons I'm going for here are:

1: numbers serve where raw power fails
2: Shields can be weapons if yours are vastly superior or theirs are down
3: Missiles are a great equalizer. I was using Wasps against a goddamn capital ship and it was still an effective strategy because I used enough of them
4: Don't be afraid to spend resources to win a fight. I burned tons of consumables but that's OK, I had to beat that Q and I was punching WAY above my weight to do it.

BTW I tend to prefer a pacifist start strat. My first stop tends to be for the Iguana Vanguard in Split space, especially in TC. Sell everything to max out the engine tuning and then grind transport missions for awhile. The Iggy Van is the fastest TP in TC, and it's fast enough to be relevant in AP. So since there's a free one out there. go for it. Doing the bus thing is a great way to build reputation and trader rank while fleshing out your map and making money at the same time. it's my default way to grind money after the very early game.

Once you've invested in a jump drive and Docking Computer and learned how to budget your E-cells which is absurdly simple, most of the bus missions are very easy and the money scales up pretty quickly, you can easy get millions per mission once you've got your rep up, and the starting scales are still more than enough to quickly get the drive and comp and a hold full of power to run them.

The Iggy Van is particularly useful for this because its top speed if 186 is more than good enough to complete missions even without some or all of these upgrades. Makes the grind far easier. One word of caution, the Iggy Van almost looks like a fighter with its high top speed and its laser array. Don't be fooled. The laser battery is pathetic. You have enough juice to spray some fire at a fighter that gets too close and make it back off. That's just about it.

I actually did things differently this go-round exactly because I kinda feel like the Iggy Van is easy money. I went up to Power Circle north of Herron's Nebula with the Mercury, and started out as an E-cell trader. It worked well enough. Fightering around the galaxy is fine if you know how, but for a rank beginner who just wants to get on with the game rather than spending his time getting punished by the learning curve, e-cell trading is the most stable way to make money there is. And as you move e-cells between factories, if you're paying attention, it's not that difficult to figure out how the economy works in general and start taking riskier and more profitable trades.

And after awhile I got bored of that and figured I'd learned all I cared to, invested in an Argon Express (since I'd banned myself from the Iggy Van) and did the bus thing for awhile.

BTW since you seem to like the Caiman freighter, Monkspeed, do have a look at the Mistral. It's a little more expensive but superior to the Caiman in literally every category. A little faster, a little more maneuverable, 4 turrets to the Caiman's 1, hull is a bit tougher, and about twice the shielding. The Mistral is also the most escapable freighter in the game between its max speed and shielding. I use the basic Mistral and the Chokaro for my automated trading needs because those two ships are really good at not getting caught by anything they can't kill and because due to their speed they can make more stops faster and therefore more money faster than anything else in their respective categories..
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Post by Bill Huntington » Sun, 11. Jun 17, 17:13

There's some good advice above. I prefer the Viper if there's a choice but any M8 will do. Tomahawks from a distance will kill the bigger ship without a problem. There's even a way to kill an enemy without any rep loss.

But you shouldn't be in your situation to begin with, Monkspeed. It can be a dangerous universe unless you get yourself a high pirate rating. I'd guess you've chosen the UT option for your traders. They usually kill themselves before too long as UTs.

Another choice is giving them a local area to trade in that's safe, more or less. Like Argon Prime with a 3 square radius. They won't enter a pirate or Xenon sector that way. They can get trader level 20 rather than level 25 with UT but they're dependable. I divide up the TC universe into those 3 square trading areas. This also has the effect of keeping the God machine from deleting stations in that area for inactivity. Anyway, we call them LTs, local traders.

I don't usually kill pirates in my games unless I have to. When I do I also do a few pirate missions to rebuild my pirate rep. It's better to keep it high.

Good luck.
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Post by Triaxx2 » Sun, 11. Jun 17, 23:16

It's entirely workable in a Perseus. It's surprisingly fast for an M3, with good quality shields. The only couple of ships that may give it trouble are Teladi ships which it can handily out run (barring the Kestrel but that'll splat itself) and the Kea in particular which is firmly over shielded. If that's what you're fighting, you're going to have to get a Hammerhead.

The other worrying option is a Pirate Eclipse, which means it's probably spitting fire at you yes? If so it's armed with Plasma Burst Generators. In that case, go find some squash mines, or lure to a law enforcement capital ship. Or just wait them out. Even M6's will occasionally go boom to PBG's.

Pfh. Q's are simple. Tuck yourself into one of the three blindspots, and shred them with Mass Drivers. Busters can do it no problem. :D
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Post by Imgran » Mon, 12. Jun 17, 00:15

Triaxx2 wrote:It's entirely workable in a Perseus. It's surprisingly fast for an M3, with good quality shields. The only couple of ships that may give it trouble are Teladi ships which it can handily out run (barring the Kestrel but that'll splat itself) and the Kea in particular which is firmly over shielded. If that's what you're fighting, you're going to have to get a Hammerhead.

The other worrying option is a Pirate Eclipse, which means it's probably spitting fire at you yes? If so it's armed with Plasma Burst Generators. In that case, go find some squash mines, or lure to a law enforcement capital ship. Or just wait them out. Even M6's will occasionally go boom to PBG's.

Pfh. Q's are simple. Tuck yourself into one of the three blindspots, and shred them with Mass Drivers. Busters can do it no problem. :D
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See above about "not a fighter." I am a trader first and foremost. I recognized a long time ago that I just don't have the head for fighter flying, I can't really think in three dimensions which means I can't track the enemy's location in my mind while I'm moving that fast, I just wind up confused and that isn't fun for me, so I'm smart and don't play in a way that is not fun. I'm a merchant, not a mayfly, so I don't play the game like a mayfly. So when I do fight, and occasionally I do fight, I tend to bring something in the party that's heavy enough that the fight tends to develop around it. In the playthrough in which I had to Chokaro the Q, my usual ride was a Paranid Deimos in which I'd sometimes hunt Xenon J's for sport, I was in the TM because I was doing the Hub quest and wanted something a bit more versatile.

My version of training for battle is having the best equipment and consumables I can so that when I spam them like a noob they win the battle for me. Fight like a smart man with all the advantages, or die like a stupid man to prove a point, and see how many times I can reload the game before I uninstall? it's an easy choice for me usually. Let the AI fighter pilots take the stupid risks, I can always buy more. And let other forumites worry about e-peen points on an offline game.

The only reason I wound up having to take on the Q is because it was in the Xenon Hub sector just as I was trying to switch the sector to where I wanted it. I made it to the hub, but couldn't make it back out because it was too close to me, and while I could have jumped out, I didn't think that dropping a Xenon Q on Argon Prime was particularly neighborly.
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Post by Triaxx2 » Mon, 12. Jun 17, 03:32

No worries, the Q thing wasn't aimed at you. Also, Argon Prime is protected by an invincible super carrier. I doubt they'd have noticed. :P

If you're not a fighter, then I have to say, going with capitals is indeed your best option. I suggest acquiring yourself a TL. The Yaki Ryu if you're friendly with them, or the Split Elephant are both fast, agile ships and are more than capable of swatting anything up to an M6 out of the sky with minimal piloting skills. (Literally in the case of the Elephant, get up close and ram the buggers.)

If you're not yet ready to move up to the capital classes yet, I suggest the Boron Hydra, which isn't a bad dogfighter if the situation calls for it, but is much more suited for flying in a straight line and launching missiles. You don't have to be facing ships to launch missiles either. Use the exterior camera and look around, and fire at enemies as they pass by. It also has enough spare cargo for personal trading of high-value goods like Microchips or Computer Components.

An interesting alternative is the Heavy Centaur, which I hate flying because it cannot dogfight, but has full turret coverage and dual gun mounts in each so you don't have to do more than fly in more or less a straight line.

Terran Rapiers armed with only Poltergeist missiles are extremely effective as a poor man's M7M, because like the Flails, they'll automatically acquire a new target once the old one is destroyed, and Rapiers armed with only them will have to use them, instead of trying to fire guns.

---

On the other hand, what are your feelings on mods? I can think of one or two that would vastly improve your experience, while not requiring you step too far outside your comfort zone.
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Post by Monkspeed » Mon, 12. Jun 17, 10:19

Guys, I just loaded my saved game and now the group of pirates has vanished?? WTF is going on?

I was thinking to buy a bigger ship like some of you suggested but only have about 4mil left over after the super freighter and miner purchase so need something within the budget?

Also, I noticed a laser tower in the sector my freighter is in, maybe I can lure them over there with my Advanced Perseus if they show up again.

Also, I'm not opposed to mods if it's going to improve my experience of the game, but I don't want to turn to mods just to cheat. What mods do you have in mind and will they mess up my current saved games?

Cheers.

I'm not too sure what the big ship is, I loaded up just now to see but as I mentioned, they've just disappeared?

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Post by RAVEN.myst » Mon, 12. Jun 17, 11:09

Monkspeed wrote:Guys, I just loaded my saved game and now the group of pirates has vanished?? WTF is going on?
The X games are to some extent based on emergent gameplay rooted in random generation - thus, it is possible that those pirates didn't spawn this time around, or went a different route, or got distracted along the way - perhaps a police/military patrol took a different path and they encountered each other - all sorts of things may have happened.
Monkspeed wrote:I was thinking to buy a bigger ship like some of you suggested but only have about 4mil left over after the super freighter and miner purchase so need something within the budget?
Well, in my opinion (others may differ, bear in mind), I would try to hold some operating cash in reserve (not too much, as unused funds are idle funds that aren't growing - but enough to serve as operating capital for buying stock, as well as a safety net in case you need to replace something, and also gradually growing it for future ship upgrades.) However, you definitely want to spend some (perhaps even most) of that nest egg. You have two main options as I see it: expand your fighting capabilities, or expand your trading; well, there's also a sort of third option, upgrading your quality of life, which is what I would choose. Personally, what I would do is invest in a TM and outfit it decently: jumpdrive, full shields, full turrets (go with something basic like PACs, so that it can fend off missiles and back you up with modestly decent shots when you are in your fighter), max speed and turning, cargo space if you can afford it, docking computer, fighting command software 1 and 2 - and pretty much anything else. :) Also, at this point I would star (if you haven't already) buying up Advanced Satellites (some players prefer the standard and cheaper Navigation Satellites, but I prefer to go the whole-hog, so I can get on-map 3D visuals when I need them, as well as better vision coverage) and start placing them in all the sectors you are active in.
Monkspeed wrote:Also, I noticed a laser tower in the sector my freighter is in, maybe I can lure them over there with my Advanced Perseus if they show up again.
Yes, that's definitely valid. Don't expect the LT to kill ships very quickly, but it certainly helps - and if the LT lands enough hits on the ships, it may take their aggression off you and onto itself.
Monkspeed wrote:Also, I'm not opposed to mods if it's going to improve my experience of the game, but I don't want to turn to mods just to cheat. What mods do you have in mind and will they mess up my current saved games?
Sorry, can't help you here, as I don't do mods (I'm also anti modding for "cheating" purposes or making the game easier, and simply find it easier to avoid all of them in order to not accidentally get one that will corrupt my game experience - well, that and I'm something of a purist, hehehe.) However, I'm sure you'll get some good suggestions here - not sure whether asking the question in the Scripts & Modding forum would be appropriate (it's possible that forum is more for nitty-gritty specifics about how mods work - I wouldn't know, not my world ^^)

Happy hunting! :)
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Post by Triaxx2 » Mon, 12. Jun 17, 12:12

The two mods I had in mind, are CODEA, and the Security and Rescue Service, both by the author of Commodity Logistics System and Commercial Agent. (CLS and CAG.) All they'll really do is mark your save as modified and lock you out of steam achievements if you care. (They do something else related to Egosoft but it's so unimportant I don't remember what it is.)

CODEA is carrier command software. It basically lets the carrier, be it a TM, or TL, or even the M7's that can carry fighters, as well as the actual M1's, automate their fighters. They will automatically respond to threats in a certain distance of the carrier, and while they require some background logistical stuff, it vastly improves survivability over the vanilla AI which requires the carrier be under attack before they'll launch in it's defense. So you don't have to command them specifically to attack, though you can order a directed attack.

Security and Rescue Service on the other hand, is basically a combination of an enhanced patrol order, which can patrol points in a sector, rather than the vanilla multiple sectors option (though it can do that, including multiple points in multiple sectors). It can also, if setup correctly, automatically jump to the aid of CLS and CAG ships anywhere in the universe and attempt to either rescue them, or failing that, rescue a CAG/CLS pilot who has ejected.

Alternately, are two mods to improve the game's running, which then make it easier to fly and fight/evade fighting. One is a mod that removes the billboards, and thus stops the game attempting to load the videos, which improves performance a startling amount even on a moderately powerful rig. The second is X3:Unleashed, which vastly reduces the number of civilian ships hanging around, the ones that are only represented by a small dot on the sector map. This improves performance quite a lot, including of the vanilla AI, which is very useful.
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Post by ubuntufreakdragon » Mon, 12. Jun 17, 14:35

For scripting/modding you should first go for scripts that are similar to these in the bonus package SRS and CODEA are for example good options but you don't need them yet because you lack the money for a military taskforce, but there is another script from the same author you should look at the Economy Supply Trader it's more or less an improved version of the autotraders you already own, but it can be told to supply specific types of factories so you can get their products more easily.
If you decide to use external scripts, first update the bonuspakage ones to the unofficial versions, because these are newer and compatible to the other ones, and make a save backup before installing to do so navigate to users\yourname\documents\egosoft\x3terranconflict and copy the save directory to somewhere else.

4 mil are enough to build some factories and buy a TM if used wisely, you should keep at least 1mil as backup, you may also want to invest into some salvage insurances to be able to save in midflight, you should be able to get some at the terra corp hq in Home of Light if I remember correctly.

A satellite network is an extremely wise invention, too.
My X3 Mods

XRebirth, things left to patch:
In General; On Firing NPC's; In De Vries; Out Of Zone; And the Antiwishlist

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Imgran
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Post by Imgran » Mon, 12. Jun 17, 15:18

Monkspeed wrote:Guys, I just loaded my saved game and now the group of pirates has vanished?? WTF is going on?

I was thinking to buy a bigger ship like some of you suggested but only have about 4mil left over after the super freighter and miner purchase so need something within the budget
Since you seem to enjoy beebopping around in a fighter, let me ask -- have you invested in a TM yet? TM's are among the most versatile ships in the game, a TM with a hold full of fighters can absolutely smash anything smaller than a frigate. It's a really good mobile base of operations for players who like fighter style combat, opens up a lot of missions and quests for money raising purposes (if you get Cargo Lifesupport a TM can do everything really except TP specific passenger missions) and many of them have enough hold space to double as a merchant ship. They're SUPER useful for advancing questlines.

Even if you're not driving the Zeph it can still provide some combat use in a brawl, someone above mentioned the shield recharge exploit, and without that it's still a source of mobile point defense fire if there's a bandit on your tail that you don't have time to swat. Due to their small size and multiple turrets most TM's offer good turret coverage. And of course, all TM's hold either 3 or 4 fightes, so you can bring either AI fighter backup to the party, or different fighters for different missions.

In my current relatively new playthrough I have a Zephyrus with 3 Solanos for AI fighter backup because the Solano is a poor man's M3 which packs a reasonable punch and is easy to replace if you suffer losses, and one M5 (Octopus Raider because I got a good deal on one) which I use for missions where the only criteria is speed, such as asteroid scans and the first half of assassination missions (find the location of the idiot, drop my carrier on them, spit out the figher escort and whatever fighter drones I feel are necessary, and half the time the target is dead before I get back to the carrier..

The two best TM's by far are the OTAS Zephyrus, which has the best shielding at 600Mj, and the Yaki Chokaro, which sacrifices 1 fighter bay for a massive (for a TM) cargo hold for extra versatility and boasts the highest top speed of any TM.

An early player isn't going to have access to the Chokaro but probably hasn't spoiled his relationship with the Argon yet, so I recommend for you, the Zephyrus. If you're taking a TM into battle the Zephyrus is the best choice, and if you're going to mostly be trading, the Zephyrus is still like the second or third best choice.

EDIT: Actually I lied. The Split Boa is the fastest TM, less than 1 m/s faster than the Chokaro but its shielding is substandard, which reduces its protection and its shield-ramming potential. I would never use the Boa.
Last edited by Imgran on Mon, 12. Jun 17, 16:11, edited 1 time in total.
OTAS -- it's like 42, the answer to life, the universe, and everything

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Imgran
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Post by Imgran » Mon, 12. Jun 17, 16:08

Triaxx2 wrote:No worries, the Q thing wasn't aimed at you. Also, Argon Prime is protected by an invincible super carrier. I doubt they'd have noticed. :P

If you're not a fighter, then I have to say, going with capitals is indeed your best option. I suggest acquiring yourself a TL. The Yaki Ryu if you're friendly with them, or the Split Elephant are both fast, agile ships and are more than capable of swatting anything up to an M6 out of the sky with minimal piloting skills. (Literally in the case of the Elephant, get up close and ram the buggers.)
I love the Split Elephant. Its fighter compliment makes it a great second ship when you need to really envelop an enemy in a proper furball. It's not a great LT as a station builder, but it's the LT I'd take into a war zone and it's actually really quick once it gets going. And it gets by as a station builder, it can carry 1 station and a complex connector, just rinse and repeat as needed.
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Really helps to have a station like the Hub that can dock capitals and you can stock however you want, before you start taking capitals into battle. Resupplying a capital ship from "wild" supplies is SUPER tedious
Another ship that might almost be in Monkspeed's price range (although not quite, he'd need another 4-5 mill to really kit it out) is the Argon Centaur. I got super lucky in my latest playthrough and the Argon shipyard at Legend's Home had a guy selling a badly damaged one for like 1.3 mil, super sweet deal on an m6 hull.

I really like the Centaur, it's a bit underpowered for an M6, but that only counts until you can find a source of PBG's. I tend to kit a Centaur out with PRG's in the turrets, 2 PBG's, 4 EBC's a mining laser and a tractor beam, very very handy when you start getting serious about station building.

The big thing I love about the Centaur is that it's such a smal M6, it might be the physically smallest, I'd have to check. That really cuts down on the blind spots. And I use EBC's in the main guns so the turrets have sole access to the laser capacitor, so they can just keep firing. It's quite a potent mix, and if I need more, I can flamethrower my way out of trouble
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Tm

Post by Bill Huntington » Mon, 12. Jun 17, 18:10

Boa is my favorite TM because of its speed. It's rare that a TM sees combat and I'm in a lot of it. The Chokaro is a close second however.

I love the Chok enough that I pick one up as soon as I have the price tag, which includes outfitting it. $1 Mil is more than enough. I usually have it by hour 5 of the first day.

Even if you've lost one level of Paranid rep they might allow to pass. If they don't, your fast M5 should make it, especially a Kestral.

I like to have Senator Badlands available to stash my stolen ships from Return Ship missions.

One feature about TMs. You can carry extra Jump Drives on your spare ships, saving time and avoiding problems.

It takes longer to build up the Split rep to buy a Boa. Sometimes I do but not always. The Chok is good enough. Any TM is okay but these two are the best IMO. But everyone has their own way. This is TC.

Good Hunting!.
Bill in S.F., enjoying the game

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