yay fun (TC)

[JJRSC]

Even though the game (TC) is nearly ten years old (it came out in 2008, right?) I am still consistently amazed with its scope and its complexity. That said, there is some bs that I really get tired of. It appears, IMHO, that if you haven't lost a ship in a little while, the game decides to it's time for you to lose a ship (or two, or three) ... and this can be annoying or infuriating. Sometimes a Yaki or Pirate ship will kill one of your freighters. Annoying, but it happens.

My "favorite," however, is when you see something along the lines of "Your (M2) was destroyed in __ Sector by Cahoona Bakery L Alpha."



Really?

So today, I was doing my thing, and I checked my message log and saw, "Your (Aggamemnon) was destroyed in Sector Guiding Star by Solar Power Plant XL Alpha"



So, basically my Aggie that patrols my home sector didn't see that Terran SPP XL ( they are kind of diminutive ) from all the way across the sector and at 107 m/s couldn't possibly turn in time to avoid it.

It's times like this I am glad I have the cheat package installed, even if it means getting the dreaded "modified" tag attached to my game... to deal with these things when they happen. So I cheated in another Aggie, gave it all the equipment and whatnot it's predecessor had, and sent it on it's way to patrol the sector.



One minute later I check my messages and see that "Your (Other Aggamemnon that was escorting your M1) was destroyed in Sector Guiding Star by Equipment Dock Beta"




P.S.: It's not just TC messing with me. When I tried to post this, I got an error message: "Cannot post this message - You can use a maximum of 10 smilies in a single post. However your current post contains 19 smilies."



(I used a lot of the evil smileys first time around.)

[Timsup2nothin]

Reflected sunlight from the SPP blinded the Aggie pilot.

By the way, aren't solar cells supposed to absorb the sunlight? Why are SPPs so shiny?

[ubuntufreakdragon]

By the way, aren't solar cells supposed to absorb the sunlight? Why are SPPs so shiny?

to blind intruding paranid agga captains into death

[RAVEN.myst]

I'm currently playing an X3TC game myself, and I've noticed that the autopilot is... less than reliable. Whenever people bitch about the "autopillock", I usually tend to roll my eyes and sigh, but I've realised that these people must be thinking mostly of the X3TC version - something must have been improved in X3AP (whether explicitly, or indirectly, I know not), for in a couple of days of X3TC (and yes, much of it even at low speeds), I've managed to have or narrowly avert more autopilot fatalities than in a year of X3AP. Also, I recently also played quite a bit of X2, and there the AP was HIGHLY reliable; also played a little X3R, but I lost patience with its backward UI after just a couple of days, so I can't really comment. It seems specifically X3TC's autopilot that has problem - and yes, particularly with SPPs, even the Commonwealth ones (but I remember the Terran ones being killers - and even still to some extent in X3AP); hell, thrice I had ships (once a Disco, once an Express, and the third time I forget what - ie. totally different flight dynamics profiles) decide that the best way to the docking clamp at a CW SPP was THROUGH the collector array... *scratches head* Oh well, it's a good thing I don't use the AP much - but that only works for personal ship, all others are on AP, which is why I tend to stay OoS from where most of my ships are (an EgoSoft trademark, this - "wherever your ships are, be somewhere else" is the best way to look after your toys, )

By the way, aren't solar cells supposed to absorb the sunlight? Why are SPPs so shiny?

Good point! Err... I mean, why are you confusing the issue with logic?!

[JJRSC]

By the way, aren't solar cells supposed to absorb the sunlight? Why are SPPs so shiny?

to blind intruding paranid agga captains into death

There may be something to this theory. I just lost a Mistral ST because it collided with a Terran SPP in Neptune.

[Alan Phipps]

"Hey Captain, does that jump gate disk we're heading for look strangely metallic to you?"

[Timsup2nothin]

"Hey Captain, does that jump gate disk we're heading for look strangely metallic to you?"

I will admit that I once 'capped' a gate with an MSPP just to watch the mayhem whenever I was in the sector.

[jlehtone]

"Hey Captain, does that jump gate disk we're heading for look strangely metallic to you?"

Indeed. Transmit our GDO code to SCG immediately.

[JJRSC]

"Ten seconds to jump captain... hey, where'd those solar panels come from?"

[JJRSC]

"Hey Captain, does that jump gate disk we're heading for look strangely metallic to you?"

I will admit that I once 'capped' a gate with an MSPP just to watch the mayhem whenever I was in the sector.

For a second I thought you meant that, using a Medium SSP, you either boarded the jumpgate or got it to bail. Spent a few minutes wondering how that worked...

[Timsup2nothin]

"Hey Captain, does that jump gate disk we're heading for look strangely metallic to you?"

I will admit that I once 'capped' a gate with an MSPP just to watch the mayhem whenever I was in the sector.

For a second I thought you meant that, using a Medium SSP, you either boarded the jumpgate or got it to bail. Spent a few minutes wondering how that worked...

Okay, yeah, I should have specified there...capped, like in the sense of putting a lid on the pickle jar so the little gherkins can't get out.

[zazie]

Sorry to be sarcastic, but anyway: You have been playing X3TC for almost ten years and you still
a) don't know that you should not use your fleet IS against enemies?
b) believe that your fleet of M7 and bigger will do IS anything more suitable than circling around?
Choose your option...

[jlehtone]

Just to be sure: were these IS or OOS fatalities?


IS deaths can be attributed to the pointy-haired boss. They are in my case; I have no compulsion to accept multi-million assassination tasks in the middle of my trade routes. Wait! I do have ...

OOS hit and run by a bystanding Station. That would be scary.

[RAVEN.myst]

OOS hit and run by a bystanding Station. That would be scary.

I swear it, off'sher - I bin drivin' this same road for twenty years, never nuthin' like this ain't happend befor - the tree just jumped into the middle of the road!

(All I can say is: driving for 20 years, same stretch of road or not - aren't you TIRED by now?!)

[pjknibbs]

(All I can say is: driving for 20 years, same stretch of road or not - aren't you TIRED by now?!)

Jasper Carrott used to have a part of his act where he read out some supposedly real comments written by drivers on accident insurance claims. No idea if they actually *were* real, but one of them went:

"I had been driving for 40 years when I fell asleep at the wheel."

[RAVEN.myst]

(All I can say is: driving for 20 years, same stretch of road or not - aren't you TIRED by now?!)

Jasper Carrott used to have a part of his act where he read out some supposedly real comments written by drivers on accident insurance claims. No idea if they actually *were* real, but one of them went:

"I had been driving for 40 years when I fell asleep at the wheel."

Yup, that's pretty much precisely what I was referencing (though I didn't know the name)

[Honved]

Clearly, the primary expense of installing telephone poles is for the giant springs beneath, so they can jump out in front of unsuspecting cars.

Fortunately, in the distant future, the various sentient races have created teleportation devices to allow even massive Solar Power Plants to jump out in front of passing traffic. Isn't technology wonderful?

The primary reason why I have ended nearly every X3:TC campaign short of "completion" is collisions between passing civilian ships and my factories. The local race then spawns a reaction force to remove the offending station before it kills again. Apologies don't work, and the reaction force will eventually turn red again until/unless the station is destroyed. I try to avoid placing factories in sectors that I will travel through frequently, which unfortunately leaves a lot of missed golden opportunities to profit from gaping holes in the economy, where I have to locate the factory several sectors out of the way.

[RAVEN.myst]

The primary reason why I have ended nearly every X3:TC campaign short of "completion" is collisions between passing civilian ships and my factories.

In thousands upon thousands of hours of play, this has never, not once, happened to me. Then again, I make a point of placing my factories away from traffic lanes when I place them in built-up sectors (I used to build only in empty sectors, but that meant I started industrialisation considerably later, so I soon changed to development in sovereign territories so I could get active as early as possible) - typically, I build not just somewhat to the side (looking for gaps in traffic that are as near as possible to a gate, for short return trips by jump-enabled freighters), but also considerably above the ecliptic (thus also allowing me to extrude the docking hub downward and angle it for efficient access.) Also, I don't allow "foreigners" to dock at my factories - all my trading is done at preferential rates using CAGs and/or CLS2s. Of course, I do admittedly also tend to avoid spending time in sectors where I've built, but that's mostly to protect my own freighters from bumping into each other and my structures, and even more so to prevent them going into long collision-avoidance loops, which would (often dramatically) slow down throughput...

These games' richness never ceases to amaze me, given how different the experiences of different players can sometimes be.

[Nanook]

...
The primary reason why I have ended nearly every X3:TC campaign short of "completion" is collisions between passing civilian ships and my factories....

I'm surprised the local governments gave you permission to build in the middle of the spacelanes. How much 'weed and 'fuel did you have to 'distribute' to them? Bribery never pays in the end, you know.

[Alan Phipps]

[OT]"How much 'weed and 'fuel did you have to 'distribute' to them?" That's something you probably need to ask Triaxx2 who in this post says "I drug all the asteroids in the sector ..." [/OT]