[X3-R] Tips for starting out?

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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Matthew94
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[X3-R] Tips for starting out?

Post by Matthew94 » Tue, 31. Dec 19, 21:24

I've been spinning my wheels in Reunion for hours. The buster has almost zero cargo capacity so I can barely do trading. The plot (mission 3 so far) throws too many ships at you so you end up taking hull damage which costs tens of thousands to repair. Pirate capping is an absolute pain in the hole as every sector has novas everywhere ready to waste you and BBS missions are almost non-existent.

Is there any "normal" way of making a bit of cash at the start without ferrying 100 ECs back and forth for 50 hours?

X2 at least had the decency to give you a Mercury at the start.

Side note: I will say that X3's aesthetics and music absolutely fantastic compared to BTF and X2. It's just that the early game seems so much more painful than X2. I know Terran Conflict is more helpful at the start but I'm trying to play the main plot of each game without cheating my way through them.

EDIT: I'd still love to know other solutions but dienekes bootlegging run here is ridiculously profitable. This may have solved my issue.

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Re: [X3-R] Tips for starting out?

Post by Cpt.Jericho » Tue, 31. Dec 19, 23:32

Try to feed high tech fabs with what they need. Once they've produced their ware you should have the cash to buy it. Or buy a freight scanner and do sole scanning in pirate sectors. Lots of transports (smugglers) turn hostile and some may even bail.
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Re: [X3-R] Tips for starting out?

Post by Timsup2nothin » Wed, 1. Jan 20, 00:08

It was a long time ago, but when I played Reunion I had the same goal of just getting through the plot and I funded the whole thing running a five ship MORT operation in the Boron sectors around Queen's Space, hawking e-cells. I started with a single Mercury and as fast as I got the cash i would add another until I got to five. Each one was named Light of <whatever sector>. When they called in their order completed message I could see immediately that they were or weren't docked by whether they had a trade option. If they had a trade option I'd hit that. If they were at an SPP I'd buy and give them a fly to the sector in their name order. If they weren't I'd sell and give them a fly to QS order. If they weren't docked I'd hit 'best selling price.' If they were in their target sector someplace that needed e-cells would come up and I'd send them, if the recognizable screen for an empty freighter in QS came up I'd switch to best buys and send them to an SPP.

It was the most unobtrusive, automated MORT system ever, and I kept it running pretty much uninterrupted through all but the most intense combat sequences...and I never ran short of credits.
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Re: [X3-R] Tips for starting out?

Post by jlehtone » Wed, 1. Jan 20, 14:03

I have started X3R only once. Back in 2006. Memories are hazy.

Yes, the Buster is neither a freighter nor a fighter. However, Pirates do travel in faction space and do suffer from police attacks; it is possible to run into lone Pirate. If you think that Nova with turret is bad, imagine a pair of Falcons: one with IonD and other with PSG.

I had a fluke. I explored through the Pirate alley and somewhere about Hatikvah or Thuruk's Beard I witnessed a fight between police and Pirates. The Pirates died, but dropped cargo. One "Unknown Object". Small enough to scoop into Buster and Split Dock did offer 80k for it. A bit more legwork and I was able to buy (and kit out) a Split Jaguar. I could have sold the Buster, but did not, for sentimental reasons.

I took a pause on the plot when it did ask to go to Kingdom End. I made sure I had visited every sector in X-Universe (Kingdom End) before continuing the plot. I often wished that I had taken the pause before the very first plot mission. Need I say that I had a Split Raptor, when I visited the Borons?


Elena's Fortune is closer to Argon Prime. Argon sector with frequent Pirates. Of course, if you go there looking, you will not find any. The Almighty RNG reads our intentions.

There are Pirate Bases in faction space. Might get destroyed and will respawn in random sector. Nevertheless, some Pirates seem to fly between Bases.


There are BBS missions. Statistics show that only diligent players will complete more than two per hour, but at start you don't have the means to complete most. A Xenon Invasion can be found about every 8 hours (next to a Xenon sector). Taxi missions should be doable (or did they require Cargo Life support?).


Some say that they capture Paranid TS that roam Argon Space. Argon's like, if you kill a Paranid, so failed capture is good too. Capturing Borons in Split space might be easier, because Boron TS have less guns. Capturing in Pirate sectors means no police to upset. However, NPC TS do have and release Fighter Drones. That is not the horde you want to face in Buster.


That trade run that you mention, looting after somebody else's fights, some missions, ... those are the things that should yield the first TS and some cash to trade with.


If you have reputation to buy a TS ... you could eject everything from the Buster, eject yourself, dock to SY in a suit, tell the Buster to dock too. Sell Buster, buy TS, scoop equipment from space.

Less drastic: sell your guns to get some cash to trade with. You can't haul Ore with Buster, but food you can. When NPC Forges get full, there are weapons to haul to Docks, but you need cash to buy those guns.
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Matthew94
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Re: [X3-R] Tips for starting out?

Post by Matthew94 » Wed, 1. Jan 20, 17:00

jlehtone wrote:
Wed, 1. Jan 20, 14:03
That trade run that you mention, looting after somebody else's fights, some missions, ... those are the things that should yield the first TS and some cash to trade with.


If you have reputation to buy a TS ... you could eject everything from the Buster, eject yourself, dock to SY in a suit, tell the Buster to dock too. Sell Buster, buy TS, scoop equipment from space.
Cpt.Jericho wrote:
Tue, 31. Dec 19, 23:32
[...] Or buy a freight scanner and do sole scanning in pirate sectors. Lots of transports (smugglers) turn hostile and some may even bail.
Using the cash from the aforementioned space fuel trade run I managed to get an argon security licence and a freight scanner.
I stalked the space fuel distillery in Herron's Nebula and capped a pirate boron TS which net me around 120-160K from it and its cargo.
I used the cash to buy a mercury and after some wheeling and dealing, now have a ST in operation and am progressing at a comfortable pace now.
Timsup2nothin wrote:
Wed, 1. Jan 20, 00:08
It was a long time ago, but when I played Reunion I had the same goal of just getting through the plot and I funded the whole thing running a five ship MORT operation...
Thanks, I ended up doing this for a bit with my new TS as I explored the universe in the buster.

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Re: [X3-R] Tips for starting out?

Post by Mazryonh » Thu, 9. Jan 20, 03:14

I had some "fun" with the X3: Reunion X-TREME difficulty start more recently. Yes, I knew it would be a serious slog, but I stuck with it and ended up with a couple hundred million credits . . . eventually.

For me, the lucky breaks early on came in the form of BBS missions that required you to haul a specific amount of resource to a station within a specific amount of time (usually E-cells, but could be any primary resource a station had next to none of). These only spawned in on stations that were, as mentioned earlier, critically short of a primary resource, but the fact that those stations paid top dollar for that resource, plus a bonus at the end if all of the requested resource was brought in, was a serious blessing for me. Even if I couldn't get the bonus in time, the money I earned went to upgrading the Buster as well as saving up for that all-important first freighter which I used as a MORT until I could buy more ships.

Doing Assassination BBS missions early on also helped, because if your combat rating is low the targets will only be lightly armed and guarded. But if you can pull them off you can get a good amount in the early game.

I also lucked out by capturing a couple of Pirate fighters and selling them. Pirate Falcons are easy pickings, even in the starting Buster, if you just stay away from their front side. Consider buying a TP instead of, or along with, a freighter early on. TP Passenger Transport missions and Tour Conductor missions can pay a lot if you do them right.

All in all, stick with it and keep an eye out for those easy-to-do BBS missions. Soon you'll find that you'll be pining for some X3:R-exclusive features later on if you play the other X3 games, such as the Tour Conductor missions, the lottery tickets, or the fact that Assassination missions can ever only help your reputation, not damage it (like in Terran Conflict and later).

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Re: [X3-R] Tips for starting out?

Post by liveware » Sun, 19. Apr 20, 20:29

I've had X3:R on my wait list for several years, and I finally had a chance to sink some time into it.

I started out using the 'custom' start with storyline disabled. As I recall I started with a single buster and about 1000 credits. The first thing I did was set course for Meneleus' Frontier. Why? Because there's an ownerless cargo ship there just waiting to be captured! I don't recall the exact coordinates but it was somewhere in the north east quadrant of the sector, near a large asteroid. Next I flew off to Family Whi and acquired a second unclaimed transport ship. I was able to to use these two ships to trade around with various stations in Argon space to generate credits to start buying more ships, and eventually I was able to buy several Mercurys and a small wing of Busters. I used the Mercury ships to trade around Argon space while I took my Busters with me on an exploratory mission around the universe. At one point I got to around 4 million credits by trading with 5-6 cargo ships. Now I have almost 15 cargo ships and I'm working towards acquiring my first Corvette class ship.

Anyway that's what worked out for me. Good luck out there.

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Re: [X3-R] Tips for starting out?

Post by jlehtone » Sun, 19. Apr 20, 22:55

liveware wrote:
Sun, 19. Apr 20, 20:29
I started out using the 'custom' start with storyline disabled.
Only three starts in X3R have the storyline: Normal, Quickstart, and Xtreme.

There are other starts that do not have the storyline (but do have the Bala Gi missions).
At least Humble Merchant start is there and it gives you M5, TS, and cash.

The 'Custom' start is primarily for playing a game with modified galaxy map (that you supply), mods and scripts. It does not have Bala Gi, i.e. no M7 Hyperion and Player HQ as mission rewards (but you can probably mod them in somehow).
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liveware
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Re: [X3-R] Tips for starting out?

Post by liveware » Mon, 20. Apr 20, 04:57

That's actually what I was hoping for on this playthrough. I like the possibilities offered by the scripting engine but I didn't want to complicate matters by unexpected storyline elements.

However, I do plan on starting a conventional run soon. From what I have read elsewhere, it seems there are several useful ships/equipment/etc available via storyline missions.

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