X3 Tc

[Captain Zorg]

and keeping money in your wallet is a silly idea, thats 40 mill that isnt going towards ships / stations to work for you, teladi would not approve
(thats hypocrisy coming from me LOL, it seems im unable to dip below 100 mill credits due to all the UTs keeping everyone's main areas afloat)

and no, theres -no- other ship thats even remotely comparable to the Q, besides another Q of course .

i dont like the mistral SF for 2 reasons :

1) theyre slooooooooooow, by the time it gets to where its going, several traders probably came and gone.

2) the massive cargobay actually makes them -very- inefficient. 90% of the time, they cant fill the cargo bay and usually only fill it to levels that a regular freighter can carry.

Well its not so much inability, its just hard to describe. I could spend my money knowing that I'd still get it back, but whats stopping me is myself really. I've always appreciated money and its value because for me it doesn't grow on trees. Sure this is only a game, but I guess my attitude towards money has always been this way.

You are right when you say that I do need a better ship. I have realised this but for me its finding the right ship for me and no I don't have the AI ammo script. I only have the TC disc which I bought recently. I haven't added anything onto it.

I've been on the net and I found a really nice ship. Not too fast, not to slow but the only problem I have is that its ATF. Its an M7 Frigate 'AGIR' I think and I really like it. I have more than enough money to buy it but my rep with the ATF is 0? Do I have to complete the missions in order for this to go up or what?

[Catra]

the aegir is unbuyable, every ATF ship is unbuyable, you need to capture them.

that is..of course, assuming you can beat down the ATF battlegroup that its usually escorting, and the terran military that comes to assist , and get it out of terran space alive

the ATF fighters are also uncapturable, they do not bail.

the ATF ranking only goes up as you complete the terran plot. the ranking ensures you have access to the sol system (otherwise a seemingly unlimited amount of terran "police"(which consists of destroyers, carriers + fighter compliment, frigates and corvettes) will hunt you down till you leave the sector or die). you also get instakilled at earth if youre not supposed to be there or if you stray from the docking path.

*sidenote*
all ships have a monetary cost so the game doesnt explode when you try to sell an unbuyable(which wouldnt have a monetary cost) captured ship

look here for the ship you may want, and in its info tab, itll show where to buy it, if no locations are shown, you have to cap it
*/sidenote*

[jimlpearce]

i dont like the mistral SF for 2 reasons :

1) theyre slooooooooooow, by the time it gets to where its going, several traders probably came and gone.

2) the massive cargobay actually makes them -very- inefficient. 90% of the time, they cant fill the cargo bay and usually only fill it to levels that a regular freighter can carry.

Pre-2.1 I would have agreed and said the Caiman SF makes the best LT/UT while the Mistral Sf was poor... but I've recently been building an empire on 2.5 and on closer inspection my LT and ST's are regularly filling their cargobay to capacity by doing runs between L factories. All in all The mistral SF and Caiman SF are about equal in profits (I'm using both to compare)... the caiman has the speed and the Mistral the cargo space. This does give the Caiman SF the advantage for runs of High tech products such as weapons which do not come close to filling the cargobay... but by that argument the best LT/UT for the most profitable tech runs are small and fast ie. stock freighters and not SF's at all.

[Catra]

im gonna say my peace about the SF subject, then drop it, as its all theorycraft from then on.

L factories make huge stocks(most of em anyway) in short order, several things can contribute to a SF having a full cargo bay of w/e the L size is making:

lack of NPC buying, with just the SF buying and its slow speed, you -will- have a gigantic stock.

extreme NPC selling, they can and will have a monopoly on certain goods when left peacefully to their own devices. thisll lead to both backup and stagnation.

backup(as in...freighter sells to a station, station accepts some of the cargo, SF needs to go to another buyer) this leads to a gigantic stock and stagnation.

huge sectors, 'nuff said.

this effects the non SF variants as well, just takes much much much longer.

[Captain Zorg]

Hey I don't want an argument to start here. I'm just saying that my Mistrals are bringing me in alot of dough. I can't see anything wrong with them and besides, the extra room they have is an advantage just incase.

Ok, so far I have 20 Mistrals but I'm going to buy more in the future. As for the M7's it sucks that the Aegir is not buyable, 'DAMN'! Please excuse my language, I'm just frustrated because the ships I like aren't buyable.
Mind you, I think I'll buy a TL first. I'm thinking of the Elephant which looks quite good specs wise. I'm just wondering if the Mobile Pirate Stations are buyable?

Oh well I think I'll just have to look for other ships available, SIGH!

Thanks guys for all the info.

[perkint]

You can't get the mobile Pirate base. No way, no how (bot boarding or anything else).

Race rep effects for ATF vessels are a little weird:

Spoiler

Show

You can board the ATF vessels without race rep loss (ATF rank is fixed at 0% on whatever stage you're at, eg Earth access) but you can lose Terran rep for attacking friendly ships in their sectors.

Which are better traders? I tend to use Mistral SFs but, recently, I'm thinking they may not be the best. If you install the (not **modified**) script which dumps out MK3 trader info logs, you can actually track the info if you want, but I think the best MK3 trader would be a Hyperion

Tim

[Captain Zorg]

Ok thanks Tim. I'll look into the Hyperion MK3 trader.

[perkint]

Wasn't an entirely serous suggestion!! I do think it would be best, but due to the restrictions getting hold of one (either board it or spend a long time RE'ing in it) it is not exactly convenient for that use.

Personally I use Chokaros!

Tim

[Captain Zorg]

Yeah I know coz I was thinking, 'Is he serious' but personally I like the mistrals because the speed is ok.

Anyway, cya later guys!

[Catra]

the hyperion for mass ware movement

the springblossom for speedy ware movement

both are good mk3 traders

[Captain Zorg]

LOL, yeah really funny hahaha.

[Colossus32]

the aegir is unbuyable, every ATF ship is unbuyable, you need to capture them.

that is..of course, assuming you can beat down the ATF battlegroup that its usually escorting, and the terran military that comes to assist , and get it out of terran space alive

the ATF fighters are also uncapturable, they do not bail.

the ATF ranking only goes up as you complete the terran plot. the ranking ensures you have access to the sol system (otherwise a seemingly unlimited amount of terran "police"(which consists of destroyers, carriers + fighter compliment, frigates and corvettes) will hunt you down till you leave the sector or die). you also get instakilled at earth if youre not supposed to be there or if you stray from the docking path.

*sidenote*
all ships have a monetary cost so the game doesnt explode when you try to sell an unbuyable(which wouldnt have a monetary cost) captured ship

look here for the ship you may want, and in its info tab, itll show where to buy it, if no locations are shown, you have to cap it
*/sidenote*

I actually got my aegir quite easily. Luckily there was only an aegir and tyr, but my IBLS took care of it.

[Ulan Dhor]

@ ulan,

im missing something here

the Q and tiger both have the same frontal guns (12 PPC and 12 IBLs),with the Q having better firepower. same speed and shield strength. how is the tiger better? (besides the obvious small combat frame and anti fighter turrets )

Yes, you are missing something here. The Q can mount 4 PPC+8 IBL, the Tiger 12 IBL, which is only a slight difference, although the Q can start firing a bit earlier. The Tiger has slightly more laser energy and double the laser recharge rate. A Q must kill on the first pass and is then spent. For a player ship, I prefer to be able to stay in the battle a bit longer, and a Tiger will recover faster. Of course, for sustained fire power, the Shrike probably wins.

[Ulan Dhor]

Personally I use Chokaros!

I now use them for training ST's/UT's. That little bit of speed advantage makes micromanaging fledgling Mk3 traders much easier. Later on, I can give them a Caiman SF.

[Captain Zorg]

Personally I use Chokaros!

I now use them for training ST's/UT's. That little bit of speed advantage makes micromanaging fledgling Mk3 traders much easier. Later on, I can give them a Caiman SF.

So why not just use the Caiman to train them all at the same time? Its easier in a way that you don't have to keep moving the pilots, which as you say 'makes micromanaging easier'. You just assign them a freighter and then leave them to it. The fact that you train them in one ship, then move them to another makes micromanaging alot harder and more tedious.

That's how I've been doing it and I tell you what, my Mistrals levelled up really fast. Its also knowing where to ST them you see.

Anyway, I know what you're all trying to tell me is that these Mk3's are fast which is good if you're to beat the competition, but my aim with the Mistral SF's is to sell huge quantities of goods, mainly ores. MK3's are fast and they can be armed, but they can only carry so much. Does anyone know what I'm trying to do with my Mistrals here?

Its nice though to hear the oppinions of so many. That's how we improve ourselves afterall. Through Trial and Error.

[Ulan Dhor]

So why not just use the Caiman to train them all at the same time? Its easier in a way that you don't have to keep moving te pilots. You just assign them a freighter and then leave them to it. That's how I've been doing it and I tell you what, my Mistrals levelled up really fast. Its also knowing you see where to ST them.

That's fine as long as you have only standard Mistrals as starting Mk3 trader and not that many ST's/UT's running already. On the other hand, a mix is annoying. A Caiman SF will be beat to the deal by standard Mistrals or even Mercury's. This means that, even in good training sectors, it will often get stuck because one of the faster UT's will sell his stuff before the Caiman SF (or Mistral SF) even docks. And then he will cry for your help.

A Chokaro will even beat Mistrals.

On high Mk3 trader levels, that doesn't matter much, so a slow big ship will be okay. The trader will be able to deal with the problem.

Edit: One of the best training sectors for Chokaros in my game is, by the way, Bala Gi's Joy .

[Captain Zorg]

Yeah I understand, but for me it hasn't been a problem really. I think the only time where it has been a problem was way back in X3R. They had the option to move pilots, but you first had to select the target ship, then the ship itself and then the dock. Now, you just select the ship and 2 sec its done. That's how fast it is.

For me its Family Zein, Ore Belt, Queens space, Herron's Nebula and Bala Gi. Alot of the eastern part of the known X Universe can also be very good in raising ST's to UT's. I've always equipped my freighters with PRG's and 6 25MJ shields and they always carry Adv Drones.

As for the chokaro, well that was my first option to be honest with you, but the Yaki hate me. I can't go into their territory without being blown to crap. They are always attacking me and I don't know how to stop it? I could do missions, but its very hard to find one except for the secret treasure mission that I'm on right now where I have to talk to this Yaki pilot. Well you know why I can't lol.

Anyway, my trading fleet is doing well. All I can say is that we all play differently, we all have different outcomes on each of our games, but overall I can say that most of us play to earn a profit with the sole purpose of buying bigger and better ships/factories. Its very hard and tedious but worth it. Everything else i.e. the cappings are just part of the experience along with blowing some poor ass merchant out the sky if I don't like him lol.

P.S. I'm thinking of buying a Split Elephant and then equipping it with max shields and lasers. I figure that I can make more money simply going around in my split, accompanied ofcourse by my Skiron so that if I come across NPC factories requesting engineering marvels, it would then be easier for me to accept rather than wait for a dumbass AI TL to take 30 minutes of the time allowed on the contract just to manuever into place. All I'd have to do is resupply it with energy cells and 'WALA!' I'd have a means to carry out engineering jobs as well as combat too.
What do you guys think?

[Cyricist]

P.S. I'm thinking of buying a Split Elephant and then equipping it with max shields and lasers. I figure that I can make more money simply going around in my split, accompanied ofcourse by my Skiron so that if I come across NPC factories requesting engineering marvels, it would then be easier for me to accept rather than wait for a dumbass AI TL to take 30 minutes of the time allowed on the contract just to manuever into place. All I'd have to do is resupply it with energy cells and 'WALA!' I'd have a means to carry out engineering jobs as well as combat too.
What do you guys think?

Yes on the engineering marvels, no on the combat. The elephant can surely defend itself, but it's no frigate by far! I would not take it to war anyway, unless it's against a corevette or less powerful fighters, and then using my own wing of fighters, keeping the elephant out of combat.

But for build missions, yup, it's perfect. Jumpdrive + 4000 energy cells + time on your hands = profit

[Captain Zorg]

By the way I was trying to continue the Terran mission where you have to scan the pirate base. I went in my Skiron and headed to the Unkown sector next to PTNI. When I approached the base, nothing happened. No scan nothing. I even tried this again with my Terran scut ship, but still nothing.

Anyway, I'm begining to think that maybe all this is happening because I've either got the wrong ship or my fighting rank which is now Master Chief is affecting my mission by preventing me from scanning the pirate base? I did use a sabre when I first undertook this mission. Now I can't even abort it?

My question is: has someone else here come across this before?

If so, then how do I fix this?

[perkint]

You have to get very close to the base for the scan to automatically start. It shouldn't matter what ship you're in.

Tim