Few simple questions of a newbie

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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Szutyo
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Few simple questions of a newbie

Post by Szutyo » Sun, 19. Aug 18, 22:43

Hello Everyone!

I'd like to ask a few questions about the in-game universe and mechanics of Albion Prelude (I guess these are all related to TC too, but AP is what I'm planning on playing soon).

1. First I'm going to play as an Argon, starting either as an Anonymous Argon or Humble Merchant.
These game starts start me off with a -1 reputation with the Paranid and Split and of course with the Terran too.
These conditions won't allow me to dock at stations of these races.
I'd like to be friendly with everyone except Pirates and Xenon/Khaak.
How can I gain some rep early on if I can't dock?

2. As far as I know the Argon and Terran are serious enemies and there is a war going on between them.
Can I, as an Argon individual somehow stay out of this war and even gain some reputation with the Terran so
eventually I'll be able to trade in their territory?

3. The NPC ships that are destroyed all over in the universe while I play are created/spawned "out of thin air" or actually need to be produced in ship yards/factories using wares from other factories etc. etc.?

4. This question is kind of related to my previous one. What drives the economy in-game?
NPC ships will only buy wares they actually need? So for example if one race don't loose ships for a while and there is nothing to replace in their fleet, they won't generate any demand so the economy on their territory will halt. Is this a possibility?

5. Is there a way for me to make the economy more active? By using some kind of script/mod or setting?
I'd like to play in an environment where there is a great deal of demand everywhere for every ware, resources, weapons, ships etc.

6. I think I read somewhere that in a previous a game (probably TC) there were Xenons and also Khaak as enemies, but one of them has been wiped out and only one is present in AP now.
Who will be my enemy in the game I can fight and get rid of in the universe of AP?


Thank you for all the answers of everyone!

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Re: Few simple questions of a newbie

Post by jlehtone » Sun, 19. Aug 18, 23:37

Welcome to the X-Universe! :goner:

Some of the topics might be in the FAQ, Wiki, or Guides.
Szutyo wrote:1. First I'm going to play as an Argon, starting either as an Anonymous Argon or Humble Merchant.
These game starts start me off with a -1 reputation with the Paranid and Split and of course with the Terran too.
These conditions won't allow me to dock at stations of these races.
I'd like to be friendly with everyone except Pirates and Xenon/Khaak.
How can I gain some rep early on if I can't dock?
You can kill their enemies in their space.
Paranids hate Argons, Pirates, Yaki, Xenon
Split hate Borons, , Pirates, Yaki, Xenon

You can do (some) generic missions.
"Scan Asteroids" mission.
(Most) Combat missions do not require docking. A "Defend Station" ought to be doable.
Szutyo wrote:2. As far as I know the Argon and Terran are serious enemies and there is a war going on between them.
Can I, as an Argon individual somehow stay out of this war and even gain some reputation with the Terran so eventually I'll be able to trade in their territory?
Yes. Only the War Sectors (red on map) have to be avoided. The rest is normal business.
Szutyo wrote:3. The NPC ships that are destroyed all over in the universe while I play are created/spawned "out of thin air"
Yes. The game maintains certain number of NPC ships.
Szutyo wrote:4. This question is kind of related to my previous one. What drives the economy in-game?
The matter flows from sources to sinks.
NPC SPP spawn ECells "out of thin void". They are sources.
The Factories convert (primary) resources into products.
Docks (Equipment Docks and Trading Stations) consume wares. They are sinks.
Some Factories act as sinks for Secondary resources.

The NPC Free Traders are almost like Trading Software Mk3 "Universe Trader" of the player.
The NPC traders have short list of wares that they trade. They go to buy from nearby cheap producer and then try to go to sell to high bidding consumer.
That makes them wander around semi-uncontrollably.
"Cheap" as in "less than average", where "average" is fixed.
"High" as in "above average".
On Factories, price is max, if stock is empty, minimum, if stock is full, and average, when stock is half.

The NPC traders can be beaten to a deal (by player or other NPCs). If they were selling, they seek other place to sell. Some can spend a long time stuck with full load. Some might end up in Pirate or Xenon sectors (and Xenon shoot at bypassers).

In other words, the NPC traders are ineffective. If they would not be, then the player could (almost) never make profit by trading.

Szutyo wrote:5. Is there a way for me to make the economy more active?

I'd like to play in an environment where there is a great deal of demand everywhere for every ware, resources, weapons, ships etc.
There are already many profit opportunities, but not necessarily during the first couple hours of the game.

There is a generic mission: "Build Station for NPC." That can add more NPC Stations to trade with. However, the NPC can attack stations and there is an engine that removes (and returns) NPC stations on "economic events". Event conditions are not well known.
Szutyo wrote:6. I think I read somewhere that in a previous a game (probably TC) there were Xenons and also Khaak as enemies, but one of them has been wiped out and only one is present in AP now.
Who will be my enemy in the game I can fight and get rid of in the universe of AP?
You can get rid of nobody, but you can fight and kill everybody. They spawn back.

X3TC's plot indeed disables Kha'ak activity. (The Kha'ak appeared in X2.) Earlier games had only Xenon as permanent enemy.

Pirates (and Yaki) have "interesting items". It could be easier to remain semi-friendly with them until you have got some.


You can make enemies as you like. Some players build their trade empire on freighters that they have captured from (some) NPC faction.


May the profitsss be with you.
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reply

Post by Bill Huntington » Mon, 20. Aug 18, 03:54

You ask excellent questions for a new pilot, Szutyo. AP and TC have enough to them to involve you totally for a very long time. Don't let our answers disappoint you. You can work with all the elements you see and do good things with them.

1. You can gain rep with every race by taking missions for that race outside of their home sectors. But some missions don't give you rep.

2. You can stay out the Terran-Argon War for as long as you want. But some interesting scenarios are based on that war. And getting your start-up cash is easy if you pick up salvage in the War Sectors in the beginning.

There is a serious danger with building Terran rep in the game. You can break a number of plots if you have high Terran rep. If you don't care about the plots it's okay. I'm not sure if you can lose the Terran rep and still pursue those plots later. Safest not build it until later in the game. One part of a later plot requires you have high Terran rep. Smart to wait for that.

3. Many NP ships have routes. They appear out of 'thin air', as you say, follow their routes, and disappear when they finish. Another replaces it. It probably appears early if it's lost one way or another.

4 & 5. You can build a vibrant economy in the universe with either/or both Mk. 3 Traders and the modern version of traders. There's interesting ins-and-outs to both of them.

6. The Xenon are the permanent enemy in AP. They regenerate and rebuild themselves without a budget. There is a certain limit to them in each Xenon sector. The capitals are built in shipyard. If you destroy the SY in a Xenon sector, they migrate from the nearest Xenon SY. There's a surprise if you destroy all the Xenon SY. And Xenon SY return after certain period anyway. After you've done everything else, many of us explore combat in the Xenon sector. It's a challenge.

You aren't really Argon but independent. A hint. The Paranid are really easy to dislike. They also have well-built ships that sell for $.

Hoping to hear from you from now on, Szutyo!
Bill in S.F., enjoying the game

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Post by DrSuperEvil » Mon, 20. Aug 18, 14:05

1: Having -1 just means you cannot dock in core sectors. You can still dock in border sectors of those races. You can gain rep by selling salvaged missiles and other wares or doing missions. If you have a Cargo Life Support System the taxi and personnel transport random missions are an easy way to earn reputation with other races.


You cannot befriend Xenon and Kha'ak but pirates are able to be befriended by having illegals complexes in their sectors (Hatikvah's Faith is good).

2: If you are >-1 race rank with Argon and terrans the war sectors are safe for player owned ships in sector and are a good source of early credits salvaging missiles. Out Of Sector the race with the lower race rank of Argon or Terran will attackplayer assets. Anonymous Argon or Humble Merchant can easily march straight into Terran space and start gaining race rank.

Due to the commonwealth main plot requiring you to have 0 or less Terran race rank to start it is advisable you focus on Argon race rank until you have listened to the speech from Commander Derrik before you start improving Terran rank (Oort Could and neighbouring sectors are best for that).

3: Ships respawn out of thin air but some jobs require them to spawn at shipyards.

4: Docks periodically drain stored wares and factories drain secondary resources. NPC solar power plants do not need Crystals to operate. NPC traders will always be moving wwares around and often die usually by pirates or Xenon activity removing additional wares from the economy. Missiles, Shields and Lasers will be used to restock and repair ships that have seen combat.

5: There is plenty of demand in the vanilla universe and missiles and lasers are always in demand.

6: In AP the Kha'ak are not found with the exception of a few abandoned ships for the player to claim. Still the Xenon, Pirates and Major races offer enough opposition.

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Re: reply

Post by jlehtone » Mon, 20. Aug 18, 20:53

Szutyo wrote:4. What drives the economy in-game?

5. Is there a way for me to make the economy more active?

I'd like to play in an environment where there is a great deal of demand everywhere for every ware, resources, weapons, ships etc.
Bill Huntington wrote:You can build a vibrant economy in the universe with either/or both Mk. 3 Traders and the modern version of traders.
Forgot ...

The NPC are rather Star Trek; they don't need credits. They simply use replicator to create necessary amount of credits, when the player approaches. :P


Consider a Factory. It can start a production cycle, if
A) it has enough resources for one cycle and
B) it has room for the products produced in the cycle.
Therefore, life is vibrant for the Factory as long as it has some resources and is not full of product.

The freighters, however, prioritize Factories that are either full of product, or out of resources. Low tier factories tend to run at loss. For example, an Ore Mine converts 6 ECells into one Ore. It might often pay 19cr per ECell, i.e. 114 credits per Ore. Most Ore Mines are full, selling at 50 credits. A "best case" is to get energy at 17cr and sell Ore at almost average, 127cr. 127cr - 6*17cr = 25cr. Profit of 25 credits per unit of Ore.

Player stations are not at mercy of NPC Free Traders.


As said, the NPC Free Traders are inefficient. (Mineral traders might be the worst subgroup.) The player can add automated traders (Mk3, CLS2) to "help out". What if traders become "perfect"?

Every station would be served right after their price dips into the "right side". Every station stock hovers around 50%. Every Factory runs nonstop. Good for them. What about the "perfect traders"?

They buy at average-1 and sell at average+1, making 2 credits per hauled unit of ware. (Bit more on expensive items, for their price points have larger steps.)


Is that "active", "vibrant", with much demand? Everything "works", but the demand that allows good profit is not there.

(Trading) profit is best, when the logistic is insufficient, just as it is in the game. The factories have time to fill up and dry out. Their misfortune is trader's profit. :teladi:
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Post by Bill Huntington » Tue, 21. Aug 18, 05:31

Here a few things to explore that will get you ahead on the learning curve, which is steep. Pirates. Go ahead and kill pirates for a while. It will help you with the mechanics of AP combat. But soon you'll observe that having a bad pirate reputation will make the AP universe unsafe for you but especially for all your traders and even your stations. Just restart a new game when this hits you in the face. Sometimes you have to kill them but do missions for them when you do. A good reputation with the pirates pays off with few attacks and other ways too. The Yaki even more so.

You can do quite well with $ with capping other ships. Even the little Discover is a worthy combat ship against other small ships. You can work your way up to M3s and learn the different ships and weapons. I don't do much with missiles to save $; at least until later in the game.

Building your own stations is a nice feature of AP. It's nice to have your own place. You can build it to have a surplus of energy and have that available easily. The best money producer is Spacefuel and Spaceweed. Customers will find you anywhere, though Yaki space is unsafe for them. And your rep with pirates will gain slowly and surely. But you can choose a wide variety of products to build, both for yourself and to sell.

Then there's trading with Mk. 3 traders and the CLS variety.

Some pilots do just one of these, or just one per game. But you can all of them too. All the scenarios are worth a look, at least a short one.

Welcome to the AP universe, Szutyo!
Bill in S.F., enjoying the game

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Post by Honved » Tue, 21. Aug 18, 17:29

Race ships are conjured up by magic whenever there's less than the required number of them in the universe, so you can never eliminate them completely; they'll just respawn somewhere else.

Goods are created using Energy Cells, plus Ore and/or Silicon. The E-Cells require no input resources for NPC stations, although any player-owned Solar stations do require a source of Crystals.

Ore and Silicon are mined continuously from the larger asteroids via mines which require E-Cells, or are collected from smaller rocks floating in space by use of a properly equipped mining ship. Since E-cells, Ore, and Silicon have continuous sources which do not run out, there is theoretically no upper limit to economic expansion.

There are several built-in drains on the system to keep it from running away exponentially: Trade Stations and Pirates. Items sold to a trade station (and some items on Military Bases and/or Equipment Docks) will vanish at a gradual rate over time to simulate purchases by the planetary populations in the sectors where they are located. Other items may appear gradually over time at such stations, such as some food items in Terran space in XT (not sure about AP in that regard). Pirates and Xenon (and Kha'ak in TC) will attack and destroy quite a few cargo vessels over the course of the game, resulting in the elimination of much material, opening up additional opportunities for the player to manufacture replacements for it, or carry it to the intended recipient at a profit.

At the extreme levels, one can either operate WITH the economy to boost it by providing what's needed for continuous production and dramatically increase the opportunities for trade, or else work against it and compete with the intention of driving it out of business and replacing it with your own sources. One can also leech off the economy by producing products which do not support the economy but pay well, pulling the needed resources from the economy to do so.

The best thing about X3 is that there is no "right" answer, but usually several different ones which will all work well enough, depending on the circumstances.

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Post by Szutyo » Wed, 22. Aug 18, 00:50

Thank you for all the excellent and exhaustive answers, I love how active and helpful this community is! The enormous size of this forum and amount of available scripts/mods and other resources for this game is incredible.

I'd like to ask a bit about combat and the automatic traders.

1. I read somewhere on this forum - I think DrBullwinkle wrote it -, that combat in AP is more challenging then in TC, why is that? What is the difference between the two?

2. I also read that when I'm not in a sector where one or more of my ships are fighting, combat mechanics are simplified somehow.
Can you guys explain this? Can you give advice as to what ships and weapons are better suited if I want to leave ships at a sector to secure it or make them patrol and I don't want to micromanage them while they fight but want them to be reasonable effective against enemy ships/fleets? I'm thinking about small time stuff here, not capitals or huge fleets.

EDIT: I found a simple example on x3wiki.com about OOS combat, also a few other places where this is the topic of discussion and there are even mods that can change this aspect of the game. It seems I'm going to have to delve deeper into this too. :)


3. Does steering and acceleration matter for my Universe or Sector traders when I'm out of sector?

4. In your experience, what do you think matters more (most) in terms of long term profitability for UTs and STs, cargo space or maximum speed or shall I try to find a good balance between these when selecting ships for these roles? Or is there maybe some other ship attribute that should be taken into account when choosing ships to be Uts and STs?

5. Is it possible to repair a negative reputation with a race/faction, or is there a level from which there is no coming back?

6. Bill Huntington, your wrote that "The Paranid are really easy to dislike.", why did you say that? :)


Thank you!

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Reply

Post by Bill Huntington » Wed, 22. Aug 18, 03:50

1. It's hard to notice much difference in the combat. There's more hull in the ships in AP so it takes a little longer for the combat. Or more missiles. But if your methods are sound, they'll give you a win in both in TC and AP. A little longer doesn't matter.

2. As far as I understand it, OOS combat gives each side a full broadside shot at the other. So the big hit weapons have the advantage over the faster firing weapons with less individual effect. Since OOS might have variable results, I try to have a class advantage over the expected enemy. Like an M6 defender over an M3 enemy. Or an M7 over an enemy M6.

3. Most of time your traders are OOS. I rarely notice steering or acceleration of the traders even when they're IS.

4. Speed is important so you don't lose a deal or a good price to an NP trader. Cargo space is good but many times your traders don't have full cargo holds anyway. A big slow trader that handled bulk goods would make money just fine but might lose many deals to the NP traders. I trade to earn rep more than money though they're related. Faster seems to be better for that.

5. Note the Terran rep that you start with in AP for most scenarios. It's very low. It's difficult to work out of but not impossible. Best not to let any rep get that low. I do capping and boarding of any race though I usually leave pirates and Yaki alone. But I get to the top step first and do missions to keep the rep high. There's less rep loss if one you cap or board is already at the top step.

6. The Paranid tell you how superior they are and what a barbarian you are whenever they get a chance. It makes you enjoy taking them down a peg. And hearing them beg. Their ships are worth the most so you hear from them a lot if you're taking them. It's also worth noting that if you cap or board them in Argon space, you earn some Argon rep for doing it. Unless you're already at the top Argon step. No rep gain when you're there, except some limited cases.
Bill in S.F., enjoying the game

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Post by pjknibbs » Wed, 22. Aug 18, 08:26

One other thing to note about OOS combat: in order to conserve computer resources, when you're not watching a remote sector yourself it only updates every 30 seconds. If you're viewing the remote sector via the sector map, it updates every 5 seconds. This can mean things will happen differently if you're watching than if you're not.

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Post by Honved » Wed, 22. Aug 18, 16:50

Szutyo wrote:1. I read somewhere on this forum - I think DrBullwinkle wrote it -, that combat in AP is more challenging then in TC, why is that? What is the difference between the two?
Missile spam seems higher in AP, and hull points are higher. Not drastically different, though.
Szutyo wrote:2. I also read that when I'm not in a sector where one or more of my ships are fighting, combat mechanics are simplified somehow.
Can you guys explain this?
OOS combat is resolved at longer time intervals. The faster ship fires first, fires ALL of its guns once, and if the opponent survives, it then fires back with all of its own weapons. Rate of fire does not matter, each gun fires only once. Energy use and recharge times are not calculated, so a ship can fire everything each round without running out of gun energy. Ammo weapons have "issues" OOS. It obviously pays to put as many of the guns with the highest damage PER BULLET onto the ship, both for main guns and turrets. Note that a "Q" is particularly dangerous OOS, as it is faster than almost everything else in its class, and packs sufficient firepower to take out almost any ship in the game on the first volley, so it can face 20 opposing capital ships and potentially take them out one at a time with no damage in return, as long as it doesn't engage two in the same turn. You can counter that by deploying light fighters, so the Q has a chance of unleashing its entire battery against a fighter on its turn, instead of obliterating your expensive capital ship.
Szutyo wrote:3. Does steering and acceleration matter for my Universe or Sector traders when I'm out of sector?
Not at all for steering, not sure about acceleration, but it's fairly minor anyway.
Szutyo wrote:4. In your experience, what do you think matters more (most) in terms of long term profitability for UTs and STs, cargo space or maximum speed or shall I try to find a good balance between these when selecting ships for these roles? Or is there maybe some other ship attribute that should be taken into account when choosing ships to be Uts and STs?
Depends entirely on the cargo. Moving Ore or E-Cells with relatively low value per unit, you want bulk capacity. Moving Crystals, weapons, or other high-value items where you're practically never going to carry a full hold, speed is far more important. I prefer the smaller and faster base model TS freighters with a couple hundred cargo hold upgrades over the large and sluggish SuperFreighter XL models in most areas, but there are exceptions where I want the bigger ship.
Szutyo wrote:5. Is it possible to repair a negative reputation with a race/faction, or is there a level from which there is no coming back?
You can theoretically take missions from a traveling race ship offering them, regardless of reputation, but getting enough to pull you all the way back to where you can take missions from stations in non-core sectors may take close to forever.
Szutyo wrote:6. Bill Huntington, your wrote that "The Paranid are really easy to dislike.", why did you say that? :)
The Paranid tend to be a bit brusque and rude, and are the enemies of the races that most players tend to play. They also have some expensive toys that sell for a lot more than they're worth in terms of utility (as has been said, "If you've ever actually been killed by a FBL, let me know"). More importantly, one of the nicest "toys" in the game, the highly prized Hyperion Vanguard M6+ class corvette (more like a racing yacht on steroids in an M6 package with some M7 class capabilities), is only available by capturing it (never available for sale), or from a particular Paranid start, so if you want one, you're going to have to either steal it from the Paranids, or play as one.

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Post by DrSuperEvil » Wed, 22. Aug 18, 17:04

1: Combat is harder because the NPC ships spawn with more missiles and there is the rapid response fleet which has M7Ms if you go against a major race. Many ships also were given more hull so take longer to finish off.

2: OOS combat is simplified in that lasers do not require energy to fire and are assumed to all have 10km range. Ammo consuming lasers will use a full crate of ammo each round of combat. The damage dealt by lasers uses different values per second and ignores effects like multiple hit and fragmentation. Each round of combat is every 10 seconds if you are not looking at the sector using the sector map and every 3 secdons if you are. Missiles are assumed to impact instantly so cannot be intercepted.

In general go for ships with a high shield capacity so that they can survive longer periods between combat rounds and the ability to load heavy hitting weapons even if their laser energy regeneration cannot cope in sector. This is also why M1s are more dangerous OOS than IS. Avoid using ammo based weapons.

3: OOS steering does not but acceleration does.

4: I personally go with the terran Hayabusa since it has 400MJ shielding meaning it is unlikely to die to anything short of an M7. It also has a good balance of speed and cargo. Weapon wise it can even erradicate small pirate patrols without breaking a sweat.

Remember the trade Command Software MK3 costs 500k credits so dont risk losing it on a ship made of paper. The Split Drake is also a popular choice. In general faster ships are less likely to get beaten to selling their cargo before level 25 at which they can lock sales with the target station. Another factor affecting UT profitability is how much of the universe map you have explored.

Early on you can choose between making a Dragonfly Missile Factory with two CAGs or two STs. As UTs require high levels and alot of explored sectors to reach peak profit at about 300k per hour each it might be better early on to go the factory for a guarenteed 130k income and some missiles for combat.

There is also the issue of diminishing returns for UTs with it becoming harder to train them from STs when you have over 30 and at about 50 you find the profits being made start to decline as they compete with each other. Missile factories on the other hand have a linear income increment.

5: Yes it is. At ranks less than -3 you cannot use missions to gain reputation so you must kill enemies of the race or let their traders buy wares from your stations. An illegals complex of L Dreamfarm+Bliss Place and Wheatfarm+Space Fuel Distillery in Hatikvah's Faith earns tons of reputation so can can easily bail you out of negative values. It is advisable to build it 40KM above a gate to avoid hostile military patrols.

There are also several sectors where you can kill xenon/pirate patrols such are Merchant Haven and Grand Exchange for the Teladi, Zyarth's Stand and Thynn's Abyss for the Split, Menelau's Paradise for Boron, Segaris for Terran, Heaven's Assertion for the Paranid and Getsu Fune and Blackhole Sun for the Argon. Goners and Yaki are harder since you need to use the Xenon HUB to send Xenon patrols through their sectors.

Another alternative is to use missions to gain race rank with a race enemy to the hostile race and kill the ships of that friendly race in the sectors of the hostile race. For example Argon/Paranid in Paranid/Argon sectors and Boron/Split in Split/Boron sectors. For pirates just do all your boarding in their sectors since you only take half the amount of race rank loss for boarding in pirate owned sectors.

In general use a fast M6 to avoid local patrols and use Thunderbolt/Typhoon/Firestorm/Spectre/Wraith missiles to quickly finish off the target ships before the RR fleet comes to join in. You will need to frequently retreat and be prepared to face heavy fire while doing this until they are neutral.

6: Their capital ships are slow and often equipped with short range weapons while the Hyperion Vanguard is only able to be obtained by boarding and can be sold for 25 million or used by the player since they are good ships.

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Post by Triaxx2 » Wed, 22. Aug 18, 18:01

Note that occasionally you can find members of the race on other race stations. So you can find Paranid on Split stations, and do missions for them which will let your rank increase. You will have to beware of pirate indications, such as eye patches or other 'evil' armor pieces, which means it won't affect Paranid ranking, but will affect pirate instead.
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Post by jlehtone » Wed, 22. Aug 18, 20:13

Honved wrote:OOS combat is resolved at longer time intervals. The faster ship fires first, fires ALL of its guns once, and if the opponent survives, it then fires back with all of its own weapons.
When Xenon Q and player's Mk3 trader meet, the trader is heading to a Station for business but the Q is heading to the trader to kill. The trader does not even know that it should shoot. One does not have to calculate, who shoots first.


Some ships have turrets. There are no turrets in OOS. All guns are counted for the volley. In sector, the turrets do act on their own. A ship might pass a station, paying no attention. The turrets, however, see a possible target and lacking anything else to shoot at will bombard the nearby object.


OOS ships do not show any "current speed". I presume that ships always move at full speed there. There is no reason to compute and track other speeds OOS. The acceleration of the ship and the speed of the ship are both based on the engine tunings of the ship. If you do max the speed, you get the acceleration too.


The plots of at least the X2 and X3R did involve some Paranid characters. Entire faction should not be judged by the tone of some individuals, but players ...

Paranids sell Docking Computer. Very handy gadget. Some others sell too, so that does not save the Paranids. Soja Husk and Soja Beans are relatively profitable. Some say that (Paranid sector) Empire's Edge is very suitable for initial trading of Trade Mk3 pilots.

I had Paranid Odysseus, an M2, in X2. The claims of superiority were justified. :twisted:
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Post by Triaxx2 » Wed, 22. Aug 18, 20:39

The one thing you have to be nice to the Paranid for is if you want to produce your own Sats in a complex, because they're the only ones that produce the stations and the food to feed them.

On the other hand, Squint (Paranid) ships are certainly shiny and sell for a shiny number of credits... :P Yarrr.
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Post by SirNukes » Thu, 23. Aug 18, 04:15

OOS combat is not properly documented and has changed between TC and AP, so there can be a lot of confusion on how it works. I will try my best to help out based on my own understanding, but may not be 100% accurate either.
Honved wrote: OOS combat is resolved at longer time intervals. The faster ship fires first, fires ALL of its guns once, and if the opponent survives, it then fires back with all of its own weapons.
I think the ship that fires first is whichever gets the first turn where it moves into range and fires. If two ships are heading for each other, the faster one is more likely to get that first attack, but it really depends on how positions line up. If only one ship is attacking and the other is doing some misc job, the attacker will get the first shot. A simple test: attack an idle Q with a Boreas; the Boreas will get a round of fire for free, and will only take its first damage on the second round.
Honved wrote:Rate of fire does not matter, each gun fires only once.
Rate of fire is included in OOS damage calculation. If you mod a weapon to have 10x higher RoF, you will see 10x higher OOS damage. (I used to also think RoF might not matter, until I modded it to test it myself.)
DrSuperEvil wrote: 2: OOS combat is simplified in that lasers do not require energy to fire and are assumed to all have 10km range.
Range is generally ignored; ships move to within 500 meters and attack. Laser towers have extended range (Plasma Beam Cannon range + 500 meters), and I recall reading orbital platforms do as well (though I never owned one of those to motivate testing it, and didn't see anything for this in the code I've looked at).
DrSuperEvil wrote:The damage dealt by lasers uses different values per second and ignores effects like multiple hit and fragmentation.
Multi-hit is somewhat factored in, since OOS bullet damage is set differently than IS. For instance, Plasma Burst Generator damage assumes 20x hits when OOS, bringing it up to around 2/3 of HEPT OOS damage.
DrSuperEvil wrote:Each round of combat is every 10 seconds if you are not looking at the sector using the sector map and every 3 secdons if you are.
I think it is as pjknibbs said, 30 seconds when not watching, 5 seconds when watching. Or that is the intention; in practice, a round of combat occurs whenever the sector updates, which will be: when you open the sector map, 5 seconds after the last update if you are watching the sector map, 30 seconds after the last update if you stopped watching the sector map. Combat rounds are not adjusted for how much time actually passed.

This gives rise to some oddities, like rapidly opening/closing the sector map to greatly accelerate OOS combat, or shield regeneration overpowering weapon fire during 30 second rounds. In my experience, if a trader comes under attack and has a script that is capable of retreating (most trader scripts are), then you should avoid opening that trader's sector map and triggering another combat round. The trader has a much better chance of escaping if it can get a full 30 seconds to regenerate shields and move away or jump before the next combat round occurs.

(Side note: I have some test notes from a while back that experienced 60 second OOS combat rounds when not watching, though a recent retest was seeing 30 seconds. So I am not 100% sure on what was going on there.)


A couple other things worth mentioning:

A missile fired in an OOS combat round will suppress normal laser fire. Since one missile is often less damage (maybe drastically so) than several seconds of laser batter fire, you generally want to avoid equipping OOS ships with weaker missiles, and should probably avoid missiles on M1 or M2 ships altogether. Mosquitoes are okay; they have low enough damage to not be used for combat.

Traders that get attacked OOS may turn to fight if they are equipped with any lasers. Unarmed traders do a better job fleeing. This may be less of an issue with jump capable ships; I don't use those enough to really know.

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Post by DrSuperEvil » Thu, 23. Aug 18, 13:35

Do not forget they hold the monopoly on Tractor Beam manufacture too.

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Post by Triaxx2 » Thu, 23. Aug 18, 13:46

While that's true, if you're actively engaged in piracy, waiting in Haktikvah's Faith for a High-Tech Trader heading for the north gate will eventually yield a bounty of Tractor Beams. :P
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Post by DrSuperEvil » Thu, 23. Aug 18, 21:28

That is strange because OOS I find the defenders have the advantage since the opponent takes an update moving while my ships get a round of fire in.

OOS ships still take the same damage per unit time if viewed in the sector map or not but with longer intervals there is a higher chance to be able to jump to safety. I have encountered situations where if i use the sector map to try to jump a ship out it dies yet if I use the property menu it survives with same times in giving the commands.

I frequently raid argon TS ships in Hatikvah's Faith and never have had a tractor beam drop.

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Post by Timsup2nothin » Thu, 23. Aug 18, 22:04

DrSuperEvil wrote: I frequently raid argon TS ships in Hatikvah's Faith and never have had a tractor beam drop.
I drop a satellite or a scout ship where I can watch the TB factories and see who picks them up, then mark them for death. I get tractor beams by drop method in pretty much every game. One for me, sell the rest makes the effort of checking the sat every now and then worth while.
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