All the good things in Farnham's Legacy

[Drone_101]

With all the angst, bug reports and frustration expressed at the dynamic relations system I thought it would be good to appreciate the great things we've gotten from Farnham's Legend.

First off, it's completely free for those of us who own X3:AP which I'm going to assume is the majority of X3 fans at this point. That's amazing and I'm really thankful for the ongoing support this game's received, so credit where credit is due!

This is clearly a labour of love by the devs, they've identified common pain points and improved our quality of life in many meaningful ways. For me the big ones are:

1. Earlier access to the HQ. No more waiting to finish huge parts of the game before getting it.
2. The improved encyclopaedia. This is a godsend, I love knowing where I can buy ships from, how much they cost.
3. Right click 'info' on a second hand ship sales offer tells you how much the ship hull is worth, so you can make informed buying choices - if it seems over priced scan the hold and check if it's got shields or weapons, you might still find a bargain even if it looks overpriced at first.
4. Better visual representation of faction relations in the UI, it's easier to tell at a glance what each rank means with each faction, and how near or far you are away from buying expensive guns or big ships.
5. A brand new start that's completely different to any previous X3 starting scenario, and one that once completed you can skip if you choose to for your second play through, or skip entirely with a custom game start if you wish. Your game, your choice.
6. Better equipment at the start. God I love having the transport device let me hop in and out of my ship without crawling around in space.
7. SETA while in the space suit. Repairs done quick! So good, not sure I'll be able to go back to the older games without this now.
8. SETA not interrupting when opening menus. So good, I can cruise around and control my empire without slowing the game down.
9. Rebalanced ships and updated lore. I know we wont all agree on every change to every ship, but some change is good to keep the game interesting and freshen up things for us as player. I've been pleasantly surprised at how well balanced the Transport Ships are, Caimon SF a side, they all seem viable depending on your preferences, no more just grabbing the Mistral because it was the best in every way. When I first saw the Mule and the Athena I was worried the devs had gone nuts (you seen the speed and shield on those things?!) but then the price really balanced out my purchase choice. Do I want 1 Athena UT with 600MJ of shields costing me ~13million credits to buy and equip, or 13 Caimon Tanker UTs costing the same and covering more trades for me faster? It's my game and my choice.
10. The Low Frequency Radar and respawning Explorer Crates. This let me overtune my early game ships and not worry that I'll have gimped my end game options when I do get my Tiger or Python.
11. Better complex building and planning with the calculator and station builder services.
12. Actual sector ownership and empire management tools. Blacklisting sectors of your choice if you think they look too risky for your traders, or leaving it on the default auto and have it blacklist everyone hostile to you on it's own.
13. Better filtering of the message logs, being able to track all the purchase history of my UTs - why are they buying Turbo Boosters on my empires credit? Sneaky Teladi!
14. Being able to toggle the visibility of missions types we're not interested in right now. I've turned combat and constructions missions off while I get my trading empire started, and don't have the credits to buy stations.
15. New ships! I love the Armoured Transports, and I'm yet to try out the Drone Carriers, and I'm sure there's more I've not discovered yet.

All that said

Things I'd still like:

1. UI or Font scaling choices at higher resolutions. Maybe my eye sight is giving up but at higher resolutions than 1080p the text is really hard to read.
2. Setting a default for my newly bought ship's advanced properties - no I don't want them to have 5% missile fire probability, and yes I do want them to message me on job completion by default, same with setting default Jump Drive options.
3. More control of ships that are being Station Managed. Watching them die and not being able to order them to jump or dock is frustrating. Me giving it a command should auto cancel the station manager's control.

So thank you devs, I know it'll feel like a yard fire at times with bugs, crashes and complaints all coming in thick and fast, but we do appreciate the time and effort you've put into this. Don't give up, it's a great game!

[dony93]

Totally agree, this game is excellent. I also liked a lot the fact that Corvettes got another buff, and now they're actually usable as main ship...especially a particular one

Love the new armored TS' too.

P.S.: I agree with other players who find the new Dynamic relations a bit too extreme though. I like the idea, but it needs to be toned down a bit IMHO.

[Cycrow]

UI or Font scaling choices at higher resolutions. Maybe my eye sight is giving up but at higher resolutions than 1080p the text is really hard to read.

unfortuatlly this is something thats not possible in the X3 Engine, not without re-writing it, which isn't going to happen

Setting a default for my newly bought ship's advanced properties - no I don't want them to have 5% missile fire probability, and yes I do want them to message me on job completion by default, same with setting default Jump Drive options.

Check you global command console, it has all the defaults you can set, all new ships you acquire will be given these settings

More control of ships that are being Station Managed. Watching them die and not being able to order them to jump or dock is frustrating. Me giving it a command should auto cancel the station manager's control.

unfortuatlly it gets too compilicated for the Station manager to keep track of what the player might do with all the ships, so removing the ability to command them simplifies that.
as the ships arn't running independently, but being controlled from the outside
however, some improvements may be made in their protection and evading, so the station manager can use your satellite network to temporarily avoid problem sectors

[Ketraar]

P.S.: I agree with other players who find the new Dynamic relations a bit too extreme though. I like the idea, but it needs to be toned down a bit IMHO.

The issue is not with the dynamic relations but with the ludicrous amounts of points you get for mission in higher ranks, that have a severe and negative impact on relations. This will be fixed in upcoming patch.

MFG

Ketraar

[zamiel]

I really liked the intro plot, I think it's a great tutorial. Love the QoL changes (encyclopedia feeding you ware availability, jumpdrive install kit, build mk1-3, sat warning system, nviidium mine, they probably touched a lot of the trader scripts, etc.).
I also like the new universe map, splitting core sectors into 4-5 is great to be able to expand economy.
I like the diplomacy and the way you can have equipment in your HQ with it is a fantastic idea.
I agree with most of the balance changes, ship prices/manufacture times should reflect them though.

Dislike the changes to ES (it made it completely irrelevant) and the reputation system (it's a chore and I hope it will be taken out).

What I would like to have is Gazz's incredible scripts (MARS and complex cleaner - they are the scripts I go modified for basically in every game, having them and still being vanilla would be awesome) and a way to play thorough X3TC/AP plots here as well. X3FL is vastly superior even as a platform in my eyes, so I very much hope these things will get ported eventually.

I'm very grateful for the people that put effort into this, the results are great and I'm so glad I can play the game I loved so much again.

[Milite Ignoto]

Agreed, we're always complaining but it's a really great game. I love the fact that we're able to go full autarchy by building our own stations, weapons, missiles, ships and even equipments.
The new discovery system too is excellent, it gives me a reason to come back in sectors that otherwise i would never visit again (especially Xenon sectors).

[RegisterMe]

As much as I find the (current implementation of) the dynamic reputation system frustrating, and I could do with Qs not spontaneously appearing everywhere, and I agree that Station Managers are dumb as rocks when it comes to protecting associated assets, there really is a lot to like with FL.

I am looking forwards to giving it another bash after a patch or two land.

[carran]

Hats-off to those who made X3FL possible, truly brilliant achievement and if I ever have the opportunity to buy you all a beer, I'll gladly do so

I hope this is not the last in the X3 series, I appreciate the game engine has its limitations - is it possible to port X3 code to the new game engine? just a thought...

[maxolina]

P.S.: I agree with other players who find the new Dynamic relations a bit too extreme though. I like the idea, but it needs to be toned down a bit IMHO.

The issue is not with the dynamic relations but with the ludicrous amounts of points you get for mission in higher ranks, that have a severe and negative impact on relations. This will be fixed in upcoming patch.

MFG

Ketraar

Any ETA on the patch? I'm eagerly waiting for it, mainly for this, the xenon spawning in the hub and the gate alignment fix! I'm having a blast in the game though, amazing work!

Also, I absolutely love how consistent you made the jump gates / orbital accelerators difference. Systems connected by jump gates, and accelerators inside of a single systems.

[UnknownObject]

Thanks for the fascinating game again!
1. Is there any chance for the Terran X-43 fighter from Kautz' books appearing in the game?
2. Any chance for a Community-written plot, like "A New Home" and "Shady Business"? I'd like a story about how did the Argon-Terran war impact Goners, as the information on this is very scarce.

[Le Boron Chétif]

Agree with all the positive stuff that's been said so far!

I haven't suffered much from the reputation system so far (I think I'm playing it safe by focusing on taxi / transport missions from one race at at time...) and I can't comment on station manager yet, but not having to grind late game for the Hub and Player HQ makes a great difference, as well as the countless gameplay enhancements. Really love the exploration aspect too, I feel it adds to a key dimension of the game that was sort of half-baked previously.

[Drone_101]

unfortuatlly this is something thats not possible in the X3 Engine, not without re-writing it, which isn't going to happen

That's a shame but understandable then, I'll stick with 1080p and use higher AA for the jaggies.

Check you global command console, it has all the defaults you can set, all new ships you acquire will be given these settings

Might just be me but none of my new ships seem to inherit my Global command settings, or at least when I open the command console on the new ships they don't appear to have inherited them, I haven't watched their behaviour without fiddling with it - I'm too precious with my new shiny ships!

unfortuatlly it gets too compilicated for the Station manager to keep track of what the player might do with all the ships, so removing the ability to command them simplifies that.
as the ships arn't running independently, but being controlled from the outside
however, some improvements may be made in their protection and evading, so the station manager can use your satellite network to temporarily avoid problem sectors

Okay, that's a compromise I can accept - was just really frustrating watching a Xenon P snack on the starter Dolphin I'd donated to the factory and not be able to save it in any way, no gate to jump to, no way to control it quickly, so it was just a car crash unfolding before my eyes.

Once again thanks for all the hard work guys! I hope you get to play the game you envisaged for yourselves once the bug fixing and the script editing is done and dusted, really reminds me of the first few days after X3:AP launched out of the blue and we all had a great time racing through the stories and plots, love the Low Frequency Radar and the Encyclopaedia changes looking forward to seeing how the game matures with time.

[Maebius]

I will miss 2 things from X4.
-Issuing orders while the game is paused (or am I missing something? )
-Superhighways/Travel Drive
(yes, I really like that, mainly because I strongly dislike SETA, but OK, Jumpdrives and Kestrels it is!)

Having delved into X3-FL very little, I'll wait until the wild race relations swings are toned down. Right now it's borderline torture-ish.

[Klord]

No offense, but your title is not accurate. What you listed are not "ALL" the good things. There are many more such as explorers guild, discoveries & etc.