To anyone who has played the later games a lot will be familiar in the game, but it will seem pretty basic as well. However, I will try to guide you through it as best I can. Bear in mind this is my first walkthrough for anything!
The first thing to note is that X BTF has no overall map function. You cant call up the usual map of the sectors you have visited. Also, there is no jump drive, or autopilot. So you might find it useful to download the excellent X BTF map from http://www.nappefugl.dk/index/map.html to keep track of where you are going.
The Beginning
The first choice you have is to do the tutorial. If you haven't played X, I recommend you do it.
So you jump and find yourself in the X universe, talking to the captain of the Teladi Pheonix. He helps you... for a price. No matter what you say, you wind up oweing the captain money. What this means is that you cannot leave Siezewell until you have paid back the money. If you do, the Teladi immediately go hostile to you.
Ok you are stuck in space with 100 credits and no idea what to do. Well, fear not. Siezewell actually is a good sector for trading.
One thing you have to master first is docking. The way I do it is fly up to the station, look for the dotted lights. That leads to the entrance. I fly towards it, and then you contact the station. After a few seconds the lights turn green and the door opens. You MUST be at or below the green line on your speedometer, or you wont dock and will crash on the other side of the door. Since your ship decelerates slowly, you have to be careful. What I do is set my speed below hat and use my turbo go speed up over the green line, then let my ship decelerate.
Some Seizewell trading tips. Go to the Solar power plants, they will be foll so you can buy energy dirt cheep, then fly to the Teledianium foundry, take Teladianium to one of the flower farms, take flowers to the Sun Oil Refinery, and finally take oil to the Beta IRE laser forge, which always seems to be looking for it. After a while you can make good money simply running back and forth between the Sun Oil Refinery and the Factories.
The first thing you should buy when you have earned a few hundred creds is the SETA. That will make the whole thing a LOT less tedious. You can also begin expanding your cargo bay, which will get progressively more expensive, but allow you to take bigger loads and make more money. I topped at 80 cargo units myself but lesser is good too. There is no time limit for paying back the Teladi Captain so take your time.
One thing I strongly urge you to do before you leave Siezewell is to place a factory there. Factories are very cheap compared to the later games, an ore mine for example is 14,400 credits, and you will make that up surprisingly fast. However setting up your first fab is a big outlay. I recommend you pay back the captain first and head to profit share, and move Ore to the fabs there for more profit. Its a worthy investment however as you will be passing back this direction several times, and you can just scoop up the cash each time. Unlike later games you cannot take money out of fabs by remote control, you have to dock.
Also you will notice that Solar power plants are really cheap, so why not take those. Well, in this game, you cant assign haulers to Solar power plants, so you have to fill them up with crystals by hand. This is really annoying, and means they wont make money while you are away.
To place a factory. Talk to the TL, Hire it. Ask it to dock at the station you dock at, dock at a shipyard, Buy station, fly to place you want, tell TL to drop your freight and the station appears in front if you.
I recommend an Ore Mine on one of the asteroids. To plant the Mine you will need to buy a mineral scanner, which you will need anyway later on in the plot. You will need to dock with your new station, and order the transporter from the interface inside the station, one of the good touches XBTF had compared with the later games. You can also consider a Silicone mine in Greater profit.
Once that's done, set the prices of things the way you want and add some seed money, and head off. Also, buy some Beta IREs and another 1 mg shield. With that, you be able to deal with Xenon M5s
The captain tells you to fly to Kingdom end, and I concur. Kingdom End is a good place to make money trading between the factories there, and I always put a Bogas factory there. This helps increase your Boron Rep for later on, and its reasonably profitable. Once you have made enough money trading, head south and east to Argon Prime.
Bloody Humans...
Once you arrive at Argon Prime, talk to the Argon Titan. No matter that you say, the Titan captain thinks you are crazy and tells you to get lost. At this point, you should buy and set up a Wheat farm in Argon Prime. Argon space has a serious wheat shortage and setting up a few wheat farms is a terrific money maker.
You will now notice little green ships appearing on your radar that were not there before. Fly up to one and talk to it. He will reveal that he is a Goner, and after talking with you will ask you to fly back with him to the temple. It really doesn't matter if you do or not. You can wander off or leave him behind. All it really means is that you have to head 2 sectors south of Argon Prime and one sector West, to Cloudbase South West, and the Goner temple.
One thing you might consider at this stage. You might be beginning to feel that your X shuttle is slow. Well, you can speed it up but only at Pirate bases. Speed increases are very expensive but worth it. You can also increase your rudder, but I would seriously caution you against those. I found that even with one upgrade I was oversteering like mad. There is a pirate base 40kms north of the north gate of Ore Belt if you want to check that out. The other thing to consider is that Xenon M4s are faster than your ship right now, and you cannot defeat them yet unless you spam missiles.
Now when you arrive at the Goner temple, use your com. After a lot of explanation, he will tell you to go to Chins Clouds and scan the asteroids looking for one rock with different minerals in it. Before you go, you have a choice. You can either go right there, or you can head into Paranid space. The Paranid wont let you dock initially but kill a few pirate ships and a few xenon M5s and they will let you dock. You need a Hornet Missile to break up the Asteroid when you find it, a fact they don't tell you when they send you there initially, so you have to come all the way back to pick one up if you don't pick a Hornet up now. The other thing to consider is that you can buy Docking computers in Paranid space, which ends the rather tedious docking ritual with every station. On the other hand, going to Chins now allows you to visit your fab in Siezwell and get money in your pocket and some decent weapons and shields.
Whatever you decide, head to Split space. The most direct route is east from Ceos Buckzoid into Family Whi, then south to Chins fire, then East. Heading south like that lets you avoid the majority of fights with Xenon
The Rock you want is
Spoiler
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North and west of the center on your map, north of the trading station
Anyway, whether you go back for it or have one in your bay, its time to use a hornet missile!
Boom. A small container flied out of the asteroid, Pick it up and you are treated to a cutscene.
So, off we go back to Argon Prime.
THEY BELIEVE YOU!!
Once we reach Argon Prime and chat with the Titan, we are told to head to The Wall, east of Argon Prime, and Speak to Argon One. And your first meeting with Ban Danna.
Good God the guy looked a lot better in later games. Must have spent his salary on plastic surgery.
Anyway Danna explains a lot about whats going on, and advises you to upgrade your ship as much as you can. He also suggests you go to the carriers of all the races and see will they give you a support fighter. This is optional and if you have speed upgrades on your ship you will leave your escort behind. The M1 ships are at The Wall, Paranid Prime, Kingdom End, Greater Profit and Family Pride.
Now, his advice to beef up your ship is sound advice. I would strongly suggest you have 2 25mw Shields on your ship, and 2 Gamma PACs minimum. If you cant afford this, you can take as long as you like before doing the mission in Xenon space.
Once you are ready, head to Presidents End south of The Wall and head East into Xenon Territory. Alternatively head north from Priest pity in Paranid space. Or south from Atreus Clouds
Ok see those Xenon M2s. First they are really sexy looking. Second, yep, they are moving at HUGE speeds. You probably cant outrun them, but luckily they have the turning circle of a bathtub filled with Lard. Avoid their fire as much as possible and thank Jupiter for your shields. I tried this with 2 5mws as an experiment and blew up on the first hit. You need at least 1 25mw for this minimum.
From there move south (to the system you will arrive in by moving north from Priest Pity) And then go East. What you are looking for is in the center of this territory. Or for a less stressful journey south head south from Atreus Clouds run through the East Gate and 2 jumps south. That route is relatively sparsely populated by Xenon.
Work your way to the center and lock onto the Object. That's all you need to do. Then make your way out. Be cautious as the Xenon here are more powerful than the Xenon you have fought on patrols.
Once you are finished head west and then south into Parinid space as a quick exit from Xenon territory. Or if you are confident head north and west to Presidents End. Either way, make your way to The Wall, and chat to Ban Danna.
On the attack!
Ok, he wants you to do 2 things. First he want you to talk to the M1 ships of each race, and get their help. To get their help you need maximum relations with the race in question, or they will tell you no. You probably already have max relations with the Teladi, and you will probably have close to max with the Boron. You probably need at least 3 of the races to come along on your mission, or your help will get massacred, leaving you to deal with a swarm if Xenon yourself. If you want to get maximum relations with the other races that's up to you. You have to talk to the M1 ships of the races to secure their help.
The second part of the mission is to enter the Xenon Sector south of Atreus Clouds and destroy the Xenon Stations there. When you enter the Destroyers of the races you have secured help from will appear around the north gate, along with a swarm of their fighters. You need to destroy the Xenon coming up on the Destroyers and kill them to keep the destroyers and their fighters safe. Once you have killed the first wave the Destroyers will move south and attack the stations. 2 Xenon M2s will attack along with another fighter swarm. With the aid of the other ships you should deal with them easily enough. And then you can split off and kill off the stations anyway you want.
Once the 6 stations are dead the mission is over and you can head back to Ban Danna.
Final battle!
Once again Ban Danna wants you to secure the help of the races. Go around and suck up the cash from all your stations and fully upgrade your ships weapons. Gamma HEPTs baby if you haven't got them before. Once you have done you can upgrade your speed as much as possible at the pirate base north east of the North gate in Company Pride, then head east to Thuruks Pride, South into Xenon Territory (which is covered with Friendly fighters as the main attack is going ahead) and then west into the main Xenon Sector.
Your target is 30kms away at the center of the sector. Any races you got support from will have a Carrier and Destroyer on the north of the Sector. The destroyers and fighters will attack. Just burn to your target. Your first objective is first to destroy 6 Laser Shields (which look like Mushrooms) along its hull
You have to be cautious here. First your target is moving around, second it has a set of spinning spines along its center that you can run into very easily. And of course 4 of the 6 things you need to kill are under those spines. The other 2 are on the ships Nose.
Once those are down your target becomes vulnerable. The friendly carriers move to attack with their fighters. Just shoot the target in a bombing motion till its dead.
Boom!
Ta daa! You gave completed the story of X Beyond the Frontier, and have the most powerful ship in the universe. Go lay waste to a few sectors and then try one of the other games in the Superbox.
I played through the game to write this walk-through. At the end my ship had 7 speed upgrades, a cargo size of 80, 2 25mw shields and 2 Gamma HEPTs, and all equipment upgrades. I had a Soyery in Paranid prime, a Wheat Farm in Argon Prime and Cloudbase north west, a Bogas factory in Kingdom End and an Ore mine and a Sun Oil Refinery in Siezewell. The sun oil refinery only became profitable when I reduced the selling price to 38. All others were profitable at one less from average prices, and I was increasing the prices of the wheat slowly and it was selling like mad.
Hope you find this useful.
I'd suggest editing it at the earliest opprotunity (if a Moderator hasn't already done it). It's best to ask people to send you a private message with their email address in.