Eh...not sure if anyone is still following this but:

I pecked up Terran Conflict and I'm pretty pleased so far. I can already see the potential for a game like this and it certainly looks better graphics wise than Evochron.

I got a couple of mods that have really made me feel more at home with the game. One of them being PSCO1's cockpit mod which gives me that old Wing Commander feel. The work he did with this mod is incredible.

The game does take a while to get a handle on and I'm still learning stuff. But I'm pretty happy with it and I've only logged about 6.5 hours so far.

Thanks for the helpful replies here.

oops, a bit of an actual discussion went on here. I missed this.

so I'll just yeah agree with terran conflict really being the only one worth bothering with, since they've really been building on top of and making new/better systems for these games all along. it's an amazing game though terran conflict

and yeah playing with mouse/kb is fine. I have a couple of good joysticks but still prefer using the mouse actually. same in the evochron games.

There is literally no need at all to have X2 and Reunion if you're buying Terran Conflict.

Well, I think there should be some caveats to that statement. If you haven't played X before, or only had X3: Reunion, then the 'Superbox' may not be your best bet. Even being one of X's biggest fanboy, I have to admit that the interface on the earlier X titles would probably leave newbies baffled and frustrated. The games themselves are still good, and they fill in some of the backstory, but that might not be a good enough reason to go full-bore on the 'Superbox'...

However, if you have played the earlier X's and are a big fan of them, then the 'Superbox' might be a good deal to maybe fill in the gaps in your collection. The add-on xTension for the original X is a personal favorite of mine and is extremely hard to find. Also, if you've never played X but were curious and think you can handle the interface learnng curve (at least it's not as bad as Battlecruiser...*shudder*), the price is pretty reasonable for the whole package...

If you read the newest newsletter:

X-Universe News 41

It says that there are some other goodies included in the 'Superbox', besides just the older games themselves, so that might be something to look into if you are on the fence about buying the whole thing. Either way, whether you just buy X3TC or the whole 'Superbox', you can't go wrong for the price. There's a lot of hours entertainment for very little cost and there's really no other game like it...


=-Rigs-=

silentsammy wrote on Oct 10, 2010, 09:29:
One thing that has kept me from trying this game is that I assume you need a good joystick for the dogfighting. Is it required or can a mouse/keyboard do the trick?

Plus what is the best mods that you guys can suggest?

Thanks in advance.

Both m/kb and joysticks work fine. I just use m/kb, that way I don't have to switch when I'm flying or when I'm docked.

As for Mods, I'd have to check my folder, since it's been awhile since I've played. MARS is pretty much invaluable (it makes your turrets actually DO something), and if you're into building big-ass complexes, the "Complex Cruncher" is a godsent.

Stuff that I've also run are the "Kill all small rocks" script (which gets rid of the 100 trillion small asteroids that absolutely murder your framerate) as well as one of the dozens of "No Fog" scripts.

Improved Boarding is pretty much a must if you do a lot of boarding, since without it, boarding is just an excercise in sheer, utter fucking frustration. How Egosoft ever let their shitfest that is boarding through QA is beyond belief. This script fixes it, at least to the extent that it's possible to be fixed. Personally I find the whole boarding thing to be utterly boring. I tend to just cheat myself a hoard of L5 marines, since I don't have the patience to train them for 50 realtime hours to get them to L5, only to watch them die on the fucking hull of an M6.

And I downloaded a really nice White Star Mod the last time I played. I remember it being pretty damn sweet.

I'd recommend reading Egosoft's modding forum for a few hours to see what you might like.

Sigh, now I want to replay X...


Creston

Not sure if it's been adjusted, but I found that the best way to get ahead early-on was to hijack those big transport ships. There's one system (can't recall where) where there's one sitting around, and there's jump gate in the system to a nearly-empty uncontrolled system. Hire the ship, bring it through the gate, and then open fire. They're pretty easy to take down, and with no witnesses there are no repercussions. Take it back through the gate, sell it at the shipyard, and repeat once the next one spawns (a few minutes).

No way am I playing this with anything other than my MS Precision 2 flightstick.

Playing a space sim with a mouse and keyboard has to border on the sacrilegious!

silentsammy wrote on Oct 10, 2010, 09:29:
One thing that has kept me from trying this game is that I assume you need a good joystick for the dogfighting. Is it required or can a mouse/keyboard do the trick?

Plus what is the best mods that you guys can suggest?

Thanks in advance.

Mouse and keyboard works just fine. If you spend most of your time in a larger ship, a mouse is more than capable of controlling your rather maneuverable ship. But even for fighters, the mouse does a very good job. I played X3:TC exclusively with the mouse and keyboard, and I did a lot of combat.

I love the X games, but that superbox has to be the single biggest waste of money I've ever seen on Steam. The X stories aren't spectacular, and the series itself is evolutionary rather than revolutionary between titles. There is literally no need at all to have X2 and Reunion if you're buying Terran Conflict.

One thing that has kept me from trying this game is that I assume you need a good joystick for the dogfighting. Is it required or can a mouse/keyboard do the trick?

Plus what is the best mods that you guys can suggest?

Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the tips!

I just may pick up Terran Conflict alone and give it a try.

Terran Conflict is FAR easier to get going in than previous X games. I have enjoyed them all, though they are a far cry from most modern games. Expect some learning curve (the in game tutorials are...eh, not really good). I would highly suggest reading up a bit as mentioned in this thread. There is a lot of depth in the games, but if you aren't familiar it's more like an old school game where you needed a manual. Fun though. I can't believe how many hours I dumped into building my empire over and over. Also, the mods are fantastic. I can't play vanilla anymore after having so many amazing mods/plugin/scripts in my games.

Your right you can make more in combat missions now. But Maybe it was just the way I started (since there was no clue as to which is easier and which is harder) But my combat guy got damaged soo much after a few missions I had to restart because I couldn't afford to repair it. I just slowly worked my way up and got 3-4 freighters and spent a few hours doing trade. Now I have a small fleet of them and working on building up an attack force. Not enough hours in the week extra to really sink into it sucks.

Terran Conflict is all you need. I picked up all the X3's version for like 5 dollars on the xmas sale, but only playing TC. Also doing a bit of web research helps when starting a new game.

Linksil wrote on Oct 9, 2010, 23:54:
Unless you barrow someone else's save... expect to spend a LOT of time before you get a good return. I think I dropped like 20-30 hours into the game because I saw a descent return and started getting to some of the mid range stuff. Fighting is fun... but the econ and running shipping stuff seems to be required to get a good amount of time and money.

Not so much anymore in Terran Conflict. You can make a huge amount of money just by doing Fight missions. In fact, for awhile it was the ONLY way to make decent money, as Ego had nerfed the rewards for all other missions / trading / complexes too much.

It's more balanced now, so you can make money really any way you want to.

As for which one to play, there's no point in playing anything but Terran Conflict. It's by FAR the best version of X, though I do have strong nostalgic feelings for X2: The Threat.

It's a great game, but it does require a significant time investment. Unlike most people here, I've never had a problem with X's combat, but if you're expecting it to be Freespace (as they all are), you're going to be disappointed. That's just not the type of game it is.

But it's a game in which you can easily lose yourself for hundreds upon hundreds of hours.

Creston

The X-series are more like "versions", so really, the latest is usually the best to play. I would say you're not missing much, and gain a better interface and tweaked engine.

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm also interested to know: If I did decide to jump in on this, would it be better to just get the last game or play all of them from 1 through 3?

Unless you barrow someone else's save... expect to spend a LOT of time before you get a good return. I think I dropped like 20-30 hours into the game because I saw a descent return and started getting to some of the mid range stuff. Fighting is fun... but the econ and running shipping stuff seems to be required to get a good amount of time and money.

The stock game's dogfighting isn't very well fleshed out but one of the game's strong points is the modding community, and there are many plugins that will enhance dogfighting quite a lot.

I have played many many hours of X2 and X3. I love the combat. You can play as a single fighter or create a huge fleet and combat other fleets. I think the X3 combat is awesome.

Divebomb wrote on Oct 9, 2010, 13:15:
x superbox also available from gamersgate. and at retail, at least in europe.

How is this series? I really want a decent space combat sim to play.

But from what I hear, combat is not this series' strong suit.

x superbox also available from gamersgate. and at retail, at least in europe.