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Lionheart
December 3rd, 2009, 17:06
Hey all,


This is a Beginners Instructions thread for those that are just getting into X3 Terran Conflict.

Note that X3 Reunion is slightly different and older then X3TC, so the controls and such will be different, so this thread will deal only with X3TC Setup.

GET THE 2.5 UPDATE

When you first install X3 and get it running, if you have the PC version, you will want to go to the Egosoft.com website and download the 2.5 update. If you purchased the Gold pack, you will not have to as your Edition of X3 will already have all the updates.

SETA DRIVE ACCELLERATOR

Next, when you start up X3, you will note usually that you will need to install your SETA drive. The SETA engine is a Singularity Engine Time Accellerator which speeds up time during Sector flights, (flights 'within' Sectors). You can find your SETA drive at the local Free Trade Station. Once you purchase it and it is installed, when in space flight, click the J key and you will accellerate.

DOCKING AT STATIONS

When you dock at the Free Trade station, remember to use Autopilot and select Dock At.... You can click on the station with the mouse and click Shift D, or go through the menu. You can also put your cross hairs on the station and click the T key (targeting and scanning) and the station will be selected, at which point, you can select Shift D and your AP will automatically go to docking approach mode to that station selected.

NOTE: It is best to always dock at the stations in AP mode until you are totally familiar with how all the thrusters work in the spacecraft. Also note each ship flies a bit different. Check Food Lovers Specials (https://www.ladysavings.com/publix-weekly-ad/?food-lovers/) and Game Specials (https://www.ladysavings.com/publix-weekly-ad/?game/). The freighers are more sluggish the bigger they get. Fighters will be super nimble and tricky at slow speeds.

In your Gameplay / Game settings, you can adjust the SETA drive from 650% to 1000% which seems to go alot faster. While you are there, you should also turn on 'Show Warptunnel' in Gameplay / Game Settings. (It looks 'groooovy'! ).

SELECTING CARREERS

Now, when you start out in the game, you have a choice of selecting various types of game play, including fighter pilot, and humble trader. Trading will encompass making money by trading goods and selling them at the various stations. Fighter Pilot is self explanitory. They are all quite fun. You will find 4 versions to select from.

SHIP CONTROLS AND SPACE FLIGHT

You can use most joysticks with X3TC, but its good to also know the keyboard commands.

First, you have thrusters that will 'push' your craft sideways, (X axis) as well as up and down (Y axis). This is done with the S and W keys. S key is great for down thrusting away from a parking dock arm at a station (if you are outside the station and not in a hanger bay. Side thrusters are good for using when you are getting close to a ship in side to side combat (boarding it) or claiming another ship, ship to ship transporter use for freight, you, personel, etc, etc. This sideways movement is done with the A and D keys. To rotate your ship left or right (like a barrel roll along the Z axis, nose to tail), you use Q and E keys. Main Thrusters (engines at the rear of your craft) are Z and X keys. Z is decellerate, and X is Accellerate. Full speed is ~ key and all stop command is Backspace key. Steering (up and down, left and right) is done with the arrow keys.

When using a joystick that has rudder pedals or a twist option, this will effect 'roll'. These space craft do not 'bank' in a turn. You just aim it and it sort of slides for a moment and then starts heading in the new direction. Sort of like being in a car in a iced over parking lot in Minnesota in the winter. Change directions at speed and you slide for a bit then start in the new direction. :d

VIEW MODES

Looking around in your pilot position is done with your HAT switch on the joystick (like in FS), or with the NumPad keys, (also like in FS).

Exterior view is F2. Interior (hud view) is F1. Hitting F2 several times cycles you back and forth from front to rear view. Good for seeing who is chasing you. You can rotate your views when external by the NumPad keys.

SAVING GAMES

When you wish to save your game, you must be in a Station, docked.. (MUST!!!). If you crash and burn in space, you lost that activity up until your last save to your crash point. So, save as much as possible when you make alot of gains in this game. Note; that if you just docked at a station, your system did an auto-save for you, so if you do crash, you can at least start over from your last docking, then resave as next number up in the base saves, such as 1 thru 7, etc. (You might wish to log your last save numbers. I do, on a yellow Post-It sheet on the computer box. You can also cross check your dates and times from last time played if you lose your spot. You might have to start at an auto-save if you forgot to save your last flight).

CHEATS

There are a huge selection of cheats by a person named CyCrow over at www.egosoft.com in the X3TC Forums, Scripts and Mods section.

CHECKING YOUR BALANCE

To check your balance of credits, click P, P (two times) and your Pilot background will show up. Near the top is your total credits available. Other information will be there as well.

OTHER SHIPS YOU MIGHT HAVE

When you start up in Humble Trader, you have 2 ships, a fighter and a small freighter ship. You can find the other by click on the R key and locating your other ship and its location, including the station name if its parked at a station and not in park orbit in space. If in a space dock at a station, you simply dock at that station, then click R to bring up the station screen and find the ship, click on it, click Advanced/Change Ship and momentarily you will shift over to the other craft. From there, simply hit Escape twice to go to 'undock' mode and click Enter and you are off into space again in the other ship.

MAKING MONEY

You can make money by doing various jobs, from hauling people to hauling freight to doing secret missions, protecting people, doing hits, etc, etc, etc, etc. The list is endless on what all you can do in this game. Its built off of 4 different motives; Think, Build, Fight, Trade. Each of those will be 'icons' on stations in your HUD screens. Build will be a lightbulb, trading will be a money symbol, fighting will be a gun target sign, and building will be green bricks. Clicking on the COMM (communications link) with that station, when it is selected, and when you are within 24 Kilometers from the station will allow you to find out who on board the station needs help.

VIRTUAL COCKPITS

There is a brilliant set of perhaps 10 or 15 various cockpits that are in 3D that you can equip into your X3TC package. This will give a Virtual Cockpit to each ship, though most will share certain ones. They are quite nice and available at the Egosoft.com X3TC Scripts and Mods website. I do not have the link to this presently.

LEAVING YOUR SECTOR; JUMP GATES

You may have noticed what appear to be GIGANTIC star gates floating in the sector with ships passing through them. These are Jump Gates. When you pass through them, you go to different area's of a solar system or parts of the Galaxy. Some are different planets, some are in Nebulae's, and in X3TC, we now have the Terran sectors, which is Earth.

There are perhaps several hundred Jump Gates. Some sectors will only have 2 or 3, or even 1. Some have missing, blown up Jump Gates with debris floating around. These are area's of huge battles and massacres. You will find burned out stations and space craft debris at these locations as well.

NOTE: Never park in front of a Jump Gate. You can get rammed by another incoming ship coming through the wormhole. I have lost several ships this way. When you come out of a hyper jump, you are at near zero speed or perhaps 15 M/S. You will sometimes be hit if you stay there. So move quick.

BEWARE; PIRATES AND HOSTILE ALIENS

In X3, you will encounter many pirates and also two very rough races of hostile aliens. The pirates seem to acquire bases in hole in the wall sectors, while the hostile aliens have remote sectors and can usually traverse into our area's quite easily and stage offensive attacks on the innocents. Most of the Galaxy is friendly, but some sectors for NUB's will be almost uncrossable unless you are very fast or very well armed and good in a furball. The hostile alien races are the Kha-ahk, (pronounced Kochhhh) and the Xenon (pronounced Zee-non). When you first encounter them, be prepared. They fight quite well. I recommend getting full tunes on your fighter craft's engine and rudder at the Trade Station so that it handles exceptionally well. Your speed in a tune up will go up as well.

You can purchase missles and different weapons and shields at the various stations. Learn to know which ones are best against your enemies.

TARGETING AND FIRING

To go to battle status, click Shift-T and your cross hairs will turn red. You can use AutoPilot to lock onto and fight your enemies. It has good aim but might run into things as well. (So can you, though). To aquire targets, either click on them with the mouse, or use End-Home keys to go up/down in selection order.

To fire, use your Enter key or Left Mouse.

You can fly via using your Mouse as steering (sort of like viewing in FSX) by clicking the Space bar key and using the mouse to guide your ship. Great in furballs and dogfights. Use left mouse key to fire.

MISSLES AND LAUNCHING THEM

If you have missles on board, load the first one by clicking M key. Then have a target selected. When you are in range, fire off the missle by clicking L (L for Launch). If you wish to select a different version of Missle, select it with M key. This will cycle through all versions of Missles you will have on board.

There are lots of things you can do in this game. From exploring to trading to fighting, you can do all of this in a single night. Some nights, I just go exploring. Some of the planets are just so awesome to see. The clouds (if full graphics settings are on) will be moving over a rotating planet. Absolutely awesome to see.

Note; you cannot land on these planets. One is said to be able to wreck you if you go into its atmosphere, but so far, the game doesnt allow for atmospheric flights.

I guess thats enough for now. Have fun...!



Bill

Craig Taylor
December 4th, 2009, 06:44
Bill,

Excellent post! :applause: Sure could've used this a couple of weeks ago...

I'd like to add to what Bill posted (hope you don't mind).

For updating X3TC - you get a transitionary dialog box when you double click the 'X3' icon on your desktop (at least I do) with buttons for changing game options like graphics and game controller, starting X3, etc. There's also a button called "Check for updates" or somesuch. Clicking this will open your default browser to the update page at Egosoft. When I did this it indicated that my game didn't need updates (or there weren't any - can't remember which), but this was a false reading. From this page I was able to access where the updates were actually located, and scroll through all to download what I needed. I had purchased X3TC 2.0 with Aldrin Missions, but I seem to recall having to download a patch to get me to 2.1, and then another to get me to 2.5. It was a little unclear from reading the descriptions of the various patches, but this is what I did and it seems to have worked.

For new game starts - I started with Humble Trader because you get two ships right off the bat - a fighter and a freighter - and it starts with the most money. You start 'unarmed' but you won't get into trouble unless you go looking for it. Making some trading runs early will help you build credits and get accustomed to the game without too much difficulty.

The missions the game offers right off the bat are not scaled to your experience - many may be too hard if not impossible to complete successfully at the early stages. You'll need a life support system installed in your cargo bays to transport people.

The F3 key will display whatever you currently have targeted. You can use your hat button to rotate around whatever you have displayed in external view (your own ship or the targeted object).

Have fun!

harleyman
December 4th, 2009, 15:27
Man...Great post guys....

Thanks a million...


Ok Bill...Once I get this game at Christmas you and I are gonna become best buds.....LOL

I am so stupid at learning new things most days....Thats why I dumped X Plane..i could not even get one in the air...LOL:isadizzy:

Chacha
December 4th, 2009, 15:43
Man...Great post guys....

Thanks a million...


Ok Bill...Once I get this game at Christmas you and I are gonna become best buds.....LOL

I am so stupid at learning new things most days....Thats why I dumped X Plane..i could not even get one in the air...LOL:isadizzy:

I still fly XP9, that is very interesting sim.... new key functions.... very challenging.... I crashed more often than FS9 & FSX...

The TCX3 is really a fun game.... It is very addictive, very huge game.... HUGE... I am sure you will love it especially hunting the enemy! and killing them.... :173go1:

It is a fun game... fun.... fun.... I won't say anymore, good to discover it yourself.... open your ears and listen... ooops... sorry Mike (gigabyte)... :pop4:

gigabyte
December 4th, 2009, 19:27
Bill excellent topic and starting post I wish I had this when I started the game a few years ago...lol

Here are a couple of useful Links for beginners;

This is a Walkthrough of some of the X3 Terran Conflict starts, the whole Apricot Slice site is top notch, but this is probebly the best starting point for folks who want a quick idea of what to expect. BE WARNED the walkthrough does contain spoilers, although if you are just going to read through it they will not mean much so (the locations of abandoned ships are listed but they mean very little until you have visited many sectors and understand the navigation).
http://apricotmappingservice.com/sliceofx.html, and http://apricotmappingservice.com/startingoffinX3.html.

For those of you (like myself) who need or prefer cockpits, here is the link for the Cockpit Mod the Bill mentioned. I will post detailed instructions on how to add these mods and some other links to some very useful tools if you want to get into serious game modification. It is not hard, if you are just starting to add something like the cockpits. Here is where you can get them - http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=254635

Lionheart
December 4th, 2009, 19:40
Thanks Mike for posting that info.

I am one of those guys that forgets alot of things like 'where did I get this and that, and how was it installed'.

Team X3!

Lionheart
December 4th, 2009, 19:43
Man...Great post guys....

Thanks a million...


Ok Bill...Once I get this game at Christmas you and I are gonna become best buds.....LOL

I am so stupid at learning new things most days....Thats why I dumped X Plane..i could not even get one in the air...LOL:isadizzy:


Hey Mason,

I was nervous about that XP9 site. Sorry about that. This is a 'shoulda, wouldna, coulda' being fixed.

Mind you, XP9 should be easier on folks. The settings side was a bit difficult. I can safely say that X3 and FS9 and FSX are much easier to setup. Simple sliders and yes/no anseres.. :d

(Just try to find a powerful enough computer to run FSX!!! oops).



Bill

gigabyte
December 4th, 2009, 19:51
Thanks Mike for posting that info.

I am one of those guys that forgets alot of things like 'where did I get this and that, and how was it installed'.

Team X3!

Bill I have a confession, I forget all to quickly myself, the only way I can keep track of this stuff is a neat little program called MS OneNote, as soon as I find something I think I may want to remember I grab the screen into a OneNote clip and keep it, if I do find it is a keeper then I go back and file the clipping on a notebook for later. If you have never tried OneNote check it out, it is one useful program. It can grab web pages intact and when you paste a clipping it automatically adds the full URL at the bottom so you can get back to the source in a single click. It is just over $100.00 here in Canada but I am sure you can find it much cheaper in the US, and the Student version is nice and cheap - I mean inexpensive, or Low Cost, or real bargan - well you know what I mean.

GT182
December 14th, 2009, 05:11
Here's a great link to Roguey's website for some great info. And especially great for us beginners too.

http://www.roguey.excalibur-nw.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

And his TC ships again......
[Link previously posted by Chacha but good to be posted here too]

http://roguey.freewha.com/gaming/pc/x3t/ships/index.php?inMod=0

Lionheart
December 14th, 2009, 10:04
Thanks GT182 for that second post. I plan to do alot of reading through that.

The model creation tutorial's photos are no longer in it. But at least it has the verbage.




Bill

GT182
December 15th, 2009, 18:43
I just started the Fight Pilot carreer Bill. Yeah, I saved my others so I can go back if need be. I just had to see what this one is like.... and so far it's not bad. Scenery for the solar system is cool I might add. At least I've got a better fighter than that Argon ship. LOL

I might add Roguey's mod to TC and see how that goes. The only thing that scares me is the credits needed to buy the good stuff. LOL

GT182
December 26th, 2009, 09:37
I came across some X3TC tutorials that might be of some help to everyone, especially those just starting out.

Enjoy.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtzUtCWfkKU&feature=related

Marlin
December 26th, 2009, 15:32
Here is a beginner’s question.

At the very first screen that comes up after clicking on the X3 desktop shortcut there is a box that you can click that say “EAX” or something very close to that.

What is that for, what does it do?

gigabyte
December 26th, 2009, 18:53
Here is a beginner’s question.

At the very first screen that comes up after clicking on the X3 desktop shortcut there is a box that you can click that say “EAX” or something very close to that.

What is that for, what does it do?

That is a Video Trouble shooter, it cuts back on some effects if you are having problems, avoid it if possible, but if you get bleeding or stutters it can help figure out the problem.

Marlin
December 26th, 2009, 19:26
Ahhh got it, thank you.

Cratermaker
December 31st, 2009, 08:12
Here is a tip for new people. I was going nuts trying to figure out how to "scan" a pirate base. Looking for the key command everywhere. Turns out all I needed to do was fly extremely close to the target (a couple hundred meters) and wait for the scan to complete. Oh, that and avoid getting destroyed by 4 or 5 heavily armed craft trying to prevent me from performing the scan. :isadizzy:

randcbuc
January 5th, 2010, 08:04
EAX stands for Environmental Audio eXtension... its used to create a more realistic audio environment. It has nothing to do with video.

whitehawk_2009
January 23rd, 2010, 13:32
Found a new one today... Haven't read through it yet though.

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=268611

WH

CrisGer
January 23rd, 2010, 17:57
thank you for the tutorial, just loading now :) will be fun. What is the tinted glasess refered to in the cockpit mods? tinted windows ON the cockpit? or tinted glasses ON the pilot (me)? :) thanks for any info on that. and the GUI radar mentioned, that is NOT default to the game or is? was not sure about that option either. thanks again for all this great help. I have had X3 Reunion for years but put it away after stumbling around in the first missoin and crashing repeatedly in trying to land by hand in stations...did not know about the autopilot :) I am trying again. Got Gold to do it with.

GT182
January 23rd, 2010, 18:17
I've scanned thru it and boy is it handy. This is easier by far to understand and way more helpful. Going to be easier to print out too. :d