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harleyman
January 11th, 2010, 14:30
I am trying to play some...And my controls seem all goofed up...I can not pull up or down at all..All I have is roll and left / right...Makes it about impossible to do a thing...LOL

Have been trying to just default it back, but am having no joy..All I was trying to do was reverse my stick so a right twist gave me right bank,and visa versa with left twist..

The way it was was completely goofy for me, as one input did the opposite of what I was after...Not like a plane at all...

Marlin
January 11th, 2010, 15:02
I wish I could help you out, but I use the mouse. Sorry about that, but be patient as somebody will come along and get you all straightened out soon. :salute:

gigabyte
January 11th, 2010, 15:47
I am trying to play some...And my controls seem all goofed up...I can not pull up or down at all..All I have is roll and left / right...Makes it about impossible to do a thing...LOL

Have been trying to just default it back, but am having no joy..All I was trying to do was reverse my stick so a right twist gave me right bank,and visa versa with left twist..

The way it was was completely goofy for me, as one input did the opposite of what I was after...Not like a plane at all...


Harleyman, go into the controls option and select Load Profile, there are a couple of alternate profiles and select one of those, it should have the same Joystick controls as the default, then you may have to reset some of your key combos, but that should be easy.

If that does not work out I can always eMail you the default profile from my game, I made changes but I saved with a new name so the default is unchanged.

Send me you eMail addie in a PM if you want the default and I will send it off to you.

harleyman
January 11th, 2010, 15:54
Thanks....I'm tied up for a while, but will go look for those alternate profiles and try them..

Thanks

Lionheart
January 11th, 2010, 17:11
HM,

Actual space craft (the NASA Space Shuttle) are like this as well. Crazy.. A pilots controls should be maintained in a constant and for some reason, humanity (NASA) has switched them.

In X3, you pull joystick to the side, and the craft does a flat turn horizontally with no roll. If you nose down, that works right. If you twist the joystick, you rotate on your Z axis, left to right, or right to left.

You might be able to change it around so that twisting will rotate you horizontally. That would be nice. Like rudder control on a plane, which I think NASA should approach. (NASA like sims use the same controls that X3 use, and I disagree with that).


On my X3 Reunion installation on Apple Mac, my joystick freaks out and loses zero point when I am in a dogfight. It does this too in X3TC in WindowsXP mode but not at much. When in WinXP mode/X3TC, I can unplug the joystick USB for about 5 seconds, plug it back in, and zero point is reactivated. I have a Saitek X52 though, which auto-reprograms zero point, so that is probably my issue...


Bill

harleyman
January 11th, 2010, 18:36
Well I got it back to defaults..Thanks gigabyte...

It is odd getting used to these controls..just when I think I have it, I pull a wrong move and toss things all about...LOl

I'm getting there though..


next up...Figuring out how to go from point A to point B without auto dock engeged...

And how to pick a target to go to and actually get there looking at that goofey map....

Lionheart
January 11th, 2010, 19:20
Mason,


When you wish to find a target, pull up your sector screen with > and move down to the target, leave it highlighted, and click T key and it will target it. Click Escape once or twice to clear the screen. Its now targeted and you can find it easily (helper arrows, blue color).

If you are cruising along, and have most 'software' on your ship, you can click T key and move your cross hairs on a ship or station, etc, and your onboard computer will tell you what you have targeted and act as a scanner of sorts.

If you have all scanner systems loaded on your ship, you will get all the various readouts on that target, such as human life (and alien), and freight, etc.




Bill

gigabyte
January 11th, 2010, 19:50
Also don't forget the sector Map, the default key is "." when the list comes up you can double click any object on the sector map or click it inthe list and select "Target" from the menu (the "t" key works as well) then close the map and the item is your target, the blue "<< 's" will point the way if the target is off your screen if it is visible it will be the item in the Blue/Green (or Red box if it is an enemy) with the White box inside, items that are mot targets do not have the white box.

harleyman
January 12th, 2010, 04:00
Cool...Lots to try tonight....
Thanks guys

I took my disks to the shop yesterday..Today I may load it onto a computer there and try to play some there too..LOL

Can't wait to learn more..

Should I do as Chacha said and collect all I can a Merchant, to pay and feed my way along later?

Do you all have to go back to being a Merchant for those reasons???

gigabyte
January 12th, 2010, 07:19
Cool...Lots to try tonight....
Thanks guys

I took my disks to the shop yesterday..Today I may load it onto a computer there and try to play some there too..LOL

Can't wait to learn more..

Should I do as Chacha said and collect all I can a Merchant, to pay and feed my way along later?

Do you all have to go back to being a Merchant for those reasons???


Harley, you can do both, if you use a good size ship as your personal craft, you can grab wares along the way and trade each time you dock. I like the Heavy Nemsis and the Vidar because they have a good size cargo bay (not huge but big enough to be useful) so I can grab some freight and have room to salvage some of the stuff left behind by the scum I blast to space dust. There are some good things to salvage after a little furball, so watch your scanner.

harleyman
January 12th, 2010, 08:15
Thanks..

I'm a ways off on fighting..

I am slow to learn, hate learning new stuff..But I will get there...LOL

GT182
January 12th, 2010, 10:08
I am slow to learn, hate learning new stuff..But I will get there...LOL

It's the same for me HD, you are not alone in this "learning" process. It can be a struggle.... but it is fun. At least we're all getting to see new and exciting places we never dreamed of. You have to admit tho, the vUniverse sure is a fun place to play in. :d

harleyman
January 12th, 2010, 11:25
Cant figure out how to sell..All I have done is buy things at random

I tried to get a missle, but was not allowed...LOL



I just installed on my little rig at work....

Working hard now.. :icon_lol:

Lionheart
January 12th, 2010, 12:19
Hey Mason,

When you start buying and selling, you need to find the cheapest available commodity, and find the highest payer who will buy it.

For instance, find a asteroid mine that is producing ore and has overstock so its selling at its lowest, 50 credits a unit. Then take that load and go out and find a station that is buying it at top price. Stations that buy ore and have just a bit left in stock, (almost out) are best for selling to. Also, the highest payers are the ammunitions production stations. They will sometimes pay ridiculous amounts for regular ore.

Ore was one that I really got into big time. I think its one of the most stable. Second to that is Energy cells, (batteries?). Cheapest on E-cells is 12 credits a unit I think.

Find the lowest prices to buy at, and the BEST prices to sell at and you will make tons.

Also, later, get a extra large super freighter. They can hold thousands of units of ore, E-cells, etc. Then, with each run, you make quite a few bucks. Also, you can find people hauling taxi jobs that sometimes pay from 1 million to 7+ million, running people to other stations in other sectors. Some oddball jobs are crazy as they need you to do it in record time. You'll have to be fast on the keyboard commands and warp. But if you can get to that speed, you can cruise through the galaxy making some big bucks..




Bill

gigabyte
January 12th, 2010, 12:57
Cant figure out how to sell..All I have done is buy things at random

I tried to get a missle, but was not allowed...LOL

I just installed on my little rig at work....
Working hard now.. :icon_lol:

OK Harley, I am thinking you need the basics on trading at this point, Bill is right on with the buy low sell high Ore and eCells are good to start with. The actual buying and selling is simple, dock at a station select Trade, and from the menu select the ware you wish to buy/sell, on the bottom click the right side of the red/blue bar to purchase, and the left side to sell - thats it. The hard part is keeping track of what you paid and what is a good price to sell at, when you can afford the Best By Best Sell software grad it and the Comidity Logistics software is handy as well.

Good Luck out there...

harleyman
January 12th, 2010, 14:50
Well Ok With lots of help from you guys I am making progress.
now I can nagivate about and buy sell...

I can select locations , target them , and fly there...COOL..

Is it best to leave where you are at and head thru a ring into another place to sell???



How do I see what my wares are on hand????

How do I get into my other ship? It says I have two..

This is becomming fun.....Thanks

Marlin
January 12th, 2010, 14:56
Harley I found this to be an excellent bit of advice and love the map too.


Marlin, if you are having problems locating anything in the game I strongly suggest getting the X3 Map by Scorp, it is a standalone map program that has an excellent search feature that will tell you where anything you want/need can be found. You can download the program here - http://www.suu-design.com/downloads.html. The other neat thing about this mapping program is you can configur it so that it only displays sectors that you have already discovered in game so it does not add a cheat factor. Having said that I always found that it is a little unrealistic to not have access to a complete map, after all in real life you can purchase a map for anywhere you are going and have it for reference so why should you not have that ability in the game? Regardless this mapping program is an excellent add on and I highly recommend it.

Oh and a quick tip on the Best Buy/Sell locators, they are designed to help make "Profit" right so they have to be made and sold by Teladi - "It's all about the Profits" for them, they kind of remind me of the Frengi from SNG.

...

GT182
January 12th, 2010, 15:10
Mason, you can always make credits by selling your body, and ship, to those looking for someone to hire. In the attached pic you'll see the orange and white highlited markers above the stations. There's also a green one but it's not in this screenshot. Click on the station with one, click again to get the menu to drop down and click again on Comms. Then click on the name with the highlite and see what they want. Some are hard, some are easy, and some are very easy. Some give you a long time to compleate and some a short time, and some have no time. You don't have to take any and you can later abort a job if you want to... Pilot/Messages to read again what you must do.

My X3TC is modded so your won't be the same as mine. But..... I just made close to 130,000 credits just doing the odd job in a few sectors this afternoon. Actually I was killing Ka, 18 of them to be exact. ;) :d It's a nice little sideline and a break from selling. But you can do both at the same time if you want to... just make sure you finish your "job" first so you get paid... then go on your merry way and sell stuff.... Avon Calling. LOL

And yes, I am now a Professional Ka Ka killer. :bump:

harleyman
January 12th, 2010, 15:22
I must be blind...I don't see the first orange and white highlighted markers....



Got the map, I suspose it will auto install and I can put it to use..

Thanks guys..

back into space to learn more....

GT182
January 12th, 2010, 15:33
I must be blind...I don't see the first orange and white highlighted markers....



Got the map, I suspose it will auto install and I can put it to use..

Thanks guys..

back into space to learn more....

Uh, they're in the photo I attached up above.... enlarge it and you'll see em. Put them readin glass on too. You might not see in your game you're running right now, but you will eventually in most sectors.

If you mean Scorp's map you downloaded it won't be "in" your X3 game. It's a standalone desktop map. ;) You have to get out of the game to see and use it. It's kind of a cheat but not really. Think of it as a Road Atlas and yer goin on a long long long trip. ;)

harleyman
January 12th, 2010, 16:09
Oh DUH

You mean the Cent and Lightbulb then?? LOL

I get it now...Thanks....

GT182
January 12th, 2010, 16:16
Oh DUH

You mean the Cent and Lightbulb then?? LOL

I get it now...Thanks....

Yeah that's it, yer getting the hang of it now mason. And there's red and green ones too to check on. ;) Call it a "Credit Check" if you will. LOL

harleyman
January 12th, 2010, 16:18
Yeah that's it, yer getting the hang of it now mason. And there's red and green ones too to check on. ;) Call it a "Credit Check" if you will. LOL


Well alright then...


Question??

Am I the dumbest rookie? Or were you all like me ....?????LOL

Chacha
January 12th, 2010, 16:42
Well alright then...


Question??

Am I the dumbest rookie? Or were you all like me ....?????LOL


I was like you when I start... :isadizzy:

I almost resign and call it quits... :pop4:

But I saw Hannah with 2hs, doing it with ease, so i was challenged.... :monkies:

Right now, I still messes up, sometimes... or I should say a lot of times, they blew my ship into pieces,... but there is always a reset button where I left off and have a new one for me... :bump:

You will soon get the feel of it.... and like all of us..... This is a really huge game.... BIG..... Massive..... you can do easier mission at first.... and you will love it....:applause:

If you would read the post, especially the ones Mike did.... It is a good walk through.... There is a lot of learning to learn....

What I did was print the thread and read it from the print out....

GT182
January 12th, 2010, 18:14
That's what I do Mason, just like Eli does.... copy and print every bit of info Mike and Bill put in here. X3 has a hugh learning curve.... ya just have to play with it and learn as you go. That's what I'm still doing... I learn something new about X3 every day and every time I play it. It's stumped me more than a few time but I just stick with it.... I ain't gonna quit because of the little things holding me back. If I can't get thru it I ask for help.

Heck I've installed and uninstalled and reinstalled X3 more times than I can count on 2 hands because of some dumb thing I've done.

Lionheart
January 12th, 2010, 21:34
When I first got this game, I was lost. I didnt know how to set the weapons, where the enemy was, how to read the screen for targets and friendlies. I would try to dock at a station (manually) and crash every time. I couldnt read the black manual, but kept trying. I was buying ore for very high prices and selling it for super low prices, so I lost tons of money.

I didnt know where to go or what to do.... I was totally lost.


Then I just started exploring and as I would travel around, I started learning the little controls, keyboard stuff, etc. I figured out the menu's, auto-pilot, etc.. Mike has been a massive help.

Now, addict... Extreme, lol... At least I wait till night time to play it. Hard to do sometimes. I did brake down 'once' and play it during the day when I was stressed out and needed some relief.. (wiping out Xenon... ). :d



Bill

harleyman
January 13th, 2010, 03:07
I am slowly learning too..it does get more fun once you get a few basics down..Soon I head to wotk, where I now have it installed too for more practice......


At some point I want to see if my saved situations at work can migrate into my game at home..i think maybe I will get further at work than home as I have more time there some days...LOL

GT182
January 13th, 2010, 05:37
Mason, you can use your work saves but you'll have to use CDs to transport them home, or send them by email if you can.... size matters. ;) Some of these save files arr 9mb or larger. I know Homail only allows a max of 10mb sent in a email. Use CD-RWs so you can erase the data and reuse them.

Once you had what you've run at work (shame on you ;)) and get it on your computer at home, go into My Documents/Egosoft/X3TC/save. Put those saves someplace to save them so you can reuse them if you want later on. I just make a SAVE file inside save and cut them to there. Then put in your work saves and you'll be set to continue on.

Remember in the game.... save save save in case you have to go back from a screw up. That way you won't have to start over from the beginning again. It's saved my bacon a number of times.

Lionheart
January 13th, 2010, 08:48
Flash drives!

You can put one on your keychain. You can buy them from 125 megs up to nearly 100 Gigs. (Expensive, but if needed, they are awesome).

4 and 8 Gig portable Flash drives are cheap at Wallyworld and some office supply stores, and Fry's Electronics.. (and NewEgg.com).



Bill

GT182
January 13th, 2010, 09:40
Flash drives!

Bill

Good call Bill. :applause:

Now why didn't I think of that, I never even gave it a thought. Well, one reason is I guess, I don't have one. ;)

harleyman
January 13th, 2010, 17:26
I have several flash drives...And a 110 gig removeable.....


I saved this info ..

Thanks GT182 for that ....:applause:

GT182
January 13th, 2010, 17:47
Good luck Mason.... at least you'll be able to run with what you have with both computers. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v64/GT182/Thumbup.gif

Lionheart
January 13th, 2010, 21:44
Being in the FS business, I used to burn backups to CD all the time.. (all the time).. and after several years, I had a huge stock of Discs and my labelling didnt always work, and unfortunately on the discs I needed most, so finding info was pretty difficult.

Discs cost a bit of money for a stack of them, and the CD burning can burn out soon if you use it alot. So I finally went to using HD's as backup storage units. They are very fast, dont turn into mountains, can be stored in small area's.

For me, alternate drives are AWESOME!


What I would like (some day) is a 10 drive stack of HD's on a shelf away from the desk, and be able to link into it (on off selector) and transfer tons of data to the tower, be it Apple files or Win files, games, photos, etc..


Bill

gigabyte
January 14th, 2010, 01:36
What I would like (some day) is a 10 drive stack of HD's on a shelf away from the desk, and be able to link into it (on off selector) and transfer tons of data to the tower, be it Apple files or Win files, games, photos, etc..


Bill

Bill what you want is a Network storage device, I use one for work, an HP it has 3 drives in it right now and it is a dream, connects with an RJ45 so the speed is excellent. I am fairly sure it would work with an Apple as well, HP makes a couple, mine is expandable to 5 drives.

harleyman
January 14th, 2010, 01:47
Bill what you want is a Network storage device, I use one for work, an HP it has 3 drives in it right now and it is a dream, connects with an RJ45 so the speed is excellent. I am fairly sure it would work with an Apple as well, HP makes a couple, mine is expandable to 5 drives.


Wouldn't you need a motherboard with two ethernet jacks for that?

IanP
January 14th, 2010, 01:54
Or a hub/switch/router.

We have a four port wireless router with two desktop PCs, the cable modem and a switch hanging off the back of it. The switch then feeds two more desktop PCs and a NAS device. But then Mrs. P is a school IT tech and I'm an ex company IT tech, so we like messing about with networks and stopping them being notworks. ;)

Lionheart
January 14th, 2010, 09:40
My iMac is amazingly 'normal'. I cant believe it. I must have gotten into them as they really became adapted to the rest of the world. It has a bunch of USB's in the back, one Ethernet, and thats it. No way to link out a firewire, SATA, etc. It would be nice, but the casing isnt set up for that. The huge, powerful Mac is though. But then it houses 4 HD slots, lolol.. I might consider getting one of those next instead of the new 27" iMac. It is more of what I need for my biz.

Good to know on the network though. I'll keep that in mind.


But back to apple, its very 'intell-ish' now, or worldly. Adaptions and interactabilities are pretty common now with hardware. I hope they achieve this with GC's soon. I hate having a special Apple GC card, though it is still ATI and nVidia.

Bill

GT182
January 14th, 2010, 10:16
I'm running 2 200Gb SATA HDDs in this computer now. Thinking of adding a third just for more storage. All the new games I'm running are loaded on the 2nd HDD and run from there. I can set up for RAID but just adding a HDD is easier for me right now. Plus I have an external USB 160Gb HDD to store stuff on too. But that can be dangerous if it's not shut down properly. When we moved I lost everything on it and it was shutdown as it should have been before I disconnected it. Oh well, it's all been replaced with new "stuff". LOL

One of these days I'll get a 1 T Sata HDD. Only thing is, doing a defrag will take a long long long time when it gets loaded up with "lotsa stuff".

harleyman
January 14th, 2010, 10:36
Ahh Thanks Ian...I have a wireless router, a hub too, so I can access that way if ever need to..

Thanks..I think its called network Sharing...LOL :applause:

Lionheart
January 14th, 2010, 10:46
One of these days I'll get a 1 T Sata HDD. Only thing is, doing a defrag will take a long long long time when it gets loaded up with "lotsa stuff".


Mine doesnt take too long. I would have thought it would, but it doesnt.



Bill

gigabyte
January 14th, 2010, 13:43
Wouldn't you need a motherboard with two ethernet jacks for that?

As others have pointed out a Switch/Router will work or if you have a spare slot you can add a PCI NIC for $20.00 and you will get top speed. I love my NAS I can sync my laptop at work in less than 15 min, I am syncing a 500 GIG drive (about 22 GIG of data) which would take 6+hours through a USB 2 port.

This stuff has come a longg way in the past 2 years and set-up properly it is almost effortless. Although I still have a few users who "Fook" it up regularly...lol

GT182
January 14th, 2010, 18:27
Mine doesnt take too long. I would have thought it would, but it doesnt.
Bill

What Defrag program do you use Bill? I've been using the stock MS defrag, and sometimes I'll use MyDefrag-v4.2.4. Both seem to run at about the same speed... not very fast. And I've had to run MyDefrag twice just to do a complete job.

gigabyte
January 14th, 2010, 20:53
What Defrag program do you use Bill? I've been using the stock MS defrag, and sometimes I'll use MyDefrag-v4.2.4. Both seem to run at about the same speed... not very fast. And I've had to run MyDefrag twice just to do a complete job.

IO Bits is very good, the trick is to set it to do a defrag automatically when the system is not in use, so it runs regularly and it does not have to work as hard each time. I have mine to set to run every 3 days and it mostly defrags 3 1 TB drives in less than an hour overnight.

Marlin
January 14th, 2010, 21:23
IO Bits is very good,

That is also what I use.

Another trick is to do it often enough so that I doesn't take hours :applause:

Lionheart
January 15th, 2010, 00:03
Gary, I use stock Defrag also.

I'll have to check that one out Mike.

You're on it Marlin. The secret is to defrag 'alot' so it only takes about 15 min's. Once a week is awesome if you can pin yourself down to making that happen. (every 3 days is even better....! ).



Bill

Marlin
January 15th, 2010, 02:49
http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html

Good stuff in my opinion, especially after what I have heard about the stock defragger that MS puts out. (for XP anyways)

harleyman
January 15th, 2010, 03:01
I have been using IOBIT Smart defragg for several years now...

I put it on all my customers computers too..Along with CCleaner and Secunia PSI.


One word of advice...On defragging...To much and to often is not good on the platters.... Once a week is fine.... I have killed several drives over defragging them...

GT182
January 15th, 2010, 04:53
Thanks on the IObit recommend guys.

Mike, I don't leave my computer on 24/7 so a defrag in the middle of the night is out for me. I usually set an Antivirus scan for early morning on Fridays, after I start it up for the day, and I'm out for my morning coffee at WaWa. I'll just set a time for a defrag for a day other than that.

Like Mason says, once a week is ok... too many are not so good.

Boy, AVG doesn't like IObit does it. LOL

Just saw this looking around...... Transfer/Clone & Backup - http://www.spotmau.com/products/package/full_datatransfer.htm?gclid=CNH1wsHGpp8CFVw55QodcE Ow1Q

Has anyone used that?

Lionheart
January 15th, 2010, 10:25
One word of advice...On defragging...To much and to often is not good on the platters.... Once a week is fine.... I have killed several drives over defragging them...



Eeeks... Thanks Mason for that valuable bit of information.



Bill

Marlin
January 15th, 2010, 13:52
Thanks on the IObit recommend guys.

Mike, I don't leave my computer on 24/7 so a defrag in the middle of the night is out for me.

:mixedsmi:

gigabyte
January 15th, 2010, 14:45
I probably should have gone into more detail, I have my system set to defrag every 3 days but it alternates drives, I do my system drive on Monday night, the Media Drive on Wed and the Game Drive on Sat, I also set the advanced setting to only defrag if the file fragmentation is more than 10% so it does not actually do a full pass all that often.

The whole System Maintiance process is very different for everyone depending on how you use your systen, I personally never shut my system down, but I do have the power scheme set to put it in sleep mode after 1 hour so it is not buring up juice when not in action blasting Kahak and Xenon...lol

You need to play around a bit to figure out what works best for you, but the key is to do something on a regular basis that way it is not a weekend project to defrag and clean up a drive.

harleyman
January 15th, 2010, 15:03
I set mine at bed time to defragg all drives and shut my pooter down on completion...


After a big reinstall I do the full optimized deal, that takes hours . then I touch that only once every two weeks, and do a normal defragg inbetween...

The full one(bottom drop down) moves all the files back to the outer most part of the platter for faster read/ write times....