Terran Conflict X3; Extreme Addiction!

[Lionheart]

For those starting out in this.

1. You will need to dock with the stations to save your game.

2. You should start out using Autopilot to dock at stations. Trust me on that one, lol.. .

3. You can manuver the ship with the arrow keys, but when you are in the LH menu screens (along left side of screen, activated when you hit Escape key), you can then manuvere through the menus' with the arrow keys also.

4. The < and > keys bring up the 'Universe' map and the 'Sector' map (planet/system). From there, you can actually navigate to spots, skimming through the various menu's via the Arrow keys.

If say you are in the Argon Prime system and you want to go to the Argon Free trade station in Herrons Nebula, you would click the < key (Universe Map), arrow to the Herrons Nebula grid, click Enter, the Sector Map comes up, Down arrow through to the Argon Station of choice, click Enter, down arrow to Autopilot, and click to go there.

From there, your ship begins moving out. Make sure you are at full throttle. If you have the SETA drive installed (Singularity Engine Time Accellerator; speeds things up in normal time), then hit the J key. If you dont have it yet, go to the Argon Equipment Station, buy it, install it.

Then, when you go through each gate, hit the J key to go to slow warp, (sort of like full Impulse in Star Trek).


Tip; Get the Engine Tune when you have the money. Your ship is really going fast at 260+ M/S (Meters a Second?). You can get other options as well. You'll need to make money though to get these tunes.

[Lionheart]

And now for a question. I bumped into an asteroid in my Discoverer. My ship has only so many green dashes now in its basic info bar in bottom center. I take it I have damaged my ship bad. How do I get it repaired? The Equipment station doesnt have hull repair, and the Argon shipyard only makes ships from scratch.

eeeks..

No button to call State Farm for a claim...

[luckydog]

I have succumbed to peer pressure...it's downloading on steam right now.

Thanks, DJ......
I was just about to ask if it is downloadable
and where I could find it ....

[gigabyte]

And now for a question. I bumped into an asteroid in my Discoverer. My ship has only so many green dashes now in its basic info bar in bottom center. I take it I have damaged my ship bad. How do I get it repaired? The Equipment station doesnt have hull repair, and the Argon shipyard only makes ships from scratch.

eeeks..

No button to call State Farm for a claim...

Hey Bill, That didn't take long...lol Been there myself, I also came home with a nice bit of battle damage on a trip through Franhamn's Legend (be careful in that sector it is full of pirates), anyway you can get hull repairs at the Federal Argon Shipyard and I think in one of the equipment stations? The hull repair is like trading or buying upgrades, it is right at the top above your ship list (if it is avaliable). You may have to look around a little, I think the menu's on Terran Conflict are laid out slightly different but the functions I have are all there.

A word of caution on trading and freight hauling, the prices are set dynamically, and I have not been able to figure out the triggers, kind of like our real world trading. I started a new game last week and refered back to some notes I had made a few months ago (I kept a cheat sheet of good trade routes) I come to find out that what I thought were great trade routes were now milk runs with little profit, so if you think you have things figured out you might get a little surprise, which makes things all that more interesting for me.

I am now trying to find the Gold edition, none of the local stores seem to have it, that will give me the 2 expansion packs I have not tried yet, mind you I still have years of play time lest in this one if I keep going at my current pace...lol

[Lionheart]

Hey Bill, That didn't take long...lol Been there myself, I also came home with a nice bit of battle damage on a trip through Franhamn's Legend (be careful in that sector it is full of pirates), anyway you can get hull repairs at the Federal Argon Shipyard and I think in one of the equipment stations? The hull repair is like trading or buying upgrades, it is right at the top above your ship list (if it is avaliable). You may have to look around a little, I think the menu's on Terran Conflict are laid out slightly different but the functions I have are all there.

A word of caution on trading and freight hauling, the prices are set dynamically, and I have not been able to figure out the triggers, kind of like our real world trading. I started a new game last week and refered back to some notes I had made a few months ago (I kept a cheat sheet of good trade routes) I come to find out that what I thought were great trade routes were now milk runs with little profit, so if you think you have things figured out you might get a little surprise, which makes things all that more interesting for me.

I am now trying to find the Gold edition, none of the local stores seem to have it, that will give me the 2 expansion packs I have not tried yet, mind you I still have years of play time lest in this one if I keep going at my current pace...lol

Hey Mike,

Thanks for that bit of info. I'll look for hull repair.


On trading routes, man I was doing so well. Tonight though, I found out about the variable dynamics. The system shifts when it actually gets in freight, the prices fluctuate. I didnt think it did this. I had about 150,000 credits, and in one hour, I was down to 64,000 credits. I found out why. I was buying higher and selling for less. Massive mistake. So I hunted around for deals and watched the buying and selling levels on credits. Got my money back up again.

I am used to that way of trading from the old 1602AD games, Patrician and all. Brilliant trade sims.

Now to figure out how to launch the 'good deals' Satelites, rig a Trade automated route, and find a Hyper Jump drive. Then when I have some major bucks, I want one of those super freighters!




Bill

[Lionheart]

I did a bit more flying in X3 last night. I found that if I went through a couple of systems, I could find some really good deals on frieght to purchase.


Also, when shopping, you can scan through the various stations in Sector Map, click Enter to bring up the list (autopilot, info, etc), and click on the Info selection. There, you will see the readouts for the various things they buy and sell. Also, you will see 'bullets' or gold scalers of things they have in stock, etc. If you are buying and their stock is really high, go there, as the product will be cheap. If they are low, dont even bother.

Now, if you have cargo and you wish to sell, then look for the gold sliders that show the least in supply.

I found a super good deal on Cahoonas last night, and eventually found a station that needed them badly. I made a fortune in one flight.

Right now I do not have Credits readout when running Stations/Info. I tried to buy a Satellite so I could get the 'Good Deals' readouts for each system, but for some reason, I cannot purchase one.


So much to learn.. arrgh.



Bill

[luckydog]

Thanks for the dialogue Bill......
I downloaded two nights ago, spent last night "jumping" around and docking. Tonite I'm planning to try a little trading. Your advice has been very helpful !
LD

[Lionheart]

Most welcome man.

If you discover anything cool, let us know, (especially me, lol).


The discovery of each new system is really addictive. For a while I was getting lost. Some gates are hidden and you have to go looking out in the edges of the sector, behind asteroids and things to find them. Some are sideways, so seeing them is really difficult.

If you open the Universe Map, you'll see that everything is joined in 4 coordinates, so its like a flat grid (sort of, its still 3D if you use the arrow keys to select different sectors on the Universe map).

I found you can find some missing gates by finding them going through them from another sector. Find the systems near it and gate to that one system and you can find yourself going through the gate you couldnt find. Its then mapped in your NAV system and charted in your Sector and Universe maps.


Bill

[gigabyte]

Bill I see you have the X3 bug bad, it is very addictive. I have been doing the Explorer thing since you first started this thread, I am up to just over 80 systems in my nav map now (I had 96 in one of my saved gaves but it was from last year so I am rediscovering the universe) I did some digging and there are just over 160 systems in total so we all have a long way to go.

Here are a couple of tips from Gig's Travels.

There are Scanner upgrades in the equipment docks, as soon as you can afford it grab a duplex, then a triplex scanner, they extend your ships scanning range and make exploring systems much faster.

If you want to start making real profitable runs, get into the Teladi systems (North East) they sell some great scanners and are very "Profit Minded" so you can often find valuable items there that can bring high profits in other systems.

Learn how to remote command your ships, I like to explore using a Discover L (it is an upgraded model to the one you get first) and when I find a good buy I access my Mercury Command Comsole and Order it to do the freight run, while I go exploring another sector.

Make note of the items in the Bulletin Board system, they are often good hints to profitable trade routes.

Watch out for the Pirate Sectors, (I have located 8 so far) you run across Pirates in many sectors, but they are in small groups, if you get into a Pirate Sector, they are like Wolf Packs you want to have you way planned out of the system real quick - unless you decide on the Pirate life, then it will be home sweat Home.

If you are using a ship to explore like a Buster or Discover, don't load it down with freight, go for the system upgrades, scanners, engine, booster, jump drive, and all the software upgrades you can find (and afford), leave the freight to a Mercury and let it do the grunt work.

I am no expert, but I have been playing the game off and on for over a year, it can be very addictive, there are so many directions to go and roles to take, I personally like starting as a Freight Hauler, but I quickly move to my second ship and use it more like an explorer and remote control the freighter.

Things really start to get intresting when you have enough credits to build a station and home base of your own, but that takes serious credits, I got that far once, but I trashed that save game when I reformatted so I am building up to that level again now.

See you in space guys...

[Lionheart]

Thanks Mike for the info!


That Discoverer hauls 'boot'! I can shoot straight through systems in it. I got the engine tuned to the max, so she is cooking at around 260 m/s. The Mercury only does about 97 m/s.

I finally found up/dn/right/left thrusters (no rotation, only sideways movements). A,D,S,W keys, for those that are beginning. Now, after undocking from a station, I hit the S key for a short while and the ship moves straight down away from all the structural area's.

Which reminds me, I almost collided with another freighter that was leaving the same port, lol.. I kept waiting for him to manuvere. Bad timing..



Bill

[Lionheart]

Here are some basic price limits newbies should go by;

Product Buy Sell
_________________________________
Cahoonas 72 100
Ore 92 127
Energy Cells 12 20

I found some interesting deals last night that exceeded those prices... Shop around...

[gigabyte]

Thanks Mike for the info!


That Discoverer hauls 'boot'! I can shoot straight through systems in it. I got the engine tuned to the max, so she is cooking at around 260 m/s. The Mercury only does about 97 m/s.

I finally found up/dn/right/left thrusters (no rotation, only sideways movements). A,D,S,W keys, for those that are beginning. Now, after undocking from a station, I hit the S key for a short while and the ship moves straight down away from all the structural area's.

Which reminds me, I almost collided with another freighter that was leaving the same port, lol.. I kept waiting for him to manuvere. Bad timing..

Bill

Bill Just wait, once you get your credits built up head into the Boron systems, when you find one of their ship yards grab a Mako Sentenial or an Opus Vanguard, if you like Firepower you want the Mako, it can be loaded for bear, the speed is reasonable (over 200 M/S), but it can carry some serious weps. If you want speed grab an Opus, it is not very expensive, under 80K and talk about speed, if you tune it up you can get close to 500 M/S. That is one of the scout class ships, I am using it right now to explore with, not too heavly armed just a couple of lasers, but if you run into a heavy Pirate pack you can beat the feat and get clear with no problem, nothing can keep up with that little puppy.
See ya around the Stars...lol

[Lionheart]

Bill Just wait, once you get your credits built up head into the Boron systems, when you find one of their ship yards grab a Mako Sentenial or an Opus Vanguard, if you like Firepower you want the Mako, it can be loaded for bear, the speed is reasonable (over 200 M/S), but it can carry some serious weps. If you want speed grab an Opus, it is not very expensive, under 80K and talk about speed, if you tune it up you can get close to 500 M/S. That is one of the scout class ships, I am using it right now to explore with, not too heavly armed just a couple of lasers, but if you run into a heavy Pirate pack you can beat the feat and get clear with no problem, nothing can keep up with that little puppy.
See ya around the Stars...lol

Hey Mike,


Awesome man! Thanks for the info. I will look for it. I'll go to one of the ship yards and window shop, lol...


I found the Teridian stars last night, far North by NorthWest. Very wierd territory. No hits by pirates yet, thank goodness.. One chase me but couldnt keep up. I was in the Discoverer though. (I got the hull repaired finally).

See you out there.

Bill

[Lionheart]

Hey all,

I thought I would post some of the tons of planets that I am finding in this huge game. I cant believe them all. Some I am thinking are shared, like a sector might be on one side of a world, and a station is on the other side as well, so you can gate to the other side..

Some places I gated too were basically Nebula's, like being in a red or green cloud.. Some places are heavy with tons of asteroids.. Some are almost nothing..

Some planets are either pretty huge (fills the screen) or you are in low orbit. Seeing the clouds move, detail on the terrain, and floating around in a 3 axis condition can get my stomach upset, lol.. I kid you not.

Wild game.


Note; the Tan planet really struck me. Its like a version of Mars and Dune (Arrakis). Hardly any clouds, tons of dunes, all sand.. Mars is red though, like Oklahoma...

[Lionheart]

And here are a couple of some of the ships and stations. There appear to be many forms of races, and of course, each have their own ship and station architectures. This is a very small sample. I havent been doing photo runs in this. Mostly learning and exploring..

There are some wild looking craft. The one with the green illuminated ribs is very strange. Some of the stations, like star born factories, are pretty amazing with detail. Small cars can be seen riding rails on the structures, AI ships docking with them, etc. Dogfights with pirates going on. You name it..

Below, on that station (first two pics), I was freaked on the size. Its 4X the size of a regular Argon free trade station. I flew through the middle of the structure. The ships are all AI, out doing things. Some are warships, some are frieghters, etc.... Some are even civillian.


Bill