Has anyone played the game yet? Is it good? Is it easier to learn than X3 Reunion? The damn game doesn't come out for nearly two weeks in Australia, so I'll just have to get it on steam, but my shitty connection will take a while to download 7.5 gigs, probably a few days.
It is much easier to learn than X3: Reunion. You start out in (at least the Terran gamestart) with a flight instructor who you can hit up for a near-complete tutorial on the basic workings of your craft. As combat takes up a large portion of the first half-hour to two hours of your experience, you'll be able to jump right in.
Before I begin: The Terran stations [b]GIGANTIC[/b] (not necessarily a bad thing but holy crap they take up half a sector) and I dislike some of the ship designs for the Terrans; contrastingly, the sectors are strikingly beautiful and going to Saturn for the first time actually sat me down and made me stare for a full ten seconds, taking it all in. Speaking of sector design, I actually laughed a couple of times here and there at how 'right' it felt this time around. There are planetary lifters which ferry things back and forth between the planet and the middle of the sector, there are stations which are highly specialized, the weapons losing their three-tier status gives way to very interesting combat options (which may break balance or turn combat into a 'biggest gun wins' late-game) and sectors actually -feel- alive now with all the transports, military fleets (which actually make me scared to attack anything), and civilian ships running around. This was present in X3 Reunion but for some reason it works better now than then; I can't quite pinpoint the reason just yet.
There are more improvements than I can shake a stick at. For one, they finally have put in a form of repair which doesn't cost money, but time. You can now get out of your ship and use a repair laser/welder to slowly repair your ship's hull. Missiles are much more useful now. The ability to aim where your cursor is pointing as well as being able to boreshot is [i]very[/i] nice and the mouse-controlled-flight (toggleable with the spacebar) reminds me of Freelancer in very good ways. I can tell that they even tuned up how SETA is handled in the engine as it was able to handle far more in a much smoother fashion than it used to in Reunion; I used to top out at 6x for most sectors and now I default to 8x.
Combat is fluid now; even if the starter Terran weapons are clunky compared to the Argon IREs and PPCs. Upgrades make more of a difference (my M4 was far faster than an unupgraded M5, but a fully upgraded M5 is twice the maximum speed of my M4) than in Reunion and there are even upgraded versions of existing ships.
The My Missions portion of the interface is a godsend. If ever you're stuck wondering what you were supposed to do it'll give you a brief summary if you hold your cursor over it and a full summary (step-by-step even!) of your mission.
Wings work well and I'm enjoying them, even if the AI has a horrible time at keeping up with me or staying in formation, and I like that race reputation with the Terrans means more than just what sorts of things you can buy.
It plays a little different without the between-mission cinematics and the Terran Plot, so far, definitely has a different 'feel'. I'm guessing that the XTM and community freelancers made most of the Terran Gamestart missions because of the interesting change in flavor. There's no difference in flavor for the music though! The music does not fail to impress and there are a couple of memorable sectors I've encountered in my 18 sector run.
I look forward to playing through all 13 campaigns; one campaign per gamestart, each campaign with full voice acting (if it is noticeable that English is not the voice actors' native language; I could imagine, at least, that the reason why they speak the way they do is because of the influence of so many other races' languages). The focus this time is almost unswervingly on missions, on plot advancement, and on flavor. Things move fast, combat doesn't feel like something you do 'when you're not doing anything important' anymore, and the plot's fat is thoroughly trimmed. It feels a bit lean but I think it's a better beast for it.
I haven't yet been able to run around in any ship heavier than a M4 or more than one wing of three fighters, so big battles and big ship balance is something I'll have to wait to comment on. I do notice this time, however, that they have finally found a way for players to truly 'feel like they did something' in battles. Capital ships are now more likely to be captured than destroyed, competing companies can be run into the economic pavement, and battles are bigger in scale and deployment than in previous titles. Without going into spoilerific specifics, they even were able to inject these little slices of accomplishment into battles and submissions. Mission variety is phenomenal as well, even if the random missions don't quite understand what you're capable of sometimes.
All-in-all, about eight hours into the Terran campaign, I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with the quality control in TC compared to the horrible Reunion launch and that I'm floored by the amount of good changes they've made from community feedback. (They even changed station comm radius from 8km to 20km, added in an option to include the classic 'warp sequence', and there are even throwbacks to the original X game!)
There are bugs, yes. I've run into one recently which has halted a mission in its tracks, but I expected far more numerous and glaring bugs than I've encountered so far. Still not flawless and it needs patching if I'm getting things like this early on but the nuts and bolts feel like they're all in order. (Well, except for loading times, which feel a little slow at points)
I'm excited to wake up tomorrow, boot up the game, and keep hacking away at the spreading threat of the [i]things which you won't expect[/i].
Anything in particular anyone wants to ask? I may not be able to answer, being only so many hours in, but I can at least try!
So wait about how long would the game take to complete? There are 13 campaigns, and you said you'd complete one every gamestart which leads me to believe they won't be very long...
[QUOTE=Wolfmatyr]The race who made the ship? What class? Give us details and we can tell you. It might be a special ship like the Arrow (discoverer model, but can go over a kilometer/second) or Starburst (same, but I believe it has better acceleration)
[/QUOTE]
Oh yeah, haha. It was the Arrow, not Bullet. I loved that ship.
[QUOTE=revolverV2]So wait about how long would the game take to complete? There are 13 campaigns, and you said you'd complete one every gamestart which leads me to believe they won't be very long...[/QUOTE]
That would depend on a lot of things including whether or not you choose to always go straight for the next mission or do other things in between.
However, the fact that you asked how long it would take to complete tells me you don't exactly understand the nature of this game.
The game is complete when you don't want to play anymore. Most of this game's appeal comes from the sandbox/freeroam gameplay, the campaigns are mostly just there to provide a story to explain the current situation in the universe and provide more structured gameplay in addition to the sandbox.
Many long-time players don't even touch the story or campaign missions in the X-series anymore, they just go straight to starting up traders, building complexes, capping ships, and just doing whatever they want.
Sure you could just go through all the campaigns and call the game finished, but you really wouldn't be getting the most out of the game that way.
[QUOTE=apocca]Oh yeah, haha. It was the Arrow, not Bullet. I loved that ship.[/QUOTE]
I remember i used it to go to the one sector with the free nova in it so i could mooch it while being chased by sohnen ships. That was awesome.
[QUOTE=Firgof Umbra]-snip- positive review[/QUOTE]
Awesome, you just bumped TC to the top of my "to buy" list.
I don't mind steep learning curves. I found EvE online easy to get into. I stoped with it though because of the boring way of upgrading skills. I didn't want to wait weeks to get a new skill.
FirgoffUmbra, every gamestart does not have a campaign. There are only five campaigns (With the promise of more in Egosoft's famed content updates), but they can all be played seperately in any gamestart (Or most, anyways)
They are, as far as I know
[sp]The Terran Plot
Operation 'Fury' Split campaign against Kha'ak
Boron Plot revolving around Terraformers
Some form of Goner/Argon Plot?
Something to do with the Sohnen?[/sp]
In Reunion the menu system made it hard for people to get into the game. In Terran Conflict the menu system has been streamlined, looks better, works better, feels better and is quicker to use.
The mission system have aslo massively improved, you now get step by step instructions of your mission, where as previously you get one email thing to refer to.
Wings are also brilliant, now instead of assigning ships to protect one to make a wing, you can lump them together in an ingame wing system, assign them a colour and they will pick a leader, and fly in formation with it, attacking its target. What's more is that you can click on an enemy and get a wing to attack it, and then they will get stuck in protecting themselves.
The new shiptypes, most borrowed from Xtended are cool. M7 cruisers, M-8 Bombers and stuff. Sectors also feel alive now, with much more civilian traffic, and in the Terran sectors huge atmospheric lifters going back and forth
The story seems to be much better too, with lots of different campaigns. The Terran Defender campaign is interesting, with the Terrans being set to go to war with the entire Commonwealth of other races.
Terran defense stations, supply docks(trading stations) and shipyards are massive, compared to the other races stations, are smaller, cheaper and able to be linked into complexes are disorientating I find. Other stations, like ice processing, weapons and food are all normal X sized though.
Downloading it off steam. 7gb!
[b]Edit:[/b]
[QUOTE=paul1290]That would depend on a lot of things including whether or not you choose to always go straight for the next mission or do other things in between.
However, the fact that you asked how long it would take to complete tells me you don't exactly understand the nature of this game.
The game is complete when you don't want to play anymore. Most of this game's appeal comes from the sandbox/freeroam gameplay, the campaigns are mostly just there to provide a story to explain the current situation in the universe and provide more structured gameplay in addition to the sandbox.
Many long-time players don't even touch the story or campaign missions in the X-series anymore, they just go straight to starting up traders, building complexes, capping ships, and just doing whatever they want.
Sure you could just go through all the campaigns and call the game finished, but you really wouldn't be getting the most out of the game that way.[/QUOTE]
Could always just wait till you get a big capital ship and then do the campaign missions. :D
Damn, sounds nice. Too bad I don't have the money for this :(
Youtube is letting me down big time right now. The only videos I can find are the lame teaser videos. I want to see real gameplay!
Is anyone else having performance issues? I could run Reunion just fine, but whenever i have a new station within view, my fps drops bad. You would think a 8800GT could handle it...
I never liked X3. X1 was kick arse, but X3 just lost the flair through my crappy eyes.
[QUOTE=apocca]Is anyone else having performance issues? I could run Reunion just fine, but whenever i have a new station within view, my fps drops bad. You would think a 8800GT could handle it...[/QUOTE]
Some other people are having the same issue.
It's not normal and it's not you're system. Apparently some people are having issues unusual lag not related to how good their systems are and for some reason it's only affecting some users and not everyone. Egosoft is still trying to figure out what's causing this.
If anything this version of the engine slightly more optimized than Reunion's and should run just as well if not better.
There are a couple threads on the Egosoft forums regarding this:
[url]http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=217024[/url]
[url]http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=217218[/url]
I would recommend going there and posting your specs and DX Diag report since any information they can get regarding the problem will help them fix it faster.
The new TM pocket carriers are awesome. 4 ships carry capacity and good storage for less than one million. :D
And Earth's Torus/Ring station is awesome.
[IMG]http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/Saber15/x3screen00028.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE=apocca]Is anyone else having performance issues? I could run Reunion just fine, but whenever i have a new station within view, my fps drops bad. You would think a 8800GT could handle it...[/QUOTE]
I get this too, mostly when it's loading Terran stations and plot related crap. Sometimes I freeze for several minutes before it responds again.
Seems to be a problem with the 8800. Pretty much everyone who complain owns this card. Setting textures to medium solved most of it though, now its only the new TC stations that are causing slowdowns. Before it was just basically everything that was running badly.
94% percent off steam! Goddamn slow internet this is going to take another 1-2 hours.
[QUOTE=Wolfmatyr]Really? Sweet, let us test this... in Antigone Memorial! And to ensure maximum survivability, I shall dispatch myself in a top of the line, fully equipped and armed (including fighters), Teladi Condor.
I'll report back once I've left SETA on all month...
But seriously, I did not know that. Maybe a strategical advantage if one had the xtended Orellius (I have never used one, so I may be way off there). But then again, kha'ak crap just appears out of nowhere so there will be absolutely no advantage.
Are you sure they are 3D models? not just 2D animated sprites with a killing sphere around them?[/QUOTE]
I'm sure they are 3D, they even have Jagged edges if you have poor Anti Aliasing
I'm about to buy this.
But, i need two questions answered. Is this easier to actually get into than reunion, which i never left the first area with because i couldn't get my controls to work, which brings me to my second question: is this playable with just a mouse and a keyboard now? I could never get my x52 to work with it, even using a profile for it.
It was always playable with mouse and keyboard. Did you try disabling the joystick?
It is much easier to get into now with its streamlined menu, interaction and mission system.
[QUOTE=SeamanStains]It was always playable with mouse and keyboard. Did you try disabling the joystick?
It is much easier to get into now with its streamlined menu, interaction and mission system.[/QUOTE]
=DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
I just bought it. Dling it on steam. That will add few posts to this thread.
Anyone else getting a weird mouse? Like it doesn't really respond?
It seems that when people talk the first part of the speech is cut off. Like when I click on a ship and it says it's name the computer thingy doesn't pronounce the first part of each word of the ship name for some reason...
Did they change the annoying bitch's voice?
Oh this fucking sucks every time I start the game it automatically puts my wave volume up to full and even if i alt tab and change it back it still reverts to high wave volume. It sucks because I have to turn down my normal volume and high wave volume makes everything sound super shit quality, like SUPER distorted.
[sp]On the Eyes and Ears level of the Terran Campaign, how do you pick up Captain Pearle? I keep docking at the Orbital Defence Station in the Asteroid Belt but cannot seem to pick him up. I really don't want to revert to my earlier save because it's before that horrible infiltration mission[/sp]
Oh god now I want this. I'll get it when I get a new PC to take advantage of the updated graphics. Oh, and in the think trailer, did I see an advertising station. I want one of those.
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X3: Terran Conflict Megathread
