X3: Terran Conflict

[archeryguy1701]

I was wondering if anyone has ever played X3: Terran Conflict before... it looks interesting, and the one review I could find made it sound pretty interesting, but I wanted to hear what other people thought of it. Are there any games that it compares to, as far as gameplay goes?

[ThunderAeroI]

Dont play it much anymore as I've done everything; however, I'd recommend it if you soul hasn't been already sold to another life sucking game.

[Jax]

Looks wonderful, my friend brought it but said it was quite boring and everything took so long, he mentioned docking was a long pain in the ass.

[blaXXer]

It is beautiful, the controls suck, imo. Although I've got to admit I've been spoiled by Freelancer

[Jax]

blaXXer wrote:

---

Although I've got to admit I've been spoiled by Freelancer

Wonderful game, wish I could of gotten Online play to work for me.

[LutherSloan]

I got it for like $20 a year or two ago. Tried playing it for a few hours, realized that it was boring and tedious as hell, and quit.

[Zion Ravescene]

I've got it, managing to run it well on my laptop. Don't play it much and I haven't got through much of it so far. I have all of the X Universe games, from BTF (even X-Tension which was an underrated classic) up to this one.

If you love the X Universe games, it's a worthy addition to the series. It's different to other Elite-style games in that the economy is very hardcore and pretty much demands your full attention and patience, combat is an acquired taste (personally, the combat system from Reunion onwards with the balanced weaponry was perfect) and will often require you use cheap wingmen and capital ship support at times, and if you try to land on a planet you will DIE.

Otherwise, I love it. To a fan such as myself, it feels like a comfortable pair of shoes, only with a new menu and mission system (which I do like, even though some missions aren't completely bug-free) and sodding HUGE Terran space stations and corporate headquarters.

One of the best things about this particular series of games, probably partly due to the bugged early versions of the games, is the huge online community, and the constant patches and support from developer Egosoft. These patches not only fix critical problems (and fix them well - eventually X3: Reunion was pretty much the most stable game I had on my computer ) but also add plenty of additional content including new missions and ships, many of which have been warmly received by fans.

[archeryguy1701]

I understand the complaints that it's boring, but I do tend like strategy games that take their time and lead to slower games, so it might work for me.

Zion, This would actually be my first venture into the X universe. How would a noob like myself like it? Based on what I've read so far, it sounds sort of like Sins of a Solar Empire (except mission oriented) and Nexus: The Jupiter Incident (except with more free will). Is that an accurate description or do you have a better comparision?

[Zion Ravescene]

It's primarily an Elite-style space combat simulator where you fly in a small craft and build up your wealth and combat ratings. There are some heavy trading and economy features, plus the ability to buy and even capture several ships (albeit not incredibly well) from afar, and even buy and build your own space stations and complexes, dock with them, etc.

I think from what I've seen, a lot of people buy the game and think it's a game liuke Sins of a Solar Empire when it's actually anything but that. The X Universe was conceived as an Elite-style game where you have one ship and a whole Universe to explore, trade with, and fight if you want.

One of the problems with the series is that you start off with very little, including little idea as to where to begin, and this was a real problem in the earliest games where the manual was deliberately sparse and the storyline essentially thrust you right into the middle of things with only a ship and 100 credits and not even a time-jump device to speed up the long distances to travel through - in other words, a mere pittance. With later games this has been less of a problem (espcially if you read the manual) as some of the equipment came as standard, you had more money (although this is probably more due to inflation as the games went on ) and there were different starts for beginners, as well as combat tutorials (although they weren't great). The two X3 games, Reunion and Terran Conflict, also have a different control system that old X hands (like myself) needed some getting used to - for one thing, the earlier games required a joystick, but now you can play with just keyboard and mouse (some even prefer it this way - I don't).

As a newbie, you will probably find it a tough going experience - one of the reasons I like it is the established storyline (although the story missions aren't all that), backstory and plot which make it all very familiar. However, perseverance will make it very rewarding, opening up areas that you won't expect (I won't spoil it for you, sorry ) and offering a decent challenge.

If all else fails, the online community is a great help. I'm there too.

But the bottom line is that I think you might have the wrong idea about Terran Conflict if you compare it to SoaSE and Nexus. It's not a strategy game in that vein, even though at first glance it looks like it. It's more like Elite.

[archeryguy1701]

^So I guess, based on all of the above mention and the fact that I'm not familiar with the X Universe or Elite, would you still recommend it?

[Zion Ravescene]

I'd recommend you familiarise yourself with Elite first, the one that started it all, so you have a basic idea of the space trading combat genre. The X series adds the ability to buy and control space stations and other ships, making it a little more complex, plus adds lots of flying around and doing little immediately exciting (although when you enter a pirate or Xenon sector the whole place can come alive very quickly ).

I'd say the X series, even the first game, is a big step-up from Elite, and having some familiarity with Elite, Freelancer, the Frontier games, etc. will help a lot first. There is a freeware version, Oolite, out there, which is a good place to start.

[[[ Interestingly, one of the most fascinating Elite-like adaptations I've ever seen is Uplink, which is esentially Elite set in the hacking world on Earth, where hyperspace is replaced with bouncing off computer terminals and servers, spaceships are replaced with computers, ship upgrades are replaced with memory and CPUs and modems etc. OK, so it's nothing like Elite, but I feel the gameplay concepts are very similar. ]]]