I picked up the X3 gold edition

[L'ennui]

Newtonian flight model? I know it has seamless planetfall, though.

Progress report: docking with space stations is surprisingly easy. Got it on the 2nd try and have been having a good time since.

 

[cutterjohn]

sorry, for mouse control NOTHING beats Freelancer...

No sorry. X3TC beats Freelancer. You can select ships, stations and about anything with your mouse by just clicking on them. That is in addition to already freelancer-ish controls.

You misunderstand numbnuts. It's not about picking ships to targetm it's all about controlling your own ship and fighting it with the mouse. X3TC still sucks donkey balls v. Freelancer at this. I have better control with the keyboard ffs!

[EDIT2]
Nothing beats a good joystick in ANY space/flight sim other than Freelancer, and had you atcually played Freelance you'd know what I'm talking about. 'Nough said!

Anyways, I'm already an X3TC multibilionaire... courtesy of OOS nividium mining, but combat seems to get easier with each game after X2 anyways although I seem to notice that ships bailed quicker in X3R than X3TC although I'm already building up a cap fleet and can more readily affor doutfitting them in X3TC(nividium)...
[/EDIT2]

[EDIT]
Evochron Legends:
yes it has a gay newtonian flight mode, but it doesn't realistically add shit to a space sim unless your some sort of faggot who insists that newtonian flight is the be all/end all of space sims. EL looks better and has a few more bells and whistles than renegades, but versus other current space sims it's still boring as fuckall.

EL's primary "goodness" is it's multiplayer mode, but have fun finding anoyone to MP with... unless you want to schedule around their rare appearances...
[/EDIT]

 

[DraQ]

yes it has a gay newtonian flight mode, but it doesn't realistically add shit to a space sim unless your some sort of faggot who insists that newtonian flight is the be all/end all of space sims.

Butthurt detected.


Also, rocket science is teh hard.

 

[cutterjohn]

yes it has a gay newtonian flight mode, but it doesn't realistically add shit to a space sim unless your some sort of faggot who insists that newtonian flight is the be all/end all of space sims.

Butthurt detected.


Also, rocket science is teh hard.

No. While Newtonian flight does allow for some interesting combat tactics it does realistically, add NOTHING to a game's play. I mean could you imagine having to play a game that had NOTHING but newtonian flight AND no way to speed up time? Oh yeah that'd be so much fun, sort of like watching paint dry, grass grow, etc. while you're taking 45h to dock with a fucking station or a ship...

IMNHO NONE of the spacesim games that have Newtonian flight models are any good. It's just a gimmick for that minute fraction of a fraction of the already tiny fraction that play sapce sims that for some reason, insist on Newtonian flight models.

In any event given the sims and the type of ships, it would make basolutely no sense that they didn't also come up with a way of overriding gravity, of course they could do some other interesting things such as allowing for small ship control along the lines of what UFOs are reputed to have.

 

[ecliptic]

Newtonian flight model? I know it has seamless planetfall, though.

Progress report: docking with space stations is surprisingly easy. Got it on the 2nd try and have been having a good time since.

Yup. You can toggle the stabilization system on and off with the space bar, so that when you're not doing evasive maneuvers in dogfights or you just want to look around while you're flying through space at speeds higher than can be displayed it can easily be flipped on and off.

When it's on it automatically uses the various thrusters to keep your momentum going towards where you're looking. As soon as you turn it off, all bets are off. Newton's in the house. It's great. Really helps make the fights much more dynamic than people circling eachother trying to get a lock on, which is what I hate about a lot of casual flight and space sims.

 

[aron searle]

With Newtonian flight it can fun perfecting landing and docking. But fights are just naff with current AI, you just circle each other, and the AI always just suicide runs you.

The X series never improved other than graphically on all the versions, the "living" universe stuff they puffed up was just a bunch of decent scrip. Space in X felt decidedly small.

And WTF was up with some ships having a top speed of 80kmh, I can fucking cycle faster than that.

 

[L'ennui]

OK, I've gotten the hang of relative movement and for some extremely awesome yet obscure reason, my numpad thrusters are working, so I've done everything in those tutorials. I now know how to maneuver a bit and really, the lateral, ventral and dorsal thrusters are a huge plus for me because I tend to rely on those a lot whenever a game has them.

BUT I STILL GET ASSRAPED BY PIRATES O GAWD MAKE IT STOP

(Not really. Enjoying the game. I can sometimes survive 1vs1 encounters... but they tend to come in packs, in which case my Saker is no match.I'll try to find a way to make enough $$$ to upgrade my ship. I have a feeling this will involve a LOT of saving and loading. )

 

[DraQ]

@cutterjohn:
"Simulating stuff adds nothing to the gameplay in a simulator."
Ok.

OK, I've gotten the hang of relative movement and for some extremely awesome yet obscure reason

NumLock key?

BUT I STILL GET ASSRAPED BY PIRATES O GAWD MAKE IT STOP

(Not really. Enjoying the game. I can sometimes survive 1vs1 encounters... but they tend to come in packs, in which case my Saker is no match.I'll try to find a way to make enough $$$ to upgrade my ship. I have a feeling this will involve a LOT of saving and loading. )

That's the way things are. FFE always starts with severe frustration. Try to find some safe, profitable route between well policed systems (like Sol-Barnard's Star, or Sol - Van Maanen's Star) and get ECM (preferably naval), better laser and whatever shields you might squeeze in. Chaff also helps.
Adder is a good almost starter ship - cheap, with somewhat mediocre parameters and no missile pylons, but it's small and manoeuvrable enough to make it a hard target, plus it has some cargo space to work with.
My first Imperial Explorer kill was done with an Adder with 5MW pulse.

In combat you generally want to do two things - get out of the enemy line of fire and get close ASAP, so that even at low relative velocity your high angular velocity will make it impossible to track you, forcing the enemy to break off and put some distance between you and him.

The two goals are best accomplished by thrusting towards the enemy and to the side, maintaining as acute angle as you can without getting hit. Then cling to their tail and don't let go.

If you don't have time to assess the situation before the enemy is in range (most early intercepts), just fly erratically at full burn, preferably moving perpendicularly to the enemy beams, and try to figure out the situation ASAP.

 

[ecliptic]

Newtonian flight model? I know it has seamless planetfall, though.

Progress report: docking with space stations is surprisingly easy. Got it on the 2nd try and have been having a good time since.

Yup. You can toggle the stabilization system on and off with the space bar, so that when you're not doing evasive maneuvers in dogfights or you just want to look around while you're flying through space at speeds higher than can be displayed it can easily be flipped on and off.

When it's on it automatically uses the various thrusters to keep your momentum going towards where you're looking. As soon as you turn it off, all bets are off. Newton's in the house. It's great. Really helps make the fights much more dynamic than people circling eachother trying to get a lock on, which is what I hate about a lot of casual flight and space sims.

And this was Evochron:Legends I'm talking about. Give the demo a go if you're on the fence. It's a really nice game, and quite affordable. I picked it up for $12 on sale.

 

[L'ennui]

I will, once I put down my current Frontier binge.

@Draq: Hahaha... no, it was not a numlock issue. I'm quite clueless as to why it just decided working, but heh, my old computer works in mysterious ways. BLESSED BE THE MACHINE SPIRIT!!!

Just bought an Adder, the additional cargo space is quite useful. I haven't actually left the area I started in, I do runs from Gateway to Titican, selling animal meat to Titican and coming back with robots for the Gateway farmers. The robots pay kinda nice. One day, I'll try to find Sol.

 

[Morkar Left]

Newtonian flight model? I know it has seamless planetfall, though.

Progress report: docking with space stations is surprisingly easy. Got it on the 2nd try and have been having a good time since.

Yup. You can toggle the stabilization system on and off with the space bar, so that when you're not doing evasive maneuvers in dogfights or you just want to look around while you're flying through space at speeds higher than can be displayed it can easily be flipped on and off.

When it's on it automatically uses the various thrusters to keep your momentum going towards where you're looking. As soon as you turn it off, all bets are off. Newton's in the house. It's great. Really helps make the fights much more dynamic than people circling eachother trying to get a lock on, which is what I hate about a lot of casual flight and space sims.

And this was Evochron:Legends I'm talking about. Give the demo a go if you're on the fence. It's a really nice game, and quite affordable. I picked it up for $12 on sale.

The combat in Evochron Legend is fun and is has really good ideas. But some gameplay-elements destroy it for me. You can use the jump-drive everywhere everytime.
So you accept a delivery-mission to a ship from a base: accept mission - open nav map - click near the ship - jump - ignore the enemies because you are already under the ship and can deliver the cargo with one click - open nav-map - jump back to base - repeat. Takes 2 minutes without risk... It would need something like masslock for your jumpdrive like in Elite or a 1-2 min.cooldown-phase for your jumpdrive.
Docking at a station is more risky than missions because you can get attacked while docked (and you don´t pay attention to enemies while browsing the equipment list). Forget navy, they won´t help you and don´t mind when ships are shooting at the base...
In theory the faction-system would be good and it could be good with some adjustments. In reality you have just systems with lots of enemies you shoot down.

In the end it is not like elite/privateer. it´s a simple space-shooter with nice fly-mechanics. It´s sad because with some fixes/adjustments it could be the best elite-like so far and would be my favorite space-sim (and I actually like the gfx of the game). But it seems there is more focus on mindless mp-dogfights than single-player.

 

[DraQ]

I will, once I put down my current Frontier binge.

@Draq: Hahaha... no, it was not a numlock issue. I'm quite clueless as to why it just decided working, but heh, my old computer works in mysterious ways. BLESSED BE THE MACHINE SPIRIT!!!

Just bought an Adder, the additional cargo space is quite useful. I haven't actually left the area I started in, I do runs from Gateway to Titican, selling animal meat to Titican and coming back with robots for the Gateway farmers. The robots pay kinda nice. One day, I'll try to find Sol.

The sector coordinates are relative to Sol, rather than galactic core, so it shouldn't be hard to find.

Also, read the journals, or some NPC will do the plotline missions in your stead.

 

[L'ennui]

Hmmm, didn't know I'd be supplanted by the AI. That's kinda... novel. I'll start reading the damn papers, then.

BTW I'm loving my pimped-out Cobra Mk III so far! I've gotten to "below average" combat rating... which for me is a lot.

 

[DraQ]

Hmmm, didn't know I'd be supplanted by the AI. That's kinda... novel. I'll start reading the damn papers, then.

BTW I'm loving my pimped-out Cobra Mk III so far! I've gotten to "below average" combat rating... which for me is a lot.

I usually stick with an Asp, but Cobra III is an excellent craft. Might be an endgame one (not counting two special ships), in fact, if you prefer an agile, multirole vessel, to some sluggish behemoth.
Sure, cruising around in a heavily shielded Boa or Panther, and not even bothering to change the course after being attacked, just vaporizing the pirates with the turrets has it's upsides, but in itself flying those beasts simply isn't much fun.

BTW: My rule of a thumb when equipping the ship for most careers is that you should only leave enough cargo space unoccupied by equipment to be able to fit just enough fuel for two jumps. On normal runs it leaves you with half of the hold occupied by jump fuel, the other half with any cargo you may want to trade. With smaller, multirole craft, there is little point in trading anything but high value stuff and contraband anyway, so small quantities should suffice, while class 8 hyperdrive used in largest freighters consumes 81t of fuel in one jump, meaning 81t of cargo space, without sacrificing firepower or shields.

Also, if you're good enough shoot to use a pulse laser, an interesting idea is to put a 5-30MW pulse laser on forward mount, and 1MW beam on the back. Pulse laser will pack enough punch for about any target (especially 30MW mining one, although it has awful rate of fire), while the whole setup is significantly lighter than 4MW beam, but if you get swarmed by small fighters, you switch to rear gun and start accelerating away - they will have to use most of their thrust to keep up, leaving little for evasive manoeuvres, so 1MW beam should melt them with ease.

One more thing - try to play a little bit with getting from point to point without autopilot, get a hang of putting ship in an actual closed orbit, so that it circles the planet without getting thrown away or falling on it without the need for engines. The former can prove bloody useful if you get damaged or are in a hurry, the latter is really rewarding and allows you to be all towards all the "LOL Freelancer" people.

 

[DraQ]

So, L'ennui, how's your career as freelancing starship commander?

 

[mikaelis]

Another "Witcher rererereleaselike" movement from Egosoft, but this time actually may be worth it. Superbox is getting released in October including all the games released before and updated to the newest OS (yes that includes X-BtF and X-Tension). Plus shitloads of mods and new series of official missions for X3:TC. And 300 page book about X universe. I think I am going to get it.

http://www.egosoft.com/news/current_pl.php

 

[Turisas]

Did the XTM team ever end up doing anything for Terran Conflict? I know there was some talk prior to the game's release about a project similar to XTM (XTC iirc it was called) but I haven't really followed the community after TC.

 

[mikaelis]

Did the XTM team ever end up doing anything for Terran Conflict? I know there was some talk prior to the game's release about a project similar to XTM (XTC iirc it was called) but I haven't really followed the community after TC.

Last I read, they were still doing it (XTC), though I don't know how far they are, as I was not following it closely. If you are interested try to dig up something on Egosoft forum.

 

[Suchy]

Newtonian flight model? I know it has seamless planetfall, though.

Progress report: docking with space stations is surprisingly easy. Got it on the 2nd try and have been having a good time since.

Yup. You can toggle the stabilization system on and off with the space bar, so that when you're not doing evasive maneuvers in dogfights or you just want to look around while you're flying through space at speeds higher than can be displayed it can easily be flipped on and off.

When it's on it automatically uses the various thrusters to keep your momentum going towards where you're looking. As soon as you turn it off, all bets are off. Newton's in the house. It's great. Really helps make the fights much more dynamic than people circling eachother trying to get a lock on, which is what I hate about a lot of casual flight and space sims.

And this was Evochron:Legends I'm talking about. Give the demo a go if you're on the fence. It's a really nice game, and quite affordable. I picked it up for $12 on sale.

The combat in Evochron Legend is fun and is has really good ideas. But some gameplay-elements destroy it for me. You can use the jump-drive everywhere everytime.
So you accept a delivery-mission to a ship from a base: accept mission - open nav map - click near the ship - jump - ignore the enemies because you are already under the ship and can deliver the cargo with one click - open nav-map - jump back to base - repeat. Takes 2 minutes without risk... It would need something like masslock for your jumpdrive like in Elite or a 1-2 min.cooldown-phase for your jumpdrive.
Docking at a station is more risky than missions because you can get attacked while docked (and you don´t pay attention to enemies while browsing the equipment list). Forget navy, they won´t help you and don´t mind when ships are shooting at the base...
In theory the faction-system would be good and it could be good with some adjustments. In reality you have just systems with lots of enemies you shoot down.

In the end it is not like elite/privateer. it´s a simple space-shooter with nice fly-mechanics. It´s sad because with some fixes/adjustments it could be the best elite-like so far and would be my favorite space-sim (and I actually like the gfx of the game). But it seems there is more focus on mindless mp-dogfights than single-player.

Evochron looks quite interesting. Does it have some kind of main story, a'la Privateer and Freelancer? Or is it just universe where you do some random missions and trade without any bigger purpose than earning cash?