Review: X3: The Terran Conflict 2.0

[Doug]

What the X series needs: an intuitive and handy interface, where you can find anything you want with a few clicks, not digging to the bottom of layers upon layers upon layers of menus to find a single command. A good upgrade system, where you can upgrade your ships to meet your needs, so you can be (even partially) successful with even one. Better factory management. No more unfair gameplay, unfair missions and insurmountable odds. And the last one is: an interesting story (however remotely).

IMHO.

Agreed! These are the big flaws that have keep X from mainstream achievement. I suspect the primary reason is that Egosoft is primarily from Germany (hence that stupid 'Teldian time' system - apparently the German words for hours/minutes/secs etc match). Germans, on average, seem to have more tolerance for lack of an easy interface, so I suspect that Egosoft don't truly realise its a problem. Maybe I'm wrong and just being German-ist

 

[Playbahnosh]

What the X series needs: an intuitive and handy interface, where you can find anything you want with a few clicks, not digging to the bottom of layers upon layers upon layers of menus to find a single command. A good upgrade system, where you can upgrade your ships to meet your needs, so you can be (even partially) successful with even one. Better factory management. No more unfair gameplay, unfair missions and insurmountable odds. And the last one is: an interesting story (however remotely).

IMHO.

Agreed! These are the big flaws that have keep X from mainstream achievement. I suspect the primary reason is that Egosoft is primarily from Germany (hence that stupid 'Teldian time' system - apparently the German words for hours/minutes/secs etc match). Germans, on average, seem to have more tolerance for lack of an easy interface, so I suspect that Egosoft don't truly realise its a problem. Maybe I'm wrong and just being German-ist

Tru' dat, yo! But also true, that horrible controls notwithstanding, Germans tend to create excellent games. The X universe is unfathomably large for a simulator, and there are a very vast array of things to do, so as a sandbox game, it's awesome. Hell, show me a space sim where you can do all these stuff (in one game...that is not MMO). The graphics and the eye-candy is nice, the physics, the game world and the economy is well detailed and designed. The ships are diverse, the AI is good enough, the number bugs are well reduced and you can sink an unimaginably large amount of free time into playing, even without noticing. That's why I love it. My only problems are...well, up there in the last post.

I particularly hate to choose between ships. I rather tend to be a fighter than a trader, so I need a great fighter to play. But I have to choose between the Saber, which is very fast, agile and has a great array of weapons but low on HP, energy and storage space, or I choose one of the other fighters that have more hp, great shielding and storage space, awesome weapons but slow as hell and a nightmare to maneuver, or great maneuverability, okay speed, huge HP and storage, but has a BB gun for weapon. Decisions, decisions, decisions. Why can't I have all of that? Gimme an upgrade system, in which (with enough money) I can upgrade my lousy fighter or corvette to a ship of HELL with unbreakable shielding, dispensing fiery death wherever I go, having enemies tremble in fear and flee screaming my name. I don't expect that to be cheap, quite the opposite, I want to work, steal and grind my ass off to obtain such a vessel, but I want that option! And I want a difficulty system that accompanies this upgrade system, so when I drive my n00b ship into enemy territory, I expect to be shamefully blasted into floating space junk in nanoseconds, but when I work (or steal) enough, upgrade my ship, go back and destroy the shit out them.

And all that without buying a whole armada of ships and trying to control them through menus, but I do want that option too if I change my mind. It won't be too hard to do, since the game already has some ridiculously overpowered ships in there, it simply needs to be broken down into upgrade options, much like in Freelancer or Darkstar One.

Aside from these, I think everything is quite okay in there.

 

[Doug]

What the X series needs: an intuitive and handy interface, where you can find anything you want with a few clicks, not digging to the bottom of layers upon layers upon layers of menus to find a single command. A good upgrade system, where you can upgrade your ships to meet your needs, so you can be (even partially) successful with even one. Better factory management. No more unfair gameplay, unfair missions and insurmountable odds. And the last one is: an interesting story (however remotely).

IMHO.

Agreed! These are the big flaws that have keep X from mainstream achievement. I suspect the primary reason is that Egosoft is primarily from Germany (hence that stupid 'Teldian time' system - apparently the German words for hours/minutes/secs etc match). Germans, on average, seem to have more tolerance for lack of an easy interface, so I suspect that Egosoft don't truly realise its a problem. Maybe I'm wrong and just being German-ist

Tru' dat, yo! But also true, that horrible controls notwithstanding, Germans tend to create excellent games. The X universe is unfathomably large for a simulator, and there are a very vast array of things to do, so as a sandbox game, it's awesome. Hell, show me a space sim where you can do all these stuff (in one game...that is not MMO). The graphics and the eye-candy is nice, the physics, the game world and the economy is well detailed and designed. The ships are diverse, the AI is good enough, the number bugs are well reduced and you can sink an unimaginably large amount of free time into playing, even without noticing. That's why I love it. My only problems are...well, up there in the last post.

Agreed about that - the in-game universe or gate system of visitable stars in the X series has always been high, and no other game that I know of can take you from single ship pilot to interstellar trade baron with a amarda of your very own.

 

[insanelich]

Ah, the classic "reviewer is just simply too dumb to grasp things such as reading, and therefore the game is bad" syndrome.

I bet he has a bright future working for IGN or something, though, rating the next iteration of Gears of War a 10 and copy-pasting the old review.

... I wish X3TC was half as complex as people seem to make it, and I so wish it had Newtonian physics.

In X3 the economy is "simplified" (the engine calculates the resources between NPCs fast, and it means you can't really "adjust" the economy via stray asteroids), the physics feature inertia (in a space game ;_, and in the end the whole economy is pretty basic. 50mil for a factory producing 600k per ingame hour requires patience more than intelligence, and the interface may not be pick-up-and-play casual game grade, but it isn't exactly hard to figure out either.

The dogfighting is adequately hard though - pretty likely the hardest part of the game.

 

[Doug]

Ah, the classic "reviewer is just simply too dumb to grasp things such as reading, and therefore the game is bad" syndrome.

Er, no. Its 'we enjoy something even though we understand why others don't' syndrome, thanks.

 

[Playbahnosh]

In X3 the economy is "simplified" (the engine calculates the resources between NPCs fast, and it means you can't really "adjust" the economy via stray asteroids), the physics feature inertia (in a space game ;_, and in the end the whole economy is pretty basic. 50mil for a factory producing 600k per ingame hour requires patience more than intelligence, and the interface may not be pick-up-and-play casual game grade, but it isn't exactly hard to figure out either.

The dogfighting is adequately hard though - pretty likely the hardest part of the game.

What do you mean by inertia in space? All you have in space is inertia, since there is no atmosphere there is no drag, so it's only natural there are inertial forces.

Other than that, what do you mean by the economy is "simplified and basic"? Show me a space sim where you have this kinda economy at work. Personally, I think it's a major achievement to balance the wares, factories, ships, resources and whatnot of ten different species/cultures and spread it across hundreds of systems, all different in every way. The amount of text, culture and... stuff compressed into this game is radical. If you have time, just go ahead and read the Encyclopedia in-game. The amount of detail is staggering.

The best part? You can build your own empire. Rising from virtually nothing, with only one small fighter and a few credits, you can become the fucking ruler of the universe, conquering and exterminating entire races, commanding a vast fleet of ships and stations. Station building is my favorite. With enough time, resources and cunning, you can rule the whole friggin economy. That's no small deal, considering you must fight for every single credit in the beginning.

Yes, it requires patience and planning, but the payoff is all the more sweeter this way.

 

[insanelich]

Other than that, what do you mean by the economy is "simplified and basic"? Show me a space sim where you have this kinda economy at work. Personally, I think it's a major achievement to balance the wares, factories, ships, resources and whatnot of ten different species/cultures and spread it across hundreds of systems, all different in every way.

Except it doesn't.

The engine just pulls resources out of thin air whenever they're required.

 

[Playbahnosh]

Other than that, what do you mean by the economy is "simplified and basic"? Show me a space sim where you have this kinda economy at work. Personally, I think it's a major achievement to balance the wares, factories, ships, resources and whatnot of ten different species/cultures and spread it across hundreds of systems, all different in every way.

Except it doesn't.

The engine just pulls resources out of thin air whenever they're required.

Not true. Granted, there are balancing scripts in place, to make the economy more stable and resistant against collapse, over- or underproduction, but there is no "out of thin air" stuff there. Yes, when you discover a new sector, the engine recalculates the resource supply system, so that NPC trader ships can bring more stuff where needed, and the new system does start out with a predefined set of resources, but there are no deus ex machina.

 

[elexis]

Not true. Granted, there are balancing scripts in place, to make the economy more stable and resistant against collapse, over- or underproduction, but there is no "out of thin air" stuff there. Yes, when you discover a new sector, the engine recalculates the resource supply system, so that NPC trader ships can bring more stuff where needed, and the new system does start out with a predefined set of resources, but there are no deus ex machina.

Actually, it is true.

All solar power plants controlled by the ai do NOT have any primary resources, they have crystals as a secondary resource. They are not neded for production. And since all materials can be derived from energy cells...

 

[Playbahnosh]

Not true. Granted, there are balancing scripts in place, to make the economy more stable and resistant against collapse, over- or underproduction, but there is no "out of thin air" stuff there. Yes, when you discover a new sector, the engine recalculates the resource supply system, so that NPC trader ships can bring more stuff where needed, and the new system does start out with a predefined set of resources, but there are no deus ex machina.

Actually, it is true.

All solar power plants controlled by the ai do NOT have any primary resources, they have crystals as a secondary resource. They are not neded for production. And since all materials can be derived from energy cells...

Meh, splitting hairs... If you are that adamant about that, you can write a script so it needs crystals. BUT! There is a reason it is this way. Did you notice the amount of NPC silicon mines in the game? There are not too many. Reason: Playability. Since silicon asteroids are needed for that, and asteroid fields are huge resource hogs in terms of graphics. Try entering Ore Belt with mines on every minable asteroid, graphics set to max and you'll know what I mean. Under normal circumstances a Power Plant XL needs 5 Crystal Fabs to function continually and a Crystal Fab needs at least 3 Silicon Mine L to do the same. That's 15 mines for one power plant eq. fifteen bigass asteroids. Do the math on the graphics if it were to put enough mines and fabs into the game to serve every single station-s energy. Every system would need a huge asteroid field.

But if you hung up on that, I guess you'll never enjoy this game. If you really like X3, you'll forgo dissecting it, and just enjoy playing. IMHO.

 

[Keshie]

I played X3 for about a month and then uninstalled it. I haven't been back to it and I never will. Why? In short, I think it's pointless and dumb.

X3's graphics are all nice and shiny but the game has only a small fraction of the options available in Battlecruiser 3000AD or Elite: Frontier. Egosoft even replaced the ship cockpit graphics with a generic HUD and swapped the spacestation interiors for what might as well be an ATM display, making the game all that less immersive.
As for all that stuff about realistic inertia physics, what about Independence War, c1998?
And THAT game didn't feature aliens resembling Muppet Show rejects.

Complicated interfaces might be too much for some people but that's not entirely the point. The point is whether the game is worth the time investment. I don't think X3 is.