Game Review X3: Terran Conflict
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Introduction
Today I present you one of my favourite games. It is a space science-fiction sandbox simulation game. In this game, you can pilot your ship in a vast dynamic map composed by thousands of space stations, 8 races and 3 factions, most of them aliens. You can combat, do missions, complete the campaign, obtain a fleet that fights and trades automatically and build space factories.
System requirements
This game was released on October 2008 so it does not require a good computer to play. However, it can only use one processor core. Anyway, there is a demo version with benchmark built-in available at egosoft official website
Images source: Steam
Universe and plot
Humanity managed to start space exploration and creates the jump gates, a device that allows teleportation of space ships. The jump gates created by humans connect accidentally connected with a set of alien jump gates, allowing humanity to navigate across the universe. No intelligent lifeforms are detected.
A self-replicant fleet with Artificial Intelligence is created by terraforming purposes. They get out of control and launch an attack to the Solar System. Human fleet manages to destroy the single jump gate connecting Solar System in a desperate attempt to protect Earth. Building of more jump gates is forbidden.
A human colony in Alpha Centauri gets isolated and evolves as the Argon race. They meet other alien intelligent species through the gate network system and stablish trading agreements. They fight against the AI fleet, now called Xenon, and the Khaak, an aggressive specie. All attempts to communicate with the Khaak fail.
The entire X-Universe saga is based in this territory. During X3: Terran Conflict plot, the Terran race (humans from the Solar System) re-establish contact with the Argon and meet the other races, but they are cautious about the contact with the other races, including Argon.
Complete timeline (warning: contains spoilers)
Gameplay
X3: Terran Conflict offers different game starts. Game starts change start location, initial ship, initial money and initial reputation with other races. For those starting with X games and that want to start the plot as soon as possible, Terran Defender is the best option.
The plot is a series of missions that contains lore of the game and offer some of the best rewards. You can leave the plot at any moment and continue playing without restrictions.
Combat
In this game, there are many combat ships available, sorted by class, and every race and faction has at least one ship for every type available. Split race sells the fastest ships, Teladi race sells the ships with bigger shields and cargo bay, and so on.
Fighters: M5 are light fighters, M4 medium fighters and M3 heavy fighters. They only have frontal weapons (except some M3 which can mount light weapons on a back turret) They are fast and combat between them is based on stay behind the other ship and avoid their projectiles. After damaging enough one of these ships there is a chance that the pilot will eject itself, allowing you to take the ship.
Bombers: M8 are heavy fighters for fighting capital ships with missiles. They are vulnerable to fighters and missiles are expensive, but buying a bomber is much cheaper than a capital ship. They can be claimed as fighters if the pilot ejects.
Capital ships: M6, M7, M1 and M2 are big ships with several turrets mounted in the hull and carry the most powerful shields and weapons. To conquer one of these hips it is necessary to reduce their shields and launch marines against them. Some of them have a hangar to dock fighters.
You can fight anyone you want, but it is recommended to attack only pirates, Xenon and Khaak and improve relations with all the remaining races
Trading
Trading is mainly done by TS ships, haulers with low shields and weapons, but some expensive goods can be traded with fighters too. Station prices are based on stock: buy cheap on production factories with big amounts of products and sell expensive resources required for factories when the reserves are low. Trading illegal goods is quite profitable, but beware, police randomly scan all ship´s cargo bays.
Trading can be highly automated late in the game, so you can build auto-sufficient complex of factories and a fleet of cargo ships that travels around the universe looking for the best offers.
Exploring
The X-Universe is huge and changes dynamically. New space factories are built when resources are needed and other are destroyed by enemies or because they go bankrupt. Abandoned ships are hidden across the universe. NPCs appear randomly in stations asking for missions or offering damaged ships that you can repair and sell for profit. Corporations offer special missions with special rewards like exclusive weapons. On the late game, you will be able to have your own shipyard and modify the trading routes among the universe. With the jump drive and a big enough ship, you can move from one corner in the universe to the opposite one in a matter of seconds. There are a huge number of free mods like total conversion packs and ship packs.
In-game video demo of a Battlestar Galactica ship pack.
Earth and the ring station called Halo Torus Aeternal surronding it
The bad side
Campaign cannot be rushed unless using cheats
The start is very straight-forward, but later you must stop and combat and trade in your own way. Suddenly you need either a bigger ship to complete a mission, pay a big amount of money to an NPC, or collect some rare ware that is only produced in very few stations across the universe.
Do not trust autopilot
Although it works quite well in other ships, when you use it in the ship you are piloting is not as reliable. So, look after what it is doing or save game frequently (auto-saving when docking at stations is enabled by default)
Combat AI is not good either
Combat difficulty is based on ship superiority. The only exception is fighting a light capital ship by using a fighter, in that case you must look for a blind point and stay there until you destroy the ship. For the rest of cases your ability does not help much in your survival chances.
Letting the AI control your combat ships is not a good idea, unless they fight much inferior forces or you are closely monitoring the AI controlled ships.
Slow ships are booring
The universe is too big for piloting a slow ship. Autopilot, jump drive and fast forward mode (up to 10x) help it a bit, but most players won’t enjoy piloting a bigger ship than a M3 except for specific purposes like joining a big-scale battle.
Factory complexes are difficult to build
Unless you use a mod, connecting factories for making them work together is a mess. If you are not extremely careful at station positioning, you will get a mess of pipes.
NPC are @ssh-l+s
You can lose reputation fast if you are not careful. A few harmless shots of friendly fire can make you lose reputation, but if they damage you by accident they do not apology or compensate for the damages. If you are piloting a big ship and a light fighter impacts on you and dies, that lowers your reputation. Sometimes that you manage to make a pilot eject out of their ship, your allies keep firing and destroy your bounty.
Complex building expectations
Complex building reality
Other X-Universe games
I recommend starting by playing X3: Terran Conflict because is one of the more complete games of the saga and it is cheaper and has lower system requirements than X-Rebirth. If you like it you can later buy Albion Prelude expansion, which has some minor improvements and big-scale wars between races. You can also buy older games, with lower graphics and less variety of ships but their plot is also great.
