Former X3 player, thinking of buying X Rebirth. Some questions

[Star_Raider15]

I found the announcement for X4, and was thinking of buying X Rebirth until it comes out. I just had a few questions about the game before starting out:

1) How is the economy compared to X3? From what I remember, in X3 it was far, far more profitable if you just did Xenon Invasion and Taxi Missions to make money, compared to building stations and profitable complexes. Is the trading path more rewarding in X Rebirth than in X3?

2) How is reputation grinding in X Rebirth? Do I still need to trade/fight in order to reach a high reputation with a race and buy its M1/M2 capital ships?

3) How lively is the Universe? In X3, you could install some cool scripts in which races would fight each other and take over each others sectors. Not to mention you also had Race Response fleets and stuff like that. Is there a similar thing for X Rebirth?

[ubuntufreakdragon]

1) Stations once completed are the greatest money presses of the game, but already early game there is an extreme income(so the early phase wont be long) first you can buy scrap metal and craft bars from it, profit is instant transforming some 5digits into >500000, than you can board cargo ships holding turrets drohnes or buildingmaterial with recruits and sell them for over 100mil per ship. Best Stations to start with are Fusion Core and Metall plating productions to build futher stations quickly, and the give you nice profits.

2) You can buy everything with rep -9 (the lowest neutral rep) even capships, and there is no passive rep gain from autotrade.

3) It's static with a lively wallpaper, stations are indestructible and neither de- nor spawn not even at pre defined spots, ships always spawn and act the same way so you can steal pirate fleets within minutes.
And trade is no challenge, too, as there is always the same amount of NPC Production and demand.
However there is a mod changing that:
https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=381043

[rulerofallcheese]

First of all, let me say there is a FREE X REBIRTH DEMO on steam. Now, while you are waiting for that to download, here are some tidbits to whet your appetite.

1) How is the economy compared to X3? From what I remember, in X3 it was far, far more profitable if you just did Xenon Invasion and Taxi Missions to make money, compared to building stations and profitable complexes. Is the trading path more rewarding in X Rebirth than in X3?

In X rebirth, once you assign your freighters to make a trade run, you are guaranteed that price. Another trader can't "beat you to the finish line" and steal your trade. Think of it as a contract instead of first-come first-served.

Also, stations are no longer purely for making money. They come pre-fortified with turrets and gigantic f!@# off capital ship shredding defensive towers. Even better, stations attract friendly npcs. This means you can go to war with everybody and still find people willing to sell you ammo or work on your ship. These awesome new feature come with a price though. Stations now take time to build instead of instantly popping into existence when you buy them. This means they tend to have a longer ROI (return on investment).

2) How is reputation grinding in X Rebirth? Do I still need to trade/fight in order to reach a high reputation with a race and buy its M1/M2 capital ships?

It took me about 2 days real-time to max my rep. I built several large stations and it ended up maxing by itself after that time. Buying ships has nothing to do with it. Without trading, I have gotten REALLY close to maxing Rep before, but it never actually maxed.

3) How lively is the Universe? In X3, you could install some cool scripts in which races would fight each other and take over each others sectors. Not to mention you also had Race Response fleets and stuff like that. Is there a similar thing for X Rebirth?

This is a very controversial topic, but I will say that while Rebirth can struggle in this area, both mods and the upcoming X4 do a good job of addressing these issues. Mods are available both on the steam workshop (1-click install) and on the Nexus Mods website.

In Rebirth, ships literally spawn anywhere out of thin air. Pirates are an exteme case and on "very hard" mode they spawn in hordes at a high frequency. X4 claims to address this by requiring ships to spawn from resources instead of out of nowhere in deep space. In Rebirth, you can lower the difficulty at any time to reduce the spawns, or just leave the area.

Rebirth also has a huge number of "filler" ships with no purpose except for looks. These filler ships can even appear in xenon territories which is extremely jarring and there are so many that they tend to reduce framerates and cause a large number of collisions in the trade lanes. There are several mods available that reduce or completely eliminate these filler ships.

One thing that X Rebirth does really well though is make the features that are available easily accessible. When you play the demo, go find a busy are, press the enter key and just look through all the options on your side menu. You'll find all kinds of interesting things available to you if you take a minute or two to look through what's there. You can even order wares and most services delivery and drones will fly the goods out to your ship without you ever leaving the comfort of space.

[ajax34i]

A bit late answering, sorry about that, but my own opinions:

1. Profitability. X-Rebirth is quite different from X3; X3 had some "hard" starts because it was difficult to make the first few credits and / or update your ship enough to function properly. X-Rebirth doesn't have that; you can find containers of stuff walking around in station, you can use your long-distance scanner to find abandoned stashes of valuable stuff (some illegal), you can then get a capital ship to mine or trade for you, you can build stations, you can capture and sell ships (the boarding game is workable in X-Rebirth and not a pain).

2. Reputation grinding is not required. First of all, they'll sell ships to you, you don't need the max reputation for buying ships like before. Higher reputation just unlocks licenses for transporting illegal stuff. Reputation builds itself if you set up automated traders, and you can also do missions or chat up NPCs and give them gifts, for reputation or sales deals.

3. The universe is... different. Gates closed down, everyone trying to survive, Xenons constantly attacking... not much time, or even people, available for petty rivalry wars. Unlike X3, where each race had several sectors (several planets) under their dominion, in X-Rebirth there's barely a few planets, and whoever's in charge of each is desperate to make friends to help fight the pirates and the Xenon, who are a huge threat.

I think it'll help to think of X-Rebirth as a "demo"; it'll be completely new visuals compared to X3, and quite a few changes in how things are done. Play the plot start, get a preview of what X4 will possibly be like, basically.

Also, there's no **modified** tag, and quite a few of the mods are almost required for an annoyance-free playthrough. Recommend searching the internet for the "most recommended mods," and using them.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

On the topic of the X Rebirth demo on Steam, I think it does a good job of showcasing the game but keep in mind it is based on version 4.00.

The main game is at X Rebirth v4.30 now so if of interest, check out the "Free X weekend" anounced yesterday.