MEGA RANT and $$ for a experienced user

General discussions about the games by Egosoft including X-BTF, XT, X², X³: Reunion, X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

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H E X E N
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MEGA RANT and $$ for a experienced user

Post by H E X E N » Thu, 2. May 19, 15:13

Prelude: I feel like a god damn idiot trying to figure this game out. I legitimately feel like a moron, because everyone else seems to get their games running fine with whatever crazy mods, scripts or updates they can shove into the game files. I cannot. This will be the 6th time I've had to restart an over 75 hour game because I'm not playing the latest update, or the latest expansion, or I haven't been playing with an update pack, or there's better turret commands in X software suite, or someone made an overall rework of the game that's even better than what I'm playing, or there's some random error that only effects 2% of players and I'm that 2%.

How can this game be both the best experience in space simulation and also the most disappointing pile of crap I've ever played? I've never known a game like this.

And the thing with the X games is, they are all legacy experiences, meaning you have to dump hours and hours into them before you start seeing returns. It's not an instant gratification shooter or 30 minute RTS match. It takes hours and days to create a empire in Albion Prelude. All the time scouting the galaxy map, doing taxi missions, placing stations, saving credits, buying ships, outfitting those ships... This will be the 6th time I've dumped it all down the drain because I have this 1 in a 1000 glitch where all stations in my game are invulnerable at 93% hull.

I had a whole Terran complex setup in Montalar, the only place outside of Terran space where you could outfit Terran ships. I had 2 Kyotos. Several M7M, several high profile M6's, 2 Hyperion Vanguards, 1 HCP. And all for what? Nothing. I did all that for nothing. I spent hours sitting in my computer chair for nothing. My game is corrupt and I'm just screwed out of 75+ hours of game time. The legacy enjoyment isn't there because there's now a hard cap to what I can accomplish and do in this game.

I am so ****** frustrated at this point that I'm willing to pay someone $20-$30 over paypal to sit with me on VOIP and tell me exactly, EXACTLY what files I need to install, where and how to go about setting up the game for the best possible experience that Albion Prelude has to offer, whether that be through mods or expansion packs. I don't care. I just want someone who knows EXACTLY what they're doing when it comes to installing the game files, mods and updates, because clearly, I'm an idiot who can't get it right.

I read all the tutorials the last time I installed and updated and here I sit again with a useless save file and dozens of hours wasted.

Please help me. Someone please help me. I'm dead serious about paypal. I have the money and it's waiting for you to take it. I need a true veteran, possibly a programmer or just someone who knows how to install and mod this game backwards and forwards. I'm sick of playing inferior versions and I'm sick of having to restart. I want to play and love this game, not have it poo on top of my head after I've dumped inordinate amounts of time into it.

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Re: MEGA RANT and $$ for a experienced user

Post by X2-Illuminatus » Thu, 2. May 19, 18:32

First of all, you should ask yourself whether this is really the right game for you. X games have a steep learning curve, yes, and at times can be frustrating. But you shouldn't have to spend dozens of hours before actually enjoying the game and having fun, especially if you restarted a couple of times and know your way around the starting hurdles. If you feel the need to restart whenever you experience an inconvenient or annoying bug or find out someone somewhen has done something better or differently than you, you will have a bad time, no matter how many help you get setting the game up in the first place. X game are complex, and offer a plethora of things to do. That, however, also means there's a plethora of things that can go wrong.

Secondly, installation of the game, its updates, expansions, scripts and mods is far easier than you make it sound. For Steam Games simply install X3TC and afterwards X3AP, and let Steam verify both games to make sure that everything has been downloaded correctly. Similar with the Galaxy Client from GOG. No need to check for updates. If it's installed and verified, it's done. There are no expansions for X3AP, since it is already an expansion to X3TC. The only other offical bonus would be the bonus package, which is a collection of scripts and even comes with a handy installer. As any other script, it can be installed on the go. No restart required. (It's still a good idea to backup your savegames beforehand.) For everything that's requiring a new start, i.e. major overhaul mods and total conversions, the experience is so different to the vanilla game, you can enjoy the vanilla game first, and have a restart with one of the bigger mods later. That also has the advantage of being able to distinguish mod changes from normal game features.

Thirdly, there's not the one way to go. People like different things. Many overhaul mods make the game more difficult, as people want to have a bigger challenge as time goes by. For someone who wants instant gratification or does want to get into the million or billion credits phase directly, a cheat script giving you a lot of money and assets at the start of the game can be the better choice instead. Likewise if you feel there's a bug you cannot live with, check whether there's an unofficial fix for it in the Scripts and Modding forum.
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Re: MEGA RANT and $$ for a experienced user

Post by H E X E N » Fri, 3. May 19, 01:26

I thank you for the response and your suggestions.
X2-Illuminatus wrote:
Thu, 2. May 19, 18:32
First of all, you should ask yourself whether this is really the right game for you.
Yes, this is the game for me. I have over 1000 hours clocked between TC and AP. I love these games, as I have placed them in 'god tier' category. There are no other games like this out there, with this much complexity and detail, in both size and creativity. I've written crappy fan fiction about these games. These are marvelous titles to play. NUKLEARSLUG needs to start writing again. Reading through Wanton Use of Nukes again hehe.
X2-Illuminatus wrote:
Thu, 2. May 19, 18:32
X games have a steep learning curve, yes, and at times can be frustrating.
It's not the learning curve that's frustrating. It's the multiple versions and random bugs causing me to lose hundreds and hundreds of hours of playtime. The actual discovery process is amazing and continues to happen to this day. It's one of the largest reasons I keep getting drawn back to these games.
X2-Illuminatus wrote:
Thu, 2. May 19, 18:32
But you shouldn't have to spend dozens of hours before actually enjoying the game and having fun, especially if you restarted a couple of times and know your way around the starting hurdles.
This is why I explained the X games as legacy entertainment. In these games, you build off your previous experience, again and again, until you have accumulated enough resources to take the next step. I can't take that next step in my game because all stations are invincible at 93 percent. I can't begin to wage war and start taking over sectors. So everything I've accumulated is pretty much useless isn't it?

Certain acquisitions were great fun, like my three day hunt for the right Tiger to board and getting everything worth while salvage wise once it was captured. IBL's are hard to come by sometimes ya know? But now I can't USE those IBL's. It doesn't matter that I have them. Do you see how frustrating that would be? I had everything set for the next big part of my game and it pooped on my head... again.

I have both a hard copy of X3:TC and I purchased it again through steam thinking it would manage the game better. Got AP after that, also through steam.

I guess I'll just uninstall, wipe everything and restart everything... again. Roll the dice and hope for the best lol. I swear this is the only game where I put up with this kind of abuse because of how great it can be.

Thanks again for the response. Install TC, install AP, install bonus pack. That's what I did last time. My only hope now is that it's not my actual machine that's screwed up.

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Re: MEGA RANT and $$ for a experienced user

Post by jlehtone » Fri, 3. May 19, 18:31

One cannot "take over a sector" in vanilla game; the NPC will respawn/rebuild forever. The only way to get "real ownership" of a sector is by modding. Invincible stations are probably marked indestructable for some reason and one ought to be able to reset that attribute by modding. (I don't [wan't to] know how.)
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Re: MEGA RANT and $$ for a experienced user

Post by Alan Phipps » Fri, 3. May 19, 21:55

@ jlehtone: Although you can indeed gain ownership of a personal sector via plot mission sequences in both vanilla X3TC and X3AP.

@ OP: I have extremely mature vanilla games in both X3TC and X3AP that I played from scratch without mods, cheats or exploits and they were indeed fun to play (and I still occasionally do play on from them). Yes there were issues (such as the temporarily invincible stations for example) but these were solved and patched out and so on I went. Hence I am surprised at your thread and issues. It may just be that you are having the worst possible luck and experiencing more (and more serious) issues than is usual in these games.

It is true that gaming technology, whether OS, devices/drivers or system hardware, has moved on since these games came out and so there may well be new issues and challenges around now that weren't so evident back in the X3 days. That remains to be proven though.
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Re: MEGA RANT and $$ for a experienced user

Post by SirNukes » Sat, 4. May 19, 03:25

H E X E N wrote:
Thu, 2. May 19, 15:13
This will be the 6th time I've dumped it all down the drain because I have this 1 in a 1000 glitch where all stations in my game are invulnerable at 93% hull.
That's not hard to patch with some slight modding, but I think some people are reluctant to respond due to the aggressive hyperbole. For what it's worth, my customization tool (in sig) has a lightly tested hotfix for this problem.

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Re: MEGA RANT

Post by H E X E N » Mon, 6. May 19, 17:04

SirNukes wrote:
Sat, 4. May 19, 03:25
That's not hard to patch with some slight modding, but I think some people are reluctant to respond due to the aggressive hyperbole. For what it's worth, my customization tool (in sig) has a lightly tested hotfix for this problem.
Yeah, I just needed to moan and whine about it. No one in real life understands, and especially a game like this. X3AP isn't really a relatable topic of conversation lol.

I ended up just scripting in a bazillion credits and am in the process of rebuilding everything. Off and on it should take a couple weeks instead of 6 to 9 months, so, I suppose it could be worse.

Thanks to anyone who responded and took the time to read my drivel. The responses, even if it was a polite way of saying "you're an idiot", took the edge off.

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Re: MEGA RANT and $$ for a experienced user

Post by Triaxx2 » Mon, 6. May 19, 22:36

X3 mods at least are simple enough to install. Someone made a manager for it, but I can't seem to lay hands on the link. Should be in the big library topic in Scripts and Modding though.
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