[X3TC] Uncooperative traders and dead wingmen

[archeryguy1701]

Hi, I have a couple quick questions. I had been playing X3TC quite a bit about a year ago, but took a break because I was running into some frustrating gameplay issues. I want to start playing again, but I'm hoping to get some advice for those issues before I go forth and have issues again.

The first big issue I run into is that my traders tend to stall out. They'll either make trade runs with only a couple wares in their cargo bay or they'll just stop trading. I have a good handful of traders, including a couple universal traders, and they all do it. I have them completely decked out with the necessary trade systems that I need to purchase. I can temporarily fix my sector traders by moving them to a new area, but my universal traders seem to be completely broken. Any advice on how to deal with this?

My second question is in regards to wingmen. I think this is the issue that finally drove me off of playing the game for that period. Is there any secret to using your wingmen or keeping them alive? I've been buying or capturing abandoned ships and using them as wingmen, but everytime we get into combat, I'll lose one or more of them. It doesn't matter who we're fighting- if we go against a cargo ship with a single pea-shooter, it'll still find a way to take out my wingmen. It wouldn't be so bad except they're pretty expensive investments to get armed and upgraded and it's frustrating to have them die at the first sign of trouble. Is there any advice out there on how to improve the length of life for my guys?

Thanks!!

[Bill Huntington]

archeryguy1701, many pilots don't use wingmen, for the same reasons you are talking about. At the M3 stage of a game, I do like to have a wingman. But I don't expect much from it. First, I usually only have one. More than one leads to collisions and distractions. I keep it simple. I use shift -7 and shift - 8 to move the wingman into combat, and then back to me. I don't even expect him to kill anybody. The best use for a wingman to distract at least some enemy ships so that they aren't attacking you! You in your personal ship are the killer. Fighter Drones can help the same way. Keeping it simple means that you can concentrate on killing the enemy ship or fleet, one by one.

You didn't do this, but many others confuse a Wing and the wingman. These are two very different things.

If you do the Poisoned Paranid start and get an overtuned Hype as your personal ship, you won't even need a wingman after that.

I thought that I had done everything I wanted to do with TC. Then I worked through all the game starts again, as a more experienced player, and found TC to be very interesting again.

[deca.death]

Low level traders occasionally stop trading when they can't find worthwhile trade run. You should reissue command sometimes and if that happens too often change local trade sector. Higher level trader is (and more range it has) this things will happen less and less. Key is finding good sector to place them, there are several threads on the subject already so check them out.


Wingmen are fragile but not so terribly as you describe them, at least not as I remember. My wingmen were quite useful but they were high quality fighters (adv. barracuda and mamba, freebies) which were fully equipped and tuned. Try using more shielded fighters if possible, or at least pirate novas with 3x25MJ. If you are using M5 and M4 fighters no wonder they drop dead often.

[Hubert99]

My seven Nova Raiders can kill a Q, without a single loss. Except maybe when the Q has flaks ... But flakked Q's are a danger even for a close brawling Hyperion. Fortunately Xenon intelligence is still limited in this area.

You can buy Nova Raiders in Omycron Lyrae. Fully eqipped they are around 4 million credits each, if I recall it right.

[archeryguy1701]

Thanks for the pointers! For the wingmen seeming overly fragile, I'm pretty sure my wingmen are usually M3's, though I could be misremembering. I do remember that I don't let any of those ship fly escort until I get them fully upgraded. I will definitely work to make sure I don't waste money on anything weaker than M3's (if I even continue to bother with wingmen).

As for the traders, I'll keep babysitting them and hopefully they'll get high enough ranked to stop causing issues. I thought I had at least one or two of the highly ranked ones doing this, but I could be misremembering this as well (downside to asking advice after a year off). I've gone through several threads about this, and most of the tips I've found continue to point towards either babysitting the traders or modding the game.

[deca.death]

Thanks for the pointers! For the wingmen seeming overly fragile,

Wingmen are not necessary, many ppl just don't use them, but they can ease your beginner days in certain situations dramatically. Also, you shoiuld expect occasional loss. If loosing few wingmen is financial and otherwise problem for you, you should not use them.

As for the traders, I'll keep babysitting them and hopefully they'll get high enough ranked to stop causing issues.

Don't worry, I always have 20-30 UT/ST traders, once they leveled enough they will not bother you, ever.

[Snafu_X3]

As for the traders, [...]

REMEMBER TO EMPTY CARGO BAYS. Automated traders will keep cargo unless you get rid of it manually (fly to assorted docks & sell at any price until empty, or just dump it in empty space). This includes Ecells, so don't expect your trader to keep using his multi-Ecell cargo for jumpfuel until he gets down to the limit.

Remember to reset Mk3 traders periodically when they level up. My preference is to keep them as ST until L10, then limit them as LTs (3 sector) until L20, then give them a decently shielded ship & let them loose as UTs. YMMV.

WRT CAG/CLS traders they're pretty much fire-and-forget providing you get the settings correct. You have to enable jumpdrive use manually, but once they've levelled up to that use they're fine. Remember to turn 'audible warnings' ON & you can keep track of their progress easily.

Oh, a couple of things: set all traders to notify you when their mission is complete (this will tell you when Mk3 trainees have bought too much than they can supply) & remember that Apprentice-level CAGs are useless at self-sufficient complexes, as they can only /buy/ goods

Hope this helps

[TTD]

Masses of text above ,so I may have missed this...

Sometimes your traders will not operate because their hull is damaged. Hence the need for a minimum of 25mj shields.

If damaged , either repair with repair laser (if TC), or repair at Shipyard and increase shields if possible.

[ajax34i]

I don't have universal traders; I do have 20 sector traders that I have spread out and set to operate on 3-6 jump ranges. It depends on the area they're in (my rule is, as many jumps as possible without entering pirate or xenon sectors). I've basically tried to cover the entirety of the map with about 2 traders operating in any area. Seems to be working very well, they do accumulate 1100 energy regardless of jumpdrive settings, but anything else they accumulate they eventually sell. I'm using 6000-cargo ST's as they seem to have the sweet-spot in cargo for trading purposes.

As far as wingmen, the capabilities of M3 ships differ greatly from ship to ship (big difference between 25 MJ of shielding and 100, big difference in speed, etc). The trick for me is to not let them take damage (which means I go in and get the enemies pissed off at me first), but then they do horrible DPS anyway. Or, you could pick a type of M3 that has huge shields and let the wingmen tank (for a bit) while you try to take out their attackers with DPS, but that's also meh.

I don't like to use mixed ships in the wings - for me all ships in the wing must be the same, so I can treat the wing as a single unit with known capabilities.