[X3] TP missions and Argon Express

Avogadro · Post by **Avogadro** » Fri, 4. Nov 11, 01:55

I'm a bit short on cash after completing the Bala Gi missions, and given that I had never tried TP missions before, I decided to give them a try.
One alt+tab and several exciting minutes of browsing 5-years-old-and-thus-potentially-outdated guides and ship stats later, I go for the Express, as it seemed to have the best balance of cargo bay and speed.

Got the Express fitted with all the goodies pretty fast, and then off to the Argon Prime trade station. I was actally lucky enough to find one Tour of a Lifetime -or whatever it's called in the English version - right away, except it was worth only 40k per sector, so I declined. After that, I spent some time hopping from station to station in search of a better offer. The next six stations had no TP missions. Some had their BBS completely empty even after five or so minutes of waiting, actually. Then I found three or four missions wich required a higher trade rank than mine. Fair enough, just a bit of bad luck, happens. Some other time later, I finally found one wich looked promising, 90k per sector per 32 minutes! I was in deep Paranid space by then (longer distance between portals than in Argon space) but it didn't matter, I was just glad that I found a mission.

But... wait. Ah, looks like my ship had not enough space. Guess going around with 300 cells wasn't exactly a good idea. But it doesn't matter, I can just eject them, I'll just keep 10 for an emergency jump.
Uhm. Nope, still not enough space and I have 700 units free. Oookay, guess I can do without all that shielding, and the laser too, if I keep clear from the dangerous sectors I will be fine, core sectors are safe! It's not like I've ever seen pirates regularly visiting Paranid Prime all the way from Elena's Fortune. No no, that never happens. =)

Eventually I realise it's faster to eject all the cargo and pick it back after the passengers are onboard, even if that probably means losing a shield or two in the process. At 90k per sector it's well worth it, and besides, I can't honestly wait to carry around some cute, screamining Paranid children who will paint my ship anew with BoFu cake stains and will vomit at the first sight of pirates.
Strong of this vision, I smile and re-dock, and moments later my soon-to-be employer readily informs me that my ship now have,

"Not

enough

space

*trollface.jpg*".

Heh, ok. I guess this particular mission just required more space than the third (fourth?) most spacious TP ship can offer. Surely just a bit of bad luck. But no matter, if I keep looking I'll surely find something!
And so I did. Was it really the case in the end? In a way yes; I mean, after almost TWO hours (real time) of doing nothing but hopping from station to station, I've actually found (drumroll) ONE good mission!

So, uh, have I overlooked something? Do I have to make a sacrifice to some deity before being granted another mission, and in that case wich one? Khorne, Shiva, Chuck Norris?

Threesixtyci · Post by **Threesixtyci** » Fri, 4. Nov 11, 04:10

If you care about the upload stats for Reunion (and not many people do), those Adventure Tour missions are the only mission in the whole game that increases the passengers transported counter. Likely an oversight, but one that Ego never bothered to fix.

http://www.egosoft.com/games/X3/statist ... ser=318421

I remember only doing one, and it got me in the top 100 that still standing. At the time it ranked me in the 60's or so, but currently it's fallen down to 98th.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Fri, 4. Nov 11, 11:46

Toucan Hauler can take almost 500 passengers.

Avogadro · Post by **Avogadro** » Sat, 5. Nov 11, 19:06

Threesixtyci wrote:If you care about the upload stats for Reunion (and not many people do), those Adventure Tour missions are the only mission in the whole game that increases the passengers transported counter. Likely an oversight, but one that Ego never bothered to fix.

Are you sure about that? IIRC the other day I didn't have enough space for one "low ranked" mission (60k or so per sector) but later I got a contract for 80k. Could it be that the passenger count is randomly calculated from a min-max range that is influenced by the player's trading rank?

Toucan Hauler can take almost 500 passengers.

It's also quite slow... I was hoping it wouldn't be necessary to rely on one of the "special" ships. :\

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Sat, 5. Nov 11, 23:32

Avogadro wrote:Could it be that the passenger count is randomly calculated from a min-max range that is influenced by the player's trading rank?

Exactly that.

For ship speed, Argon exploration vessel Pandora does report something in BBS (if you have Bonuspack).

Avogadro · Post by **Avogadro** » Tue, 8. Nov 11, 21:39

You mean the afterburners? I never got one because of the price and the fact they consume consume e-cells wich I need for the jumpdrive, but in this case... yes, it might a good solution. Thanks for the suggestion.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Tue, 8. Nov 11, 21:45

No. Afterburner is a temporary overtuning that consumes ECells, Spacefly, or shields. Argon Pandora has seen crates that have 10 units of engine tuning. Scoop one up with fully tuned ship and then you have an overtuned ship.

TTD · Post by **TTD** » Wed, 9. Nov 11, 13:31

Pandora only applies to the ship you collect it in,so choose wisely and as said above,make sure it is already fully tuned before you pick up the Pandora.

Threesixtyci · Post by **Threesixtyci** » Wed, 9. Nov 11, 15:58

Avogadro wrote:
Threesixtyci wrote:If you care about the upload stats for Reunion (and not many people do), those Adventure Tour missions are the only mission in the whole game that increases the passengers transported counter. Likely an oversight, but one that Ego never bothered to fix.
Are you sure about that? IIRC the other day I didn't have enough space for one "low ranked" mission (60k or so per sector) but later I got a contract for 80k. Could it be that the passenger count is randomly calculated from a min-max range that is influenced by the player's trading rank?

I was talking about the upload stats, not the game.....
http://www.egosoft.com/games/x3/statistics_en.php

Avogadro · Post by **Avogadro** » Sun, 13. Nov 11, 16:32

I don't think I've never seen engine tuning crates floating around, or any other kind of ship upgrades for that matter, but then again I'm not much of an explorer.

Either way, my old saves became corrupted after installing the Xtended mod, so for now I have other things in mind... like getting my first million of credits again.

Threesixtyci, I don't get your point. What am I supposed to see in the statistics?

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Sun, 13. Nov 11, 17:34

You have to follow-up on rare BBS missions that refer to the explorer ship named Pandora to know where to find those tunings. I don't think they even exist until the directly-related BBS mission is viewed.