Of Repair Lasers, Elastic Bands and Morals

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

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

stg1969
Posts: 620
Joined: Thu, 3. Nov 05, 18:08
x3tc

Of Repair Lasers, Elastic Bands and Morals

Post by stg1969 » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 15:03

Before i upset anyone, let me point out, i'm not one of those people that trawls gameboards accusing people of cheating, its entirely up to them, a game is for enjoyment, my one rule to this is provided they then dont brag about achievements.

Personally, Ive never been concerned about the modified tag, I love some of the mods and scripts that improve the game. Personally, with regards to "cheating" (and i use the word loosely), if you overuse help, it can sometimes take enjoyment from a game..

Anyway, im off track..

My point is this..

I have an elastic band that is the perfect size to fit round my joystick trigger, and when i cap an M3 (i dont usually do it with anything larger), i will go off the ecliptic, get in my suit, set up the elastic band on the repair laser trigger, and go and get a brew, or a beer.. come back, 100% hull...

Now...the problem with this is, the repair laser is part of the vanilla game, so its not cheating...i'm not using SETA, so where's the harm?

Problem there is where do you draw the line... I could quite easily say, "well i know its just going to take 5 minutes out of my gaming, and i'm safe from harm, so i may as well just use LV cheats to reload the ships hull...

Now of course, thats considered cheating, despite the fact that all ive done is saved myself 5 or ten minutes out of my busy evening/free time..

You see where im going, where do you indeed draw the line..

This isnt a crusade, ive always tried not to spoil my own games with over use of any sort of aid (walkthroughs, cheats etc)... but where is that line in this case... just opinions really..
Cargo Bay now contains "Your Cold Dinner"

silenced
Posts: 4967
Joined: Tue, 20. Jun 06, 19:43
x4

Post by silenced » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 15:19

And where's the issue?

I've repaired my 3 'stolen' Cobras that way. It felt like it's more worth than letting them dock at some shipyard and pay the money for, which is made in almost no time anyways.
... what is a drop of rain, compared to the storm? ... what is a thought, compared to the mind? ... our unity is full of wonder which your tiny individualism cannot even conceive ... I've heard it all before ... you're saying nothing new ... I thought I saw a rainbow ... but I guess it wasn't true ... you cannot make me listen ... I cannot make you hear ... you find your way to heaven ... I'll meet you when you're there ...

zazie
Posts: 3702
Joined: Mon, 7. Mar 05, 14:55
x4

Post by zazie » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 15:31

Using the repair-laser in Vanilla games is not cheating, everybody knows. But if you do it excessively, the game will 'punish' you: Your fight-rank will go down considerably.

I have repaired my second Aran manually (and without SETA :mrgreen:), my rubber-band was a letter-opener (is that the word ?) stuck in the keyboard. This adventure of about 8 hours took me down from EXTREME in fighting down about 40 %. I needed several Xenon invasions (ans more than 8 hours of fighting ...) to get back to Extreme fighting rank.

Triaxx2
Posts: 7229
Joined: Tue, 29. Dec 09, 02:15
x4

Post by Triaxx2 » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 16:40

I don't really worry about my fight rank, but instead of cheating to just reload the hull and shields, I prefer to have a ship which can mount repair lasers do the repairing instead. It's less of a cheat, and I don't have to leave my space suit covered rear hanging out for anyone to take a cheap shot at.
A Pirate's Revenge Completed Now in PDF by _Zap_
APR Book 2: Best Served Cold Updated 8/5/2016

The Tale of Ea't s'Quid Completed

Dovie'andi se tovya sagain

kc99
Posts: 70
Joined: Mon, 21. Mar 05, 22:46
x3tc

Post by kc99 » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 16:47

That's what I do - 8 in a Dragon that I jump around as needed. However, I did agonise for a long time about using the cloning trick to get them.

Aydan
Posts: 238
Joined: Sat, 8. Sep 07, 20:56

Post by Aydan » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 17:04

There is no cheating in a single player game, regardless which action is involved, as there's no direct competition in a single player game.

If you compete against a human being playing in the same game, there's direct competition and the need to have the same chances for both opponents. This applies to multiplayer games, but not to single player games. People tend to mix both, without realising that there's a clear distinction. What'd you loose if you repair your ships by using a "cheat" script? Nothing, the only consequence may be that you're spoiling your own fun.

To me, the repair laser in its current form from the vanilla game is an inbuild cheat in my games. I don't use it at all. Look at it from a different angle... how believable would it be that a tiny astronaut with a pimped blowtorch could repair a ship like the aran or any other M2, even if you let him repair it overnight :? :o :D ? Considering that it takes almost a mans life to setup a Hotrod like Tim Allen in his garage :D ... Would the scenario be believable that you repair a Ray/Python/whatever in your spacesuit? :D Probably not, even if the game is "punishing" me for this. Instead of this, i can imagine that a ship in an advanced shipyard can be repaired in minutes, considering the advanced technologies in robotics and others. Paying to get my ship repaired is ok for me, in MY game, repairing it in a tiny spacesuit is not.

Now, do i loose only a tiny bit, if i see zazie is considering the repair laser as not cheating? No, because it's only my kind to enjoy a game. I do NOT compete against him. There's no prize to win, there's no test to write. If he would play in the same game, probably online, i'd be in, it'd be different. But we're not. Everyone is free to enjoy whichever cheat he prefers :) If someone is complaining this or that is cheating, he takes the view that the game should be played only in one way, and everything else is wrong. I'd call this narrow minded :D . Seeing all these online achievements popping up, you can tell where this comes from. It's kind of artificial competition for single player games. From the medals here on the forum to the steam achievements. But who cares, is the one that has only gold medals really a "better" player than you're? Probably not. A single player game is meant to entertain a single person, and there's no need to compete, there's no achievement. The only real achievement you can ever get in the X series is the **modified** tag, as it tells you, that you sucessfully screwed up the game :D

No need to worry about "cheating". The only limit is your own fun you get out of the game.

User avatar
Sarganto
Posts: 62
Joined: Thu, 29. Jan 04, 15:40

Post by Sarganto » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 17:21

I am all about saving time.

I try to limit myself and don't repair anything above M3 with a repair laser anyway. Just fly to a dock and repair the damn thing.

BUT I do use the cheat script to give my ships a jump drive, triplex scanners and docking computers (and other, in my eyes, really necessary stuff), as I really dislike how these things are handled in X3.
You can't buy them in bulk, i.e. just store 100 jump drives in a TL and equip all your new ships with it...NOOOO they have to FLY to Terracorp HQ or the other Boron thing! Same with the other equipment...
And then these upgrades are not even expensive or anything. So I just think "what the hell, I don't have all night to micromanage my ships flying through half the galaxy so I can use them the way I want".

Same with marines. Although I only gave myself 20 starting marines and now I am training a lot of new ones to replace the dudes that fell in combat.
Cae caret ora cruore nostro?

User avatar
DrATty
Posts: 222
Joined: Sun, 11. Jul 04, 13:26
x3tc

Post by DrATty » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 17:30

You don't need the rubber band. Use SETA while you fire the repair laser. It takes tenth of the time it would take otherwise.
Spoiler
Show
If you drop SETA from a ship you can pick it up in your spacesuit. You will lose the device when you re-enter a ship, but you could use a TM loaded with ships to supply the replacement SETA device.
Is this cheating or thinking?
My Blog
My Forum
_________________

stg1969
Posts: 620
Joined: Thu, 3. Nov 05, 18:08
x3tc

Post by stg1969 » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 17:33

Cheers guys, i was just after some opinions, i wasnt overly worried...

IMO X3TC became so much easier than X3 to gather wealth and move up to M6 M2 M1 that nothing really matters as much any more, the repetetive defend station missions where i ended up sitting in front of the gate in my Shrike with Gauss Cannons and IBL's and just blast the crap out of 10-15 M6's followed by an M2 to earn 15-20 million kind of took away the difficulty (although it took me a while to get there)..

:D
Cargo Bay now contains "Your Cold Dinner"

stg1969
Posts: 620
Joined: Thu, 3. Nov 05, 18:08
x3tc

Post by stg1969 » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 17:35

DrATty wrote:You don't need the rubber band. Use SETA while you fire the repair laser. It takes tenth of the time it would take otherwise.
Spoiler
Show
If you drop SETA from a ship you can pick it up in your spacesuit. You will lose the device when you re-enter a ship, but you could use a TM loaded with ships to supply the replacement SETA device.
Is this cheating or thinking?
Youre kidding me? You can use SETA in a spacesuit...am i being trolled?

Besides, i already have an Elephant containing 10 Disco's with Jumpdrives, i dont wanna be carrying loads of SETA's as well...lol
Cargo Bay now contains "Your Cold Dinner"

User avatar
Sarganto
Posts: 62
Joined: Thu, 29. Jan 04, 15:40

Post by Sarganto » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 18:28

How can you fire your repair laser while using SETA?

I thought it would cancel SETA if you click or press anything? :o
Cae caret ora cruore nostro?

lubnius
Posts: 127
Joined: Thu, 4. Mar 10, 19:34
x4

Post by lubnius » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 19:15

Hold both buttons

Dave500
Posts: 331
Joined: Sun, 5. Feb 06, 15:07
x3tc

Post by Dave500 » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 19:30

Press and hold Ctrl then press and hold j, you can also seta "flip" static ships this way although the up or down arrow keys have to be pressed simultaneously with j key plus you need a little inertia to start off with (ie, bring ship to stop, arrow key, arrow key+j)

User avatar
Ripskar
Posts: 1659
Joined: Mon, 22. Feb 10, 19:18
x3ap

Post by Ripskar » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 20:26

Just don't order any ships to collect astronauts in the sector... :goner:
Do you miss dangerous pirates?
Try leading the target a little more...

ImageCobra Mk. III Cmdr.

RefocusedLight
Posts: 188
Joined: Fri, 23. Dec 11, 20:40
x4

Post by RefocusedLight » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 20:35

i adore the guilt and counselling here.

you win.

A heathen anarchist's go-to comedy thread.
Can't create imaginary friends, only enemies
/Dresden Codak/

DnBrn47
Posts: 197
Joined: Sun, 25. Mar 12, 10:39
x4

Post by DnBrn47 » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 21:12

I frankly stopped giving a crap and loaded up both the repair laser x10 mod and the mobile repair mod that adds repair lasers for ships to the game. With ADS I also have engineers for repairing. I simply don't have the time or patience to vanilla repair laser my cap ships and I don't feel like paying 20 million to repair them.

Hell, before I got the mods I'd just jump away before I took hull damage as it was not worth the time it takes to repair or replace the equipment you lose for taking hull damage.

I'm not into the whole money/time sink thing, I just want to play the game and paying the face value of a ship to repair it or spending 5 hours holding down ctrl to repair it is not playing the game for me. I'd rather go run naked in the middle of the freeway during peak hours.

Nanook
Moderator (English)
Moderator (English)
Posts: 27829
Joined: Thu, 15. May 03, 20:57
x4

Post by Nanook » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 21:29

zazie wrote:Using the repair-laser in Vanilla games is not cheating, everybody knows. But if you do it excessively, the game will 'punish' you: Your fight-rank will go down considerably. ...
This is incorrect. The game 'punishes' you when you leave it idle for too long. Firing a laser is not being idle. In fact, it increases your hit percentage, if you look in your pilot stats. :lol:
DnBrn47 wrote:.... I'd rather go run naked in the middle of the freeway during peak hours.
And with that image in mind, I think we're all very glad that you use repair mods. :P
Have a great idea for the current or a future game? You can post it in the [L3+] Ideas forum.

X4 is a journey, not a destination. Have fun on your travels.

kurush
Posts: 4320
Joined: Sun, 6. Nov 05, 23:53
x3tc

Post by kurush » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 21:42

zazie wrote:Using the repair-laser in Vanilla games is not cheating, everybody knows. But if you do it excessively, the game will 'punish' you: Your fight-rank will go down considerably.
Don't you have to jam a button to make RL work? If so, rank degradation should not happen. In any case, I hacked in some RL into my vanilla game a while ago and I found that I barely use them. Repairing on a shipyard is so much faster.

Triaxx2
Posts: 7229
Joined: Tue, 29. Dec 09, 02:15
x4

Post by Triaxx2 » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 21:47

I always forget that. A weapon is a weapon.
A Pirate's Revenge Completed Now in PDF by _Zap_
APR Book 2: Best Served Cold Updated 8/5/2016

The Tale of Ea't s'Quid Completed

Dovie'andi se tovya sagain

User avatar
DrATty
Posts: 222
Joined: Sun, 11. Jul 04, 13:26
x3tc

Post by DrATty » Fri, 30. Mar 12, 23:23

stg1969 wrote:
DrATty wrote:You don't need the rubber band. Use SETA while you fire the repair laser. It takes tenth of the time it would take otherwise.
Spoiler
Show
If you drop SETA from a ship you can pick it up in your spacesuit. You will lose the device when you re-enter a ship, but you could use a TM loaded with ships to supply the replacement SETA device.
Is this cheating or thinking?
Youre kidding me? You can use SETA in a spacesuit...am i being trolled?

Besides, i already have an Elephant containing 10 Disco's with Jumpdrives, i dont wanna be carrying loads of SETA's as well...lol
The rubber band is great fun until someone loses an eye. Drop one from a Disco and send it off to re-equip. Everything I own has SETA. I don't want to be stuck in real-time if I can help it. I keep a few TMs loaded with equipment tasked solely with equipping ships in space. An Elephant is too slow and expensive.
I don't often bother repairing ships myself now. It was useful early on, and if a ship I want is too slow to get to safety because of damage I might still use it. I'm not sure if there's a reputation hit or not.
My Blog
My Forum
_________________

Post Reply

Return to “X Trilogy Universe”