New to X3, have few questions.

[ProdigyToby]

I started playing x3:TC about a month ago and was very surprised I've never heard of this game. I love space sims and this is by far the best one I have ever played, the combat and economy and overall feel of the game seems to be spot on. I have played many games similiar to this such as evochron mercenary, freespace, and even EVE Online but I think this is my favorite. About a week ago I also purchased AP and started having fun with that and I wasnt even aware this game had scripts or mods, so about two days ago I installed this really amazing mod called XRM? It brought a whole lot more life to the game and I was very happy with it. I have a few questions that have been bugging me and would greatly appreciate any help on the topics.

After playing for a month I still cant figure out how to deal with small flighters with lasers (Im tired of just shooting off wasp missiles to deal with them, I want to be more conservative with my cargohold), I have been trying to use phase repeater or something like that because the description said it would be good for this purpose but I can never hit any fighters with these things even with 6 of them shooting at the same time with the asisstance of autoaim, im wondering if theres something else I should try or maybe a script or mod that would help me with this.

About XRM. I had bought a special nova type ship (Im assuming its from this mod because I never saw this before) from a station in "The Wall", it was called Nova ARP or something like that but I couldnt figure out why it was so much more expensive than a regular nova. It was more expensive than a heavy nova vanguard and it had less power generation, less speed, WAY less cargohold than even the regular nova and it could only equip a certain type of weapon. From what I can tell it looks like this ship was designed to be some kind of anti fighter ship but it doesnt seem worth it to sacrifice the cargohold by more than half for alittle speed and extreme restriction on your weapon choice, is there something special about these kind of ships I am missing out on? They cost about a million more on average than your standard ships and aren't as good in my opinion. Any mods/script that would be good to add and would be compatible with XRM I would love to know about .

Edit: Also the mod seems to have made jumpdrive not usable by smaller ships . I find jumpdrives to be totally necessary because for missions where you have to hunt someone down if you dont jump right away someone else will kill the target and you will autofail it. Is there someway to be able to use jumpdrives again?

I hate to bring this up but the AI seems to...struggle at times. it seems to stutter at every gate, and its very hard for me to manage wings, is there any mods or scripts that help this?

Any other suggestions for must have scripts and mods I would appreciate hearing about, I'm very new and love the game and want to make it even better. Im into fleet battles and combat for the most part, the trading and station thing I havent delved into because its intimidating for me to try but im interested. I had an awful experience where I wasted around 2.3 million credits on a mercury hauler and it had all these upgrades, but when I sent it to trade at sectors all it did was standby in trade hubs. Thanks for your time for reading, hope to see some nice replys!

[Triaxx2]

A lot of these are S&M questions, but for the default things, it's not nearly that hard. Do you have Fight Software installed? If so look down in the lower left hand corner of the screen, where it shows your installed weapons. There should be something saying on. Press 'k' until it shows on. This will cause the auto-aim to flash blue when the boresight is over it. Use 'CTRL', or your joystick button to have the computer auto-correct. It won't be perfect, but it will help.

Frankly, I dislike XRM, because it has some very odd ideas about the way combat should work.

Yes, the AI is retarded. The Auto-pillock is run by a half-blind squirrel. Don't trust it. At all. There's not really a lot that can help.

Running AI freighters, probably using the Trade Mk3 software. You'll need to identify sectors with a lot of trade opportunities. Empire's Edge is often used, because there are lots of SPP's, lots of food and lots of things buying both of those. It's a great place to train them and they'll eventually be better able to make deals. When you hit level 6, you can increase the range they'll trade at and move them to sectors where there are less deals in one, but more in the surrounding sectors.

[ProdigyToby]

Thanks alot. I have indeed installed fight software and the corsair is there but I usually use "semi". Im not sure if thats totally different than "on" but I will give it a try. I can see where you are coming from about the combat with XRM, theres random pirates and stuff fighting everywhere but since combat is all I do I don't mind, im also very poor because combat missions dont pay well that often. Its sad to hear that about the AI :/. The thing i like most about XRM is the new ships and how the stations always seem to have weapons (In vanilla the stations would run out of weapons and ammo/missiles very fast, I did alot of combat.).

[Treelor]

Welcome to S&M! Let me link you a couple of mods that may help you out with some of the issues you're having.

1. Litcube's Bounce is great for relieving a lot of autopilot headaches. It does not make them any smarter, but it will prevent them from dying due to collisions. Forever. Without bounce, I have at least 2 or 3 fighter collision deaths per session - with it, I've had only one the entire game.

2. Gazz's MARS Fire Control script is an all-in-one turret solution which automatically switches lasers and targets based on the likelihood that the laser will hit the target, as well as switching targets to react to new threats. Its also got a couple of other convenient goodies in there, check it out.

I have to warn you about MARS though - its pretty much godmode unless you turn it on for all AI capital ships. Its vastly more effective than default turret scripts.

Also, that Nova ARP is actually referred to as a Nova PAR - check your hotkeys (Options -> Controls -> Interface) on that one. It comes with all equipment preloaded and you just have to hit the hotkey to activate the ship.


Edit: I might have misread your problem with hitting small targets. I thought you meant capital ships attacking fighters. If you mean fighter to fighter combat, wait for the enemy to start firing at you and fire a HEAVY laser (HEPT, usually, does the trick) as it passes by. This is because that laser has much more volume and the fighter is likely to just run right into it. Its kind of like sticking your fist out in the school hallway and some first grader running right into it.

[zhukov032186]

Hi, PT, and welcome! Like you, I found this game not terribly long ago, and got tangled up in XRM, too.

I'll give you a list of good, compatible mods/scripts to go with it that I'm currently using.

1st, you need to get the PlugIn Manager a handy little utility for managing scripts and some addin packs. You'll want to get JSON's Parser library for it, too, as it's a requisite for some mods.

Improved Boarding (which most importantly allows marines to be launched with a hotkey)

NPC Bailing, NPC Salvagers, and System Override Software, are three individual but closely related mods that with a little tweaking can make things more interesting.

Marine Repairs allows troops in your cargohold to be somewhat useful in between battles.

Logain's ECell Generator greatly reduces the hassle of having to "stop for gas" every five minutes when using a jumpdrive.

Smart Turrets does exactly what it sounds like.

In addition to the suggested items on the XRM page, when you combine Immersive Environments, IEX (Improved IE), and a little XRM compatibility patch, these GREATLY improve the space environment and introduce some really amazing backgrounds.

Ulfius Military HUD is a great addition. The colors are brighter than the vanilla hud, but doesn't have the glow around icons (I don't mind it, but when they overlap it can make the scanner hard to read) that the Ultimate HUD does.

And as my friend mentioned, LitCube's Bounce is pretty much essential. It really cuts down on friendly collisions.

I don't use MARS myself, I use the previously mentioned SMART Turrets, but it serves a similar purpose of improving auto turrets.

Then, when you're done with all that, and get adventurous, you can download X3Editor 2, and start learning how to manipulate data files )))



Regarding your game issues... PRGs are excellent anti-fighter weapons. They're very high speed and very accurate. If you are flying a freighter or heavy M3, it can be difficult to hit fast moving interceptors or especially scouts. There's really not much to be done about that except to hammer them when they're making an inbound pass (or use missiles).

The PAR ships, as Treelor mentioned, are pre-equipped vessels that are "activated" with a script. They actually cost about the same as a fully equipped ship, it's just a "convenience" thing to help reduce the headache of flying to hell and back trying to find all the gear for your ships. Probably not an issue for you at this point, but try outfitting ten or twelve ships at once and you'll quickly get my drift...

-edit

Regarding the auto aim, this is for player controlled weapons. Off means NO correction of any kind. Semi means if you're right on the edge of the lead reticle, it will slightly adjust. Full means as long as you are in the general vicinity of the lead reticle, it will adjust to put your fire "on target"... more or less. It is not "auto aim" as in guaranteed hits, just that it corrects for sloppy aim.

It is worth pointing out, that if a ship is in a turn, aiming at the lead reticle (which is what auto aim does) will NOT result in a hit. You instead, need to aim at the outside edge of their turn (because of their inertial drift) and you will score hits. If I described it wrong, or it doesn't make sense, experiment with it a little bit and you'll see what I'm talking about.

edit 2... I'm being unusually helpful... It's late and I'm tired, guess you caught me at a weak moment.

[ProdigyToby]

Thanks alot for the replies . Ill definitley be getting that plugin manager and some of those scripts (especially the ai one, its a real bummer when i tell autopilot to go dock at a station and it suddenly makes a turn and rams straight into the station it just undocked from.) I see, so it really is the case about the small fighters that I thought it was, to be honest id rather just equip heavy weapons and use wasp missile to deal with those little guys if it really is just "wait for them to get close" type of deal.

How do you guys manage multiple ships? The wing system can be wonky at times and my ships will straight up start being random and flying in weird directions sometimes.

[zhukov032186]

Bounce will help with that. When activated it affects only player ships, and basically turns off their collisions until an enemy is with 10k. In other words, all that wanky drunk driving crap stops. Well... It's not nearly so exaggerated, anyway.

[ProdigyToby]

Hey guys I seem to be having some strange issue, and it only happens in XRM sectors. I for instance will go into a sector and it will have a TON of ships, traders and whatnot, and pirate will come invade and then the game will crash when I run SETA almost all the time. Sometimes if theres enough stuff in the sector the game will crash without even using SETA. Is there someway to help this? Maybe somehow alter XRM so there isn't as much stuff flying around? Ive installed the no civilian mod and that seems to help alot.

[zhukov032186]

I don't think it should be crashing over quantity of ships. More likely there is another problem.

Regarding SETA, it's best not to run it over 6x at the most, as it tends to cause problems (although not crashes usually, this is just FYI)

Only a few major systems are heavily populated enough to achieve a noticeable slow down (and anywhere around the main Terran fleet, of course).

Are you sure everything is installed properly, and all scripts are installed?

You need parts 1 and 2, and remember to name them 03, 04 (or whatever, the point is don't forget the first 0). Also, have you made sure the scripts are all properly installed? It's worth mentioning that the part two has two directories (ScriptsTC and ScriptsAP). You need to choose the appropriate one, delete the TC/AP out of the name and copy it to the appropriate game directory (the root for TC, or under Addons for AP).

If I can play XRM on my laptop without crashes, you should, too, if everything is installed properly.

[ProdigyToby]

It more than likely is an install issue I think. Theres more random crashes just flying around random sectors, it never crashed before I installed a few things. I guess I will try to reinstall and see if it helps.

[ProdigyToby]

i reinstalled everything and now it works fine, no crashes at all. Too bad i have to start over, but the fun of the game is building up your empire anyway so im gonna try something new. im gonna try to make an empire off space weed for the challenge. thanks alot again guys

[zhukov032186]

You should be able to resume your save game, as long as you're still using all the same mods, I would think.

[ProdigyToby]

Yeah you were correct, i got my save back.

Does anyone know of a way i can remove all my satellites from being displayed on my property list? There is alot of them just cluttering up the list when im looking for specific ships.

[X2-Illuminatus]

My Property -> Options -> Show satellites -> No.

[ProdigyToby]

Ah there it is, thanks. I have a question about installing certain mods. In the XRM thread there are certain recommended mods such as the cockpit mod, im wondering how exactly you install these? do you just throw the files from the zip into the addon folder or do you also have to rename the files into a number like certain addons?

[jack775544]

Look in the zip.
If there is a CAT/DAT pair in there extract it to the addon directory and rename it to the highest number.
If it just has a couple of other directory's in there extract it and it will run without further interaction.

[ProdigyToby]

Ah I see, thanks for the clarification. This community is pretty awesome, very helpful.

[zhukov032186]

Remember to read the OP for mods, an oft neglected item that usually answers 90% of questions individuals might have. Any negativity from forum members is usually related to people NOT doing that.

*not directed at you specifically, just commentary on
"This community is pretty awesome, very helpful."

[ProdigyToby]

Hello again guys, need some suggestions with something else. I'm trying to figure out a way to increase the damage of all turrets in the game by a percentage, or even just the damage in general, reason being that I find smaller dogfights take alittle too long in my opinion, smaller turrets do very little damage to other fighters so they require alot of focus, and I find that the AI struggles alot because of this, im looking for a way to change that and I think increasing the damage of smaller turrets would help, but im willing to increase the damage across the board of all weapons if necessary if I have to use a script, thanks again!

[zhukov032186]

Only way to increase the damage of weapons reasonably is to use X3 Editor 2 to modify the weapon stats.

Since you're using XRM, it's worth asking if you are using one of the hull packs? You know what they do is increase the durability of ships, right? There are three: low, medium, and high. You don't have to use any of them, however, and just use "default" hull values, which are the least.