Confirmed for 3.0 - so far yet unconfirmed for 3.1 (although the changelog doesn't mention anything about this plot, so it should work fine in 3.1 - If someone can confirm this, it would be very appreciated!)
Hi there,
Although I’m new to the forum I’ve decided to write a guide about a problem that bugged me for a while. In this topic I will describe how you can acquire the Goner Ozias in X3 AP 3.0 without destroying your reputation with the Argons, Terrans and Goners, while ending the shady business plot in the peaceful way. All this without going modified, of course. I consider this to be my contribution to a great community of a great game series
A word of caution:
What I’m going to describe here will probably be considered as an exploit by a lot of players. The way we are going to acquire the Ozias (while not directly cheating) is certainly not a way which was meant to be played like that and somewhat uses a bug in the mission script. I guess you can compare it a lot to the CPU ship in X3 TC which also was never meant to get in player hands but was still obtainable with some tricks (and a lot of players enjoyed doing so). This method will not get you modified and won’t change your game in any negative way, and will give you access to a great ship which was not meant to be obtainable if you wanted to end the war. If you want to do this trick or not is your personal choice. Please don’t judge others for doing it, it’s a single player game
Requirements:
- Player owned HQ with empty reverse engineering queue
- A M7M with a jump drive, energy cells, a few flails and a transporter device (If you really don’t have a M7M, a TP should work as well)
- A hand full of good marines on the M7M, 20x4-5 stars would be best
- A jump beacon (hard to acquire, I know – but don’t worry, it won’t be lost)
- Shady business plot played to the part where you have to destroy the capital ships, but with at least one capital ship left in Segaris (if you already finished shady business, there is no other way of obtaining the Ozias except starting a new game. I’m sorry)
- (for the sake of convenience later on) A half way good goner rank which will excuse stolen TL and still offer you missions afterwards (Trusted Pilgrim worked fine for me)
- A good hand full of salvage insurances
Side effects:
- Minor reputation loss with the Goner – what you normally get for boarding a TL (Can be fixed easily with a few easy missions afterwards)
- Nothing else that I knew of
Result:
- Blueprint of the very rare and great Goner Ozias TL
- No Reputation loss with Argons or Terrans
- Only minor Reputation loss with the Goners
- Finished Shady Business plot with the “peace”-ending (thus ending the war)
So let’s get started. I assume you are at the point where you have decided to protect the Ozias against the Yaki and are about to destroy the 50 Xenon capital ships.
The problem is the following: Destroying or Boarding the Ozias now by regular means will end the Shady Business plot, dropping your Argon, Terran und Goner Reputation to the ground and also keeping the war. But as soon as you end the Shady business plot in the peaceful way (what means destroying 2x25 Xenon capital ships) the Ozias and the OTAS fleet will jump away about 2 minutes later and be gone forever. Sending boarding troops directly after finishing the plot is possible, but wouldn’t work, as there is not nearly enough time. You may manage to get your marines on board the Ozias, but it would just jump away halfway through the boarding and even take all your marines with it. However there are a few tricks to bypass this problem and still acquire the Ozias:
How it is done:
First of all, you need your missile frigate with your marines on board in the unknown sector east of legends home. (Where the Ozias flies around) Send it to follow the Ozias.
When going for the capital ship kills at the end of the plot, proceed until you have destroyed all 25 ships in Black hole sun and 24 in Segaris (so there is only one left). When you are at that point, destroy the last one, so you get a “mission accomplished” and the new order to fly to Black hole sun. But don’t do so yet! Flying to BHS would end the plot and make the Ozias jump away forever.
Now comes the first trick: The mission would be failed only if the Ozias gets destroyed or boarded. But technically a ship is not boarded until the ship control gets transferred to you. This means having your marines fight on the decks or even hacking the core will NOT break the plot yet, and allows you to finish it in time. (And a finished plot can’t be failed afterwards
)For some further preparation, get your jump beacon on any ship you don’t control yourself. Bring it in the sector of your HQ and tell him to “go to position” and select your HQ. This must all happen OOS, so if your HQ is in the unknown sector east of legends home (which mine actually was), order it to fly near the HQ and issue the command again with the exact position after you’ve jumped out.
The next part is to board the Ozias. Jump to the unknown sector and order your m7m to send three flail barrages at the Ozias, this will kill the shields and do minor hull damage. Immediately command your m7m to board the Ozias, send another flail barrage to suppress the shields and your marines should get in. Bringing your marines on the ship is probably one of the easiest boarding tasks you’ll ever have, as the Ozias is very slow, very big, and completely unarmed.
For further preparation order your m7m to follow the Ozias as soon as the final missile volley is in the air. (This is important, your m7m has to be closer than 5km to the Ozias! We will come back to that later) Then jump to a remote sector and order your ship with the jump beacon to “move to position” and select your headquarters, if you have not already done so. This time it has to be right on top of the HQ, not just near it. We will also come back to this very soon.
While your marines are on board, your Goner Rep will drop a few levels. This is, as far as I’m concerned, unavoidable. That’s why I mentioned it doesn’t hurt to have a decent Goner reputation (which will at least still offer you missions afterwards) in the requirements above.
When your marines are at deck 5, jump to Black hole sun and receive your “congratulations”-screen. This will end the shady business plot with “peace in our time”. Your marines should hand over the Ozias a few seconds later and the ship is yours. This action would normally fail the plot, but you’ve already finished it and cannot alter the outcome anymore. Only if you time it too tight, you can receive a “mission success” and a “mission failure” immediately afterwards. I’m not sure what will happen then but I strongly advice to avoid that case and reload just to be save.
Congratulations, the Ozias is now yours and the war is over. If you can live with a ravaged reputation and really only wanted the ozias and a peaceful ending of shady business, you can stop reading here. But if you also want to protect your reputation (which I strongly advice) we are not finished yet. You will see all the OTAS ships in the unknown sector. They will jump away very soon. In a normal game the Ozias would jump away with them. (The time is about 2 minutes and a bit random, so if you have really bad luck, reloading might help) If you just waited now, your Argon, Terran and Goner reputation would drop to the ground as soon as the OTAS fleet jumps away. On the one hand the plot would not be failed and you could actually keep your Ozias, but your reputation would be ravaged. The next paragraph will explain how to avoid that as well:
The real trick is the following: The mechanics (as far as I understand them) work like this: After the 1-2 Minute pause, the OTAS ships jump away and the game checks one last time for the Ozias. If it is was either destroyed by you, your Argon, Goner and Terran Reputation will drop to the bottom. And if the Ozias is your property (what logically would mean you have boarded the ship), the same will happen. But lucky for us, one case was not regarded: What would be if the ship would just not be in the game anymore without ever having been destroyed? (Don’t bother about hiding it in a sector far away or even using the UFJD – this won’t help) The real trick of this guide is to put the Ozias in the reverse engineering cycle of your Headquarters before this final check is performed. Reverse engineering technically does nothing but removing the ship from your game and starting a countdown for you to acquire the blueprints. If you manage to get it there in time, the OTAS fleet will jump away and your reputation won’t change a bit. (Well, you never *destroyed* the Ozias and it is also not your property – so the mission script thinks you never harmed the Ozias. I’m pretty sure you could sell or recycle the Ozias as well without reputation loss, but seriously, why would you do that
) When the reverse engineering has finished, you can build your own Ozias, or even many of them. This takes about 13 hours to RE and another 13 to build, but it’s really worth the waiting So how it is done:
As soon as the congratulations-screen is gone, every second counts. For all what is going to happen now it is required that you are not in the same system (so it’s best to just stay in black hole sun - but watch out for remaining xenon ships). Remember your ship which you had moved to the position of your headquarters? It should be there by now, so order it to drop the jump beacon. The beacon should now have exactly the same position and coordinates as your HQ. As soon as you hear “ship computer control transferred”, tell your m7m to exchange freight with the Ozias and transfer back all your marines. (It should be in range as you gave the order to follow the Ozias) Then transfer the energy cells and the jumpdrive. Now order the Ozias to jump to the beacon you just deployed. As soon as she’s there give her the command to dock at your HQ. (You wouldn’t have the time to let her fly even a few kilometers in space as she is far too slow and your time frame is extremely short – hence the trick with the jump beacon) If you did everything right, she should be docked almost instantly. Select your HQ at once and add the Ozias to the reverse engineering cycle. It will again take a few (very valuable) seconds before they finally start to recycle it. If it starts before the OTAS ships have jumped away, then you did everything right – and probably realize how tight the timing was when you see the OTAS fleet depart only a few seconds later.
Congratulations, now you’re just 13 ingame hours away from the very rare Ozias blueprints (which you should never have gotten in a game where you want to end the war) while keeping your reputation clean and bringing peace to the galaxy. The Ozias is a really neat TL, it has the highest shields of its class and it can dock TS and TP class ships. The cargo and the speed are also really good. Enjoy the most unique TL that probably ever found his way into X3 AP – in a (more or less
) peaceful galaxy!Some final notes:
- If you have problems boarding the Ozias (because you don’t have many good marines available) you can also fry the equipment of the Ozias with Ion Disruptors before, until the cargo life support system breaks. This will remove all marines on board, making the boarding for a weak marine group much easier. But this step is not necessary if you have 20 good marines, they will board the Ozias without any losses just as well.
- If you cannot obtain a jump beacon by any means, there is also another way, which is even more of an exploit and I don’t really feel too comfortable with it. (but it works) Order the Ozias to jump to the sector of your HQ and then tell her to go to the coordinates “3000000, 3000000, 3000000”. This will catapult her to a very remote point in the system instantly (and shake the whole sector, other ships you might have in this sector get moved as well – stations or the HQ however should not move) Then you can order her to dock, and because the game somehow fails to calculate the times for such big distances right, it should somewhat beam directly to your HQ – this must all happen OOS. I really feel more comfortable using the jump beacon method, but if all else fails, you might try this as well. But seriously, save before. Just in case.
I hope this helps some people who always wanted this beautiful ship as much as I did. X3 is a great game and I hope the X community and universe never dies.
)
