X£ AP - Terran Commander

[Sirus5]

After starting with X-BTF then X-Tension, X2 and X3, Stopped playing X-Series when Rebirth only allowed us one ship - but dusted the AP dvd's off the other day and started Terran Commander.

A. Started with a few taxi jobs and then picked up quite a few missiles in War sectors between Asteroid belt and Omicron. Then - braved Omicron in the Katana to get to PTNI.

B. Once in PTNI - 2 kestrels with full engine tuning started mapping the verse (one to Aldrin the other through Split, Teladi, Boron and Paranid) whilst several Valkyries went to save important stations from "God" both in Aldrin and Jupiter 2 etc.

C. Went to Cho's and got a Boa which has become my normal mount - with a Kestrel, Spitfyre and LX(capped so used it for it's cargo capacity until I can get better).

D. Quite a few taxi missions and a bit of Stock Exchange dabbling made enough for an Elephant and a Maxed Sturgeon - which went to Jupiter and put up a protein paste fab in an attempt to start reviving the economy - obviously I have to do much more in there - but it's a start.

Have a few little questions.

1. I have heard that the Plots trash your rep with Argon and Boron - Do they come back after you finish the plots? Can anyone expand more on this?

2. Argon rep - I am trying to get up a bit - killed a patrol of m's, L's and a Q with my Spitfyre and that got me to about 45% enemy of the federation, and was thinking of using a factory to up my rep further by having Argon come and collect a product - wondered about an ore mine in Paranid space, or Weed in Teladi space. Any ideas anyone pls?

3. I did a mission from Getsu - an argon assassination mission (very hard) and when I completed it it said many thanks from the Argon Government you are awarded 7.5m - but I got no rep rise - is that normal at low ranks?

4. Apart from Getsu, there seems to be large Capital massings in most Argon sectors - is this normal?

Thanks Guys

P.S. - most important is the question about Race Reps and the Plots - I just wanted to know if/when they come back to what they were before

[ancienthighway]

1. Any rep loss for what ever reason will only be fixed by your efforts. No magic rebounds once the war is over.
2. Killing Paranid, pirates, and Xenon in Argon space is your only option until you can work the Argon border sectors. Naturally, killing Terran ships in Argon controled war sectors will help, but kill your Terran rep at the same time. Factories may help a bit, but don't expect a lot of movement. Ore Mines in Hatikvah's Faith may be your best opportunity, but you'll have to fend off the pirates. Argon Prime is pretty flush on ore with the Argon ore mines in the "north" and Empire's Edge in the "south". Energy is good also. Transportation is the main problem in that area.
3. Depending on your current rep, any rep gains from missions may be so small that it may not register a change in the rank percentage. As your rank starts to approach the mid point, gains will be more noticeable.
4. You can count on a large military force in any core sector. Border sectors may not be as well guarded, but expect the Rapid Response Force to visit.

[Jimmy C]

First off, you have to get out of the bottom rank before missions can improve your rep. Just pull yourself out of Enemy of the Federation first, then look for Argon missions. Don't bother with trading right now. It won't make enough of a difference and will leave your freighters vulnerable.

Second, you got an LX so early in the game? My advice is keep that ship safe until you can reverse engineer it. Twice I've run through AP and both times it took forever to cap my first LX. I caught every other Xenon ship before it.

[fireanddream]

Use the hub to redirect xenon migration route for your convenience.

For example, connect to aladna hill/akeela's beacon & getsu fune/menelaus' paradise then go kill xenon in 596 and 597. As a result xenon from 101 will attempt to go through aladna hill, go kill them there.

[Bill Huntington]

Welcome back, Sirus5! You picked the harder of the two game starts. Most like Argon Peacekeeper. You have the same problems in both. I didn't realize it until ancienthighway said it. Killing Paranid in Argon space should make it relatively easy. The hard thing is just to raise your rep one level or two. Then Argon missions will be offered in the border regions normally. In Argon Peacekeeper I killed Argon ships in the Terran war zones for small percentage raises in rep. I lost Argon rep but I could rebuild that much easier. I had to kill about 20 of them. One game I got lucky and fired the last shots that killed an M2 for a big jump in rep. You might have to take breaks to rebuild Terran rep so it doesn't go too low. If you choose to attack the Paranid, then rebuild rep with them before you get too low.

[Sirus5]

Hi Guys - thanks Bill for those comments.

Yeah - I am not bad with capping as I capped the Perseus in X2 - man that was really hard!

I haven't yet done ANY missions - the Loose Ends will be my first but I heard that Boron rep is trashed during the mission and Comes back after the plot is finished!

I thought I would get a few Sturgeons before I start Loose Ends as if my boron rep is trashed, I can't get for a while.

I am going to put a Teladianium station near Empire Edge - the Argon will need that as a secondary resource and that should help. In addition, I am about to put an ice and water complex in Oort Cloud.

I am finding that God has already removed some stations - I wrote myself a couple of scripts to check a sector here and there on a backup save (So I keep it vanilla) - I used to quite like the scripting.

Terran Commander is definitely an interesting start

[shanrak]

Between the two terran starts, I found the aldrin explorer one to be much easier because the spitfyre was so much faster for moving through terran space and also you don't start with negative argon rep

Anyway, if your rep is either at the lowest (-5) or highest (10), you can't gain rep from doing missions of a race, you only get rep by killing enemy ships in their sector. That is why you didn't gain any rep from that assassination mission.

Another easy way of farming up argon rep (though this will take some significant effort to set up), is to get your split rep up first and do the shady business plot, at a certain point you will find gaining argon rep to be extremely easy. I won't spoil it much past that.

Also, your boron rep won't be trashed too badly, in the few times where you have to fight borons there will be other terran ships there who can do most of the work. If you do it right and build up a little boron rep (like to level 5), you shouldn't ever end up going hostile to the borons in the entire terran plot.

[Jimmy C]

They say your Boron rep gets trashed in Loose Ends, yet I didn't see that. My rank wasn't the highest at the point when they said it would get trashed, but I didn't see any further reduction after that.

And I got my stuff out of Boron space ahead of it to be safe.

[Sirus5]

Hi Jimmy, - Thanks for that info

I did see this piece of information...

"Shortly afterwards the Boron declare war on the Terran's for the abduction of Mahi Ma. The Boron's will also go hostile to you (as you're a Terran), so get all your properties out of Boron sectors as soon as you can! For the time being. "

This prompted me to assume my boron rank would plummet - however, it MAY e that they just become enemy for the duration and the rank stays the same.

I am enjoying the harder start as Terran Commander - it's more satisfying when you get there, and it was certainly a challenge getting to other sectors in the Katana whilst trying to kill as few Argons as possible

Incidentally, I found a blind spot for the Q whilst killing one with my M3 -
I was in front of it and about 30 degrees to one side... It appears the main guns could not hit me and neither could the turrets. If you are on the Lower or upper side - there is a turret which can get you, but on the left or right and at the front, there appeared to be a blind spot which allowed me to gradually get the shields down and kill it after removing a few L's and M's.

I am hoping that Egosoft will go forwards after their Rebirth fiasco and back to something like X3 where you can fly ALL the ships again.

[Jimmy C]

The thing is, nothing happened with the Borons after they joined the war on the Argons' side. They didn't go hostile to my assets or attack my stuff that was still in Boron space or me when I entered their sectors.

Next, Terran Commander is supposed to be the easier start according to Starting Choices description. And the Aldrin start doesn't appear until you've finished the Terran Commander start first, and it's rated Hard.

[RAVEN.myst]

Just a word of caution: you mention setting up a factory in Jupiter. This is one of the War Sectors, so there's a strong chance that the station will be periodically or even constantly attacked - there's a mechanic pertaining to War Sectors that has one faction attacking your assets there when you are OoS, even if you are friends with both Argon and Terran (the faction with the lower rep, even if it's by 1%, will be the one attacking you, even if they are both in their respective top reputaion rank). This works for ships, not sure whether it affects assets in general. It sounds to me like you wouldn't really have a problem with this, so as long as you are willing and able to defend your station, it's all good (Building stations for NPC factions in these sectors is perfectly viable, though.)

As far as the hit on Boron reputation goes, that is purely as a result of certain in-game actions you will have to take while pursuing the plot. In the interests of non-spoilering, I will say no more, other than that you can quite simply safeguard yourself by slightly improving your relations with them in advance, to offset future... indiscretions

Happy hunting!