X3 Reunion - first timer - reccomended mods?

[Kilihari]

Hello all,

I know there is a similar post to this from back around ten years ago, but this is a different post as this will be the first time I have played this game, I assume that there are many people out there who want to do the same. So this is for people like me, the total newbs out there to X3 ...

Little bit of background, I have just did a playthrough of X:BTF(Shilds are all I get?), XT(Paranid Perseus mission done!),X2:The Threat(Brettttt noooooo). I want to play though the entire story of the game so when I get to X4 I will totally understand the story and what is going on in the universe. I have loved the X story so far, for me, it is great. Just going to read though Farnham's Legend again.

Sooo.. this brings me to X3: Reunion.

I would like to play the Vanilla Game. I loaded it up, surprised to see that there are no cockpits? I know there is a cockpit mod, so I should probably install that right, or no? Honestly though, what else should I install to make the experience better? Different UI? Should I play the game again on X-Treme difficultly like in X2? But legit, X2 it kicked my butt, I was surprised to see all of my transport ships just dying to the Kha'ak after a couple of days and nothing I could do about it. Also.. a maxed out transporter cost me like 2 million credits and the factories cost a fraction of that... it was to me.. a little strange.

This being said...

I would love to have a fun mostly vanilla-ish playthrough of X3:Reunion, what are the mods/scripts that you would install to make the user experience super fun, less confusing? I would like to keep my X3:R playthrough around the 150-200 hour mark if possible.

-Kili

[X2-Illuminatus]

The difficulty level just determines the conditions at the start of the game. It has no effect on the difficulty in trading, fighting and so on.
When I switched from X2 to X3R back in the day, I installed a Cockpit mod but removed it later, as I did not feel that the Cockpits were fitting to the new models. Also I felt that their placements were wrong, i.e. the cockpit should have been at a different position than the camera. But if you need cockpits for immersion, then sure go ahead and install a cockpit mod.

As for must-have scripts and mods, since you mentioned that you want to stay mostly vanilla the bonus package is the obvious choice. It's a collection of community made scripts - signed by Egosoft, so that they do not turn the game to *modified*. Apart from that I actually don't remember if I played with any other scripts and mods back in the day.