I did remember that, luckily! I just spent what felt like an eternity with the torch to patch up the hull. Now I’m tossing up whether to explore more or to jump into the freighter, kit it out and do some cargo runs.
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Trade command software mk3, start sector trader and leave him too it. I don’t bother with universe trader anymore as the damn Xenon just blow up the damn thing after a few hours.
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Yeah, I think that’s a good plan. I’ll need to make some money first to buy the software and kit him up with shields. The freighter is too slow for a personal ship.
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I set out tonight to shuffle my equipment between the Mercury Super Freighter (the one I bought off that poor chap who ended up as a pirate slave) and my Buster.
I transferred the jumpdrive over and set out to get some of the necessities for a sector trader.
I’d forgotten how much cargo upgrades cost…and how good commodity runs are for improving rank. While lugging around at 77m/a is slow, it’s okay at 1000% SETA…so I ended up doing supply runs for the Split and the Pirates. 5900 energy cells from an XL solar plant somewhere, haul it to a sector with no solar plants and sell to the highest bidder. Mitigate slow in-sector speed by jumping to the nearest gate.
Not bad…the Split now consider me a Comrade rather than a Shameless Creature and while I can’t buy their best wares, at least they now let me dock at their stations in core sectors as well as border sectors, something they did not let me do yesterday.
The early acquisition of the super freighter has shaped my game somewhat. I think I’ll max out this ship flying it personally first before employing a trader. I do need an employee, though…right now I’ve got no passive cashflow. Can’t have that.
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I made myself at home at the helm of the super freighter for a bit - the money was good and everyone appreciates a delivery of energy cells…or ore…or sometimes whisky…so I felt appreciated. I also threw in a cargo life support pod in the back so the not-so-discerning customers could catch a ride every now and then, mercenaries needing to get closer to their next battle and the like.
Once I had kitted out the old boat (man, those cargo space expansions cost money!) and built up a bit of a kitty, I sent her to Emperor Mines and hired a local Paranid chap to do some sector trading. Here she is, about to hop off to Paranid space to start her career as a trading workhorse:
I did kind of skip a step, there, didn’t I. I found a nice personal ship, a Nova M3, for sale for a measly 500k credits, or thereabouts. Much less than what they retail for, anyway. The problem was, I bought her at a remote sector without many shipyards near.
Luckily, my booze runs with the Yaki had helped and they were happy enough to let me get my hands on my favorite TM, the Chokaro. 154 m/s, baby! She’ll outrun an M3 if you’re not careful…and she’s got a good booty to boot, with a decent cargo space for energy cells and the odd passenger.
So I picked the Chokaro up, left the freighter at the shipyard for the time being, aptly named the Chokaro “Mother Hen” and went to pick up the unshielded, unarmed Nova. I then also went to pick up the Buster, my first ship, and jumped off to Terracorp HQ and a bunch of other places to pick up groceries - extra jump jets, triplex scanners, Trading Software and the like.
The handy thing about TMs is - they kind of act as a mobile base. You can have a decent M3 there for when the going gets tough, a little M5 mostly just to hold jumpjet spares etc. and a spare space for abandoned ship mission pickups.
So - now I was kind of sorted out for a bit! Geared up for a few different missions / exploration with my Hen & Chickens, with the main goal of getting a few Traders up and running in the core sectors for passive income. I’m all about financial planning, baby (the worst pickup line ever). But look at this setup - badass!
I set off to improve race relations further by doing abandoned ship missions and the like, whist picking up cheap TS’s whenever I saw some. Here we are, picking up an Argon interceptor some idiot pilot left on the side of the road last night after knocking off one too many shots of Yaki space fuel…
I now employ three traders. A chap called Tupmanckigttab is the first and best of the lot, he is a level 12 Trade Negotiator now and can stretch his legs 4 jumps wide if I let him (I don’t).
In addition to old Tuppie, we’ve got Almanckamstras, who can now call himself a proud level 5 Freight Pilot. At the back of the room we also have young Ramanckatsalss, who barely knows what the cockpit buttons do as a level 3 Freight Pilot Second Class…but he’ll get there.
I also found a cheap Split TS, which is great - I’ll just need to scrape off the rust and replace a few panels, get her kitted out…but Empire’s Edge is kind of full with Alman and Raman learning the ropes, so I’ll probably hold off employing another munter until those knobs are ready to face the world.
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I haven’t even played Elite Dangerous for 15 minutes…and now you go posting all these cool screens for a totally different game. Argh!
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Raging against the monster you created, @BeachAV8R. (Now, where did I put that teeny-tiny violin case?..)
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Aren’t you supposed to be flying your Chinook?? (I’m studiously avoiding reading too much about your impressions after the update…and definitely not looking at screenshots…)
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Haha - now you just need to cave in and I’ll claim my “bad influence” badge 
The great thing about X3:AP for me is that the cadence of the gameplay allows me to stay present at home (if baby wakes up etc.) and let’s me do chores between short mission stints (a passenger pick up & drop off mission might take 5-10 mins with time acceleration).
That (and the fact it runs on my non-gaming laptop) makes it a good fill-in game to get my gaming kicks until things stabilise at home a bit with the newborn.
Quite amazing that I can have something like this running on my old mediocre laptop, really - it’s not Elite in terms of graphics, but it is very pretty despite that…and all the gameplay aspects are very well thought out and ironed out over time, it is a true sandbox.
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Working on it. But I want to do justice to the work those guys put into it. Plus, all my friends have changed sandboxes.
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I have been slowly adding to the trade fleet. I currently have four sector traders working for me.
Tupman is now fully graduated as a level 20 Major Dealer - I will probably keep him as a sector trader with a 5-10 jump range rather than letting him go free as a Universal Trader.
Alman and Raman have mostly figured out what the cockpit switches do and are becoming increasingly useful at levels 14 (Chief Trade Negotiator) and 15 (Small Trader) - they can also now stretch their legs across a few jumps to get access to better trades.
My most recent hire, Elmanckalsann, is roaming Empires Edge to get the gist of things - he is currently a Level 7 Distributor.
In the meantime I’ve been zipping around in the Mother Hen (Chokaro TM), doing missions to improve trade relations with all the races and picking up cheap second hand ships whenever I ran into a good deal.
As part of this venture, I’ve ended up buying three Nova variants - one base model Nova, one Sentinel and one Raider. It’s a bit strange…I thought Sentinel models were supposed to be sturdier, but it looks like there’s no difference to the base model except slower speed. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers.
I’m a bit bored of the passenger missions, so I’m currently going around looking for weapons and equipment for the fighters, with the idea to go look for trouble soon.
Behold, the Devils, my first M3 Fighter wing!
I’ll use the Chokaro as the “mini-carrier” and will equip the fighters with a mix of High Energy Plasma Throwers and Particle Accelerator Cannons.
The HEPTs should work well against heavier fighters, while the faster projectile of the PAC is more effective against zippy light fighters, fast Xenon Ns and such.
I will put fast-firing Phased Repeater Guns in the rear turrets for missile defense and to discourage pesky M5s from trying to get on the good seat behind my heavier fighters.
I’ll need to also get some missiles to improve the lethality of my wing. Some swarm missiles would be nice, just need to find a factory with some stock.
Edit:
First post-action shot of the Devil Wing - I found a bunch of Xenon fighters and came out victorious (albeit in a well defended sector - I had help).
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If I may ask a question or two about X4 in general…
I’ve never played any X game, and am coming from a background of Elite Dangerous Horizons (maybe 1500 hrs.). The trading and mining part of X4 seems appealing, but I’m having some trouble seeing how some combat elements work. Primarily…
Suppose I use a starter ship for a bit of hauling. Can I be “interdicted” and a Pirate destroy my ship and cargo in few seconds? Is there an insurance “rebuy” or just restart with a new save?
Secondly, I very much enjoy a “first person” experience with trade and mining in Elite. How viable is this perspective in X4? Is the manual flight aspect as solid as Elite, or is X4 more automation oriented for such gameplay elements.
Thanks for any replies, and some great posts and screens here. Fun to read!
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Firstly - I am yet to play X4, the stories and the screens are from the previous game (actually 2 games ago), X3:Albion Prelude (which is an extension to X3:Terran Conflict). 
So the below may only apply to X3:Terran Conflict / X3: Albion Prelude - in saying that, it’s an awesome game so and definitely worth giving it a go despite it being 10+ years old!
As to your questions. Pirate “interdiction” in X3 is in some ways a bit easier to avoid than in Elite: Dangerous…or different, anyway.
The X3 universe is divided into sectors a few 100km’s across. You go between sectors via jump gates, so you’re kind of always only in local space - it doesn’t have the same real scale and speed stuff going on. Either you are in-sector or you’re going through basically the same jump animation as in Elite…but you won’t get “interdicted” mid-jump.
So when you arrive to a sector, you might see some pirates in the scanner (a 360 degree radar) and typically you can avoid them or run back through the gate you came from. Once you get a jump drive, you can initiate a jump from where you are in-sector - until you get a jump drive, you have to manually go through the gates.
Unless you’re doing hardcore dead-is-dead mode, your game is automatically saved every time you go to a space station. Apart from that, you can purchase one-off insurance tickets to save the game when you aren’t docked at a space station.
Trade and mining - you tend to start doing all that manually by yourself and then start deploying automated ships and building stations and such. Mining in X3 is probably a bit less exciting than in Elite, just due to the graphics and mechanics being a bit simpler…it’s an older game, after all. I did a bit of core mining in Elite and that was definitely a more dynamic experience than in X3.
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I found X4 very different from X3. But I played it at release and refunded it through steam. I really fancy giving it another shot now it’s a bit more fleshed out. I could never get on with the flying in Elite due to its much more hands on nature. X3 is very much a set destination on the autopilot and let her do her thing. The combat is brutal. Very punishing at the beginning and only slightly easier at the end.
What X3 and I would assume X4 is incredible at is empire building. You can build space stations, complexes, shipyards, fleets and trade hubs that will literally break the economy. Its much slower and more focused on the universe you play in rather that Elites focus on your (in my limited experience) immediate surroundings.
The Xenon are a total pain in the ass though but very satisfying to crunch in a all our fleet battle.
Put simply and without hyperbole. If I could save 2 games from the fire and only play them forever 1 would be DCS and the other would be without a doubt X3.
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I have to agree. I ignored the old 3-to-1 superiority merge rule and attacked a Xenon convoy consisting of 3 interceptors (M4), 3 fighters (M3) and one PX, which I think is a corvette from memory (M6) with my wing of 3 M3s and the support TM (with 4 PACs).
I took out the front wave of 3 M4s easily enough but as soon as the corvette and the M3s got in range, we were toast in about 20 seconds…and that 20 seconds included strafe dodging and extending 
Got out backsides handed to us well and properly! Back to reality…I’m hardly a carrier group commander yet 
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Even with the deck stacked HUGELY in your favour the Xenon are extremely hard to kill against. The best way (I’ve found) is to bait and trap them. Send in a super fast ship like a kestrel and lure them out of the battle area. Then have a monster fleet ready to pounce just inside the jump gate area of the next sector. They never withdraw and never surrender, so its easy to smoke them. Kind of a reverse ganking.
The paranid are great fun to do this to as well. They are easier to kill then the bloody Xenon
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Ok so i thought with update 5 and a few DLC’s available at a discount plus a new DLC coming out yesterday it was time to give it another go.
A lot has changed. Only put an hour or so in so far but the whole interface looks good and the tutorials are much clearer.
Ill keep you posted but im optimistic
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Man, I wanted to try that for literally years now, but I know that I just don’t have the time.
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I dont either really, ill never be able to dive deep like i did with X3
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Man, I don’t even know how many hours I put into X1, X2 and X3 and all their addons.
Much more time back then.
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