Poll: Best X Game to start with?

[Xeorm]

So, I grabbed all the X games aside from the most recent game in a steam sale because the concept of them really intrigued me.

Unfortunately, the games seemed quite slow to get into, and I had other games I wanted to try out first.

But now I'm asking, which would be a good one to start with?

I've had some experience with the genre, but it was some years ago.

 

[Peleandros]

If you're going to play any of them, I would recommend either starting with Albion Prelude or Rebirth. While it might be interesting to see where things started, Albion Prelude is really the most interesting one.

 

[Ryotknife]

(makes a so so motion with his hand about Albion Prelude)

There are a few differences between AP and TC. Truth be told not a big fan of the changes made in AP.

1. boarding is harder than ever, and it was already annoying in TC
2. While the war in AP can cause some random interesting events, it feels on the whole...lackluster. Random Xenon invasions are more interesting, or accidently walking into a war that just sparked between two races.
3. the campaigns in AP feel lackluster and give little sense of accomplishment in comparision to TC.
4. while boarding ships is harder, STEALING ships has never been easier. Step 1, get a "retrieve my ship" quest. Step 2, take ship. Step 3, dock ship in friendly pirate territory. You take very little reputation hit.
5. Stock Exchange is cheap as hell.

Lastly, my biggest grievance with AP. Bombers and missle frigates. If there ever was a "boss" in AP its the missile frigate. A single frigate is capable of annihilating entire fleets and an entire system worth of space stations with merely a press of a button. Now, missiles are expensive....for players...but the AI has no such limitation. They SPAWN them with full missile bays. And keep in mind there are two classes that are suppose to be ABOVE frigates (destroyers and carriers) that are laughable by comparison.

Now I understand why the change was made. In TC bombers and missile frigates were easy kills and lucrative targets. To put it in WoW terms, they took a helpless critter and turn it into a 25 man heroic raid boss. They had to throw out an optional patch/mod to fix the gross imbalance and make the game playable.

Although the removal of the Kh'aak from AP can not be understated.

 

[Aeshi]

The X games do take a while to get started, and I'd argue that's one of their biggest flaws.

I personally recommend playing Albion Prelude first, preferably with the "Argon Peacekeeper" start scenario, as this starts you off with a fairly good ship and a quest chain that gets you both a lot of money and some other decent ships fairly quickly.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I can't believe the very first post recommended X: Rebirth. My mind can't even...comprehend. Play Albion Prelude or Terran Conflict instead.

 

[Ranorak]

I like to follow up on the OP's question with one of my own.
How do I get started in this game?
I get the felling that these games are a bit like The ElderScrolls in Space.
That they are more about doing your thing, exploring the world then about the main mission.

But I just don't know what to do after I finished that flight school.
I tried a mission once, I told me to kill a dude, 20 seconds out of the station I got a message that I failed and the guy was killed by something else. I didn't even get to the blue spaceportal thing.

Are there any good tips of how to start, what to do, just to get the ball rolling.

 

[raeior]

If you don't mind the graphics I think X2 might be a good starting point. It has less features which could make the getting into it part easier and the story was presented better in my opinion than it was in the later games. If you want to play one of the X3 games I would say Terran Conflict. Although i have yet to play Albion Prelude, so I can't really say anything about that.

As to getting started: Well they all take a lot of time until you get enough money for basically anything. You can just follow the mainquest but usually that ends at some mission where you are supposed to have a bigger ship because otherwise the enemies will just slaughter you. Problem is: The game never tells you this.
But you have quite a few options to get past the start:
1. Trading: Buy low and sell high, easy as that. Can take a LOT of time. Energy cells are a good place to start because you can usually buy them quite cheap and they are always in demand.
2. Missions: Kill missions offer you quite good rewards but you have to see if you can handle them. Sector patrols or defend station missions are typically the best ones for this. If you're lucky you can capture some enemy ship and sell or use it.
Transport missions can also be nice if you have enough storage space for the goods in question.
The "kill some guy in sector X" missions can be a pain in the ass because more often than not that guy will sit in some big ship that you won't bring down with your starting weapons.
3. Exploring: There are quite a lot of ships hidden in different sectors, but finding them without a guide is pretty hard. You can use or sell them and that should give you quite a nice start.
4. Piracy: Shooting traders until they give up their ship and or wares is always an option. Although you will piss of their faction in the process. Also don't do this in sectors belonging to one of the main factions because they WILL hunt you down.

After you earned some money you can buy a trading ship and install the trade software MK3 in it. That enables the ship to trade on it's own and ensures a steady income for your further ventures.

 

[Fractral]

I like to follow up on the OP's question with one of my own.
How do I get started in this game?
I get the felling that these games are a bit like The ElderScrolls in Space.
That they are more about doing your thing, exploring the world then about the main mission.

But I just don't know what to do after I finished that flight school.
I tried a mission once, I told me to kill a dude, 20 seconds out of the station I got a message that I failed and the guy was killed by something else. I didn't even get to the blue spaceportal thing.

Are there any good tips of how to start, what to do, just to get the ball rolling.

I'm assuming you have either X3TC or X3AP. What you want to do is start with the Argon Commander (if you're in X3AP, since playing Terran in AP makes a lot of people hate you) or the Terran Commander (if you're in X3TC) and doing the story missions that you get started with. Don't, for the love of god, pick humble merchant start. One thing to note is that you can't save unless you're in a station or have Salvage Insurance; salvage insurance can be bought from OTAS, the Goners or the Torus Station in Earth.
The Terran start gives you a Light Fighter (M4 Class) which you can stick with until you get given an M3+ Heavy Fighter after a few story missions; you can also do random combat missions and sell the other ships the story gives you to make money. Similarly the Argon start in X3AP gives you a M3 (Nova prototype, so awesome) to start off and then an M6 (corvette) after a few missions. You can then do the main story missions for money and to teach you how to fight. After that you can spend some money on a few trade ships with the Mk3 Trade Software which allows you to automate them, and settle down to doing the harder plots. Operation Final Fury from X3TC is a good plot to try next, although you definitely need an M7 (frigate class) or better to complete it. X3AP has two really boring plots to grind through before the others open up, but they're really good and give you some cool ships.
You can skip the trade empire if you're playing X3AP though, since with a bit of time the stock market can make you ridiculous amounts of money.
Edit: Roguey's Site [http://roguey.co.uk/x3ap/] has walkthroughs for all of the main plots in AP and TC, if you're stuck.

 

[Cousin_IT]

Whichever one your start with, watch some youtube gameplay vids first. The X games really do drop you in at the deep end before teaching you to swim, & youtube acts as a great guide for figuring out what to do after finishing flight school.

 

[devotedsniper]

Avoid Rebirth at all costs, I have a pretty good machine will run anything maxed out at 1080p with a steady 50+fps, Rebirth plays at 25ish fps on the occasional good point and then for no reason at all it will drop to 5fps...this includes when your in stations (then when you go back to said good area the fps is still 5..), it has no become my virtual paperweight taking up space on my hard drive. Biggest waste of £40 I've ever forked out for when it comes to games.

Not to mention anything that isn't a ship or space looks terrible, characters look worse graphically than some ps2 games. I'm no graphics whore but you could at least spend sometime having a general bar for graphics rather than ooo look at the shiny but don't look at that, pretend it's not there.

As for previous ones they drop you in right at the deep end, something which rebirth did seem to fix from the bits I played.

 

[Xeorm]

Well, thanks for the information. Really does help, as I decided to try with the first X game initially and it...is not at all modern in regards to anything like a tutorial or help getting started.

I had heard that Rebirth was crap, glad I didn't grab it.

 

[Gergar12_v1legacy]

I gave up on the X-series... even with cheats... that game was super tedious, I would wait for Star Citizen.

 

[Sewa_Yunga]

Which ever part of the series you play, make sure you find the menu where you can crank up the SETA from x6 to x10. Makes long distance travelling so much better, especially when you have already explored a number of systems but no jump drive yet

 

[Zakarath]

I just got the X3 games in the sale, gave AP a try with some start that gave me a pretty blah ship and little money, couldn't do much fighting as my ship was underequipped and slow (Argon Buster with a couple Impulse Rays as the weapons, and I found manual trading a bit dull, especially as I couldn't make a great deal as I didn't have much to start with and not a great cargo bay.

Got bored with that, next I started up a TC game as the Bankrupt Assassin, which starts you off with no money but a beast of a ship (The Mamba, a fast M3, with a couple pretty powerful guns, too), but with several of the races already hating your guts. Been having lots of fun with it; did some piracy, claimed a couple transport ships, did a fair amount of combat for people that don't hate me (Argon & OTAS), recently purchased & kitted out a more powerful ship (Split M6 Dragon), and started building a legitimate business with some factory stations.