Out of Pod Experience

This is my experience and experience only, it may differ.

X3TC is a very very fond game for me.

Never played this NOVA so all I can say is from my own X3TC perspective.

Vanilla X3TC has a huge steep learning curve, kinda like EVE.

You always see things from the POV of the nose of your current ship, space is filled with occasional ships, some of them fighting, you will crawl and grind to hell and back every credit you gain (depending on your start) and if its a first time it might come crashing down on you by the sheer OPEN ENDED experience in the Sandbox.

Story? No sorry, there are PLOTS that people do simply for the rewards (HUB and Ships, you will eventually find out) , there are sectors that the in game map give you backstory, but you will get as much "story" from them as looking as a regular planet in EVE (then again this game reminds me a lot of of EVE)

Vanilla game is ... a slow crawl to have enough money to buy Trader Software for Sector Trader and then upgrade to Universal Trader which is an automated trader that goes around buying low and selling high.

ITS SLOOOW the first time, when the multiple choices of everything overwhelm you, so slow people usually cant stand more than some hours and the most dedicated that never get it some days before ditching it and not understanding why its called the way its called and why so many people swear by it.

Reminds me a LOT OF EVE in several ways to be honest.


But ... and this is where the game is superb, The Modding community has come to the rescue to the point that a Modded X3TC game is so AWESOME that you forget the utter crap vanilla was.



See, in my experience I installed and in the order you need if you interested:

1) Complex Cleaner In X3, you can build huge economic empires by annexing factories into complexes, this mod makes the process and visual clutter reduce severely (A MUST BY MANY)

2) MARS (your life will never be the same)

3) CODEA (your capital carrier fleet ... just install it)

4) XRM with the HUGE Hull Multiplication pack (Fights last longer, giving an epic feeling to Capital to Capital engagements) , Cockpit Mod (it´s just another game, a better game) , Backgrounds (space is gorgeous) and the MARS fix

5) Immersive GUI replaces the annoying blue sidebar and huge reticles

6) No Rep Loss from Hitting Gates this is just sheer convenience and a must for me, I already have enough troubles with stray shots to have a whole sector turn red to for a loose shot.

7) Pirate, Yaki, Xenon Numeric Ranks (if you want to know where you stand with the rogue factions, useful if you wanna play pirate, a must for me

8)Lucikes Script Collection , I give the link to HIS page, not egosoft forums since they have the old versions, although page is in German , google web page translate will give you the proper updated ones, if that is too challenging, here are the regular ones at the official forums Lucike Script Collection

And for 9 , this is simply, for me, the BEST mod after XRM ... The Life Mod for X3, it is sheer magnificence.

Now, if you are averse to modding, X3 will be a good game in vanilla, will give you a lot of challenges, but game , like Warband, only shines with the beautiful love of the Modding Community.

These are the mods I use, but game has a thriving modding community, specially after the fiasco of X: Rebirth, which is a game that will be good in about a year or so of official patches, but not right now.


I am in severe love of the X universe. It´s gorgeous looking, and the capital battles are one of those things that I honestly stop my travelling between sectors to behold and screenshot. Specially now when I see Yaki Capital Ships battling Paranid Capitals in border sectors, PEW PEW BOOOM BOOOM PEW PEW , and they drift slowly spewing energy destruction (remember the Hull Multiplication addon of the XRM)

Amazing game, just amazing. That´s why I wept a bit too when X: Rebirth came out.

But I hope my little mod list helps you, also bear in mind the XRM ramps the difficulty up of the base game too, which suits me, but for some people its the opposite.

If you into that sort of mind, there are several scripts that cheat you money, ships and many other things, just look around.

Mods man, its been a while since I bought a new game. Mods give classic games what they sorely need.

Any other question feel free to ask me

It´s highly sandboxy, the modding scripts show how much it can be tweaked, twisted and turned, you could literally play it full merchant style doing courier, industrial, material relocation, starbase building missions without ever firign a shot, or you can simply go guns blazing and kill wantonly (specially with the bounty mod from XRM or the NPC leveling bounty mechanic in LIFE), a mix or just be an explorer, miner, etc.

I went the Mercenary Trader route, having enough rep with the Empires and the Pirate and Yaki factions so I could dock in their bases too. I buy stuff here and there, move around, and slowly gather enough capital to buy enough factories for my merchant empire.

As a last note, you will die ... a LOT , specially by missile spam. The game is highly unplayable after a certain point in anything below an M6 mostly for the Anti Missile turrets

Thank you, sir!

That was incredibly generous of you... all that detail. You really got to the heart of the matter, and that settles it for me. I'm all for great mods, so I'll be installing each of those.

And I'm alright with little story but interesting backstory. And mini-plots are just fine by me. The sandbox paradigm allows one to write their own, anyway.

it is. trust me, the way it makes Capital Fleets battle it up constantly adds a new depth into the stillness of space.

Its kinda bad they #$&"#$&"#&"#& it up so bad in X:Rebirth, a lot of people, considering the trajectory of Egosoft, believe X:Rebirth was a true X:4 in the making , and it ended up being a huge INCARNA FIASCO eve style in terms of fan/community hatred , so stick to TC and then jump to AP if you want. But I prefer TC.

If you want a visual glimpse of some of the hulls in the game, here, this link will give you tons of minutes of "Ohhhh" and "Ahhhh" ....


X3 Scale of Things



M6´s in detail , this ship class tends to become your main one for a long time, due to the compromise in speed/cargo/shielding, commonly known as Corvettes, and they are very nice when you add the cockpit mods.


Terminology in the game can be a bit confusing, but you get used to it.

But usual path from whatever ship you start with is to jump into an M3 or M3+ as soon as you can, then jump into a Corvette aka M6.

From there people enjoy going into Frigates (M7s) and sometimes jumping into Destroyers (M2) .

But your play style is what will define the type of ships you fly. The XRM really really evens out the tables on the ships, so no more "this ship for TL and that ship for TPs" etc. Hence why I prefer it over X-tended(another famous mod), also severely less buggy.

Now all ships have much more balanced stats meaning you can trade off speed for cargo without worrying much about maximum efficiency (a mind game of sorts that blocks a lot of people from enjoying certain aspects of the game)