no

I second the no

Unless one has Windows one cannot try the version 3 beta but that is starting to look very promising based on text and video about it.

The normal version 2.6 HF2 is so so.

Now perhaps with version 3.10 HF1.

Absolutely no.

It's much better now, and I definitely consider it a good game, but it's still full of bugs. I expect there to be at least one more big expansion, at which point I expect it to have a more tolerable quantity of bugs remaining, so you might want to wait for that.

Expansion or no, there's too much to fix.

8 hours in and I'm quitting. Eight frustrating hours of watching the AI fumble around...

Freighter heading to drop off cargo, has an escort. Freighter comes under attack and Escort flies to their last known position and starts spinning. Freighter turns to fight the enemy with great futility. Escorts continue to bumble around.

I manually order the Escort to attack.

A police unit comes by after 30 seconds of the Escort 'heading to the enemy' (already within 1KM but still not attacking). Police capture the ship and it becomes friendly.

Escort begins to attack it and begins a battle with allies.

I wish I could say this was a freak incident. But over the last few days I've experienced dozens like it. The AI is too dumb to be trusted alone with itself. And don't get me started on the station managers... Just don't give them any units to control and don't trust them with any money. They seem to piss it all away perpetually replacing all of your pilots with burger flipping jockeys.

I was around in the X2 days and lived through the launches of X3: Reunion, X3: Terran Conflict and X3: Albion Prelude.

While I liked the new engine in X3: Reunion, it failed to pull me in as a game. X3: Terran Conflict was better, good enough to hook me for a while, but in the late game I got really frustrated by many of its bugs and limitations. Modding it made it bearable, but it still felt bad by design.

And then X3: AP came along. Now it may not be perfect, but it's refined enough to shine and probably one of my favorite games of all times overall. You want a decent storyline with it? Mod back the X3: TC story and enjoy. You're going for that sandbox experience? Then you're in the right place.

Moral of the story: we have a long wait ahead of us before the diamond in the rough is remotely close to being polished.

All objects pop into existance. Not fun at all.

I decided to take the plunge for the 4:20 sale, and here's the things I noticed after about 5 hours.

The autopilot is unreliable, often just disengaging on its own, especially when tangled in the highways (yes, the highways make a comeback from Rebirth).

It's fucking nearly impossible to get crafting items, and even normal trading is a lot more tedious. The biggest issue is that crafting items can't be searched for in the map, so you have to dock at every station and go to the trader and HOPE they have what you require.

Even with the increased speed offered by travel mode, everything seems further away and, since SETA isn't on ships by default, everything feels much more slow and tedious.

In short, I think I'll stick with X2 and X3 and come back to this around 2021.

About crafting, I get a lot of crafting materials from lootboxes and as loot from ships.

How fun it is in the long run to have to run around on the stations I cannot say but it feels less tedious than I was afraid of before I got the game.

About how hard it is to get *** (three star) crew, I spotted a pilot/marine for hire today, see picture. Nice but not cheap.

Wait, what?

Sorry, LOCKboxes. They are randomly placed goody boxes. Only things you have to do to open them are find them and shoot the locks, then collect of course. No extra charge.

Thanks for the clarification. I was about to take my ass to Germany flip all the tables at the Egosoft offices.