I am thinking of buying an M8 bomber to take out bothersome big baddies (eg corvettes) but a single lonesome M8 would probably fail quite a lot so need something to fly alongside it. If nothing else, my Blastclaw Prototype M3 loaded with missiles and me at the stick, should go a long way. Reading up on the M8 it seems like a typical ship the player remote controls.

I still do not understand how to make my freighters attempt to emergency jump away when attacked :-(

Anyone know of a mod for X3TC that makes the game show the notoriety with the pirates and Yaki (Kha'ak and Xenon are not that useful to know...)?

Any pointers to what to board in order to train my marines? TMs from the Duke's are one obvious target.

What level are your traders? At level 8 they will start to use jumpdrives and buy and use fighter drones as well (they won't buy jumpdrives themselves until rank 12 though). I'm assuming they need to be level 8 or above before they will use a jumpdrive to try and escape an enemy. From the wiki:

Pilot Levels
Main article: Traders#Pilot Levels
As Pilots level up, they gain more abilities. The most important ranks to pay attention to are:
Rank 6 - Will use Sector Trader to trade up to 1 sector away.
Rank 7 - Actually checks if it can make a profit.
Rank 8 - Universe Trader, use Jumpdrive, buy Fighter Drones
Rank 12 - Buys own Jumpdrive.

I remember seeing this on the Egosoft forums...haven't tried it, or used it. Read up, and try it at your own risk. Haven't tried the links, so I don't even know for sure if they are still valid even...

Regarding training up Marines...I think you are referring to their fight rank? I do remember reading somewhere, that when your own fight rank is high enough, and you start looking for return "abandoned ship" ship missions, they will often be for corvettes (M6), and after taking the mission, you can approach the ship, launch your marines (no shields to worry about!) and the marines will do their thing, even though the ship is abandoned...safely upping their fight rank. When their done, transport them back to your ship, and return the ship to it's owner for credits and rep increases as normal. I haven't actually tried this yet, as I am still training up my own marines at trading stations, but I plan to give it a try when they are ready. Short of this "safe" method...yep, I hear Dukes ships are good targets as you mentioned.

An alternative to buying a bomber would be using Hammerhead missiles, which are produced by the Terrans but are compatible with a wide range of ships including Blastclaws among other M3s. Hammerhead missiles hit twice as hard as the bomber's Tomahawk Heavy Missiles, but are almost four times more expensive, and as with any powerful missile you do not want to be near it when it detonates.

I believe I am using the mod Zoltan999 linked to, so that ought to do the trick.

Regarding boarding targets, I will back his suggestion to use abandoned ship mission targets as the easiest and safest boarding mission targets, other good targets are TLs and Missile Frigates, particularly it you are spacewalk boarding as these tend to be big slow targets with little in the way of guns. TMs should be good too if you can find them, I think most of Duke's ships are TS or TP classes.

<yawns> Sat up all night. Some wrong number woke me up in the mid-morning. I did finish my first 7 ingame days. A bit sad only 72% of the sectors visited yet. I will keep playing. A longer report and comments on your helpful comments will follow after a long afternoon nap and some real life things I need to take care of.

Fun trivia: When I wrote about the Blastclaw I was tired and wrote 'Deathclaw' instead at first.... Wrong game series.... :-D
Awesome ship by the way.

Hey Hardrada, I was looking over the instructions for installing that mod, and it seems simple at first (extract into the main X3TC folder), but then I noticed some people mentioning nothing had changed. The op directs them to the Script Editor to change the game to *modified* to enable the mod (or if another mod has already been installed, this will have occurred already). Did you have to do this, or does the Mod Support pack that I installed from the GOG X3TC download page already take care of this? I do have the Bonus Pack installed, but as I understand it, since that has been signed by ES, that won't flag the game as modified.

I know you did not ask me but I will give my answer too:
I decided to try the first 7 ingame days totally vanilla unless ran into a wall but now I want to change the game a bit to suit my tastes better so I installed GOGs 'mod support patch', the latest update patch and that mod you linked to so kindly a few posts back. Indeed I could not spot any difference regarding the notoriety info so I guess one more step is needed. That is alright as I might as well get that Bonus Pack too installed to aid me with some things in game.

Ah! Maybe I will download the latest versions of the mods in the bonus pack instead. Yes it will tag my game as ***modified*** but so what. I am old enough to play as I wish.

My game has been modified since the beginning thanks to the TC Plots for AP mod so I cannot help you there,

Got ya. I kinda consider playing with the Bonus Pack as vanilla anyways, since ES signed off on it, and it really does just make the game better and more manageable. I don't care to install any mods that enable real cheating in any way, as that just doesn't appeal to me at all. I do like the look of that pirate rep mod though, so I'll have to think about whether I want to dick around with the script editor to get it to work...maybe. Regarding installing mods in general....yeah, I'm with you....if a person wants to mod their game in any way they want, to make it more enjoyable for them, then go for it...what's the point in playing any game, if you're not enjoying it, right? Let me know if you get that rep mod working, and if it does what it says it does.

NP, just thought I'd ask :) ...I think I would definitely install the TC plots for AP as well, when I eventually get there.

Trying to write that day 7 report but it is slow going. I will keep playing past this point too.

Here is a picture of me hovering over my latest save (played time: 7days 0 hours 0 minutes)

On a totally different note: I see it is a bit tricky to install the bonus pack if one plays on Linux. An oversight on the script creators' part. Why do I care, since I am playing on Windows? I am contemplating moving to Linux on this computer too as I have done on my laptop.

It's a bit less user friendly, yes, but in the end it comes down to copying several scripts/files under the appropriate paths. I had a tutorial link describing the process somewhere, but I can't seem to find it now... anyway, it's nothing too hard to figure out by yourself :).

A few words about my seventh day in X3TC.

Having lots of salvage insurance allows me to save outside stations. Good when one cannot dock right then, but needs to go AFK. Also good for scum-saving... which I have not indulged in... yet.

Savage Spur is a nightmare to navigate and I managed to crash and die. Almost an hour lost right there. This happens now and then to most players I am sure. "Ken says: Save early, save often!"

A couple of nice trades raised my credits by 3M from under 8M in an hour. Really nice when I happened to have so little money. That I stopped schooling my marines helps with the economy too, of course. I will train them in boarding from here on out, whenever I get around to actually doing that.

After a long break from all missions I did one easy asteroid scanning again. I want to do more missions as the pay often is nice and they really help boost my reputation much faster than the limited amount of trading I am doing BUT I also REALLY want to explore the world. Again I had to decline an easy, well paying mission because I had not explored in the relevant direction. It is impossible to jump to unknown sectors, after all. I feel a bit like I am doing nothing but exploring though.

NEVER EVER play with the sound turned off!!! Vital information is conveyed by sound only. I lost a freighter in the aptly named Tears of Greed system some eight hours into the seventh day and did not realise it before I started wondering where it was and looked at my ship list and then, not seeing it there, in my message log :-( This time it was a fully upgraded and fully loaded with cargo Mistral so I am not amused. 1,329,106cr for the ship and its gear and upgrades + about 80,000cr worth of cargo at average prices, if my memory serves me right :-( Add to that the time and the profit opportunitiesss lossst :-(

The in-game map certainly could be better. I have always found that I want a fan made map too, but the one I have does not show me which sectors I have visisted already.

I now have a police license for every federation faction. The other factions do not sell them. Their usefulness will grow as soon as I start to fight more again.

A small laptop is not really suitable for playing X3 on. At least one command, 'Move to position X', demands a number pad. I solved the problem by connecting one (similar to this) extra via USB. The old (2008) laptop's processor is also starting to struggle as my game is getting further on and my empire grows, even though it was a fast model back in its time. Really good to be able to go home and have access to my desktop again, even if it is turning seven later this summer except for the graphics card that is slightly newer.

Only a measly 72% of the sectors visited during my first seven game days. There are too many sectors in this game but at an average of around twenty visited a day I will soon have been to all sectors that are reachable without furthering the plots. Again no plots advanced since last time. Strange how I have found no secret containers hidden away, but they are harder to spot than ownerless ships.

Seems all I did all day was explore, remote trade and get back in the used ships business, but for that one tiny mission. I feel there is not much to tell about, sorry about that. I ran into one ownerless M3 ship that I claimed and at least one M4 too.

At the end of day 7 I am wondering what to spend my 14M cr on. Several millions needed to be kept as working capital, of course. Save for repairs and gear for stolen ships?

So what will I do from here on? Explore a bit more and then start doing much more missions and work on the plots that have been so sadly neglected for so long. Then try again to capture a Pirate Kestrel and maybe some other ships I find attractive, but I suspect I will be more interested in boarding those bigger ships than capping M3s and such. Currently my marines' mechanical skill level is enough for M6s, M7s and TMs if space-walking.

Trade rank 19 * <--again one up since last report
Combat rank 6 * <--no change
Argon +6 (L)
Boron +5 (L)
Split +5 (L)
Paranid +5 (L)
Teladi +5 (L)
Goner +4
ATF +3
Terran +4
A capital (L) after the race if I have a police license for them. All possible licenses obtained now.
* if bottom rank = 0

Assets:
20 marines <--ready to be used on softer targets
31 ships: 2 x TM. 14 X TS. 3 x TP. 1 x M5. 4 x M4. 7 x M3.
30 advanced satellites in use <--and many more to come
STILL no factories or other stations...

This concludes my promised documented 7 days of game play in one of the X3 games (see 1st post in this thread). I will keep playing this particular play-through. Many thanks to WinterSnowfall once again for giving me a copy of each of the X3 games. Let us see what I will write about in here from here on out.

pictures are: A bug where the game is showing a woman's face instead of the ware; The ownerless M3 I found; Asteroid field in Savage Spur; list of all my ships; Pilot statistics end of day 7

So, for my first boarding I will do a so called space walk from either a TP or a TM depending on target. A TM is a much better class of ship in combat but can only hold 5 marines while the TP can hold 10. I must be faster than my target unless it is sitting still in space for some reason.

Now looking at TPs available in X3TC (no Phantom, Geochen, Ocelot nor Mani in TC) I have come up with a short list and have brain overheating choosing between them:

-1- Argon Express Hauler < No shipyard selling it spotted yet
hull points unknown; speed 165; acceleration 10; steering (turning speed) 6.9; shields 75MJ; shield regenerator 600; can carry useful missiles

-2- Argon Advanced Express < Would need to be capped
hp unknown; 170; 11; 6.9; 100MJ; 660; missiles

-3- Boron Angel < Seems good. rather expensive at 1.8M cr
32,000; 155; 10; 5.9; 100MJ; 600; can carry wide range of missiles. can mount 4 IDs in 2 turrets and has some energy to use them

-4- Split Iguana Vanguard <Already own this. Lowest shielding AND hp
16,480; 186.9; 12; 6.6; 50MJ; 500; can mount a single ID in its only turret, so no missile defence if used for that; missiles

-5- Teladi Toucan Hauler <So so. Would need to be capped (ownerless ship too, I know). Too SLOW?
hp unknown; 137.5; 8; 4.8; 75MJ; 450; missiles

-6- Teladi Toucan Prototype <Seems good. Would need to be capped
hp unknown; 145; 7; 5; 100MJ; 660; missiles

-7- Terran Scabbard <Low HP but best shielding and shield regenerator
hp unknown; 165; 14; 5.9; 125MJ; 780; can ONLY use Poltergeist missiles (splits into 8*1,500 damage; 0.5km blast radius). As I see it, to use this one for boarding, I would need another ship too with fighting capabilities.

All other TPs I have rejected already. Numbers pulled straight from the game itself. The Hermes Hauler and Iguana TPs I own will be flogged.

The Toucan Hauler's redeeming point is it can be found for free, otherwise it is not so good for boardings I suspect.

And now looking at TMs, it is clear that a lot are just too slow. TMs also seem to come with less hp than TPs but compensate for this with much better shielding.

quick list based on speed alone:

Yaki Chokaro

Yaki Advanced Chokaro

Split Boa <Can mount 2+2 IDs in turrets

OTAS Zephyrus < Already own. Its low speed limits what it can target.

I have been meaning to congratulate you on completing your first week in game, it takes a lot of time and dedication to get that far as I well know.

In terms of boarding craft, TMs are right out as they can carry marines but not launch them (boarding is restricted to TPs, M6s, and M7Ms), and of the TPs the Scabbard and Angel are the obvious contenders to me. I used fighter drones both as offence and distraction for my spacewalk boarding operations, using 'broadcast to all my ships in sector' -> 'fighter drones' -> 'attack shields' to control them, this might work well for you too.

Thanks! :-)

Dumbness struck again! THANKS for telling me before I went and did something really stupid.

While flying through Split space moving to a new area I had not explored yet, I spotted a Boron Angel TP.... and a thought struck me: Why not force one to bail in Split territory? Remember how Split and Boron are enemies, so the Split would not mind me stealing a Boron ship from the Boron. Sadly, I had too little ordnance as I sold off most of my guns earlier to be able to squeeze in more energy cells and a shortage of missiles too. The Kestrel is lovely but not an amazing warcraft.

I think I will return to Split space and scour it for Boron Angels a tad later =)