You capped a Kha'ak fighter :-O
Hehe! Mostly a curiosity that one.

Not exactly :). It was an abandoned ship I found.

The Kha'ak, as a hostile havoc-creating race, have been removed from X3AP (but the Xenon have been ramped up sometimes to ridiculous levels). Now, many of the ownerless ships scattered throughout the systems (randomized at game start) are in fact Kha'ak.

Hardrada found a Kha'ak corvette lying around somewhere, if I remember correctly.

DUH! I am tired. Yes I have read about that and yes I read and saw the pictures of Hardrada, just forgot as the Kha'ak as still present in Terran Conflict. Must be kind of hard to get weapons for those ships.....

Well, the abandoned ships come equipped with a full set of Kyon emitters, but that's basically it. I don't think you can find weapons for them anywhere else in the game.

Again, I've been busy :).

I've hit a high stock market boom, followed by a crash and managed to get a really nice profit out of it. With the money I made I bought a Griffon Sentinel, which I plan to use as capital ship boarding assistance vessel (4 IPGs as main weapons will do nicely to keep any shields down while the marines do their work).

Speaking of marines, I managed to put together quite a team. I'm still training a couple of replacements in case some of the guys in the main team die off in boarding missions, but I'm quite satisfied which my current roster. It cost me a fortune though.

I also did one thing I sorta felt bad about, since the Argon have always been my natural allies. I've attacked and captured an Argon Heavy Centaur Prototype, took a rep. hit and all, but in the end it was worth it. It's a neat sleek ship, and the only way to get one in a custom X3AP game is to capture it, so I really had no choice.

Next up, I'm still stalking the Xenon hoping to capture a P or a PX.

Xenons are a hard catch, but I played rough. Say hello to my little friend(s).

Nice going!
How are you planning to equip them - ISRs with PRGs in the turrets?

Probably yes. I'm rather surprised by the lack of outfitting options... I mean no CIG support in a corvette? But, on second thought, that would make them much deadlier in the wild, so it's probably a good thing.

Right, I've been lazy (and distracted by DA:O) for a period, but now I'm back to X3AP for a while.

Recent developments in my corner of the galaxy:

- I discovered I have the need for a Split personality, so I've created a base in Twisted Skies to manufacture some of that Split goodness that every commonwealth pilot needs: 25MJ shields and ISRs.

- I'm moving my central base of operations to Getsu Fune. Normally I'd think those occasional fleets of Xenon Qs, Js, Ps and PX-es may be an issue, but I've now got a large enough fleet to handle anything they can throw at me without much of a bother. The advantages of outfitting new ships in Getsu Fune are pretty clear, so that's the main reason behind the move.

- Believe it or not, I had never before used the tractor beam in any of the X3 games before I decided a couple of days ago to move an Ore Mine a bit further south in Getsu Fune (potentially out of the way of the Xenon should they decide to invade in force). What can I say, it was fun.

- I've capped a Pirate Brigantine in Malestrom. It was a bit of a headache since it had a rather large escort, polarized hull and sentry lazers, but in the end I managed to pull it off in my Astraeus Hauler and only lose 2 out of my 20 marines.

- Pirates are my new cash cow. I've capped one more Brigantine and one more Carrack which I've sold off for a decent profit.

Future plans:

- Finish my new base in Getsu Fune - build an Argon Trading Station and a 2GJ Shield Fab.

- Capture a Yaki Hoshi

- Build up relations with the Paranid and then stalk and board a Hyperion (to lose all the rep again but gain a pretty nice M7)

- Buy some Teladi capital ships - they're slow and have under-powered generators as hell, but they sure have some shielding to them

Polarised hull and sentry lasers? I think I would fry that ship long and hard with ion disruptors (ID) before attempting boarding but maybe things changed in Albion Prelude.

Nice feeling to be powerful? :-) When you get tired of that you can start a new game. Any Kha'ak starts in X3AP?

It's still a valid tactic (and probably a good one), but you have to remember I did this in my Astraeus Hauler. I would have been blown to smithereens had I not stayed at least 5KM away from the Brigantine and shot only sideway blows at it with a pair of lateral mounted PBCs while dodging most of the incoming fire.

After this cat and mouse game of "You can't catch me, but I can fry your shields while you try" I sneaked in some well trained marines and that was it.

Maybe not the most glorious of tactics (a Klingon would say), but it worked :P.

Yes, me the all powerful :P. I still have to marshal out my fleet and bring ships in from all over the place when the Xenons invade in force (though it's not that often). I've got a decent fleet but I wouldn't call myself powerful yet. Maybe next year :D.

As for the starting scenarios, no... there's not much Kha'ak left in AP, remember? They were sort of pulled out in favor of more aggressive Pirates and Xenons... and the Terran-Commonwealth war.

It is nice to change tactics around not to rut into the same old. Most ships have, put there on purpose I suspect, blind spots you can stay in and fire away from in relative safety. Harder than it sounds in my experience.

Duh! I forgot about the Kha'ak again. <bangs brain against an asteroid>

Good job on the Brigantine, I have still not capped anything bigger than an M7 other than the Aran. I think using superior skill to wear down a stronger opponent before sending in a boarding party to kill them all face to face and seize control sounds reasonably Klingon to me.

I would go with a Boron Equipment Dock over the trading station as it is (I believe) the only purchasable station with unlimited medium ship docking. There is already one in Getsu Fune you can use, but if you have your own then you can resupply your ships at it.

Kha'ak can still be found in unfocussed jumpdrive sectors, but this requires you to do the associated plot, and I think WinterSnowfall has all the plots disabled. It is sometimes nice to jump out of known space and just fly around shooting whatever you find.

Thanks. Well, if you put it that way, I guess most Klingons would approve :P.

Thanks for reminding me of the Boron Equipment Dock (I totally forgot it has unlimited internal docking in X3AP for anything non-capital, since that was not the case in X3TC).

That's a good alternative - I might consider it, but then again maybe I'll keep Getsu Fune an all-Argon sector as far as my stations are concerned and build the Boron Equipment Dock somewhere else (maybe next door in Menelaus' Paradise).

Pointless talk at this point really, since I'm short on cash at the moment :P. I'll have to stalk and cap another Brigantine before building any of the two.

That I do (I've started a custom game, so all plots are off). As to shooting what you find, there are plenty of fringe sectors in known space where you can do that and find yourself overwhelmed quite quickly (but there's no Kha'ak in them, that's true).

Status update time:

- I've fully moved into Getsu Fune and am now using it as a fleet headquarters and docking/equipping area for new ships

- I noticed another lone Heavy Centaur Prototype patrolling in Three Worlds and could not resist capping it to get a second awesome M6. Of course my Argon rep took a dive again, but I've slowly built it up since and now I'm almost back to where I started from.

- Was lucky enough to catch a massive stock market crash and have sufficient funds to speculate on it fully, thus making an extra of about 70 million credits - money enough to buy a Boreas, which is now guarding the north jump gate into Getsu Fune along with my Titan. It's safe to say I'm not nervous about the Xenon any longer.

- Also bought another Astraeus Hauler and set it patrolling around Bluish Snout to catch any Xenon stragglers which might go East towards my ever increasing presence in the multi-race sector area

- While milking the pirates & Yaki had the surprise to see a Tenjin pilot bail. I've been wanting to cap a Tenjin for some time but its pilots always proved to be die hard fighters so I had given up on it to be honest. In any case, it's a nice addition to my fleet and a decent M3+.

- Payed a visit to the Yaki and capped one more Ryu and an Akuma which I then sold for a decent sum of money

- I've built a 1GJ shield fab in Split space and a 2GJ shield fab in Argon space, as I plan to expand my capital ships fleet in the future and it's more cost effective to manufacture your own equipment rather than buying it.

Future plans:

- Capture a Yaki Hoshi - will be very possible I think once I fully equip my Boreas

- Still looking out for a Hyperion to cap, but haven't spotted any yet. My rep with the Paranids is now high enough for it not to be a big issue when I cap it.

- Teladi capital ships - still looking to buy some but have better things to invest in at the moment. The fact that they're slow as hell kind of puts me off.

- Train 21 marines up to 100 on all skills (got enough of them trained at 100 on combat from active duty) for future Xenon capital ship boardings

Question to you guys: do you have any capital ships you'd recommend I get, obviously from the ones I don't already have? Are Split ships any good? What about Paranid and Boron capitals? What do you think?