This is the final Space sim. The absolute, glorious space sim that only a PC can have. You can fly anything. You can buy anything. You won´t be able to even dock a ship at the beggining, you won´t be able to win a single fight at the start, your ship will be a piece of crap and you won´t be able to even dock at the majority of the stations. Random squads of pirate fighthers ten times more well-armed than you will be at the majority of sectors corners. Alien enemies with battleships the size of your city clogging entire sectors will mop the floor with your face for their amusement. Yet, you can trade, steal, find or loot weapons, ships, containers with goods or missiles that worth ten times the price of your little fighther in the shipyards. Find your way around. Get rich. get frindly with one of the races, buy super corvettes that can kick the ♥♥♥ of all the enemies that made fun of you, parade in carriers that effortlessly kill hordes of the same things that would vaporize you in the begginning, build your own stations, command remote armies of both honestly bought or captured vessels and conquer entire sectors by force to build factory complexes that put anything ever builded anywhere to shame.

"Mount & Blade" in space.

X3 Terran Conflict, at first when I started this game I was lost on what I could do. Even when I found the script edit I was lost because of how big the game is. I then started to understand what I needed to do in the game. After a little while I found the game to be empty, not much was going on. No real wars or anything like that. I went through some really long missions and was starting to get sick of it already so I started to look for mods for the game. What I found was a rich list of really great mods which brings the game to life, I will add the link to the mods at the end of this review.

Wish the mods I give this game a 10/10. Without the mods I give the game a 6/10 or 7/10.

The graphics for the game are good and it is fun to fly around and build space stations. I just like war in space so I needed to have something more which the mods gave me.

Here is the link for the mods. http://forum.egosoft.com/search/index.html?template=default&style=default.css

I hope you have as much fun with this game as I do.

Hello everybody and sorry for my bad english, it's not my native language,

at first, this is a game with a real high learning curve, the tutorial is quite short and then it belongs to you, what happens next. In the first hours it is annoying, when you not know the predecessors. But with a little experience it will be the spacesim of your dreams. Fantastic artwork, genius music and a good story. Nevertheless you are not bound to the story, you can do whatever you like. Become a traider or a pirate, a terran military ship commander or whatever else. And the greatest thing is the modding community, with a lot of mods and scripts. If you like spacesims, then X3 is the one of the best sims you can get.

Now for the bad stuff: The control is getting used to, ok I never tried the game with a pad, only with mouse and keyboard. In the later stages it is a lot about micromanagement to get enough money to achieve one of the big and profitable facilities.

And also there are a lot of nice scripts and guides in the Egosoft Forum on german and english.

Greets from

Meg

Okay, two years after I had bought this game as a part of the X Superbox I feel obliged to write a few words about it. Simply because X3: Terran Conflict (and other X games) are some of the best games EVER made. I would actually hesitate whether to still call this a game. It will steal your life.

First things first. It's probably gonna be easy for veterans of previous X games to get into this one, few slight changes but the same mechanic in a nutshell. For the others though, be warned! This game has one of the steepest learning curves I've ever experienced in a game, yet it is also probably the most rewarding. You start out with one ship in a vastness of space and you can virtually build a galactic empire with hundreds of ships, factories, and resources at your disposal. It's not gonna be fast, it's not going to be easy, but it's going to be fun! And you can really do it! No MMO has ever come close to the level of freedom and complexity of all the mechanics in this game. No other sandbox game provides such a beautiful playground for making all your dreams of becoming an overlord come true. It's a gem, an absolute beast of a game, so patched and so loved that even when the developers provided little to no tutorial (very extensive manual however), you can get all the information you need to become great relatively easily.

It's difficult to recommend this game to just one group of players. You can get a lot of fighting experience in this one, which I personally enjoy very much, but it's not a simple grabba shipz and go pwn everybody rite nao. No... You have to work on your reputation with a faction, you then get to buy the ship of your dreams, then you have to take it and slap dozens of upgrades on it to make it really shine and then you go get yourself some kickass weapons. I love maintaining all these little details, you can change your weaponry on the fly and tear all kinds of enemies apart. There are limits of course, but lemme tell you... I did destroy a class M6 bomber with about 150 MJ shields with a little M5 ship that only has 1 MJ shield.... I did take out a Kha'ak corvette with my M3 Mamba thanks to an insane firepower provided by Mass Drivers and their non-existent energy consumption. This might not mean anything to you now, but trust me, when you get there and live it... you will remember ;)

Ooooor you can pretty much just ignore the whole shooting thing and become a filthy rich and successful trader and buy everyone :D The story isn't important, you write your own. The graphics are very good in my opinion. Music and sounds are more than adequate. Mostly you won't even notice the music, which makes those rare moments of entering a sector that's different than all the others that much more enjoyable.

This game is about options, freedom and passion for honing all your skills. And I love it.

Personal rating 10/10

Trade until you have enough credits to buy more traders to trade some more.




10/10

This game is so good i dont even know what to say about it. It lets you basicly do what ever you wanted to do in space in the future! You can be a miner, bounty hunter, pirate, trader, fighter pilot for one of the empires and more! if you have the cash you should spend it on this game

Slow paced and tedious with a steep learning curve. I know several people that LOVE this game but it is not for everyone. It is free roaming and you can choose how you play to an extent but there is no real "path." You will spend most of your time flying slowly through space (even with SETA) than actually progressing. I do like the vastness of the game and it is beautiful to look at. I would recommend watching someone stream this game live or play it before you buy as it is NOT for everyone. Do not watch youtube videos on it because they will likely cut out all of the boring parts of it.

With all that said it IS a good game but requires a certain type of player to really enjoy it.

Games awesome, even better with mods. My only complaint is once I became a billionaire and had an army under my control, I felt hardly rewarded. The climb to greatness was incredibly fun and challenging but once you get there you feel like theres not much more to do. I planned on destroying the borons entirely but the effort required and pay off wasn't worth it.

Everytime I play this game, and x3 reunion (299 hrs) and get to the end game I do not feel like I really did anything great.

Sat in the wrong place and got rammed to death by my own super-freighter.

12/7 it's alright

Capital Ship came in through warp gate and rammed me. 10/10

I played it more than 300 hours and I still think I am only at the very beginning of a journey...

The best word I could use to describe this title is: HUGE. Among all the time-sink games I've played, this one stands as the most polished and deep. It will require a LOT of time to get into and then even more time to explore the vast universe and build your own economic empire.

This is definitely the game I'd play if I had infinite time at my disposal

I wanted to like this game. The game uses an open world with a very deep level of intricate trading to draw you in, but when you get there, you begin to notice a few annoying hampers to the fun. 1) Quests are given by NPCs. The randomly generated quests are indicated by a small icon beside the station name. Since more than one quest can be simultaneously given and these quests are divided into types which are represented by icons, you never get a correct indication of all available quests. This is because only one icon will be displayed while multiple quests could be generated. If on your computer you were trying to find out your Wi-Fi signal strength and all that was shown was a Sun Java update, you'd get the feeling of this annoyance. 2) Sometimes an open ended game is a good thing. This is not one of those times. Many of the given quests are unaccomplishable without prerequisite hardware, and this prerequisite hardware seems so vaguely indicated, so whisperingly hinted at, that it's not possible to know -- that multiple failures are the only way outside of research out of game to discover whether you'll be able to glean your needed profits from a quest or finish it at all. This leads you to feel as though a quest is probably going to be a discouragement rather than a step towards your goals. Again, I cannot overstate the literal impossibility of doing some of the quests.

If you can get over those qualms, and you might, you'll find an interestingly designed space-trader with a plethora of ships from drive-enabled space junk starters (we're talking PT boats here), to multiple gunned, AI piloted capitol ships which can be organized into floatillas, (we're talking the Pacific Fleet here). Despite some unfortunately difficult hurdles, a very intelligent person with a lot of free time might have a chance at this, and the game itself has a lot of content and a lot of promise.

I give it a 3/5 for Content, Concept, and Quality minus Ease and Clarity, but no reccomendation.

Cross platform works well, Mac and Windows.

Incredible game with a large learning curve. I Have hundreds of hours in the X games and this is the last good one before the flop that was rebirth. If you are interested in the series I recommend starting at x3 either the original game if you're super keen or TC if you just want the best experience. X1 and X2 are pretty much the same game.

I would essentially describe this game as EVE single player. It allows you to acomplish all you can in the MMO all on your lonesome. You can do the missions to get started but the main reason to play the game is the sandbox. Modded up the scale of the game is HUGE and you need to keep seperate records of your fleets objectives and traders comings and goings in order to keep up with it all.

After playing full time for several weeks I managed to have my own space station and fleet of automated trading ships that constantly made money for me. I could mostly let them roam the galaxy trading away but had to occasionally fly off to sort out troubled systems. I build a huge fleet to assault another faction but ended up losing the fight.

Do not buy if a few bugs or a steep learning curve bother you, this game doesn't really hold your hand.

A worthy successor to X3: Reunion. With more ships (including bombers, which are a powerful addition for anti-capital ship combat). But lets not forget the biggest deal of all. You can play as a Terran! At long last we have seen our Terran brothers again, and can even play as them!

Pro:
+Great Story! (You'll need context of the other games to fully understand it though)

+Wide variety of mission types Combat missions alone include assassinations, defend a station, patrols, escorts, and even convoy hunting, Trade missions have you supplying or delivering wares to stations, or buying used ships (can be a great way to turn a profit when you repair it yourself). Build missions to have you build stations for the universe (thats right, get PAID to build stations. Last type of missions are the "think" missions, which have you transporting passengers, scanning asteroids, returning stolen or abandoned ships, tracking ships, etc.

+Randomly generated missions

+Vast options of ships/equipment to choose from. (Scout ships, interceptors, heavy fighters, bombers, transport freighter normal/heavy/super freigther, "Transport Large" (capital ship sized transport ship), corvettes (like a small frigate), frigates, destroyers and carriers.

+Player HQ (when unlocked) can reverse engineer ships (possibly jump beacons if you can get enough!) build ships, and house many ships,

+Living breathing universe. All those ships you see flying somewhere are doing things around the universe. Be it supplying a station somewhere, patrolling the sectors for hostiles. (Dont worry, escorts and the various ships respawn over time ... stations on the other hand ... dont (exception being shipyards and equipment docks)

+Reputation system for factions (how friendly/hostile they are to you, your clearence from shipyards, trading discounts, etc.)

+Autopilot!. Game can run autonomously in trade/exploration/combat aspects. Just buy the ships, buy the ship software from military bases and equipment docks. And you can have self sufficient fleets that can even automatically do trading across the universe for you (with Trade software MK3).

+Build your own stations. You can contribute to the universe and turn a decent profit when built on the right spots. Especially useful for obtaining some of those harder to obtain wares.

+Piracy, you can steal from freighters, capture capital ships, and smuggle illegal goods accross sectors.

Cons:
- Starts off a little slow. Because it takes a bit of time to work your way up (more from finances than from reputation; which is slightly hard to raise, easy to destroy).

-A little buggy. two story missions can be rather difficult, and can break if you arent careful (Mission six of Terran Conflict can break, so make a special save before you start it). and Mission seven can be annoying because you have to try to board and steal a capital ship (but dont worry, after a time your allies do it for you). Other than that, its pretty much bug free!

- Autopilot can be clunky sometimes. Such as when navigating around the massive Terran stations, or when flying the bigger ships.

- Relatively steep learning curve. This is for those who havent played any X games. If you havent, I suggest doing the tutorial (which only teaches you how to fly and communicate. Then reading up on the basics of trading, or of things in general (could learn even helpful basics in combat)

Took me 25 mins to learn how to move. Good for people that google the controls and concepts during 6 GB download.

(Note: this is a joint review of both the Terran Conflict and Albion Prelude variants of X3; thus, I'll post the same text to both.)

I **really** wanted to like this game. I *really* did. Let me explain why.

I'm a veteran video game space cadet. I played the original Elite and Wing Commander on Commodore 64, and lots like them, since. I've played EVE Online off-and-on since Trinity (~ 2007). I ***LOVE, LOVE, LOVE*** spaceflight games that are "sandbox-y" for almost as long as I've been playing video games, and that's been too long a period of time (I'm now 41).

The Egosoft team was obviously ambitious. And, in some core ways, they succeeded. But the whole thing ultimately feels rushed.

In the end... At minimum, there are five things keep me from recommending this game.

(01) - There's no clearly-evident, gradual-slope difficulty ramp, and what you see is not always what you get. One minute, you're doing something that you percieve is very easy, is in fact very easy, and you are succeeding quite well... And the next minute, you're doing something that you percieve to be (very) easy, is in fact very difficult, and ends up being effectively suicidal as a consequence. One ends up having to revert to game saves frequently before gaining a good feel for that the *real* difficulty of various things are, as trial-and-error appears to be the only logical path towards mapping out a successful long-term course of action for oneself.

(02) - The accelerated time mechanism... Isn't accellerated enough. 600% of real-time is the max; in fact, it should be variable, with max *at least* %1,000, given the distance between various objects of interest, and the max velocities of the majority of craft in the game (esp. in the early game). Expect to spend LOTS of time simply staring at your screen whilst you travel from place to place. For me... It got *really* old after a while. Asteroid mining in EVE Online came to mind - a great "second screen" experience whilst your primary focus is on something else (work-related?)... But boring-as-hell if you have nothing else to do at that time. Or, at least, it *would* be a great second-screen experience, if the next line-item wasn't true.

(03) - The auto-pilot is borderline suicidal. It's certainly borderline schitzophrenic. At minimum, it's not consistently reliable for what one would expect to rely upon an autopilot for: performing the mundane, common tasks associated with piloting a craft, without harming the vehicle or its contents. Simply put... It's difficult, if not impossible, to "trust" the autopilot within confined, or crowded, space... Which means its use is circumstantial... Which erodes the value of such. (IMO, anyway.) It results in lots of time "babysitting" the craft when (IMO) one shouldn't have to. If this one thing were fixed... I would borderline-recommend this game for use as at least a "second screen" experience (as described above). But, as it presently stands, I would distrated too often by my "babysitting duties". :-(

(04) - The tutorial sub-system is *far* from complete. I appreciate the fact that Egosoft respects their customer base enough to deliberately avoid "hand-holding them" through everything... And I actually *like* the idea, in concept, of forcing the player to learn the majority of the game through actual experience. But there are better ways to do the latter - EVE Online provides some excellent examples. For a game this complex... Just teaching them how to move around, and them leaving them to their own devices, with one having to traverse the majority of their local solar system in order to learn enough subsequent basics to gain an idea as to what their options are (much less decide upon a course of action in the direction they wish) is a bit ridiculous, IMO. It's as if the game's creators expected anyone buying the game to have prior experience with a variety of similar-genre games in the past, such that they would "just know" what their options are, thus lessening the tutorial/ training burden. It's pretty lame, in this respect.

(05) There's no context-sensitive help to speak of (that I could see), beyond short descriptions of various items/ entities. I could forgive (04) if there was strong (05) present... But there isn't. I shouldn't feel obligated to alt-tab to/from my web browser to search the web for basic how-tos, as I play along, to make up for the lack of available in-game documentation.

In short... This game feels like it was the work of a small, highly-ambitious, highly-skilled development team... Who hit a budgetary/ deadline wall before this could be fully baked... And, like many rushed programming projects... The documentation is the first to be sacrificed at the altar of timelines and budget constraints.

Again... I would *really* like to recommend this game... But, as I've played it over the last few days... I just can't. And that makes me sad. :-(

After going through the recommendations of this game as was convinced that i had found a real keeper, but what none had mentioned in the review was that there is no action at all. I am a strategist and like games that can take some while to figure out but they do need some action or some progress. This game i way to slow. For exaple i have been flying now for a couple of hours without doing anything at all, i just point the crosshair and wait 10 minutes, then i aim for another target, 5 minutes, and so it continues.

Too much down time, too little fun makes this impossible for me to recommend to anyone except those that prefer a relaxing, sedate experience or those that want to build large trade empires. Death is too random and the biggest thing to fear in space is your own flawed auto-pilot.