Drox Operative

[Professor Paul1290]

The Talon and the Overlord do stay pretty angry at most other races pretty consistently, which is nice if you can prop them up and want to wipe other races out.

Also, I'm not entirely sure about this, but I have noticed that they sometimes carry some nice stuff to buy if they stick around a bit. I don't know if that's consistent at all, but if it is that would be something else to make them an attractive option.

[Lancefighter]

One of the special races also has neutral relations with monsters. As in, it can expand infinitely without monsters shooting down colonyships. Which is kinda big.

[Wingflier]

One of the special races also has neutral relations with monsters. As in, it can expand infinitely without monsters shooting down colonyships. Which is kinda big.

Hmm, remember which one that is off-hand? I'd like to see that for myself.

[Wingflier]

K, just tried my first game on a "Large" map, as opposed to "Tiny", which is my default size.

I have to admit it's a lot better so far.  You have far less control over what's going on, and feel much more like a pawn in a huge chess match than someone who can just go around manipulating the races as you see fit.  I've already had one race break a non-aggression pact with me because I was (inadvertently) helping their sworn enemies, simply because as I was exploring the galaxy (UGH SO TEDIOUS) their enemies happened to be the only race that could help me.  It's the first time EVER that I've ever lost that much relation with someone, and I wasn't even doing it on purpose.

Seems a lot more like the way the game was meant to be played, which makes one wonder why "Tiny" is the default size.  Oh well, I'll keep playing and let you know.  I've been playing for about an hour and have discovered 8 or so planets.  It looks like there's probably about 30-40 in all and many of the races are already at war.  It looks like it's going to be an epic game.

[keith.lamothe]

because as I was exploring the galaxy (UGH SO TEDIOUS)

Hmm, perhaps you could hire somebody to play MP so they can mow all the shroud for you while you're off doing interesting things

[madcow]

Probably the fog of war is why they don't default it that way. Honestly, I think if the entire star system you're in was revealed right from the start, it wouldn't detract from the game and would really just add to it. That fog felt like a holdover from fantasy style games that didn't belong in the sci-fi setting. Both from a gameplay perspective and the mere fact that your sensors OUGHT to detect where planets are. Hell just looking out the window should, not like there's a dungeon or even walls to block the view.

There would still be exploration region to region in finding the star connections.  Heh and it seems the fog topic riled me up a wee bit

[keith.lamothe]

The fog does help you know where you've been and where you haven't.  But I'd much prefer some kind of radar system that would work at some range and tell you "chunk of monsters here" or "lootable there" or whatever.

If your sensor package gets knocked out, then going mostly blind is fine.

[Lancefighter]

There is a 'radar' stat. I'm pretty sure it does absolutely nothing.

[keith.lamothe]

There is a 'radar' stat. I'm pretty sure it does absolutely nothing.

I believe it makes stuff show up further away on your minimap.  But we're not talking a substantial distance change relative to the system size.

[chemical_art]

I remember the most tedious / time consuming thing from X3 being having to manually explore the galaxy. I understand "hostile" areas having to manually explore, but from within the neutral and allied zones it feels like a time sink for me. Probably why I haven't tried to start the game after my first blitz of it.

[keith.lamothe]

I believe you can at least do automatic scouting in X3 if you fit out a ship with the right gear.  You can even have a ship do that while you fly a different ship.  In my opinion its exploration-tedium was a lot better than Drox.  I just think its everything-else-tedium is a lot worse than Drox, where I'm rarely actually bored

If Drox let me hire scouts to go and mark stuff on the map for me, I'd consider that a step in the right direction.  Mainly though I just want a functional "points of interest" listing on the current-system-map, for the cost of some appropriate in-game resource/gear/etc.

Early exploration is fun, but after that give me the opportunity to earn some powertools that let me get to the fun parts with less mowing.

* keith.lamothe wonders if this is how people feel about m+c in AIW

[Cyborg]

Metal and crystal are much-maligned in your eyes, and I have no problem seeing them merged in the future. I don't understand how it relates to drox. As far as timesinks go, this game is so far from where it used to be. I used to just fast-forward and watch a movie, there's a lot less of that going on now.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, good to hear we've made some progress on that front.

[Mánagarmr]

There is a RADAR, but its range is so ridiculously low that you barely ever notice that you actually have a RADAR. So it's, in effect, completely useless.

[eRe4s3r]

I remember the most tedious / time consuming thing from X3 being having to manually explore the galaxy. I understand "hostile" areas having to manually explore, but from within the neutral and allied zones it feels like a time sink for me. Probably why I haven't tried to start the game after my first blitz of it.

The first "hack" I do, still do, and always do, is to uncover all sectors.... there are scripts that do it for you. It also makes all stations visible (but not in real-time) just their location. Which is imo another stupid design (especially the short radar detection range where you can "ping" a station and get it registered, just seeing it doesn't even count. Bah..

I hope they fix all that with their X reboot.