Tell me about the X series games

[rusty_shackleford]

What do you do in these games? Are they fun?

[Emphyrio]

I played for a couple hours and it didnt click for me. When thing a are so open-ended everything you do seems pointless.

[madbringer]

What do you do in these games? Are they fun?

Do you want a broad stroke or want to know about one in particular?

[Tweed]

It's an economics simulator in space. You start out rock-bottom or close enough to it and then go about getting enough money together by doing bitch work which ranges from buying low and selling high to blowing up ships to taxi service. Then you take that operating capital and buy some ships so you can haul more goods then you take that capital and build a factory so you can start making passive income with said ships, then you take that income and buy some more factories so you can make better products, then you take that money and start buying bigger ships so you can blow up your competitors and increase your profit margins by two more percent.

The first game is the simplest and a good place to start if you're having trouble getting into the game, which I did. First game you only have one ship and the economics are simplified. X-tension gives you some more ships, but you can just move onto X2 from there and get the full experience that the rest of the series builds on. The story is unimportant and exists to give you goodies you otherwise wouldn't have in a sandbox game.

X3 expands by adding tons more shit, it also has the best mods or so I'm told, I never made much headway into X3 because I was burned out after binging on X and X2. X4 is a mess that Egosoft has been trying to fix since word go and depending on who you ask it's better now. The newest DLC adds in the Boron that were somehow impossible to add to X4, but then Egosoft changed their minds. X4 has one of the worst UI's I've ever seen in a game and way too many fucking menus to try to perform simple tasks. Last time I played there were still major issues with AI controlled ships not being able to do the simplest of tasks like mining resources or even just flying around properly. Apparently being able to walk around inside of ships and space stations was more important than making sure things worked properly.

Rebirth isn't worth mentioning, at all.

It's also important to know that the cult is very, very strong with Egosoft and the X series so take anything a diehard fan says with a pinch of salt. Be prepared to sink weeks of time if you intend to play.

[madbringer]

God damnit Tweed, I wanted to nerdpost about it. But yeah, hard agree, good summary.

I can expand on Reunion and Terran Conflict.

[rusty_shackleford]

I downloaded X4, does it really expect me to play through all the tutorials?

[madbringer]

I downloaded X4, does it really expect me to play through all the tutorials?

X4 is p. bad, man. It is much better now after 6 billion patches, but X3:TC would be my rec for starting.