Hookah's adventures in X3 Albion Prelude

[Hookah, S.C.]

All right, over Christmas I've been playing the sandbox space-sim-thing X3 Albion Prelude, the latest in the long running X series. So here's a thread dedicated to my sporadic adventures thought X, as I attempt to build a giant space fleet and financial empire.

Battleship Trials

Recently I blew about 120million on a brand new battleship, to be the centre of my first fleet, I christened her His Will (a name I've used for my first battleship in all 3 of the other X games I've played).

After spending a few hours locating and purchasing all the equipment this baby needs (such as a battery of 20 huge lasers). I decided to test her out. My destination was Xenon Sector 347. The Xenon are a race of genocidal machines, bent on the destruction of every living species.



His Will departing the shipyard for Xenon Space



The enemy, 3 Xenon heavy cruisers



Main batteries firing an opening salvo



View from the bridge of the battle



The second Xenon ship exploding over the port side of the bridge

Overall, His Will Proved successful. Taking out all three heavy cruisers as well as a few fighters for only minor hull damage. However, she proved less manoeuvrable than other battleships in use. it is important to note that she was entirely unsupported in this battle.

Next plans:

Expand the fleet to include:

1 Missile Cruiser
1 Light Carrier
5 Torpedo Bombers
30 Heavy Fighters

Improve support infrastructure:

Build factories that produce:

Anti-Missile-Missiles
Heavy lasers for fighters
Point defence lasers fighters

deploy network of static laser towers and mines to protect bases

should probably cost around 300 mil.

I currently have 9 mil

Time to get to work!

[Cadian 117]

How do you like X3? I've been interested in it for some time now but I had never talked to anyobody with it.

[Hookah, S.C.]

I love X3. It's currently consuming my life. Got a relatively steep starting curve, and at the moment, X3 Terran Conflict probably has more to offer than Albion Prelude (the dev team add more plots with each patch, since AP has been out for about 3 weeks, it's only received one small patch). At the start you are essentially dumped a large universe and left to your own devices. There are a few ways to 'get rich quick' (there is currently an exploit possible with the stock markets in AP). But it usually involves lots of slowly building up cashflow. I've put about 90hrs into this current save (you can compress time in the game, so 2 hours in game takes 12 min, so my in game playtime is something appalling.

I love X, but I recognize it's really not for everyone, and is undoubtedly a niche game.

[RedsandRoyals]

I think there's one truly important thing that needs to be asked about this ship.

Can you ram things with it?

Reds

[Hookah, S.C.]

Of course. In the previous game my carrier was pretty screwed so I set it at full speed into an enemy battleship and escaped on a fighter. I felt awesome as hell.