I play lots of different types of games but it had been a while since I had played a serious space sim. I enjoyed various space sims before picking up X3. But enough irrelevant stuff.

I picked up X3 from Best Buy (a chain in the US that sells almost all electronics - dryers, laptops, consoles, mobile phones) in Northern Virginia. It was difficult to find. The help at the store couldn't locate the boxes. They had just come in (Nov 12th) and were still on the receiving docks in the 'back'. I was surprised since many websites said that retail would have them on the 7th. Thought that bit would be helpful since some people on these forums are saying it is hard to find. EBGames (US chain that only sells video games) didn't have it. CompUSA (US general computer store, lesser Best Buy) did not have it. CompUSA said they will never carry it. Already I sense the 'underground' nature of this game.

I played TradeWars 2002 (the old BBS game), Freelancer (Microsoft's arcadeish version of X3), Freespace (very empty feeling), almost all the Wing Commander series (DOS), Privateer2 (that was very disjointed) and I even tried X2 for a bit before giving up. My feeling so far is that this game is very similar to all of these games although I hear people referring to Elite (the old Sinclair game?), I never played that, maybe I'm too young (28). The docking sequence reminds me very much of Privateer2 but the missions remind me of Wing Commander. In WC, you would repeat of the missions over and over again until you get them right and many of the milestones in WC would be triggered by your location in space. These are not important points, just siting the feel of X3.

Onto more about X3. I need therapy. Which is why I'm writing all this. I started a new game on Normal (as I always do any any game). I completed the first few starter missions (although M1 was confusing on where to start). The beginning was rough, I paid attention to the tooltips and help messages, read my manual, read the forums. Went off on my own and tried to just get comfortable. It took me about 16 hours until I felt that I was a 'basic X3 gamer'. I completed the mission where you hunt down the stone from the Marauder (I think that's M2 but I don't know how everyone in the forums knows what 'M' they are on). Many repeats but eventually got through it. Before beginning M3 I had been trading energy from the Ore Belt to Red Light, making about 500 credits a run in my little starter ship. It was terrible, terrible money.

During one mission my shields went down and I took 50% hull damage. From then on out (in the normal mode) my game was lost. Let me explain. One person on the forums asked 'why can I not repair my ship?'. I was wondering the same thing. I docked at the shipyard and hit the right arrow key on repair until I realized that 1% repair is like 4200 credits! My entire bankroll was 6800! At 4200 credits for 1%, 50% repairs would cost me 210k, I had made about 2000credits in 20 minutes. It would take me a lifetime to repair! I then realized that this game can be 'one way', you can get stuck. I hunted around for good deals and trade routes but could not hold ore, could not afford some products, could not venture into deep space or could not trade fast enough. I did find an ore mine that need energy and a full solar plant selling energy for 12credits/ea and make a couple thousand in about 30 minutes but I was still well short of the estimated 100k I'd need to repair my ship.

I started over on the 'quick start' mode. To my surprise, I now had a freighter, a loaded fighter (4 guns vs 2) and 100k! I played around with switching ships (shift+E, target new ship, approach carfully, shift+E) and played around with ordering ships around remotely. Ok, I see how this works now. If I want to trade I eject and enter my frieghter and ask my fighter to escort me. If I have enough money I can buy software upgrades to make my frieghter trade automagically in a sector. Excellent. This is much better than griding away on normal mode (although I really wanted to make that work).

I did the missions over again. Over and over and finally got it right. However, something really annoying happened while I was fighting. I couldn't capture ships! Many times I would blow up a ship and see an astronaut floating around after the explosion ... "Damn! He ejected! I should have fired more carefully, I could have had an empty ship to capture!". So from then on out, I selected only one gun to fire with in a battle I knew I could win. That way, I could take down their shields more precisely and see if they eject or not. This method worked fairly well and there were 3 times that the pilot ejected. Each time, I ejected myself, targeted the ship (even got a help message: "you found an empty ship! get close enough and you'll get a message to enter!") but could not jump into the ship! One time, pirates shot me. Fine. 2nd time, the pilot must have gotten back in. 3rd time, no one was around ... I targeted the empty ship, approached slowly in my spacesuit while mashing Shift+E. Wouldn't get in! I could get back in my own ship ... eventually I ran into the ship in my spacesuit and died. THE END. Argh.

Did M2 again. Forgot about capturing ships. M2 has you randomly warping around, great for exploring. Ended up in a sector (not naming for spoiler) with some space debris. Had some crates floating around. I pressed 'o' to open my cargo bay, made sure I had free space (I hate it when you are full and it just explodes) and picked up the crates. They were equipment! Great! A few guns, a few shields. Wonderful! I might make some money finally! I headed back to a dockable point to save my game because I was finally doing well. When I docked, the game promply crashed while 'autosaving'. When I started the game up again, there was no autosave. Omg. Is this what people are playing?

I'm sticking with it. God help me. There are some good newbie guides out there and I'm noticing many of the maps from X2 seem to work although there are some X3 maps out there. I'm using this one: http://facts-x2.net/Board/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=55

It's too bad the search on the forums is down. There is little 'community' outside of egosoft.com. Gamefaqs.com has no guide yet, gamespot forums are bare. It's really strange. I also find the egosoft forums to be very hard to read (not whining). People have obviously been playing for a very, very long time and I see the UK influence (it's all good). Reminds me of the monty python pilot sketch with the Aussie pilot: "You did a twisty on the jabby and fired your Xenon on the halfly!" "Um, not quite following you ..."