Last modified: Februar 3, 2001
This FAQ covers the English version of the game. It has been contributed to by members of the X community - both developers and players. Not everybody has been credited; in fact, so many people answered these questions so many times that it would probably be unfair to try. This was why the FAQ was made.
I'm getting a lot of email from people asking me how to make money, particularly from people playing X:Beyond the Frontier. This FAQ does not cover X:BTF, and I no longer play it. Please do not email me if you have general game play questions, there is a very active forum on this site where you will have a much greater chance of finding assistance.
X-Tension is published in Europe by THQ
Actually if you buy X-GOLD you would probably only play X-TENSION because it
is much enhanced game with more possibilities in all ways. X-BTF is needed
to play X-TENSION because of the copyprotection on that CD. You may also
like to play it from time to time to get into the storyline and learn about
the history of the X universe.
You can use saved games from previous versions of X-Tension with later versions
of X-Tension, with the exception of games saved with beta test releases. It is
suspected that some problems are more prevalent when using a saved game from a
previous version, so if you start having problems it might be worth starting fresh.
About one week seems to be the average to the US.
3 to 6 days for the UK
X-Tension does have missions, though, and these appear at random intervals if
the situation is right. These can run into lengthy sequences of missions, and
may contain a plot of their own.
The most common start is to sell your initial ship and in its place buy a
trading vessel. The two most common choices are: Argon Lifter - It's very
fast and manuoeverable, but it's not the biggest in terms of cargo capacity.
Boron Dolphin - It's very big, but it's slow and steers like an iceberg.
Some trading in energy cells at first, and perhaps ore, wheat and plankton
is recommended. You'll soon get an idea for prices, but to start you, energy
can be bought for as little as 6 Cr per item, and sold for over 20 Cr.
Accepted theory at the moment goes that the best factory is one that
provides goods that aren't available nearby. This generally means that you
should start a factory from one race in a sector of another race which
requires that factory's product. Your new factory will be substantially
nearer than the competition.
(The following two lists are thanks to JeffB)
If you have lots of money, the following combinations are good:
Once a transport has a home base, its Comms menu has a new entry - Trade Commands.
You can either tell it to fetch a ware (resource) for the best price,
which it will do indefinitely, or you can tell it to fetch wares from
a certain station, which it will do once, then return.
The prices at which it will buy, and the distances it will travel, are set
from the station's configuration menu. It might not always get the price
it wants, because it makes the decision of where to buy as it leaves its
home base, and prices may change before it arrives.
Lots of people have had problems with TL freighters failing to dock after
they have been told to. There is now an official explanation for this
problem, and it is caused by a bug in the game. Here is what one of the
developers had to say:
Your default friend/foe status is set from the main menu (press ENTER whilst
in flight). The settings here are automatically given to any new or captured
ships, new factories and re-deployed laser towers. You can also use the "Set
from default" option in any object's friend/foe menu to impose the default
settings on that object.
The solution is to tap the ALT key (or the zoom button on your joystick) once.
You can disable missions from the Shift-O options menu.
You can be exact with this, for example, if you wanted to transfer 143,823 credits you would type 143823 on the keypad, and then hit the cursor key to move it.
As these changes were made, and all versions are backwards compatible (can load previous saved games), if you load a savegame from before version 1.5 into a later game, the Mambas that already exist will not have shields removed.
If you start a new game, you will not find any old fashioned Split Mambas. If you use one of the three included saved games (which are from version 1.1) you will see quite a few that were there from the start, but all subsequently created Mambas will be of the new sort.
X-Tension is published in the USA by Southpeak
As a game it is almost an entirely new game, cause it has lots of completely
new features, a new universe, better graphics and sounds.
However X-TENSION is sold as an upgrade, while X-GOLD is a new standalone
product containing both products.
Bernd
No you do not have to finish X-BTF.
Bernd
No unfortunately you can not use old X-BTF savegames with X-TENSION because
the whole engine and the universe are so much different.
Bernd
(I am playing a game right now, so I would like
to know whether it might be a good idea to wait for the expansion pack to
arrive before I continue playing it)
Bernd
Currently, version 2.0 is available for download from Egosoft's download page.
It greatly enhances the game, adding a plethora of new features. It's
generally thought to be a required upgrade.
There is no plot. The game is open ended, and you are left free to come up
with your own objectives. This doesn't appeal to everybody, but for most
players this is what sets it apart from the rest of the space sims.
Elite, Frontier, Privateer and all the other games that fit this genre are
just that - other games. Whilst it's true that you can't land on planets, for
example, that's just not a part of this game. X-Tension is not a pretender to
some throne, it's an extremely enjoyable game in its own right.
Many people have different ideas about the first couple of hours of play.
You start with an Argon Buster, which is a fairly capable fighter. One route
is to immediately start indulging in some combat, perhaps to capture an enemy
ship and sell it for some money.
You cannot sell any ship that you are currently flying in. To sell your
buster, the easiest way is the following:
Save up some more, first. It's more expensive than it looks.
Solar Power Plants are no longer the best beginner's station, even though
they are temptingly inexpensive. You will have a hard time competing with the
NPC stations, which can produce ECs without any resources.
The current list of recommendations is:
First, you need to give your transporter a homebase; this must be one of
your own bases. The only trading your transport can do of its own volition
is the buying of resources needed by its homebase.
You are running version 2. Firstly, since this version you need to
actually order the TL to dock at the shipyard, and you can't buy a factory
until it has done this.
Hi,
There is no problem with the collision detection or an other randomly
error that cases the problems with TL docking, it is a real and annoying
bug.
The problem with TL docking arise, if you stop the landing procedure of
a TL with any other command. E.g. you have ordered a NCP or own TL to
dock at a shipyard. If you give another command to the TL, e.g. "Follow
me" or even "Dock at shipyard" again, the landing procedure is stopped
and this causes the problem (a "landing in progress" flag in the
shipyard is not reseted)!!
So make sure: To dock a TL the dock command must only be given ONCE!!
Do NOT give any other command to the TL after the dock command
until the TL is really docked at the shipyard!!! It can take a while
till such a big ship is docked.
-----------------------------------------------------
If you have already run into this docking problem:
Until the next patch is released (can take a while), the only "clear"
way to workaround the TL docking bug is as follows:
If you break the docking command of a TL with any other command (NPC TL
or own TL (not current ship)), the station does not reset the "landing in
progress" flag!
Without a bug fix, this problem can only be solved this way:
- fly the TL (TL-1 called) that was stopped from docking, out of
the sector where this "locked" shipyard is
- hire another TL (TL-2) or use one of your on TLs and dock it onto
this shipyard. The TL-1 (the TL that has locked the shipyard) must
not be in the shipyard sector.
- after this procedure, the shipyard is "unlocked" and TLs can now dock
again till you break a docking command again ;)
An example:
- you try to dock the Argon Mammoth in the Argon Prime sector and had
stopped the docking procedure with another command (e.g. "Follow me"
or again with "dock at shipyard"). So no TLs can dock anymore with
the shipyard in Argon Prime.
- Use the workaround: Give this Argon Mammot (TL-1) the command "Follow
me" and fly out of the sector. Lead the argon mammot (TL-1) to a
sector "far" away from argon prime, so that this TL does not return
immediatelly to argon prime.
- fly to a sector near Argon Prime where another TL (TL-2) is, e.g.
Home of Light. Hire this TL (TL-2) in Home of Light and lead it to
Argon Prime and give it the command "Dock at shipyard" (ONLY ONCE!! ;)
Important is that the Argon Mammot (TL-1) (that has caused the
"shipyard lock") is NOT in the Argon Prime sector!!!
- After this, the shipyard is "unlocked".
I hope this helps and you can live with it until the mission patch
comes out. (Of course if you use this workaround, you must have enough
credits to pay the NPC TLs)
Sorry for this really annoying bug.
And remember: NEVER, NEVER stop a TL that is docking!! At least until
the next patch.
Greetings
Bala Gi
aka tomst
Here is Al's "Ship Capture Guide" (thanks, Al):-
Notes: It appears that rank does have an effect on the number of pilots
who will eject. The higher the rating the better the chance of them bailing
out.
It has also been said that the quicker you can get their shields down low
the more likely they are to eject.
The way it is decided whether a pilot ejects or not is said to be random
(by Egosoft) but it also appears to be sporadic. I sometimes go for an
hour (real time) without getting any and then in the space of a few minutes
get 3 or 4. This may be because I don't spend a long time maintaining
the pirate's shields at a low level, I get bored after maybe 2 minutes and
go find something else to hunt.
The Definitive Ship Capturing Guide version 2
I think this must be one of the most asked questions so I'm now proclaiming
to be the ship capturing guru and here commences my sermon:
Lesson 1. If you want to catch fast ships you need one that is as fast if
not faster. You may be able to catch Orinocos in a Buster but even when
maxxed out most Bayamons will leave you choking on exhaust fumes :)
2. Practice following tactics on friendly ships but remember not to shoot!
3. Finding a target. The best way to start is to find a solitary pirate
vessel. Pirate freighters are best to practice on because they are slow. Try
and avoid groups of fighters until you manage to refine your technique.
4. Know your instruments. When you target a pirate ship your target indicator
will turn red. The most important thing during a capture is to monitor
the target's shield status bar. This is found to the right of the target.
5. Doing the business. Firstly get behind the target ship and try and match its
speed. Lasers: This is a matter of choice and everyone has their own opinion. I
personally use 1 Gamma PAC and 1 Beta IRE. Use both (well its the PAC that does
the damage) to get the shields low and then I normally change to 2 x Beta IRE
(I keep spare lasers in my cargo hold!) to keep the shields at a low level.
Note that this is for smaller ships. For freighters I would recommend larger
lasers if possible.
6. Try and maintain a consistently low value for their shields. Watch how much
damage each blast of lasers does to the shields. Use this, combined with the rate
that they recover, to judge how often you need to fire.
7. Some pilots will give up very quickly (normally freighters) and some take
more, shall we say, encouragement to abandon ship. When a pilot abandons his
ship the target indicator will turn blue. This will be acompanied by the
following message "Warning, one of your ships is under attack". This is the MOST
crucial point. Do NOT fire again. Normally, but not always, the target ship will
lose all shields and lasers so if you even hit it once too often, its history.
8. Once you have managed to capture a ship, you now need to get it somewhere
safe. If you are in a dangerous sector it may be worth guiding the ship home (if
you have one) or to a station (or preferably a shipyard where it can be sold).
To do this press C (you should already have it targetted)and move the cursor to
Navigation commands. Then choose "Follow me" if you want to lead it to safety or
"Fly to station" if you want to leave it to chance. Note that most times a
captured ship will arrive safely at its destination without any help. To really
take advantage of this you need navigation satellites in your destination sector
as this allows you to tell the ship exactly which station to dock at.
And thats it! Its that simple. Take note of how I've done it and perfect your
own technique. It can be a very rewarding career in both finacial and pleasure
aspects.
I'm not saying this is the optimum way of doing it but it sure as hell works for
me :)
Al
If you attack a pirate ship whilst it's in the same sector as its home
pirate base, you are basically making enemies in a big way. There is no
way to pacify them other than to destroy the base. Beware, though -
pirates will start to retaliate against your stations. This is part of the X
Universe, and the best course of action is to make sure that everything you
own is well defended.
Version 2 introduced the ability to set the friend/foe status for each
object you own for all the races, including pirates, Xenon and Goner. For
example, with pirates set as foe, a laser tower will attack a nearby pirate
without waiting for the pirate to attack. This is generally desirable, unless
your factory deliberately caters to pirates, such as a bliss place.
This usually happens when you activate the SETA device while using the video
enhancement goggles. The reticule grows dim so that it does not obscure your
view, and if you SETA before zooming out, it sometimes stays dim.
Two methods. The first is to upgrade to version 2. The other, for people
with 1.5 and older, is to zero the throttle on the joystick before the seta
display reaches 20%, but after activating it.
The shortcut key is Shift-J. You need 5 energy cells for every sector you
intend to jump past. Jumps to gates in your current sector are free.
From the information (I) menu of a target ship that you won, you can select
the option there to transport to the other ship, or to transfer freight using
the teleport device.
(thanks to Bala Gi)
If you destroy all the pirate bases in the X universe, and this option is
on, a new pirate base will materialise in a random sector somewhere in the
universe. The only restriction placed on where it can go is that it won't
appear in a Xenon sector.
This is a known problem. The version 2 patch only fixed a couple of
problematic missions; a new mission patch will be appearing soon.
Because the guy offering it to you likes you. The only alternative at the
moment is to turn off the missions.
Sometimes it can be some considerable time between missions.
Yes. When you use the cursor keys to adjust goods or credits, you can type in a number on the keypad first. This will adjust the amount transferred with each use of the cursor key.
In versions of X-Tension prior to version 1.5, Mambas had two shield bays. They were also slower, and could load hornet missiles. To add some variety to the M3 fighters, they were altered with later versions to be faster and lighter, so they only have one shield bay and can not use hornet missiles.
Further FAQs or ideas can be sent to Brian.Ronald@unforgettable.com for inclusion.
Any feedback is welcome and appreciated.
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