The DLC adds a new area with new stations and secrets. But you have a lot of sectors to explore already in the base game.
As for when you’ll access the DLC content… it depends. If you decide to play the campaign, you don’t really go to the DLC areas until you finish the campaign. But if you go straight into some of the other open “gamestarts”, you can go there as soon as you want.
Anyway, leave the DLC for later. Try the game first, see if you like it, and if you do, then buy the DLC.
I’d recommend a go through the campaign, since it doubles as a tutorial (a pretty clumsy one, really, but still). If you get bored with the campaign - which is likely, though I’d say it gets pretty interesting in parts, despite serious pacing issues and generally bad writing - just start a no-campaign game. If the game “clicks” with you, you’ll know.
And keep in mind that Brian didn’t like X3 either, or any of the X games. ;)
What? You told me you didn’t like Terran Conflict, and Albion Prelude is pretty much Terran Conflict!
X-Tension (X Gold, really) was my first X game. I had it imported from Germany back in the day. Loved it, but Albion Prelude was by far the best of the series.
Until X Rebirth, of course. No wait, Albion Prelude is still the best. But I really like X Rebirth (after the 4.0 patch, that is).
Albion Prelude includes a militaristic campaign start that’s a lot more focused, which for me is a good thing.
I don’t want to run a business, if I did I’d be playing Capitalism or a tycoon game. I wanna be a pilot, and in the X games, your office is a cockpit, rather than your ship being your livelihood. Or so I feel.
So patch 4.10 is coming soon! Here’s a summary of changes in latest patches:
There will be also some QoL updates for X3 Terran Conflict and Albion Prelude. And Egosoft is working on a VR edition of X Rebirth, scheduled to be released in 2017.
And finally, this tidbit of info in an email I got from Egosoft today:
When we worked on X Rebirth we needed to make a lot of simplifications. We removed some features in order to be able to concentrate on others. But when X Rebirth was released, many fans expected it to be an “X4”; a game with most of the key features of the X3 games and then some. Since then, we have worked hard to make X Rebirth a better game, incorporating player feedback, continuing to develop the engine it is based on, and releasing many updates and expansions. However we also realise that there are still many unfulfilled wishes, some of which would require extensive changes that couldn’t be implemented in the existing game. Many of these are things we would also like to see in a space game and these, along with the foundations laid by all the work and feedback that went into X Rebirth, have been the basis for the big project that we have been working on for the last few years: a real X4.
While I cannot say much about its features yet, what I can tell you about it so far is that it will allow you to fly many different ships, it will give you an all-new interface to manage large fleets, and it will give you full freedom when building stations from individual modules.
X Rebirth VR Edition will be a new standalone game based on X Rebirth Home of Light, completely redesigned and optimised for a Virtual Reality experience.
X Rebirth VR Edition will be released via early access in the first half of 2017, and will be available as a new standalone game. If you own X Rebirth already, you will be able to get the VR edition at a discounted price.
To bring X Rebirth into the VR world, we had to change the game and the universe quite a bit:
Special universe and economy: While based on X Rebirth and Home of Light,While based on X Rebirth and Home of Light, the universe and economy of X Rebirth VR Edition are specially designed for a Virtual reality experience. This is also the reason why the games are not savegame compatible.
New graphics engine: X Rebirth VR Edition will be the first title by Egosoft to utilise our new in-house development, based on the innovative new Vulkan graphics technology.
New content: X Rebirth VR Edition extends the gameplay and universe with new missions to deliver a unique virtual reality experience.
Special UI: The user interface of XR VR Edition was specially designed to work entirely as an immersive first person VR cockpit experience.
Pace and Balancing: All aspects of the game had to be rebalanced to create the best experience for the VR environment.
So a new graphics engine? It sure needs it, as this thing runs like a dog and would never reach a solid 90 fps in a million years! Heavily CPU bound mess.
Not sure why VR necessitates a specially designed economy, but there you go. Hopefully the changes don’t dumb it all down even further.
Finally picked up Home of Light yesterday so I’m about to give this game a proper shot. Looks like developers put in a ton of effort since the game was released. I tried googling for mods but quickly realized I’d need to play the game first to see what I even need because Egosoft implemented so many improvements into the base game.
@rhamorim et al, any tips for complete beginners? Should I stick with campaign or jump straight into free play? Any must have mods that are compatible with the latest version? If possible I’d like to avoid stations because I really don’t want to crawl in vents when playing a spaceship game. Bonus points if I can avoid the interaction with npcs that look like they’re straight out of horror movie.
