I’d say go with the campaign for the time being, since it doubles as a tutorial. I have played it to the end and it was mostly enjoyable, and when it ends you’re left in “sandbox” mode in a mostly good situation (though some factions will remain hostile to you, which makes some specific trades a bit hard to do). If you find yourself bored or annoyed at some point, then try one of the new “sandbox” starts.
I can’t say anything about mods because I don’t usually play with them. As for stations, you can do most things now without having to talk to NPCs (or even without needing to dock), though a few specific things still might require that. No vent crawling is necessary if you don’t want to do so.
BTW, the one mod I would recommend is the one that removes the “can I see your wares, pleeeeease” and the “shut up, Betty” lines. You might go insane if you don’t use that one. ;)
I think I finally caught the X bug - it happened when I spectated my own trading ship dock with the station and send out cargo URVs to transfer the goods (100 energy cells) for the mission! Looking forward to see where the campaign takes me and then I’ll probably switch to free play and try out merc work.
On a side note, are there any good ways to remove space dust/fog? I don’t mind the performance loss as much as not being able to see clearly. The game’s renderer is not that great to begin with, a lot of text appears a little blurry (especially info window in top right corner), plus the view in populated areas is completely cluttered and I’m hoping that removing fog would help a bit.
Also, any recommendations on rebinding default control scheme? Luckily I realized I can use mouse wheel for speed (was going crazy with X/Y) and I’d like to use MMB for some things but I don’t know if its function is already taken or not.
And at some point I completely lost the yellow and white circle and I have no idea how. Maybe I switched to different scanning mode?
Yeah, that’s cool to watch, isn’t it? I loved that little moment in the campaign. It remains cool later as well. BTW, the campaign has other cool moments too. You’ll see. ;)
As for the rest… never removed space dust/fog, but it’s only problematic in one area/place. I never did and rebinding, so I’m not sure how well (or not) it works. And I have no idea what’s that circle you’re talking about, but yeah, check your scanning mode.
I mean the two circles in the center, yellow shows you way to marked objective and white one tracks the selected target. I tried googling for ‘reticule’, ‘crosshair’, etc, but no success.
Is there a complete list of binds available anywhere? Through google I already found some that aren’t marked in the options, and I don’t particularly feel like digging through the xml files.
I remember many of the complaints were that you could only pilot one ship, but the more I think about it the more I think I’d have preferred to have just have one ship you can upgrade rather than going back and forth between fighter and cruiser and freighter. The main thing I’m worried about is if they’ve worsened the proliferation of menus that must be navigated to get anything done. Especially if you have to get out and wander around a station.
My problem with it wasn’t that you were restricted to one ship, it was that the customization of that one ship was laughably bland. Instead of “do I want to be a heavy fighter or maybe a quick smuggling ship”, it was “upgrade lasers to level 2 lasers!”. It sucked. I was on board with one ship in theory, expecting the way you could customize your ship to really open a lot of possibilities. I was very wrong.
Hopefully that got better with updates, but I never bothered to go back and check.
I haven’t played the old X games but I like having one ship and just call in the big guns whenever they’re needed, and keep my command ship light and nimble.
You don’t need to get out and wander stations, most of the stuff can arranged through comms, and whatever little is left can be modded out so you never entire stations again (there was even a mod called like that). Menus and fleet management, from what I’ve read, are one of the areas where Rebirth improves on X3. Maybe check out some 4.x reviews and then decide. Game is currently on version 4.3.
I don’t have a problem with one ship in theory, but it had less ship upgrades than the previous games had. And those games had a ton of different ships in addition to more upgrades for them. The ship customisation in Rebirth was pitiful. No idea whether it’s changed over time.
There are some extra options now, but it’s not a huge improvement. Just some options that, despite not being straight upgrades, are not something particularly creative or remarkable.
I feel like I’m progressing the campaign too fast by simply following the objectives. Right now I’m at ‘Enter Trojan ROV’ part and I’m still using mk1 Maser and Mk1 Plasma. Wasn’t able to get shield upgrade in DeVries because trader didn’t stock them?? And at no point was I told I should buy a Trojan Rov before I got to that part of the mission lol. I’m thinking of abandoning the campaign and going straight to free play if it’s going to continue like this.
edit: Figured out what the problem was, restarted campaign. Doing some missions on the side now so I can afford the better stuff.
Took down a large ship today, with lots of help from the nearby friendly station lol. I got hooked pretty hard, gotta say.
@rhamorim: any tips regarding ship loadouts? For now I’m using the mk3 combat cockpit config, mk1 weapons (repeater is my favorite, but hammer is also great), 2x mk3 Dashing shields, and mk3 Sidewinder engine. I’m not really clear on how many drones I can carry though - for example I can store 5 assassin drones, but does that mean I won’t be able to take as many of other types?
