X2 - The Threat

[TimberWolf]

This is the second one I have put a bid on. The first one quickly went beyond my $7 range. This one is sitting very nicely at the $1 mark, but that can change since there is two and a half days left till it ends.

I am looking forward to playing. My computer is just a notch more than the reconmended loadout, so if I run everything at medium it should be fine. Also I would like to test out a thought: how big are the sectors? I read a thread that talked about flying an hour out and building many loops out there. That way the enemy will either ignore them or take so long to get there you can have a fleet coming up behind them before they get there. Also by the readings I have done so far, Sector Traders and Universal Traders are apart of the same mod that has become an accepted upgrade by the game makers.

Quick question: are you playing with enemy stations respawn on or off?

[XMEN Gambit]

I don't know what the limit on a sector is. No real way to test. There are up to four gates in a sector, and all the stations in a sector are inside that square (with few exceptions) - but it is possible to travel "outside the box."

I said earlier that the UT's mod is "blessed" by Egosoft. But I've not loaded any mods and I've got sector traders.

The only setting so far I've found for station respawn is clearly labeled "pirates." I'm playing with the respawn on, but then I'm nowhere near ready to take out a station at this point. Stations belonging to the principal races will always respawn whether you're a friend or enemy.

[TimberWolf]

Ok, all of my Ebay bids have been out bidded. I have sent an email to my Brother in Austin to look out for the game at Fry's and other area stores for a price of $15 or less. If he does this and finds one then I will receive it when I see him at his wedding in little over a month. Other than that I have no other means of getting the game localy and I don't think the game is worth paying $21 after shipping.

I should get back to work now, even though there is nothing to do right now. All I have to do is sit around until someone needs help. I am a math tutor at OSU Lima, and this is a great job for practicing math and doing home work. Hope my internet is back on at home, been off since about 1pm yesterday.

[TsN|Wildchild|xmen]

Oddly enough we are stil ltalking about this. I have not loaded this up in a while Gambit but I will again sometime this week to see if we can work it out.

So far the only problem I am getting is when the comm screen pops up. Like when you hail a station or ship to dock with and the comm screen opens and the visual image pops up and talks to you? I lag as all get out right then. I don't know why and neither does the gurus at the x2 forums.

If you have any thoughts please let me know. I've bought three games lately and been dissapointed with everyone of them because of issues like this.

[XMEN Gambit]

Ok, we'll start with possible issues - I'm sure that at least some of these have been mentioned before somewhere.

info needed:
RAM amount
OS w/SP level
video card
video driver version
sound card
sound card driver version
motherboard type
mobo chipset driver version

Have you played with all the various options in the game for graphics level, speech/audio, etc? Do all the speaking parts in-game work, or not?

[TsN|Wildchild|xmen]

Ok, we'll start with possible issues - I'm sure that at least some of these have been mentioned before somewhere.

info needed:
RAM amount :2gig DDR 3200
OS w/SP level : WIN XP SP2 I think
video card : Radeon 9800 Pro 256
video driver version : Don't recall but I think its updated as of four months ago.
sound card : SC1 - Audigy2, SC2 - SB16
sound card driver version : Updated to new I believe
motherboard type : Don't recall from work
mobo chipset driver version : Same as Above, don't recall from work

Have you played with all the various options in the game for graphics level, speech/audio, etc? Do all the speaking parts in-game work, or not?

Speach in game is fine. Openning movie is great, a little jerky in some places but understandable as it's a resource hog. Everything thus far works perfectly, except my understanding of how to effectively pilot the damn ship without a joystick. I have done everything in the test mode, learning mode, sim whatever. When I get to the docking with a station it lags seriously. I tried starting the normal game and it does the same thing. It lags everytime I get the comm screen to pop up. And I don't mean Tribes2 lag... I mean serious UE type lag... after it does it's thing, which has taken up to five minutes it may start back to normal again.

[XMEN Gambit]

See, there are certain sounds produced when communicating or docking, and I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it. So you could try disabling sound in the game (set all volumes to zero?) just to see what happens. But I'd also make sure you've got your mobo drivers up to latest, likewise for your video and sound drivers. It may be that having two sound cards is confusing it, too.

When you're flying around in sim mode, can you pull up the various menus? <ENTER> on the keypad, or "R," or several other keys will bring up a subscreen with a transparent background - so that's another strong possibility if you can't see those at all.

There's another. When I upgraded to SP2, every time I tried to run some game (don't remember what) I had one of those UE-type slowdowns you are familiar with. I checked the task manager (slowly), found a process using 99% CPU, and killed it (I think it was rundll). Haven't had that problem since, which is pretty strange since doing that only kills it from current memory.

[TsN|Wildchild|xmen]

Yeah I can see other menus just fine. And the soundcard issue is not an issue as I have one card set specifically for a single program, everything else is prioritized to the main sc.

I will check it out though.

Any good program to test what type of mobo I have? I know it's speed but not it's type.

Oh I have 2Gig of DDR ram not 1Gig. Working on getting another 2Gig in here soon.

[XMEN Gambit]

When the machine first powers up, you'll usually see a line at the bottom that states the mobo and/or chipset and bios version. Or you could pull the case and look for something printed on the mobo.

You say having two sound cards is not the problem, and you may well be right - but you don't KNOW until you try it. I'd say just disable the one you're not using from the device manager, that should be sufficient. The game may still be seeing both cards and trying to pull something funky.

[TsN|Wildchild|xmen]

True.

I looked last night and realized I had uninstalled the program. I have to find my cd's to install it again. Then we wil ltest from there.

[TimberWolf]

Giving ebay one last round of tries. Currently the highest bidder ($1.04) for a New copy of X2. The bid is open for 6 more days so I don't really expect to get it but, who knows, it may happen. If I do get it at this price then I would have paid $6.04 but if the price goes up I only put it up to a $3 bid. We will see what comes of this.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :B:BN:US:1

[TimberWolf]

Ok, I have stopped all active tries of getting X2. All tries on ebay have failed because I am not willing to put enough money into it. Also due to some problems in RL I am forced to further consolidate my funds. One of our vehicles has broken down forcing three very independent working, with completely different schedules, people to ferry each other around in the two remaining vehicles. This causes me to be carless on the weekends and bound to a certian area to pick my Father up on mondays and fridays.

I still have my Brother in Tx looking for it. I will watch out for X3 so when it drops down to a reasonable price, and hopefully I have money to spend, I will get it. But for now I can only enjoy the game in my head and through your posts.

How is your empire going Gambit?

[XMEN Gambit]

I didn't play for a couple of weeks in there, but since you asked:

I bought another factory. I wanted to try something besides the SPP, so I bought one level up - a Cattle Ranch. I put it in a system with a SPP and a Cahoona Bakery, so I thought it'd do OK, but it's not worked out very well. It is making money now, just veerrry slowly.
The original SPP is just rocking along. I've pulled a lot of funds out of it by now - more than enough to pay for the factory itself, and maybe even enough to pay for the initial stocking-up with crystals (those things are expensive...)
My sector trader is making almost 40k per system before he evens out the market and has to be reassigned. Some systems take longer than others to equalize. I'm going to try putting him in slightly more risky systems, which may cause me to lose the 500k investment in software.
I lost my initial M5 Discoverer due to a Khaak attack in the system where I'd placed the Cattle Ranch, which I barely defeated. The same ^*(^&*% attack cost me my jump drive, so now I've got to find a replacement. I've now placed a single laser tower in that system, but I've yet to see how effective it is.
I've got 5 captured TS pirate ships working for me; 2 on each of the factories and one is the trader. I have captured, but not yet repaired, 4 more.
I've installed an asteroid scanner in my fighter, so now I'm scanning 'roids wherever I go. Finally found some juicy ones last night, so I might want to set up a small tibanna gas mining -- er, yeah.
Saw my first ad for hacking a station on a pirate BBS.

I'm on good terms with everyone but the Split. Combat rank: Colonel. Trader rank: Professional Industrialist.

Current goals: Need to set up more factories. Would love to have my own supply of laser towers and/or nav sats, but will have to wait a bit.
Like SPPs, but don't want just SPPs. Getting ready to try setting up a loop or installing a universal trader.

[XMEN Gambit]

Status update on my game.

I've been to most of the sectors in the universe, with the exception of the grouping in the top right. I have set up SPP, Silicon Mine, and Crystal Fab in the now-empty sector of President's End. Don't know if I want to add a wheat farm and cahoona bakery there to finish out my 'loop'. (I like Silicon Mines for profit centers, BTW.) I have 2.5 million in cash, and trying to figure out the most effective way to turn that into profit-making or perhaps buying an M6-class vessel (6-10 mil). Which brings me to my next point...

There's a main-plot mission where you borrow an M6 (a Hydra) and jump it to an unexplored Khaak sector to retrieve a data recorder. (A whole sector swarming with Khaak. Yikes.) Based on that experience, I'm not sure that I want one, at least for my main ship. Got very nice shields (2x125w), and excellent speed (300+), but it turns like a pig compared to the much smaller fighters/scouts. Natch. But it's only got one (rear) turret. It's also too big to dock with most stations, so if you were to use it to haul cargo you'd have to ferry it in with an M5-class (tiny holds) that fits in the hanger bay or use the "dump cargo from one ship and pick it up with another" method.

In the next mission, you take part in a big battle with lots of M0, M1, and M2 class ships. Carriers, battleships, and heavy cruisers, basically, and you're a fighter with a couple wingmen. Whee!

[TimberWolf]

The M6 class ships are more of a front line support craft. They are not designed to dogfight like the M3, M4, or M5. They are also just as varied in their abilities. I would look at the Osprey which has good shields and weapons but has low speed. If you want to use one for frieght then invest in a transporter; to my understanding they allow you to transfer cargo or your self from the ship you are in (with the transporter) to another ship. This way you can use a frighter to load and unload the M6. If you want to carry a lot of cargo then save up for an TL (the one that can deploy stations) and then fill it up with goods and have it carry Transports with their own cargo bays full. That way you can jump around with tons of cargo to sell.

I have downloaded the playable demo and have dabled with it some. It takes a while to learn the keys, and not to ram the enemy to death, but so far I have been enjoying it. I have found a place nearby that may have X2. It is a dollar store that I never been in. I have found out that they carry old software that other stores stop selling, such as HomeWorld. So as soon as I get off work today I will run across town and check it out. I have to make sure I study for my final tomarrow instead of playing if I do find it.

*EDIT*
No joy. They had many games even older than X2 but no X2.