I ripped open X3 Reunion and downloaded the 1.02.01 patch and began the game. Very open ended universe with an excellent fluctuating economy based on supply and demand and an empire builder to boot. You can build factories and freighters, both universal and local and space military armada's. There's over 150 sectors to explore an in a weeks time I've only uncovered 50 of them.
X3 Reunion has been getting all my playtime lately. It's like Life in space now after patch 1.3 a never ending game really. You just live out your alterior life in this space world with new wars heated up, invasions from Xenons, Pirates and Khaaks (pronounced cocks) hehe You build up empires and the AI tries to tear them down, you build up defenses and the AI tries to hit you where you ain't. You spend BILLIONS of credits that will take you weeks to get if not months to aquire haha and you'll do all this starting out with a small fighter ship and 108 cargo spaces. Many of which will be taken up by your weapons and shields right off the bat. I've spent a week on it and got 27 million credits before patch 1.3 that really ripped open a new part of the game with "invasions from Xemars" Xenons everywhere, pirates invade, khaaks invade, your whole empire obliterated in a massive invasion that only movies could do justice better. But, this is only to rebalance the game from 1.2 which had hardly any ai activity. They eventually slow down and go to a normal invasion way of life, but, this initial invasion is just something to behold. People that get the game and install patch 1.3 right off the bat will miss some of the most exciting (and for some, most frustrating) fun of the entire game, watching 100's of AI ships just plow through your sectors and tear your empire to pieces. lol
The official site forum is down for some reason after this 1.3 patch. Lol I wonder why? Before it went down you could read the screams of the masses, I even jumped in at first cause this invasion just wiped me out. I had 3 Universal traders (they automatically trade for you throughout the entire explored galaxy which is really kewl income), 6 local freighters ( 4 which were energy gathers for my Swamp WEED factory and my BoGas factory, the other 2 were the ones that would fly around and sell my goods that my factories produced). This part of the game trading is quite fun. But, each ship costs at least a million credits and these factories were over 500,000 credits each, plus the cost to hire a computer AI Large Transport Ship to deliver them to the sector I wanted to build them. Anyways I HAD all this stuff after a weeks play. Lotsa hours of flying/trading and running from mediocre pirate or khaak attacks. Then patch 1.3 comes out. I download it since it fixes some major lag and graphical slow down issues. And I swear the DEVS decided to have a ball with everyone with this patch, cause this patch invasion force is rediclously monsterous in size and make the borg look like childs play from Star Trek.
Of course this patch was intended to do what it did, rebalance the game to what it should be by the amount of time you've already put into it if you played the 1.02.01 version. That was hard to accept at first, but, now I can see reasoning behind it. I shoudn't be as far advanced as I am already is the point of the massive invasion. It wasn't intended to be that way, but, of course just like all publishers, they released the game before it was ready. Now everyone that's a main trader like me is/was complaining about the patch being too harsh. But, there's guys with BILLIONS of credits and over 400 factories and they certainly weren't suppose to be THAT far into the game already. It's suppose to be a living thriving waring empire building trying to survive universe. I would of just loved to have seen the size of the invasion force on some of those players with 100's of hours of gameplay. lol They were screaming the loudest and of course the fragfesters were loving the new patch. You'll get plenty of fighting now along with a more balanced advance in trading and building an empire.
This one goes on my recommended list of games if you like games like Elite, Privateer and Freelancer. This one has a story, but, you never have to touch it to get true value out of the empire builder itself. I did two missions and said fark it, playing empire builder was/is more fun.
