HalcyonSpirit

Thanks for the help. I have two votes in my inbox now. So three in total if you include my vote. Voting is almost over; I want to see more votes! Especially from the people who actually entered this and previous rounds!

Hm... I'll have to make sure I'm going first, but I may be able to help you with that. See, a relative lives in Baltimore, and since the drive from where I live to the meetup is quite long anyway, I might go visit her the day before and then drive to the meetup from there. Depends on when things are supposed to start, though. If I do end up doing that, I may be able to drive you there and back.

I endorse this motion.

It's certainly possible if no one votes! Seriously, no one's voted yet. There's less than a week to go. Get moving, people!

New players often get that feeling; it's a difficult game to get into at the start. It comes with the way the game is set up. The game has over 200 sectors in it, and each one of them is being simulated, even when you're not in them.* Plus, since game starts begin with you having virtually nothing, it takes a little while for the player to get a foothold in whatever it is the player wants to do. Combined with the complexity of the game, it can be off-putting and "boring." It certainly doesn't help that the first start option most players choose upon playing for the first time puts you in Terran space, which is, hands down, the most boring set of sectors in the game. The game doesn't necessarily try to make the game interesting for you; it only provides the necessary framework, just like how real life only provides the opportunities. You have to go and find that which you find interesting to do, whether it be combat, trading, or whatever. Most players go the "make an empire from scratch" route, but that's not all you can do. Especially once you start adding modifications to the game that add functionality and dynamic events. I find that new players get more interested after reading N-S's Dead-is-Dead stories, showing what some people do in the game, so here's one you can look at if you want: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=248619 * Whatever happens in them occurs because of other events. The universe is dynamic, with hardly anything happening "randomly." The exceptions being Kha'ak invasions and some of the missions you see on stations. So it's not like you'll be seeing something interesting in most every sector you go to; interesting things happen regardless of whether you're there to see it or not. You'll miss some things and catch others.

Wait, you only tried it for "several hours"? You didn't even get into the meat of the game! Hell, you probably didn't even get past the optional tutorial, nor learned how the game really works. Shaaaaaaaame. It's damn hard to pick up the first time, but starting a new game never takes as long as it does the first time around. Not by a long shot. Took me two days to get to a decent position the first time; took an hour to get to the same level my next time around. Why? I knew the game mechanics. And once you know the game mechanics... that's when things get interesting. Just ask all the military fleets I've stomped on with my own fleet how interesting it can be. That said, sounds like you might be looking for a "pick-up-and-be-in-the-middle-of-action-in-ten-minutes-flat" game. This ain't it. Takes at least 20.

I've got a question. I starting working out 2 days ago, and it mostly went well. However, I believe I overdid it with my arms, specifically my biceps. I was doing curls, if it's relevant. Anyway, I think I did quite a few too many, and the next day (yesterday), my muscles around my elbow (mostly above) were not only sore, but really, really stiff. I stretched them out, which hurt a fair amount, and they seemed ok, but after a few minutes they stiffened up again when I relaxed them. I stretched again, again it hurt a fair amount, and a few minutes after that they again started to stiffen back up. Etc. etc. Today, the problem persists. If I keep my arms outstretched, the muscles can't really tense up enough to hinder movement, but if I relax them at all, they tense up again and I have to stretch them before I can fully outstretch my arm again. I've never had this problem before; the soreness I know is normal, but the persistent stiffness? Is that normal as well, or is there a problem? I've been resting the muscles as much as possible, but the stiffness is painful and inconvenient for doing anything. Is there something I should be doing to help them heal?

I'll just post it here, since it isn't much and others might appreciate it. A list of CPU performance-improving mods can be found here (slightly incomplete, though): http://www.universesearch.co.cc/x3tc/ These mods are the ones I recommend that improve game performance while not changing aspects of gameplay itself: No Civilians Full Performance Complex Tubes Unofficial Bug Fixes Improved Combat Frame Rate Lower Poly Asteroids These mods improve performance while changing aspects of gameplay: Remove Rocks from Universe (Removes the ability to mobile mine ore and silicon due to removing the small rocks in the sectors.) X3 Unleased (Changes the jobs file so that there are fewer military, trading, and civilian ships while maintaining viability of the game's universe. This has not been updated since patch 2.1, so the changes from later patches to the Jobs file will be revered by this mod. Best to play the game first before using.) Combat Mod 3 (Combines the effects reductions from "Improved Combat Frame Rate" with weapon adjustments to reduce "firing spam" that slows computers. It also changes the roles of some weapons and how shields recharge, thus changing combat significantly.)

HOW DID I MISS THIS I need to find my wallet. NOW.

It'll be sufficient. It'll slow a bit with larger groups of ships duking it out, but I've had about 50-100 ships doing their combat thing at one time without too much of an fps drop, and that was before the 2.7 patch. Depends on whether you want to focus on trade or combat (and at that, single-ship or fleet combat). Some, though, are great for enhancing game performance as a consequence of the modifications made. Combat Mod 3 is one of them. And then some just enhance the feel of the game. I want to note, though, that playing through at least a couple of the plots without mods first is a must; it lets you decide on what aspects of the game you like and what aspects you want to change. I do recommend either getting Combat Mod 3 or one of the combat performance mods in order to improve combat performance. That's almost a must. I also recommend getting the unofficial bugfix mod that corrects many of the issues the game still has (like improper model placements and such). Pirate Guild 3 adds a lot of life to the pirates, and makes interacting with them feel more realistic - you have more options than just "kill or ignore." Phanon Corporation adds a corp that'll try to establish a trade empire in the universe and try to destroy yours in the process. Improved Races adds better racial AI to the game, making the militaries respond better to threats and making the Xenon an actual threat in the universe again (same with the Kha'ak, though I don't use that portion yet). CODEA Weapon System adds fleet management to the game as best it can (fleet management in Vanilla is horrible). In fact, all of Lucike's scripts (from combat to trade scripts) are worth downloading. The Galactic News System is new, but will eventually add new functionality and immersion to the game - ESPECIALLY once the huge Xtended Mod for TC comes out. Out Of Sector Damage Rebalance is almost a must, since Vanilla OOS combat is poor. Might also consider the Ship Rebalance Mod. Rank Dial and Change Notoriety Growth Rates reduce the rate at which you gain ranks (the Vanilla growth rate is FAST, too fast). Etc., etc. To put it in perspective, I've got about 80 different mods/scripts active in my current game, and I like to focus on the combat side of things, so my scripts try to 1) automate trading as much as possible, 2) improve combat performance and enjoyment, and 3) make the universe more alive and dangerous. I'm probably going to cut the number down a little for next game, but not by much. I can send you a list of the modifications I'm using with links to where I got them if you'd like, so you can read about what each does. In addition, you can go to Egosoft's forum to look at the modding community yourself: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewforum.php?f=94 It's not entirely necessary. Reunion's plot is secondary to everything else, really, and is mostly just a tutorial to get you started in playing the real game. There isn't much to it, either. The TC plots are similar, though they can be difficult, and mainly serve to open up new areas of the universe and/or change certain aspects of the universe at large. Reunion and TC are very similar gameplay-wise, as they're based on the same game engine, but some mechanics changed slightly between them. Generally, people find TC to be better, run better (Reunion was notorious for CTDs), have a better interface, and have more stuff to do in it. Plus, the modding community for TC is very, very active, while Reunion's has sputtered to a halt. In essence, Reunion isn't really necessary, but a few people like it better. Most like TC better, though. Oh, and pretty soon, Egosoft is going to be releasing their Superbox, which is a collection of ALL their X-Universe games in one package. Might want to wait for that if you're interested in playing them all.

X3TC: I play this. I'm running W7. So, obviously it DOES work. I would just advise not putting it on the system drive in the Program Files folder, as it can have issues with the admin rights. Otherwise, it'll work fine. The game has a RIDICULOUS number of scripts and mods available for it, making the game insanely better, and you can customize some of those you use to better suit your playstyle. Yes, the game has the issue of only using one core. This is because it is still using the X3: Reunion engine, which was coded before multicore was becoming mainstream. The game used to be limited to 2GB of RAM, but the latest 2.7 patch released a few days ago lifted that limitation, which, along with the optimizations that came with the patch, improved the performance significantly. The game is not graphics-intensive for how good it looks, so if you have at least the GeForce 9x00 series graphics card or equivalent, you'll be able to have the graphics to max settings (or damn close to it). If you have a CPU that has single-core speeds of 2.6 GHz or faster, you won't have much of an issue running X3TC unless you REALLY overdo it with the scripts and mods. The CPU I have is 2.83 GHz, and if you have over 3.0 GHz you're golden. As for other games, I've heard good things about Evochron Legends, but I haven't played it myself.

I'm a possibility.

Voting starts now for the May 2010 Poetry Competition! We've got three submissions this time: Knitting Time by Nintendude794 The Course Unreal by ZeaLitY The Armageddon Can by Mirby Good luck to the participants!

Submission period extended by a week. Hopefully we'll see a few more entries from the writers around here, hm?

A little under three days left for submissions this round. We have enough for a vote, but if we don't get at least one more, the submission period will be extended another week. But don't put off finishing; after all, if someone else submits before the deadline and you haven't been working on yours, you may not have time to finish anymore!

I hope everyone's working hard on their submissions! I've been fairly busy lately, especially since I GRADUATED THIS PAST WEEKEND, but I've never been much of a poetry person, either... In any case, I've got here a submission from ZeaLitY! Not me! ZeaLitY!

Xiad, this much is true. There is no restriction, so if you wanted to, go right ahead. Don't be surprised if it gets few votes, though, since this is a primarily English board. Now, if you were to translate it, that'd work better for the competition. Is there any particular reason you'd want to have it in a language other than English?

Site is down. Must've gotten hit hard with traffic.

I'm surprised no one's started pestering me about the next competition already. The May 2010 Poetry Competition is underway! For those of you from the previous competition, I know I haven't yet reviewed your pieces. I'm trying to get to it, but I'm very, very busy and behind schedule with my college work, which needs to get done so I can, you know... graduate. So give me a little more time, m'kay?

I'm almost 24, and I can't hear above 15. I can sense up to 20 if the background noise isn't too much, but I can't actually hear anything that high. And yeah, tinnitus... 15 sounds like what I get.

THE RESULTS ARE IN! The winners of the March 2010 Short Story competition are: 1st Place: Uncaptured Jewel by HalcyonSpirit Runner-Up: Nostalgic by Imagery Here's the point distribution: Uncaptured Jewel by HalcyonSpirit - 11 Nostalgic by Imagery - 8 Seraph by Soul Splint - 5 The Munchies by Jam Stunna (Jamil Ragland) - 4 You've Built Worlds, Haven't you? by Random Hajile - 4 Reaching Out by SoulinEther (Yousef Reda) - 2 Reunion by Darklink42 - 2 Congratulations to the winners, Imagery and Ha... wait. ... wut? *shuffles papers around* How'd that happen? I must've miscounted something - where's my abacus? ... Ah well. I won't argue with the votes, just the sanity of the voters. All-in-all, definitely a wonderful showing by the participants, and it certainly was difficult placing some of my points. Goes to show you how diverse the field of creative writing can be, and how hard it is to compare and rank compositions from different styles. I don't envy people who run professional competitions. That all said, it's 1:30AM for me; I'm going to sleep. I'll come back later to give a somewhat better reaction to the pieces.

Last day to vote!

OK, first up, just a couple days left to vote! I've received three votes so far, plus mine. Let's have a good showing with votes by getting a few more in! Second, Jam, I'm going to go ahead and say, for now, you don't have to award all of the points you are able to assign. I strong, strongly recommend it, but I don't see why you can't withhold points and there hasn't been any precedent. Unless there's any objections/suggestions from others, that's my ruling for now.

That's a... that's a really good question, actually. I would recommend doing so, but... technically, there isn't a rule about it specifically... Let me get back to you on that. There might be informal precedent somewhere regarding it. Possibly during Imagery's reign.

Dammit, I saw a thread that contained the words "Public Address" and my heart leaped at the prospect of listening to new goodness... and then I saw that it wasn't a new one. That said, I'll take the time to once again say that this one is still awesome.