X (video game): Difference between revisions

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A [[Wide Open Sandbox]] [[Four X4X|space combat/trading simulator]] series by German developer Egosoft.

The series (the "''X-Universe''") contains:

** ''X: Tension'', (2000, expansion for '''X''': BTF)

Long before the events of the games, Earth built the first jump gate and launched it towards Alpha Centauri. However, in a midflight test, the Earth jump gate locked onto a random gate not built by humans - they had discovered the ''X-Universe'' [[Portal Network|gate system]]. All the planets discovered were totally [[Absent Aliens|absent of intelligent life]] .<ref> due to the [[Precursors]] modifying the gate system to keep the Terrans isolated</ref>. Earth built a fleet of self-replicating and self-evolving [[Terraform|Terraformer]]er ships to make the worlds habitable for humanity. About a hundred years later, after the mission was complete, Earth sent out a command for the Terraformers to self-destruct. Not long after, the Terraformers show up in force, and begin terraforming ''everything'' in sight. Nathan R.Gunne, a Terran commander, lured the Terraformers past Earth's jump gate into the X-Universe, then destroyed the jump gate behind him to isolate the Terraformers (now dubbed the Xenon) and to save Earth. Gunne crash lands his frigate on Sonra-4, an earth-like world, and begins restarting civilization with his crew. They name themselves the "Argon" after R. Gunne. [[Future Imperfect|Earth has become a fairytale legend]]. The Argon begin exploring the X-Universe, and discover the peaceful [[Fish People|Boron]], the [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Paranid]], the [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Split]], and the [[Proud Merchant Race|Teladi]]. They also rediscover the [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|Xenon]]. The Terrans, completely isolated from the X-Universe, build a ship with the first Jump Drive, to try and reach Alpha Centauri. However, the Jump Drive locks onto the X-Universe and promptly breaks down, stranding the pilot (and protagonist) in the X-Universe and indebted to the Teladi, who helped repair his ship. The Earth pilot, Kyle Brennan, helped prevent the Xenon from blowing up a planet with their M0 Planet Killer in the first game, ''Beyond The Frontier''. A few decades later in ''The Threat'', the [[Horde of Alien Locusts|Kha'ak]] show up and their first act in the universe is to destroy everything in the sector President's End and nearly destroying the planet in Omicron Lyrae. After the Kha'ak planet killer is destroyed, a [[Precursor]] shows up and begins secretly aiding the Paranid in building a jump gate. The Paranid activate their jump gate in Heretic's End -- whichEnd—which links to Earth, right as the Kha'ak are jumping into the sector to try and destroy the Paranid jump gate. The entire Terran Fleet, completely forgotten by the rest of the universe, streams out of the jump gate and [[Curb Stomp Battle|curb stomps the Kha'ak]]. The Terrans establish tentative relations with the other races, but try to remain isolated -- henceisolated—hence the game being named ''Reunion''. ''Terran Conflict'' reunites the long lost {{spoiler|Aldrin}} colony with Earth, destroys the Kha'ak Hive Queen, and sees a [[Space Cold War|rise in tensions between the Argon and the Terrans]]. In ''Albion Prelude'', the cold war [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|goes hot with the destruction]] of Earth's orbital defense station.

You can just play through the plot, content to stay in your puny little fighter and not straying much farther than your starting sector, or you can create a universe-spanning trading empire, all but controlling the economy and with enough military power to squash all who dare oppose you. You can also do things that you're not really meant to do, such as almost completely wiping out a race from the universe. It takes a hell of a lot of military resources, and it'll probably break the economy unless you supply it with that race's goods yourself, but nobody's actively ''stopping'' you from doing it. The only reason you can't destroy ''everything'' is because the game engine tries to keep the economy balanced and will slowly recreate destroyed stations if need be.

Not to be confused with ''[[X 1999 (Mangamanga)|X 1999]]'', ''X'' the Nintendo tank game with the same name, or the punk band [[X (Musicband)|X]].

* [[Two 2-D Space]]: Played straight in the first two games -- mostgames—most ships, planets, and stations are laid out on a two-d plane. Averted and repeatedly lampshaded in the third game.

* [[Four X4X]]: A rare example played through the first person perspective.

* [[Abusing the Kardashev Scale For Fun Andand Profit]]: The Outsiders in the backstory and Encyclopedia are full blown Type IVs, and the Ancients are borderline Type IVs. [[Dyson Sphere]] and Matroshka Brain civilizations are mentioned, and they fit into the borderline Type IIs. However, all the races the player actually interacts with are at best high-end Type Is.

* [[Abusive Precursors]] / [[Benevolent Precursors]] : The Ancients ''do'' have theoretically good goals, like doing something about that whole "Heat Death Of The Universe" ''thing'', and they consider the [[Portal Network]] they built and maintain a gift to the younger races. On the other hand, they've got a nasty habit of thinking about the younger races as one collective group, making them [[Well -Intentioned Extremist|frighteningly]] willing to toy with other species. Since their most direct method of manipulation involves switching gate pairs in the [[Portal Network]], this means that they do things like start interplanetary wars seemingly [[For the Lulz]], [[You Can't Go Home Again|separate colony ships from their home planets]], simply lock fleets in deep space with nowhere to go, or [[Inferred Holocaust|turn off the entire system of interstellar travel]]. On the gripping hand, that bit about shutting down the entire [[Portal Network]] also came in response to the [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|Xenon terraformers, who have a bad habit of terraforming people out of existance]], [[Oh Crap|having control of a large portion of the galaxy]].

* [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot]]: The modern-day Xenon are descended from the Terraformers, originally built by the Terrans to terraform worlds. After a badly-written ''software update'' they begin to 'terraform' people, cities, and stations. Eventually they {{spoiler|gained true sentience}}. This is why you bug-check your changes before you implement them, people.

* [[All Planets Are Earthlike]]: Averted. A good number of planets in-game look Earth-ish (most likely due to the Terraformers, well, ''terraforming'' them) but plenty look and are described as fairly different -- thedifferent—the Boron homeworld being an aquatic planet with an ammonia-based atmosphere, for example.

* [[All There in the Manual]]: The ''X-Encyclopedia'', a 200 page [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|encyclopedia]] on the background of the X-universe, its future (past the games' timeline), and how technology works. It loves to talk about stuff that isn't mentioned in the games at all, like the "Hatikvah Free League", a separate human government, or a species of sentient whales on a hidden Boron planet.

* [[Always ChaoticExclusively Evil]]: The Xenon and the Kha'ak. Pirates and Yaki begin looking like that but it's possible to eventually get on good terms with them, and it's possible to befriend ''everyone'' at the same time if you avoid doing combat missions.

* [[April Fools' Day]]:

* [[Arbitrary Maximum Range]]: All weapons have a maximum range, the longest being 8 kilometers on a capital ship cannon. The effective range of most weapons is lower than the listed max range, because at long range the target will usually avoid the [[Painfully -Slow Projectile|Painfully Slow Projectiles]].

* [[Armor -Piercing Attack]]: The Mass Driver main weapon will outright ignore ship mounted shields and damage the ship's (very expensive and frail) hull directly. It doesn't do that much damage, but since it's ammo based rather than energy based, it can keep firing until you run out of ammo (which on a large fighter, may be 10,000+ rounds).

** Fatal collisions among NPC ships are commonplace. Fast NPC fighters tend to splat on the station they are attacking after a few minutes of fire. Unwanted self-destruction by launching a missile slower than their ship is also relatively common. Gets elevated to the power of itself if you activate time compression; the AI routines have trouble running 10x faster, and glitch out -- generallyout—generally in more dramatic ways the faster the ship is. Expect to see fighters zig-zagging all over the place and capital ships ramming stations.

*** Oddly enough, the auto-pillock is the only thing that mitigates the Aldrin Spitfyre's status as a Game Breaker. This is an M3 heavy fighter [[Sci -Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|capable of topping 450 m/s, has 75 MJ of shielding]], and can mount and fire ''corvette''-grade weapons. The game self-balances by smashing it into things on attack runs.

** The targeting computer auto-aims for the center of every ship, and is smart enough to lead its targets. But the [httphttps://web.archive.org/web/20200813152824/https://eng.x3tc.runet/screenshot/ship.php?NTg4MDg1NDc Terran M1 Tokyo] (and its base design, the [httphttps://web.archive.org/web/20200813152846/https://eng.x3tc.runet/screenshot/ship.php?ODk4MzExMTU TL Mobile Mining Base-Ship]) have a long, narrow primary hull with an offset saucer section about a third of the way from the stern; the geographical center of the ship is in empty space forward of the saucer. This means that if you're attacking from above or below, auto-aimed shots will quite often miss cleanly.

* [[Artistic License Economics]]: Taken [[Up to Eleven]]. Not only would the economy not work in [[Real Life]], ''it doesn't work [[In -Universe]] either''. The most infamous example is the Terrans, whose economy is perpetually stagnated, with goods sitting in factories unsold. Doesn't help that the Terran stations and sectors are ''massive'' and have a docking corridor that's the size of a Commonwealth station; anything that gets in the way will cause a docking trading ship to avert and restart its docking path. The game's GOD engine (regulates the economy, and what is spawned/removed) also likes to destroy Terran stations because they don't receive their necessary resources, which happens a lot since there will be 3-4 sectors between a technology factory and the ore or food that it needs to run. Terrans fail civil planning forever.

* [[Asteroid Miners]]: Ships can be outfitted with Ore Collectors. Blow up an asteroid with a big missile or a Mobile Drilling System, cut up the chunks into smaller pieces with your weapons, then pick it up. Players can sometimes see AI ships mining asteroids, but it's fairly rare.

* [[Asteroid Thicket]]: There can be upwards of 40 asteroids (each of which 1-2km1–2&nbsp;km in diameter) in a 60 kilometer radius. Most sectors have only a couple asteroids fairly spaced out, but sectors like Savage Spur have several dozen asteroids in a tiny area between the gates; the sector is a death trap for capital ships, more so if SETA is running on 10x.

* [[Attack! Attack! Attack!]]: Xenon and Kha'ak ships will ''never'' retreat from battle, and will blithely throw scout ships to try and kill your destroyers. Pirate and Commonwealth ships will occasionally try and retreat, but by the time they realize "oh god we're all going to die", there is usually only one scout ship left alive.

** ''X: Rebirth's'' player ship is armed with drones that can be flown remotely. This is something of a bone of contention among the fans, for reasons explained on the [[X (Videovideo Gamegame)/YMMV|YMMV tab]].

* [[Awesome but Impractical]]:

* [[Bare Your Midriff]] / [[Form -Fitting Wardrobe]] / [[Ms. Fanservice]] / [[Stripperiffic]] (whew!): Saya Kho is frequently depicted as such. [http://extreme.pcgameshardware.de/attachments/397450d1301531304-spieler-frauen-die-beliebtesten-frauen-charaktere-computerspielen-x3saya.jpg This image] is on the back of ''X3: Gold Edition''.

* [[Bigger Onon the Inside]]: Cargo bays, due to quantum compression. Ships not much larger than a modern F-16 jet can fit several dozen people in their cargo bays - which would be about the size of a refrigerator.

* [[Black and Gray Morality]]: ''Albion Prelude''. After the Terrans begin moving fleets around because of rumors of the Argon developing AGI ships, Saya Kho blows up Earth's Torus Aeternal, killing potentially ''millions'' of people on the Torus alone, with even more from wreckage [[Colony Drop|falling back down onto Earth]]. The Terrans then go on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] against the Argon Federation, who deploy [[Too Dumb to Live|artificially intelligent ships reverse engineered from the Xenon]]. Some of the Paranid, who normally despise other races, were horrified by this and sided with the Terrans. The year after the Argon butcher millions of Terrans, the [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|entire gate system shuts down.]].

* [[Black Box]]: The jumpgates play with this trope. While operation is terribly easy -- pusheasy—push a spaceship in one gate, and it'll pop out the other gate in the pair a few seconds later, no matter how far away -- noaway—no one in the Commonwealth understands anything but the lies-to-children version of how they work. While there are a few scientists capable of repairing damaged gates, no one even thinks about trying replication or reconfiguration, and the irregular outages or changes in the system caused by meddling precursors is treated like mystery or even legend where it's not just a natural risk of the gates. The species that actually made the system in the first place not only consider it [[The World Is Not Ready|outside of the range of understanding of the normal races]], they think it's impossible for a species to understand without getting [[Abusing the Kardashev Scale For Fun Andand Profit|a few points higher on the Kardashev scale]]. Then the [[Humans Are Special|Terran humans get involved]], and not only get the theory down and create a new gate on their own, but also create a Jumpdrive that's a ''separate'' Black Box to everyone else in the setting.

* [[Boring but Practical]]: Rapid fire, low damage per shot weapons. Capital ships would be better off if [[More Dakka|all their turrets are filled to the brim with anti-fighter weaponry]], rather than using the biggest [[Wave Motion Gun]] they can carry, even when facing enemies of equal or surpassing size. The only real advantage of capital class weaponry is range, not firepower. Unfortunately, it's next to impossible to hit even a massive, slow-moving target at ranges reserved for these weapons due to their [[Painfully -Slow Projectile|Painfully Slow Projectiles]].

** Most of the race-neutral weapons like High Energy Plasma Throwers, Particle Accelerator Cannons, and Photon Pulse Cannons are all boring, but practical due to how common they are (There's over a dozen PPC factores in the game, but only 3-5 factories for Phased Shockwave Generators, for example).

** M8 Bombers in ''Albion Prelude''. In ''Terran Conflict'', they were largely free kills because they spawned with hardly any missiles. Between the games, they [[Took a Level Inin Badass]], and are now capable of killing at least some ships before running out.

* [[But What About the Astronauts?]]: The Argon backstory consists of this.

** The destruction of the Torus Aeternal caused millions (if not billions) of tons of deorbiting debris to rain down on Earth.

* [[Commonplace Rare]]: Microchips in ''Terran Conflict''. They're everywhere -- weaponseverywhere—weapons, ships, components of all kinds. And yet, good luck finding some in the universe -- thereuniverse—there's so much demand, and the production process involves such a convoluted chain of supply, that most chip factories are permanently empty -- theempty—the few chips they produce are instantly snatched up by NPC traders. And if you do manage to be faster than the traders, expect to pay ludicrous prices for them.

** Some critical weapons are also exceptionally rare. Incendiary Bomb Launchers (the "primary" frigate weapon) and Plasma Burst Generator have only a couple factories in the universe, and they are all Pirate or Yaki owned -- meaningowned—meaning you need to befriend the Pirates and the Yaki in order to buy them. Since Pirates shoot ''anything'' that enters their sectors, the stations are also typically nearly empty of resources, meaning that you'll probably need to stock them up yourself, then wait for the wares to be produced, then buy them. When ''Albion Prelude'' came out, preexisting Flak Artillery Array production stations were completely non-existent, meaning the only way to get Flak arrays was to buy and build your own (very expensive) Flak forge, then stock it up, or farm enemy capital ships and hope they drop standard flak weapons.

* [[The Computer Is a Lying Bastard]]: With one exception, every time ''X3: Terran Conflict'' tells you you need to board a ship with marines during a plot mission, it's lying. The first boarding target will be given to you for free if you wait a while, the second one will get boarded by [[NPC|NPCs]]s if you wait a while and the third time you can just eject in your spacesuit and claim the target like an abandoned ship. This is significant, as training marines to the point where they could actually capture anything is a very expensive and time-consuming process, far beyond the scope of anything in the campaign missions.

** The one exception is {{spoiler|the Orca you have to capture during the HQ plot}}. That one actually ''does'' require you to board it.

*** The Hyperion returns in X3:TC, and while it had been downgraded to an M6 corvette it is easily the best M6 in the game and is a fan favorite playership. It flies like an M3+ heavy fighter, practically turning on a dime, has top of the line firepower and shields for an M6, has an absolutely gigantic cargo bay (3333 m^3) and is the only M6 in the game that can dock fighter craft. And if you pick a specific game-start you can even get an overtuned Hyperion that flies far faster than you can normally tune a Hyperion to fly; reports of getting overtuned Hyperions with top speeds over 300 &nbsp;m/s are quite common.

* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]: ''Prelude'''s adding Stock Markets allows the player to easily become this -- obliteratingthis—obliterating rival corporate ships in order to reduce the value of their company, to get stocks for cut-rate prices.

** [http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=299025 There's some discussion about this in the forums.] The fandom's consensus is that the ships ''do'' have crews; they're just invisible [[Player MooksMook]]s.

** This was quite literal in the games before X2; ships had no hull strength meters in those, so if your shields were gone [[One -Hit -Point Wonder|a pea going too fast would kill you instantly]], even if you were in a superheavy transporter.

** Played straight with actual spaceship fuel. No one ever needs to refuel, though the ships clearly don't have any [[Reactionless Drive]] and leave behind an exhaust trail.

* [[Energy Weapons]]: The vast majority of them, from the short-range, rapid-fire, very weak Impulse Ray Emitter up to the battleship-shredding, [[Painfully -Slow Projectile|Painfully Slow Projectiles]] of the Photon Pulse Cannon.

* [[Escort Mission]]: From HELL. The amount of opponents that spawn during missions varies with your combat ratings but the escortees remain painfully slow and barely shielded cargo freighters which go down to any interceptor and fighter in a matter of seconds. The attackers seem to appear indefinitely in fixed time intervals, so it's easy to end up having to fight a swarm of 10-15 fighters every 20 kilometers -- ifkilometers—if you're lucky, as the AI certainly seems to take its time to pass through gates and dock to stations. To add insult to injury, [[Failure Is the Only Option|sometimes the freighters break formation and fly in separate directions.]] Once you have a high combat rank, the AI will start spawning in ''battleships'' at regular intervals to try and kill the freighters.

*** {{spoiler|A solution to the must-do [[Escort Mission|Escort Missions]]s lies in an exploit: since the game only begins spawning enemies for the mission once the player enters the freighters' sector, ''simply never be in the same sector as the freighters.''}}

* [[EverythingsEverything's Better Withwith Spinning]]: One forum member discovered that corkscrewing, or flying in a spiral by putting his joystick to the stops on all three axes, was a pretty effective evasive maneuver in a fighter. He was even able to survive a mob of Kha'ak fighters in a Split Mamba Vanguard.

** Split ships are [[Fragile Speedster|Fragile Speedsters]]s, fast with increased firepower at the expense of shielding. Note that their frigates do not follow this pattern and are arguably the most dependable well-rounded performers in their class.

** Teladi ships are [[Mighty Glacier|Mighty Glaciers]]s, slow but durable with respectable firepower. They have increased cargo space for greater [[Memetic Mutation|profitsss]].

** Terran and ATF ships trade some firepower (limited weapon selection and somewhat lower damage output) for [[Lightning Bruiser|speed and shielding]]. But they definitely aren't slouches on any leg of the armor triangle, which causes some to regard them as [[Game Breaker|Game Breakers]]s.

** Finally, [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|Xenon]] and [[Horde of Alien Locusts|Kha'ak]] ships are The Horde, being hive-minded races. They're subpar in most respects, but Xenon ships can be replicated quickly and cheaply with the [[Player Headquarters]], making them popular among late-game players. Kha'ak ships aren't much used, since they require unique weapons that need to be farmed.

* [[Fantastic Drug]]: Spaceweed is a Teladi plant that is smoked or ingested and amounts to marijuana <small>[[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE!]]</small> Space fuel, on the other hand, is a street name or euphemism for Argon whiskey. Both are illegal in the Commonwealth,<ref>spaceweed is legal in Teladi space, however</ref>, and both are highly prized by players for use as trade goods to pacify the [[Space Pirate]] population.

* [[Fixed Forward -Facing Weapon]]: All fighters and corvettes and every frigate except the Panther has these, usually putting their [[Wave Motion Gun|most powerful weapons]] there. Averted in M1s and M2s.

* [[Flying Saucer]]: Players can sometimes see the stereotypical flying saucer UFO (labeled "Unknown Object") zipping quickly between sectors, as an [[Easter Egg]]. The flying saucer is very useful for exploring the universe -- orderuniverse—order one of your scout ships to follow it as the saucer makes its rounds through the gate system, and they'll quickly uncover most of the universe.

** The two fastest ships in the game, Starburst and Arrow, aren't even ''meant'' to fight -- theyfight—they are completely unarmed. They have shields, but they might as well not -- goodnot—good luck hitting something this tiny going at 1000+kph.

* [[Frickin' Laser Beams]]: Kyon Emitters, as well as the developer-disabled Phased Array Laser/Plasma Beam/Tri-Beam Laser/Fusion Beam Cannons.

* [[Frictionless Reentry]]: Averted, surprisingly enough. Planets in the games aren't just backdrops, but physical objects with atmospheres and all, and you can actually reach them in a ship if they're not on the other side of the [[Invisible Wall]].<ref>Though it takes a while; see [[Sci -Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]] below.</ref> However, ships in the X-Universe are not meant for atmospheric flight, and will burn up. The planet in Split Fire has gotten some notoriety for this, as the atmosphere starts about 1 kilometer behind one of the jumpgates.

* [[Gatling Good]]: The [httphttps://web.archive.org/web/20200813152850/https://eng.x3tc.runet/screenshot/ship.php?Njk1MTU0NTE OTAS M3 Venti]. Don't let the fact that it sounds like a coffee fool you: it has dual wing-mounted gatling lasers. [[EverythingsEverything's Better Withwith Spinning|And they even rotate when you fire.]]

* [[Global Currency]]: ''All'' races use [[We Will Spend Credits in Thethe Future|Credits]], including the paranoid, isolationist Terrans who refuse to use ''any'' technology from the Commonwealth.

* [[Good Republic, Evil Empire]]: The Argon Federation and the Boron Kingdom are generally considered the good guys, and the Split Dynasty and Paranid Empire are generally considered the bad guys. But there's a lot of gray involved, so this may be a subversion.

* [[Great Offscreen War]]: The backstory includes the [[Robot War|Terraformer War]] in the 2140s AD (some of which is shown in the ''Terran Conflict'' opening cinematic), during which [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|insane terraforming robots]] wiped out all of Earth's extrasolar colonies and nearly destroyed Earth, too. A Terran warfleet managed to lure them through a jumpgate, which was then destroyed behind them; this fleet became the Argon race. About 200 years later, we had the [http://x3wiki.com/index.php/Xenon_Conflict First Xenon Conflict], where the terraformers reappeared, followed by the [http://x3wiki.com/index.php/Boron_Campaign Boron Campaign], a more conventional interstellar war between the various superpowers.

** {{spoiler|The Hub plot in ''Terran Conflict''. Nobody [[In -Universe]] warns you that you'll need to prepare your trade empire ahead of time in order to finish the Fetch Plot in a reasonable amount of time.}}

* [[Higher -Tech Species]]: The Terrans (Sol System humans) have far superior technology compared to the other races. The Paranid come in as a close second.

* [[High -Speed Missile Dodge]]: Happens regularly, since fighters are often faster and more maneuverable than the missiles chasing them.

* [[Hit Scan]]: Beam weapons, originally a Khaak exclusive but since used by other races as well, are supposed to be this. It's only after you look at the technical data that it turns out to be a subversion: the game engine treats beam weapons as ''very'' fast projectile ones. This is normally transparent to the player because the projectiles are invisible, but occasionally -- typicallyoccasionally—typically while fighting very fast ships -- itships—it can happen that the beam graphic crosses your target but the projectile isn't there yet, resulting in an irritatingly damage-free enemy.

* [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters]]: The Terrans. They're radically isolationist, dislike or outright hate almost all the other races (including their lost colony, the Argon Federation), and they will invade other race's sectors without a worry as they can simply curb stomp the defending navy's ships using their superior technology. The [[Designated Hero|Argon Federation]] is shown to be even ''worse'' than the Terrans in ''Albion Prelude'''s war. An Argon suicide bomber blows up the Torus Aeternal, killing millions instantly, then [[Colony Drop|millions more as the debris rains down on Earth]]. The Terrans retaliate, then the Argon deploy reverse engineered Von Neumann ships (Xenon) against the Solar System. Every Terran station houses ''at least'' tens of thousands of people, so the Argon are committing atrocities with ''every station'' they blow up.

* [[Humans Byby Any Other Name]]: The Argon, being a [[Lost Colony]] of the Terrans.

* [[Inferred Holocaust]]: After the events of ''[[X (Video Game)|X3: Albion Prelude]]''. The [[Precursors]] shut down the entire [[Portal Network]] to contain the [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|incredibly aggressive Xenon terraformer AI]]. Doing so on a small scale in the past has actually been a good solution to bad problems, but this means not only will the [[Five Races|younger species]] be incapable of traveling or communicating with each other or their own colony planets, they won't even know where the other sectors ''actually are'' to ''try'' and contact each other for years. Many sectors have nothing but manned manufacturing plants, most of which aren't self-sustaining, and even many planetary sectors rely heavily on trade.

* [[Infinity Plus One+1 Sword]]: The Springblossom corvette. It requires the completion of the Terran Conflict main plot, good Terran rank, ~20million credits for the corvette (more expensive than some of the station-transporting TL ships), and then hunting down the factories that produce the weapons for the ship (in a sector some 800 kilometers wide, with a huge asteroid blocking traffic through the center), then (usually) supplying the factories with the goods necessary to produce it because the sector has a pitiful amount of traders for its size. Once you've done all that, you've got what is effectively the best frigate, or best ship in the entire game. Crazy top speed (it outruns some scout ships!), crazy firepower, and a huge cargo bay equivalent to some transporter ships. The only time you'll ever need to use anything else is for some luxury taxi missions -- itmissions—it has enough cargo space to carry enough ammo to kill destroyer class ships if you can wedge it into their blind spot.

* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons]]: The ''XTM'' mod for ''Reunion'' and the ''Xtended Terran Conflict'' mod for ''Terran Conflict'' adds the Shivan Dragon, which is a dragon that breathes in space, shoots lasers from its mouth, and attacks everything in sight.

* [[ItsIt's Up to You]]: The player is effectively the only thing preventing the Terran economy and the tiny Pirate and Yaki economies from collapsing.

* [[Kill It Withwith Fire]]: The Plasma Burst Generator, a rare pirate-only weapon that can be fit on nearly every M3 and M6 in the game. Does AOE Damage, meaning that it will hit every area of space in a cone in front of it -- andit—and almost always, the target ship will be big enough to count as being in several "spaces" at once, meaning they're going to take [[Game Breaker|obscene]] amounts of damage -- especiallydamage—especially if they're one of the bigger (carrier, battleship) size ships. The only weapon to get a unique achievement -- "Turn up the Heat."

** Oh, and [[EverythingsEverything's Better Withwith Princesses|it has a princess, too]].

* [[Know When to Fold 'Em]]: Mostly averted. [[Suicidal Overconfidence|Usually the AI will continue fighting even if the battle is hopeless.]] But every once in a while, you'll encounter a foe that runs away from overwhelming force, such as the last M5 survivor of a pirate fighter squadron fleeing at top speed from an oncoming player-piloted frigate.

* [[Lampshade Hanging]]: ''Albion Prelude'' lampshades the ''Terran Conflicts'' HUB plot and its insane requirements -- therequirements—the scientists you transport to the HUB note that Mahi Ma filled the cargo hold with thousands upon thousands of microchips -- frommicrochips—from the {{spoiler|75000 microchip requirement}} in ''TC'''s plot. Afterwards, several crates of microchips are left floating around the HUB.

** Albion in ''Albion Prelude'' takes it to another level, with massive fissures actually penetrating deep into the mantle of the planet.

* [[Lightning Bruiser]]:

* [[Limited Special Collectors' Ultimate Edition]]: The ''X-Superbox''. It contains very high-quality versions of the game's soundtrack, 3 fan-made soundtracks, the [[All There in the Manual|X-Encyclopedia]], and every ''X-Universe'' game made - when ''Albion Prelude'' came out, owners of the Superbox got the normally $9.99 expansion pack for free.

* [[Luck -Based Mission]]: "Return Stolen Ship" involves an NPC asking the player to capture a ship stolen by a third party. Sheer probability dictates that the ship in question will be one that must be captured by making the pilot bail out (as opposed to one that can be boarded and captured) ... which is a completely random (and fairly rare) event.

* [[Mad Libs Dialogue]]: Hits generic information dialogue hard.

* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: When the Argon Federation is closing in on Sol System with their swarms of reverse engineered Xenon fighters, about to subjugate the Terrans, the jump gate system ''completely'' shuts down, isolating every system.

* [[No Plot, No Problem]]: Though there is an over-arching narrative to the games, a lot of the replay value comes from the sandbox mode where you pick your starting circumstances and are dropped into the universe to run amok.

* [[No Such Thing Asas Alien Pop Culture]]: ''In Terran Conflict'': A blink-and-you'll-miss-it aversion. Randomly-picked flavor text for some [[Fetch Quest|Fetch Quests]]s and bits of junk carried by certain NPC ships point to alien sports and advertising, among other things. ''Reunion'' had the Bulletin Board System, you'd get bits of news and culture in it (along with missions).

* [[Nuke 'Em]]: Terran "Hammerhead" missiles are effectively nukes in terms of firepower. A single Hammerhead can kill an entire wing of ships in loose formation.

** Crazy furballs happen when the player is flying a slow ship and going against a faster one. For some reason, attacking ships seem to only fly at their maximum speed; as weapons are forward-firing, they tend do come at you guns blazing, then overshoot, turn back and repeat as long as necessary -- godnecessary—god forbid they'd slow down and try to get on your tail. Flying a faster ship, or going against slower ones, makes dogfighting a lot more interesting.

* [[One -Federation Limit]]: Argon Federation. Boron Kingdom. Split Dynasty. Paranid Empire. Teladi Space Company. And that's just the Commonwealth.

* [[One -Hit -Point Wonder]]: Any ship in ''X: Beyond the Frontier'' and ''X: Tension'', once stripped of its shields, will be blown away by its pilot sneezing.

* [[One World Order]]: Present in the games (aside from the Terrans and Argon; same race, but they had a couple hundred years separation), but the ''X-Encyclopedia'' describes how there are other factions, like the human Hatikvah Free League.

{{quote| "Almost a millennium has passed since the last great plague of humankind had been wiped out from the solar system and its precious blue pearl planet Earth.<br />

"It was a plague so dangerous, a threat so grave, that it spread throughout the infinity of space and eternity of time almost effortlessly to infest the stars. It spread its pestilence to civilizations unknown, devastated the galaxy as if it was just an ordinary body made of flesh and bone falling prey to a mindless virus.<br />

"And in a sense it was really a virus, a virus created by humankind. One made with the best of intentions, but a virus nevertheless.<br />

"[[Grey Goo|Von Neumann probes]], self-replicating machines, Terraformers, Xenon, even the Enemy of God. But at its core, it was really only one thing.<br />

"[[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|Artificial general intelligence]], or AGI. Mechanical minds capable of making themselves even more intelligent, and then again, and again. Recursively forever. The greatest threat to biological life that ever existed throughout the whole universe. The Terraformers were cast out of the solar system by sheer luck, just barely, with billions upon billions dead in their wake. The Earth Jumpgate was dismantled, legislation was put in place never to allow AGI to be created again, ever.<br />

"Humankind never forgot the lesson of AGI, never ventured to try out this concept once more, not in a thousand years, but then it was discovered that species from outside the solar system thought differently. The plague of AGI was being released on the universe once more. Again perhaps with the best of intentions and again however, with the deadliest of results. The government of Earth had to intervene, even if it meant [[Space Cold War|cold war]], even if it meant a cold war between brothers, and intervene Earth did.<br />

* [[Orange -Blue Contrast]]: The cover for ''X3: Reunion''.

** According to the X-Superbox Encyclopedia, the wormholes are only different by using exotic matter to power the wormhole, and by using magnetic forces to flatten the wormhole to allow travel. if those factors didn't occur, it would be the exact same as [[Real Life]]'s theoretical wormholes.

* [[Pacifist Run]]: Possible in all the games, if you skip the plot. Some players go for an all-out "Cannot kill any enemy, at all", others go with "My other ships can kill enemies", or "I will only kill enemies required by the plot lines". The goal for these is to keep your combat rank at "Harmless" -- getting—getting one kill will bring the combat rank up, and it takes a long time for it to go back down to Harmless.

* [[Painfully -Slow Projectile]]: Capital ship weapons. Special mention goes out to the Terrans' Point Singularity Projector, which is incredibly easy to avoid in almost any ship.

** Xenon: [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|Insane robots]]

* [[Player Headquarters]]: The... [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|Player Headquarters]], first introduced in ''Reunion''. You gain the Headquarters by doing a sub-plot in each game. The HQ lets you reverse engineer ships (to gain their blueprints), scrap ships (for resources), build ships (from learned blueprints and resources), repair ships (using some resources), and adjust the hue and saturation values for non-Boron ships - allowing you to make pink Split ships, or make the flames on your Pirate Nova bright blue. The HQ has a ''massive'' storage bay for storing all your crap, 12 external docking ports for capital ships, 20 external docking ports for freighters and corvettes, and a [[Bigger Onon the Inside|infinitely large internal docking bay for fighters]], making it an excellent parking location for your unused ships.

* [[Player MooksMook]]s: Any player-owned ship other than the one physically piloted by the player. You can give them named pilots by activating certain scripts (whereupon a name is generated based on the owner of the sector the ship is in), but you never interact with them at any deeper level than the command console.

* [[Privateer]]: The governments of the Commonwealth offer "police licenses", which act like letters of marque. You're paid a preset bounty for destroying [[Space Pirate|space pirates]], [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|Xenon]], and [[Horde of Alien Locusts|Kha'ak]], and destroying neutrals or allies costs you the license.

* [[Real Trailer, Fake Movie]]: ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlAWC2HSOYM Nautilus]''.

* [[Red and Black Andand Evil All Over]]: Split ships use rust red armor panels with gray/black backgrounds. Xenon ships are pitch black and gray with glowing red internals.

* [[Restart At Level One]]: The [[Player Character|Player Characters]]s of ''X2: The Threat'' and ''X3: Reunion'' are the same guy (Julian Brennan).

* [[Ridiculously -Fast Construction]]: '''HYPER''' averted. If you decided to build a ship instead of buying it, you have to wait as your headquarters puts it together. Capital ships like the Argon Colossus can take ''twenty hours'' in ''real time'' to build.

* [[Save Scumming]]: Almost a requirement when attempting to board enemy capital ships. Especially Xenon ships, where [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]] -- to—to the point where there is an achievement for capturing a Xenon frigate, something that people spend ''hours'' training their marines for.

** In-Sector versus Out-Of-Sector combat. To save on processing power, OOS reduces combat to ships taking turns firing a single, point-blank<ref>650 meters or thereabouts</ref> volley from all guns at once at a single target. All other variables (area-of-effect, weapons recharge, and so on) are taken out of the equation. This skews combat in favor of [[Wave Motion Gun|Wave Motion Guns]]s to the point where recommended loadouts are often drastically different for IS and OOS.

* [[Sci -Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]]: In all the games, maps are at most hundreds of kilometers across (I'm looking at ''you'', Sol System). But the ships are so slow that they actually require a [[Time Dilation]] device to cross them in a reasonable amount of time. Unless the kilometer was redefined at some point, this suggests spaceships in the game are far, far slower than they have any right to be -- [[Fridge Logic|raising the interesting question of how any of the spacefaring races actually managed to become spacefaring races when they don't seem to have any ships that come anywhere near escape velocity for a planet with a mass similar to Earth.]]

* [[Screw the Rules, I Have Connections]]: High reputation with a race lets you get away with an absurd amount of murders. You can capture their flagship, murder the crew, then sell the fighter pilots into slavery, and you'll often take only a minor reputation hit unless you started slaughtering everything ''else'' in the sector.

* [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money]]: Some user-made scripts allow you to bribe enemy ships to make them neutral

* [[Self -Imposed Challenge]]: Experienced players often set these for themselves. They range from "I'm only allowed to use one faction's ships" to [[Pacifist Run|Pacifist Runs]]s to going to war with a faction to wipe them out.

** Nuklear-Slug wrote a thread about the exploits of Squiddy McSquid, a Boron playthrough whose [[Self -Imposed Challenge]] was to fly his starting ship deep into Terran space, then set the self-destruct and eject. He then floated his way to a shipyard to buy himself a new ship and started from there.

* [[Shiny -Looking Spaceships]]: The Paranid ships are basically flying mirrors, and the Terran ships are blindingly white, more so if you have Glow/Bloom enabled in the options.

* [[Space Madness]]: Flavor text for the Oort Cloud in ''Terran Conflict'' mentions that those who work there sometimes fall victim to "Oort's Curse", a madness with no known cause or cure.

* [[Space Mines]]: In several flavors. SQUASH mines are your standard explosive mines, Ion mines deal damage only to shields, Tracker Mines... [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|track stuff]], and Matter/Antimatter mines are like SQUASH mines but with more boom. Except that in the game there is no difference between all of them beyond the name. None. One of the most effective tactics with mines is to get a huge swarm of enemies chasing you, drop all the mines, and order one of the mines to self-destruct. Big bada boom.

** ''Xtended Terran Conflict'' adds several new life forms; a Space Dragon, a space rock-eating beetle thing, and space jellyfish that feed on energy cells.

* [[Spiritual Successor]]: The series has been described as one to ''[[Elite (Video Game)|Elite]]'' and ''[[Video Game/Privateer|Privateer]]''.

* [[Standard Sci -Fi Fleet]]: Scouts, Interceptors, Fighters, Corvettes, Frigates, Bombers, Destroyers, Carriers, and 4 different types of freighters ([[Space Trucker]], Space Yacht, giant freighter that can carry entire stations, and freighters with most of the cargo bay ripped out fighter docking ports).

* [[Starfish Aliens]]:

* [[Stupid Sacrifice]]: Your wingman at the end of ''X2: The Threat'', who rams the Kha'ak doomsday weapon to destroy it. All well and good, except that his kamikaze run doesn't seem quite as noble when you've got three capital ships, laden with multiple [[Wave Motion Gun|Wave Motion Guns]]s and entire squadrons of fighters, sitting in firing range.

* [[Teleporters and Transporters]]: A couple different varieties. The [[Portal Network]] allows interstellar travel. Meanwhile, ships can be equipped with a Transporter Device that allows you to transfer people and cargo from one ship to another (provided they're no more than five kilometers apart) without needing to dock both ships at a station.

* [[Took a Level Inin Badass]]: Each race's military in ''Albion Prelude''. In previous games, they'd sort of ignore the player unless he got very close to them. In ''Albion'', they'll jump around the universe to respond to threats to their space. If you jump into a Split system and start blasting civilian ships and the stations, they'll send ships to kill you. The more damage you cause, the more likely they'll send something big to kill you, like a destroyer, or in the Terrans' case, the ATF Valhalla or USC Kyoto.

* [[Unobtainium]]: Nividium is a valuable mineral mined from certain asteroids (rumored to be fragments of the Kha'ak homeworld). What the [[NPC|NPCs]]s use it for is unclear.

* [[We Will Spend Credits in Thethe Future]]: The Teladi backed the creation of the unified currency between the Commonwealth races. Prior to that each race used its own currency. The Terrans presumably changed to credits between the events of ''X3: Reunion'' and ''X3: Terran Conflict''.

* [[What the Hell, Player?]]: Hit non-hostile ships or stations enough times (whether accidentally or on purpose) and the sector police will warn you that if you keep it up, they'll attack. Continue, and you may get a message that sounds something like this:

{{quote| '''Computer announcer:''' Fighter ships from the Argon Federation are now being launched. They have orders to kill.}}

* [[Word Salad Title]]: ''X3: Albion Prelude''. "Albion" refers to the player ship of ''X: Rebirth'', the ''Albion Skunk'', while ''Prelude'' is [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin]]: a prelude to the gate system shutdown that gave the dev team an excuse to do a major timeskip.

* [[X Meets Y]]: Gameplay is typically described as "''[[Freelancer]]'' <ref> You actually pilot your ship, emphasis on side missions, silly physics</ref> meets ''[[EveEVE Online]]'' <ref> being able to pilot any ship in the game, emphasis on the economy, [[Scenery Porn]]</ref> meets ''[[Elite (Video Game)|Elite]]''<ref>[[Wide Open Sandbox]] trading and combat.</ref>" -- though—though the ''X-Universe'' series predates both ''[[Freelancer]]'' and ''[[EveEVE Online]]''.

** In ''X3: Reunion'', three games and several dozen years later, the Solar System is reconnected to the X-Universe's [[Portal Network]] at the end of the main plot. By this time, Kyle Brennan has a grown son in the X-Universe, is a war hero, and is the head of a multibillion-[[We Will Spend Credits in Thethe Future|credit]] company (TerraCorp). At best, he'd likely be a [[Stranger in Aa Familiar Land]].

** The ''Xtended Terran Conflict'' mod takes place in an entirely new gate system -- thesystem—the only preexisting sector is Aldrin. The Terrans allow races to send their ships into the gate system, but they refuse to let them go ''back'' to the original gate network. As such, every ship in the new gate system can't go home again.

[[Category:XThe Nineties]]

[[Category:VideoThe GameNew Tens]]