The 3.0 Update and Split Vendetta is out!It brings back the Split which, just like the Paranid, broke down into two factions.
I've started the game over and am glad to see some plotlines thrown in. I believe there's 3 new plotlines, which I imagine one involving the Split, one is about the Hatikvah Free League faction seemingly trying to get out of crime and cutting its ties with the Scale Plate Pact, and another one involving diplomacy missions to pacify relations between warring factions. I'm not 100% sure yet, because I only found and started the HFA one.
There's of course the whole Split economy and ships making a come back, but I'm not sure what they involve or what their paradigm is. I still have to find the Free Families (oppressed Splits) territory, but once I do I'll grind the rep and monies to get myself a Dragon, which used to be my player-ship for a long time in X3. I really want to see the specs to see how it compares to the Paranid Nemesis, which is currently my ship of choice.
I still see some weirdnesses in the game I'd rather not see. I'm pretty sure Mining Ships (gas/mineral) spawning out of nowhere is a
scripted encounter, and I have no idea why there's such things in the game - the philosophy was to avoid spawning ships from thin air, and having Antigone or Argon miners deep into far-away hostile Split Territories makes utterly no sense and pisses me off. I don't want to mod this time around due to the online stuff requiring unmodified game, though.
Gotta play a little more before feeling if this was supposed to be the release version and all that, but right now I really appreciate the expanded variety of missions. I had almost 10 accepted missions with just little time put into the save, so there's always lots to do.
Unfortunately, it feels to me crystal mining (spawning) has been nerfed or something, so I cannot shortcut my way into a Nemesis anymore.