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Egosoft announced today that the free DLC X3: Farnham's Legacy that was released back in April is now officially out with a Linux build and there's more.

X3: Farnham's Legacy is set in the years following X3: Albion Prelude, as the chaos caused by the gate shutdown really takes hold, X3: Farnham's Legacy starts very differently to previous games in the X3 series. It was developed over five years by long-term members of the Egosoft community in close cooperation with the team at Egosoft.

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It's not just a whole new story, the free expansion also brings with it lots more including:

  • (Almost) Everything from X3: Terran Conflict and X3: Albion Prelude
  • Exploration tools and explorers guild
  • Diplomacy and dynamic relations
  • New drone carrier and armoured transport ships
  • Player headquarters with new advanced facilities
  • A unique and very special new ship
  • Station-building and complex planning services
  • Ship browser and hyperlinked encyclopedia
  • New piracy options and gameplay
  • Real sector ownership
  • Improved logs and graphs
  • Enhanced modding support
  • Lots and lots of smaller improvements!

Along with the Linux release, Egosoft also tweaked other parts of the series too:

X3: Terran Conflict

  • [GOG Linux only] Updated to version 3.4 (2017)
  • [Steam only] Simplified first-time setup on Windows
  • Fixed lib compatibility issues on Linux
  • Fixed several voice samples in German version
X3: Albion Prelude
  • [GOG Linux only] Updated to version 3.3 (2017)
  • [Steam only] Simplified first-time setup on Windows
  • Fixed lib compatibility issues on Linux

Really amazing to see the long-term support here from Egosoft for their games.

You can buy the X3 series on GOG, Humble Store and Steam.

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19 comments

Avikarr Jul 9, 2021
I have never got into the "X" series. I like these kind of complicated games, so I think it will be great for me. Can someone recommend, where should I start first with this game? X3: Reunion, X3:Terran Conflict, X3:Albion Prelude, or X3:Farnham's Legacy?
rustybroomhandle Jul 9, 2021
I have never got into the "X" series. I like these kind of complicated games, so I think it will be great for me. Can someone recommend, where should I start first with this game? X3: Reunion, X3:Terran Conflict, X3:Albion Prelude, or X3:Farnham's Legacy?

If you are into the story stuff, then I'd say play all of them. But if, like me, you don't really care about that stuff and just want to build a mighty space empire, then I'd say Albion Prelude is a good place to jump in.
gilboa Jul 9, 2021
I have never got into the "X" series. I like these kind of complicated games, so I think it will be great for me. Can someone recommend, where should I start first with this game? X3: Reunion, X3:Terran Conflict, X3:Albion Prelude, or X3:Farnham's Legacy?

If you are into the story stuff, then I'd say play all of them. But if, like me, you don't really care about that stuff and just want to build a mighty space empire, then I'd say Albion Prelude is a good place to jump in.

Fully agree.
After spending months on X2, X3:R, X3:TC, X3:AP and now struggling to get used to X4 (I never really enjoyed X:R), I fully agree that X3:AP is indeed the best release.

- Gilboa
Avehicle7887 Jul 9, 2021
I'm happy they finally got around to update the outdated Linux version on GOG, it was an abandoned state for a while. Might finally be the right time to buy X4.
Grifter Jul 9, 2021
After spending months on X2, ...

Is there a painless way to play X2? I tried launching the old LGP demo of X2 but that only segfaulted, so I picked up X2 on steam when it was super cheap but steamplaying X2 resulted in missing audio
Avikarr Jul 10, 2021
then I'd say Albion Prelude

X3:AP is indeed the best release

Thank you guys :)
whizse Jul 10, 2021
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Is there a painless way to play X2? I tried launching the old LGP demo of X2 but that only segfaulted, so I picked up X2 on steam when it was super cheap but steamplaying X2 resulted in missing audio
Depends on your definition of painless. Looks like Proton-6.10-GE-1 is reported to be working:
https://www.protondb.com/app/2800
gilboa Jul 10, 2021
then I'd say Albion Prelude

X3:AP is indeed the best release

Thank you guys :)

I actually was a beta tester and owner of (the late) LGP X2 (and then X3:R).
As far as I know, LGP's X2 still can be made to work (unlike X3:R that uses some license server that no longer works).
That said, back when X3:TC was released as Windows only, I had zero issues running it under wine. As such, I would venture and guess that Steam-Proton will have zero issues running X2.
beko Jul 10, 2021
Love the X series (Frontier owner here). Wrote various articles like how to get a headtracker working with this and even started to get into writing extensions for it myself.

Unpopular opinion but I even like Rebirth ;-)
einherjar Jul 12, 2021
I have never got into the "X" series. I like these kind of complicated games, so I think it will be great for me. Can someone recommend, where should I start first with this game? X3: Reunion, X3:Terran Conflict, X3:Albion Prelude, or X3:Farnham's Legacy?

My first X-Game was X4: Foundations.
It is a really great game, but it was a bit to learn to come into the game. I watched a few video tutorials.

So if you seek for a start in X-games, I think X4 is good to do this. You can play the story lines or just use it as a big sandbox. I have lots of fun with it, building an empire in space with only a bit of story line playing.
Grifter Jul 23, 2021
Looks like Proton-6.10-GE-1 is reported to be working

So I made the compatibilitytools.d dir and put that in, I also put in 6.12-GE-1 for good measure, but it doesn't start up with either one, I have my steam installed in /usr/local/games/Steam/ and maybe that's the reason, cause I am getting this errmsg from steam:

pressure-vessel-wrap[14224]: W: Using libGLX_mesa.so.0 from provider system for some but not all architectures! Will take /usr/share/drirc.d from provider.
pressure-vessel-wrap[14224]: W: Binding directories that are located under "/usr/" is not supported!
bwrap: Can't chdir to /usr/local/games/Steam/steamapps/common/X2 - The Threat: No such file or directory

So, meh, still not painless :( Thanks for trying though!
Grifter Jul 23, 2021
As far as I know, LGP's X2 still can be made to work

Do you have any more info on this? Preferably a painless recipe to follow, but I'll take anything.
gilboa Jul 23, 2021
As far as I know, LGP's X2 still can be made to work

Do you have any more info on this? Preferably a painless recipe to follow, but I'll take anything.

Sadly enough, never tired it myself.
I'll see if I can get it to work, and report back.

- Gilboa
gilboa Jul 24, 2021
Sadly enough, no go.
I managed to get a couple of old libraries required to start the game, but it fails when trying to create the GLX context.
As I have zero experience in debugging GLX applications (and OpenGL in particular) its out of my league.

That said, have you tried using proton + steam to run X2?

- Gilboa
whizse Jul 24, 2021
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I have my steam installed in /usr/local/games/Steam/ and maybe that's the reason, cause I am getting this errmsg from steam:

pressure-vessel-wrap[14224]: W: Using libGLX_mesa.so.0 from provider system for some but not all architectures! Will take /usr/share/drirc.d from provider.
pressure-vessel-wrap[14224]: W: Binding directories that are located under "/usr/" is not supported!
bwrap: Can't chdir to /usr/local/games/Steam/steamapps/common/X2 - The Threat: No such file or directory
Games installed in /usr too? That seems like a really bad idea:
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime/issues/288

FWIW, I tried X2 myself with Proton-6.10-GE-1 and it ran fine. Or, at least for the 10 minutes or so I played. With vanilla Proton (6.3-5 I think?) there was audio problems. No sound during intro videos or cut scenes. In-game seemed to be working fine though.
Grifter Jul 25, 2021
Games installed in /usr too? That seems like a really bad idea

It's never seemed like a bad idea to me, that's where they belong =) All a mix of native, steam-native, and steam-proton, never had an issue except for these error messages from glorious eggroll, more like inglorious deflated egg to me :(

EDIT: I should mention that steam itself is installed in /usr/local/games/Steam, so if anyone has problems like that maybe they're trying to access /usr/local from a steam installed elsewhere? I dunno, either way, has worked fine for me for a looooong time =)


Last edited by Grifter on 25 July 2021 at 8:55 pm UTC
whizse Jul 25, 2021
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It's never seemed like a bad idea to me, that's where they belong =) All a mix of native, steam-native, and steam-proton, never had an issue except for these error messages from glorious eggroll, more like inglorious deflated egg to me :(
Seems quite odd to me. Anything in /usr should be read only for normal users. Applications that need to write data shouldn't do so to /usr. But I guess it's personal preference.

Anyhow, it's a complete no-go with containerized Proton (5.13 and up I think?).
Grifter Jul 26, 2021
I don't write anything to /usr, that belongs to the package manager, /usr/local is for me though. As for proton, I use proton 5.13 it looks like, and like I said I haven't had any problems yet.
beko Jul 26, 2021
pressure-vessel-wrap[14224]: W: Binding directories that are located under "/usr/" is not supported!

Pressure Vessel is sandboxing used by more modern Proton and there are very good reasons for not adding /usr to the container and it comes with a ton of caveats: https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steam-runtime-tools/-/tree/master/pressure-vessel and this is a PITA for some other applications too. For example Opentrack and it's wine-glue

It speaks for itself that X3 is noted as example why this approach may have issues:

Some games have distinct app IDs but share data: for example,
X3: Terran Conflict (ID 2820) and X3: Albion Prelude (ID 201310)
share SteamApps/common/X3 Terran Conflict.

And

For example, if X3: Terran Conflict and X3: Albion Prelude
are to share data, they would have to both be run with for example
--freedesktop-app-id=com.egosoft.X3TC or --steam-app-id=2820.

…let me know if someone finds the OFF switch for this.

Edith says: There is even a ticket for /usr/local https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steam-runtime-tools/-/issues/30


Last edited by beko on 26 July 2021 at 7:31 am UTC
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