I have not played it in a while, but I can suggest mods I used. Choose what sounds better~ Use their
Community Script & Mod Download Library for X3 Pinned posts (they call it announcements) to find easily mods.
Plugin Manager - Cause it made adding and removing mods so easy
For Total Conversions:X3TC - X-Tended, but keep in mind it is on the Terran Conflict one. Not the latest Albion's Prelude. It is my fav too, but that is probably because it was the first I played.
X3AP - XRM, I consider it awesome like X-Tended, but I loved more X-Tended, again probably because it was my first. People chose now XRM, because it is based on the latest expansion Albion's Prelude.
X3AP - Litcubes Universe, Never played it, but people love it and from what I have read, I would love it too.
For mods if you play
Reunion for the main story line:
EMP X3 - I remember it was the Extended Mod Pack and supposedly recommended by egosoft
Economy and Supply X3 and
Economy and Supply Libraries X3 - Cause I wanted the market to be better handed, even if I just played for the storyline
MARS Fire Control - Turrets can be stupid. It's that moment that you know that letting a weapon autofire, will not get you much afar from wasted energy. MARS control makes them smarter
And cheaty
Reunion mods, that do not really matter since after you finish the story you do not want to play it again:
Bail Signal Extension - More bailing - I remember it made people choose their life over death more. Also I think it made even larger ships that normally they do not bail, to actually do it.. I really do not remember well, it has been a while.
Salvage Claim Software - This is an really expensive upgrade you could buy for your ship, that lets you clam ships through your spaceship seat, by just hacking the abandoned ship. This can be a time saver if the person that plays got tired of getting off their ship like all the time, but keep it mind it works on larger ships too. This is why I wanted to remember if Bail Signal Extension makes larger ships too bail too. It is not awful to once in a while get a huge ship, but it is so much fun to actually capture huge ships
.... eh, but again, I would not really bother with Reunion with that. I focused mostly on the Total Conversions.
Target Nearest Unclaimed Ship-Ware Hotkey - Rarely there were unclaimed ships in the universe, be it from fights or abandoned special ships way out there. I used this for 2 spaceships I wanted to find >.> ...
And now for X3
Terran Conflict/Albion's Prelude:
X3AP - TC Plots for AP - If you want to play the storyline of TC, but want to play it on the upgraded AP, this mod is for you.
IEX - Immersive Environments X, was a good mod that had support for vanilla and Total Conversions and made the universe look more sleek. Although honestly I did like the vanilla to begin with.
Capital Ship Energy Cell Generator - Deep in game you will definitely have a huge ship that will definitely be using Energy Cells by the ton. It is quite easy to find energy cells in the universe, but really large chips can;t land on Solar ... energy collecters (sorry do not remember the name). So either you will ahve to have smaller ships so you can go pick up energy cells and bring them back to your big ship, find one of the large docks and hope they sell energy cells or have this mod. If I rememebr well this was incredibly expensive, but it can feel a bit cheaty, since you wont be paying. I am sure though there was a way to actually charge you for all the Enegy cells it generates, so you would be just saving yourself the bother of reloading your ship with cells.
Capture Stations - It was so hard to do it. I rememebr I only ever got once. It was very expensive and it was easier for the Station to blow, but honestly I did not try much, It was easier for me to buy em >.>
Complex Cleaner - Repacked for Plugin Manager for TC and AP - It cleans complexes that are full of rocks, making them deathtraps for passing ships and causing potential lag, be it while you travel me a graphical lag, or when NPCs just get confused and get stuck there.
Crystal Free SPP - Solar Power Plants need Crystals to produce energy, but you can buy a really expensive upgrade and the power plant will work without the need of crystals. A bit cheaty.. but with that price, it was better for me to buy crystals. I got it for really late game.
Docking Lockup Fix + Upgrade - Docking for NPCs in X3 is one of the most glitchy parts ever. This fixes the lockup one, that a ship would just get stuck in nothing and stay there, while trying to dock.
Economy and Supply X3TC and
Economy and Supply Libraries X3TC - Economy. Now in TC/AP I want the universe economy to be stable and businessses to actually care for it! Even if this is marked TC I am 100% sure I used it on AP too, without problems.
Enhanced Briefings - Briefings can be kind of vague at times. They tell you to go there somewhere and do something, you will figure it out. Enhanced Briefings fixes that by making them more detailed.
Marine Training Manager - I remember this had some uses, but I only cared for one. When I visited the marine stations, I remember I could pay to have a marine trained 1 level up.. I am sorry but if I would do it in real life, I would ask them to train them to the max! I used this mod so I could save myself the extra visits to train marines, adding the option to train them fully.
No notoriety loss from hitting jumpgates - ... I installed this mostly cause Autopilot can mess up sometimes. Sure there are scripts that help it and actually Total Convertions do not have such problems (At least I rememebr they did not), but I hated it when I accidentally bumped on the gates and I would be considered a bad guy -_-
Pirate Guild 3 Dynamic AI and Guild System Made Pirates more organized. I loved this cause pirates in the game were so unorganized. With this there a Guild (or was it Guilds?) and ranks and etc. It was just great.
Property Baron - Are you filthy rich and you use money as fuel for your fireplace? This is definitely for you. It gives you the option to buy stations in ridiculous prices, rather than buy them yourself which would cost much less. Be careful through what you buy. Check what you should not buy on their page
Pure X HUD - In case you would prefer to feel you are inside the ship, this adds huds to ships. The hud differs depending on what ship you are.
Ranks - New Race Ranking - It replaces the Vanilla Ranking system with a new one. I liked it because it worked with the next one.
Ranks for Xenon, Kha'ak, Pirates and Yaki - It worked in conjunction with the above one, and added ranks for the rest of the factions. It was so weird to try and befriend Kha'ak.
Release Passengers - I loved this. When you captured passengers I remember you could sell them for slaves, but what if I am a guy that would not do that? You can land to a station and actually release them, gaining you good reputation with the faction the passenger is from. Really liked this one.
Salvage Command Suite - This is a cheaty mod, depending how you see it. You can use it to detect astronauts floating in space, abandoned cargo and abandoned ships. The last part makes it kind of cheaty I guess, but in my book it is ok.
Sectormap Revamped - ALL Ships Colored or
ONLY Colored Claimable Ships - Change Colors or
ONLY Colored Claimable Ships. - It is quite helpful to have colors when you look at the ship list. If I remember right, it colored their faction and whatnot.
STO - Sector Takeover - Well.. you can take over sectors and make them yours! I remember I had problems with it, but I liked the concept.
v2.51a.spk
Universal Best Buys-Sells Locator - Kind of cheaty. With this and along with satellites, you can find where is the best price for anything. I am not sure if the satellites are needed, but I think they are. Also I am not sure if searching easily for prices rather than manually looking through every place is cheaty, in a universe with space ships and jumpgates..
Weapons Quickswap - Adds weapons to hotkeys if I rememebr well, making it easy for you to swap between different weapons.
Yaki Armada 2 - Test Build - Makes Yaki Pirates more badass!
And cheaty mods for
Terran Conflict/Albion PreludeConvert Passenger to Marine - Marines are hard to come by and if you are impatient, you can add this mod. When you capture passengers that float in space, you can convert them to Marines.
Extend Advanced Satellite Range - You can throw a satelite on sectors, that let you se what is going on there, when you use the map. Normally the map is black by fog of war. I think you also get updates on events and maybe market happenings?... I do not remember well, but I used it to monitor better my merchant ships that were all over the universe trading.
Extended Communication Rage from 25km to 75km - It triples the distance where you can choose a station or another craft and open communication with. I used it cause when I looked for missions, it was tedious to teleport to sectors, fly towards stations and find nothing only to repeat a handful of times until I found something.
Freight Distribution Network (FDN) - This as I remember I used to connect my different stations with each other. This was to transport good between them faster. Eh. You can do it with freighters too, but I hated that when a freighter had a problem and deliveries delayed, it was a domino catastrophe. Not such a needed mod though for small station empires~
Mobile Ship Repairs - When I usually would capture a ship, I would spend I do not know how much time repairing it in High speed >.> Rather than doing though, I added this mod. You can buy a repair module for a ship (not all can mount it) and then have it as your repair man. You capture a ship? You can just call your repainman ship from wherever he/she is resting and let it do the job.
NPC Bailing Addon - Very configurable, I think it might was useful to make NPCs bail more, rather than sitting there dying, but if you configured this you could also make very large ships bail and even factions that normally do not bail. It was awesome though cause it was so configurable.
Ring of Fire - Stealth Lasertowers - It created a ring of laser towers around the spot you placed it.... nothing hostile could approach there anymore.. It was fun to watch XD
Salvage Claim Software - Like I explained above, it let you capture abandoned or bailed ships without having to do anything but press a button. It was quite expensive and very useful. You NEED this if you are going to have huge ships bail, cause I am pretty sure you cant otherwise capture them.
Mods
ONLY for Terran Conflict:
Cheat Collection Package - Lol.. you get what it is.
Saturn Complex Hub - This makes X3 Complexes fit inside a single station. If you know how complicated and messy X3 Complexes can be, then you will understand. They can can lag and problems with the AI/NPC. But if anything, I did find building complexes fun. But still this was awesome too.
Universe Colored Map - Cause I need to know sector is owned by which faction!
Mods
ONLY for Albion Prelude:
Cheat Collection Package AP - As above, but only for AP
Universe Colored Map AP - Again as above, but only for AP
Phew..