On the other hand, they've got a nasty habit of thinking about the younger races as one collective group, making them frighteningly willing to toy with other species. 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.This image ◊ is on the back of X3: Gold Edition. Fanservice / Painted-On Pants (whew!): Saya Kho is frequently depicted as such. Absolute Cleavage / Bare Your Midriff / Ms.Abnormal Ammo: The Terran Point Singularity Projector shoots what are essentially black holes at enemy ships.4X: A rare example played through the first person perspective.The AI isn't smart enough for this, however, which means battles typically consist of charging the target, maneuvering to avoid a crash, then turning around.
The ideal position for a capital ship is to be three or four kilometers "above" or "below" the target, oriented on a sideways diagonal to present a broadside and the forward guns. Most capital ships have their guns arranged with the intended anticapital mounts on the forward and flank batteries and the flak mounts on the dorsal, ventral, and stern batteries.
The Asteroid Belt demonstrates why this trope can be an Acceptable Break from Reality: they put the system's equipment dock way "below" the system ecliptic with the docking ports on the bottom.
Albion Prelude adds varying station altitudes to the Sol System.Likely due to the fact that Terran stations are massive compared to even the largest non-Terran station you'd have trouble fitting a Terran Orbital Patrol base in a smaller Commonwealth sector. Terran Conflict actually falls right back into the trope a bit: while the core X-'verse sectors are certainly much more variable in their layouts compared to the earlier games, many Terran sectors are flat as a pancake with stations smack dab on the same horizontal plane.Played straight in the first two games - most ships, planets, and stations are laid out on a two-d plane.