
Also, I didn't like the weapon rebalancing of XRM. I prefer it over XRM because with all the border combat in XRM, it can make station and resource building problematic. Personally, I play X3TC vanilla with two (and might be adding a third) mod. The ships are rebalanced to incorporate weapons related to their racial profile, making the ships feel more unique (weapons are limited to their racial ship counterpart), but the weapons are rebalanced and, if you ask me, there's not a huge difference between them in any class size with XRM.
#X3 terran conflict graphics overhaul mod
Also, if you prefer combat heavy TC, you can add the XRM mod (also available for AP) which adds a lot more border skirmishes, ships, a few more weapons, terran economy, a better missile defense script (MD MK2 which is already in the default game for AP), and more sectors.

Some TC plot has been ported over and I believe there are mods to add more of the TC plot to it. AP definitely has more combat involved and wasn't originally given much plot. Keep in mind I've only experienced X3 TC and AP so I'm only speaking from my own research into the topic. This one has been quoted as "Not deserving of the X title." X Rebirth: If you can get it to work, it focuses more on being an "arcade shooter" than a RTS resource building game. This one, however, is more focused on an ongoing war so your game will have a lot more combat going on. X3AP: Basically TC with some slight improvements and added scripts in the default game (the good scripts users wrote for X3TC basically, such as MD MK2).

Best in the series for experiencing trade and combat and general space sim stuff. X3TC: Slightly improved UI (once again, supposedly). X2: Basically X with a slightly improved UI, supposedly. But, as I understand it, it breaks down like this: I'm not an X-pert (see what I did there?), but I think TC is the best.
