Concept: large/XL ships only?
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Concept: large/XL ships only?
I am curious if anybody else has tried this: large and XL civilian ships ONLY. No medium/small traders or miners.
Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
I am doing that setup for all my plexes except the ones selling to drug dealers. Apart from the occasional bugs in trader AI i don't have to touch them ever, ime it works pretty well.
Still have a couple M traders here and there but their effect is negligible.
Still have a couple M traders here and there but their effect is negligible.
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Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
Mostly L/XL freighters & miners is standard for most of my games. Generally only use M freighters for internal logistics, primarily so I have different icons for such ships to make them easily identifiable on the map. Don't use M miners at all & just a single S miner for personal use (mining drill is by far my favourite tool for opening lockboxes).
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Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
I've almost only ever used M-class ships due to how cheap they are in relation to their size. Sounds like I may be gimping myself slightly.
Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
Actulally L miner is only twice as effective as M miner, but costs almost ten times more.
So M miners pay for themselves almost 5 times faster than L miners.
https://www.reddit.com/r/X4Foundations/ ... y/eb5gqk1/
For traders its even worse, given their tendency to make trade runs with 50 eCells of load.
So M miners pay for themselves almost 5 times faster than L miners.
https://www.reddit.com/r/X4Foundations/ ... y/eb5gqk1/
For traders its even worse, given their tendency to make trade runs with 50 eCells of load.
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Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
Looking at "average prices" from Roguey's site, a Demeter S is about one million. A Shuyaku S is 11 million. By initial investment, one Shuyaku vs 11 Demeters?
One Shuyaku and five Demeters have about same amount of cargobay. Trading that amount of cargo with one station, the L will get sightly better average price. One lump vs small chunks.
Docking multiple M will have traffic issues on small docks. However, hauling from one edge to other edge of X Universe, I bet a fleet of M makes the journey significantly faster than a L does. Then again, who does such hauls?
The game has two stages: when credits matter and when they don't. It might be easier to pass the first stage if you don't avoid small freighters.
One Shuyaku and five Demeters have about same amount of cargobay. Trading that amount of cargo with one station, the L will get sightly better average price. One lump vs small chunks.
Docking multiple M will have traffic issues on small docks. However, hauling from one edge to other edge of X Universe, I bet a fleet of M makes the journey significantly faster than a L does. Then again, who does such hauls?
The game has two stages: when credits matter and when they don't. It might be easier to pass the first stage if you don't avoid small freighters.
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Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
I don't do it exclusively because the small ones seem better for my personally issued tasks, and for training pilots apparently since it's per-trade that they gain xp. Most of my civilian ships are large though. I always cap a Minotaur Raider with my starting ship and then use it to cripple and board L ships to fill out my fleet. Their high initial cost doesn't really matter then, it's only an issue if I want to afford high tier thrusters on them.
Whether they are better or worse I'm not sure, but I feel they're probably less of a performance hit in the map later in the game.
Whether they are better or worse I'm not sure, but I feel they're probably less of a performance hit in the map later in the game.
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Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
My only issue with Ls is the time they take to dock, sometimes i observed 5-10mins or even higher delays because of that. If there are too much non-highway travel involved then Ls are faster ignoring docking, gate passage times have improved a lot i think since 2.x.
Of course this only really matters if production and demand are both so high that timing becomes important. Ms can move a lot of stuff as well, but you need more of them and at later game just the extra UI hassle for 2-5x the ships is not worth it no matter their costs.
Of course this only really matters if production and demand are both so high that timing becomes important. Ms can move a lot of stuff as well, but you need more of them and at later game just the extra UI hassle for 2-5x the ships is not worth it no matter their costs.
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Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
For me it's the durability of L, & particularly XL ships, which is the big draw. The sort of ships which, if they call for help, there's a decent chance they're still intact when help arrives. If I'm feeling really paranoid, or sending one somewhere I consider a bit risky, can also give such a ship it's own fighters and/or defence drones to look after it. XL's are particularly good for this - can carry 100 drones, along with a small fleet of S/M warships & can repair those ships if they get damaged. Generally one of my early goals in a new game is to acquire a small fleet of such ships to use as manually operated freighters. Some of my favourite ships in the game.
Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
Makes sense but from what I've seen only the Atlas Sentinel has a big enough cargo hold (34 K) for efficient use as a trader.GCU Grey Area wrote: ↑Sun, 20. Sep 20, 01:45For me it's the durability of L, & particularly XL ships, which is the big draw. The sort of ships which, if they call for help, there's a decent chance they're still intact when help arrives. If I'm feeling really paranoid, or sending one somewhere I consider a bit risky, can also give such a ship it's own fighters and/or defence drones to look after it. XL's are particularly good for this - can carry 100 drones, along with a small fleet of S/M warships & can repair those ships if they get damaged. Generally one of my early goals in a new game is to acquire a small fleet of such ships to use as manually operated freighters. Some of my favourite ships in the game.
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Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
Nomad Sentinel has the same cargo capacity. Used a great many of them in my Argon game as my default freighter (think I ended up with over 70 of them by the end of it), though did have a completely self-sufficient shipyard in that game so could build as many as I wanted for essentially nothing. Nomad Sentinel was the very first blueprint I purchased. However the smaller capacity XL's also do an acceptable job as traders. Early part of my current Split game built up a trade fleet of 6 Monitors (29k cargo) & they did fine. Full cargo of, say, Antimatter Converters was still worth around 800k profit. Not quite as much as I could get with the Nomads in my previous game, but still a reasonably big pile of cash for a single trade run.
Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
After having just lost another Shuyaku to FAF, I'm building an initial 10 of these, and will have a fleet of Cerberus on each. Will pension off all my L traders in due course, and replace with these. Thanks for the heads up.GCU Grey Area wrote: ↑Sun, 20. Sep 20, 09:41Nomad Sentinel has the same cargo capacity. Used a great many of them in my Argon game as my default freighter (think I ended up with over 70 of them by the end of it), though did have a completely self-sufficient shipyard in that game so could build as many as I wanted for essentially nothing. Nomad Sentinel was the very first blueprint I purchased. However the smaller capacity XL's also do an acceptable job as traders. Early part of my current Split game built up a trade fleet of 6 Monitors (29k cargo) & they did fine. Full cargo of, say, Antimatter Converters was still worth around 800k profit. Not quite as much as I could get with the Nomads in my previous game, but still a reasonably big pile of cash for a single trade run.
But it just goes to underline something. - The game is missing a category of *genuine* XL freighter. - It doesn't have to have a bigger capacity by much, just more shielding an M port, and maybe an L turret or two.
“Man, my poor head is battered,” Ed said.
“That explains its unusual shape,” Styanar said, grinning openly now. “Although it does little to illuminate just why your jowls are so flaccid or why you have quite so many chins.”
“I…” Had she just called him fat? “I am just a different species, that’s all.”
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“That explains its unusual shape,” Styanar said, grinning openly now. “Although it does little to illuminate just why your jowls are so flaccid or why you have quite so many chins.”
“I…” Had she just called him fat? “I am just a different species, that’s all.”
“Well nature sure does have a sense of humour then,” Styanar said. “Shall we go inside? It’d not be a good idea for me to be spotted by others.”
Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
Between theorycrafting and actual experimental data, I always choice experimental data.
I use only split ships now. Boas and Alligators always escape unscathed.GCU Grey Area wrote: ↑Sun, 20. Sep 20, 01:45For me it's the durability of L, & particularly XL ships, which is the big draw. The sort of ships which, if they call for help, there's a decent chance they're still intact when help arrives.
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Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
Aren’t those XL Aux ships super slow? Can’t imagine that they would be able to ship stuff fast enough.
Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
I have Shuyaku and I have Demeters. MORTing them all.
The Shuyaku does buy and sell 3700 Hull Parts with single transactions.
The first Demeter gets/sells 790 Parts with the same price that Shuyaku gets, but at least the fifth M tends to trade at clearly worse terms (unless offers are really huge). Hence the average for 5*790 is worse that the price of 1*3700.
That is theory supported by experimental observations.
However, I presume captainradish may not have planned MORT-only empire. Station- and auto-traders most likely have other factors that affect their behaviour. My hypothesis about those is that they are a bridge that I'll cross, if I get to it.
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Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
XL Aux are way too slow..
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Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
One thing with bigger ships is upgrades. Say you have 5 M vs 1 L it is cheaper to put one engine upgrade and hull upgrade on that 1 ship. You might even go for better grades just because of that.
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Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
Certainly the case in my game. Nothing but the best for my fleet of XL MORTs, purple Slingshot engine & Nanotube chassis mods, while the L freighters working for my stations have to manage with basic green mods - Nudger engine & Polisher chassis mods which make them just about fast enough to outrun an FAF Rattlesnake on conventional drives which they're waiting for travel mode to kick in.
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Re: Concept: large/XL ships only?
For those dangerous places I use the Raptor as a we'll defended trader.
But then I have Billions in loot, so can afford to be opulent.
Plus they look so cool lumbering around, with a purpose.
Got sick of my traders getting killed off, so went huge.
No one messes with my fleet of Raptors.
But then I have Billions in loot, so can afford to be opulent.
Plus they look so cool lumbering around, with a purpose.
Got sick of my traders getting killed off, so went huge.
No one messes with my fleet of Raptors.