[Guide] X4 Closed Loop Shipyard building

[apricotslice]

X4 Closed Loop Shipyard Guide.
[Images pending]

Available on Kindle at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QZ6WN5P

Introduction.

Here follows my recommendation for taking on the huge task of building your own closed loop shipyard.

The object of the exercise is to build a shipyard where everything it needs to build a ship is provided by the shipyard, and nothing is paid for. It buys nothing, and sells nothing, except ships.

The only cost is the building materials, and freighters and miners.
For those interested in the concept of the closed loop, it goes back to X2, and is explained in either of the X3 Handbook versions on Kindle.


General Building Advise:

Don’t add too many modules to the build queue at a time. They take time to build, (15 to 20 minutes each), and every time something finishes, the dynamics change. You need to keep an idea on storage use, and insert more storage modules when necessary. Leave it too late, and everything grinds to a halt when you run out of storage room. It’s a juggling act, so best to juggle less at a time.

Don’t get too hung up on building nice neatly laid out rows of things. Building a structure is good, but the modules are designed to fit around each other, and so most gaps can be filled with something, if you put the right connector in the right place first. You can end up with a ginormous mass of station which back in X3 would have exploded from rubbing against each other, but in X4 is perfectly okay.

Get out of the sector. Physically be somewhere you’re not building this station. Given the manual nature of needing to keep a close eye on it, and constantly tinker with build options and moving things to the build storage, I think it’s best to stand on a station in another sector, and give all the commands remotely.

There is a good module fitting trick which is not widely known.
If the module you’re placing does not fit how you want it to, place it on your plot somewhere by itself. Click it again, then right click and hold, and the module will spin around as you move your mouse. Orient the module how you want it, and let go the mouse button. Then click again, and move the module to where you want it.

Before you place the first module, change the ‘Station-wide module loadouts’ to minimum, to avoid having to change turret options all the time. If you do want a default level of turrets, set it first, but it increases what you need to supply to build.


Phase 1: Getting ready.

The first thing you need to do if you don’t already have it, is a Trade Rule limiting wares to only you. This is to prevent the manager from selling products you’re making and not yet using, or buying them when you don’t want to.

REMEMBER: Every time you build a new module which produces something for the first time, you immediately have to go into the shipyard Station Overview, and limit the ware’s storage area to the you-only Trade Rule. You should also turn off auto-selling by setting the sell amount to minimum, and set the sell price to maximum.
You need to do the same with the buy mechanism to turn buying off, since we want a closed loop. So set it to your Trade Rule, set the price to minimum, and the buy amount to minimum.
Beware running out of anything, as the manager might turn buying back on when you don’t want it.

But, you do need buying turned on for your miners to bring resources. So turn on buying for resources, with your Trade Rule on, and turn off everything else.


Where to build?

The second thing to do is find somewhere to build your shipyard.
Criteria 1: Somewhere not too near existing shipyards, where there will be a demand for new ships.
Criteria 2: Somewhere near to where there is fighting going on, but you will never be the target. A good war nearby, where both sides are your friends, is a good place.
Criteria 3: Somewhere where you have already put resource probes, and have all 6 resources within 2 jumps. All in the same sector is ideal, but rare.
Criteria 4: Somewhere there is already 4 or 5 Claytronics and Hull Parts stations within 3 jumps, and 1 Solar Power plant also nearby which is overproducing.

You can build in a disputed sector where you will be the target, but I don’t recommend it. I did pacify Fires of Defeat for a while, had claimed the sector, and had about 1/3 of a shipyard built in there, but the Xenon are relentless. Don’t even try that unless you have a major battle fleet capable of taking on 5 Xenon destroyers and their smaller units, and win well away from your station.
The need to put defensive turrets on modules will seriously slow down the building, and seriously increase what you need to provide to be able to build. Its best you build in a sector where you either have no enemies, or you have enough force to keep anyone away from your station. You can add defenses when you’re done building modules.

Best resource sectors:

There are only 2 sectors I’ve found to have all 6 resources. These are Holy Vision, and Family Nhuut. But Nhuut appears to not have very good density of several.
There are another 2 sectors with everything except Ice, being Family Zhin and Black Hole Sun IV.
And then there is Tharka’s Revine VIII and XVI, which are adjacent to each other, and between them have everything in reasonable density.
Zhin is adjacent to a Xenon sector, so will need some serious protection if you build there.


Phase 2: Have enough for the job.

You will be needing a minimum of 100 million credits, AND 3 of each L type miners, or the equivalent. You’ll also need freighters with speed and a large hold. The slower they are, and the less they carry, the longer building the basics will take. Without the miners or freighters, you’ll need 200 million. Most of that first 100 million is going to be spent on building materials until the basic station is in place.
Realistically, you’re going to need 300 million, but the last 100 should be able to be generated from sporadically sold ships as the Warf starts to build.

100 million is the absolute minimum you’ll need. A good income already being generated is desirable, because you will bleed credits building this station. You’ll be spending millions at a time buying Claytronics and Hull Parts, and doing it regularly.

The whole build will take a minimum of 2 to 3 real days of your time, something on the order of 18 to 30 hours of your time, mostly spent monitoring and giving ships orders. But this will extend once you have a working Shipyard and continue trying to balance the resource requirements to make it produce better.

FORGET about using the manager driven buying, it won’t work well enough. For this exercise, you’ll need to queue up buys from multiple stations and drop off to build storage, in order to keep it fed adequately. The less attention you give it, the more time you waste. The final tweaking builds to get the station working well will probably take another 2 or 3 days. So this is a long term task.

You’ll need at least 2 of the fastest freighters with the biggest cargo holds you can find. The slower and smaller, the more you’ll need. Even two may well stop building while you wait for them to travel 8 to 10 sectors away for what you need, after you repeatedly exhaust the local supply.

I recommend you have your own Construction ship. Saves on losing it to another job if your current batch of builds ends without you noticing. This is something boarding comes in useful for collecting.

I recommend you gather Claytronics, Hull Parts, and Ecells before you start, and have them ready to load the Build Storage as soon as you okay the first build. 5k Claytronics, and 10k each of Hull Parts and Ecells will get you started. Any less and you begin scratching around for more a lot sooner than you’re going to want to.

You’ll also need a 2 star or higher Manager ready to be given the job, and Drone Components and Smart Chips so the new station can build its own Drones. Without Cargo Drones, the station cannot unload miners. But don’t build the drones until instructed to.


Phase 3: The Plot.

You’ll need millions for the sector fee, depending on the size of the plot, and the cost appears to vary according to sector. You don’t necessarily need the full 10km cube, but you are going to need a lot of space. L and XL shipbuilding modules have huge space requirements, as do the L/XL piers.

[Note: At the time of completing a semi-functional Warf, I was using 10km wide, by 2km deep, and about 4 km long. I anticipate needing a lot of extra space for the L and XL build yards, given they not only use a lot of space, but they reserve a huge amount of space on both sides for approach and exit lanes for ships going to them.]



Phase 4: Docks.

You can’t do anything until you can dock.
So the first thing you need to build is a 3 pier dock. You will need it, as 3 of your L sized miners are going to be turning up at the same time, and dock time is wasted time.

The second thing to build is an S/M dock module. I prefer the standard 8, which gives more than you need, but choose based on how many small ships you intend basing on the station, or supplying it. The standard 3MS6 is a good choice. If your whole miner fleet is M sized, you’ll need the 8 bays.

You quite literally can’t do anything until the docks are built. So build the pier first, and the SM second.

Once the pier is built, you need to assign the station a manager.


Phase 5: Storage.

Nothing will function until you have storage, so now you build 1 of each of the LARGE storage modules. I suggest using a few connectors to build a spine away from the docks, with 3 way connectors at intervals. Then start building storage off on one side.

You’re going to end up building a minimum of 3 each, and definitely a lot more later, but you just need 1 now. Nothing will use them though until you get production modules built.

After the 3 storage modules, you need an accommodation module. You will need large ones eventually, but a small one will work for now. I put mine going up from the spine a couple of modules back from the docks, leaving the docks well clear of anything.


Phase 6: Power.

Everything uses Ecells, so build an Ecell module, in a way that you can add more easily in the future.
You’ll need 3 before you’ve completed the core building, and 8 before you finish the Warf. More again for L and XL Builds.
But only build 1 now. As soon as it’s built, it will start making ecells, and storing them in container storage.


Phase 7: Resource Conversion.

You’re going to need to build 1 of each of these before doing anything further.

Superfluid Coolant module – uses Helium.
Graphene module – uses Methane.
Silicon Wafers module – uses Silicon.
Refined Metals module – uses Ore.
Antimatter Cells module – uses Hydrogen.

Until 1 of each which uses gasses and solids is built, you cannot give your miners auto-mine orders. So as soon as the first of each is built, set your miners loose, using the mining for the station commander command, all of them in the alpha group.

If your resources are not in the same sector, this works best if you give them a manual fly to one of your resource probes command, after which they’ll find what they need to mine. Choose the right probe to send them to, according to the resource activating them. The larger the number on the probe data, the easier to mine.


Phase 8: Claytronics and Hull Parts.

This is where building in a safe zone comes into its own. Without needing to arm your modules, all you need to build modules with is Claytronics, Hull Parts, and Ecells.

BUT, now you have another choice. You’re going to use a massive amount of all three. Ecells you just keep building new modules for as you get close to using more than you produce. But the other 2 are a problem.

You can:
A) Build enough of both modules to supply you with enough to build everything else with.
B) Build only what you need for building ships, and just buy the build requirements from wherever you can.

B is easier, but that’s also why you need to make sure where you build has both sorts of factories in the near area, and they are producing. If they’re not, you’re going to need your own auto-traders suppling them what they need. Buying costs a lot. You can expect to be spending millions every time you add modules to the station build queue, and more than half the stations won’t have anything to sell you. A fast freighter with as large a cargo hold as possible is essential. Or a fleet of them. The slower you gather the resources, the slower the shipyard build goes.

A is a lot more daunting. You need to build 6 plus Claytronics modules, along with 2 Microchips and a Quantum Tubes module for EACH Claytronics module. Then back engineer enough Antimatter cells to make them, and ensure you’re mining enough hydrogen. Also 6 plus Hull Parts modules, and the Graphene for them and Refined Metals. The Microchips need Silicon Wafers, and the Quantum Tubes need Graphene and Superfluid Coolant. So you need enough of each to keep what you need flowing, and enough miners to supply the raw materials. The result is a largish station, and you’ve not really even begun yet.

The best approach is to build a single Claytronics module with a single Hull Parts module, and everything that feeds it. Always build from the resource end forward. When they’re producing, you add the support modules for the next pair, and when they’re all producing, you start again. This is going to take a long time early on, because one cycle is not going to build much. Each added Claytronics and Hull Parts speeds up the process, but with a 15 to 20 minute build time for a module, and much longer times on building the requirements, building will keep stopping while production lags behind what you’re trying to do.
But it is an additive process. Each time you get a Claytronics module in, the process gets faster. Check your ecell usage constantly. You’ll most likely need to build another ecell module at some point, and getting this wrong means you have to buy them after everything else grinds to a halt.

If you choose A, then to build everything you need to get a single Claytronics module operating, you’ll need to provide about:
9100 Claytronics
18100 Ecells
33200 Hull Parts
This may vary according to specific choices of piers, docks, and size of housing and storage, and any faction variance. I went with the largest for all of them, given at some point before you finish building just for Claytronics, you’ll need more anyway. Even with the large, you’re going to need more storage and eventually more housing. No point in skimping before you start.
Now, the bad news for all that investment to build, is you end up making 484 Claytronics per HOUR. Which is a drop in the bucket of what you need.

For what I think you need in order to make enough Claytronics to be useful, you’ll need six modules. To feed 6 modules, you’re going to need:
1 Antimatter Cells
2 Superfluid Coolant
3 Graphene
6 Quantum Tubes
6 Silicon Wafers
12 Microchips
And you’ll need a ready supply of Silicon, Helium, Methane, and Hydrogen being delivered by your miners. Which means Liquid Storage will be something to keep an eye on as they mine.

Hull Parts are easier. 6 modules needs:
1 Graphene
3 Refined Metals, which needs Ore.

Getting all this built is going to be time consuming, and I’m not convinced yet that 6 of each is going to be enough to build all the rest in timely fashion.

There is some wisdom in building a Claytronics and Hull Parts station separate from the Shipyard itself on different plots. This allows you to start the Shipyard at the same time, which when you get storage and the basic modules built for the Shipyard, allows miners to start bringing in resources sooner. It means duplicating your miners though.

But the benefit is being able to build 2 modules at the same time, which can only be done on separate plots. So you can be increasing your Claytronic production, without slowing down your shipyard build.
You end up with something like this (which isn’t fully built yet). But this is just for 1 Claytronics, and you want another 5 of them minimum.

You will need a freighter available to move Claytronics and Hull Parts from the station over to the Build Storage.
I found it easiest to simply manually give it multiple ferry commands until Build Storage has what is needed for the next build.


Phase 9: Shipyard Basics.

Build one of each of the following:

Quantum Tubes. (Not if you went Clay A.)
Hull Parts. (In addition to what you built using A.)
Plasma Conductors.
Scanning Arrays.
Advanced Composites.
Engine Parts.
Smart Chips.
2 Microchips. (Additional to A.) (1 Microchip is not enough on its own.)


Phase 10: Check everything.

Check your ecells production verses usage.
Back check everything to ensure production exceeds usage.
Check your storage availability.
Check you have enough miners keeping the raw resources flowing fast enough.
Do you have enough accommodation for the Workforce as it gets bigger?

It’s easier to fix things if you pause here, and let them run a bit. Add a module where something is not supplying enough. Add more miners if you need to. Add another ecell if you’re anywhere near using production already.

When Ecells run out, everything stops.


Phase 11: Ship components.

Now we need to add 1 each of:

Antimatter Converters.
Shield Components.
Advanced Electronics.
Weapon Components.
Turret Components.
Field Coils.
Drone Components.
Missile Components.

Now, 3 of these are going to be heavily used.
The larger the ship being built, the more of both Shields and Turrets they have. Shields in particular go on ships but also each main other component. The more turrets, the more components the ship will need.

But Missile Components are the wild card here. Even with Medium ships, some of them are designed as bombers, and they get ordered with 100 missiles. Now if those are Heavy Torpedoes, then the single ship build will use over one hour’s production of missile components, and hold the whole build queue up until the last missile is made.

So at this point, it’s probably worth putting in second Shield and Turret modules, and up to 3 more Missile ones. But doing this means you need to adjust backwards to compensate.


Phase 12: Check Everything AGAIN.

Now you have multiple modules drawing on multiple earlier-production modules, and things are going to start running too slow.
Do you have enough storage?
Do you have enough Ecell production?
Look at every single storage module, and check if your production exceeds your usage.
Where usage is higher, you need to add another module to boost it, and then add modules to boost what that module needs, going all the way back to do you have enough storage, and enough miners?

At this point, you finally have Drone production capability, so your station can make its own without needing your help or NPC deliveries. IMO, it’s not worth doing this earlier for the small number of drones needed early on. As long as you have Cargo Drones of some number, deliveries function.

Do you have enough accommodation? If the workforce is approaching the limit of your Habitat, it’s time to build another one, and this time a Large one.

Are you making enough Hull Parts? Remember at this stage, you want Hull Parts for building ships, not more station modules. But up until now, you’ve been raiding this store to build modules, so you don’t need to buy as many. Now is the time to add another Hull Parts module, and tweak the back end if need be.

Have you goofed and used a module which needs something else? Eg. Some Teladi modules need Taladianium. That’s an extra module, that uses more Ore.


Phase 13: Workforce choice.

As your workforce grows, you need to provide them with food and medical supplies, according to which faction you selected modules from.
Up until this point, it’s easier imo to just buy enough as you need it.

Now you need to choose if you make your own.

Argon need Food Rations, which needs Meat, Wheat, and Water. Water needs Ice mined.
Medical Supplies needs Spices, Wheat, and Water.
Other factions have different requirements.

1 module each should be enough until the station gets huge.

What you need to be careful of if you add these is the Ice and Water. Ice adds a third mining option for the solid miners, meaning they start bringing in less ore and Silicon. Water uses serious storage space.

Limit the storage of both to ensure they don’t run you out of storage of both container and liquid storage.
Also limit the storage of the food end of production, and the Medical Supplies. There is no point in making huge quantities, unless you intend to sell them to NPCs. But if you do, you need extra storage space for them.

Personally, I think buying the small amount of both for what amounts to peanuts in the scheme of things, is perfectly okay, or worth leaving to the very end. It maybe pokes a hole in the ‘closed loop’ idea, but it’s a very tiny hole, when producing these things yourself ties up a lot of storage space you need for everything else.


Phase 14: Warf.

Now we’re here.

Before you build the first shipyard module, wait until you have reasonable stocks of everything on the final production list. This will give you some breathing space building the first ships, so you can see where you might be too slow producing something. The longer it takes to run out, the more likely you won’t grind to a halt waiting for more modules to be built.

Make sure you select the Ship BUILDING module, and not the maintenance one. Technically, you don’t need a maintenance module at all, as the building modules do maintenance work as well, when under-utilized.

You can put the S/M building module anywhere, but adjacent to your existing docks is the best idea. If you didn’t leave an easy spot to add it, then build up or down, and put it above or below the existing docks.

Now you can start to build Small and Medium ships.

Except you can’t.


Phase 15: Blueprints.

Now you have a Warf capable of building small and medium class ships, you need blueprints to make ships from. These come from the faction representatives. And they cost a huge amount.

At a minimum, you need blueprints for ship hulls, engines, thrusters, shields, main guns, and turrets.

Decide what YOU want to be able to build, and get the blueprints needed to do it. Once you have them, you start to build your own ships the same way you built them elsewhere, but now they don’t cost you anything to build.

When you look at your station on the map, you’ll see it has the Warf icon now.

If you intend running this as a credit making Warf, be advised that the NPCs can build anything they want, and you don’t need to own the blueprints for them to be built. But if you don’t have those blueprints, you will see UNKNOWN SHIP on the build queue.
The implication of this is your Warf needs to be able to build everything the NPCs might want built, and anything which is not available will stall the build queue. Sometimes deleting a ship not being made will start the queue back up again, but you don’t want to be doing this all the time.

The larger M class ships use significantly more of everything to build, and even with what you’ve built so far, building a lot of these will run you out of resources in MINUTES, and it takes time to restock. What you’ll find is you get several 1 or 2 minute runs every so often as production supplies what is missing, and then runs out again. But even this can generate significant credits in a short time.
You can turn the Build module off, by setting it to your you-only trade setting. This will stop ships being added to the queue, and allow stocks to build up while you give it a break, and continue building.


Phase 16: Who has access to build ships?

At this point you need to choose if you allow other factions to buy ships from you.
If no, you need to turn this off on the module in Station Overview, using the trade options.
If yes, you choose what sort of pricing you want to charge everyone else in relation to the normal. I’ve been running at 110% with no apparent effect on building.

I recommend you turn off all factions at this point, until you’ve run some test builds yourself.

If you’re neutral in the middle of a factional war, building both sides what ships they want is lucrative, but will result in battles being fought inside your build bays before new ships can get out. You need to choose if this is fine with you, or if you prefer to only supply one faction. If so, you need a Trade Rule for it.


Phase 17: Ship Trader and Build Drones.

Now you need to give the shipyard a Ship Trader before it can operate.
You do this the same way you assigned a manager to the new station after building the pier.
You should try to have a 2 star or higher Manager, and just assign to the station, and the job of Ship Trader.
Once you do this, you’ll find a Ship Trader office inside the shipyard module.

Before anything can be built, you need to get the station to build its own Build Drones. These need Drone Components, Smart Chips, and Ecells, which you should have on hand now.
But you should only tell the station to build them when you’re ready for building ships.

Once the station has a Ship Trader and Build Drones:
If you allowed other factions to build, then the Warf should start building immediately.
If you allowed no-one but you to build, then nothing will happen until you specify what to build.

The trap of all traps, and because I fell into this enormous hole you get to hear about it, is this:

DON’T MAKE TOO MANY BUILD DRONES.

The more drones you have, the faster they can build. The faster they build, the more resources get used. The faster the resources get used, the faster you run out of key items.

As a guide, check what time it takes to build key ships on faction Shipyards and Warfs. You should be building at about the same rate. If you exceed that, STOP building new build drones.

As a general guide, for an 8 bay S/M and an L and XL, you only need 160 Build Drones.

If you do build too many, you can change them. Slide back the quantity of Build drones, and slide forward on one of the other type of drones. Give it a bit of time, and the drones will be repurposed.

If you have too few Build Drones, the builds get SLOWER. But building slower means the bays are busy, but using less resources per hour.
To slow your build times down, convert Build Drones into some other drone. If you find it’s too slow, then convert a few back.


Phase 18: Did you get everything right?

If it’s a you-only Warf, now’s the time to test build a ship, and see how the production process holds up.

Once you’ve built a ship, and found everything works, think about the fact that you could be building 8 S or M ships all at the same time. Once that starts happening, you need to be monitoring how fast everything is being used.

If you’ve allowed other factions to buy, then you already know it works, and within minutes you also know where the production blockages are.
At this point, depending on demand, you might find yourself scrabbling to add to or even duplicate what you already have. This is up to you. NPCs don’t appear to care how long they wait.

On the Warf I’ve built while documenting this process, when I turned it on by putting in the Ship Trader, I found I ran out of Hull Parts and Weapon Components very rapidly, and building halted while these cycled. So the Warf performed like a randomly firing machine gun. But it generated 50 Million credits inside 10 minutes, all the same.

In the process of getting everything to produce constantly, the first slowdown cause after those turned out to be Smart Chips, for 2 reasons. Firstly, because the module doesn’t produce very many each cycle, and because consumable and missile blueprints use them, every ship ordering consumables and missiles as well, and the actual ship build also uses Smart Chips. Some in big quantities of missiles, but also in mines and laser towers. The bombers especially are ordering huge quantities of smart missiles. So getting the number of Smart Chip modules up to properly producing was a challenge.

The next was not enough Hull Parts being made, then not enough Weapon components being made in spite of already adding more, then I ran out of Ecells, not enough Engine Parts being made, and ran out of Ore because not enough was being delivered to keep everything going.

The statistics just don’t work well enough with ship building. You need to pay attention to stocks all the time, at least until a stable built cycle is finally achieved.

And as I realized when I tried buying a different miner, the L miners I had been mainly using had much smaller cargo holds than was available.


Phase 19: Price.

It appears that the price you select has nothing to do with the factions building ships. Regardless of price, the build queue always refills.

The question becomes, how greedy are you?

It also helps if half the ships you just built immediately fight the other half as soon as they leave the bays, meaning there is a constant need for more ships.


Evaluation of a fully functional Warf:

There is such a thing as a fully functioning Warf, but getting to that point is time consuming, if not frustrating in how there is always something not producing fast enough. I suspect the modules are deliberately designed so balancing is impossible. Adding something to fix one problem automatically creates a different problem.

But if you can achieve a constant build of at least one ship, with no delays between them, you can call this a functional Warf.
If you can get 5 of the 8 bays building without too long between each cycle, you’re probably doing as well as can be managed. And if your Warf is making 30 million credits an hour average, it’s performing well. Because that is all Profitzzzz.

The consumption figures are complete crap. The shipbuilding is so all over the place that the stats cannot cope, and no meaningful usage figures per hour are possible. The intermediate product usage figures are reliable, but not those being accessed by the Warf module itself.

For example, Ecells production will tell you it’s making 10,000 more than it’s using, and yet, you get a few rapid cycles of building, and suddenly you’re out of ecells completely, because the Warf itself used so many during construction of ships, and the stats do not reflect this. By my estimate a well-functioning Warf is using 100,000 Ecells an hour just going into ship building.

But if you can keep most things functioning so they always have stock, the Warf should function well enough to make a huge profit each hour.
The 300 odd million it cost to build this far, should have already been repaid by ships built so far.


Number of workers

By this stage, your Workforce numbers will be around 30,000 as optimal, but only around 2,500 of a possible 3,000, depending on how many Habitats and which sizes you’ve built so far.

It also depends on how much food and medical supplies you have on hand, because you lose workers when they can’t eat or get their wounds treated.

I’m not saying you need to mass build Habitats at this point, but you do need to keep an eye on this more often now.


Phase 20: Design considerations.

Before going any further, you should think about why Shipyards and Warfs are separate stations.

Both require the same basic build.

But the inference is, when you add an L build module, it’s 1 single build will either never get enough resources to build a ship, or will take so much to do so, the smaller ships stop dead until stocks recover. Or it may be a combination of both, where a single L sized ship stops smaller ships building, then they start up again, and it won’t be until stocks have really recovered before another L ship can be built.

Essentially, the next ship added to the queue is allocated resources, and you get no control over it if this is NPC ship ordering.

The game doesn’t allow you to turn off a build module. They are all either on or off together.

Once you put in an L or XL Fabricator module, there is only one way to turn any of them off. By deleting them off the Build Plan, and having it physically removed from the station.

Think about what you want before you go any further.

At the moment you have a Warf which is very profitable.

You can turn it into a Warf/Shipyard by adding L and XL, but you’re going to need to do some significant building to supply all the resources all 3 will need together.

You can stay as a Warf, and move on to something else.

You can remove the S/M Fabricator and add the L and XL ones.

Ideally, we want the full Shipyard and get the station producing the right amount of resources to never run out, regardless of what is being built.

If you’ve made the choice to add L and XL, then read on.


Phase 21: Shipyard

When you think you have the S/M Build module working well, you’re ready to add the L Build module.

My suggestion is to take three long tubes down or up from where your SM Build module is connected to the rest of the station, then add the L module on one side of it. This puts the entrance and exit lanes well away from the rest of the station, and well away from any additions you will still need to make in the future.

When you do have your L Build module complete, the icon for your station on the map will be for a Shipyard, and when you go to the Buy Ships option, the builder will show you S, M, L, and after you build the XL Build module, these as well, all in the same size menu.

If you’re wanting to build your own L sized ships now, then switch your S/M to you-only mode (if it isn’t already), and let some resources gather while the L Build module is built.

One piece of stupid in the game is the 3 Build modules are tied together. So if you change the restrictions on one of them, it changes all 3. But this is probably why there are Shipyards and Warfs, but not both combined.

In any case, if you want to build for yourself, you may need to exclude everyone else for a while.

And before you let the factions build an L, you need to test it for yourself to find out what the impact on resources is going to be.

You can just add your ships into the mix though, and the build queue will put yours first, but only when the bays are empty. So if you intend to do a lot of building yourself, turn off faction use first.

Now the good news is, with what you’ve most likely built so far for the S/M, you’ll find that controlled self-building on the L will actually not affect most stock levels at all. If anything, the length of time it takes to build an L, and the fact you’re only building 1 ship at a time, gives your production the chance to keep up or get ahead.

The bad news is, L ships use some things differently, and so something is going to suddenly run out on you. So depending on what it is you’re building, you’ll most likely need to add more modules, and then back fill again for what supplies them.

The first of these is Antimatter Converters, which are used in engines and thrusters. Small ships use a few. Large ships use tons of them. So while the S/M ship building was not impacting stocks, a half dozen L Miners will exhaust those stocks. So back to the build queue for more of them, and what they need.

By adding more mining ships, it may now be time to add a second triple Pier. Pay attention to if you have a queue for the docking pylons.

If you want, you can also build your XL Build module as well at any time now. But it might be better not to build an XL ship until you get your L ship balancing done. Remember that bigger ships need more of everything.

Building the XL Build module can usually be done on the other side of the L Build module. And since you used a 10x10x10 km plot, there should be plenty of room to add another of both in the future, by once again just adding an up or down pylon first.


NPC allowed S/M/L/XL Shipyard

When you turn this on the first time, you’ll get 11 build slots, and they will fill immediately.

It is vital at this point that within 5 minutes of starting this, you check your stocks, and how fast key ones are going down.

The first time I did this, I managed 5 minutes before I almost ran out of Ecells. I did have 2 L Builds though, and with the XL the station was running through over 100,000 Ecells per hour not accounted for in the usage stats. I stopped it at 20,000 Ecells left, so the whole station would not stop dead.

After building another 5 Ecell modules, and letting things build back up, the station ran for half an hour before I again had to stop it because the Ecells were down near 20,000. But I also found Hull Parts almost depleted, and Scanning Arrays nearly gone as well.

This is the effect of building 2 L and 1 XL ship at the same time.

I cancelled the build of the second XL Build module, and went back to building what another 6 Hull Parts needed, and more Scanning Arrays. And more Ecells.

And the whole process of balancing continues until either you’re happy with the speed of building ships, with occasional delays, or you get it balanced so even with the second XL, it never runs out of anything.

The good news is, when you want to build a ship, it gets added to the front of the queue.

Adding defenses.

While putting turrets on modules was a good idea, it’s not practical unless you build spread out stations, where every module has clear space around it.

When modules get put close together, most of the guns can’t fire, and become a serious waste of resources building them.

So I prefer doing this:

[Image pending]

You build an up or down pylon, put a cross on the end of it, and then 4 defense modules.

You can place these anywhere where you have a spare cross unused, and if you place a series of these in key positions around your station, it will be just as well covered for defending the whole thing.

As long as your station is not under imminent threat as you build it, and you should have defense forces covering it the whole time anyway, you can add defenses like this when you finish building.


Containing the Xenon.

If you’re building in a sector which is adjacent to Xenon space, it is possible to contain them, and keep them away from your station.

You’ll need 4 to 6 destroyers for this, setup with all of them attached to the leader with ‘Attack with Commander’, and the lead ship given the order to ‘Protect Position’ with the spot selected being very close in front of the gate the Xenon will come through, and the range they protect being only in the range of 20km to 40 kms, depending on ship speed.

This will keep them close to the gate, and allow them to hit everything coming through it. 4 to 6 destroyers should be able to handle Ks coming through one at a time. If they take significant damage doing it, then add more ships.

The cost of 6 destroyers in the overall cost of building a Shipyard is completely insignificant.

Something else to note is that if you can blockade the entrance to the sector, Xenon Shipyards and Warfs cannot be resurrected by one of their ships delivering building materials. After a time, they vanish, and do not get respawned.


Afterthoughts.

For those who mod their game, check out the Cheat Menu mod. It has a few options which can be useful for a build this size.

If you cheat in all the blueprints, there are several things you can and shouldn’t do.

1. Don’t bother constructing a Xenon I. It flies like an apartment building, and in spite of augmented shields (using ones from another faction), it can’t really handle a K one on one. I built it to see what it could do, and was very disappointed. I sold it rather than repairing its 50% damage. Although it was interesting that it was repairing itself. Maybe useful as a jump point guard, but not if you expect multiple Ks to come through.

2. You CAN mix and match ship components to remove some of the inherent weaknesses in ship designs. And this includes using Xenon and Khaak turrets. Just using Xenon turrets on any other destroyer can double its firepower from the secondary guns. Putting Teladi or Argon shields on a Split ship can make it survive a lot longer. Case in point, the Rattlesnake, which is severely under-shielded for the class, but can be brought up to spec with almost anyone else’s main shield.

When you get sick of manually transferring building materials, there is a Cheat option for stations that fills your Build Storage with what it needs.

If you’re building in a claimable sector, build an administration module FIRST.


Conclusion.

Once you get your Shipyard to the point where it’s making 30 million credits an hour, even with key products running out all the time, it’s probably best to stop building.

At some point you need to say ‘This is done!’, and the sad truth is, this is the sort of build which may never have an end where all build bays are building all the time.

So if you get your build to a point where the income is acceptable for your needs, stop.

I stopped with it generating 100 million an hour, and still needed tinkering with.


The final build totals.

The Claytronic and Hull factory complex contains:

1 3 dock Pier
1 SM Dock of your choice
8 Container Storage
3 Liquid Storage
4 Solid Storage
1 Habitat
7 Ecells
3 Superfluid Coolant
10 Silicon Wafers
6 Graphene
1 Antimatter Cells
12 Refined Metal
7 Quantum Tubes
19 Microchips
1 Meat
1 Spices
1 Wheat
1 Water
1 Medical Supply
1 Food Ration
20 Hull Parts
7 Claytronics

In addition, the station is using 18 miners of L size.

This makes 26,320 Hull Parts an hour, and 3,360 Claytronics an hour. This should be enough to keep building the Shipyard going, assuming you can transfer regularly.

The Shipyard contains:

1 3 dock Pier
1 SM Dock of your choice
21 Container Storage
7 Liquid Storage
8 Solid Storage
3 Habitat
17 Ecells
3 Superfluid Coolant
9 Silicon Wafers
9 Graphene
1 Antimatter Cells
22 Refined Metal
4 Quantum Tubes
12 Microchips
1 Meat
1 Spices
1 Wheat
1 Water
2 Medical Supply
1 Food Ration
35 Hull Parts
8 Plasma conductors
3 Advanced Composites
18 Smart Chips
14 Engine Parts
8 Scanning Arrays
4 Missile Components
16 Advanced Electronics
2 Antimatter Converters
1 Field Coils
3 Shield Components
21 Weapon Components
6 Turret Components
1 Drone Components
1 S/M Fabrication
2 L Fabrication
1 XL Fabrication

In addition, the station is using 27 Miners of L size.




-----------------------------Original Post------------------------------------
I've been documenting my progress through building a Warf, with the goal being a full XL Shipyard.

I've seen a couple of YouTubes on the subject, but they are way too fast, way to lacking in details, and while useful, seemed to give the wrong impression of a lot of things. None of the X4 vids really do it for me, as they all go way too fast, and leave out the details. One in particular on Shipyards ended up with this gigantic complex spread across half of space, when the reality of building only requires about 2% of all that framework.

I used to write Guides for X3.

Anyone interested in me turning my notes into a How to build a Shipyard Guide for here?

If so, any specific issues you'd like me to address?

[EGO_Aut]

Do. Or do not.

There is always somebody who needs something.

I used cellular camera and complex calculator, worked fine.

[Nanook]

If you write it, they will come.

I always found your guides useful as a quick reference when I was unsure of something. I'm sure there are a lot of others out there that would be grateful for some sort of written guide. Like you, I find a lot of the youtube stuff lacking in details. Oh, and feel free to post it in the main forum, as long as it doesn't include any real plot-type spoilers.

[apricotslice]

If you write it, they will come.

I always found your guides useful as a quick reference when I was unsure of something. I'm sure there are a lot of others out there that would be grateful for some sort of written guide. Like you, I find a lot of the youtube stuff lacking in details. Oh, and feel free to post it in the main forum, as long as it doesn't include any real plot-type spoilers.

Thanks. I wasn't sure if Guides were spoilers or not. So opted for caution.

Can you move this into the main forum then? I'll rework it into the guide thread when it's complete.

[jlehtone]

There was a thread viewtopic.php?f=146&t=420491
about "self sufficient" numbers. exogenesis' post at the end of it, particularly.

The Construction Community Forum has plans from players. Your guide could refer to suitable examples there (of your own design?).

Build module, dock/pier, storage, and habitat. Isn't that the bare minimum?

[apricotslice]

Build module, dock/pier, storage, and habitat. Isn't that the bare minimum?

I'm not doing the bare minimum.

I'm doing a closed loop complex.

So even building a carrier costs you nothing. (After you get the shipyard built of course.)

[Nanook]

I've moved this to the main forum. Good luck with your build and your guide.

[Ezarkal]

I'm doing a closed loop complex.

I generally don't work with closed-loop shipyard, as I love to see traders doing supply run between stations to keep the monster fed.
I'm quite curious to see your take on them, though. It would come handy in many instances.

Keep us posted. ^^

[dtpsprt]

Besides the, obvious, fact that one can not update a video (except do it all over again) leading to 99% of the videos in U-Tube being outdated there is also the reality that trying to play and narrate at the same time leads to lots of misunderstandings and misconceptions (usually taking too many things for granted). I'm 100% for a written guide (hopefully I won't be the only one to read it).

As far as the "community" is concerned (the X4 one), they really hate to use the keyboard (as seen by the way my "attempt" to ask for numerical coordinates in the map was shunted). I just hope they'll be able to read (afterall they do read 6 pages of posts about a battleship that will - or not - come in the next DLC and speculate about it's name and the number of turrets it'll have)...

Personally I'm intrigued by the fact that you speak of a self sustaining full shipyard would like to see it and read about it.

[apricotslice]

I have a working Warf going now, but not to my satisfaction.

While I thought there'd be some issues come up when I turned it on, what happened was beyond my wildest imaginings, but very short lived.

Today I start on identifying and filling the holes.

When I get a fully functioning closed loop Warf going, I'll post the guide to that point.

But I already know one of my choices at the beginning was the wrong one, so I'll need to figure out what was necessary instead.

This might take a few days. (It's already taken 3 days of a lot of play, without seta, to get where I am now.)

[grapedog]

Personally i prefer reading my guides, as opposed to watching them. Depends on the topic though. Some topics will be difficult to describe with words, like if you're tryjng to talk about specific placement of pieces or stacking/clipping modules.

[dtpsprt]

Personally i prefer reading my guides, as opposed to watching them. Depends on the topic though. Some topics will be difficult to describe with words, like if you're tryjng to talk about specific placement of pieces or stacking/clipping modules.

Indeed, but a written guide can (surely) include screenshots... which is way better that having to find the "exact" second of a video which, any way you look at it you'd have to pause...

[apricotslice]

Update on progress.

The Guide is mostly written up to Warf level.

I spent about 10 hours playing today, mostly adding modules to try and balance things, and still a lot of that to go.

To keep me amused between building and monitoring the build, I took out several Xenon occupied sectors, and repelled an invasion in another. 8 destroyers can be lethal, if you're not on one of them.

Just to give you an idea of the credit earning potential, the current Warf never gets more than 5 of 8 bays building at once, often just 1 or 2, with big gaps with none building as some resource ran out, and you waited for it to cycle again.

But during today's building session, the Warf was averaging 18.65 MILLION credits per hour. All PROFITZZZ. And that includes earning less at the beginning, and more towards the end, as I got things built and cycle times on some things improved a lot.

The object of the exercise is to have the Warf mostly building 4-6 ships at a time, without any stoppages.

[ianrobo75]

I'll take a written guide with pictures, options, and details any day.

[apricotslice]

I'll take a written guide with pictures, options, and details any day.

The basic guide is now there, but I'm redoing the actual building for part of it, and still trying to tweak the Warf to build more consistently. But building modules is so slowwwwww!

Pics will be provided when they're worth taking, which is not so much now given how much is still to do.

But once I get the text done to my satisfaction, I'll post it as a preliminary version for comment.

So far today, credits has dropped from 30 million an hour to 20 million an hour, given I made some really bad timing goofs, and ran out of ecells, and mistimed the adding of more of one component.

Still, 140 million is nothing to be sneezed at for 7 hours game play in real time.

And there is lots of day left.

[alt3rn1ty]

Anyone interested in me turning my notes into a How to build a Shipyard Guide for here?

If so, any specific issues you'd like me to address?

Yeaah! - We can always do with apricotslice guides, videos are usually too fast as you say or you need a magnifying glass on screen to see what they are doing.

1. How to get weapons on defence platform components is maybe worth a note (right click and edit the component), probably just me but it took ages to figure out how to add them, and then realised it would have also been easier adding the necessary turrets to one defence platform component .. and then right click copying it ( or copying sequence ) to all other positions needed ( instead of editing lots of individual defence platforms for the same configuration, doh! )
I believe if you leave a station manager to his own decisions he will eventually start adding defences, depends on resources / economy / how experienced he is, and maybe blueprints owned - I think, only seen this start to happen once, and after dismantling half that station to reconfigure it (as you do occasionally), he has not started doing it automagically again so now that I am earning billions I intervened and built them manually

2. Maybe someone has done some research into best locations, especially for Wharfs / Shipyards, to be closed loop, particularly regarding nearby resources. I found Grand exchange to be good for all resources needed for one of each, but built the stations in Path to Profit next door due to lots of pirate activity (especially after completing the Dukes missions) taking out my traders.

3. Maybe someone has done some research into best Miners for the stations - Personally I am using a couple of each type for each station (4 or 6 depending on resources needed). I haven't done much looking into capacity of miners versus speed of miners (and modding them to make them more efficient), but I reckon Split Alligators are pretty good, haven't lost one and they are amply providing everything needed for a good stock to keep the Wharf / Shipyard gears turning.

4. v4 Beta has introduced more changes to Population of the station, which has necessitated adjusting a few of my stations to have a Biome or two more than they did, but 100% workers is still a very good thing to have efficient stations.

5. Maybe a bit of notes on manipulating station components when building? (left click select, right click drag / rotate etcetera, and rotating the view to get better angles on manipulating components) - Probably quite a lot of people out there dont know about the official wiki guide for the game or forget about it after a few years senility creeping in

[Rabble Rabble]

Anyone interested in me turning my notes into a How to build a Shipyard Guide for here?

If so, any specific issues you'd like me to address?

2. Maybe someone has done some research into best locations, especially for Wharfs / Shipyards, to be closed loop, particularly regarding nearby resources. I found Grand exchange to be good for all resources needed for one of each, but built the stations in Path to Profit next door due to lots of pirate activity (especially after completing the Dukes missions) taking out my traders.

I'm sorry I can't give full credit where due for the file I'm adding, as I'm no longer sure where I trawled this information up, but someone exported the data on resource spread accross sectors post Split Vendetta. Maybe it helps out.

MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT

Spoiler

Show

Code: Select all

sector	ore	silicon	methane	hydrogen	helium	ice	nividium
Antigone Memorial	133	133	0	127	0	90	132
Argon Prime	73	73	0	0	0	0	0
Atiya's Misfortune I	3160	0	0	3249	0	0	958
Atiya's Misfortune III	3267	3267	0	3249	0	0	3267
Black Hole Sun IV	8	8	2	12	12	0	8
Black Hole Sun V	0	0	8	24	16	0	0
Bright Promise	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Cardinal's Redress	2112	2112	0	2088	0	0	0
Company Regard	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Eighteen Billion	144	144	139	0	138	0	0
Eleventh Hour	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Emperor's Pride IV	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Emperor's Pride VI	865	1598	0	0	0	0	0
Family Kritt	867	867	0	0	0	867	0
Family Nhuut	12	18	18	18	18	15	0
Family Tkr	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Family Zhin	578	578	570	570	570	0	578
Faulty Logic I	1195	1195	0	3249	0	0	0
Faulty Logic VII	1195	1195	0	3249	0	0	0
Fires of Defeat	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Frontier Edge	205	205	0	197	0	0	0
Getsu Fune	170	170	0	0	0	171	0
Grand Exchange I	988	988	0	35	0	983	27
Grand Exchange III	1245	1245	12	4	12	5	0
Grand Exchange IV	842	842	0	16	0	0	12
Guiding Star V	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Guiding Star VII	0	0	0	0	0	1156	0
Hatikvah's Choice I	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Hatikvah's Choice III	251	251	12	8	14	6	251
Heart of Acrimony I The Boneyard	823	1560	0	0	0	0	0
Heart of Acrimony II	141	141	0	2272	0	2331	0
Heretic's End	234	0	0	0	0	0	0
Hewa's Twin I	8	8	8	2	12	0	8
Hewa's Twin II	52	52	12	12	2	0	52
Hewa's Twin III	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Hewa's Twin IV The Cove	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Hewa's Twin V	578	578	0	0	0	0	0
Holy Vision	18	18	8	12	8	8	18
Ianamus Zura IV	0	0	12	2	12	10	0
Ianamus Zura VII	22	22	0	0	0	12	22
Lasting Vengeance	32	32	0	32	0	32	0
Litany of Fury IX	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Litany of Fury XII	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Matrix #451	2894	2896	0	2867	0	0	0
Matrix #598	644	1669	0	1734	0	1200	0
Matrix #79B	0	0	0	9	0	0	0
Matrix #9	4518	4400	4862	0	0	0	1714
Memory of Profit IX	8	8	0	0	0	4	8
Memory of Profit X	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Morning Star III	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Morning Star IV	3145	3156	0	16	16	3520	3098
Nopileos' Fortune II	686	686	0	670	0	415	681
Nopileos' Fortune VI	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Open Market	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Path to Profit	0	0	0	722	0	0	0
Pious Mists II	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Pious Mists IV	237	236	232	0	0	0	0
Pious Mists XI	369	193	0	443	443	0	450
Pontifex's Claim	0	0	6	1	6	20	0
Profit Center Alpha	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Rhy's Defiance	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Sacred Relic	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Scale Plate Green I	10	10	0	40	0	0	10
Scale Plate Green VII	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Second Contact II Flashpoint	121	121	0	120	0	82	121
Second Contact VII	2131	2131	0	0	0	0	2129
Second Contact XI	161	161	0	0	0	0	0
Silent Witness I	0	0	0	710	0	0	0
Silent Witness XI	3166	3122	0	0	0	167	3267
Silent Witness XII	3215	3215	0	0	0	0	0
Tharka's Cascade XV	324	324	0	320	0	0	324
Tharka's Cascade XVII	154	154	0	149	0	0	0
Tharka's Ravine I	0	0	1151	1151	1151	1156	0
Tharka's Ravine VIII	0	0	1150	1150	1150	1156	0
Tharka's Ravine XVI	540	575	0	0	0	476	0
Tharka's Ravine XXIV	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
The Reach	243	0	0	0	0	0	0
The Void	216	216	152	88	2	58	90
Thuruk's Demise I First Impact	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Thuruk's Demise III	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Trinity Sanctum III	12	12	2	12	8	2	12
Trinity Sanctum VII	3152	3163	13	13	13	3520	3104
True Sight	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Turquoise Sea IX	2178	2178	0	2178	0	0	2178
Turquoise Sea X	2178	2178	0	2178	0	0	2178
Two Grand	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Unholy Retribution	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Wretched Skies IV Family Valka	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Wretched Skies V Family Phi	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Wretched Skies X	207	207	0	0	0	208	0
Zyarth's Dominion I	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Zyarth's Dominion IV	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Zyarth's Dominion X	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

[grapedog]

That spoiler could really use some excel love...

[TheDeliveryMan]

That spoiler could really use some excel love...

That spoiler is in TSV (tab-separated values) format and can be easily imported by many applications, not just Excel...

[jlehtone]

I'm sorry I can't give full credit where due for the file I'm adding, as I'm no longer sure where I trawled this information up, but someone exported the data on resource spread accross sectors post Split Vendetta. Maybe it helps out.

luckbox did post similar (CSV, not TSV) table viewtopic.php?p=4972983#p4972983
Jeremy had posted similar for earlier game viewtopic.php?p=4912256#p4912256

Can't tell whether they were the first.

I also might have seen description of how to preprocess data for such table.
Read the save (which is XML) into R https://www.r-project.org/
which can somehow summarize the "interesting" bits.