Shipyard prices - I'm being scammed

[dtpsprt]

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And no one said that a single rattlesnake sells for 200m. Last one I sold brought me 26m. Sell 6 of them and you got 150m. Even without the shipyard/wharf income nerf, there are ways to get credits way faster (vanilla game no mods/save edits).

Of course you are right... but nothing stops you recapturing that said Rattlesnake and selling it again and again at no rep loss...

[Clownmug]

.....................
And no one said that a single rattlesnake sells for 200m. Last one I sold brought me 26m. Sell 6 of them and you got 150m. Even without the shipyard/wharf income nerf, there are ways to get credits way faster (vanilla game no mods/save edits).

Of course you are right... but nothing stops you recapturing that said Rattlesnake and selling it again and again at no rep loss...

Didn't they change it so when you sell ships it has to go to a shipyard to be dismantled?

[jlehtone]

That’s an interesting point actually. The rest of the economy’s prices fluctuate dependent on supply/demand but ship prices are always fixed except for the artificial increase the player can use at their own yard.

I thought that ship prices at NPC yards do fluctuate. Was it due you reputation or the amount of resources that the yard has in stock?

[Raevyan]

.....................
And no one said that a single rattlesnake sells for 200m. Last one I sold brought me 26m. Sell 6 of them and you got 150m. Even without the shipyard/wharf income nerf, there are ways to get credits way faster (vanilla game no mods/save edits).

Of course you are right... but nothing stops you recapturing that said Rattlesnake and selling it again and again at no rep loss...

Didn't they change it so when you sell ships it has to go to a shipyard to be dismantled?

It’s not able to fly to the shipyard if you destroy its engines.

[Repli]

I think his question was, why it is still possible to board a single ship over and over again instead of flying it to a wharf before selling And he is right. Reputation loss (or not ) is also a huge problem of course...

[Clownmug]

Of course you are right... but nothing stops you recapturing that said Rattlesnake and selling it again and again at no rep loss...

Didn't they change it so when you sell ships it has to go to a shipyard to be dismantled?

It’s not able to fly to the shipyard if you destroy its engines.

Are we talking about 4.00 beta? You don't get paid if it doesn't reach the shipyard I thought?

[Raevyan]

Still works in b9. Money gets transferred as soon as you sell the ship. You’re probably talking about stripping down equipment before selling. That doesn’t work anymore.

[Clownmug]

I haven't played since beta 4 or 5 but I remember when selling a ship it remained your property until it reached the buying faction's shipyard, then transfers ownership and payment.

[Panos]

To be able to build an operational wharf from the a new save you need 20 rep with a faction and ~150m credits. I’ve got both in a new 4.0 b7 save within ~7h of playing the game (I was somewhat slow). Currently, with 3.30, once you’ve got a wharf going you basically print money way faster than you could ever spend. You basically skip all early and mid game and go straight into “oh let’s order 200 fully equipped rattlesnakes because I can”. There is no progression at all.

So 7 hours into the campaign you want to have a wharf and print money? And that is slow???????????????

Yes, it is possible. Unfortunately.
But as you can see: For some people the game is still too hard and for other much too easy
From my point of view, changing all these "printing money" mechanisms is mandatory. But we have this topic, because other people like money-printing and are upset because of nerfing it. Individual gameplay
What is right? And what is wrong?

Crazy new idea: configurable game(starts).

There is a mod that unlocks this functionality and can start with gazillions, stations, fleets.
Even select race, gender, looks, blueprints, ships.

[dtpsprt]

There is a mod that unlocks this functionality and can start with gazillions, stations, fleets.
Even select race, gender, looks, blueprints, ships.

Actually this mod unlocks a "hidden" capability of X4 which, if I remember well, Bend wrote in one of his posts (the one asking for things we'd like to see - here or on Steam, not sure) that it is in development but on a very low priority. I did put the proposition of making it a high priority because this way there are many things for the player to do once he/she reaches a "dead end" on current gameplay (too much money, nothing left to do etc) instead of half baking grinding ideas to make individual the game last longer (that also cause a lot of bugs in implementation).

[Imperial Good]

From what I can tell the nerf that was made should be to how many ships the NPC buys, and not how much they pay for them. NPCs should much rather prefer buying from themselves rather than the player even if the player could build their ship for them right now. Combined with the huge nerf to mining this makes selling a lot of ships to the NPC a lot more difficult, and slows how fast you get money.

[dcarver]

WOW! I didn't realize the Shipyard change.... and I've been following the BETA Very closely, or so I thought !!! Sneaky X4, sneaky! I've been dealing with the 'Miners' changes and paying attention to that, that set me back a lot of time.

To be clear, I started my 2nd new game around Beta start. I have 980mil in assets (borrowed L ships) and 3 18:38 play time (90 hours). Got the self-sustaining shipyard around 72 hours of legit play (stealing counts).

I started as SPLIT, and did everything legit... except for MULE trader script (Eggosoft, hint here <-).
I stole all my station blueprints using EMP, and have been 'borrowing' SCA Large destroyers and other L traders, to sell for 8-15mil to build all the stations I needed to supply a shipyard. You can do this using 1 balaur and 3-4 traders with 20 marines each, although easier in in a rattlesnake... which I was also able to 'borrow' in the same way, just a larger pool of marines.

EGOSOFT - Don't change the game because a couple people got to a Billon. If you want a money sync, then give us enemy sectors to fight, like in X3, that drop unique wares. Also, you could support the idea of multiple new game starts and make that easier for NG+, like making blueprints global! My goal was to make money from my S/M shipyard to then afford a Large self-sustaining shipyard and then see how I can effect the faction balances, and play the game like a simulator. OH, I even created 20 separate stations so I could level my traders (which didn't work at all, wth) which costs a lot more. I'm thinking your ships prices need lowering, not player warf, especially Med Fighters. Or were you planning that shipyards were not for profit, only to save on the cost of ships?

Thanks! I'm done rambling for now.

[dcarver]

One thing I just found out is that you need to purchase the blueprints for the factions to buy the ships. Documented?

I was under the impression that these would just show up as Unknown during building and the faction could still build anything. Something I didn't do in this 2nd play-through. I recently bought a lot of S/M blueprints and I'm seeing bigger numbers, and a Lot More Sales.

Thanks for the info Captain Collins!

[Imperial Good]

One thing I just found out is that you need to purchase the blueprints for the factions to buy the ships. Documented?

Yes this has always been intended and has mostly been the case. Early on when ship building mechanics were first added to X4 this was not the case due to bugs, but these were fixed over time. As far as I am aware they were all fixed by the time 3.00 (Split Vendetta) went live.

[ApoxNM]

Are you playing the beta? The devs had announced their intention to nerf shipyard income. Maybe this is part of that effort?

Seriously?

Why in the world are they nerfing everything?

Making a game a grindfest is not something enjoyable.

To be able to build an operational wharf from the a new save you need 20 rep with a faction and ~150m credits. I’ve got both in a new 4.0 b7 save within ~7h of playing the game (I was somewhat slow). Currently, with 3.30, once you’ve got a wharf going you basically print money way faster than you could ever spend. You basically skip all early and mid game and go straight into “oh let’s order 200 fully equipped rattlesnakes because I can”. There is no progression at all.

Besides that, most people build their wharfs self sufficient which makes selling ships a 100% profit. As soon as you produce Hull parts, Claytronics and Energy cells on your own, you basically don’t need any credits. Factions will order ships from you constantly and almost forever. The only and finite sink for credits are ship/equipment blueprints and the split plots. The 4b credit requirements were introduced as a result of those highly profitable wharfs/shipyards.

Absolutely do not agree. I am in a game about 60 hours in, I just got my S/M wharf and it worked well for a while, till all ship slots from the split were filled. It doesn't generate a lot of money anymore.
I still can't afford an L wharf or any L ship blueprint for that matter. Man it costs about 800 mil to get all of it, or even more.

Making large sums of money is easy if you have figured out the best strategy and just follow it every time, that's boring. I like trying new things and different set ups. For me the grindfest is not enjoyable and if you think making money is too easy, just download mods, there are some that make it a lot harder.

[Y-llian]

Making large sums of money is easy if you have figured out the best strategy and just follow it every time, that's boring. I like trying new things and different set ups.

Agreed. The “nerf” as it’s now seems to disenfranchise those players who don’t go around capping ships by the dozens. I always trade my way up... One of X4 strengths is that it’s a fully simulated economy. It can take a huge investment in time and credits to obtain blueprints and then build the infrastructure to run a shipyard. The pay off was that I’ll be able to make good money after that effort.

You should be able to get a return on your investment and make a decent profit playing the economy of the game. Perhaps it should be way harder to cap ships, with more severe rep consequences if the concern was, that players got to the top tier shipyard modules that way too quickly. I don’t know...

Artificially dampening demand for player built ships to the extent we have now feels somewhat skewed against those players who “play” the game economy. For some of us, that is the game and nerfing demand goes against the grain of a fully simulated demand/supply economy.

I hope that Ego will look at this again and find a solution that balances play styles in a more equitable manner.

[jlehtone]

Perhaps it should be way harder to cap ships, with more severe rep consequences if the concern was, that players got to the top tier shipyard modules that way too quickly. I don’t know...

How about: Make it impossible to sell ships. The only exception being delivery of ships that missions request.

(I already play that way, so it would not affect me ... )

[Y-llian]

Perhaps it should be way harder to cap ships, with more severe rep consequences if the concern was, that players got to the top tier shipyard modules that way too quickly. I don’t know...

How about: Make it impossible to sell ships. The only exception being delivery of ships that missions request.

(I already play that way, so it would not affect me ... )

I wouldn't want players who enjoy capping to be disenfranchised to this extent, no. It's been a staple of X-games for a long time, but capping, I'd suggest, is way too easy right now with little or no consequences. That said, my main point really was that the current artificial demand nerf needs some further thought.

[GCU Grey Area]

The “nerf” as it’s now seems to disenfranchise those players who don’t go around capping ships by the dozens. I always trade my way up...

I play the game the same way; heavy focus on trade in the early game, then move onto building stations of my own. Problem with shipyards was that they represented an orders of magnitude shift in profitability. When you have a single station that brings in 100s of millions per hour it makes any other source of revenue utterly irrelevant. What's the point of sending out a freighter on a 'high value' trade run (which may bring in around a million in profits) if a shipyard can make 100x as much before that freighter has even reached it's destination? Had a shipyard in my 3.0 Argon game. It utterly ruined the Trade aspect of that particular game. I ended that game just a few days later & started a new one - it just wasn't fun anymore. Have not built one in either of my subsequent games for precisely this reason. Might be able to reconsider that for my Terran game if the changes to shipyards go far enough.

[jlehtone]

Problem with shipyards was that they represented an orders of magnitude shift in profitability. When you have a single station that brings in 100s of millions per hour it makes any other source of revenue utterly irrelevant. What's the point of sending out a freighter on a 'high value' trade run (which may bring in around a million in profits) if a shipyard can make 100x as much before that freighter has even reached it's destination?

In other words, there is a question about balance. If your options are to toil as a slave or to be the Emperor, who would not choose the Emperor? If being Emperor would be just one of many roughly equivalent options, then you would have a choice. Sure, if you have to backstab half of the Senate (on top of normal slave duties) in order to get into the Emperor's seat, then you do expect some benefits and not that the Emperor is just another slave with same mundane chores as everyone else.

my main point really was that the current artificial demand nerf needs some further thought.

Frankly (albeit mostly due to my playstyle), I'm not worried about the player, but the NPC.

The NPC buy as many ships as they are allowed from anywhere that they can. How much will the new procurement restrictions affect the NPC fleets? There are tales of almost extinct factions that cling to life only by the services of player 'yards. If that lifeline will be cut thin, then how does that affect global politics?