Shipyard prices - I'm being scammed

[Repli]

Yes, it is possible. Unfortunately.

I wonder how (if not leaving the game running with SETA overnight but actually sitting in front of the PC and manually playing). My current game has about 20 hours and I have 4 M miners, 1 meat/energy station, 3 M traders and 1 fully upgraded Elite. Cash is about 2.5 millions. But I admit that I do not play as efficient as possible, because I often just fly around, listen to the music and watch the nice nebulae.

It is always a question how you play the game
Nothing was said, that in this 7hours you have built a self-sufficient shipyard, but you could have the reputation and the money for the blueprint. There are a lot of exploits around that can bring you to it maybe even faster. Building-times for modules are the only bottleneck, I think.
But is it really fun to play this way? Maybe...

[MSterling]

Yes, it is possible. Unfortunately.

I wonder how (if not leaving the game running with SETA overnight but actually sitting in front of the PC and manually playing). My current game has about 20 hours and I have 4 M miners, 1 meat/energy station, 3 M traders and 1 fully upgraded Elite. Cash is about 2.5 millions. But I admit that I do not play as efficient as possible, because I often just fly around, listen to the music and watch the nice nebulae.

It isn't. The first poster claiming this is possible had their detailed plan of how they do it (in 6-7 hours that time, so we already have scope creep) and it was: "I hijacked a rattlesnake with one marine and sold it". Rattlesnakes don't sell for the 200 million they said.

[Raevyan]

Within 7 hours you don’t get a self sufficient wharf/shipyard simply because of build times and resource that need to be shipped to your plot. I just had a dock, several container storages (s sized) and the wharf module running, buying all resources from NPC’s. Will it build without waiting for resources? Ofc not, but it still makes lots of credits pretty fast so they become irrelevant. The profit only goes up because you probably built supporting stations afterwards to supply the wharf.

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).

[Raevyan]

One could argue, that a guaranteed profit shouldn’t be the default. If you buy resources for high prices and sell lower you’ll loose some. Makes one think about pricing. The only problem is, that the max sell price is locked

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.

Of course, given that ships are at the top tier of the economy the likelihood is high demand regardless... And without that high demand the economy below will stagnate.

I mean right now, the player cannot fail economically, as you will always make a profit. This is a simulation and in my opinion, managing funds and not going bankrupt is part of simulations

[dtpsprt]

When I did it in b7, the wharf still made lots of profits and at that stage, I bought all resources from NPCs.

One could argue, that a guaranteed profit shouldn’t be the default. If you buy resources for high prices and sell lower you’ll loose some. Makes one think about pricing. The only problem is, that the max sell price is locked

This serious nerfing came in place in Beta 8 and continues in Beta 9...

[dtpsprt]

.....................
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.