X3TC CLS2 Question/Musing

General discussions about the games by Egosoft including X-BTF, XT, X², X³: Reunion, X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

Post Reply
Jamumools
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu, 19. Mar 09, 10:09

X3TC CLS2 Question/Musing

Post by Jamumools » Mon, 26. Nov 18, 22:28

Hi Guys

I've been following Timsclearlyuptosomthing's CLS2 guides and have built up a number of networks: an ice and water network covering the whole of Sol space, an E-cells network in Sol starting in Mercury round to Jupiter, an E-cell network around Argon prime - so far covering the top 6 sectors, and a beef network with traps on all buy and sell points for Argnu Beef in the Argon Prime area. The plan eventually is to continue the E-cells network to cover all of the Argon Prime area, and add in wheat, cahoona and ore networks to fully monopolise those goods.

So this morning I set up the Beef network before work - I'd made enough credits to cover the set up costs and I was getting bored of how slow the E-cells business builds up. I figured with high profits available I'd see quicker growth. I've got buying traps on all the cattle ranch buying at minimum, and selling traps on every cahoona bakery selling at average.

Anyway, I decided to leave the computer on while I went to work so it had a good 12 hours running (non-Seta).

When I came back I found that Ice Cold Water Inc had made $3.2m, Sole Energon $0.9m, Argon Energon $3.8m (not so slow apparently) but Argon Beef Industries had lost $1.1m. All my buying and selling traps are full, as is the storage tank.

So my question/musing is this - what's going wrong. I think I probably know the answer - wheat. Presumably the NPC traders are delivering wheat that's being used instead of my beef so I haven't actually cornered the market? Is that it? Or something else? I'm pretty confident I have all the traders set up correctly, I have spot checked a few and they all look right.

jlehtone
Posts: 21801
Joined: Sat, 23. Apr 05, 21:42
x4

Re: X3TC CLS2 Question/Musing

Post by jlehtone » Mon, 26. Nov 18, 23:01

Wheat is one. I presume the Bakeries have plenty of Beef now.

Are they running too? Do they have energy (yes, if your network is up)?
Has someone relieved them from all the tasty Cahoonas?
Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.

SirNukes
Posts: 546
Joined: Sat, 31. Mar 07, 23:44
x4

Re: X3TC CLS2 Question/Musing

Post by SirNukes » Mon, 26. Nov 18, 23:54

Jamumools wrote:
Mon, 26. Nov 18, 22:28
I've got buying traps on all the cattle ranch buying at minimum, and selling traps on every cahoona bakery selling at average.
...
So my question/musing is this - what's going wrong. I think I probably know the answer - wheat. Presumably the NPC traders are delivering wheat that's being used instead of my beef so I haven't actually cornered the market?
Wheat cannot substitute for beef; all primary goods need to be present for the factory to run.

My guess is that npc traders are still moving beef around. They will buy beef just fine since you set your buyers to min price, and if you aren't buying the beef then your sellers can't force buy prices to below average. (Side note: even if you did get buy prices to be below average, npc traders can still sell after some delay since 2% of sell attempts allow for below average prices, and once they have a cargo hold full of beef they will keep trying to sell it.)

When I toyed around with cornering markets, my traders were set to buy at average and sell somewhat above average. When npcs cannot buy the ware to begin with, they will spend more of their time on other wares in their trade list instead of competing with you.

Jamumools
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu, 19. Mar 09, 10:09

Re: X3TC CLS2 Question/Musing

Post by Jamumools » Tue, 27. Nov 18, 07:59

Thanks for these.

Wheat is a primary resource for cahoona bakeries. As I understand it the factory will randomly choose either beef or wheat. I have now set up the wheat distribution and, before the system has filled, its started making a profit. But its only been running half an hour or so.

Next job is cahoonas but I've just had my first batch of ten marines get to 4 stars in everything so I might tkae them out for a run first!!!

SirNukes
Posts: 546
Joined: Sat, 31. Mar 07, 23:44
x4

Re: X3TC CLS2 Question/Musing

Post by SirNukes » Tue, 27. Nov 18, 08:38

Jamumools wrote:
Tue, 27. Nov 18, 07:59
Wheat is a primary resource for cahoona bakeries. As I understand it the factory will randomly choose either beef or wheat.
Oh my god, I just checked in game and you are right. I suppose this must be a property of all factories, that they can only consume one ware of each type per cycle (wheat and beef both being "bio" type).

jlehtone
Posts: 21801
Joined: Sat, 23. Apr 05, 21:42
x4

Re: X3TC CLS2 Question/Musing

Post by jlehtone » Tue, 27. Nov 18, 16:43

SirNukes wrote:
Tue, 27. Nov 18, 08:38
I suppose this must be a property of all factories, that they can only consume one ware of each type per cycle (wheat and beef both being "bio" type).
You could test that hypothesis by modding some factories.

AFAIK, the NPC Bakery is the only vanilla Food Fab that accepts either Bio as primary[*]. There are several L3 NPC Fabs that can use Ore and Wafers as Minerals.

If Bakery would require ECells AND Beef AND Wheat, it would be at disadvantage compared to other Food Fabs. (But player could sell Bio.)

As is, the Bakery has slight advantage for tolerating either Bio. Then again, Argons have two Bio types but three Food types. (Teladi have three Bio, two Food.)

Most of us did start trading in Argon space. Being able to sell more to Bakeries is an initial profit opportunity, and Wheat Farm is relatively secure investment. Similarly, the Mineral trade is what we tend to see as worth the effort.


[*] My knowledge of Terran economy is limited to killing them with pleasure.
Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.

Timsup2nothin
Posts: 4690
Joined: Thu, 22. Jan 09, 17:49

Re: X3TC CLS2 Question/Musing

Post by Timsup2nothin » Tue, 27. Nov 18, 21:50

Jamumools wrote:
Tue, 27. Nov 18, 07:59

Wheat is a primary resource for cahoona bakeries. As I understand it the factory will randomly choose either beef or wheat.
This is correct. And because of this cahoona bakeries will only consume half the beef you would expect them to. Which means that beef is vastly overproduced. If you build a beef distribution network expect it to operate at full up all the time, so set buy prices at minimum and sell price slightly below average.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

Jamumools
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu, 19. Mar 09, 10:09

Re: X3TC CLS2 Question/Musing

Post by Jamumools » Sat, 1. Dec 18, 09:35

Hi Guys

So, I've been continuing with this. To get the beef going I figured I'd also need to be prime mover of wheat (which was all in the master plan anyway). So I set up buying and selling traps for wheat. But wheat never seems to get to minimum price. So I carried on and built the cahoona industry. I've also expanded the E-cells to include the wall so all of the wheat fabs are definitely getting power.

Left it to run overnight and just got up to see the results:

Energon = making money as per usual. No issues there (although pirates have claimed 2 ships in the night!!)
Beef = finally making a small profit of about half a million. All traps are full so presumably I can only make profits from here on (although might take a while to recoup the investment)
Wheat = nothing doing at all. While some of the E-cells distribution was slightly out of whack, partly user error and partly pirate initiated, I have not bought any wheat. At all!
Cahoona = made about $1m overnight. Seems to be working ok.

So what gives? Why does wheat not reach minimum price? I counted the number of fabs = 8 medium and 6 large, and the number of users = 7 medium and 6 large... wait. Space fuel distilleries. There are 2 medium space fuel distilleries meaning there is a wheat shortage of 1 medium fab! Is that it? Have I answered my own question??

Following on from that I was planning on building some PC Cahoona bakeries as there's a clear beef excess and not enough bakeries to feed the demand. Sound sensible? I guess I need to count all the users up and check first. But that would help push the beef distribution business, correct?

Timsup2nothin
Posts: 4690
Joined: Thu, 22. Jan 09, 17:49

Re: X3TC CLS2 Question/Musing

Post by Timsup2nothin » Sat, 1. Dec 18, 21:14

Wheat is also drawn out as a secondary resource in the adjacent Boron space, and is always critically short in other Argon regions. So NPC bio haulers will buy at above minimum even if there is no local buyer. For wheat, the better move initially is to buy it all at thirty-one and sell it for fifty-one. If your storage fills up and you can't keep up with the buying either jump it in bulk to another Argon region or bleed off the excess into Boron space.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

Jamumools
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu, 19. Mar 09, 10:09

Re: X3TC CLS2 Question/Musing

Post by Jamumools » Sat, 1. Dec 18, 22:04

Thanks Tim, I will try that!

Post Reply

Return to “X Trilogy Universe”