Economy in 4.1 / HoL

[bbn]

I am wondering if the economy was fixed in 4.1. I am thinking about empire building and I am wondering if there are enough market sinks now? All I can find in this forum are (quite old) posts explaining that station building is not really profitable in Rebirth...

[Alan Phipps]

Here is the changelog and you should scroll down to 4.10. I cannot see anything particularly hopeful on player station economy there apart from more reliable trade ship behaviour.

[bbn]

Thanks for the reply! I've seen the changelog and didn't find anything explicitly describing this. I was hoping that accumulated changes would impact the economy in a positive way.

So I suppose that the only way for this is thorough mods... maybe something like CWiR...

[Alan Phipps]

Of course there are many more trading opportunities in the DLC systems, albeit at some risk. Also the newish warehouses have some utility as player mining trade stations.

[RAVEN.myst]

... station building is not really profitable in Rebirth...

What?!?! Since about v2, which is where I managed to sit down and play and not give up after just a few hours, I have found stations to be VERY profitable (prior to that, they may have been too, for all I know, I simply never got far enough to try them), so much so that in my more recent games, I have often been unable to spend generated income fast enough due to backlogs at the shipyards I wanted to buy from (though you can usually spend off surplus if you are willing to buy just whatever's on offer at whatever shipyard/s is/are available.)

The trick is to understand that a single station is not going to make you rich, and the more lucrative the station, the more commensurately expensive it is to set up. The most lucrative ones tend to be mid- to high-tech stations. Once you have set up your first couple/few stations, their income will then accelerate your economic expansion, until you reach a point where you literally don't know what to do with all the money, except build more stations (and thus earn even more surplus moolah), and/or buy more and more ships (which I tend to just have floating around patrolling areas, so not HUGELY useful, sadly - because of the lack of meaningful impact of military actions.)

Happy hunting!

[bbn]

Hi Raven! Thanks for clarifying this. Maybe my search skills are not very good at the moment as all I found is complaining about how little money the stations brought in. I've already build my first station (energy array as it was cheap - just to get a grip of mechanics of station building).

As for the extra money... I'm planing to install CWiR after finishing the campaign... so galaxy domination it is

[RAVEN.myst]

I've already build my first station (energy array as it was cheap - just to get a grip of mechanics of station building).

Heya! A sound option you have taken, in my opinion You get to familiarise yourself with the mechanics of the construction, the expansion/upgrading, and the running of it over time. Energy arrays don't generate much money, but it's a steady and useful trickle. Also, depending on how you want to approach your interfacing with the local economy in the long term, you can either have your energy-consuming stations buy from NPCs, thereby reducing the available supply and thus making your array/s more profitable, or you can consume your own manufactured energy and thus save money accordingly. (Here, a little tip, which I learned in previous X titles, where this factor is even more powerful: when considering the above choice, don't only think of the price saved by not buying from NPCs [and this applies to all wares, generally], but also factor in how much you are selling your own for - if you save, say, 10 per unit by consuming your own, but could be selling yours for 20 per unit, you are not saving, you are losing out...)

Naturally, different markets have different demands and surpluses. For instance, if you are developing in Omicron Lyrae, then your energy array can be very lucrative indeed (well, by energy array standards, in any case), as the OL system has huge demand and inadequate supply of energy. On the other hand, set up in the "rear" of Albion and you will be competing against strong energy production by NPCs, and in DeVries - well, Solar Energetics is just pointless to try to compete against! In the two latter examples, you will most likely find yourself using your EA to power your other early stations.

Good fortune to you!

PS: A very effective development plan can be to

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build a Construction Shop (Albion/Home of Light) or Hardware Supplier (Omicron Lyrae) early on: its products are always in great demand, which means that you can either make good profits on it, or not need to buy it for your own construction, or somewhere in-between. Likewise, following up with stations that produce fusion reactors, and either bio-optic wiring or plasma pumps (depending on whether Albion/HoL or Omicron Lyrae tech) works in a similar fashion.

[ezra-r]

The problem is game design imo.

Factories are made to be profitable from the top down, so new players instead of building small factories first, have to save huge amounts for their first factory to be like others have mentioned here, to build reinforced metal or reactors, other options yield so little profit that to compensate for the expenses probably would take many days of in-game time to recover the initial investment.

Hope X4 fixes this allowing player to start with small factories with low cost and enough margin to make it worthwhile starting from these ones to much later aim for the high tech products, going up step by step in the factory chain.

[Raevyan]

Well with HoL DLC Building Materials shouldn't be a Problem for the first few stations, although Fusion Reactors might be harder to get in higher quantities. Other than that what ezra-r said. It's better to Start with Building Materials and high tech Wares.

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In my Regent game i got 2 Hardware Supplier (OL), 1 Construction Shop (AL), 2 TechnoCore HI-E (OL), 1 Ship Tech (AL), 2 URV Productions (1 AL 1 OL), 1 Pharma Lab (OL), 1 Licensed Distillery (OL), 1 BoFu Complex (OL), 2 H2O Additives (OL), 2 Energy Array (OL), 1 High Tech (DV, manually supplied). Money is Rolling faster than Shipyards can produce Fulmekrons and Taranis'es (2 AL + 3 HoL Shipyards) and i am able to restock them with wares for Production. Also got a Warehouse in OL for Mining and buying Building Materials.

[RAVEN.myst]

Factories are made to be profitable from the top down, so new players instead of building small factories first, have to save huge amounts for their first factory to be like others have mentioned here, to build reinforced metal or reactors, other options yield so little profit that to compensate for the expenses probably would take many days of in-game time to recover the initial investment.

I agree 100% - it's very hard and downright tedious to work one's way up from the bottom up, so unless one has the patience of a saint and (A LOT OF) something else to do while waiting, it is all but impossible to viably develop as a pure station-empire builder without at least initially supplementing income from other sources. I think perhaps that's where this perception of "stations aren't profitable" comes from. It is thus excruciatingly slow to try to snowball from lowest tier up, which would SEEM to be a logical progression.

I found that among the low-tech stations, the pharmaceuticals factories aren't shabby (so not a terrible choice for a starting freebie station, in the empire builder start scenario), but even those take a while to get going (and have really odd starting points - one of them starts with the middle module in the chain, while the other starts at the highest tier and REQUIRES backward upgrading - very odd!)

[GCU Grey Area]

Mineral processing stations (i.e. Metalframes Fab/Metalworks Yard for processing Ore & Silicon; Crystal Supplier/Refinery for processing Crystals & Nividium) are usually the stations I start with when playing a predominantly Build focused game.

The stations themselves are fairly cheap (around 10 million to get started IIRC) & it's much more lucrative to sell the products they make rather than the raw materials (good next step after starting with a mobile mining strategy). Good proportion of the resources they consume are essentially free for the taking (i.e. the minerals) & the rest of the resources they need (food & e-cells) are fairly cheap.

[RAVEN.myst]

Mineral processing stations ... are usually the stations I start with

This sounds... erm... sound to me I haven't tried this approach yet, but an upcoming game-start I am planning may be particularly well-suited - thanks!

[jkflipflop98]

I always just start from the ground up in Devries. They already have food, water, and energy covered. The RoC ships will even help your stations free trade. Then start with the refineries and crystal fabs, then to the medium level stuff like tech fabs and drug dens. Then finally the top tier stuff like arms manufacturing and drone production.

Then when I get bored with that I start building in Sigma Sector.

[ezra-r]

I always just start from the ground up in Devries. They already have food, water, and energy covered. The RoC ships will even help your stations free trade. Then start with the refineries and crystal fabs, then to the medium level stuff like tech fabs and drug dens. Then finally the top tier stuff like arms manufacturing and drone production.

Then when I get bored with that I start building in Sigma Sector.

Do they trade with all your high tech factories in Devries? I think the problem there was no profit for high tech products since they didn't buy, haven't tried latest patch for that though

[Snafu_X3]

I always just start from the ground up in Devries. They already have food, water, and energy covered. The RoC ships will even help your stations free trade. Then start with the refineries and crystal fabs, then to the medium level stuff like tech fabs and drug dens. Then finally the top tier stuff like arms manufacturing and drone production.

Do they trade with all your high tech factories in Devries? I think the problem there was no profit for high tech products since they didn't buy, haven't tried latest patch for that though

I've found that any product meeting a demand will always trade, although it may take some time for traders to arrive. So building infrastructure such as xtals/RMP/bio in DV is an excellent way to go as once the supporting structures are in place you can go to town on end products & not worry too much about depriving your industry of resources (I've mentioned my Campaign/Plot building plan for DV many times before; search if you wish). WRT hitec trade in DV it's a little (artificially) stymied by the SY turnaround, but once the 2nd SY is up in MA there shouldn't be much of a problem (given a suitable capship trader), & the excess goods ofc are used for more fabs..

OK it takes time, but that's the point of starting small (& gels with RLExp), yes?

[bbn]

Wow! So many good ideas! Thanks guys!

My Energy Array is alive and kicking . Strangly it brings some constant income. Assigned traders really don't have anything to do as npcs grab all e-cells it manages to produce at price set to 5. I didn't really expect that. The array is set in empty space near gemstone manufacture. I noticed that sometimes shipyard there rind out of e-cells, but I didn't forsee such a demand.

The only thing right now that annoys me is constant stream of messages about updates to my account (as I have around 15 automated traders set up with YAT). Anybody knows how to surpress those?

[Snafu_X3]

As you've found, don't bother to set up traders for basics unless you need their products for your own fabs

Can't help with the msg spam, sry; I don't use mods

[RAVEN.myst]

Assigned traders really don't have anything to do as npcs grab all e-cells it manages to produce

Yes, station managers are biased to "pull" resources before "pushing" products - so it's a good idea to ensure that a station has all its resources covered in terms of freighters (usually M-size freighters are good enough, depending on where you are located.) With energy arrays, food is a secondary (ie. optional) resource, and you CAN in fact do without it, but it boosts production, so it's not a bad idea to have it stocked. However, such minuscule amounts are used, that an M-sized little freighter is more than ample, or you can opt for a ship that can carry both energy and container class freight, so it is able to export surplus, but that will happen VERY rarely.

at price set to 5.

Consider letting the station manager auto-set your price - it then adjusts according to supply and demand. Results may or may not be better - when stocks fall low, your price will rise, and as your stocks fill up, the price lowers. NPCs will come buy at the price they are willing to pay, so the asking price stabilizes around the market-supported point. Of course, if you like to be more hands-on, you can tweak the price manually and see at what point the buyers stop coming, and adjust accordingly (perhaps you've already been doing this ) You have probably also already noticed that any changes made can take a while to take visible effect, so any tweaks need to be left in place to allow sufficient time to elapse in order to observe the result.

The array is set in empty space near gemstone manufacture.

Interesting. I didn't realise that NPC buyers were so aware of player-offered goods in empty-space zones - I always, until my most recent playthrough, built in named zones, so this is good to know. Also, Far Out sector is already well supplied with energy from NPC stations, so it's good to hear you're managing to operate there effectively despite that.

The only thing right now that annoys me is constant stream of messages about updates to my account (as I have around 15 automated traders set up with YAT). Anybody knows how to surpress those?

Sorry, I'm afraid not. As I don't use any mods, I don't get spammed by, say, YAT - however, stations of course do also send updates, and once you have a number of stations expect many updates (though they tend to come in waves - I guess there's some time-period update cycle at play.) Unfortunately, incoming video calls tend to interrupt/disrupt all sorts of important things, such as controls while in combat. There are sources and discussions around on how to minimize the impact of this, but as a quick tip: when a message comes in and you want to get rid of it (either because you are busy and need your controls back, or because you have heard that one 57,000 times already and simply want to just get on with it, already! heheh), you can try the following: clicking the mouse interrupts some incoming vidcalls, mostly when docked rather than when in flight; hitting the menu hotkey (default T) and then again to dismiss the menu works for some, though only in flight (not while docked); the interact key (default F, if I'm not mistaken) also stops some; to dismiss incoming notifications obscuring important info on your radar, hitting your radar mode-switch key (default I-can't-remember, as I changed it ages ago...) will clear that - odds are you will need to hit it twice, as you will probably want your radar mode to return to your preference.

Best of luck!

[ezra-r]

I always just start from the ground up in Devries. They already have food, water, and energy covered. The RoC ships will even help your stations free trade. Then start with the refineries and crystal fabs, then to the medium level stuff like tech fabs and drug dens. Then finally the top tier stuff like arms manufacturing and drone production.

Do they trade with all your high tech factories in Devries? I think the problem there was no profit for high tech products since they didn't buy, haven't tried latest patch for that though

I've found that any product meeting a demand will always trade, although it may take some time for traders to arrive. So building infrastructure such as xtals/RMP/bio in DV is an excellent way to go as once the supporting structures are in place you can go to town on end products & not worry too much about depriving your industry of resources (I've mentioned my Campaign/Plot building plan for DV many times before; search if you wish). WRT hitec trade in DV it's a little (artificially) stymied by the SY turnaround, but once the 2nd SY is up in MA there shouldn't be much of a problem (given a suitable capship trader), & the excess goods ofc are used for more fabs..

OK it takes time, but that's the point of starting small (& gels with RLExp), yes?

Thing is there are no factories that require RMP or any other high tech in Devries aside from a few items from the shiphard, hence my question.

food, water and similar is already a stablished market in Devries from which you can't take much.

Just assume you have 10 million, which factory would you build? WHEN in game time would you recover that exact amount from the initial investment.

without refering to Devris in particular:
The point of starting small is that it helps you with income to go big later which requires much more investment, but the "income help" from starting small in Devries comes too late in the game to make it a viable option, you don't expect to get rich selling water, but you expect a certain amount of income that makes it worthwhile having expended in such thing.

[Snafu_X3]

Thing is there are no factories that require RMP or any other high tech in Devries aside from a few items from the shiphard, hence my question.

Just assume you have 10 million, which factory would you build? WHEN in game time would you recover that exact amount from the initial investment.

Reason to build RMP & supporting fabs in DV is to provide materials for more fabs! Whether they supply mats to the SY or to you is immaterial: either way you make a profit

10M? that's not much, but it's a useful start. OK, off the top of my head I'd prolly start with a couple of M ore miners (as gas can be mined by any trade ship with appropriate drones) & maybe an escort for them. Trade/build up to an unarmed warehouse (remember to build bulk storage, maybe then gas although that's optional). Meanwhile I'll send Skunk around to increase my fleet via whatever means..

Once I have a few more capships, even if only traders, the options expand dramatically. A Tit isn't a particularly bad miner (of any type), plus it can defend itself remotely; likewise it can help WRT defence/offence if necessary

The warehouse above is purely a storage/trading hub. Once a suitable stockpile is accumulated I could use refinery & xtal stations to work up to an RMP station; once there, you're golden WRT trade, & you can work up to producing FR & Bio. It's a kickstarter system