Ok, we need to discuss Internal logistic

[ns88ns]

Ok, there as many ways to become a tycoon in game as many people plays the game. We have to have apropriate management tools/ways to manage our own productions as far as we are able to build them, isn't it? Internal logistics is an inseparable part of management of productions. You can use it or you can use "old-style" micro-management - it is for your choise. But the tools have to be as an alternative. Playing X series I didn't face any lags at all. But it doesn't mean that they are absent, isn't it? I was building extremely large complexes in X3 and lags did't disturb me.

But I'm speaking not about pre X4 games. Nobody will implement new functionality in obsolete games. We all know this.

I mean that production has to be re-thought by developers. Modular station will just extend the old production model and will provide an alternative for complexes. But it won't coordinate all aspects of production. All things we had in previous games are gone already. The same as their bugs, lags and functionality. I know how it was implemented in all previous games and internal logistics wasn't implemented in all the games. We didn't use these features only by one reson: nobody proposed us such functionality in-game. Each time we again and again did micromanagement or used a third-party mods/patches which became non-worked with almost each new update of games. You have to agree that guides to write scripts always come weak from Egosoft and we have to spend a lot of time to sort out how to code even simple extra functional even in XR. I tried but it really isn't so easy even for an expirienced C# coder.

So my point is:

- movement of wares between player's station have to be free. It is OK to pay salary to ship's crew.
- it have to be possible to configure dedicated routes per a player's ship how to move wares.

That is all.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Hey I'm all for people playing the game in the way that they want to.

I don't want to limit peoples choices of what they can and cannot do in the game. I should have been clearer, my style was to build very large self-sustaining complexes.

I built a number in areas where NPCs would buy the products. I could probably have made better profits by using my own traders but I never bothered.

Others I built in unknown sectors, where I would not have any disturbances from anybody. There I used TL ships as warehouses. Every now and then I would manually transfer wares from the complexes to the TL. Maybe its possible to automate this but I never bothered to check.

When I wanted to buy a Destroyer or Carrier I would dock the TL at the appropriate shipyard and the equip the new ship from it.

[Killjaeden]

As soon as you employ combat ships that use ammo, missiles and jump energy you need internal logistics - unless you want to manually top up their stock level after every battle. If you set them up as autonomous patrol then thats terrible way.

Sector A: Sun intensity 400%, no asteroids, Sector B: asteroids up the wazoo, barely any sun intensity. Who in his right mind wouldn't use this opportunity to build mines in B and solar plants in A? Except now ware transfer is necessary... Unless you suggest implementing inter-sector complex tubes that stretch over millions of km you need ship based inter-logistics.

Now we can build complexes again in X4. So as CBJ indicated why do we need logistics. Unless you love to micro-manage?

When I wanted to buy a Destroyer or Carrier I would dock the TL at the appropriate shipyard and the equip the new ship from it.

Ehhh what? You said you didn't want to micro-manage, but you micro-managed? Systems for internal logistics reduce or even eliminate the need to micro-manage certain aspects. Like transfering wares regulary (or on certain conditions). Not only does it safe the need to manually do the process but also to continually check on stock levels (like when factory is full).

It boggles my mind that people argue against systems that reduce micromanagement (as seen here against inter-logistics for wares and in that other thread against replenishment system for ships)...

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

1) Name one shipyard in X3 where you can buy an M1 or M2 and fully equip it with the weapons and shielding of your choice without bringing your own stock. That is not micromanagement that is a forced necessity.

2) I am not arguing against internal logistics. I personally don't see the point of building multiple small manufacturing plants when I can build a complex.

3) Never paid any attention whatsoever to the Sun strength in X3. Never seemed to have any effect on the complexes I built.

4) In Rebirth we had station managers. I am assuming something similar will be included in X4. As I have stated previously, I think logistics should be centralised in complexes not individual ships. As in real life, the lorry driver doesn't do the logistics, the warehouse does.

[ubuntufreakdragon]

1) Name one shipyard in X3 where you can buy an M1 or M2 and fully equip it with the weapons and shielding of your choice without bringing your own stock. That is not micromanagement that is a forced necessity.

Any having an EQ in the same sector, if you exploit the SY EQ Bug.
Getting the equipment there is logistics equipping it is micromanagement.
btw there is a script called ARM(don't know the english name) it uses a TM with some docked fighter, first it buys a Ship at the SY than it automatically equips a jumpengine from the fighter and some EC's than it move the ship to its homebase while the TM moves around equipping it with all you want, for all this you don't have to raise a single finger, but to say I want that ship.

2) I am not arguing against internal logistics. I personally don't see the point of building multiple small manufacturing plants when I can build a complex.

It's cheaper and more profitable, besides you don't have to do much yourself if your logistics is working.

3) Never paid any attention whatsoever to the Sun strength in X3. Never seemed to have any effect on the complexes I built.

It's just the effect that SPP's are much faster in 400% so you need much less of them.

4) In Rebirth we had station managers. I am assuming something similar will be included in X4. As I have stated previously, I think logistics should be centralised in complexes not individual ships. As in real life, the lorry driver doesn't do the logistics, the warehouse does.

The Managers are a really bad copy of CAG, and they never got their job done because there was no automated inter system trade.

[ajime]

All i need is cls2 to solve my problems in rebirth n x4.

[nemesis1982]

Unless you suggest implementing inter-sector complex tubes that stretch over millions of km you need ship based inter-logistics.

Oh now there's an idea

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

ubuntu... said

It's cheaper and more profitable, besides you don't have to do much yourself if your logistics is working.

Really how's that work out then?

I built complexes that have just enough production at every level to balance the inputs of the next. I used a combination of station sizes to do this. OK, it is never perfect but as close as you can get it. I only needed to give it a large stock of energy to get it going. I did not need any trade ships to keep the complex going.

By definition logistics requires trade ships. They are an expense, as far as I remember they also draw wages, a continuing recurring expense. Also the most vulnerable part of a logistical setup are the trade ships.
They will get destroyed at some point. So they will need to be replaced yet another expense.

If a ship is lost then don't you have to configure the new one, and they start off on the bottom rung.

[edit] So lets say you have a Logistician that gets herself destroyed. One that you were using to their full potential. Going to have a big hole in your logistics after that if you are only replacing her with an Apprentice.

Apprentice
The apprentice is able to collect one product from one supplier and to deliver it to up to three consumers (excluding equipment docks and trading stations). The apprentice is carrying out his probationary period in your enterprise and doesn't get a salary during this time.

Logistician
The logistician is able to distribute a unlimited number of products from ten suppliers to twenty consumers. Furthermore, he will repair his ship on his own by visiting a shipyard if necessary. The logistician is paid a wage of 40 credits per Mizura flown, payable after each trip.

[Killjaeden]

Really how's that work out then?

By definition logistics requires trade ships. They are an expense, as far as I remember they also draw wages, a continuing recurring expense.

Simple: You produce internally you make no gain/loss -> you are producing with average price. And "high end products" can rarely be sold for high (only very few, and in low numbers, like crystals), they have to be sold at average price on docks or to NPC's.
If you instead can buy ressources for low and sell products for high -> more profit at every step, from Ore mine to level 2 food, to high tech good.
By leveraging NPC stations you can buy wares for below average and sell for high all the time.

The wages are a drop in the pond compared to what they can give you.
(Everything should have you pay wages anyway imo but thats another story)

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Sorry you maths does not add up

[Killjaeden]

Sorry you maths does not add up

Because you havent understood it.
If i produce energy cells for my ore mine i dont make profit in those energy cells. If i sell energy cells for high price to somewhere else instead i make profit. And to supply my ore mine i buy energy from somewhere for cheap-> reduction of ressource cost -> profit.

It does not scale forever because NPC stations are limited. But return on investment for "supplementary stations" is much quicker than self sustaining complexs. Selfsustaining complexes are for when you are lazy.

[Alan Phipps]

In other words, every time the player produces a resource or intermediate product needed for their own stations, they have the opportunity to both supply that need AND pocket the difference between what they can reliably sell it for (at a higher price) and what they can also buy it for elsewhere (at lower price) using the NPC trade market. You don't get that chance of making a side profit when you always consume your own produce.

A key need is the reliability of there being both high sell and low buy opportunities with safe access and transfer. You also need to cover the initial cost of the tied transport fleet and of any associated ships that you might lose and replace during the trade for cash-recovery/profit process.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

A player Solar Power Plant requires crystals

Solar Power Plant if we sell these as a product then

Costs................Gross.......................Profit
Crystals............Sales of Cells............gross - costs

So if you transport those to your mine they are not free, there is a cost built in to the production.

Silicon Mine

Costs....................... Gross................ Profit
Bought in energy....... Sales of silicon....gross - costs

So buying in energy cheap at whatever cost does not raise profits. Costs always reduce profits.
Your profit margin may be greater with bought in energy or it could better if the price of crystals
is very low.

In order to to be able to sell intermediates you must have over-production.
If you don't then your whole distributed complex is going to grind to a halt.

To have over-production you must have built more infrastructure.
If you are buying in resources to supply this over-production then there are costs
involved in these intermediates. So yes you can make profit off of the intermediates
but they don't come for free either.

[Edit]
Wages are a cost, now they may be low, but we are not going to ignore them either. Using trade ships to transport will result in extra costs.
Replacement if destroyed. At higher levels they get themselves repaired and use jump drives, both extra costs. Cost always reduce profits. Did I say that already?

[TheDeliveryMan]

Closed loop complexes without additional trading have a terrible return of investment. You need to spend tens of millions for stations and CCKs and won't make a single credit profit for transporting resources.

On the other hand, you could outsource bio, food, crystal and energy production to the Yaki by taking build missions and setting up logistics to supply the factories. For example, such an energy loop (Nostrop Oil based, size 2x L = 5x M) will give you a profit of 1 million credits per hour on top of all excess energy cells.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

TheDeliveryMan said

Closed loop complexes without additional trading have a terrible return of investment.

Errm.. No they don't. Yes my initial investment is higher. So in the short term your distributed complex may be more profitable.

However at some point I will have paid off the initial investment and recouped all of my costs. After this point I have no costs. Every item sold is pure profit.

You on the other hand are buying in from several sources. That involves a cost for each resource. You will always have these costs and they affect the profit you make, forever. So in the medium to long term the closed loop is always more profitable.

Now I built complexes to supply energy, food, and secondary resources as products. So I supplied to every level of the economy. Wherever I built the local markets tended to become saturated with my produce.

[Alan Phipps]

Sorry, I'm in slight disagreement here as I don't see the relevance of the hidden production costs you mention. Here's a hypotherical example:

Case 1: Your integrated SPP/production complex produces 10,000 E-cells in some time unit that the rest of your complex needs as a resource for further production. Since all are complexed together, then the transfer takes place with the need met and no *apparent* loss or profit for this transfer.

Case 2: Your separate SPP complex produces 10,000 E-cells in some time unit that another of your complexes would likely need as a resource for further production - although it holds a buffer stock as a reserve. An extant transport fleet local to your SPPs safely and reliably sells those 10,000 E-Cells to nearby NPCs at 18Cr each. Meanwhile, close to your other complex, another local transport fleet safely and reliably buys from NPCs and transports 10,000 E-cells for your complex at 14 Cr each. When this has all been done, the need has been met exactly as in Case 1 but you also have 40,000 Cr profit in your account for that time period.

Caveat: Case 2 needs the fleets to be maintained and the sinks and sources to be reliable, true. The production costs are the same in both cases with pretty much the same complex and station requirements, but not all are fully integrated into one big complex as this enables the distribution across suitable NPC supply and demand localities.

Comment 1: The day that Case 2 ceases to reliably work profitably for you, you build the SPP elements into your second production complex and so make it into a Case 1 scenario, but you are hopefully still selling the produce of the first SPP complex regardless and so never really risked much by going closed-loop later rather than sooner.

Comment 2: I haven't mentioned resources for the SPP complex in Case 2. This is because crystals could either be directly transferred by ship from your production complex thus approximating an extended Case 1 supply scenario or, if suitable, similar sell and buy situations could be set up to make even more profit - unfortunately the NPC supply of cheap crystals is not normally that reliable.

[Seanchaidh]

The main advantage of closed loops (or less complete forms of vertical integration) is that you get the value added from producing the intermediate goods that you use without having to find a buyer (that value becomes embodied in the final product, which you can then sell or use as you like). The main advantage of separate complexes is that you can leave out the less efficient (with respect to initial cost vs. value added) facilities or fill a niche in an already existing economy that has in abundance the inputs but desperately needs the output.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

@Alan

A thought experiment.
First off a couple of definitions for the terms as I understand them.

Internal Logistics is the movement of resources /products between player owned stations.
External Logistics is the buying and selling of resources or products that involve NPCs.

profit margin (noun) the amount by which revenue from sales exceeds costs in a business.

Now to start with, I want to focus entirely on Internal Logistics. It is in the title of the OP.

Let us imagine that you have a distributed complex that contains the exact same set of stations
that my closed loop complex has. That further more, like the closed loop, each level in your complex only produces the
amounts required for the next stage in the production process. Also all of the stations are in the same sector and
fairly close together.

Now, you are delivering the various resources between stations using trade ships and I use connectors. Let's also assume that
all of your deliveries are done in a timely manner so there is no stuttering / lags in production.

So we now have two functionally identical complexes. You tranfer resources with ships, me with pipes.
At some point having sold the product/s from this complex each will reach the point where they have paid off the original
investment.

At this point every succeeding product that the closed loop produces has no cost.
However the distributed complex that uses ships and the CLS software has a small but recurring cost.
This cost is the wages paid to the pilots of the ships. It may be small but it is a cost and it affects
your profit margin.

[Alan Phipps]

I probably agree with you for that in-sector scenario. Using your definitions I would have to be using both internal and external logistics for the same complexes and not be tied to using one sector.

The finesse bit of the distributed approach is in siting your stage complexes across different trading sectors to take full advantage of the local NPC supply and demand markets. That way you can optimise the trade profits accrued from local NPC market transactions until they far outweigh the routine fleet maintenance costs.

I think we are probably in agreement that the decision will form a judgment call in trading-off profit, risk, complexity and planning/management against bombproof dependability and convenience. As such, different approaches may suit different players and playstyles and may be pretty location/circumstance-specific in nature.