What are the most profitable factories?

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skerbl
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by skerbl » Mon, 21. Jan 19, 16:18

I don't know, people constantly recommend Engine Parts as money makers, but I just don't see that to be true. Sure, the universe is notoriously short on EP, and providing a supply will get your ships built. But printing money? Well, the maximum I see in trade offers from shipyards is a profit margin of 25-30 credits (!) per unit, no matter if their stock is literally empty. Oh, and sometimes they don't even seem to put up buy orders at all (they'll still buy it through manual trade, but autotraders won't pick up on it).

VincentTH
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by VincentTH » Mon, 21. Jan 19, 21:43

skerbl wrote:
Mon, 21. Jan 19, 16:18
I don't know, people constantly recommend Engine Parts as money makers, but I just don't see that to be true. Sure, the universe is notoriously short on EP, and providing a supply will get your ships built. But printing money? Well, the maximum I see in trade offers from shipyards is a profit margin of 25-30 credits (!) per unit, no matter if their stock is literally empty. Oh, and sometimes they don't even seem to put up buy orders at all (they'll still buy it through manual trade, but autotraders won't pick up on it).
Demand for Engine Parts was in 1.3. In 1.5, it's Smart Chip!!!!!

Fame
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by Fame » Mon, 21. Jan 19, 22:00

Have to agree on the smartchip demand in my "own Universe", started it on ver 1.5 ... still trying to get the blue prints for it on my end .
Engine part demand is pretty much limited unless a player buys ships from HOP.... i´m currently downsizing operations in regards of microchips since i´m oversupplying the marked...

In regards of smartchips (blue prints) i don´t plan to steal those ... just need to carefully balance faction relation :D
Claytronics might be a good option but expensive to set up but for those that plan to build a couple of factories it might be worthwhile to keep construction costs down :)
Its a problem if you don´t have any problems.

RainerPrem
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by RainerPrem » Tue, 22. Jan 19, 12:46

Fame wrote:
Mon, 21. Jan 19, 22:00
Have to agree on the smartchip demand in my "own Universe", started it on ver 1.5 ... still trying to get the blue prints for it on my end .
Engine part demand is pretty much limited unless a player buys ships from HOP.... i´m currently downsizing operations in regards of microchips since i´m oversupplying the marked...

In regards of smartchips (blue prints) i don´t plan to steal those ... just need to carefully balance faction relation :D
Claytronics might be a good option but expensive to set up but for those that plan to build a couple of factories it might be worthwhile to keep construction costs down :)
Nanotronics give the term "self sufficient factory" a new dimension. I have one M-trader constantly shuttling Nanotronics and Hull Parts from the factory to its own buildstore...

henron
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by henron » Fri, 1. Feb 19, 21:40

In my game these factories work best (ordered by profit/hour):

Claytronics
Antimatter Converters
Hull Parts

Those made some serious credits and demand for claytronics and antimatter converters is still not satisfied. I would recommend to steal blueprints (I did so by scanning - no rep loss) and save those credits for building factories / buying ships. All factories I built are "self-sustaining". They only require basic resources from miners. You seem to need most miners for Hull Parts (just my gut feeling) as it needs a lot of ore and ice (for food).

I only used argon blueprints. Having one module of Meat/Spice/Wheat will enable you to build a maximum of 10 claytronics modules, 14 antimatter converter modules or 42 hull part modules (you really need a lot of miners for those, though).

I also built factories for all other wares required by shipyards/wharfs and none of them gets remotely close to the profits I make with the factories above (that includes drone components, shield components, engine parts, weapon components, missile components, scanning arrays, smart chips, food rations, medical supplies, energy cells, advanced composites, advanced electronics, turret components). Advanced electronics initially looked best from that list but demand was satisfied quite quickly.

Right now I have 2x 10 claytronics and 2x 14 antimatter converters and I'm considering building yet another factory for each as product storage is almost empty all the time.

So if you can afford it I would go for claytronics and (depending on your economy) antimatter converters. A big complex as mentioned above can cost you something between 400-500 million including ships (though you don't have to start with 10/14 modules obviously).

Lazerius
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by Lazerius » Mon, 11. Mar 19, 02:37

Kalantris wrote:
Sun, 23. Dec 18, 13:57
No, supply and demand play no role.

Build this:
  1. 2 docks
  2. 1 energy cell production
  3. 2 water production (6 med ice miners)
  4. 2 wheat production
  5. 1 spice production
  6. 1 meat production
  7. 1 food rations production
  8. 6 medium habitats
  9. 12 spacefuel production
  10. Solid storage
  11. Container storage
You will need two medium traders for the trade routes, but I would advise not assigning them to the station. Build it in Nopileo's Fortune VI, which is one jump away from the station, that buys spacefuel for 202 creds. That's a million per single trader haul, because spacefuel takes 1 storage. The station is completely self-sufficient and can produce around 10.000 spacefuel per hour (2mil/hour). Also there's no plot cost, because it's nobody's turf.

Oh, sometimes HAT have their own spacefuel production plant in that system, but all you have to do is apply some healthy, free-market competition:
Image
I get you’re aiming for a single buyer, but you’re shorting your profits by providing no dust or weed in this complex, and using 2 mediums for delivery instead of 5+ smalls couriers as subordinates.

I only have 5-6 of each end drug station, and it all sells constantly.

It’s all fire and forget with the couriers. They’re too quick to get scanned, and are usually faster than the pirates trying to get them to drop their wares. Plus when was the last time you actually filled a medium transport with booze?
All your Hyperion Vanguards are belong to us.

Lazerius
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by Lazerius » Mon, 11. Mar 19, 02:45

A 30 station smart chip complex in Trinity Sanctum was my jump off point to get the shipyards going.

Then it became claytronics in same sector.

Then I took over Nopilio’s Fortune sectors and built a hull parts station, then 1 station to do all the primarily ore based shipyard goods, another to do the silicone and methane based goods. Now I’m build wharf and next will be L/XL Shipyard to actually start building my fleets up.

My best money maker was actually built to just test the waters of that side of the economy. A single complex producing weed, dust and fuel right by the gates in NF.
All your Hyperion Vanguards are belong to us.

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Sam L.R. Griffiths
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by Sam L.R. Griffiths » Sat, 23. Mar 19, 18:19

mellimell wrote:
Sun, 23. Dec 18, 01:08
As the headline says.

Is it better to produce all the needed resources by the player? Or shall I buy them?

All help appreciated.
In order to maximise profits I would build integrated supply chains with fixed in prices for both sale and purchase, personally I use fixed purchase prices about 17% below average and sale prices about 17% above average and thus far it has guaranteed profit generation (maybe not maximal but at least reasonably consistent). My shipyard/wharf chains built using these principles do generate a significant amount of credits per hour.

I have 3 shipyard/wharf chains - 2 smaller chains and 1 huge one. I would reckon between the 3 of them I am generating in excess of 50M/hr plus having near enough free S/M/L/XL ship construction. The 3 stations are supported by 40+ M size traders in total plus 30+ M-Size Mineral Miners, 30+ M-Size Gas Miners, 6 L-Size Mineral Miners, and 6 L-Size Gas Miners.

See this thread for the station designs myself and others have shared so far.
Lenna (aka [SRK] The_Rabbit)

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Ramokthan
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by Ramokthan » Thu, 6. Jun 19, 23:57

I experience drug factories as rather... useless...

I dont know how but actually i los money running them.

They got all they need to run, everything is self supplied, every product is sold at a slightly less then average price immediately... still it loses money over time... no profits.

lmao im slowly ripping my hair out... my other hull parts factory is shitting gold in the meantime...

LegionOfOne
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by LegionOfOne » Fri, 21. Jun 19, 20:02

Ramokthan wrote:
Thu, 6. Jun 19, 23:57
I experience drug factories as rather... useless...
Had the same experience, until I realized that to sell at a good price you need to do special missions.
Some missions unlock black-market contacts on stations that don't buy drugs usually.
You need to scan stations to find them.
These contacts create new buy offers on these stations, allowing you to sell drugs at a very good price.
The other buyers are trade stations and pirate bases, at ridiculously low prices.

So, to set up a serious smuggling empire, you gotta have a lot of shady friends on a lot of stations.
At least that's how it worked a while back, haven't tried recently.

Ramokthan
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by Ramokthan » Fri, 21. Jun 19, 21:39

If you really need to set up all that to get it running.
my words as business man: if there are easier ways to make more money which require less efford, doing drugs is not my choice.

As i mentined already in several posts of mine...
I recently earn about 1 BILLION (1.000.000.000) per hour. with 0 drugs.

And i am not finished with expanding right now bc there is still demand...
Funny thing about that is that my factory setup in the factory calculator estimates a profit of 150 Million/h

lol.

taztaz502
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by taztaz502 » Mon, 26. Aug 19, 22:43

For me my Ore refinery is by far the most profitable built in argon prime. It has just 10x metal refinery and 1x energy cell, Teladianium doesn't seem to sell very well for me.

Second to that is my 48x smart chip plant but i suspect that to dry up soon.

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MarvinTheMartian
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by MarvinTheMartian » Fri, 30. Aug 19, 08:08

Ramokthan wrote:
Fri, 21. Jun 19, 21:39
As i mentined already in several posts of mine...
I recently earn about 1 BILLION (1.000.000.000) per hour. with 0 drugs.
Any chance you can link to a post of yours that describes your setup? Or to a config in the station builder?

Cheers
Marv
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grapedog
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by grapedog » Sun, 1. Sep 19, 08:16

the most profitable by far are claytronics. But they do take a while to be profitable because it requires a high cost to make them, but ultimately they're the most profitable in the long run.

Make sure you use habitats to increase profitability. Again, same with habitats, there is an initial cost, but down the road it's just more money in your pocket for no additional cost besides setup cost.

Look at if/where there are holes in your economy. You can also manufacture holes by taking out certain production modules from other factions. You could destroy them, or hack them to make them dump their contents, and then make money off the shortages.

any factory can be your most profitable, depending on the situation of your economy.

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MarvinTheMartian
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by MarvinTheMartian » Wed, 4. Sep 19, 07:05

Cheers grapedog. I'm now at a point where I can scan (and steal) blueprints thanks to your guide.

In my universe there's a big shortage of Advanced Electronics at Argon Prime Shipyard and Smart Chips at the Wharf and many other places. This may be short-term though so I'll start small. Claytronics will be good for building up my own stations then hopefully there'll be a longer term need for those.

I'm prepared to hack other stations' production for my own gain, are there repercussions to repeatedly hacking competitors? Do they go hostile or are they unaware whodunit? I don't plan to play fair :twisted:
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grapedog
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by grapedog » Wed, 4. Sep 19, 10:39

I'm glad my guide was able to help you!

As for hacking, I can't remember since it's been a while since I hacked much, but I believe it's just the temporary negative reputation gain similar to using an EMP bomb. Easy way to verify though is to just save your game, try it, wait 20-30 minutes and see if the station remains red, and what the overall faction hit is.

If you haven't used it before, it's pretty sweet... http://www.x4-game.com/#/station-calculator
it allows you to build your station, shows you how much you need of everything to make it work, including base resources and mid tier products, and total costs and profits, along with how much money you'd be spending if you don't have your own miners. also shows you have much workforce you would need to full staff it, all that stuff.

Seems like you've played X before, especially with your post count and join date similar to mine, so I won't go too in depth as a lot this you probably understand already, but I'll add this little bit.

This is a 5x claytronics factory, with a workforce included plus all the support modules to supply food/meds to the workforce. http://www.x4-game.com/#/station-calcul ... 01,count:1

85 million to build it if you were just dropping it all at once. Only drawbacks to workforce, especially in a plant like this is that it takes quite a LONG time to get up to full workforce. My games usually go for hundreds of hours, so I don't really worry about it, I just build my factory and let it do it's thing. a workforce will eventually only make you more money. I did this same plant with no workforce at all, and the cost was 70 million, but the profits were only like 2.3 million an hour. With a full workforce you're looking at 5.4 million profit per hour. Even only half at half the workforce, it's still making 3.9 million per hour. So at half workforce, in 10 hours, the cost for building the habitats and food/meds is payed off and all the extra profits after that 10 hours are just that. Obviously since a workforce builds slowly, it will take much longer than 10 hours to work it's own costs away, but there will be a time when that 10-15 million extra is paid off and now you're making double profits for the life of your game. Also, I added the workforce last, so there are actually a few extra production modules in there that you wouldn't need when fully staffed... but a little extra isn't bad, and can be sold by your traders.

Very cool station calculator though, I play around with it all the time, making different complexes for my game. Though I probably need to stop, i have like 25 complexes now...

Though, if I was doing it myself, I'd look at that 5x claytronics factory for example, and just do the basic resources along with a workforce. So just the ECells, and some of the Antimatter Cells, Graphene, Superfluid Coolant, and Silicon... plus habitat modules and food/meds. Make that your ground floor, get that up and running, let it make some money. Then as you get more comfortable with cash flow, get your merchants and miners really working, add the mid-tier products... the microchips and quantum tubes, plus more habitats and food/meds. Then once that is running smooth, add the last bits, the final habitat modules along with food/meds and the claytronics factories.

I didn't know much about it when I first started, so my first few complexes are pretty all over the place. I had a bunch more written, but I'm not trying to say a bunch of stuff you may already know. Anyway, glad I could help with your piratical ways! Good luck!

taztaz502
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by taztaz502 » Wed, 4. Sep 19, 17:02

Currectly, at least for me hacking has no consequences. You can hack stations to your hearts content.

AquilaRossa
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by AquilaRossa » Mon, 9. Sep 19, 18:41

I just ended a game where it was 15 in game days in because it grew too much to keep the FPS playable, but I got to see how it develops over a long time and reach the billion credits mark. Every game is different but in this one the clear winner for demand was hull parts. That would always be the one I was waiting for NPC traders to bring to my build storage. Everything else they would be queuing up to sell me. Sometimes advanced electronic became a little scarce. Engine parts get used up fast if you build your own ships.

Food and medical supplies can make a steady stream of credits if your complex is self sufficient. AI is building so many factories and they all need to eat. I built a complex called Feed The Universe that made lots of every faction's food type, plus medical supplies. I put it within reach of all factions as much as possible. I also laid down a complex called All The Naughty Stuff to see if spaceweed etc is still a good money spinner, but my game crapped out before it was built.

Lord Crc
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Re: What are the most profitable factories?

Post by Lord Crc » Mon, 9. Sep 19, 22:29

grapedog wrote:
Sun, 1. Sep 19, 08:16
the most profitable by far are claytronics. But they do take a while to be profitable because it requires a high cost to make them, but ultimately they're the most profitable in the long run.
In my game, claytronics is not profitable due to sales. The main profitability is that it allows me to cheaply build new stations and modules. So that delays the payoff even more.

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