Optimal Amount of Storage and Subordinates per Station

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enright
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Optimal Amount of Storage and Subordinates per Station

Post by enright » Sun, 7. Jul 19, 19:17

I think I've got the hang of determining the right ratios of different production modules, and this calculator has been a huge help: http://www.x4-game.com/#/station-calculator

However, one thing I can't seem to find any info on is how to determine the ideal amount of storage and subordinate ships per station. I typically start with:

- One large storage module of each type
- 3 medium miners
- 3 medium traders

As you continue to build and expand stations, how can you tell when you should add more storage and/or ships? I've noticed that adding storage also increases the minimum station budget - so it appears that adding too much too soon might be wasteful.

Is there a recommended ratio or formula?

Imperial Good
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Re: Optimal Amount of Storage and Subordinates per Station

Post by Imperial Good » Mon, 8. Jul 19, 20:32

The optimum amount of storage for production stations is so that the station can keep producing for 1-2 hours. This way the manager will level up efficiently even if wares are slow to shift.

Manager experience gain is based on the fraction of available of a buy or sell offer than a trade fulfils. Hence if the station has 1,000,000 Energy Cells for sale then Energy Cell sales will give the manager very little experience compared to when it has just 10,000 Energy Cells for sale. Of course this only applies for wares which are being overproduced or undersupplied, however getting into such a state is very easy and impossible to correct without building more consumer modules or deconstructing some production modules. By keeping production storages limited to a few hours at most this means that even in cases of overproduction or undersupply there buy/sell orders will still burn through at a reasonable rate.

The optimum amount of storage for Warfs and Shipyards is infinite. They are the ultimate end consumers earning a ton of experience from ship building itself but one can also regulate how fast ships are built. If there are too many buy orders out standing one can slow down ship production until the storages fill up. I personally recommend at least 1 L container storage per production module.

The number of subordinate ships required varies depending on station position and volume of wares. If a station is far away from raw materials then it may need many more miners than a station literally in the middle of a rich resource field. Like wise a station near the highway ring will need less S and M traders than one in the middle of nowhere.

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Re: Optimal Amount of Storage and Subordinates per Station

Post by Karmaticdamage » Tue, 9. Jul 19, 05:19

I just throw L container on everything, preferably teladi as they have connection points on the top, bottom, and sides. A single M container is never enough so unless you want a cluttered station, a single L container is more then enough for most non wharf/shipyard stations. The number of subs depends on how many factories and what factories they are. You need a lot more subs to move hull parts around then smart chips for example. I usually start with two M traders and add more as needed. I always use Hermes vanguard with ARG travel mk3 engines as my station traders as they are the fastest M traders in the game, and therefore least likely to get killed.

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Re: Optimal Amount of Storage and Subordinates per Station

Post by Dirk-Jan » Tue, 9. Jul 19, 10:55

In general i have 3 m gas miners and 4 m solid miners per station along with 4 m traders. I have 13 stations of which 2 are wharfs and 1 is a shipyard. For the wharfs/shipyard I have 2 additional ships each (+2g/+2s/+2t). They all seem te be busy all the time.
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Re: Optimal Amount of Storage and Subordinates per Station

Post by Imperial Good » Tue, 9. Jul 19, 20:27

Dirk-Jan wrote:
Tue, 9. Jul 19, 10:55
In general i have 3 m gas miners and 4 m solid miners per station along with 4 m traders. I have 13 stations of which 2 are wharfs and 1 is a shipyard. For the wharfs/shipyard I have 2 additional ships each (+2g/+2s/+2t). They all seem te be busy all the time.
The number of miners really depends how big the stations are. I can assure you that if they have 20 Refined Metal production modules, which a really huge station might, then 4 M solid miners will be nowhere near enough to keep it fed.

What has not been discussed in this topic so far is how many landing pads a station should have. When building larger stations the mining traffic alone can become so much that 3M6S docks do not have enough throughput to handle all the subordinates. I would recommend a 3M6S dock every 9 to 12 M subordinates. Warfs are special in that the Warf module itself acts as a massive 8M dock but require additional independent 3M6S docks due to the potential for M ship construction to occupy landing space for significant time. In such a case I would suggest an additional 3M6S dock every 15 or 18 M subordinates and at least 1 per Warf module.

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Re: Optimal Amount of Storage and Subordinates per Station

Post by RodentofDoom » Wed, 10. Jul 19, 13:34

For subordinates I use 1 L class miner per resource and 2 L class tradeships, generally things tick over quite nicely.

For storage initially i just go with 1x L(x) per resource with an L container for the products, it's when you start adding Hab modules that additional container storage comes in handy
3m Storage (1x C/S/L) will handle most things


shipyards/wharfs & eq docks are different
1m Container storage is more than enough for them, that limits the initial float-fund to ~25m
add a 2nd L container .. it's ~50m

also equipment docks just aren't worth bothering with, just a fyi, stick to Wharfs & Shipyards and it's free $$'s

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Re: Optimal Amount of Storage and Subordinates per Station

Post by Imperial Good » Wed, 10. Jul 19, 19:15

RodentofDoom wrote:
Wed, 10. Jul 19, 13:34
it's when you start adding Hab modules that additional container storage comes in handy
More storage does not come in handy with habitation. The amount of storage a station uses for food is insignificant compared with the amount the production modules will use. To put it in perspective a station which supplies the entire PAR and HOP space with energy and food only needs 1 L container storage and that includes using some of that storage for intermediate products. A station with 10,000 workers will likely allocate for food storage similar to a S container module or less.
RodentofDoom wrote:
Wed, 10. Jul 19, 13:34
1m Container storage is more than enough for them, that limits the initial float-fund to ~25m
1 M container storage is too small for them. It will not hold enough Hull Parts for XL ship production. Even then it will bottleneck very heavily waiting for parts all the time. I stand by my recommendation of 1 L container storage per ship build module. Reality is there is really no limit to storage for ship build modules as they are end consumers.
RodentofDoom wrote:
Wed, 10. Jul 19, 13:34
also equipment docks just aren't worth bothering with, just a fyi, stick to Wharfs & Shipyards and it's free $$'s
Possibly due to a bug they double as cheaper warfs on stations which already have 1 warf module. For example 1 maintenance bay and 1 warf will be able to produce 16 ships instead of the 8 that a single warf can produce. I consider this trivial since most of the cost will still be the more expensive Warf blueprint and one would need to build dozens of maintenance bays using this exploit for a significant saving.

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Re: Optimal Amount of Storage and Subordinates per Station

Post by RodentofDoom » Thu, 11. Jul 19, 18:39

Imperial Good wrote:
Wed, 10. Jul 19, 19:15
RodentofDoom wrote:
Wed, 10. Jul 19, 13:34
it's when you start adding Hab modules that additional container storage comes in handy
More storage does not come in handy with habitation. The amount of storage a station uses for food is insignificant compared with the amount the production modules will use. To put it in perspective a station which supplies the entire PAR and HOP space with energy and food only needs 1 L container storage and that includes using some of that storage for intermediate products. A station with 10,000 workers will likely allocate for food storage similar to a S container module or less.
RodentofDoom wrote:
Wed, 10. Jul 19, 13:34
1m Container storage is more than enough for them, that limits the initial float-fund to ~25m
1 M container storage is too small for them. It will not hold enough Hull Parts for XL ship production. Even then it will bottleneck very heavily waiting for parts all the time. I stand by my recommendation of 1 L container storage per ship build module. Reality is there is really no limit to storage for ship build modules as they are end consumers.
RodentofDoom wrote:
Wed, 10. Jul 19, 13:34
also equipment docks just aren't worth bothering with, just a fyi, stick to Wharfs & Shipyards and it's free $$'s
Possibly due to a bug they double as cheaper warfs on stations which already have 1 warf module. For example 1 maintenance bay and 1 warf will be able to produce 16 ships instead of the 8 that a single warf can produce. I consider this trivial since most of the cost will still be the more expensive Warf blueprint and one would need to build dozens of maintenance bays using this exploit for a significant saving.
just a fyi

1m is conventional shorthand for ....

1 million

ie an L container

if I wanted to specify an M container …. you might notice a small difference.

on the Wharf/Eq dock difference
I built a specific EQ-Dock .. so just S/M & L/XL equipment bays … with 0 Fabrication Modules
Whilst it does make money, the amounts earned per resupply/repair order are trivial
you can earn more doing trade runs in an S class courier

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