Diary of a Mad Avarice Buyer

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jeffkretz
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Diary of a Mad Avarice Buyer

Post by jeffkretz » Tue, 16. May 06, 04:25

Well, in this thread I so casually tossed off how easy it would be to make a billion credits in a few game days so as to purchase the sector.

I've had a burning curiosity to see if I was full of right or shite.

SO.

I've backed up my Bankrupt Assassin game for later, and have restarted a new game, completely unmodded, to see if I can actually pull this off.

I first tried starting in XTreme mode, but this is a bit too hard for what I'm trying to do, so I ended up starting on Normal.

Day 1:

I did the first plot mission, then fought pirates until I went up three Argon ranks (didn't cap anything, unfortunately). Was then able to sell the Buster and purchase a Mercury and had some cash left over as capital to start trading.

I manually traded around Argon space for quite a while, until I had enough cash to purchase jump drive and MK3 Trader plug-in as well as a kitted out Argon Discoverer Hauler.

Sent the Mercury to Empire's Edge to train as a ST, then starting mapping the universe with the Discoverer. I've been very careful to not go into any pirate or xenon sectors, on the hopes that this will improve the life-expectancy of my UT fleet.

Have now mapped 50% of the universe, bought a 25MJ shields (darn GOD killed the Argon shield factory, had to buy it from Paranid) and started the Universe Trader.

STATS at end of Day 1:

Bank Account: 440,593

1 UT in traning (level 11)

Profit:
~ 40,000 per hour
~ 1,000,000 per day

Wish me luck.
JK
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Vokmar
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Post by Vokmar » Tue, 16. May 06, 04:30

Nice thread!

Good luck!!! :D

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Post by Starforge1 » Tue, 16. May 06, 04:58

Good luck! :thumb_up:

That same thread got me started doing the same thing until they figured out the auction is likely a trigger based on player account balance. However, Day near 7 and 64 stations in 14 complexes. Income isn't where it would need to be to hit 1.2B by day 12 but a good start nonetheless. Just about ready to buy my first TL (Mammoth) :D .

No illegal goods or scripts, just capping, trading and the odd BBS mission.

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Post by Storm666 » Tue, 16. May 06, 07:27

good luck... but if you read the rest of that thread you'll find the secret of purchasing avarice... fair well

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herocrafter
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Post by herocrafter » Tue, 16. May 06, 08:06

Good luck!

That same thread was the reason I restarted. On Xtream around 17 hours in(not exactly sure as I'm at work, but remember starting the plot at 16 hours right after I got the police license). I've done a few missions. Been capping for credits. First the Buzzard which I kept for my own and sold the Buster. Kept a pirate Harrier raider too (speed rules), and the found Toucan rounds out my small fleet. Haven't capped anything worth lots yet (like a Nova (7 Nova kills) but its been fairly steady). I had the p Harrier R buy the 500k mk3 (to save a trip back to Terracorp when I get down to split territory for my TS) and have 400k in credits. Its way early but I feel good about my start.

Mithril Prime
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Post by Mithril Prime » Tue, 16. May 06, 08:53

Go pirating if you want to meet your goal, you can easily make some serious capital pirating, and as long as you avoid the systems/traders of the races you wish to stay friendly with, you don't lose your rep with them. Personally, I like pirating the teladi, since they seem to be reluctant to fire on pirates. Also, the teladi falcon is a nice pirate ship, upgraded it gets to 128 m/s, which is a good speed, and it can hold 8 guns. I generally stick three powerful, three medium, and 2 light weapons on, then your outfitted for any ship you come into contact with, escorted or no. Good luck.

hobi
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Post by hobi » Tue, 16. May 06, 11:06

Good luck for you.
I am curios to see if it works. It is an interesting experiment. I myself restarted with Patch 1.4 with the same goal but using a different method :) .
And my goal was a bit different, in my assumption the Avarice auction starts earliest in 7th day and consequently my aim was to get 1.5 billion cr on day 7. I missed this target by about 15 hours :( but on the good side the auction didn´t start yet :) . BTW, on day 5 it was renamed.

My tactics:
Start on XTreme
On the first day: collect missiles in Elenas Fortune to get a better ship
Later: go capping and do as much BBS missions as possible to increase rank
At the same time I created some UTs but I accept only one ST at a time otherwise it causes too much work. In addition I build some complexes (maybe a dozen) mainly to increase my tade rank.

The main money maker is me, I have done almost continuously XI missions since I have a M3. This resulted in a now high fighting rank (8% Legend) and at least in 1 billion credits.
Wish me luck that the auction realy starts at some time...

Cheers,
Hobi

PS: if you wonder how to do continous XI missions read the spoiler
Spoiler
Show
You can generate XI missions by the following: If you find one - don´t take it. Visit all other (or as many as you can cope with) stations in the surrounding of that Xenon sector (3 jumps away). If you now take the first one the other ones remain and you can take them later. But as a warning, it really get tough later on and it may take you 2-3 hours time to finish a high level XI mission.
Spelling is a gift - I am german I don´t like Gift ;)

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donotdespisethesnake
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Re: Diary of a Mad Avarice Buyer

Post by donotdespisethesnake » Tue, 16. May 06, 15:28

jeffkretz wrote:Well, in this thread I so casually tossed off how easy it would be to make a billion credits in a few game days so as to purchase the sector.

I've had a burning curiosity to see if I was full of right or shite.
Me too! I have a couple of questions. You seem to assume that the traders make 200k/hr from start, I guess they need to be fairly high level before they make that money. Plus it takes a while to build rep before they can trade the expensive stuff. If traders get less than 200k/hr, how does that affect the calculations?

And another thing, where is the saturation point for UT's? (90 sounds quite a lot.

The other query is where do you train the traders? On Day 5 you aim to start 60 traders, which is over 2 per hour, I don't hink even EE can train 'em that quick!

In X2 I made loads of money from XI and assassin. (after a while), so I think I will try that for a bit. In a way these missions are too easy, it's often like a turkey shoot.
"Yes, he is in his office, but he's on an intergalactic cruise."

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Re: Diary of a Mad Avarice Buyer

Post by zazie » Tue, 16. May 06, 15:56

donotdespisethesnake wrote:where is the saturation point for UT's? (90 sounds quite a lot.
The other query is where do you train the traders?
If you let trade a lot of UTs soon in the game the NPC-economy will prosper (you can boom it by buying the top-range-weapons manually though).
But the probability of "low-profit-loops" is increasing with the number of UTs. Example: a UT in Friar's retreat running endlessly with a few soya husk. You have to 'free' him manually.

Best training sectors: EE (Empire's Edge), Rolk's Drift, Shore of Infinity. Scale Plate Green is excellent too, but you'd have to stop the early invasions. And you can boost up some "sector trader-training sectors" ;) by placing a Solar Power Plant and selling at low(est) price (you loose some money but this is an investment and the ROI is - well - breathtaking)

jeffkretz
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Re: Diary of a Mad Avarice Buyer

Post by jeffkretz » Tue, 16. May 06, 20:32

donotdespisethesnake wrote:Me too! I have a couple of questions. You seem to assume that the traders make 200k/hr from start, I guess they need to be fairly high level before they make that money. Plus it takes a while to build rep before they can trade the expensive stuff. If traders get less than 200k/hr, how does that affect the calculations?

And another thing, where is the saturation point for UT's? (90 sounds quite a lot.

The other query is where do you train the traders? On Day 5 you aim to start 60 traders, which is over 2 per hour, I don't hink even EE can train 'em that quick!

In X2 I made loads of money from XI and assassin. (after a while), so I think I will try that for a bit. In a way these missions are too easy, it's often like a turkey shoot.
Well, I stayed up late last night getting to the end of Day 2 and it was a complete bust (relative to my target).

So I've restarted at the end of Day 1 and am giving it another go.

Firstly, your are totally right in that the lower level UTs don't make much money. By the end of Day 2 I was making only 100,000 per hour with 2 UTs. Now, this is partly because I was using Mercury's.

My next plan is to manually jump-trade one ship, buy a Paranid Demeter SF (8000 cargo unupgraded) and see if that makes a difference.

The really annoying part is watching my level 15 UT buy a small cargo load of some low-profit product when I can see a Soja Husk run IN SECTOR that would run me a 70,000 profit in about 8 minutes.

Anyway, I'm about 3 hours into Day 2 (restart) and hopefully this pans out better.

JK
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Andaius
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Post by Andaius » Tue, 16. May 06, 22:01

Cargo space doesn't make a differance, the factories buying/selling make the differance. Say there's Soja Husks at rock bottom prices and the giant factory has 10000 units for sale. Now the surrounding factories(Lets say for several sectors for UT purposes.) Can only stock say 1000 to be filled up. Now when your UT looks for a deal and spots that trade it will only buy up 1000 units to fully stock the factory, it wont buy 8000 units or full it hold up then sell to multiple factories. So having a big hold only works for bulk resources like flowers, soja beans, E-cells ETC. ETC. because every place that will buy it buy's it e masse.

So thats one of the big reasons I don't mass SF to be UT's, they will NOT use there full cargo capacity. I use them a supply ships to buy E-cells for complexes and as manual traders. Or as Fleet oilers(E-cell reserves).

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giskard
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Post by giskard » Tue, 16. May 06, 22:34

jeffkretz: My hats off to you bud, nice to see people trying to prove their case once in a while. We see so many claims and many gamers with a lot of experience simply cannot understand how they do such things.

So anybody who tries to backup what they say is in my book a good guy. Doesnt matter if they are right or wrong, its the attempt that matters. :)

Its learning experience for those of us reading the results too.

Good luck bud.

Giskard
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jeffkretz
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Post by jeffkretz » Thu, 18. May 06, 17:47

Giskard, thanks for the props, man! Your guides helped me learn the game so it sorta feels like getting complimented by a celebrity. :D

DAY 2:

Much much much more successful than my first Day 2 attempt.

BANK ACCOUNT: 4,376,469

1 Manual Jump Trade Ship (Mercury)

4 UTs (Paranid Demeter SFs) -
Level 22
Level 15
Level 8
Level 8

PROFIT PER HOUR --- ~960,000
PROFIT PER DAY - ~23,000,000

My original target for Day 3 was 3 UTs and 600,000 per hour. So far, I'm more than a full day ahead of target.

-----------------------------

A few observations:

1. It has taken almost 48 game-hours for my first UT to make it to Level 22. Ouch. I had expected it to take about 24 game-hours.

2. A UT makes jack-all profit until Level 16. That is the point where he will jump to buy AND jump to sell. And at Level 17 he will jump up to 15 sectors to sell. Until then they spend way way way way way too much time flying to the next sector to buy. A level 11 UT will sometimes make only 4 quasi-profitable trade runs in a single hour.

3. Level 1 to Level 8 is a SNAP. Level 8 to Level 16 is a D--R--A--G. My second UT made it to Level 8 in about an hour. For the next 17 hours he's only made it to Level 15. Buh-jeeza! Once my first UT made it to Level 16 he's been popping a new level with charming frequency.

4. The only way to make this work is to supplement the UT income with a manually traded jump ship, in a mostly explored universe with NavSats to look for profitable trade runs. My manually traded jump ship outproduces all 4 UTs combined right now by 3 TIMES. But I'm hoping that a Level 25 UT will make at least 200,000 per hour -- that will match the expectations of my original post.

5. High-Tech trade runs are freekin totally profitable. Just have a lot of capital lying around. The trick is to only purchase when they are topped off and at lowest price. I have two HEPT and a PSG complex in Paranid space that, when topped out, can net about 1.2 million PROFIT in 30 minutes. Of course, I then have to wait a loooong time until they fill up again.

6. Keep an eye out for newly deposited stations and complexes by GOD. If you can get there before the free traders, you can sell resources to it for max value. I saw a new HEPT complex go down needing 1332 Soya Husks at max price of 524. I bought them at an overstocked Soyery for 204 each, resulting in a 426,000 profit in a single trade run. The cool part was I saw an army of free traders heading for that same station and I got there JUST before they did. *smack*

7. The good Sector Trader locations (Empire's Edge, et. al.) can get depleted in value (no more good trade runs). Keep an eye on your STs and when they pause, move them to another good sector. Eventually the original sector will unbalance again and you can move him (or another) back into it.

8. If you REALLY want to jump start your STs in Empire's Edge, keep the Trading Station empty of Soya Husks. When your ST deposits a new load of Husks, send in another ship to buy it up and resell it at another Trading Station in a different sector. This is a no-profit run, but it allows the ST to do more Soya Husk runs and level up quicker.

Well, off to Day 3.

Cheers,
JK
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Post by Diesel309 » Thu, 18. May 06, 19:20

One thing I've noticed about UT's.
First game I started I used the Caimen SF Which is a great ship but expensive.
In my current game my first 14 UT's were Demeter SF's because of slightly larger hold, extra sheild and cost less.
Problem is they take for ever to level up, so my next 15 UT's were Caimens just to see the difference.

The difference is very noticeable the Caimens level a lot faster than the Demeters. Hope this helps

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Post by fud » Thu, 18. May 06, 19:45

Well, I don't think the type of ship makes any difference on the speed they level up. It's the sector (that I've noticed).


In past games, I've trained Mercury/SF, Demeter SF, Dolphin SF, Caiman SF....all were trained up in about the same time. I only use about 4 different sectors to level them up, Empire's Edge, Queen's Space, Home of Light, and Shore of Infinity.


I've never once noticed any difference in time between different ships.



fwiw, I saw the first mention of the auction. 50,000,000 (I'm on day 7). I'll keep an eye on it, see how it works out. I'm in an attempt to buy it myself.

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Post by jeffkretz » Thu, 18. May 06, 20:09

fud wrote:fwiw, I saw the first mention of the auction. 50,000,000 (I'm on day 7). I'll keep an eye on it, see how it works out. I'm in an attempt to buy it myself.
Do you know how much money you had in the bank when the auction showed up? Still wanting to verify if its triggered by that.

Another thing I'd be curious about, is how long it takes from the start of the auction to finish. Just to get an idea of exactly how much money I'll need to make from the start of the auction to the end.

And lastly, had you explored the unknown sector? Was the auction announced in that sector or another one?

Thanks,

JK
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giskard
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Post by giskard » Thu, 18. May 06, 20:27

jeffkretz wrote:Giskard, thanks for the props, man! Your guides helped me learn the game so it sorta feels like getting complimented by a celebrity. :D
Hehe, its not all its cracked up to be this well known stuff. Its actually a curse at times. These days i have my hand in a lot of projects and i happily let the eager types take the credit for stuff because they dont know yet what comes next. All i can say is, im glab im not a movie star :)

Before i sign off, i should make sure you guys know where the credit for my guilds really goes. It goes to the users in this forum who talk about ideas, try stuff, post the results and debate the merits of APhotons over AHEPTs. I get my guides come from those types of chats after i test them and find they worked for me. I'll probably get some ideas from your test results too.

So your the celeb mate :)

Not me :)

I may disagree with peoples opinions or tactics but talking makes life fun on these forums and often leads to some new ideas on how to play X :)

Giskard
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Post by fud » Thu, 18. May 06, 21:01

jeffkretz wrote: Do you know how much money you had in the bank when the auction showed up? Still wanting to verify if its triggered by that.
Dunno for sure, somewhere around 400-500M maybe? I had just dumped off about 2B into factories, so I'm not entirely sure. 300-500M perhaps.

Another thing I'd be curious about, is how long it takes from the start of the auction to finish. Just to get an idea of exactly how much money I'll need to make from the start of the auction to the end.
Dunno, I'm still finding that out as I go. :)
And lastly, had you explored the unknown sector? Was the auction announced in that sector or another one?
I was in another sector when I saw the announcement. It's been Avaricce for 2 game days, and yes, I've been there several times.

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Post by bugatti » Thu, 18. May 06, 21:46

jeffkretz wrote:
fud wrote:fwiw, I saw the first mention of the auction. 50,000,000 (I'm on day 7). I'll keep an eye on it, see how it works out. I'm in an attempt to buy it myself.
Do you know how much money you had in the bank when the auction showed up? Still wanting to verify if its triggered by that.

Another thing I'd be curious about, is how long it takes from the start of the auction to finish. Just to get an idea of exactly how much money I'll need to make from the start of the auction to the end.

And lastly, had you explored the unknown sector? Was the auction announced in that sector or another one?

Thanks,

JK
maybe i can help you a little bit. i got the sector a few ingamedays ago and do a lot of testing about the sector.
the first step is the renaming of the unknown sector. it happens in the 5 to 7 ingameday and you need about 200 million at your account or the renaming will not happen.
the second step ist the auction itself. it starts around 3 to 4 ingamedays after renaming with the first bbs news of a bidding for the sector. the first bidding is 50 million credits and it rises up in diffrent steps by time. every 6 to 12 ingamehours you can see a new bidding at the bbs news (at my game it was 50, 100, 125, 500, 550 million and the next was 1 billion). it takes about 2 to 3 ingamedays until you can make your first offer for the sector. the first offer is 1,025,000,000 credits. if someone make a better offer, you become an message to your log and you can make a new offer. i payed 1,3 billion for the sector at least.
some special points:
1. the sectorrenaming happens, if you see a bbs new, that a teladi must sell his sector. after you had seen this message, the sector will become to avarice. you need no sat in the sector, you can see it then at your map.
2. if the actual bidding is more then your playeraccount shows, the sector will gone to burnit and you do not get a second chance.
3. in the german forum, we ha have a discussion about the renaming of the sector. most of us (me too) believe, that you have to do a xi mission too so the renaming of the sector starts. but we are not 100% sure about this.
wish you good luck, it`s very hard to get enough money in that short time.

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Post by frosty_dd » Thu, 18. May 06, 21:55

If you don't happen to have 200 million in your account by day 5-7, can the renaming take place later or is it game over for the buying of the sector?
Money is coming a bit slow for me, trying to trade in and defend the north-east boron sectors takes the "occasional" loss of a ship:s

The only message I read regarding the sector (I think) is that of a Teladi stumbling upon an unknown sector and claiming it by teladi law. (Game day 6)
That's the difference between me and the rest of the world! Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!
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