[X3TC] Drones and satellites and complexes, oh my!

[Deathninja]

Heya, long time fighter (since UK X2 launch), first time trader. Got what answers I could form checking old threads, but still need a few clarifications.

Basically I've found out the hard way M3's can't take on much more than an M6 anymore, so I need more ships, which needs I have to learn how to make money.

Popped a mine on the big silicon 'roid in Antigone, but now I realise that ore would have been a better move, as the final goods sell better.

Rather than starting again, I'm looking at using this mine as an excuse to play around with elements of the game I've left until now, only I'm not sure how they work, and don't want to grind out 10M for a factory network that makes a duff product.

Drones:
-What do they do, specifically how do recon drones/freight drones work?

Satellites:
-So NavSats are pretty crap, and AdvSats are useful for remote price checks. How do you get the Explorer software 'satellite network' command to work?

Complexes:
-I know all about the spaghetti of FPS death, so I was wondering if it's viable to just use cheapo stock ships to ferry mats across the sector instead.
-Also, if I did complex a factory to the mine, would it stop allowing me to sell excess silicon as it's an intermediate?

ST/UT
-I've already had 2 UTs get fireballed OOS, so is it worth just sticking to STs, and keeping tabs on their jump range?

Think that about covers it, I don't like manual trading, so getting a trade network set up so I can continue with the pew-pew would keep the game fun for me.

[Kryten]

Popped a mine on the big silicon 'roid in Antigone, but now I realise that ore would have been a better move, as the final goods sell better.

its a good move for a long term investment, it was my first factory and now its a lucrative small complex selling crystals as I build it up slowly to a self sustaining chip complex. As regards to an ore mine I made one in cloud base SE which really needs the stuff and its doing very well, with TC you need to assign freighters to every factory to buy and sell individual products. this makes the complex the more viable option as one complex with 6 stations needs only 1 freighter and 6 solo stations needs 6 freighters.

Satellites:
-So NavSats are pretty crap, and AdvSats are useful for remote price checks. How do you get the Explorer software 'satellite network' command to work?

I've mostly placed satelites manually but for the automated way, you need to have a satelite on board the ship you'r going to use, just one is enough, give it the command to deploy satelites and leave it, I've found it in reunion to be problematic so haven't really used it as manually placing them gives me something to do between missions etc.

ST/UT
-I've already had 2 UTs get fireballed OOS, so is it worth just sticking to STs, and keeping tabs on their jump range?

UTs and STs are still bugged, eventually they will start buying and selling very low amounts of wares, I tend to ony have 1 or 2 so I can keep assessing if they are broken. Stick to STs, you can control how far they will travel and in TC if you go near xenon sectors you will lose trader ships.

A quick way to make credits to expand is to take on taxi missions, you build race ranks and can make over 1 mil per mission, I made my first 20 mil just doing these types of missions, with a fast TP even the very hard ones are very easy

[thiosk]

For complexes, you have choices to make. By the mid game you already have hundreds of stations-- i have over 300 right now-- so the number of small freighters ferrying materiel around is daunting.

The problem with FPS arises mostly when you have self-sustaining complexes... a big complex with the required food, powerplants, mines, and then the gajillion crystal fabs really puts a hurt on things-- and I am convinced this is either a repairable bug or indicative of a problem with the game engine.

The solutions:

--Keep complexes open loop, that means don't make them all self sufficient... grow crystals in one sector and distribute them to the complexes with power plants. This cuts down on the number of fabs needed by a large margin.

--complex cleaner

lets face it, building vast complexes is overly time consuming. This mod lets you move 15 TLs loaded with cargo to the sector, drop them without watching videos, crunch them into a single unit, then connect up far fewer facilities. I use it, and the FPS problem is gone, as is the problem of lazy construction causing my complexes to blow themselves up.

[Deathninja]

Thanks for the advice guys.

tbh I'd never planned closed loops anyway, just wanted to close off food, ore and silicon as they're a b*tch to transport.

Will probably slap a few crystal fabs on that mine, and use the nearby ore ones for 25mJ/HEPTs so I can fit M3s, endgame I might just dedicate sectors and use the EQ realy trick to move things down the line.

Also managed to get the SatNet script working, annoyingly you give it a station and it plonks one right outside it. Luckily I picked the AP shipyard, so while it'll probably go boom soon, every other sector's gets one placed in the same location (dead centre, way below the ecliptic plane.)

[Nanook]

....
Also managed to get the SatNet script working, annoyingly you give it a station and it plonks one right outside it.....

You don't have to give it a station. The cursor just defaults to one. Move the cursor to the desired location with the numpad keys. The satellites will then be placed at those coordinates in every sector. I place mine in the center, 20-30 km above the ecliptic plane. And remember to use the Insert key to flip between the horizontal and vertical.

[Starforge1]

A method of generating cash that I never personally use but seems very effective and hands free would be the illegal goods trade. Space Fuel and Weed sell extremely well with very little work from the player save the initial setup. If you want a hands off moneymaker and don't mind the illegal wares (from an RP standpoint) it's a good way to go.

Search will likely get you plenty of threads on setup (and there may even be one in the stickied threads.)

I also highly recommend the java based complex calculator which IS under the stickied threads. Very good at planning what you need in terms of cash and consumeables.

Edit: Side note - I can run with high graphics with no major FPS hit on a average to above average machine even in spaghetti systems providing my system Mem (4gb - vista64) isn't running near max. Once I'm at 95%+ it's just a logout and restart away from running smooth again leading me to believe it's less of a graphical issue and more mem / swap file but at a week in and not camping the tech forums that's pretty much a gut call.