Spaceweed sucks: Getting rich off of Teladianium. v. Million credit an hour complexes

[redwards]

So I set up a closed-loop Teladianium complex in Spring of Belief to fulfill the Hub plot's requirements. I chose that spot because it's right in the middle of a zillion Paranid stations that buy Teladianium, and because I made my first hub connection between Barren Shores and Priest Refuge, which is only one hop away from SoB. As it happens, I haven't used Barren Shores at all for phase two, so maybe I should've connected straight to Spring of Belief and moved it later when I have to do phase 3.

Anyway, the Complex I set up in SoB cost 64 million credits (including CCCs) and after I finished the Teladianium portion of the HUB, I kicked off the sales. The complex is currently making over a million credits an hour being tended by 3 Demeters and one Mistral SF. The OCCC will assure you that a complex will make millions per hour, but few of them actually do.

I've been running this complex for a while now at this location and there are still dozens of stations nearby which will pay maximum price for Teladianium.

For reference, my booze/weed complex in Avarice rakes in about 255k per hour and cost 52 million (http://tinyurl.com/5w49dvq. I know the description says it will make 1.2M in profit per hour. The script is assuming that you'll constantly be sold out of every last E-Cell and/or it's wrong. I'm monitoring with the Trade Overview script which tracks every transaction). I really haven't found booze/weed to be that great a moneymaker. Mine is getting outperformed by an open-loop 4x 1MJ Shield Complex in Argon Prime that I haven't gotten around to expanding yet.


Here's the setup for the SoB Teladianium Complex:
3x Teladi Silicon Mine L (the asteroids will have to be dragged together with a tractor beam or moved with a script. Or you could just CLS 'em into the loop.)
8x Teladi Teladianium Foundry L
1x Boron SPP XL
1x Boron SPP M
3x Boron Crystal Fab L
3x Boron Bofu Chemical Lab L
3x Boron Bio Gas Factory L
(OCCC Link: http://tinyurl.com/6x7gd82)


Curious to hear what great moneymakers you guys have set up. I know this is a constant topic, but I'm specifically interested in big complexes that are raking in a million bucks an hour like this. For the non-Vanilla among you, I find this script to be invaluable for tracking my income: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=243204

[Catra]

The thing with weed and booze is that, there's quite literally no way to cause product saturation, thousands of freighters will always be lining up to buy.

And unless you're very crafty (like say, put a trade station and make it buy everything in The game at max price in the unknown sector that's west of the xenon sector), every other item in the game will cause saturation at some point, thus capping its profits/hour.

[Twest09]

Catra.... you crafty devil.

[Idgy]

The thing with weed and booze is that, there's quite literally no way to cause product saturation, thousands of freighters will always be lining up to buy.

And unless you're very crafty (like say, put a trade station and make it buy everything in The game at max price in the unknown sector that's west of the xenon sector), every other item in the game will cause saturation at some point, thus capping its profits/hour.

Let me ask two potentially stupid questions:

1) why is it impossible to create saturation with weed and booze? Is there some station that instantly dissolves the product once it's sold? Or is the police attrition rate on NPC freighters extremely high?

2) That's up by Getsu Fune, right? The effect of that trade station would be to attract a lot of NPC freighters with incredible prices, but the Xenon destroy them so they never arrive, and thus the trade station maintains low stock levels?

[perkint]

Not sure why drugs & booze never (seem) to reach saturation. Might be the number of ships which either loose their cargo (police scans) or get destroyed (trying to get to Pirate stations to sell).

And yeah - I assume Catra is suggesting that unknown sector. It works, so long as you don't have any UT's as these'd probably fill the EQD very quickly...

Tim

[Kor'ah]

Space weed and space fuel doesn't suck. It's also not the best. It is the easiest and that is what matters for many. It's almost impossible to screw up a booze/weed complex.

I like doing large scale economic manipulation with targeted no-loop complexes. A no-loop complex is one that buys all it's resources off the NPCs. A complex with 40-45 end product factories can pull in 3.5M - 4M profit per hour. Pretty complex and takes allot of study of your markets, but when you get it right it's a goldmine.

[Choublanc]

Old legends never die and that’s why a lot of players are still building huge booze/weed complexes.
In TC yes, they suck both, and Weed is even 10% worst then Booze.

Just some figures. For one ECell invested you get (average price):

- 27 credits with Weed
- 30 credits with Booze
- 37 credits with microchips
- 40 credits with 1Mj shields
- 52 credits with Tomahawks/Phantoms (sold in bulk inside a ship for minimum price)
- 56 credits with Tomahawks/Phantoms/Dragonfly/Wasps and other missiles (sold with Manual Trade Run)

These figures are valid for a self-sufficient complex, and may obviously vary in an open loop/complex, depending on which inputs are bought from NPC and at what price.
But the scale remains the same: the profit is 2x bigger with some missiles than with booze/weed.

...every other item in the game will cause saturation at some point, thus capping its profits/hour.

That’s only true if the player consider the “sell in bulk inside a ship” and the “Non-stop Manual Trade Run to Equipment Docks” being an exploit.
If the answer is no, there is no market’s saturation for the tech products and they beat booze/weed hands down.

[Infekted]

8x Tel fabs isn't that many. It should take a lil while to saturate the local market. But saturate it you will. It is only used as a secondary and seems to be consumed very very slowly.
On the plus side, almost every race has factories that buy the stuff. If you spread it out enough you can offload quite a lot of it. I found I could keep 25xtel fabs empty, but much beyond quickly filled.
With weed/booze/micros you can literally build unlimited amounts of factories and always sell it all

[Rhu]

For reference, my booze/weed complex in Avarice rakes in about 255k per hour and cost 52 million ( http://tinyurl.com/5w49dvq ). I know the description says it will make 1.2M in profit per hour. The script is assuming that you'll constantly be sold out of every last E-Cell and/or it's wrong.

Don't run such a monstrous energy surplus. You can add two more L bliss places/dream farms, one L more distillery/wheat, and a M teladianium.

Cost will come in below the price of your teladianium plex + transports you really will be making over a million credits per hour. Without the added headache of setting up transports.

[X-Tie]

I have not checked if this applies to Terran Conflict, but in X3:R, ships actually CONSUME space fuel and space weed as they are flying. And I assume that this is still the case in TC.

I have had freighters fly off with a couple of units of Space Fuel, then deplete it, and come back for more. Addictive?

[redwards]

For reference, my booze/weed complex in Avarice rakes in about 255k per hour and cost 52 million ( http://tinyurl.com/5w49dvq ). I know the description says it will make 1.2M in profit per hour. The script is assuming that you'll constantly be sold out of every last E-Cell and/or it's wrong.

Don't run such a monstrous energy surplus. You can add two more L bliss places/dream farms, one L more distillery/wheat, and a M teladianium.

Cost will come in below the price of your teladianium plex + transports you really will be making over a million credits per hour. Without the added headache of setting up transports.

I took that setup from another thread. I've been using Xadrian since then. Love that app.

[perkint]

I have not checked if this applies to Terran Conflict, but in X3:R, ships actually CONSUME space fuel and space weed as they are flying. And I assume that this is still the case in TC.

That would explain a lot - both the never ending demand for such things, and also idiocy of the auto-pillock

Tim