The pirate's alternative to closed loop weapon's plex

[Timsup2nothin]

In another thread where the lack of efficiency of self-sustaining complexes is being beaten to death this came up...

I will always build closed loop complexes in isolated sectors for weapons production for the fleet. Always. I've done it since my first play through of TC and it's a habit that's not changed in 5 years This is in part due to my occasional piratical activities and the need to keep 'the enemy' away from my hundreds of millions of credits complex. Or use some of my 'free' ( ) weapons to take 'em out

A pirate lives or dies by his guns, so there is a lot of merit in what Kirlack says and I do not disagree with it in any way.

That said, I think everyone should have alternatives to choose from. Here's one.

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First off, not all pirates are created equal. Pretty much everyone who plays X is a pirate to some degree.

In every game he plays my son is a 'Teladi friendly' pirate. He will hijack a Teladi ship, but ONLY if his rank with the Teladi is so high that they will 'let him get away with it'.

In pretty much every game I play I stay friendly with my starting race. I'll still hijack their ships, but only if my relations are high enough that they will let me get away with it.

Some games involve 'equal opportunity piracy'. Either relations are kept so high with all the races that you can hijack whatever you want as long as you do it in moderation, or you hijack freely as long as you keep at least one or two races friendly at any particular time, and occasionally go on a mission spree to convince the hostiles that you are 'rehabilitated'.

Then there is the 'pure pirate', who builds his weapons complex deep in pirate space and proceeds to infuriate EVERYONE. This plan will not work for the 'pure' pirate.

But for everyone else....
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You need guns and missiles, so you need forges and missile factories to have a secure supply.

Forges and factories need resources, which you can provide in the form of a self sustaining complex. No argument, this is the most secure way to go. But for a small drop off in security you can produce a LOT more weaponry, and you can do it while putting a LOT less of your hard earned loot into it. (see any discussion of the efficiency of those options, but please don't debate it here)

Forges and factories generally need minerals, energy, and food. So if we don't go closed loop where do those come from and how do they get delivered without running afoul of the authorities when we upset the races?

[Timsup2nothin]

Start with minerals.

I've talked about 'trapping' with CLS freighters in other threads. In at least one the level of detail is mind-numbingly gruesome. I'm not going to do that here.

Here we are just going to set traps on ore and silicon mines all over the universe. If you know that you are going to be hostile to a particular race and never rehabilitate with them, don't set any in their space. But if you don't plan on a permanent grudge match set them everywhere.

Because here's the thing about traps. Even if the race turns hostile and won't let you dock, they won't kick your traps that are already docked out into space. The traps will just sit there. If they are kicked out for some reason and get blown up, well, they were cheap.

Set the traps to buy at minimum. There's always minerals available for minimum somewhere. The purpose of the traps is to buy when the minimum price is available without having to race the NPC mineral haulers. Your guys buy at minimum while the NPCs are scurrying towards the deal, and then your OTHER guys are buying at minimum in the area the NPC haulers have abandoned.

Now we have minerals. We need to collect them. Highly qualified CLS pilots. In fact the highest. Logisticians can have as many waypoints as you want to give them. So a logistician with a jump drive can be set to collect from every ore trap in Argon space. One logistician per mineral per race. If you have more traps than one can service, add another and split that race's space into regions.

If you upset a race and they turn hostile, the logisticians just won't go, they will idle. They won't get blown up, they will just wait until you rehabilitate your reputation and go back to work. As long as you keep two or three races friendly at any given time you will be gathering minerals steadily. As long as you have enough traps you will be gathering them faster than you are using them and your production complex will fill up, then stay full.

So I hear people screaming from here. CLS freighters are ALWAYS running out of jump fuel and flying slowly across the universe!

They run out of jump fuel. Well, only because you put them in a position where they are racing with the NPC freighters. They jump after a deal, and don't get it, so they jump after the next possible deal on their list. If they miss two or three in a row they are out of jump fuel.

My logisticians are emptying traps. If they see a deal and jump off to get it, no one can beat them to it. They will come back full. Add a 'refuel' stop at the drop off point and they will never run out of fuel.

[ApatheticEthic]

I'm not so sure there's an easy way. In making an enemy of several races, you not only forsake their territory, but any trade lane where their military ships may use. This makes supply rather tricky. You could rely on a friendly race to supply your resources, but that means having your factories close to race space. Depending on them means you may suffer shortages and not so good prices.

The sanest option I can see is Yaki space. If you can get their economy up and running while staying friends with the Paranid, then you could get all your supply needs taken care of while avoiding the hostile races entirely. The Paranid clusters are Adjacent to pirate space too, so a player could avoid any hostile races entirely on the way to prime pirating locations.

[Timsup2nothin]

Next up, energy.

Two options. You could set up a trap network just like the one you set up for minerals, and gather your energy from whatever races you are friendly with at the time.

But this thread is about options, so here is another option. Bala Gi's Joy.

This is a pirate sector with enough power plants to support over two hundred weapon and missile factories. You can take over this sector and have enough energy to supply a pretty substantial fleet of warships, and it won't require near as many traps and gatherers.

And what the heck, you have to build somewhere.

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This is where the pirate life gets complicated. Food. Your factories don't just need food, they need specific food. And for the most part the specific food they need comes from space dominated by a single race. If you upset that race there goes your food supply, and there go your weapons factories.

Two options here.
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Use a food trapping and gathering network.

When you get into conflict with a particular race the network will shut down, but your complex will have a full stock. It will take a while for that stock to run down. You can 'ration' by turning off factories that make the less useful items so the factories making the more useful items can run longer. Eventually you rehabilitate and the complex fills back up.
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Make your own food.

What the heck. It consumes two thirds of your energy supply, but you have PLENTY, all bought at minimum. Even if you are locating completely in Bala Gi's Joy and don't set up a network you can still run more than sixty final product fabs.

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm not so sure there's an easy way. In making an enemy of several races, you not only forsake their territory, but any trade lane where their military ships may use. This makes supply rather tricky. You could rely on a friendly race to supply your resources, but that means having your factories close to race space. Depending on them means you may suffer shortages and not so good prices.

The sanest option I can see is Yaki space. If you can get their economy up and running while staying friends with the Paranid, then you could get all your supply needs taken care of while avoiding the hostile races entirely. The Paranid clusters are Adjacent to pirate space too, so a player could avoid any hostile races entirely on the way to prime pirating locations.

My supply is provided exclusively by my own freighters. My freighters jump from friendly space to my 'home' sector (which may well be Yaki space), so they don't use 'trade lanes'. As long as I don't make EVERYONE hostile, all at the same time, it works fine.

Personally, I despise the Paranid, and in my pirate heavy games they are the race that is most often hostile.

[ApatheticEthic]

I'm not so sure there's an easy way. In making an enemy of several races, you not only forsake their territory, but any trade lane where their military ships may use. This makes supply rather tricky. You could rely on a friendly race to supply your resources, but that means having your factories close to race space. Depending on them means you may suffer shortages and not so good prices.

The sanest option I can see is Yaki space. If you can get their economy up and running while staying friends with the Paranid, then you could get all your supply needs taken care of while avoiding the hostile races entirely. The Paranid clusters are Adjacent to pirate space too, so a player could avoid any hostile races entirely on the way to prime pirating locations.

My supply is provided exclusively by my own freighters. My freighters jump from friendly space to my 'home' sector (which may well be Yaki space), so they don't use 'trade lanes'. As long as I don't make EVERYONE hostile, all at the same time, it works fine.

Personally, I despise the Paranid, and in my pirate heavy games they are the race that is most often hostile.

Hmm. I suppose Yaki space is still useful then. With a little work, they are viable trade partners. Still, even if your ships are in friendly space, you can't guarantee that enemies won't be there. Races don't stick to their own sectors only. Some of them invade occasionally too.

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm not so sure there's an easy way. In making an enemy of several races, you not only forsake their territory, but any trade lane where their military ships may use. This makes supply rather tricky. You could rely on a friendly race to supply your resources, but that means having your factories close to race space. Depending on them means you may suffer shortages and not so good prices.

The sanest option I can see is Yaki space. If you can get their economy up and running while staying friends with the Paranid, then you could get all your supply needs taken care of while avoiding the hostile races entirely. The Paranid clusters are Adjacent to pirate space too, so a player could avoid any hostile races entirely on the way to prime pirating locations.

My supply is provided exclusively by my own freighters. My freighters jump from friendly space to my 'home' sector (which may well be Yaki space), so they don't use 'trade lanes'. As long as I don't make EVERYONE hostile, all at the same time, it works fine.

Personally, I despise the Paranid, and in my pirate heavy games they are the race that is most often hostile.

Hmm. I suppose Yaki space is still useful then. With a little work, they are viable trade partners. Still, even if your ships are in friendly space, you can't guarantee that enemies won't be there. Races don't stick to their own sectors only. Some of them invade occasionally too.

The beauty of advanced CLS pilots. If I get into it with the Paranids, for example, all my gatherers that operate in Paranid space will go on idle. If the Paranids invade Argon space my Argon space gatherers will go on idle for the duration of the invasion, then pick back up after the Paranids have been kicked out. Totally seamless.

The only limitation is that you have to have a big enough network that you can afford having some fraction of it idling. I try to stay on good enough terms with at least three races at a time, and set up my network accordingly. A network that size, during periods of peace, will rapidly fill all available storage, so even if I bite off more than I can chew there's a pretty long buffer period.

There's also an occasional loss where my gatherer will take shelter in a station and the invaders blow that station up. Fortunes of war. It only happens when he is in the sector on the way to a pick-up when the invaders arrive. If they are already there he just won't go, and as soon as he makes the pick-up he jumps out, so it's a small window.

I'm thinking about the details of a pure pirate game. Get all the stations needed built in pirate or Yaki space and a stockpile of jump drives and other equipment. Then true equal opportunity abuse of all the major races. Of course my normal approach to supplying complexes will probably give way to the self sustaining approach for that one.

[Kirlack]

There is another suggestion Tim, which connects to the resource trapping via CLS freighters.

The 'Ghetto' complex, wherein you produce everything you need without having to buy or build a single station. As per your suggestion there's a need to be on reasonable terms with at least the Argon (for software) and whichever race(s) you might want products from.

In one of your other threads I mentioned trapping the output of the tech/weapon fabs in and around the PTNI region. Taking this to the extreme, even a decent sized pirate outfit could get by on those products alone. As long as you maintain a high enough relation with the Argon to buy CLS software and with (in my case) the Teladi to buy the products, there's plenty of 'kaboom' available. Combined with whatever you might secure from pirating that should provide most/all your required hardware.

[Timsup2nothin]

There is another suggestion Tim, which connects to the resource trapping via CLS freighters.

The 'Ghetto' complex, wherein you produce everything you need without having to buy or build a single station. As per your suggestion there's a need to be on reasonable terms with at least the Argon (for software) and whichever race(s) you might want products from.

In one of your other threads I mentioned trapping the output of the tech/weapon fabs in and around the PTNI region. Taking this to the extreme, even a decent sized pirate outfit could get by on those products alone. As long as you maintain a high enough relation with the Argon to buy CLS software and with (in my case) the Teladi to buy the products, there's plenty of 'kaboom' available. Combined with whatever you might secure from pirating that should provide most/all your required hardware.

Yup. I tend to get into trouble with the Teladi almost as much as the Paranid, but the idea is sound. If you set up a small trap supply network to keep those fabs running constantly they will probably produce more 'kaboom' than you can use.

Basically in any game where you stay friendly with one race you can make that work, as long as you are satisfied with that race's armaments. As I said before, I usually remain 'true' to wherever I started. In my current game the universe will BOW DOWN to the Terrans before I'm done.