Albion Prelude.. Trouble earning cash, what am I doing wrong?

[ZenTex]

In TC I had little problems earning money. AP is a whole different story, especially where missions are concerned.

Capping: First off, I like to make cash while fighting, I drop satellites in all nearby pirate sectors, jump in when I spot some, and hope for a few quick bucks by selling the ships who's pilots have bailed.
In AP however, all the pirates with juicy targets (M3's) are escorted by capitals. I don't stand a chance in my Nova.

Missions: I did OK at first, gained some ranks and status, and missions were starting to pay well. At some pooint showever the rewards seemed to have dropped to valsues of a few 1000 credits. I never lost status with any of the factions that offered these.
Combat missions: These are extremely rare. Usually of the "kill soandso" missions, which are all but impossible to do due to them being destroyed before I can get close. Escort missions: impossible. Terrans warp in at force and fire a gazillion missiles instantly, often needing only 1 missile to hit to 1-shot the targets.
Defend base missions... I've seen mabe a dozen so far.


And last but not least, my sector traders seem bugged, hauling 10-20 of a certain good per run, no matter where I send them to. Cargo hold is completele empty. My universe trader does the same old trip over and over again, transporting 1000 E-cells at 1 cred profit per item.

Only the stock exchange seems to be a good moneymaker, but that feels like cheating somehow.

I have 8 million in cash and no complex yet. In TC I had 2 complexes running by now.

So what the hell am I doing wrong?

[Dog G6]

In TC I had little problems earning money. AP is a whole different story, especially where missions are concerned.

Capping: First off, I like to make cash while fighting, I drop satellites in all nearby pirate sectors, jump in when I spot some, and hope for a few quick bucks by selling the ships who's pilots have bailed.
In AP however, all the pirates with juicy targets (M3's) are escorted by capitals. I don't stand a chance in my Nova.

Missions: I did OK at first, gained some ranks and status, and missions were starting to pay well. At some pooint showever the rewards seemed to have dropped to valsues of a few 1000 credits. I never lost status with any of the factions that offered these.
Combat missions: These are extremely rare. Usually of the "kill soandso" missions, which are all but impossible to do due to them being destroyed before I can get close. Escort missions: impossible. Terrans warp in at force and fire a gazillion missiles instantly, often needing only 1 missile to hit to 1-shot the targets.
Defend base missions... I've seen mabe a dozen so far.


And last but not least, my sector traders seem bugged, hauling 10-20 of a certain good per run, no matter where I send them to. Cargo hold is completele empty. My universe trader does the same old trip over and over again, transporting 1000 E-cells at 1 cred profit per item.

Only the stock exchange seems to be a good moneymaker, but that feels like cheating somehow.

I have 8 million in cash and no complex yet. In TC I had 2 complexes running by now.

So what the hell am I doing wrong?

I don't see stock trading as cheating. You still have to know generally what to do. Sure, maybe there are trades which you can repeat over and over to gain money. But, many times it's the same way with trading the physical goods themselves.

This does make sense though, since the stocks are directly linked to the commodities and the supply and demand of them. (I'm talking strictly about commodity stocks, NOT company stocks.)

As for the STs, I have no idea what is going on there. I've encountered the same problem sometimes. It may have to do with the AI matching the buy with a station that doesn't need much, or maybe the AI sees other ships going to Ebay station, so it only buys a small amount of the good. It is strange, though, and I hope it is fixed sometime soon.

Have you done any personal trading? I have thirty million credits now, and I only have three stations.

[Larxyz]

You using the bonus plugin Dog G6?
the mosquito missle defence helps against those nasty missiles.
Not perfect, but helps alot.

Suggest you setup a station with either shield or IRE.
Sell at -1 average and it should sell every quickly.
A good background money maker

As for fightning, get something better then a nova, look for one of those m3+ ships, they have Alot bigger energy generate ships helps.
Also, missles help alot

hm, thats all i can think of at the moment...

[Dog G6]

You using the bonus plugin Dog G6?
the mosquito missle defence helps against those nasty missiles.
Not perfect, but helps alot.

Suggest you setup a station with either shield or IRE.
Sell at -1 average and it should sell every quickly.
A good background money maker

As for fightning, get something better then a nova, look for one of those m3+ ships, they have Alot bigger energy generate ships helps.
Also, missles help alot

hm, thats all i can think of at the moment...

Yes, I have the bonus package. I also have a Centaur and a Heavy Centaur.

Why?

Anyways, ZenTex, you could try using CLS to trade if you have the bonus pack. There should be a guide on that on this or the next forum page.

Hope this helps.

[Larxyz]

Yes, I have the bonus package. I also have a Centaur and a Heavy Centaur.

Why?

gah! sorry, mixed up the posts.

[ZenTex]

Things have oimprovedd, finally. Well, mission wise. Pirate hunting is completely out of the question with capitals everywhere.
Combat missions are still extremely rare though, that, and the situation in the pirate sectors make everything a little boring.
Right now I'm flying around in a TP doing missions, money is good, but it's boring as hell.

Yes, I know the nova is crap, but it's also several millions cheaper than an M3+, and not the slowest either. I have used M3+'s in TC, but wasn't impressed. Large targets and easy to hit, the faster ones don't have the shielding, the well shielded ones don't have the speed. On the whole, I think a M3>M3+

Mosquite defense, yes, very nice, but at the rate enemies shoot missiles, I need a cargo hold full of mosquito's, I prefer energy cells in there.

I still haven't got any factories though, I was saving for a space weed/fuel plex + defense in the pirate sectors, so I needed to earn some quick bucks to have it all set up, but with all those pirate capitals I might have to rethink that plan.
Maybe I'll build a self sustaining complex in normal space, less profit, but at least I don't need to finance any defense. Just a few million more creds and I can start building.


I have no experience with the CLS, I'm unsure as to what exactly it does, the descriptions were kind of vague.
(Yes, I have the bonus pack)

I'm still wondering where all the combat missions went though.

(Oh, and for clarification, with stock exchange I meant company stocks... Buy at index of 95+, wait a few minutes and sell for a few creds more just a few minutes later, rinse and repeat.

[ApatheticEthic]

With the M3+ class, there's some need to be discerning. I don't like the vast majority, but there are some real winners there. If you amble down to Legend's Home, you may find that OTAS is offering more ships than in Terran Conflict. The Otas M3+ is a very deadly ship without being too slow. I'd recommend the Venti for an aspiring fighter pilot. It's deadly if armed right. The Solano is good too, with shielding on par with the nova while being smaller and faster.

[ZenTex]

OK.


Thanks for your insights, but... The tables have turned completeley.

A bit bored by doing stupid "think"missions that required no thinking at all, I decided to map the universe for a bit. While flying from gate to gate, I did some serious stock trading, and hoarded millions while flying on autopilot, and at the same time, managing some of my traders.
(and dying occasionally due to the autopilot being retarded)
Within 2 hours of stock trading my trade rank skyrocketed, so when I got bored of "exploring" (and having earned 30 millions on the stock market while doing so), I decided to do some missions again. But due to my trade rank being so high, all of a sudden, those stupid taxi missions netted not 500K, but 3-4 million per mission, so within a very short time span, I was able to afford any ship in game without going through the hassle of capping them.

(Why capping is such a hassle I will never understand, training half-decent marines costs a fortune, and takes ages, any loss of marines hurts)

So where I complained about cash hard to get by, I'm complaining about to easy to get by all of a sudden, purely because of the stock market. (I'm pretty sure about those missions resetting income was a bug)

So... Trade, think, fight, build? So far there has been none of these. Fighting is hardly worth while, no thinking involved, trade? Hardly. Build? I'd need to build a dozens of complexes to match the income I'm getting at the moment (plus complexes are too easy, get a closed loop running and you won't have to look back)

From whining about how hard it is to earn cash in AP, I suddenly feel an urge to look for my old "X2:Reunion" CD's. Where having a load of factories was a challenge in itself, managing all those haulers supplying my factories, losing one of them was hell because you could break the entire chain.

[ApatheticEthic]

Trading isn't broken just because it takes a lot of work to get a good trading network going. I've easily make more than I could on the stock market in games because I got a real manufacturing company going and expanded aggressively. A proper corporation can easily make more than stocks in volume and there's plenty to spend money on at that point. Once there are trade lanes to protect, 30 million starts to seem like nothing. Hell, I lose freighters all the time because I've intentionally made the pirates mad. Sure, stocks are easy money makers. They weren't put in there to be the sole source of money. Managing large numbers of factories is still challenging and very rewarding.

Funny you mention how hard boarding is. I thought it was ridiculous with how much time and resources it takes, but there's a reason for that. Once I got good at boarding, money just flooded in. It's a better money maker than the stock market. Losing marines doesn't matter when salvage insurance is so cheap.

Fighting hasn't been broken because of response fleets, you just have to think. Some of my best times in X3 have come from fighting missions. They're damn fun and lucrative on higher fight ranks, but you have to be patient.

I'm not saying you're wrong on all these things, but AP deserves more credit than this for getting a lot of things right.

[Aragosnat]

@ZenTex

Yeah. I do feel the frustration in most of what yer saying, expecially on the missions being a bit brainless. But, looking at this:

no thinking involved

There is some. Just depends on how one goes about looks at it. For myself the thinking aspect is the choices one make it to point X (X= plot and or self imposed goals/rules). Also you mentioned Reunion. That Style of play can be applied to TC and AP. No need to use complex kits or bonus pack. Just MORT all the way.

Why capping is such a hassle I will never understand, training half-decent marines costs a fortune, and takes ages, any loss of marines hurts.

Yeah. It certainly does hurt a lot more when playing DiD style or true DiD games. While it was a nice option on how to aquire just about any cap ships and impossable to aquire ships/stations without modding. It just was not done well as a lot of us would like which could be down to the fact it is added to an old game engine that had a lot of other features slapped on.

[TTD]

my old "X2:Reunion" CD's

erm X2 The Threat or X3 Reunion.

Either way,yes there was a greater sense of achievement in those games than since X3 Terran Conflict.
But this is probably due to Egosoft making the games easier for new players.

[ZenTex]

Err, X2 the threat I meant of course, thanks for pointing that out.

As for the stock market not being broken, complexes making money faster;
Yes, once you have a few complexes in place the money just floods in. Hoqwever, that requires an awful lot of work and investements. A complex can cost 50 million easily, requires a lot of hauling and planning ahead, etc.
The stock market however requires only a tiny investment for a beginning game, and then easily outearns any missions you will get for a whole day.
I saidd I made 30 million, aat some point I tried something new. Just left the stock window open and started trading like crazy with those 30 million. Within 45 minutes I made 60 million profit, no effort at all, especially for a game where your only assets are a M3, some haulers and nothing else of real value, plus no risk involved at all. (I didn't save those 60 millions by the way, reloaded to an earlier save)

As for boarding... Until you get the hang of it one has to reload time and again. If one wouldn't, those marines would be gone within an hour of gameplay, so you basically just have to reload often. That's what I hate about the game, it just makes you reload and save over and over again. I'd rather have that certain things are made easier, so I won't have to reload at all, the end result is the same.

Anyway, I'm not ranting here, every game has it's flaws. But the X series could be so much more than it is now.