microchips, microchips, my kingdom for microchips *spoileralert* HUB plot

DiArmada · Post by **DiArmada** » Mon, 3. Jun 13, 15:54

hello fellow astronauts,

the guy from the HUB-plot has asked me for many things so far.
his latest request is 75 k microchips, which is quite a lot.
to get such a heap there are different approches, I guess.

I'm pretty fond of stations, but I'm not sure if that's the way to go.
a chip plant only makes 10 chips per hour.
the complex I had contained 13 chip plants.
I added another complex which has another 80 chip plants.
with 93 plants I only get 930 chips per hour.
so It'll take over 80 hours or something to gather everything.

another option might be UT's, I think.
but still, where would the UT's buy that many chips?

so what I want to know from you, really: how did you do it?
(X3TC)

Imgran · Post by **Imgran** » Mon, 3. Jun 13, 16:10

Short of cheating, factories are the only way to go. If you don't want to have to erect a whole bunch of infrastructure, link a few large facs together in a place with plenty of raw materials (the Power Circle springs to mind). It'll be easy enough to find buyers for the stuff when the quest is over, you might have noticed these components are a little hard to track down.

Rapier · Post by **Rapier** » Mon, 3. Jun 13, 19:37

You can throw some CAGs in the hub to buy up all the NPC supplies too. Also make sure there are sufficient supplies sold to those factories to keep them running. That will speed things up a little.

The next step is to be patient. Go do other things and you'll have played 80 hours before you know it. The alternative to that is to sit on SETA for 8 hours, either accepting the rank loss or stopping and starting every six minutes.

Those of us who knew this was coming started collecting Microchips long before we were asked for them. Even then though, I still only had around 30K when I got to that stage.

Patholos · Post by **Patholos** » Mon, 3. Jun 13, 19:49

It's about 2,5 years since I last did it. So my memory is a bit fuzzy, but yeah.

Did the same as you, think i had close 150 chip factories churning them out over a few complexes then went seta until i had em.

Sinxar · Post by **Sinxar** » Mon, 3. Jun 13, 19:56

I have always done the complex for that bit. Any less than around 50 stations and it takes too long IMO. I've tried to get CAGs to buy them but there are just too few around to make any real dent in the amount needed.

The upside is that once it is done, it generates a buttload of cash very quickly.

Kirlack · Post by **Kirlack** » Mon, 3. Jun 13, 19:58

That's the advantage of knowing the Hub requirements before you start the plot

Last time I did it in vanilla I built a whole load of chip complexes as soon as I got the first part of the plot. By the time I actually needed them, I only had to produce ~ 5k more

BDK · Post by **BDK** » Mon, 3. Jun 13, 21:45

I have 38k to go and it's taking forever. I don't have 150 factories either only around 30 or so ^^

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Mon, 3. Jun 13, 21:55

Pre-version 1.3, the requirement was 250,000 Microchips! You've never had it so lucky now!

Hemmingfish · Post by **Hemmingfish** » Mon, 3. Jun 13, 22:40

This is the only plot in the entire game that's prompted me to install a mod to reduce the requirements. Because I own the retail version, lack of achievements means nothing to me.

That said, I still have to finish my current order (150,000 teladianium). What were Egosoft thinking when they set these requirements?

gbjbaanb · Post by **gbjbaanb** » Mon, 3. Jun 13, 22:40

I quite liked that "challenge".... I knew what was required when the hub plot started so I bought up a few 2nd hand freighters as I saw them, placed a couple of vultures at the hub as storage and then set 3 CLS ships going gathering chips from the universe. I had a couple of chip fabs going too, but I didn't bother with the monster chip complex - I prefer to take my time, and really, while the CLS ships were doing their thing, I was doing mine. eventually I had filled the other requirements, emptied the vultures, and then waited a little for the rest to be slowly delivered... you get a much greater sense of satisfaction doing it that way than just dropping a few mil of a massive chip complex. Well, I think so anyway YMMV.

The hub plot, for that amount of material, should have been a "bring me all of the following" rather than 1 ware at a time. Makes it a little more achievable, and interesting.

What I would have liked would be to see more of the hubs systems come online as the chips were delivered - so maybe you start with just a big station, then you get some PHQ style repair, reverse engineering, then ship production, and eventually the ability to equip ships with software upgrades.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Mon, 3. Jun 13, 22:51

Rapier wrote:Those of us who knew this was coming started collecting Microchips long before we were asked for them. Even then though, I still only had around 30K when I got to that stage.

I knew it was coming and had CAGs half-heartedly collecting, so I did face over 50k to go. Then my patience was exhausted.

I bought 6 Mammoths. They bought 6 loads of Chip plants. Three 36 plant complexes. Silicon from mobile miners, other resourses by CAGs.

Triaxx2 · Post by **Triaxx2** » Tue, 4. Jun 13, 01:16

Wimps. It only takes 18,500 plants to build them all in one hour.

TTD · Post by **TTD** » Tue, 4. Jun 13, 01:22

It does help to know in advance what you are going to be asked for in total.

Then plan your complexes and get them producing ,before you start the plot.
By doing that,one pilot managed to complete the Hub in under aweek !

My first attempt was ,like you,without fore-knowledge, and took me six weeks !

X-Tie · Post by **X-Tie** » Tue, 4. Jun 13, 07:42

Triaxx2 wrote:Wimps. It only takes 18,500 plants to build them all in one hour.

I wonder how long that would take to actually build...

Hemmingfish · Post by **Hemmingfish** » Tue, 4. Jun 13, 08:35

X-Tie wrote:
Triaxx2 wrote:Wimps. It only takes 18,500 plants to build them all in one hour.
I wonder how long that would take to actually build...

Imagine the mess of supporting stations to get that amount of plants operating in a single complex.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Tue, 4. Jun 13, 14:21

No sector has that much Silicon, so single, stand-alone, completely self-sufficient Complex is not quite feasible. One could augment with mobile mining though. Using only mobile mining, some 14000 support stations should be close. On the other hand, if the NPC were to buy everything afterwards, you would regain 2 billion under hour.

I don't support the NPC economy in any way, so I was not certain how 108 Factories, which depend on NPC, would pan out. I made one Boron 36 plant array, one Argon, and one Teladi. Each array got three CAG. The Teladi did struggle quite a while on Nostrop shortage (even though I did assist with a MORT). Now I assist Corporations (particularly the Duke) to make the best out of my time. (Hence, no Paranid Chips.)

X-Tie wrote:
Triaxx2 wrote:Wimps. It only takes 18,500 plants to build them all in one hour.
I wonder how long that would take to actually build...

Hauling the stations takes some time. You can dock 6 TL to regular Shipyard simultaneously, so a Lifter fleet can fetch 24 at a time. You can obviously have multiple fleets.

The actual build is quite fast, although the cut-scene drives you mad eventually. Positioning stations takes a bit, and considering build order of CCK's requires a bit of planning. In-sector complex size and strength of the computer determine how many seconds each build requires.

I'd say the most time-consuming step in such a build is the transfer of credits from other accounts into your account so that you can pay for the Shipyard.

CuriosityKillsTheMADCat

"Wimps. It only takes 18,500 plants to build them all in one hour."

I hope it's ok that i will wait for the coming winter before doing this - my burning computer will then also heat my home during the cold times...

MFG

CKTMC

Fame · Post by **Fame** » Tue, 4. Jun 13, 19:58

Hi,

In my case i planned it forehand. So by day +-3 i had almost 200 chips plants and a mobile minnig fleet of +-200 ships for silicon and some 8 TL going back and forth delivering the stations, if i recall it correctly.
Unfortunatly by day 6 the Xenon attacked, i was short in 10k of chips, hard disk drive puff. No backup copy, LOL

Fame

Imgran · Post by **Imgran** » Tue, 4. Jun 13, 20:50

Antigone Memorial alone could easily support quite a few computer component or microchip facs and they already have quite a bit of native support on hand in terms of food and SPP's. I found 2 90 silicon asteroids right next to each other there and I'm itching to see what I can do with that.

The only problem is that you have to get Argon facs to make best use of what's already in system. That's not such a problem with microchips, but the nearest Argon shipyard I've found that had computer component factories was all the way in Omicron Lyrae.

DiArmada · Post by **DiArmada** » Wed, 5. Jun 13, 10:46

thanks guys, for all the replies.
I'm glad the amount of required chips has been reduced.
75 k is a lot, 250 k is too much.
my game is still vanilla, and I intend to keep it that way.
and although I often visit Roguey's site, I don't want to read everything about the story lines.
in retrospect it would've been handy in this case, but oh well.
thanks again.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

microchips, microchips, my kingdom for microchips spoileralert HUB plot

microchips, microchips, my kingdom for microchips spoileralert HUB plot