A discussion about efficient CLS2 configuration in early game.

General discussions about the games by Egosoft including X-BTF, XT, X², X³: Reunion, X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

Whats my best option for the Aladna Hill area early game?

Proposal 1 - Multiware Sellers
2
50%
Proposal 2 - Serialized Sellers
0
No votes
Proposal 3 - Serialized Multiware Sellers
0
No votes
Reread Tim's Post - You are doing it wrong
2
50%
 
Total votes: 4

User avatar
Memnoch_osh
Posts: 169
Joined: Tue, 23. Mar 04, 02:05
x2

A discussion about efficient CLS2 configuration in early game.

Post by Memnoch_osh » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 03:46

Inspired by Trapper Tim's excellent series on the use of CLS2 I have restarted (a few times) with the intent to monopilize as much of the economy as possible using this technique.

Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

CLS monopoly network on all ice and water transport in Terran space

CLS monopoly network collecting all output of five Teladi weapon forges for free

CLS monopoly network adapted for cornering the e-cell trade


I wanted to take the time to share what struggles I have had, and the lessons I have learned in hopes of refining my use of this playstyle. Hopefully, many of you have also been toying with this technique and will share the experiments, challenges and successes you have had too. My apologies for the weight of this post.

Attempt 1 - Terran Space:

My first restart was a fresh copy of XRM-AP with the Aldrin Adventurer Start, my goal was to dominate Terran Space and Aldrin, since I was in Terran space I used the Baldric and Baldric SF. My first step was to train 30 CLS2 pilots using fly to waypoints as we have been doing for years now. Once they were at Cargo Messenger or so I bought a mix of TS's and started configuring them for work sector by sector starting with the Moon. I had a trap to buy every Energy, Bio, Food & Mineral resource. Another parked seller every energy, bio & mineral resource. I had a resource cache in every sector, and dedicated ships to move resources from one sector cache to the next moving away from the origin. I then had several ships setup to shuttle resources from the caches to the sellers and back to the cache.

Example Waypoints Used

Code: Select all

Buyer:          Fly to Station, Buy Ware at Minimum Price
Seller:         Fly to Station, Sell Ware at Avg+1 Price
Transport:      Load Ware at Buyer_1, Load Ware at Buyer_2, Load Ware at Buyer_3, ..., Unload at Sector_Cache
Distributor:    Load Ware at Sector_Cache, Unload Ware at Seller_1, Unload Ware at Seller_2, ..., Unload at Sector_Cache
LR_Distributor: Load Ware at Sector1_Cache, Unload Ware at Sector2_Cache
Attempt 1 Lessons:

Ship cost is very important
This setup was very expensive in terms of ships, but was also expensive in terms of how much resource stock needed to be held. This layout had also resulted in a large number of ships, as I had several dedicated to each npc station.

Docking space is precious
With so many ships travelling to and from each station I could see ships being bounced to space in order to free up docking space. There were also ships idle because they could not dock at the sector_cache.

Inventory is expensive
Baldrics hold quite a bit more than a stock Mercury and cost much more too. I underestimated how important it was to minimize ship costs and to reduce size of inventory.

Managing long waypoint lists takes too much time
I was also spending alot of time refining long waypoint lists trying to get each ship to handle more, and having redundant coverage for each station woven between transport pilots.

Long waypoint lists are not effective
The long waypoint lists also resulted in many stations not being serviced well, primarily because they were low on the list

Dedicated LR_Distributors are difficult to pace properly
Early on I had too many LR_Distributors assigned which resulted in the caches being emptied too fast for the normal distributors to keep their sellers stocked, reducing their count caused some backlog so that resourced did not flow to the next sectors as fluidly as I hoped.

Ship deployment takes too much time
Configuring ships was difficult, as the closest place I could purchase CLS2 was Black Hole Sun (SY from XRM), in Vanilla it would have been worse unless or better, depending on whether the Equipment Dock in Omicron was alive. I ended up using a small fleet of Rapiers as shuttles to buy CLS2 software and bring it back to the Terran Shipyard. I was not seeing much returns, primarily due to ship costs and inventory costs; I restarted in order to go vanilla before all those Baldrics filled with inventory - at which point I believe the returns would have began flowing.

Attempt 2 - Argon Prime:

The second restart was a Vanilla AP Humble Merchant start and my goal was to dominate the Argon Prime area. I typically hate the Humble Merchant start, but figured it was ample considering the trading nature of the goal. I began much the same way, but wanted to reduce the number of substations by limiting them to the middle column of sectors and having them service the sector they reside in as well as the sector to the east and the west. The first was built in Power Circle. I reduced the size of the ships by using Mercuries for Sellers & Transport, and used Mercury Haulers for Buying Traps and Caches. I only had Caches in the sectors with a substation, and was relying on transporters to pickup from their substation and distribute to sales traps they were assigned. I also did not pretrain my pilots and tried to keep each ships waypoint list lower, but tried to have fewer idle ships. After a day an a half in game, and expanding to about 6 sectors (Power Circle, Antigonie Memorial, Three Worlds, Cloudbase North West, Herron's Nebula & The Hole) I couldn't take the Humble Argon start anymore, and realized I had made a few mistakes setting up the network - mostly tho, I wanted to restart as Poisened Paranid. TBH, the restart had nothing to do with anything other than my preference for fast ships and realizing it was going to take me some time before I could snag a Kestrel, Springblossom, Splitfire or Hyperion.

Example Waypoints Used

Code: Select all

Buyer:          Fly to Station, Buy Ware at Minimum Price, Unload at Substation
Seller:         Load at Substation, Fly to Station1, Sell ware for Avg+1 at Station1, Sell ware for Avg+1 at Station+2, Sell ware for Avg+1 at Station3
LR_Distributor: Load at Substation1, Unload at Substation2, Unload at Substation3, Unload at Substation4
Attempt 2 Lessons:

Overblown Ambition
I had reduced ship costs by using cheaper ships, and simplified deployment by starting in Argon space. However, the large target area I was starting with was too large, making some wares have to be transported to a few different sectors before they could be used. Wares couldn't effectively be brought to market unless I was willing to wait until the network was expanded to where the demand was, or was willing to assign sellers on long distance sales trips. This resulted in substantial rework once the network expanded to those areas. I do not really have the resources to start this big first thing in a new game, and need to locate a better starting point.

Moar Inventory management
I was still holding on to too much inventory, as some sellers were full with all of there stations full, where as other sellers were still empty and all of there stations were empty. Some stations only use small amounts of a ware per hour, so even the 3000 cargo of the Mercury is cavernous, and the excess on the selling ship is

Moar Distribution flow
I was still having difficulties controlling the pace of wares flowing from one substation to the next, as one sector had to fill completely before things were overflowing to the next.

Attempt 3 - Poisoned Paranid - Aladna Hill

For my next restart I chose my 2nd favorite start, PP. The reward is nice, especially so early in the game. And the bad Paranid Rep early on gave me license to harass Paranid shipping. I started in Preacher's Refuge; so I am close to two good Argon Shipyards to make sourcing a CLS2 fleet easier. I just need to work up reputation a bit. I began my planning by looking at the factory distribution. Energy is available in Akeela's Beacon, Aladna Hil and Avarice, I lost the Ore mine in Montalaar before I got to it, so I have to go to Avarice, Rolk's Legacy or Nopileos' for Ore. There is tons of demand for food and ore, all the food is produced in Light of Heart and its a bit lite (about 13 factories light).
I'll use bio and food factories as substations eventually, and have them producing to balance the demand. But I don't have the reputation to buy food fabs yet, but I want to get the economy going so I don't lose anymore fabs. I have been trying to devise a better distribution model. My initial notion was to use much the same as attempt #2, but stock Mercuries are only available Legend's Home, but there is no navigation command software there. Shuffling NCS made me rethink my options, including the idea of using one Mercury Hauler per station that handles multiple wares, or the idea of daisy chaining the sellers so that they become the cache's and the distributors, or even a hybrid of those two approaches.

Proposal 1: Multiware Sellers
A typical station consumes wares at the following rates per hour:

Code: Select all

[b]Ware            Units  Volume[/b]
energy cells    900       900
Meatsteak       600      2400
Ore             150      1200
Silicon          38       684
Argnu Beef      180       720
Delexian Wheat  600      1200
Factories consume these goods in the following combinations

Code: Select all

[b]Combo                                   Volume  Stations[/b]
energy only                              900    Ore Mine, Silicon Mine, Cattle Ranch, Wheat Farm
energy, beef, wheat                     2820    cahoona bakery
energy, wheat                           1500    rimes fact, space fuel distillery
energy, meatsteak, ore                  4500    various weapon & shield fabs, Quantum Tube fabs, Lasertower Fabs
energy, meatsteak, silicon              3984    chip plant, computer plant
energy, meatsteak, silicon, majaglit       *    satellite factory [i]not going to provide the majaglit at this time, going to roll this in with chip and computer plants[/i]
energy, meatsteak, ore, silicon         5184    various missile fabs
A Stock Mercury has a high enough volume to service 3 of these combinations, while a Mercury Hauler could service any of these combinations. A single Hauler could replace up to 10 individual Mercuries. The difficulty is that it would have to pick up from a single source in order to not run out of waypoints. Also, configuration would be more tedious per ship - but there would be fewer ships. Another benefit is that you would be selling in smaller increments, so it would be easier to spread wares around to keep stations equipped. Size L factories would require 5 deliveries per hour or bigger loads. But they are typically of the simpler, lower volume combinations. Haulers could be assigned to those combinations with bigger load defaults.

Example Waypoints Used:

Code: Select all

Buyer:    Fly to Station, Buy Ware at Appropriate Price, Unload at WareCache
Packager: Load upto 900 Energy Cells From EnergyCache, Load upto 600 Meatsteak from MeatsteakCache, Load upto 150 Ore from OreCache, Load upto 38 Silicon from SiliconCache
Seller:   Load upto 900 Energy Cells From Packager, Load upto 600 Meatsteak from Packager, Load upto 150 Ore from Packager, Load upto 38 Silicon from Packager, Sell Each at Station1, Sell Each at Station2 (, Sell Each at Station3+ once experienced)
Ware Cache's and Packagers could be assigned to each sector and would be sourced directly from buyers, or using distributors.

Proposal 2: Serialized Sellers
Instead of having sellers pickup from a cache, or be delivered to by a distributor we could make our sellers distribute to the next seller in the chain:

Example Waypoints Used:

Code: Select all

Buyer:   Fly to Station, Buy Ware at Appropriate Price
Seller1: Load upto max cargo at Buyer, Sell at appropriate Price to Station1, Sell at appropriate Price to Station2, Unload upto MaxCargo at Seller2
Seller2: Sell at appropriate Price to Station3, Sell at appropriate Price to Station4, Sell at appropriate Price to Station5, Unload upto MaxCargo at Seller3
Seller3: Sell at appropriate Price to Station6, Sell at appropriate Price to Station7, Sell at appropriate Price to Station8, Unload upto MaxCargo at NextSectorSeller1
The desired benefit of this approach is to avoid the need for caches in sectors to hold wares that are just passing through, and also to avoid distributors that have to make long journeys from the source to market. An individual seller might have to travel to the next seller to deliver, but only if all of its stations were full. I also like that it keeps the inventory rotating. If the sector of source is full the inventory will move out of sector quickly to where it is needed. This approach may benefit greatly by equipped transporter devices.

Proposal 3: Serialized, Multiware Sellers
A combination of the two approaches, using multiware sellers that deliver to one another in a serialized fashion. Distributors could inject into the supply chain by distibuting to sellers in the sector.

Timsup2nothin
Posts: 4690
Joined: Thu, 22. Jan 09, 17:49

Post by Timsup2nothin » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 04:12

First off, I'm honored to have inspired so much experimentation.

Second off, I didn't vote in the poll.

Third off, here's my suggestion.

You are on the right track when you assessed 'overblown ambition', though I wouldn't put it that way. You have to eat the elephant one bite at a time.

I recently played a few days into a start trying a new approach; taking over one sector at a time. There's a thread somewhere, but you can probably skip it. What I learned is that a sector by sector approach is hard, and hardly worth it. But unless you are already rolling in credits and have a huge fleet available taking over an entire region is going to be beyond you, and even if you have the where-with-all it's a monster undertaking. So I am back to my proven approach...one region, one ware at a time.

In Aladana Hill region that first key ware might be cahoonas. If you trap the bakeries at 67-68 you will own all the cahoonas, which you can then distribute at 95 to 100, dumping any excess into trading stations so you don't overstock.

Or it could be the tried and true delaxian wheat, which you can buy locally at 30 and sell at 50. Probably need to set up an import net to jump it from around Argon Prime, where you can likely buy all you need to make up the shortage at 20. If stock runs high you can dump it into Boron space at 35.

Ore is also a possibility.

But the key to staying sane is to set up one ware at a time.

And the key to starting on a shoestring is having your good Paranid buddies donate all the ships you need for traps to your cause. No repairs needed. No shields. Cap 'em, dock 'em, and start 'em.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

User avatar
Memnoch_osh
Posts: 169
Joined: Tue, 23. Mar 04, 02:05
x2

Post by Memnoch_osh » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 04:25

Thank you for your input Tim.

I was going to start by optimizing the trade from Montelaar to Light of Heart, This would be in beef and wheat primarily. They take the least number of ships to setup because there are no stations in the other 3 sectors that require wheat or beef.

I have around 60M earned at about hour 12, but I've already seen some stations drop. I suppose I could park an M5 to protect the remaining stations and to hold CLS2 and NCS the eventual trap for that station.

At this point I am capping lightly shielded TS's from a Kestral, but can upgrade once my rep is better.

Any input on the distribution proposals I have listed? Your thoughts on their potential weaknesses would interest me.

Timsup2nothin
Posts: 4690
Joined: Thu, 22. Jan 09, 17:49

Post by Timsup2nothin » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 04:39

Memnoch_osh wrote:
Any input on the distribution proposals I have listed? Your thoughts on their potential weaknesses would interest me.
My favorite for tech fabs is multi-ware sellers with single ware distributors. Seller is 'fly to station' sell ware 1, sell ware 2, etc. Distributor is 'load up', unload to seller 1 up to however much, seller 2, etc. Generally set the 'up to' so the seller has 2000 e-cells, 250 ore, and 500 cahoonas. The down side of this is that since they aren't making the 'massive fill the fab to the top' sales they will be making them more often, meaning more frequent trips for the distributors so they can't service as many sellers.

One more quick thing...don't worry too much about fabs disappearing. By the time you have sewn up all the wares any that disappeared will have returned. Since you will be working extensively in the region you will see them when they come back and can hook them in before they fail again.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

Manks
Posts: 134
Joined: Tue, 2. Oct 12, 03:10
x3tc

Post by Manks » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 06:00

I just wanted to say that I'll be following this thread with quite a bit of interest. Keep up the reports.

brownthomasw
Posts: 163
Joined: Tue, 9. Aug 11, 00:52
x3ap

Post by brownthomasw » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 06:52

aiya! I won't feel bad about writing dissertations anymore. What i'll take away from this is i can use cls to supply the ibl forges in weavers tempest which i've been occassionally doing manually and my ut's have come a time or two at least to the stations i've built for the yaki, everybody seems to ignore the forges though. I've got my own booze there but no npc can get to it so I can stock up ecells with cls there his last cag a paranid destroyer destroyed the ts that was jumping out of that base, idk if he had liqour on him or if he was just owned by an illegal factory. I will not have the cls owned there to be safe. and he can supply the ibl forges.

I use cls2 to shuffle things around my fabs but never for trading. Now i'll Set the price, pick the ibl who i want supplied and let them take thier sweet time supplying some ibl and maybe flak forges.

As for serialized and multiware if i understand this correctly..... wait for it wait for it um ah yea, why or what if they are going to different sectors how does he meet the other ts and where? i guess they'll go whereever they need to and the other guy waits when someones coming. Do you have jump drives? is it being passed one sector to the next and the guy controls one area? I should have read all of tims and all of your post sorry. i got much of it.

sounds like you're building the npc traders who already run around the game kinda and making money doing it 60mil in 12 hrs makes you a little more feeling accomplished on a poisoned paranid plot than some other ways.

Multiware seems too complicated and you aren't buying in bulk at low low prices as much as if you filled it up with the 12 credit energy or whatever right now. if multiware could be gauranteed to bring all 3 supplies to one station and unload it then it might be nice but unless hes waiting for the sale... and then hes not using his time efficiently.

serialized took me a minute so it seems neat and fancy now. what are you an accountant or warehouse clerk (i think phys 101 and something else i thought about recently help with this game, as you can tell i'm not big on details... something else though i assure you). Whats really the point of serialized though if he can't sell he goes through the loop once more. Unless you need to send them out of sector or somewhere else. then is that guy just waiting for overflow or is he buying stuff to sell too and are you going to mess up the recievers mojo now?

I've wondered if i can do cags on a tl, easy enough to try but i wonder. cls certainly can, you can have caches, even multiware caches if you please but with the buying and selling you don't want overflow building up and not going anywhere. I'd assume sectors of source will be full anyway or not even need that stuff. For example bhs is 8 cahoonas and m148 is all weapon fabs.

you can do all sorts of stuff and this is new and original to me. I'd say caches of things rare in one region brought from another with regular cls delivery to a tl and then buy and pick from that for local distribution or something rather than serialized.

Or if specialised in certain things you can sell until over flow, overflow cache, transport shuffling overflow from one region to another with distribution on the other end. or freakin magic pony dances for everyone at this point. my head hurts.

User avatar
Memnoch_osh
Posts: 169
Joined: Tue, 23. Mar 04, 02:05
x2

Post by Memnoch_osh » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 06:52

Thanks for the encouragement Hanks. I'll try to give feedback over the next few days. Did not get to play tonight.

I'd be interested in feedback on what you have tried and what has worked, what hasn't.

Timsup2nothin
Posts: 4690
Joined: Thu, 22. Jan 09, 17:49

Post by Timsup2nothin » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 07:33

I'm going to try to stay more or less on the sidelines here and see what other people are doing, but I wanted to help get the ball rolling. Really interested in seeing how you progress.

Now, because I'm totally shameless, I'll plug my latest project, shown in my sig...not a DiD, a play through based story (hopefully entertaining)...that will also give some insight into how someone heavily influenced by my trading theories (namely me) might approach the game.

PS to brownthomas...I guess you can tell that at one time I got paid by the word count...
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

Manks
Posts: 134
Joined: Tue, 2. Oct 12, 03:10
x3tc

Post by Manks » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 07:37

Personally, I thought long and hard about a Terran solution in AP and eventually fell back on LTs. Options were:
  • LTs with a short range, a few in Saturn, Venus, and Pluto
  • CLS2 system
  • A pair of trading stations with CAGS and CLS1 (or 2) shipping from one to the other
Terrans have their own unique problems, specifically that in vanilla CAGs and CLS can't use jump beacons and that there is that stupid blockade. In addition, with those AtmoLifters dropping off goods at logistics docks it is really hard to get a handle on how much the local economy is under-resourced versus just poorly managed.


My problem with CLS2 is that, apparently, the only resources the Terrans efficiently move on their own are energy, ore, and ice. Consequently, you'll need to setup a system for water, protein paste, MREs, carbo cakes, and maybe a few others.

Early in a game I felt that that would take too much in time and in money. Later in a game I would consider it, but my main goal in getting started was to add a few factories of my own so that I could make the much larger profits of buying energy at min and selling goods near max. A few Baldrics doing LT duty were cheap, quick to setup, and balanced the economy to the point where I could identify where the most profit was.


I should say that I almost convinced myself to do the CAG and trading station setup. I'm rather fond of that on a universe level, especially when utilizing the Hub. Aldrin ships can run the blockade, so it would have been possible to buy a host of Spitfyres and Spingries, setup two docks in Saturn, and buy just about every available resource at a decent price while selling it all off near max. It all scales with supply and demand by adding more ships, and incorporating your own factories is seamless using CLS. That being said, it is expensive as hell to but the docks and pretty much every race's station would look like crap in Terran space.


Anyhow, definitely curious to see how other folks handled all of this. After this squid dies, I'm probably headed back to Terran space.

Infekted
Posts: 2925
Joined: Mon, 1. Mar 10, 19:47
x3tc

Post by Infekted » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 13:19

How about combining several trade systems? Why does it have to be just CLS2 or just CAG?
If you build small closed loop complexes at key points (instead of trade stations).
This will allow you to trade in the basic wares, from somewhere with a decent capacity for them. And then use CLS2 for everything else.
The only thing that doesn't work hand in hand, is Mk3. But that's fine usually.

User avatar
Memnoch_osh
Posts: 169
Joined: Tue, 23. Mar 04, 02:05
x2

Post by Memnoch_osh » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 15:16

Thank you for your feedback and questions brownthomasw!
brownthomasw wrote: ...What i'll take away from this is i can use cls to supply the ibl forges in weavers tempest which i've been occassionally doing manually and my ut's have come a time or two at least to the stations i've built for the yaki, everybody seems to ignore the forges though. I've got my own booze there but no npc can get to it so I can stock up ecells with cls there his last cag a paranid destroyer destroyed the ts that was jumping out of that base, idk if he had liqour on him or if he was just owned by an illegal factory. I will not have the cls owned there to be safe. and he can supply the ibl forges.
In my experience ships only get attacked for what they are carrying, and only if it is illegal in the sector they are in. For instance, an Argon Patrol shouldn't attack your illicit goods fab in Pirate space just because it patrolled by, nor would it attack your TS in Argon space if it was homed to that fab, but carrying only energy

brownthomasw wrote: .. As for serialized and multiware if i understand this correctly..... wait for it wait for it um ah yea, why or what if they are going to different sectors how does he meet the other ts and where? i guess they'll go whereever they need to and the other guy waits when someones coming. Do you have jump drives? is it being passed one sector to the next and the guy controls one area?...
Each individual ship would be dealing with a small portion of the overall region, just a few stations at most, so they would not need jump drives. Wares would be passed to the next area when not needed in the current area, and different ships would distribute those wares in that area.
brownthomasw wrote: sounds like you're building the npc traders who already run around the game kinda and making money doing it 60mil in 12 hrs makes you a little more feeling accomplished on a poisoned paranid plot than some other ways.
The stock npc traders tend to wander sectors more like the mk3 than CAG or CLS. The advantage of the CLS setup is you can completely monopolize trade in a region - if you set it up right. So that is what I am working on. Local traders and CAG miss much of the trading by comparison. The profit margin per trade is less in many ways tho, because your not aiming to buy and min and sell at max, as that would give the stock npc traders an opportunity to beat you to the buy and beat you to the sell.

Also, I made the 60M with a mixture of MORTing, Mission running and Stock Market investment. I feel a little dirty about using the stock market, but less so on day 1. I don't use any exploits for the market, but it is pretty exploitable in its intended use.
brownthomasw wrote: Multiware seems too complicated and you aren't buying in bulk at low low prices as much as if you filled it up with the 12 credit energy or whatever right now. if multiware could be gauranteed to bring all 3 supplies to one station and unload it then it might be nice but unless hes waiting for the sale... and then hes not using his time efficiently.
Even in multiware I would still be buying in bulk using high capacity ships that buy as much as the ware as possible. I'd just be using packager ships to chunk it smaller so that distribution requires fewer ships. I would eventually be using multiware selling traps that would be sitting waiting for the sale, but not until I had enough credits for that stage.
brownthomasw wrote: serialized took me a minute so it seems neat and fancy now. what are you an accountant or warehouse clerk (i think phys 101 and something else i thought about recently help with this game, as you can tell i'm not big on details... something else though i assure you). Whats really the point of serialized though if he can't sell he goes through the loop once more. Unless you need to send them out of sector or somewhere else. then is that guy just waiting for overflow or is he buying stuff to sell too and are you going to mess up the recievers mojo now?
I'm an programmer actually, go figure.

The point of serialized is to merge the distribution chain with the sales chain so that the sellers are distributing when they cannot find a sale. And so that when sales increase due to higher demand the distribution slows, and when sales drop due to contentment in the region distribution speeds up. My intent is for Distribution Pace to reflect supply vs demand rather than how many distributors are assigned.
brownthomasw wrote: I've wondered if i can do cags on a tl, easy enough to try but i wonder. cls certainly can, you can have caches, even multiware caches if you please but with the buying and selling you don't want overflow building up and not going anywhere. I'd assume sectors of source will be full anyway or not even need that stuff. For example bhs is 8 cahoonas and m148 is all weapon fabs.
As far as I know you can only CAG a station or complex.

Your absolutely correct about the overflow, inventory it is alot of credits just sitting there waiting for someone to buy. The goal of both these strategies is to reduce idle inventory.
brownthomasw wrote: you can do all sorts of stuff and this is new and original to me. I'd say caches of things rare in one region brought from another with regular cls delivery to a tl and then buy and pick from that for local distribution or something rather than serialized.

Or if specialised in certain things you can sell until over flow, overflow cache, transport shuffling overflow from one region to another with distribution on the other end. or freakin magic pony dances for everyone at this point. my head hurts.
LOL, sorry to make your head hurt

User avatar
Memnoch_osh
Posts: 169
Joined: Tue, 23. Mar 04, 02:05
x2

Post by Memnoch_osh » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 15:40

Manks wrote: Personally, I thought long and hard about a Terran solution in AP and eventually fell back on LTs.
Yes, LTs work well in Terran space once they are levelled. Aldrin is decent for levelling, but requires a fast ship.
Manks wrote: Terrans have their own unique problems, specifically that in vanilla CAGs and CLS can't use jump beacons and that there is that stupid blockade. In addition, with those AtmoLifters dropping off goods at logistics docks it is really hard to get a handle on how much the local economy is under-resourced versus just poorly managed.
At one point Tim wrote about setting up traders to work with the trading station to inject shortages into the supply chain. I set this up as well, especially for Ice in the core sectors due to the lack of Ice Mines. The presence of these resources coming in at average is that you cannot effectively sell much higher than avg+1 or you leave opportunities for NPC traders.
Manks wrote: My problem with CLS2 is that, apparently, the only resources the Terrans efficiently move on their own are energy, ore, and ice. Consequently, you'll need to setup a system for water, protein paste, MREs, carbo cakes, and maybe a few others.
Total market domination is part of the goal, so I need to do that for every primary resource in the region for Argon too. But to Tim's point above, it is too big a bite to take at once.
Manks wrote: Early in a game I felt that that would take too much in time and in money. Later in a game I would consider it, but my main goal in getting started was to add a few factories of my own so that I could make the much larger profits of buying energy at min and selling goods near max. A few Baldrics doing LT duty were cheap, quick to setup, and balanced the economy to the point where I could identify where the most profit was.
You have a good point, maybe this is better as an endgame technique rather than "from the start".
Manks wrote: I should say that I almost convinced myself to do the CAG and trading station setup. I'm rather fond of that on a universe level, especially when utilizing the Hub. Aldrin ships can run the blockade, so it would have been possible to buy a host of Spitfyres and Spingries, setup two docks in Saturn, and buy just about every available resource at a decent price while selling it all off near max. It all scales with supply and demand by adding more ships, and incorporating your own factories is seamless using CLS. That being said, it is expensive as hell to but the docks and pretty much every race's station would look like crap in Terran space.
I've never used many trading stations like that, but I would make complexes of bio1 L, food1 L, bio2 M, food2 M, 1 MJ Shield x2, IRE, 1 chip plant as a trading focus. In one game I had one of those in every sector in the region and assigned like 10 CAGs each so that they were constantly buying low and selling high. This represented most racial primary and secondary wares and made ok money, but not great. A big plus is that it was very easy to set up.
Manks wrote: Anyhow, definitely curious to see how other folks handled all of this. After this squid dies, I'm probably headed back to Terran space.
Grateful to have your interest and input, I'll try to give good feedback on my outcomes.

User avatar
Memnoch_osh
Posts: 169
Joined: Tue, 23. Mar 04, 02:05
x2

Post by Memnoch_osh » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 15:47

Infekted wrote: How about combining several trade systems? Why does it have to be just CLS2 or just CAG?
If you build small closed loop complexes at key points (instead of trade stations).
This will allow you to trade in the basic wares, from somewhere with a decent capacity for them. And then use CLS2 for everything else.
The only thing that doesn't work hand in hand, is Mk3. But that's fine usually.
Thank you for your input Infekted.

That is akin to what I would normally do, but I am explicitly trying to explore CLS2 further.

Whether or not I add stations in the mix is difficult. They would be useful as caches and substations, and could be used to fill gaps in the supply chain, so I'll be doing that anyway. I just won't be relying on CAG for them.

Timsup2nothin
Posts: 4690
Joined: Thu, 22. Jan 09, 17:49

Post by Timsup2nothin » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 16:00

Memnoch_osh wrote:They would be useful as caches and substations, and could be used to fill gaps in the supply chain, so I'll be doing that anyway. I just won't be relying on CAG for them.
There are places that CAG fits in well. The limiting factor is that they cannot serve double duty. I usually like my 'distributors' to be able to pick up from traps and sell immediately, using the 'stock' only if the traps are empty and loading into the stock when there aren't sales available. If you CAG the distribution then you have to have dedicated collectors bringing in the product from the traps. In some cases this works better than multi-tasked distributors, but recognizing which is which is challenging.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

User avatar
TTD
Posts: 11165
Joined: Sun, 6. Jul 08, 10:29
x4

Post by TTD » Sat, 31. Aug 13, 16:26

For the first time in many years,I am using UTs again.
I have set up complexes in all three Yaki sectors and may expand out from there.
I could expand the Yaki cause,or I could set up mini trade empires for each Race.
Obviously the Paranid would be next.
My main rule of thumb in this game is to use race specific stations wherever possible, when building complexes.
Thus Yaki may have Teladi stations,since Teladi tolerate Pirates,if not the Yaki,who are Pirates.
I have not got far into CLS yet,but these recent threads have resparked my interest.

User avatar
Memnoch_osh
Posts: 169
Joined: Tue, 23. Mar 04, 02:05
x2

Post by Memnoch_osh » Sun, 1. Sep 13, 20:10

Well, I spent most of lastnight playing with different options. At one point I had so much stuff going on but incomplete that I had to reload from a save from hours before because I could no longer make sense of it.

There are many little things that can throw a wrench in the works.

Substations

I tried going without substations and using ware caches at seperate stations. This causes the multiware sellers to have to visit multiple locations to get each of their wares increasing reload time.

The caches are pretty small, even if using a mercury hauler for each. Shortages in a single ware impact the whole network, so all of those issues have to be resolved. This is probably much easier to do one ware at a time - as Tim suggested. I setup the network and ran it on SETA and averaged only 150k per hour for all of the Aladna Hill sectors in Argon. When i looked at individual traders it was obvious that Ore was not getting distributed properly. I reloaded, fixed that and reran the SETA test and the outcomes doubled. I am certain I still have distribution chain problems that are killing profits.

GOD

Stations I have trapped have been removed by GOD when the trap went to unload and reload. Overall I like the simplicity of a single ship per station, but market opportunities are missed when they leave the station for any reason. I have each one setup to load an unload against the sector cache's, but dedicated distributors to load and unload the traps would be more effective and I think are a prerequisite to get the true monopoly.

Mostly I am growing to understand more and more why Tim structured his networks as he did. I am also convinced that this is a better late game strategy if your going for total monopoly. It is way to use capped TS's in early game in early game, and the distribution network makes it very easy to efficiently offload salvaged wares.

My current network looks like this in most sectors:

Dedicated Cache's for Energy, Ore, Silicon and Steak
A Mercury Hauler assigned to each station selling all wares of that station in proportion to their use rate.
A Distributor to pull Energy, Ore, Silicon and Steak from the adjacent sectors (one per ware)

Pricing

I've been using the following pricing:

Code: Select all

        Buy   Sell
Energy   12     17
Beef    103    123
Wheat    31     41
Steak    71     91
Rimes   283    293
Ore      50    129
Silicon 232    505
I'm clearly doing it wrong, but its mostly a lack of available resource to add more frieghters. I have been capping for fill... I am fighting the urge to reload and restart the build phase, but it takes me much longer to set things up. Any tips on how to reduce setup time would be much appreciated.

Timsup2nothin
Posts: 4690
Joined: Thu, 22. Jan 09, 17:49

Post by Timsup2nothin » Sun, 1. Sep 13, 20:38

Since conditions do change I could be wrong, but I think you would be better off running beef on the low side of average, like 60-105. And I'm sure you could sell wheat just as well at 50 as 41. Scarce is scarce, and as long as you are buying it all you can gouge the consumers completely.

And I don't think you are 'doing it wrong', you are just up against the early game limitations on getting freighters...which you are learning are the basic reason behind 'one ware at a time'.

I consider 'total monopoly' a later game objective. But I start the strategy with my first ship.
Memnoch_osh wrote:
Mostly I am growing to understand more and more why Tim structured his networks as he did.
I wish I could claim this was some sort of brilliance on my part, but it was mostly the same kind of trial and error you are doing now, just a lot more of it. My highest regards for taking it on. Once we have a group of people who have been through some trials and accumulated a solid foundation we should be able to start building new knowledge.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

User avatar
Memnoch_osh
Posts: 169
Joined: Tue, 23. Mar 04, 02:05
x2

Post by Memnoch_osh » Mon, 2. Sep 13, 19:50

More lessons about how not to do it:

The multiware sellers reduce inventory costs per station, but increase the number of transport ships needed per station because they need to drop off supplies more often. So I will be restructuring that.

Stock Mercuries would have been better than the Mercury Haulers, if only navigation command software was available in Legends Home...

Each factory only has 5 docking ports and I have seen stops in distribution because no docking port is available. I'm not sure how to combat this unless using huge multiware sellers that never leave the station. Has this been an issue in your game Tim?

Pricing is a tough thing to get right. Beef is also scarce, which is why i priced it that way but I can tell from my trader stats that most of my traders are slightly negative, rather than the positive I expect. I planned my pricing based on a total monopoly with a flat cut of 5 credits per ware. This profit amount far too slim, and is my biggest cause of failure so far I think. My pricing model should probably look more like this.

Code: Select all

       Buy   Sell 
Energy   12     18 
Beef     59    125 
Wheat    31     50 
Steak    71    105 
Rimes   157    293 
Ore      72    196 
Silicon 283    484 
Costs vary by sector, so having a flat pricing model is too simple. I can sell steak for much different prices in Legend's Home than in Light of Heart. I am attempting to calculate infrastructure costs and factor that into pricing for each ware per sector. And I am doing this one ware at a time.

Using steak as an example:

Code: Select all

                Supply  Demand
Light of Heart       9       2
Aladna Hill          0       9  
Akeela's Beacon      0       6
Legend's Home        0       8
This will be the ware I focus on first. I plan to build complexes in AH, AB and LH to produce enough steak for that sector so that if I need to I can sell at avg+1, but will be targeting high prices in AH, higher prices in AB and near max prices in LH.

When you start with your first freighter, how do you determine which ware to begin with?

Do you leave your transports unshielded?

Timsup2nothin
Posts: 4690
Joined: Thu, 22. Jan 09, 17:49

Post by Timsup2nothin » Mon, 2. Sep 13, 21:07

The whole trick of pricing revolves around monopolization...of a single ware...on one side or the other.

What I mean by one side or the other is you either have to be buying it all, in which case you get to sell it for close to max, or you need to be making all of the sales, in which case the NPC haulers will leave it alone and you can buy it for minimum.

So, take cahoonas. Your regional demand is 25 to a regional supply of 9. That's a huge imbalance. So if you buy cahoonas from every bakery at 71, consistently, then no NPC trader will be able to purchase any.

That means everyone needing cahoonas, even in Light of Heart where they are produced, has to either buy from you or have an NPC hauler drag them in all the way from OmLy or Argon Prime. That is hit or miss at best, and almost totally miss in fact (and of course turns Hatikva's Faith into a good source of extra cahoona inventory if you want to hang out there for a while). So as long as you can buy them all and store them long enough everyone can be forced to pay 108 or go hungry. Netting you 37 credits per unit on the output of nine bakeries, 5400 units per hour. That's something right close to 200,000 credits per hour.

Once that fact is established you can look at production, because as long as you are the sole source and there aren't enough cahoonas overall the pricing is the same even if you add three large bakeries, making overall production 24. Be advised that closing the imbalance down that tightly may cause problems if some consumers run out of other resources and stop consuming temporarily.

So call it two large bakeries, with attached cattle ranches. They need 18000 e-cells per hour between them, which if bought at 12 comes out just north of 200,000 per hour, so the profits on the transported cahoonas just about pay for that. So you are producing 6000 cahoonas per hour, almost expense free, and selling them at 108...648,000 credits per hour. I make that about a ten hour cost recovery. If there is an abundance of cattle so you can buy it for 60 or less you can leave off the cattle ranches and do even better.

With two large bakeries to use for storage you can set up your buying network to lock the supply and force the selling price up to 108 before you turn on production without having any problem holding the cahoonas, you just have to manage not running out of credits while the inventory builds up.

As to the question about docking options, yeah it is a problem. For those really gnarly combination fabs where they resource ore and silicon and energy and food one big permanently docked seller is probably my favored solution. Another solution comes from our cahoona example though. Those cahoona buyers don't need a permanent docked seller, because you are making them wait anyway. Since you are the only source you can just have delivery ships making the rounds and they will get fed when they get fed. You only need serious trapping on the side you are monopolizing, in this case the bakeries.

Network design criteria:

Supply side must be able to move 5400 cahoonas per hour out of the bakeries to prevent price drops and NPC purchases. Three big hulks permanently assigned in the bakeries, two mercuries averaging four trips per hour between the traps and your complex.

Delivery side must be able to move 11,400 cahoonas per hour once selling price of 108 is established. Four mercuries averaging four deliveries per hour each. This may be light and require near perfect division of the territory, so make it five.

Capacity must be able to intake 5400 cahoonas per hour for as long as it takes for selling price 108 to be established throughout the region. Two large bakeries store (I think) 30,000 cahoonas. Add on 4500 in the mercuries plus three big traps and you can go about eight hours...if it were needed, which it won't be, and you have about three million credits to sink into inventory.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

marrok
Posts: 44
Joined: Wed, 2. Jan 08, 16:45
x3tc

Post by marrok » Fri, 6. Sep 13, 18:29

My last try to use CLS for feeding the HUB ended in disaster, so I decided to start a new game with a more basic approach. As a playground for gaining experience with a network I took Weavers Tempest. There seem to be no NPC traders there, I can get cheap IBLs before boarding capships and experienced CLS pilots when I need them later on.

My base in WT consists of an Ore Mine M (27 yield, tractorbeamed near the gate) and a Wheat Farm M. ECell supply is done by a CAG in a Demeter SF XL. The wheat from my complex is brought to one distillery by a Hermes, energy, ore and space fuel are distributed by one Demeter Tanker each. Space fuel is bought at almost minimum, wheat is sold at almost maximum, the other selling prices are set to average. I have yet to find out how many resources the IBL forges burn for one cycle, in a PPC forge it is almost half the maximum stock it has. If all goes wrong the fab could sit with almost half full stock (and almost average buying prices), yet not enough to start another cycle. To raise the selling prices I will have to deliver the wares in exactly the amounts which are needed for one cycle to make sure the fabs empty completely. When trading other goods this does hardly matter but heavy weapon (or shield) fabs seem to need some special attention. This could be even worse when trading with NPC complexes which produce different types of weapons randomly.
No, I am NOT interested in sector charts! I want a taxi mission!

Build your own XPerimental - without quantum tubes and microchips!

Post Reply

Return to “X Trilogy Universe”