X3AP-- So, How Do I Use The Hub, Anyway?

[Monkeyfister]

I fully understand the use of the gates-- no problem there.

But, the Hub is also a storehouse/Trade Dock of some sort, as well.

In any of my other games, I never got to a point where I needed Trading Docks, or EQD's.

I have no idea how to use this thing, and I am pretty sure I made a fatal error by adding wares like silicon, and other basic wares outside of what I now see as the only ware to have there-- Energy Cells. I put 2 Million into it, and an hour or so later, I need to do it again, and never see anything I actually WANT in there.

I put the basic wares there thinking it would be a place for the UTs to drop freight when they were beaten to a trade. Now, it seems that that is ALL they do-- dump their unwanted/unsalable wares.

At this point, the Hub is bleeding money out of me at an enormous rate, and I tried to remove all those wares I added, but Dockware Manager seems to only add wares, and has no means for removing them. @#$%^&*!!!

I really do not see the advantage to this aspect of the Hub right now.

How do I make this thing work for me as a profitsss generator. How do I set prices to attract the things I want there, and get rid of the things I do not want. I currently have it set to no other races can trade, because they took all the e-cells, and left garbage. I've been having a SF load up all the crap I don't want, and just dump it out in space somewhere. I can't afford to keep that up.

I cannot figure out what to do with this thing.

[Sabrina Bergin]

I had this problem the first time I got the hub you cant use it as you would a trading station because your own UT's will dump their unsold wares on you and fill it up short term answer is to stop trading with other races and not to leave any money there.

Then assign a cag to it to sell every thing that is left.

After that I just use it as a useful storage docking site.

[Monkeyfister]

You've confirmed my thoughts on the situation.

Now, I just need to figure out how to set pricing to keep my own UTs from dumping their crap there, and to get the CAG to clear the joint out once and for all.

All I really need is a freighter or two full of e-cells docked there for when I feel the need to re-alighn the gates.

I really want a way to just remove all the wares via Dock Manager, or whatever means is used to do that.

[ancienthighway]

You can remove wares using the Dock Ware Manager.
The item you want to remove must have 0 balance.
Open up the manager and in the Wares list click on the ware you want to remove.

I know this works in TC, and I would assume it still works in AP.

[Nanook]

Use the ST/UT blacklist manager that comes with the bonus pack for AP. It will allow you to tell your UT's to never visit the Hub sector. Problem solved.

[Monkeyfister]

Blacklist is probably the answer. Do ST/UTs still get the shortcut benefits of the Hub's presence?

[hisazul]

Blacklist is probably the answer. Do ST/UTs still get the shortcut benefits of the Hub's presence?

If they use jump drive, they pay less in terms of ecells to jump if you connections shorten distance. I use it to connect corners and middle cutting ecell usage down. If not... then they may spend more time getting to where they need to go.

In short I'd use dockware manager and remove everything except e-cells or set prices in a way that prevents uts from trading with it. Or block trade on the thing.

[Bill Huntington]

St/UT take the shortest route. If it through the HUB, they take it.

The HUB has a lot of advantages, but it is limited too. There is a limit to HUB storage. There is also a limit to how many ships can be docked there. Luckily, you can have one or two big ones, like TLs. The personal HQ does more. One thing you can do is set up a CAG to gather items, like Boarding Pods and missiles you want. You might not want to get one or two of an item, but CAG will get them for you. When a limit is reached, you can transfer the items to a storage ship.

[Monkeyfister]

Ah!!! Blacklist allows me to just block the station. Seems perfect.

[Monkeyfister]

I suppose this might be a good depot for HQ resources?

Do people use it for that? Is CLS/CAG the way to go to use it that way?

How would you price stuff there to keep things under some control?

[OniGanon]

I've used the Hub to collect equipment for me by Homebasing all my Local Traders to it to provide income, and then having the Hub offer to buy equipment such as 25MJ Shields at Average + 1.

[Monkeyfister]

Heh. Perfect. Of all the wares I set the Hub to buy, the very nice supply of 25mj shields was my best surprise.

I can see the usefulness, but I guess I just need to get the rest of this stff shifted elsewhere, so I can start at a baseline.

[ancienthighway]

I suppose this might be a good depot for HQ resources?

Already answered in Bill Huntington's post. Storage capacity at the hub is limited. If it's storage you need, you're better off with some of those Mistral Super Freighters and TLs left over from the Hub. By all means use the Hub, but don't rely on it as the sole storage facility.

As far as pricing, if you are worried about NPCs buying what you just sent a ship out to get for you, simple set the station to not allow races to trade with it.

[Astronoid]

I found the easiest way of preventing stuff getting bought is by setting everything's price to min., then setting wanted stuff's back to avg. or avg+1. Some things still flow in occasionally, but it's greatly reduced. This way, you only spend money on things you need. Accompanied by a CAG selling the occasional and packing the rest into TLs, it's pretty effective. This is TC though, so I dunno if it works in AP.

[Monkeyfister]

Thanks, guys. I think I have this figured out. Took a while to clear things out, but Dockware Manager helped reduce the list to minimums.Some CAGs are selling off the hoards of Firefly and Aurora missiles that ticked me off in the first place. (I just wanted to dump a few off my player ship, and had no idea the UTs would decide to put thousands in there!!!)

I appreciate the help.

Surprised there isn't a guide for this.

[Monkeyfister]

Ancienthighway-- this is AP.

The requirements for the hub are meaningless in AP. A freighter or two of readily-available stuff. No challenge, and no massive TL fleet, no enormous Chip complexes, no sectors full of complexed Silicon Mines… No challenge at all. Just reset a couple of my station sellers to deliver stuff to the Hub, instead of selling to NPCs for a few minutes.

From the time the mission arrives, it takes less than 6 RT hours to complete. Meaning, I got the mission at 9am last Saturday, and by 3pm that afternoon, I had full use of the Hub. By 9pm that day, I had the PHQ (it's still in the Albatross).

At the time I received the Hub, I just wanted to dump some garbage wares off my ship to make room for some useful things. I had no idea the UTs/STs would decide I really wanted 4,400 Firefly missiles, and 2,000 Aurora missiles, and all that dambed Ore!

Then, I added a few other things in a series of bad, bad, rash decisions!

It's mostly cleaned out, now. It took nearly as long to clean the thing out, than it took to acquire it!

I've blocked the UT/STs, and have a few Falcon Haulers set up as CAGs now, selling off the last of the crap in there.

Once I get it cleared out, I'll switch the sellers to buyers for some specific things, and use the Aran (still unrepaired due to lack of funding -- I only have 30Mil to my name-- in Argon Prime SY) as a bit of a storage dump for a while for useful things like weapons and shields.

I set up an energy loop in US 9,7 and moved some roids around to accommodate the PHQ.

Hub is connected between Argon Prime and HoL, Legend's Home and US 9,7, and Queen's Harbor and QR (though that last is going to change, as I rarely have any need to go to that far Boron corner of the map-- only missions force me to go there). West gate of Patriarch's Conclusion is as far as I need to go, I think, for Split and Paranid ships. Maybe connect to Segaris to try and improve my Terran rep above Terrorist by killing Xenon in Terran space.

Seems the gates and the ship dockage space is the real boon of the Hub.