X3AP Universe trader help

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

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Nehlis
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X3AP Universe trader help

Post by Nehlis » Thu, 30. Oct 14, 15:45

I've been using UTs for a while but I still don't have a good grasp of their mechanics. Usually whenever I get the message that one of my ships is attacked, I immediately buy replacement freighters and load up the trade mk3 software. I usually have around 10-12 running at the same time, but I have no idea how to optimize the UTs or how to rapidly train STs. As soon as they're set to Universe mode I make them invisible in the property menu.
Are they even worth keeping at this point? I have a closed loop station that produces chips, CCs and Quantubes which seems to bring in the most money. I'm halfway done a closed loop that will produce spaceweed and spacefuel.
Any tips on how I can either optimize/simplify UTs or should I just go for closed loop stations?
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Gersidi
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Post by Gersidi » Thu, 30. Oct 14, 16:16

Don't make your UTs invisible. As soon as I hear one being attacked I order them to jump to the closest shipyard. If they don't need repairs I immediately start the UT command once they have left the sector.

I still believe HUGE closed loop plexes are more profitable, but I am talking large ones costing hundreds of millions of credits. UTs are a much cheaper investment and can be very profitable as long as you don't mind jumping them out once in awhile.... they do it automatically on their own but I find they dilly dally and get destroyed quick, hence why I do it myself.

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Black_hole_suN
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Post by Black_hole_suN » Thu, 30. Oct 14, 19:14

Homebase them in one station then hide them from the property list. This will keep the list short and your UT's easy to find because stations are listed first before ships. UT's with homebase also uses its home's credits for trading instead of the players bank account

When a UT is attacked. Its name will blink red.. Open its command console then Broadcast to all Fighter drones to "Attack all Enemies". after that order your UT to jump to another location then restart trade mk3 command. Using this method, I never lost any UT to random Pirate/Yaki attacks. I still loose UTs on M6 and Q attacks though, but that is because it cant jump away fast enough before it got destroyed.

My fav. training grounds are:
- Queen Space
- Shore of Infinity
- Patriarch's Keep
- Empire's Edge
- Ceo's Doubt

If you start building UTs very early then:
- The Hole
- The Wall
- Ringo Moon
- Profit Center Alpha

are good training grounds.. in late game though, they tend to loose their original station through GoD Engine

Always monitor your ST's level, at lvl6 you can now send it to trade on the adjacent sectors they are in.

Blacklist all sectors that have high pirate/Xenon activity, War sectors, sectors that are inaccessible because of the War (Jupiter 2 and 3), your own station, your HQ sector, pirate bases (if you are not friendly with pirates), Earth ---- especially EARTH!!!

Use local traders in Terran space and be wary of the Jump distance you set..

set their "notify me when command is completed" to "yes" so that you can instantly know what ships stopped working

--- I still have more tips but my head is not working correctly at the moment....


also, UTs can improve the game's economy, I have 80 of them and almost 15 in game days now.. I have never seen any station getting hungry for resources!! (well I have seen them but almost instantly one of my freighters shows up to sell the needed resources). In my game I still have complete set of factories in Aldrin and Terran sectors (except on those afflicted by the war), most commonwealth sectors still have their original stations not removed by GoD.
Last edited by Black_hole_suN on Thu, 30. Oct 14, 22:43, edited 1 time in total.

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DrBullwinkle
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x3tc

Post by DrBullwinkle » Thu, 30. Oct 14, 20:19

Nice. :thumb_up:

I think that is the single most useful set of tips for Universe Traders that I have ever seen on this forum.

Jimmy C
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x3tc

Post by Jimmy C » Thu, 30. Oct 14, 20:24

Black_hole_suN, not Empire's Edge?

Sparky Sparkycorp
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x4

Post by Sparky Sparkycorp » Thu, 30. Oct 14, 20:30

There are ways in which UTs try to use the Blacklist that are bugged. There's a fix for that bundled with UT optimisations in my sig at the Bonus Pack link.

hisazul
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xr

Post by hisazul » Thu, 30. Oct 14, 20:54

I'm going to add some personal notes:

1. For UTs I highly recommend using ships that can take a hit. If you can buy terran ships then Hayabusa is my go to UT ship. It can survive a serious OOS hit... sometimes even from cap ships. Whether it will still have a jump drive to run away with after getting a hit like that is another story. If not drake or tern(a bit too slow for some sectors). UT's jump, so their speed deficiency can be mitigated slightly by that. It's still important but not that much. Depending on your blacklisting and state of friendliness and possible state of war, this can make a huge difference.

2. Don't use ships that are slow as sector traders. Sometimes a few nearby sectors are better off having a sector trader. Use smaller faster ships caiman if all else fails. Best option is springblossom however.

3. Don't remove them from property menu. Mark all your UTs separately from everything else and STs separate from UTs. At high enough rank UTs should be able to run away from anything smaller then a frigate.

4. Don't just ignore their whining for help, yes it's tempting. But sometimes all it takes is a swift jump order when for what ever reason your traders ship ends up inside a pirate hang out sector or xenon core sector. Had a hayabusa scream at me from the old TC player sector which in AP is owned by argon. It got shot by a titan... now I was too busy shooting xenon at the time and took my sweet time but the little guy was still holding on when I did open the menu, went belly up few seconds later(probably didn't have a jump drive anymore considering he was barely intact... sector got wiped afterwards even tho I spent so much time fixing that damn rep after war only to have one lone sector that didn't update rep to put argon population back on extinction list meh... argons). That was the my only UT loss in more then 200 hours with nothing blacklisted :P

5. Don't make too many UTs. Or they will just steal deals from each other and half of them will be wasting time doing nothing but running to stations that don't have the ware that UT originally was going to buy.

6. It's actually very much possible to use just springblossoms for UT duties.... you will need to compensate for their lack of cargo capacity by having more of them. Just don't give them main guns or they occasionally get brave and decide killing pirates/xenon is more important.

Well... rest is covered already. Except maybe... don't waste time with pirates... they will screw you over and cost you more then they are worth, Yaki will operate like normal race so they are fine.


UT and ST don't interfere with complexes in any way. They are the simplest means of getting money while keeping the rest of universe spinning. I have massive complexes and I still use UTs because they sell wares that npcs produce yet nobody wants to sell them.
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” - Albert Einstein

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Black_hole_suN
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Post by Black_hole_suN » Thu, 30. Oct 14, 22:43

Jimmy C wrote:Black_hole_suN, not Empire's Edge?
yes!! I mean this not kingdom end!! this is why I said my brain is not working properly

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