Station Complex + Supply line from differant sector (5 questions

[korg33]

Hey guys

For questions jump to the end. For for my awesome plan, keep reading

So I want to set up a complex to create a Mosquito Missile Factory

To do this I am planning to create a complex in Argon Prime that supplies most of the resources. This complex has the following Stations.

Solar Plant L (Supplies Energy to ALL the other stations)
Cattle Ranch M
Cahoona Bakery
Mosquito Missile Factory

This complex will have all the resources I need to create Mosquito Missiles, except for Crystals and Ore. So in Order to do this I will setup a ore mine in Ore Belt and get my crystals from another NPC station

QUESTIONS:
Anyways here are my questions (5 of them):

The complex and ore mine will be in 2 different sectors: Argon Prime and Ore belt.

1- Is it possible to command a few ships to continuously get Ore and Crystals from my Ore mine in Ore belt to my complex in Argon Prime?

2- Also can I create a complex and add stations to it later?

3- Does it matter in what Order I attach stations to my complex? Like if I have a solar plant attached to the complex will it supply all other stations that need energy cells, or do I need to connect it to each of the stations in the complex.

4-Also in another example, lets say I have a Solar plant and Crystal Fab in a complex. They would supply each other with resources, cuz they both need each other to produce, then need I make 1 or 2 connections? Like is the tunnel a 1 way supply line or a 2 way supply line

*EDIT*
5- I did some maths and it seems like Solar plants produce a massive surplus of energy cells in terms of how much is needed for a complex.
Like my complex in Argon Prime uses the following amount of Energy cells:
Cattle Ranch: 30 cells every minute
Cahoona bakery: 30 cells every minute
Mosquito factory: 90 cells every 6 minutes

A medium Solar plant produces 1100 cells every 3:35 minutes. However the complex uses less then 250 cells in this time......
On several sites they say that a Msolar plant can supply about 2 S sized stations.

From this math though it seems a Medium Solar plant can supply just about any complex one would want to create.
So not really a question, but more something very noteworthy and good news, cuz it simplifies making complexes a lot.

[ancienthighway]

Starting with the plan, ore in the Argon Prime area is available in abundance (Power Circle, Herron's Nebula, Ore Belt, and Emperor's Mines). Building yet another Ore Mine for one of your stations is really excessive. It will be at near full capacity always unless you have a lot of luck selling the excess ore. Use the existing NPC mines as long as you can get the ore cheaply.

A medium bakery will produce enough food for 2 armaments stations. Plan on adding a second one from the start or as soon as you can.

Mosquito missiles tend to be readily available in the Argon Prime area. It wouldn't take long before all the Equipment Docks are fully stocked, and you lose the ability to automatically sell them. You won't consume any where close to an amount to justify a station building mosquitoes for you own use. 1 mj shields and IREs sell like hotcakes, and at better profit.

Finally, 1 medium SPP will provide almost enough energy cell for your needs with only a 381 shortfall per hour, easily made up with the number of SPPs in the AP area. A large SPP will give you a 27k surplus per hour, minus a bit because of a 35 crystal shortage. Consider forgoing the SPP and crystal production until you have supply problems with the NPC SPPs.

Here is the complex I suggest. While the link shows everything in one complex and in Herron's Nebula, you can easily build it just the way you want. Putting it all in one complex helps in determining what you need.

On to your questions:
1. CLS1 is most efficient at moving ware between owned stations and complexes. The Bonus Pack is required for this.

2. You can add stations any time you want, and as many as you want, as long as you can connect them all together.

3. Station connection makes no difference, although connecting the stations closest to where you want the hub will make for a cleaner complex. Everything in the complex has access to everything else in the complex.

4. There is only 1 connection between two stations and only one connection between only one station and the hub in a complex.

5. One medium SPP will supply more than 2 small stations. In the numbers above, the medium SPP is supporting 1 L and 1 M bakery, 1 L and 1 M cattle ranch, 1 Crystal Fab L, 1 IRE Forge, and 1 1mj shield production with a minor shortfall. If you want to build your own ore and silicon mines and supply them with e-cells, the L SPPwould be needed, leaving around a 14k surplus.

[lighters]

It's not too profitable to import crystals. Crystals are in relatively short supply in the universe, you might have trouble sourcing them out. For a small complex consider an open loop that only consumes e-cells and minerals. They're usually in abundance. Also, SPP is the most expensive station and if you build it, you can usually build the rest of the complex.

As soon as you can afford it, go with self-sustaining complexes. There's enough Ore and Silicon in, say, Elena's Fortune, to supply a very large complex.

Here's what you can do with a L-sized SPP. It has 5 weapons factories, self-sustained, all for a price of 30 mil.

Although I wouldn't produce Mosquito Missiles. They don't sell too well in large numbers, and for your own needs you can buy enough at EQdocks. Shields sell quite well or just produce tech products like chips/computer components.

[korg33]

Thanks for the replies

So yeah I wasn't really planning to build a mosquito missile factory, but mainly used it as an example. I will probably build a Missile Factory, which isn't sold at the equipment dock and keep selling surplus missiles this way.

I don't want a crystal fab in there is cuz I also have a Solar plant in Red light, so I was thinking of making the following in ore belt, so the crystals fab can supply to different sectors, containing factories
http://www.altanetworks.com/x3/x3tcocc. ... &sector=48
How do I do that here thing?

So downloaded the bonus pack (ITS FREE!!! YIPPPEEE)

and am about to check out the options. I honestly don't know exactly what each software does by itself that come in the vanilla version of the game, but I always equip all my ships with all software upgrades that cost under 10000 credits anyways. Its only the expensive stuff I specifically buy for certain ships.
But I like what I am seeing in the bonus pack. Seems that it really allows to specifically get supply lines going between stations, exactly what I was looking for.

So to clarify, in a complex if I put all my Stations in a line:

A--------B---------C---------D

A=Bakery
B=Solar plant
C=Missile factory
D=Cattle ranch

So this is about as illogical as you can place a complex and I would rather destroy such an abomination then keep it, but it would make 0 difference in terms of how the complex functions ?

[ancienthighway]

...I don't want a crystal fab in there is cuz I also have a Solar plant in Red light, so I was thinking of making the following in ore belt, so the crystals fab can supply to different sectors, containing factories
http://www.altanetworks.com/x3/x3tcocc. ... &sector=48
How do I do that here thing?
...

Yes, pull the crystal fab portion out of the complex I linked as an example. As I said it was just an example for determining total needs for what you are doing.

After taking a closer look at what stations are in what sectors, Ore Belt doesn't have any silicon mines. Emperor's Mines and Power Circle do though. Unless you are using mobile mining to supply the silicon, you may want to take another look at location for the Crystal Fab complex.

With an SPP in Redlight, you may already have enough energy to power everything you are planning on building. Keep an eye on that and save some money if you can.

While my example shows the Argon crystal fab and SPP, if you can buy what you need from the Boron and transport it, i.e. have your own TL, the Boron tech stations and food cost less than the Argon or any other race except Terran.

Personally, I like to keep my crystal production separated from the SPPs as you are planning. I also like to add just enough e-cell production to complexes with crystals shipped in and one big SPP complex to handle complexes not big enough for their own SPP and trade with NPCs.

(You link didn't work, it just went back to the one I gave you. Towards the bottom of the screen is the link for the complex you just planned. Using the URL tag you can put the link into a word or phrase: [ url=some link]put the key here[ /url])

[korg33]

The Solar plant in Red light is making good profits on its own though, which is why I want it to keep being dedicated to just selling energy cells and create a 2nd one dedicated for my own production.
There are around 10+ places that need energy cells and none of the sectors has a Solar plant, so I sell them for 18+ credits a piece =) Since I got 1 trader who is dedicated to just selling this resource it almost never get outrunned by NPC traders to good bargains

I gave the station around 300.000 credits starting funds and atm its about 800.000 and the first couple of hours the station was operating at less then 100% efficiency, because with 300.000 credits not enough crystals can be bought to fully supply the crystals that were needed, so its great profits =)

QUESTION
I installed the bonus pack yesterday so instead of best buy and best sell, I made both of them a commercial agent, which did slow down production a bit, because they need to level first before they can sell stuff, so atm I am doing the following

Trader A is buying crystals as a commercial agent leveling himself up.
Trader B is selling Energy sells, with the best sell command, to the surrounding sectors.

Then when trader A levels up, I will let him be a commercial agent that focuses on selling the crystals and let trader B become a commercial agent as well and focus on buying.

SO:
Whats the frkn difference between commercial traders and using ships that just sell / buy stuff at best price. I mean Besides being able to set a few blacklist sectors and give them a few extra parameters, I don't see how commercial agents give much extra profit....except perhaps the last level who can redirect course in mid space the moment a better selling opportunity offers itself, which essentially saves some time. Also I feel that these guys cost more then normal best buy / best sell traders. (not even sure I pay those guys =P) Then again 50 credits per minute adds up to 3000 credits an hour so shouldn't be that big of a differance for most trades, and its adds a feeling of realism

[ancienthighway]

Using the buy/sell at best price trade command limits that ship to a single commodity. It also continues until the point that the station is full of resources bought or empty product sold.

So with the missile complex, you would need three ships to buy crystals and ore, then a third ship to sell the missiles you want to sell. You could end up with a situation where the station's credits have been tied up in ore (readily available) with crystals (not readily available) not being purchased. No crystals leads to no energy, and everything comes to a standstill until you notice the problem.

A CAG can handle both the ore and crystal purchases, and it buys the resource that's needed the most. That same CAG if a high enough pilot is recruited from Herron's Nebula Trading Station, or make enough CAG buys will be able to sell the end product when stocks fill up or credits are short.

Once you have a dependency between complexes, CAG pilots can be transfer to CLS1 traders to more efficiently move wares from one complex to another.

CAG pilots can also be transfered to CLS2 pilots with give a lot more control over how you trade if you need to boost selected NPC production, like only selling energy to mines to keep the ore and silicon production going for your use or ensuring that a weapons forge keeps the resources up to build the weapons you need.

[korg33]

That's a really interesting way to use ur CAG's. For me when I need a resource I tend to build a station that produces it. To actually build a station to supply the sector with the resources they need to produce what you require, could actually be much more profiteble, esepcially if the resource you produce is in high demand =)

How long does it take to level up these guys? Like in the beginning they can only buy resources and not sell, which is extremely inconvenient.

I want them at level 2 asap to get them to also sell stuff, So I can have 2 mercury's do both the selling and buying, whatever is needed more.

Also for some reason my CAG that currently only buys crystals for my solar plant, says that he gave me over 1 mill profit.....considering he hasn't sold anything in his career as a CAG makes me wonder if he I should fire him for fraud =P

[ancienthighway]

Do the initial set up of a CLS pilot at the Trading Station in Herron's Nebula. Hire and fire pilots until you get a Cargo Messenger. Then set that ship up as a CAG which will use the same pilot. Buy/sell, and jump capability from the start.

Another alternative is to set up some M5s with the CLS2 software, then have them fly around 4 stations, just fly to, then fly to the next. Experience picks up, training takes place, and you get higher level pilots to work your CAGs and CLS traders.

Depending on the amount of resources a new complex requires and how much money the complex starts with, a new CAG can often times gain enough experience to be able to sell when you first need it to sell.

As far as that CAG pilot you suspect of fraud, earnings are based on all the pilot's experience, not just the current job. If the pilot was a CLS pilot before, those earnings are include unless you reset the books.

[jlehtone]

How long does it take to level up these guys?

Two hours of flying per level.

A wise pilot won't fly unnecessarily, so won't get "wiser" quickly.


The basic "Buy best" is very basic. Simple. The CAG has many features. None alone is really significant, but together they accumulate to tangible advantage. However, even the basic trade commands do have uses. Know the tools, know the needs, and making a credit will not be a heroic deed.

You do sound like a mogul, who can relatively easily learn and make effective use of all the profit opportunitiess.


Some of our (ancient) colleagues chose a path of "sector complexes". One sector, one complex. A Mine on every Asteroid of the sector. Megalomanic, and not strictly optimizing the profitsss. However, hardly any sector supports a "sector complex" that neatly uses both Silicon and Ore to the last drop. Therefore, the logical continuation is to do what you are aiming to: a network of stations/complexes that overall "even it out" with suitable logistics. Not with dozen stations, but with thousands.


If you ever end up building a "big complex", do remember that all new Stations are connected to the "Complex Hub" and have to be within 20km(?) from the Hub (it is in the FAQ). With "big", this is a problem. However, one can connect a Hub to another Hub. Only the first selected Hub remains. All connections of the complex are effectively recomputed every time you do build an additional Complex Connection Kit.

Thus, the trick to build big is to build many smaller complexes so that their Hubs from "dots to connect" with short enough distances, and you know the order in which to connect those hubs. For example, I have built A, B, C, D and then did connect C with D, B with C, A with B, and thus only the A did remain.