Complex Factory Assistance

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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StainedSilva
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Complex Factory Assistance

Post by StainedSilva » Mon, 15. Jun 15, 12:43

Hey there,

I am literally one day in to the game and so far it's been great.
I have Albion Preulde, terran War Pack.

I started out as Humble Merchant class, sold my Mercury and shot off with my Discoverer to teladi stock exchange.

I traded for 4 hours and amassed a wealth of around 24 million cr.

I have since decided to use my cash to start my galactic dominion, I have read one or two guides on here about starting up a complex but its flipping hectic to understand what to do.

I have yet to shoot anything let alone start a complex.

I am asking for any advice on what I should do, as I cant buy a TL or TS class ships as I don't have high enough notoriety and my discoverer has such a small cargo bay.

Which ships should I opt for on doing my trade runs for me at my factories and what sort of ship should I fly around in?

Its terrible that the game has no clear tutorials on anything they offer in the game, if it was not for the forums I wouldn't even have known about building my own factories !

So any help on what I should look at doing next would be great, as currently im just trading on the stock exchange as its all I know how to do haha!

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 15. Jun 15, 12:52

Hello and welcome. There are many good starter guides in this Sticky. Have a look there - some may be so old that the links do not work now, but most will be OK.

General gameplay starter guides for X3TC will also be mostly applicable for X3AP (apart from plot stuff). Remember that the types of ships you set out to obtain and fly will depend purely upon how you want to play the game. Different players have greatly different playstyles and roleplaying in these sandbox games.

Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about factories/complexes in the very early stages but instead get trade going first to get some regular cash income by using further TSs either bought or captured. (It seems odd that you chose the Humble Merchant start yet promptly sold your merchant ship! :D ) That trading and the freighters would support the initial purchase and upkeep of your eventual complexes (once you have bought or captured a TL to build them).

Good luck and enjoy discovering the game!
A dog has a master; a cat has domestic staff.

pref
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Post by pref » Mon, 15. Jun 15, 14:20

Do some missions for the races you plan to be friendly with, that is the quickest way to increase reputation. You will need that to buy equipment, ships and factories (Jumpdrives are a must for ex).
As your rep increases they will also pay nicely. In the beginning you get ridiculous amounts, don't let that scare you. Once your rep is high enough to get hard or very hard missions, they will pay much better.

Rive
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Post by Rive » Mon, 15. Jun 15, 15:42

IMHO the best would be to take your time to figure out the things by yourself.
This game is great because it has no clear path to any victory - the path is the victory.

I would just continue with fighting for a day or two. During that it would be useful to get and train some marines, and also you can start some CLS and ST pilots.

Building stations and complexes is a serious business, you will need more credits first :wink:
(And while it's great that you can make credits like the FED it's a bit like cheating and actually you will miss a lot of playing... )

Ormac
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Post by Ormac » Mon, 15. Jun 15, 16:41

When you start building I'd suggest starting with single factories initially, which can always be expanded into complexes later.

You can also hire TLs to Place your station (Station Not Included). You don't need to have the Millions upfront for your own TL beforehand.

-- Ormac

StainedSilva
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Post by StainedSilva » Mon, 15. Jun 15, 22:55

Ok cool, thanks for the advice.

I Sold the mercury as it was painfully slow. So i upgraded the discoverer in order to get around faster.

I had no Idea I could just buy one factory and make cash from it, I thought I needed the whole shebang.

Are there any nice trading spots to maybe take things to? Like buy energy cells here take it to there and sell?

Also which ship then should I get for this, as my discoverer only has a cargo space of 2?

Dovakiin
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Post by Dovakiin » Tue, 16. Jun 15, 00:20

You need freighters to do the big trades. They may be slow, but you can automate them then leave them to themselves while you do other things.

I haven't played AP yet. I've spent quite a bit of time with TC (Terran Conflict) though. The most profitable route I found was buying Nostrop Oil in Scale Plate Green and selling it to stations in PTNI Headquarters and Profit Centre Alpha. I used one freighter operating from each of the two refineries, with one freighter servicing PTNI headquarters and the other servicing Profit Centre Alpha.

I also had a freighter operating exclusively in Scale Plate Green, buying Sunflowers from the Flower Farms and selling to the Sun Oil Refineries.

I don't know if that is still viable in AP, but atleast it gives you an idea of a profitable route.

Mercury Haulers and Mistrals are very popular. You'll need Argon rep to buy them.

What I would recommend is getting yourself a TL and an M6, both equipped with jumpdrives, then save up maybe 10 million credits doing station defence, asteroid scan, courier and personnel/military transport missions. Eventually, you'll be able to remotely control your TL to pick up the stations for the highly lucrative station building missions while you do other missions. Then you can meet up with your TL when it's full, do the build missions then do it all again. I've made 10s of millions in 30 minutes multiple times doing this. I can easily make 50m+ while my TL is collecting stations, not even factoring in the profits from putting the stations up.

If you want to build stations/complexes for profitsss, a light shield (1MJ and 5MJ) complex will be highly lucrative. There's a fantastic complex calculator you can use to plan ahead.

Ormac
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Post by Ormac » Tue, 16. Jun 15, 02:51

Dukes Domain is good for purchasing Soybeans and there are a number of Soyerys Nearby for offloading.

Once you beyond local sector trading and able to move your freighters quickly between sectors it depends what you want to trade. Ringo Moon will take a lot of Plankton and Scruffin Fruits.

Ore will be demanded in Aladna Hill/Light of Heart/Akeela's Beacon. Ore is going to be demanded in a lot of sectors. So Taking ore from Emperor Mines or Lucky Planets/Rolks Legacy/Great Trench would be advantageous

-- Ormac

ancienthighway
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Post by ancienthighway » Tue, 16. Jun 15, 03:25

Aladna Hill has some nice ore asteroids, no need to go down to the Lucky Planets - Great Trench line.

Even better than setting up ore, or silicon mines, is mobile mining. The ore is available for free and selling it is all profit.

Bill Huntington
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Starting Well

Post by Bill Huntington » Tue, 16. Jun 15, 04:31

You've started well. You might take a Saved Game and store it outside this game, because there are several paths from here.

In my games, $22 Mil is a magic number. That's when I buy an Elephant, when some $ left to buy stations. I'm usually at License level with every race, and then I get to top rank with every race with a lot of help with the Elephant.

You can accept a Build Station mission you can't do yet, and then create the conditions to finish the mission with more $, getting to a certain SY, gaining rank with a certain race. Only rarely do I fail this challenge.

You don't know about TC combat yet. You might try it out. The Disco is okay for an M5 and a good starter ship. But you already have money. You might buy a Nova Raider in Omicron. Or buy any used M3 that is offered for sale, as long as it costs about $500 k or less. It runs about $3 Mil new. Then cap ships for $, but mostly to learn the combat system. When I have the choice, I only cap M3+. I stay away from pirates for a lot of reasons, so I attack the major races, especially the Paranid. You can do missions to rebuild your rep, with $3 Mil each in your pocket. Eclipse, Medusa, Chimera, Kea and Skate are some of them. Don't do the Military Ones; the Traders are the ones that bail.

After you get to top rank in all the races, then raise $100 Mil one way or another. Then build yourself a Spacefuel/Spaceweed Complex. That makes more money than anything. It will take another $100 Mil to finish it, but the first 100 is enough to get it started.

Good Luck, and Welcome to TC!
Bill in S.F., enjoying the game

RainerPrem
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Post by RainerPrem » Tue, 16. Jun 15, 07:23

Hi,
StainedSilva wrote:Ok cool, thanks for the advice.

I Sold the mercury as it was painfully slow. So i upgraded the discoverer in order to get around faster.

I had no Idea I could just buy one factory and make cash from it, I thought I needed the whole shebang.

Are there any nice trading spots to maybe take things to? Like buy energy cells here take it to there and sell?

Also which ship then should I get for this, as my discoverer only has a cargo space of 2?
Basically you will get twice as many different suggestions as there are people in the forum :-) Which is the big advantage of this game.

So you want to make money? Here are some suggestions:

1) Buy a life support system (at a Pirate Base) and transport people with your Disco, get on good terms with the Teladi (simple) and replace the Dicso with a Kestrel.

2) Buy another fast ship (Kestrel) or even more of them, equip it with explorer software and let it explore sectors and drop satellites.

3) Buy a freighter (I favor the Mistral, because you can buy it directly with jump drive), improve speed to max, buy best buy/best sell software for the freighter and the trading software for your own ship. Then you can send the freighter to buy at best price and then sell at best price. Silicon give the best ROI, is always available and always in need.

cu
Rainer

ancienthighway
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Post by ancienthighway » Tue, 16. Jun 15, 08:40

Don't rule out the Mercury and it's variants. Those purchased in Argon Prime or Cloudbase South East are easily equipped at purchase and then just one and two sector, respectively, to Terracorp for jump drives, best buy and sell, and commodity logistics software.

The Mistral is a nice ship, but the Mercury is cheaper. Buy and equip TS ships as if you are going to lose them, and put as little money into them as necessary. If you can pick up second hand TSs, the price difference is even greater.

The nice thing about the Mercury and Mistral is any variant can be equipped to be a mobile miner with the Mobile Drilling System for breaking up asteroids. The other races require a special variant to mount the MDS, with the exception of the Boron who has no TS that can mount it.

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Tue, 16. Jun 15, 13:03

.. that said, you don't actually need the MDS or special miner variants at all. A high yield missile (eg Hornet or Spectre) will break a full-size asteroid and then any TS with an ore collector and any laser can do remote mining of the resultant various sized rocks or the various pre-existing debris fields.
A dog has a master; a cat has domestic staff.

Honved
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Post by Honved » Tue, 16. Jun 15, 16:15

The most important piece of equipment you can put on a freighter is Engine Tunings. A faster TS will make more money for you. I'd invest in a couple of TS freighers, the basic Mercury makes a good starting ship. You'll need Remote Trade Extension software on your own ship to control them, otherwise you'll have to dock at the same station as the freighter to make the deal.

You can upgrade the cargo capacity (and the speed) on your Disco for a few hundred credits at any Trade Station or Equipment Dock. It'll never be viable as a cargo ship, but at least you can pick up dropped missiles after a fight or haul a couple of extra items. Only 2 cargo slots must be someone's bad idea of a joke. Each unit of cargo space costs more than the previous, so there's an absolute maximum and there's a "practical limit". You can probably afford to go to the maximum on the Disco, but I find that buying more than 100-300 extra cargo space on a TS starts to get more expensive per cargo slot than buying and equipping another ship.

Rather than building a station to produce something that sounds like it should sell, and find that you've just become the proud owner of a multi-million credit white elephant, take the time to see what the local economy really NEEDS. If the economy is constantly short of E-Cells, it's probably more lucrative to ferry them in from somewhere else with a TS (A Solar Power Plant is expensive and needs a supply of expensive Crystals), but if they're constantly short of Ore or food, then that's an opportunity for you to build a factory (those are much cheaper). If there are 6 Wheat Farms in the area, not producing because of a lack of Energy, building another Wheat Farm will end up as wasted credits if the NPC traders start delivering E-Cells. Look around and see what's really needed. Judging the economy is an art, and the availability of several items varies slightly in some regions with every new game.

As pointed out in an earlier post, an Ore Mine on a decent rock in Aladna Hill can provide exactly what that local region's economy is missing. A food processing plant and source of biomass (Argnu Ranch and Cahoona Bakery - you can link them into a mini-plex or keep them separate) in neighboring Akeela's Beacon can supply that sector and Legend's Home with the Cahoonas that they so badly need. There's more than enough E-cells to power them between the two sectors, and it should kick the whole regional economy into high gear, creating additional trade opportunities.

Building full complexes is a more advanced topic that you probably don't want to tackle until you've already built a couple of stand-alone factories. The economic opportunities and new tools and techniques to make a single factory profitable still apply to most complexes, and mistakes will be far more expensive with a complex.

Nanook
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Re: Complex Factory Assistance

Post by Nanook » Tue, 16. Jun 15, 19:10

StainedSilva wrote:...
Its terrible that the game has no clear tutorials on anything they offer in the game, if it was not for the forums I wouldn't even have known about building my own factories !

So any help on what I should look at doing next would be great, as currently im just trading on the stock exchange as its all I know how to do haha!
IMO, the best way to learn the TC/AP games is to first play TC, more precisely, the Terran plot of TC. That's the closest thing you'll get to an actual tutorial from Egosoft, and that plot will walk you through a lot of the game's mechanics. Once you've done that, then you can go back to AP if you wish, and continue on from where you are now. Or you can play the various plots of TC which are also a lot of fun. :)
Have a great idea for the current or a future game? You can post it in the [L3+] Ideas forum.

X4 is a journey, not a destination. Have fun on your travels.

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