Hi!
First of all welcome - this is my very first post, even though I've already been playing for a while.
I've been playing X3AP for a while now, I've got Hub, both Headquarters, small fleet, complexes making weapons and other stuff.
Now the questions:
1. Is it possible to make TL transporting wares between complexes, loading and unloading with freight drones or M3? Like a very big External Commodity Logistics (yes, i do know, that it's a waste of money). Mods possible.
2. How do I know, where to place illegal wares factories? I'm NOT asking for specific locations, but for a way to judge how much profit will those factories
bring in chosen sector.
3. Can I use Local Stock Exchange to find a good place for placing complex? Basing on Supply, Demand and Index things?
Logistics and station placement questions
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Logistics and station placement questions
“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.”
Heyho, and welcome 
1. Why do you need the TL? Easier just to configure a few TS to do this, no need for 2 extra freight transfers. Not sure if its even possible, you have no way to make the TL stay and wait for the ships to load/unload it imo. Also TS ships consume less ecells then TLs and cost less, so there is no gain financially.
2. Drugs will sell well everywhere. Place those plexes in non race sectors, because fabs producing illegal wares will attract local police and get destroyed quickly. If your price is below average NPC traders will buy everything. If you plan to sell actively, the best price is paid where the stuff is illegal. Also quite a few of the potential buyers (pirate bases) tend to get destroyed, so their location will change a lot during the game.
3. As your traders can use jumpdrives, distance will be a less important factor. You can also limit each of your station assigned traders to certain sectors if you want to cover a specific area. I pick build locations based on available mineral recourses and enemy presence.
1. Why do you need the TL? Easier just to configure a few TS to do this, no need for 2 extra freight transfers. Not sure if its even possible, you have no way to make the TL stay and wait for the ships to load/unload it imo. Also TS ships consume less ecells then TLs and cost less, so there is no gain financially.
2. Drugs will sell well everywhere. Place those plexes in non race sectors, because fabs producing illegal wares will attract local police and get destroyed quickly. If your price is below average NPC traders will buy everything. If you plan to sell actively, the best price is paid where the stuff is illegal. Also quite a few of the potential buyers (pirate bases) tend to get destroyed, so their location will change a lot during the game.
3. As your traders can use jumpdrives, distance will be a less important factor. You can also limit each of your station assigned traders to certain sectors if you want to cover a specific area. I pick build locations based on available mineral recourses and enemy presence.
1) It requires 3 TL's. One hangs in space near the origin complex, the other near the destination. The third one transports wares between them. Fighters fill and unload each of the end points. Most people go with Mammoth's or Atmosphere Lifters here. I prefer the Albatross for two reasons. One is the mounting of 8x FAA, giving it hilarious anti-fighter capability in sector, should you be doing missions in the destination sector. The other is balance between fighter capacity and cargo space. It still holds a lot of cargo, but more fighters can be coming and going at once than on a mammoth or AL.
2) Spaceweed can be built in Teladi sectors with no penalty, but spacefuel incurs wrath anywhere but Terran sectors.
Impulse Ray Emitters and 1MJ Shields sell extremely well. So do Microchips.
2) Spaceweed can be built in Teladi sectors with no penalty, but spacefuel incurs wrath anywhere but Terran sectors.
Impulse Ray Emitters and 1MJ Shields sell extremely well. So do Microchips.
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1. I calculated it and you are right, it is about 10 times more expensive than bunch of Mercurys (turns out they are the cheapest way of transport), but I wanted to have single Elephant or Mammoth with some M3 protection instead of 9 or 15 Mercurys.
That of course works for transport without jumping. If you jump, bigger ship is better, since even TL will use less than 4 TS+. So on long run TL jumping from my massive Solar Plant to other complexes would be nice.
And I'm simply curious.
2. OK, but I wonder how many of them should i put. I'm thinking about taking Xenon sectors 472, 347 or placing them in the Hub, would they be safe there?
3. I guess you're right, though I don't like using traders that jump. A waste of EC. No way to aviod it when trading heavy weapon or shields, aye?
That of course works for transport without jumping. If you jump, bigger ship is better, since even TL will use less than 4 TS+. So on long run TL jumping from my massive Solar Plant to other complexes would be nice.
And I'm simply curious.
2. OK, but I wonder how many of them should i put. I'm thinking about taking Xenon sectors 472, 347 or placing them in the Hub, would they be safe there?
3. I guess you're right, though I don't like using traders that jump. A waste of EC. No way to aviod it when trading heavy weapon or shields, aye?
“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.”
Regarding the ecell transfer and the need for too many ships: better transfer the crystals. This means you have to attach SPPs to consumer plexes, and turn some of them off on the source, but cargo efficiency will be easily worth it. And a couple mills one time expense doesn't really matter in later game. Think of crystals as supercompressed ecell packs.
If you want the traders to not use jump drives, then yes, you have to be careful, xenon sectors will be a barrier definitely, and you have to rely on nearby consumers as you are likely to fail deals that take long time to reach.
I don't know if you can saturate the market with drugs, probably not. I think you will get issues sooner because of all the AI ships that try to dock. Biggest one i ever had was perhaps 25x for both, did not want to waste to much silicon on it, just enough to catch on to other products that sell and can be of use to me as well (crystals for ex, and all the stuff Triaxx2 mentioned).
Dont mind the EC usage, just plan for it when you build plexes. Always have a little excess ecell production and you can forget about the whole fuel problem.
If you want the traders to not use jump drives, then yes, you have to be careful, xenon sectors will be a barrier definitely, and you have to rely on nearby consumers as you are likely to fail deals that take long time to reach.
I don't know if you can saturate the market with drugs, probably not. I think you will get issues sooner because of all the AI ships that try to dock. Biggest one i ever had was perhaps 25x for both, did not want to waste to much silicon on it, just enough to catch on to other products that sell and can be of use to me as well (crystals for ex, and all the stuff Triaxx2 mentioned).
Dont mind the EC usage, just plan for it when you build plexes. Always have a little excess ecell production and you can forget about the whole fuel problem.
Transporting crystals instead of ecells sounds brilliant, but isn't it better to keep Solars in sectors with 400% light and production near asteroids?
I have massive surplus of ecells and I can confirm it is awesome to constantly have 0.5milion of them stored as backup in power complex.
How do you guys sell all this? IRE, 1MJ, microchips? Commodity Logistics? How do you set them up?
I have massive surplus of ecells and I can confirm it is awesome to constantly have 0.5milion of them stored as backup in power complex.
How do you guys sell all this? IRE, 1MJ, microchips? Commodity Logistics? How do you set them up?
“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.”
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ancienthighway
- Posts: 1663
- Joined: Tue, 24. Apr 07, 05:25
1. My largest TL will always be kept available for build missions and my own complex building. If I have an Elephant or Ryo, I'll uses them as storage for lasers, shields, and missiles, plus all the odd ball fighters I may pick up and decide to keep. As I tend to mobile mine quite a bit, one or two TLs will at as a base to collect the ore and supply ships to pick it up for delivery.
Now to use it as you mention, I can see it might be useful if you have many complexes in a sector and neighboring sectors. The TL jumps in, and then TS CLS2 exchange wares with the TL while in sector but not follow it out of sector (CLS2 setting allow this to happen). Those TS ships can deal with your complexes or NPC stations.
IIRC vanilla freight drones will only trade with your complexes. They are also very slow and provide no feedback as to when they complete their task. Don't forget they have only 800 cargo hold. A Caiman without cargo expansion will carry 2500 units at 125 m/s. Knock off 100 units for shields and incidentals and you need 4, maybe 5, freight drones to carry 2400 at 80 m/s.
Scenario: you have a small CLS2 fleet in Aladna Hill. One is set to buy the weapons made there at less than average cost. The others are waiting for the supply ship to arrive and will pick up minerals, food, and energy from it to sell to the NPC stations. The TL jumps in through the West Gate and flies to Akeela's Beacon (East Gate). Weapons are transferred to the from the buyer to the TL, reources from the TL to the supply ships. Wares sold, return and do it again. You will only supply a limited number of stations that way. Making the whole operation very inefficient.
Better off using CLS2 ships with jump drive to go out get the needed resouces and return. If you have a lot of excess TLs you can set up something like Triaxx2 suggested.
2. Illegals: Pick a high traffic Unknown Sector or Pirate Sector (assuming you have reasonable relations with the Pirates). There are a large number of smugglers flying around in those racial supply ships and they have no qualms about stopping and buying the goods. All you have to do is supply the energy and the complex turns a profit. If you place the complex in an out of the way sector, distribution becomes a greater burden on you.
3. Stock Market: In a word, yes. You can identify resource shortages in the area covered by the stock market and establish stations and complexes in that area to satisfy the need. If there are no shortages, you may still have profit opportunity if the resources are not moving buy supplying the transports that may be needed.
4. Transports and Jump Drives. You only make money off of traders if you buy low and sell high. If someone else beats you to the trade, you lose profits. Jump drives remove the slow crawl out of a sector, and put in into the new sector as the gate closets to the destination. That puts you ahead of your competition to make that trade, and can even position you to beat out a competitor that had a head start on you.
Let's not forget the ability to complete more trades per hour either.
E-cells are cheap, especially if you have excess in your complexes.
Now to use it as you mention, I can see it might be useful if you have many complexes in a sector and neighboring sectors. The TL jumps in, and then TS CLS2 exchange wares with the TL while in sector but not follow it out of sector (CLS2 setting allow this to happen). Those TS ships can deal with your complexes or NPC stations.
IIRC vanilla freight drones will only trade with your complexes. They are also very slow and provide no feedback as to when they complete their task. Don't forget they have only 800 cargo hold. A Caiman without cargo expansion will carry 2500 units at 125 m/s. Knock off 100 units for shields and incidentals and you need 4, maybe 5, freight drones to carry 2400 at 80 m/s.
Scenario: you have a small CLS2 fleet in Aladna Hill. One is set to buy the weapons made there at less than average cost. The others are waiting for the supply ship to arrive and will pick up minerals, food, and energy from it to sell to the NPC stations. The TL jumps in through the West Gate and flies to Akeela's Beacon (East Gate). Weapons are transferred to the from the buyer to the TL, reources from the TL to the supply ships. Wares sold, return and do it again. You will only supply a limited number of stations that way. Making the whole operation very inefficient.
Better off using CLS2 ships with jump drive to go out get the needed resouces and return. If you have a lot of excess TLs you can set up something like Triaxx2 suggested.
2. Illegals: Pick a high traffic Unknown Sector or Pirate Sector (assuming you have reasonable relations with the Pirates). There are a large number of smugglers flying around in those racial supply ships and they have no qualms about stopping and buying the goods. All you have to do is supply the energy and the complex turns a profit. If you place the complex in an out of the way sector, distribution becomes a greater burden on you.
3. Stock Market: In a word, yes. You can identify resource shortages in the area covered by the stock market and establish stations and complexes in that area to satisfy the need. If there are no shortages, you may still have profit opportunity if the resources are not moving buy supplying the transports that may be needed.
4. Transports and Jump Drives. You only make money off of traders if you buy low and sell high. If someone else beats you to the trade, you lose profits. Jump drives remove the slow crawl out of a sector, and put in into the new sector as the gate closets to the destination. That puts you ahead of your competition to make that trade, and can even position you to beat out a competitor that had a head start on you.
Let's not forget the ability to complete more trades per hour either.
E-cells are cheap, especially if you have excess in your complexes.
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ancienthighway
- Posts: 1663
- Joined: Tue, 24. Apr 07, 05:25
400% sun means your energy will be produced 4 times faster than 100% light. Your SPPs will consume crystals 4 times faster, too. This is not always a good thing, especially if you can't sell all that energy fast enough.Irrehaare wrote:Transporting crystals instead of ecells sounds brilliant, but isn't it better to keep Solars in sectors with 400% light and production near asteroids?
I have massive surplus of ecells and I can confirm it is awesome to constantly have 0.5milion of them stored as backup in power complex.
How do you guys sell all this? IRE, 1MJ, microchips? Commodity Logistics? How do you set them up?
I don't pay that much attention to asteroids when I build complexes. No matter where the ore is, it's just one jump away from my consumers. I do however pay attention to what resources are available from the NPC in sector. Can the NPC provide the minerals, food or energy, saving me the cost of buying expensive stations. The trade off is a larger transport fleet to feed my complex and the NPC stations. Second hand transports are cheap and plentiful. Hijacked ships are even cheaper and more plentiful.
With 1/2 a million energy cells in excess, you are really not in a position to start distributing crystals for your complexes to convert into energy. Ship that energy out to every complex you have no matter than distance. Yes there's those jump drive equipped traders again. You could even add a medium SPP to each complex, turn it off, and then use CAGs to sell energy easily from each complex or allow NPCs to buy "factory direct". Warehoused products and resources are lost profits. BTW, surplus energy stored at the complex that made them isn't a back up to the SPP complex. If the complex is destroyed, the "backup" is destroyed too.
Higher sun % means you need less SPPs to produce the same amount of ecells. Plexes under weaker suns will need more of them to consume the same crystal amount and produce the same amount of ecells as well.Irrehaare wrote:Transporting crystals instead of ecells sounds brilliant, but isn't it better to keep Solars in sectors with 400% light and production near asteroids?
How do you guys sell all this? IRE, 1MJ, microchips? Commodity Logistics? How do you set them up?
It is a one-time cost only, during production it wont matter any more.
I only care about suns when im still poor - while building the first few plexes.
Ore and silicon will matter more when building bigger plexes (above ~50 fabs perhaps).
Regarding the 500k ecell exccess: you can turn that into crystal excess by turning off some of the SPPs on your ecell fab. Then you will have crystal surplus instead of ecells, and can transport that. It will drastically reduce the need for ships, their config time and the care needed during operation from your end.
Also selling crystals can bring quite some money. In current game i have a 12x L cristal plex that sells stuff above average - needs about a game week to get near full. Then i set sell price to avg-1 if none of my plexes need it and the whole stock will be sold out very quickly.
Also useful to quickstart big plexes. Doing that with ecells take a lot more transfers and time. 1 crystall equals to 138 ecells so you will need more then 30x cargo space to transfer the same amount of energy using cells.
At higher consumption rates ecell transfer will become a real problem.
Drugs, cheap shields and weaponry will sell on its own. AI traders will dock and buy it without you selling actively. Same for chips (this has the highest theoretical income imo).
Higher grade weapons and shields will only be bought by equipment docks, and only if your own ships fly there and sell them.
Thanks for all your feedback, it's a great help. I'll be sure to check some of it. Two last question though: if I have the Hub connected to core sectors like Argon Prime does Space Fuel Distillery have a chance to survive there without full scale war? And how do I set TL to jump, wait to be loaded, jump again and wait to be unloaded and so on? External Commodity Logistics?
I'll be sure to check some of it. Two last question though: if I have the Hub connected to core sectors like Argon Prime does Space Fuel Distillery have a chance to survive there without full scale war? And how do I set TL to jump, wait to be loaded, jump again and wait to be unloaded and so on? External Commodity Logistics?“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open.”
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ancienthighway
- Posts: 1663
- Joined: Tue, 24. Apr 07, 05:25
You can place any of the stations building illegal or potentially illegal wares in any non-racial Commonwealth sector. Or, another way to put it, if a race considers the ware illegal, you can't put the station in that race's sector. The in-game Encyclopedia under Races I believe will list illegal wares for that race. The sector the Hub is in, is not owned by any race. You can freely build illegal producing wares in it.
I don't believe it's possible to do what you want with the TL, jump in wait, jump out. Maybe there's a script that will do so, but I've never seen it. The closest to this procedure is the multiple TL method. One stationary in each sector you want to receive or distribute wares, and one TL flying between them transferring wares from sector to sector. This is done via CLS2.
I don't believe it's possible to do what you want with the TL, jump in wait, jump out. Maybe there's a script that will do so, but I've never seen it. The closest to this procedure is the multiple TL method. One stationary in each sector you want to receive or distribute wares, and one TL flying between them transferring wares from sector to sector. This is done via CLS2.
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RainerPrem
- Posts: 3587
- Joined: Wed, 18. Jan 06, 07:39
Hi,
Where exactly did you read/hear that statement?
cu
Rainer
Are you sure? I never heard that before. Everybody told me that the rate of crystals to e-cells is constant and stations with more sun use up their crystals faster.pref wrote: Higher sun % means you need less SPPs to produce the same amount of ecells. Plexes under weaker suns will need more of them to consume the same crystal amount and produce the same amount of ecells as well.
Where exactly did you read/hear that statement?
cu
Rainer
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ancienthighway
- Posts: 1663
- Joined: Tue, 24. Apr 07, 05:25
1 crystal = 138 energy cells. 1 crystal takes 4 cargo space.
A Pirate's Revenge Completed Now in PDF by _Zap_
APR Book 2: Best Served Cold Updated 8/5/2016
The Tale of Ea't s'Quid Completed
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain
APR Book 2: Best Served Cold Updated 8/5/2016
The Tale of Ea't s'Quid Completed
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain
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RainerPrem
- Posts: 3587
- Joined: Wed, 18. Jan 06, 07:39
Sorry, my fault.
I read "SPPs" and substituted "crystals" and that without any alcohol or other drugs ...
cu
Rainer
I read "SPPs" and substituted "crystals" and that without any alcohol or other drugs ...
cu
Rainer
pref wrote:@RainerPrem: Yes, these are equivalent statements. So as they use crystals faster, they will produce ecells faster - and less SPPs will be needed for the plex.
Only changes the plex's initial price, during production it does not matter at all.