[X3:AP] Did stations get less profitable since TC?

[ItWasRhetorical]

Speaking as someone who has played a lot of Reunion and Terran Conflict, but kept bouncing off of AP (Partly for out-of-game reasons, partly from little niggles that got patched out), building factories doesn't seem to generate the same sort of profitssss I recall from previous games.

That, at least, was the overwhelming impression I recall from my last forays into AP.

Am I just mis-remembering, or has something changed? I'm primarily a fighter and an industrialist, I'm not much of a space trucker. If something has changed, can someone suggest a mod that makes it more TC-like?

EDIT: Is Terran space viable for commerce yet? Or do I still have to do the death-or-glory charge through the War Sectors to make money? Is the LU mod worth looking into?

[RAVEN.myst]

As far as I can tell (after dozens upon dozens of games), station profitability in the absolute sense has not changed. However, given how it's been getting progressively easier and easier to make money in other ways, then relatively speaking it can be argued that stations have become less profitable. I found that I had to work a lot harder for my bucks (especially early on) in Reunion, and even harder than that in X2 (and a recent re-play of the whole series showed me that it wasn't just me getting better over the years, as new games came out), and so I tended to rely a lot more heavily on production in those titles, whereas in TC and AP once I get the Hub, that's megabucks from trading right there, vastly overshadowing any industry.

[ancienthighway]

I can't say that I've noticed any major difference in station profitability between TC and AP.

For example, the Solar Power Plant costs the same in TC as it does in AP. Prices for energy cells range from 12 cr to 20 cr. Incidentally, Reunion has the same price range for energy cells. Hourly production is the same, and after deducting the price of crystals, both have an hourly profit of 524,359 cr for an SPP XL built in Akeela's Beacon (400% sun).

What may have happened is slight differences in AI stations in the clusters of racial sectors, which would change ware availability and demand in that cluster. The AI may be a little smarter about moving those wares around, too, so your stations may not have a near monopoly like position in the cluster. This means you may have to work a little harder to obtain market dominance. If you shy away from being a "trucker", it will be harder to do.

[ItWasRhetorical]

To be clear, it's more the rate of income rather than the income itself, AI traders seem to be a lot less interested in visiting my factories. This, however, is anecdotal evidence from about 12 months ago, rather than any focussed test.

[ancienthighway]

That would be where the supply and demand comes in. If you priced your wares at avg-1, but AI stations have it cheaper, AI traders will go to the AI stations.

There are two ways to mitigate this, and they actually work well together.
1. Have a CAG or two dedicated to selling your wares.
2. Use CLS2 to buy your competition's wares so you can resell it at a profit. Buy the ware and use CLS2 to sell it or dump it in your station, and let the CAGs sell it.

You can check inbound transports along with their orders from the command console, advanced options. Some may be coming to you from distant sectors, traveling without jump drive, and possibly even intercepted by pirates in route.