Well, after 8 years it finally happened

Hank001 · Post by **Hank001** » Thu, 19. Apr 18, 03:05

Oh the whole subplot was new to me. When I left on a 11 year hietus I was on TC's first release and my Reunion was Enlight. I've finished the plotlines now with the newest versions as a Terran in TC. It helped more having more Universal Traders running around than I could really keep track of. Actually I bought my way out of the hub and collecting that much material took me piloting the XL crap hauler around and dropping it off when full (took 6 realtime days and almost drained me dry.) My biggest shock came when dumb old Hank didn't clean out all the mod stuff and my stats showed
***modified***

So I started again as the Argon. Keeping an eye on those stats to make sure it's pure vanilla.

So in a way 8 years was okay. Taking me 11-12. Which I suppose is nothing to brag on.

RainerPrem · Post by **RainerPrem** » Thu, 19. Apr 18, 22:18

Hi,

due to the enormous amount of chips in TC they were obviously designed to be indefinitely requested by the economy after the Hub-plot completed. It seems that this design made it into AP as well.

So you can still build large Chip compexes to make credit$$$ For me it's the least cheat-ish of the make-big-money schemes in the game.

cu
Rainer

Hank001 · Post by **Hank001** » Thu, 19. Apr 18, 22:35

Good , but when I went though recently tge chip market was way low. I think it varies from game to game. I lucked out at the very start of Final Fury and two Xenon L's turned blue. That was a free 8mill! At the shipyard in the 149 sector I rolled that into Mercury Haulers, set up sector traders, by the time I was into FF and the Terran missions they all had enough XP to go Universal. Hand enough credits to put Sector Traders back in their places.
Credits were rolling in and I hardly had to build a factory.
This shouldn't be a spoiler and is common sense, but fit your UT's with jump drives so they can jump away from danger on their own.
Just keep rolling credits into more sector traders. Oh and put adv sats in those sectors too.

Sinxar · Post by **Sinxar** » Thu, 19. Apr 18, 22:43

Yeah I noticed that in TC also. The first time through all those chip plants were just raking in the cash but in another playthrough they couldn't get rid of their products fast enough causing production to stall.

I tried a large chip plant in AP (not nearly as large as the TC ones though) and they were OK but sales were overall pretty slow. To be fair though it could have been the way the gates were connected since I was using 2 of them to create the peaceful island with the player sector. I can tell you how to do it if you like, its pretty neat.

Post by **DrSuperEvil** » Fri, 20. Apr 18, 00:38

In AP I find it better to use the silicon for drone or crystal production. The drones are good for boarding and the crystals can make energy cells for converting ore into finished goods worth more (like missiles).

Hank001 · Post by **Hank001** » Fri, 20. Apr 18, 15:29

Going the Sector Trader into Universal Trader route is really working out for me in the game I'm now. Since the industrial content of a sector seems to change from game to game too it's a matter of finding a sector that's hot. Omicron Lyrea always seems to be the starting place you can chug out UT's fairly quick. With the trader method keeping an eye on your messages and moving traders in poor sectors to someplace else a bit better is key.

Post by **Nanook** » Fri, 20. Apr 18, 21:19

Hank001 wrote:...
This shouldn't be a spoiler and is common sense, but fit your UT's with jump drives so they can jump away from danger on their own...

If you don't, they'll do it on their own anyway. So no, it's not a spoiler.

Hank001 · Post by **Hank001** » Fri, 20. Apr 18, 21:37

Oh yes! And give you that honking alert they are being attacked and jumped out. NICE! Gives you a chance to jump into there and clean house if you not busy doing something else. Which my programming or simply Murphy's Law always seems to be the case.

Happen to have been butt deep in traformers on the first mission of New Home when my email dinged me about your post. Great. Need a TM. Decided to hit pause and answer. First try blew me to that undiscovered sector of the game called "Kingdom Come". Dropped back a save, when the SALVE MIA msg came in again I jumped
in with the Claymore, Griffon and Vidar first before my favored ride, the LX that went blue in the Alrin mission.

modernrocko · Post by **modernrocko** » Fri, 20. Apr 18, 22:42

What ships do you guys run your UT's in? Currently I've got 3 UT's, the first is still running in the Mercury I started with (Humble Merchant start), the other two are in Mistrals for the extra speed.

I finally saved up enough to buy a Springblossom for general use and possibly boarding, but I'm not quite to that point yet. The Terran rep took ages to get up but it was worth it for sure, it's a nice ship (I spent the better part of an evening trading 1500 energy cells back and forth to slowly increase rep because I couldn't find pirate spawns--snore!). I'm almost considering buying a few more Springblossoms strictly for UT's to use, but maybe that's overkill at 6 million each. Still, 2k cargo and 360m/s top speed might mean that they would always catch the best deals ASAP, right?

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Fri, 20. Apr 18, 23:14

Springblossoms are great for use as STs/LTs in the Aldrin area where their speed is pretty essential to get round/through (IS/OOS) the big rock, and later the TOAs, for deals. (Keep OOS ideally if you want them to dock in Aldrin rather than veer off/collide!) It can keep some of the experimental weapon sources resourced as well as making a tidy profit too. This process suitably trains up the pilots for eventual UT use if you want.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Fri, 20. Apr 18, 23:47

modernrocko wrote:What ships do you guys run your UT's in?

Pedantic: None.

Elaborate: I have about dozen LT's (in X3AP) for (1) supporting the NPC economy in "safe areas" and (2) amusement. The latter was minimal; I've practically forgotten them.

Drakes, for no particular reason. I think I did set Snotras to CAG at Xenon Hub, that is the closest to "UT" that I'll go.

Hank001 · Post by **Hank001** » Sat, 21. Apr 18, 00:20

Everbody asked:

What ship do you UT with?

Almost everything. Depends on what shipyard is closest to a sector I think looks profitable. I go with Haulers. Another good source is capturing Duke's ships. Just give them time to give up. The first thing I do when I want to start a sector trader is start scouting sectors I have Adv. Sats in to find "Duke's Free Freighters"

modernrocko · Post by **modernrocko** » Sat, 21. Apr 18, 03:08

Hank001 wrote:Almost everything. Depends on what shipyard is closest to a sector I think looks profitable. I go with Haulers. Another good source is capturing Duke's ships. Just give them time to give up. The first thing I do when I want to start a sector trader is start scouting sectors I have Adv. Sats in to find "Duke's Free Freighters"

I do similar, but I sell Duke's floating barges to finance faster ships. Duke's Buccaneers have been steadily financing my organization since the beginning and I appreciate all of their hard work more than they could possibly know. Ahem, that is-- I appreciate their ineptitude and utter lack of detective-work. I can't believe they haven't begun investigations into why they have such a high employee turnover...

Post by **DrSuperEvil** » Sat, 21. Apr 18, 09:16

Early on I use capped TS ships but as soon as I can I switch to hayabusas since those have 400MJ shielding and good cargo space.

Hank001 · Post by **Hank001** » Sat, 21. Apr 18, 20:28

I suppose it depends on how much outlay you use on your shipping. Knowing you're going to lose X number no matter what to the whims of an event engine, and really unless you're there in the sector their shield and hull strength doesn't seem to matter when the dice rolls "lose a ship". So for me it's go cheap for a quick return and if they get slagged, oh well, that's the breaks. Beats scanning hundreds of asteroids or the engine rolling "Lose a station" and a Khaak carrier popping in to insure such and if for some reason like a friendly M1 being nearby pops in ANOTHER... (Seen it happen). Well in the game I'm running now it's going good without much grief and put me in the position of saying "That's the breaks of the game."

Post by **DrSuperEvil** » Sat, 21. Apr 18, 21:00

Considering the Trade Command Software MK3 costs 500k are you going to lose that investment over a few thousand credits price difference.

Hank001 · Post by **Hank001** » Sat, 21. Apr 18, 21:19

There's a point I'd considered. Plus getting the ship to the software, but so far the return has been good enough to prove the scheme. I'm still rolling M4's and M5's I claim into ships, software and jumpdrives for them. It's still proving more profitable than the problems you get in with factories and support freighters. At least to me. Usually taking breaks between missions to hunt pirates, Dukes Flying Fleamarkets, and then slowly expanding my sectors. As long as that bottom line inches upward I'm happy. However my primary consideration is finger on the trigger and keeping myself in one piece. The need to rake in buckzoids so Goner priests and Fishy fuddy-duddies can stick out their hands for all you're worth is to me simply another part of the game. As I'm sure there are players out there that would be happy never to fire a shot. I'll see if this strategy paid off when the Hub and later comes up, but I'm happy with how fast the Goner missions were history.

Post by **DrSuperEvil** » Sun, 22. Apr 18, 09:07

Use a ship able to hold fighters to freight spare Jump Drives and Trade Command Softwares around. That way the equipment can come to the ship as opposed to it having to make the journey.

Hank001 · Post by **Hank001** » Sun, 22. Apr 18, 09:22

Beauty! Now there's suggestion! I just ditched on the TC New Home mission. 400 Million!? Have to ask yourself is it worth it? I'll pass for now. About like the guy who paid a man to dig a well. He asked the guy what kind of simpleton digs holes for a living? The guy smiles and tells him, a smarter man than one that pays me for a hole! Well a sector is just one big empty piece of NOTHING. At least the HUB is something!

modernrocko · Post by **modernrocko** » Tue, 24. Apr 18, 00:34

DrSuperEvil wrote:Use a ship able to hold fighters to freight spare Jump Drives and Trade Command Softwares around. That way the equipment can come to the ship as opposed to it having to make the journey.

This is what I do. I use a Zephyrus as my "delivery" vehicle which I keep loaded up with 4 fast ships that are fully equipped with every piece of software I can find (except Trade Mk3 and System Override Software). Whenever I capture a new ship I intend to keep I order the Zephyrus to jump to the nearest safe gate and order one of its docked ships to load up the newly captured one with whatever software and upgrades it needs, along with enough energy cells to get to the nearest safe shipyard.

Once I've finished capturing ships, or once I have exhausted the 4 stored ships of their jumpdrive and softwares, I'll order the Zephyrus to jump around the universe filling back up on those upgrades for the next round of captures.

Way more effective than how I used to do it. I used to keep a rapid response patrol group in my favorite "capturing" sector to escort newly-captured ships to a shipyard or nearby system. Lost entirely too many ships that way and turned to these Egosoft forums where I found the aforementioned strategy. Since then I haven't lost any captures.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Well, after 8 years it finally happened