Young gun looking for some help, new ship and trading.

[Panos]

b) Young Gun starts the game with +5 ships available from the get go

You should probably spoiler tag some of this.

This is 2018 news!!!!!!!

[jlehtone]

b) Young Gun starts the game with +5 ships available from the get go. (not including the Ody or the Drill)

I chose Untested Explorer, because I assumed that Discoverer is worse ship than Young Gun's Elite. That is apparently not true.

As for the abandoned ones, I don't even try to find them. If I do, not claim them. (Did take Perseus. It and some captured Kestrels and Discos died in Xenon fun.) As for the plots, I'm not worthy to start any plot yet.

Sure, if you know the "facts" then everything is easy; there is no exploration, just grind. No "Gee, what is that shiny? Bang! THE END" (For some reason I'm convinced that that incident was in BHS, but on revisits there is no such thing. Must have been a different sector.)

[Eyeklops]

b) Young Gun starts the game with +5 ships available from the get go

You should probably spoiler tag some of this.

This is 2018 news!!!!!!!

It's not about the age of the news but whether or not it should be something discovered by a new player in game vs accidentally in the non-spoiler section of the forums. The spoiler tag is easy to use and with the way your post is written if you only obfuscate the names & locations of the ships your point still comes across clearly.

[Panos]

You should probably spoiler tag some of this.

This is 2018 news!!!!!!!

It's not about the age of the news but whether or not it should be something discovered by a new player in game vs accidentally in the non-spoiler section of the forums. The spoiler tag is easy to use and with the way your post is written if you only obfuscate the names & locations of the ships your point still comes across clearly.

I urge you then to find the other discussions in the first page here and make the same argument as some discussing about the free Odysseus.

[Nanook]

b) Young Gun starts the game with +5 ships available from the get go

You should probably spoiler tag some of this.

This is 2018 news!!!!!!!

Except the OP is just starting out in 2021!! Try not to spoil all the surprises for him, OK?

[Panos]

You should probably spoiler tag some of this.

This is 2018 news!!!!!!!

Except the OP is just starting out in 2021!! Try not to spoil all the surprises for him, OK?

Has made the same post in Reddit and overclockers UK forum. Spoilers are flying......

[DEL 707]

This is 2018 news!!!!!!!

Except the OP is just starting out in 2021!! Try not to spoil all the surprises for him, OK?

Has made the same post in Reddit and overclockers UK forum. Spoilers are flying......

No, this forums the only 1 providing spoilers
But I'm avoiding them, I don't want some "sloppy seconds" ship.

[Panos]

Except the OP is just starting out in 2021!! Try not to spoil all the surprises for him, OK?

Has made the same post in Reddit and overclockers UK forum. Spoilers are flying......

No, this forums the only 1 providing spoilers
But I'm avoiding them, I don't want some "sloppy seconds" ship.

Hahahahhaha

[DEL 707]

I've not done much later, but I'm friendly with the Argon, Paranid and Teladi. I'm also up to 15mil cr.

As I've mentioned before, I had a single energy cell station, but I want to make something bigger.

I know everyones game is different, but what is the best way to identify a gap in the market for a product?
Again the same question applies on where to put the station itself.

[Panos]

I've not done much later, but I'm friendly with the Argon, Paranid and Teladi. I'm also up to 15mil cr.

As I've mentioned before, I had a single energy cell station, but I want to make something bigger.

I know everyones game is different, but what is the best way to identify a gap in the market for a product?
Again the same question applies on where to put the station itself.

Advanced Electronics is a product in great need and so are all the other products in it's production chain in addition you need a lot for your own research projects.

So decide where you want to set up shop.

Lets start easy.
Find a sector with good Methane, set up a Graphene factory.
Then Find a sector with Helium set up a Superfluid Coolant factory.

Assign 4 M Gas miner to each one, 2 M freighters and sell to AI. You need the money for the next step.

Find a nearby a good rich Silicon sector, set up a Silicon Wafers factory. Assign miners to it.
Preferably L miners, you can get them from ARG and HOP war guild mission. Some are easy to do and you make good money plus the ship.
Have the crew switching over to Service Crew except any 2-3 star Marines you might get. Move those to a Freighter when you have a chance.

Then on a sector near the above but next to highway, set up the 3 factories for Microchips, Quantum Tubes, Advanced Electronics.
Usually set them up no more than 5 jumps from the previous 2 factories preferably on the highway.
If you are close with the right settings you can restrict trade to your own faction and the freighters will sell only to your own stations.
Otherwise use Repeat Order and buy/sell the goods between your stations.


You might ask why L miners. Because mineral miners will start getting attacked by KHK and you need Heavy Fighters or Frigates/Corvettes to protect the sectors they are operating. So L miners are better, equipped with 2-3 plasma turrets they are impervious to any damage from KHK, can kill them and do not require escort ships.


PS1 That Graphene factory is going to be BIG since needed for a lot of products like Hull Parts, Plasma conductors, Quantum Tubes, Advanced Composites.
PS2 Eighteen Billion is an amazing sector to set up shop. Has everything you need most of the time. Just scan it and set up a lot of resources probes.

[Y-llian]

If you’re not quite familiar with the production chains, I’d recommend a mining/trade hub. It’s really easy to setup, and done correctly will make a tidy profit. It will also give you invaluable experience with basic design, how to use trade rules and managing subordinates. Since you started as a Young Gun, you’ve likely already explored Grand Exchange which is an excellent sector for a mining hub. Not only is there high demand for minerals/gas in sector itself and the resources plentiful but usually, the neighbouring systems of BHS and Pious Mists are in need too. Dependent on how far you’ve progressed, SCA may also have built stations in Nopileos Fortune that will be looking for Hydrogen.

To setup a very basic mining hub all you need is: L/XL pier, M/S dock/1, M solid storage/1 M liquid storage. No need for habitats as your only “population” will be your manager. Design it however you want - just make sure ships can easily get to and from the pier/docks.

While the station is being built:

1. Buy 4 medium miners - 2 x gas, 2 x solid. These ships will become your collectors - they will mine and then transport the goods to your hub. I usually name them Collector S1/S2,G1,G2 respectively but you don’t have to.

2. Under global options create a trade rule called ‘My faction only’ or ‘Just Me’ whatever you feel appropriate. In the factions list make sure you only select your own faction and nothing else.

Once the station is built:

1. Find a manager and assign them to the hub. If you have some seminars handy train your manager to two stars in management. You don’t have to do this, the manager will train on the job, but the seminars just gets things moving a little quicker.

2. Go to the Logical Station overview and create buy orders ore, silicon, methane, hydrogen respectively. For each of the orders, manually set buy price to the lowest, leave storage on automatic and then add the ‘my faction only’ trade rule. You should now have an icon of a circle with a cross inside, on each of the buy orders. The reason we’re adding this rule should be obvious but for clarity, without it your manager will buy from other factions. We only want him to “buy” from the collector ships.

3. Assign the collectors ships you previously built to the hub as miners. They should now start moving off into the sector to mine.

While collectors are mining, let’s start to think about selling what we’re mining.

1. Buy 1 x M Gas miner and 1 x M Solid miner. These will be your distribution ships, I call them Seller G1, Seller S1 etc. As before there’s no need to rename ships, I just like the clarity.

2. Go back to the buy orders you created previously and create a sell order for each of the raw materials. Set the price to the lowest possible + 1Cr. Leave storage on automatic, don’t assign any trade rules.

3. Assign your seller ships to your hub as traders.

From now on, as the raw materials get delivered by your miners, the seller ships will go to the hub, collect from storage and sell to customers in the sector. As your manager gains experience your sellers will sell into neighbouring sectors as well.

Give me my profitssss:

To ensure you get regular payments from your mining hub go back to the logical overview and take a look at the budget. Ignore the the recommended budget. Set your budget to £2M credits. Once the station accumulates around £6M credits it will start to give you regular income. You can also set the budget to £1M if you’re strapped for cash after all the investment.

Scaling up:

Once you have all this in place, you can easily scale up by adding more collector and seller ships. The more you have, the quicker the goods go in and out. You can also use L miners to further increase your collection yield.

To really get things moving in terms of selling, consider using a combination of M and S miners as seller ships.

As you add more ships, consider upgrading the docks from 1M6S to the 3M6S. Or you could add the 3M dock right from the off if you can afford it.

Increase storage as needed. But personally, I’ve never needed to increase beyond medium solid/gas storage. Correctly setup and balanced, the raw materials will be delivered and sold pretty quickly as the demand is so high in GE and the surrounding sectors.

Add trade/sell orders for helium and Ice dependent on local demand, if appropriate.

What have you learned doing this:

1. How to design a basic trade station.
2. How to manage prices.
3. How to create trade rules and apply then.
4. How to assign ships as traders and miners.
5. How to get regular payments from trade stations.
6. How to scale up.

Things to bear in mind that’s unique to mining hubs.

1. For any other form of production, you cannot ignore the estimated budget as we did here. Mining hubs are unique in that they have no production and right now, the estimate budget calculation doesn’t quite work correctly for mining hubs. If you ignore the estimated value for say a engine parts factory and provide a budget under what’s recommended, it will not work properly.

2. Over time as your mining operation increase the Kha’ak will start to bother your collector ships. Some faction ships are better at dealing with this than others. I’ll let you discover that for yourself. But setting up in GE has the additional advantage that it’s well policed by both the Teladi Company and Ministry of Finance. I have yet to lose a mining ship in my current play through in GE.

3. I have seen recommendations for resource probes. Personally I don’t use them but you may want to investigate how they affect station miners and decide if you’d like to use them.

Good luck!

All best
Y.

[DEL 707]

Again, thanks for all the help.

I've setup a station in The Void since it has methane and helium.

https://i.imgur.com/u2TAG0p.jpg

I am starting to regret my decision building it in The Void though, the Xenon have started to become active and have been harrasing trading ships and even the mammoth as it was building the stations.
How do I go about placing defences?

I've assigned 2 gas miners to the station so far. Will they mine both methane and gas?

[SirConnery]

How do I go about placing defences?

Firstly you'll want to protect the station so place some defense modules, if they start bringing out Destroyers to the Void, which does happen. Then you'll also want another purely defence station near your mining station.

Miners are much harder to protect. Generally I've used the "Repeat orders" in dangerous sectors. 1. Mine 2. Sell . This way you can place your mining area in some remote corner where they're usually not targeted.

I've assigned 2 gas miners to the station so far. Will they mine both methane and gas?

They will, but the station manager constantly switches all the miners to mine one of them instead of individually balancing the mining. You'll want to have at least one miner on "Sector Automine" or "Repeat Orders" to mine the same gas so you never run out of stock.

I don't personally use any station miners for this reason. It's easier to balance the mining you need for a station by using sector automine on one miner then having new miners mimic that one. If it's a small station, station mining works fine but on higher production you constantly run out of one resource while the manager switches the miners to mine the other one.

[jlehtone]

The Void ... has natural hazards, doesn't it? Dangerous zones. With 4.1 those affect ships even when player is not present. Hence not a place where AI can freely roam. On the positive side, the AI should be able to navigate around the hazards.

Xenon K has six L turrets. One station defence module has how many L turrets? It is relatively easy* to pack many modules in small space; the foes will be badly outgunned (except perhaps the TER Asgards). (Whether ship/station turrets function as expected in low and high attention is an another matter.)



* "Just some money and time" says player, who runs no miners, no traders, and no stations.

[Y-llian]

Jlehtone is wise to highlight the hazards in The Void. It’s a really pretty sector but arguably, not the location for a beginner station. If you’re keen to be near ANT and PIO (if that’s your plan) then maybe think about Antigone Memorial instead. The shipyards there are in need of resources.

[DEL 707]

Looks like I'm abandoning the void then, 1 of my gas miners has disappeared and another was badly damaged. Don't believe it was the Xenon, so I'm blaming the weird glowing rocks.

Looking for another place to setup, I was thinking about Hativah's Choice I.
It's next to Argon Prime and has a highway.
Only problem is that it seems to have a fair bit of Xenon activity.

I'm assuming if I set gas miners to mine for the station, they'll go into neighbouring sectors for resources?
Is there a way to see how many jumps miners/traders will do for a station?

[GCU Grey Area]

I'm assuming if I set gas miners to mine for the station, they'll go into neighbouring sectors for resources?
Is there a way to see how many jumps miners/traders will do for a station?

Distance miners can travel is dependent on the skill level of the station manager, same as for station-based freighters (i.e. 1* = 1 gate, 5* = 5 gates).
However in the case of miners I prefer to give them a travel blacklist to specify precisely where they are permitted to go.
For example, this is the travel blacklist I use for miners working for a station in Grand Exchange: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bgh8n5g3tofn6 ... 1.jpg?dl=0
Keeps them relatively close to the station & stops them taking inordinately long journeys to 'better' sectors when there's more than enough stuff for them to mine in the local region.

[DEL 707]

Seems the decision has been taken out of my hands regarding my Void station.

Xenon have just turned up and told me I don't have planning permission.

https://i.imgur.com/s32Pd0q.jpg

[xant]

Seems the decision has been taken out of my hands regarding my Void station.

Yeah, not a good sector to build in. Too much Xenon activity, also the hazardous areas. It wasn't bad pre-4.0, but it got considerably worse.Who even recommended it that you set up shop there?

If you want safe sectors with enough resources, you should stick to Teladi space. Grand Exchange or Eighteen Billion are well protected and have everything you need nearby.

There's also Paranid (PAR, not HOP) space. While you might struggle for a few resources, their space makes for a good secure location.

But if your experience in The Void has left you scarred and all you want is just a very secure place to do business with absolutely no risk, try to improve your relations with the Terrans. Once there, go to Asteroid Belt and/or Oort Cloud (though you'll have to ship in Energy Cells, as those sectors have poor sunlight efficiency). Doesn't get much safer than that, huge fleets everywhere, probably more ships than everyone else combined. No Xenon will survive there, so they won't even try.

[Diroc]

I've been following a guide to get me going. I started as a "Young Gun" and so far I have a few miners to my name, 1 trader and a Energy Cell station. I have 7 million cr in the bank. I've got a ton of questions and I'm looking for some help.

Can anyone recommend a nice upgrade ship from my Elite Vanguard, I'm a "Friend of the Argon Federation".

On stations, what do the sell and buy offers means? Also how do you see how much stock the station actually has of a product?

On the trade filter, what do the hexagons next to items mean?

How useful is automatic pricing? My energy cell station is automatically setting the price to 21cr, which no one is buying. Another energy station a few sectors away is selling at 13cr. If I manually lower the price, then people start buying my stock. Following the guide, I set up my station to trade hull parts, but again, the automatic pricing isn't really helping much, there's 1cr difference between the buy and sell price. I'm not getting many customers

When it comes to exploring sectors, is there a way to know if you've found all the stations in the area? Also, how well does auto explore work?

I recommend Dragon Raider. It has 6 main gun slots. Sold at Free Families Wharf
Faster, less storage and hull than than Dragon (Zyarth) but I believe the speed is worth more in combat. You get places faster too.

2 Tau Accelerators Mk2 (Split) 4 Ion Cannons Mk2 (Start with 2 as they are expensive) (Argon) 2 Argon Plasma turrets. Zyarth Combat engine Mk4
Terran Shield Mk3. is my loadout.

Ship is a little squishy to start until you get Exceptional upgrades but it's fast and it's mean. Great for Capturing Capitals *cough* Asgard *cough*.
Look out for Marauder Dragon Raiders (Fallen Families)
Scan one (Shift 2 for scan mode Shift F to scan when close enough) and attack. Drop hull to 74% or below then keep hammering shields as they regenerate till all the crew bails out. Free ship. Best ship in game IMHO.
Shift 1 is Travel mode. You MAY have to use it to catch a fleeing Marauder Dragon Raider with your ship. If you don't, you run the risk of him running Yo-yo passes and face tanking your shots while bringing 6 medium cannons to bear on your ship.
If he starts actually running away from combat, Pause the game and set guidance on him.
Small fighters like Elite Vanguard have Fast charging travel drives. Had to use travel drive in combat many times with the Segaris start ship. Combat Travel Drive use is a bit of an equalizer for the severe speed disadvantage you face for this challenge.
Upgrade your guns and shields. You can get the money back if you sell them anyway. It's a 0 sum transaction you can take advantage of.
Save before you engage. (F5)
Once there are only a few crew ?3 or less I think?, you can com (C) the ship and tell him to surrender. It rarely works but if it does, the pilot will bail. You can retry later.
My Second ship this game start (Captured Dragon Raider) is still my flagship.
Not my first rodeo by any means but I fly it almost exclusively.

Tab (Boost) -tapping it is instant 100% throttle and a slight boost. Holding it eats shield for increased acceleration.
Backspace is 0% throttle.
Both are your friend.
To drop from Travel drive to full speed, tap backspace to exit travel, then tap tab for boost.
Shift X I believe is speed match.
Ctrl H Hides the cockpit and gives a cleaner view if you like that sort of thing.
Shift H Hides the Hud (Not a fan personally but worth noting)


Terran Katana is nice.. Has double the shield slots and has a higher top speed but only 4 guns. (Nice Police ship)
Katanas often travel in groups of 3 as scouts. Outside Terran/Segaris Space, nobody will take offense to you engaging them to capture.
I don't recommend trying to take on 3 of them with an elite vanguard.
Probably woefully inadequate for capping anything bigger than an L class. Great for getting around fast.

Kuraokami Nice ship. Reasonably fast. 5 gun slots 2 shield slots. Mean ship Fairly durable very forgiving. Made by Yaki.

Takoba (S class) Fast, agile and relatively cheap. (Segaris Pioneers) 2 shield slots. Great ship for scooping up post-combat loot via orders.
Default orders Dock at station or capital ship is a good idea near a Xenon gate blockade or on a friendly Terran Asgard as it rampages through Xenon territory.
Send it out to collect post-combat loots when it's safe. It's a complete waste if it gets destroyed before depositing it's inventory in the PHQ.

Regarding Capturing capitals L+
Service crew fix your ship and make it work better. Marines are useful for boarding.
You can have a ship full of service crew and they will rotate out.
You can pause, go into ship info. Crew tab and reassign the service crew to marines for a boarding op. Reassign them back from the target ship when boarding is complete.
74% hull and below, there is a small random chance crew will bail 3 at a time (or less if it leaves just the captain) from capital ships when you shoot them.
The captain will never bail (1 crew) The ship will self destruct if it rolls a bail when you shoot with just the captain.
A lone captain's boarding strength is 4.
Capitals have blind spots where you can hit them but they can't hit you based on gun placement.
Arguably The best beginner (Easiest) capital ships to start boarding are Plunderer Phoenix (Type doesn't matter) They are all SCA though some have hacked faction transponders. Scan for more info.
SCA faction is locked at -5 If you destroy ship components or property (Cargo drones, Laser towers, turrets, engines it won't be held against you like other races)
If you are selling capital ships, Sell the guns, downgrade engines, sell the shields and everything on it. Repair it (Important). When finished the "Upgrade" Sell the ship.
You will get way more money overall.

Auto Explore works well if you have a decently fast ship with a pilot to spare. It will explore within a radius. You can queue up multiple of these circular explores and check back later. I'd recommend leaving this to M class ships on the above list. Kha'ak, particularly in numbers, could very easily make short work of anything smaller.

Regarding general combat and capping XL ships
Heat management is king.
Ion cannons are incredible for shields bad for damage.
Mainly, only use them when you need to drop shields.
Firing other weapons into shields is not efficient use of heat but it works.
Your heat dissapation is a constant amount divided amongst all guns with heat equally.
As guns cool to baseline the number of guns this applies to decreases and the rate of cooling for a lesser number of guns increases. The total cooling is the same.
Assign fire groups via the dots in the ship info. Switch between them via the numbers 1-4.

Hope some of these tips help you or others to get a foothold.