X3TC: Terran economy (again)

[x3tc_addict]

Hi folks,

During recent years, I started playing X3TC several times and always ended up trying to repair the terran economy as soon as I got access to all of the solar system. I think I finally succeeded.

There have been lots of discussions here on the reasons for the crumbling terran economy, like great distances, lack of water and others. What is true is that there seems to be a need to set up additional transport capacity (sector traders) and demand (purchasing terran stuff and signaling the readiness to pay high prices with trading stations). But all of this isn't sufficient to save the terran economy and make it prosper.

What I think I finally found out is that the reason for the crumbling economy is the lack of food and the way the USC logistics docks / support stations work, as they have to provide the basic needs of the food fabs - Protein Paste, Carbo Cake, Water (also available elsewhere), Flavour Pack and Vita Kai. If that changes, the terran economy starts flourishing.

Here is what I did:

I set up sector traders (level 25, distance 3-4, 5-6 in the outer sectors) in all terran sectors. Then I set up a trading station in Jupiter which buys EMPCs, M/AM launchers, SSCs, PSPs, Phantoms, and Wraiths at maximum price. A CAG is buying the desired stuff in terran sectors. This way, there is sufficient transport capacity and a demand for products.

I observed the terran economy and noticed that secondary resources (Vita Kai, Flavour Pack), while being available at the logistics docks / support stations, almost never made their way to the food fabs. Nevertheless, they seemed to disappear from the logistics docks / support stations. So I decided that I do not fully understand the underlying logistics and had to do this myself.

I placed CLS2 traders at the docks, which grabbed all of the mentioned resources as soon as they appeared (they are delivered by atmospheric lifters). Then I set up a logistics with CLS2 traders and TLs (as storage) that supplied the resources to the food fabs. That way, 10 docks had to supply 12 food fabs.

The results look very promising. No fabs were removed by GOD. The availability of food increased within one day, which made water the only rare resource. This seems to have inspired GOD to set up additional water purification plants and ice harvesting facilities. As more and more food is available, ice harvesting facilities start getting MRE as secondary resource, which makes even more cheap ice available. Looks like the terran economy really got kickstarted.

I think I observed an increase in supply (especially of protein paste) by the docks, but I'm not sure about it. Maybe the delivery by atmospheric lifters is somehow influenced by the availability of goods in the docks?

I don't like the idea of using CLS2 for doing the logistics, as this is a static thing - it will not react to appearing or disappearing food fabs, local surplus and demand has to be detected manually. At the moment, I'm thinking about how to do this with TLs as storage, trading stations, CLS1 for supply and CAGs for delivery. This would make the entire thing much more flexible and would require much less maintanance if it works.

Comments very welcome.