[TC] 1 Billion credits, day 3, Vanilla, here's how.

[klingens]

SFs aren't cost effective compared to the cheapest mercuries and dolphins.

I set a few mercuries to collecting rocks and use a Mistral SF with transporter device to empty the miners once in a while. Then fly it to the shipyard, buy another mercury/dolphin and fill it with the nividium. I either leave them docked as a "Piggy bank" or sell them. Right now Omicron Lyrae has around 30 or so mercuries docked.

There are a few other sectors with nicely mineable nvidium too:

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Scale Plate Green - possible Xenon Q incursions
Brennans Triumph - beware of Pirates
Ghinn's Escape - no dangers seen so far. getting miners there is a hassle tho: Dolphins you have to buy in Ocean Fantasy and the next Ore Collector point of sale is 5-6 sectors away in Teladi space.

€: Ore Belt Nividium is plot related. Tho you can mine it afterwards just fine. It's a very tasty high yield one too. Highest in game maybe for nividium.

[Flozem]

I vaguely remember the older X3:TC allowed insane mission rewards, so if these <1 hour methods involve rolling back your game version, they're a bit cheesy....

Though I'm more than happy to have my closed loop spacefuel / microchip / missile complexes earn money for me. That, and the early 3 to 9 million assassination missions...

I will remember the nvidium stuff though for my next restart...

[empiro]

I also think that the yield of a Nvidium asteroid you blow up has no effect on the collection rate. I set up an operation in Perpetual Sin, on the yield 5 asteroid there, and later when I found the super rich one in Ore Belt for the plot mission, I send a few mercuries there too. They all seem to collect it at about the same rate.

[rjweng91]

7. once your freighter is full of nvidium then sell it at shipyard and buy as many freighters as you can and start the process again. within a day you should be able to afford 20+ freighters and be on your way to makeing that billion credits.

OK where the hell do you sell the nvidium? I don't see anything in the shipyard to sell it, unless you are referring to selling the ship.

Anyhelp would be nice.
Thanks

[Ulan Dhor]

.... unless you are referring to selling the ship.

That's your answer right here. Of course, I would buy a new ship for this purpose, as I wouldn't want to have to equip a new collector. A standard Mercury S costs 199k in my game. Full with Nividium, it sells for more than 6 millions.

[Bothersome]

Na, the exploits DeadBeat and I are refering to boarder on plain old cheating, but without the scripts.

As a side note, I updated/uploaded my current statistics today. Since I'm now Hero 4% on fight rank. Funny thing I noticed is that I'm in third place as to number of unfocused jump space visited. Damn.

I guess we know where I do my killing.

[Kryten]

As a side note, I updated/uploaded my current statistics today. Since I'm now Hero 4% on fight rank. Funny thing I noticed is that I'm in third place as to number of unfocused jump space visited. Damn.

Thats one impressive stat, trying to calculate the time waisted waiting on all those jumps just blows my mind

In a previous game I never even noticed what reward I was given for completing the goner mission, took me weeks before I read about it here and realised I had that option

[oceanmist667]

ok touche i think i ll try this

[steelviper266]

Yeah, that's nothing. I can make <you specify the amount here < 100,000,000,000 credits*> in only about 5 hours of game time.

There are still a couple of exploits that can be applied to make untold amounts of credits.

I don't why you are bragging about cr's you didn't earn legit, thats not success it's total failure = looooooooooooossssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrr.

[Kryten]

Day 5...

I've given up on using 20 mercuries as the micro management every few hours is not good for my sanity

I now have a fleet of 10 orcas collecting nvidium, it takes a long time to fill up but ultimately it saves me having to buy and outfit freighters every few hours.

I'm considering my next goal to achieve from this little cluster of rocks, I'm thinking how fast I can make 100 billion, I could fund 50 Orcas, but then I'd be into micro management again

One thing is for sure, once I start the Hub Plot, its not going to take me very long to complete it....

[Flozem]

One thing is for sure, once I start the Hub Plot, its not going to take me very long to complete it....

Well - there's still the build lots of microchip-complexes and gather lots of silicon part...

And then there is the micromanagement of unloading all stored microchips to the HUB... *shudders*

[lurker]

While this is a great (possibly almost too good) way to get a quick start on the game, I don't think it scales up beyond a certain point. I tried this in a previous game (poisoned paranid start, mobile mining is an excellent way to get the 25 million you need quickly) and found that you pretty rapidly reach a point where you are picking up the nvidium as fast as it is re-spawned by the game, and as such throwing 50 orcas into kingdom end will not actually get you profits any faster than 10 orcas, because those 10 orcas are already capable of picking up all the rocks which spawn.

I had 24 mammoths in kingdom end and their cargo bays were filling up VERY slowly; it would have taken literally a few weeks of game time to fill them up, for a net return of perhaps 2-3 billion credits; in my main game I can earn 2-3 billion in a couple of game days without doing anything at all, possibly much less if I do a lot of missions.

While you could scale this up by having nvidium mining operations in a larger number of sectors, I don't think that in the long term it compares favorably with the traditional 'build up a huge empire of factories' approach, especially given the massive amount of clicking it needs to keep things running.

As I said though, it is a superb way to get a quick start, probably the easiest way to get your first billion credits and make a good start on that galactic trade empire. I didn't do it in my main game (it feels a little too much like an exploit for my tastes) but if I did I suspect I could have got the hub completed in about half the time I actually took in the end.

[soleilnoir]

I never tried the nividium mining exploit. And never will. The 'old ways' are better, and I will rather spend my six hours putting together yet another 500M complex than mine nividium.

It is sort of rewarding to know an exploit and successfully use it. But beyond filling out your account it has no purpose. I remember when playing the X3: Xtended mod i had the start where two dozen UTs and dozens of millions of credits were just handed over to me, and i couldn't figure what to do. The purpose was lost to me.

Now in my current X3TC game I have 9 closed loop complexes (total value about 4bil), 300M on my account for the next complex, some 15-20 of my former 65 UTs, If i wished I could kit out a commonwealth destroyer every few game-hours but i don't. A long way is still ahead.

If I were just handed that amount of money (as a game start or an exploit) I wouldn't have any idea what to do with it. Probably would do as I did when i got my first destroyer, long incursions into Xenon space. And building factories to keep that money in.

These exploits are true Exploits, because they take the fun out of the game, the only fun remains in using the exploit.

Though, I must admit, finding the exploits and using them requires certain knowledge and experience concerning the game.

I apologize if this sounds like a rant.

[Ulan Dhor]

I now have a fleet of 10 orcas collecting nvidium, it takes a long time to fill up but ultimately it saves me having to buy and outfit freighters every few hours.

Outfit? I only buy and sell hulls. Freight exchange to and from a TL is very quick with Nividium, as it's the default selection in the screens (no scrolling involved).

I just calculated that, the way I handle it at the moment (6 miners + 1 Mammoth; 20 Mercury S for selling), the Nividium that fits in one Mammoth yields roughly 115 millions pure profit. Doing missions makes more money, but that is how it should be. I won't use TL's for collecting, although it's a neat idea .

[Menthril]

Alright I dont know if I am missing something from this little adventure. I have a few Mercury's out there gathering the Nvidium and all is going well only problem I have is I can't find where the heck you sell the stuff at because the Royal Boren Shipyard doesn't buy it. The shipyard in Argon Prime doesn't buy it so where the heck do you sell the stuff at?

I do mission and such and am very new to the game so some of these things you mention UT's and such dont mean anything to me, and I have NO mods on my game I am doing this all pretty much by hand I have completed the Terran Missions and currently trying to build up some capital so that I can maybe buy a Mammoth or something to start building a few complexs of my own but I am far from that I think.

[maphys]

The technique does scale if you go to other sectors and use the other clusters out there. FWIW on each cluster I have one TL and about 10 TS ships centred around a nav sat collecting full speed. I've got:

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Two in Queen's space, one in Kingdom End (although there are two clusters) and one in Seizewell (I am pirating Split ships, sending them through there to get a load of nividium before selling them on)

I've found that the ore collector is the kicker - a tenth the price of the ship. It is easier to (after a few loads) buy a TL with a transporter device, use that to store up the nividium from the miners and then dock that every now and then and fill hulks with it. The most efficient ships to do this with are Mercury Haulers, after that the basic model Mercs/Demeters and so on are the best.

To the query abotu selling it: to sell the stuff just sell the ship - you get about 6M for a fully loaded Mercury that cost under 300K to buy.

M

[EmperorJon]

My question is, surely using TLs is bad? They only fill up at the sme rate don't they? So my 13 TSs at the moment will collect much less before they have to be micromanaged, but to collect the same amount in the same time I would need 13 TLs! So does adding a transporter device enable to mine and give to homebase command? Will my TSs be able to transport the Niv to a TL OOS using it automatically using that command? That would make things easier. 'Cos I have 90M worth of Niv arriving every few hours.

The reason I'm using this exploit? I played through 1.4, build missions got me 500M and then tapered off as I started buying loads of things at the smae rate I got money. I played through 2.1, Assasination and XI missions got me to 200M then the same, as I bought loads of factories. I want to play with loads of money without 'cheating' and then RAGE WAR ON THE PARANID! I always play the good boy, and I didn't want to spend months getting money then ruin one of my saves by attacking everyone. With this exploit I can do it all in... a day!

Epic post...

[Kryten]

using TLs is a lot slower of course but I i'd rather offload once every other day than ever few hours. Using 10 orcas is the same as using 160 mercuries. If you'r in a rush for credits then obviously the small freighters are the better choice.

The reason I'm using this exploit? I played through 1.4,

I wouldn't say it was an exploit as picking up rocks is part of the game, selling a ship with a full cargo is also part of the game, I don't offload all cargo when I'm selling ships I've pirated. I suppose some would call piracy an exploit as its just as devious

[EmperorJon]

Anyway, still waiting for my 90M load, spent some of my 'pocket change' on uprgrading my Centaur to a Heavy Centaur. 2 PBGs in each side turret Fighter Defence!

Time to come up with a good excuse to kill some Paranid... I can't just attack for no reason...

[maphys]

I use one TL and several TS ships as a compromise - a TL with a transporter device can concentrate the stuff from several cheaper TS ships efficiently and sell it in bulk. While the busy little TSs sit there still collecting - essentially 1/11 ships pops off once every few hours to sell stuff instead of a continuous shuttling of ships (in the case of 10 TSs alone). A fully tuned/upgraded wing of ten large (8000) TS ships can be bought and outfitted for <14M. Them plus an Orca = 130K cargo space. You do have to micromanage a little - but not that badly.

As for an excuse to attack the Paranid - just comm them. They'll supply an excuse within a few minutes... "Superior being here, what does pathetic two eye want from greatest thing in universe?" "Your cargo...and an apology"

M