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Posted: Sun, 14. Jul 13, 16:11
by Deathtoll666
i started a game where i was going to monopolize ALL NPC stations. while this seemed good in theory, it worked out to a LOT more credits than i originally imagined it would.

i was going to drop a mistral SF for EACH product and resource for EACH station and then have normal mistrals shipping from the buyer freighters to the seller freighters. as you can imagine, this got expensive QUICK!

the main problem i was having was keeping ALL the shippers from going to the same buyer at the same time. i had about 20 mistrals going to the same buyer at the same time. they'd empty him out and most would move on to the next buyer while i had a few going to the 1st seller. while the first few would get emptied and a few sellers would be full, the sellers near the end of the route would stay empty.

the next problem was that the buyers near the end of the route would remain full and the shippers would never get to them.

while i would like to complete this, i am hesitant to try it again due to how to work out the problems with keeping ALL of the traps buying and selling and keeping the NPC's without anything to buy or sell.

one note, i was going to have my buying and selling prices for e-cells at 15 and 17 (same prices as the npc's use). the prices for other wares would have been set 10% below and 10% above average. i'm not sure but i THINK i could alter those prices due to npc travel time.

Posted: Sun, 14. Jul 13, 18:20
by Infekted
Excellent guide. As someone that knows a fair bit about the subject I found it informative and entertaining. Although I also would prefer slightly better formatting.

I would also recommend the joys of CLS1 and CAG and combining all three in various different ways. CLS1, 2 and CAG all have strengths and weaknesses, and it helps to play towards those.

About the "Idle" thing. I've found that this happens if they cannot complete their loop for various reasons. These include:
Enemies in sector - Happens a lot, will resume when cleared.
Don't get paid - Shouldn't really happen much.
Can't dock - Mainly see this with CLS TLs, particularly if involving the hub
Cant transport - If there are ships as waypoints and they aren't docked, ensure there is a transporter device aboard! I wont mention how many times I've have smashed my face of "idle" problems due to this.. I don't think it matters which ship it's on, but can't remember for sure. Usually best practise to ensure the CLS ship has one.

If it cannot satisfy any of it's waypoints due to settings reasons, like price or supply percentage, then it will standby.

Posted: Sun, 14. Jul 13, 18:55
by Patholos
Deathtoll666 wrote:i started a game where i was going to monopolize ALL NPC stations. while this seemed good in theory, it worked out to a LOT more credits than i originally imagined it would.

i was going to drop a mistral SF for EACH product and resource for EACH station and then have normal mistrals shipping from the buyer freighters to the seller freighters. as you can imagine, this got expensive QUICK!

the main problem i was having was keeping ALL the shippers from going to the same buyer at the same time. i had about 20 mistrals going to the same buyer at the same time. they'd empty him out and most would move on to the next buyer while i had a few going to the 1st seller. while the first few would get emptied and a few sellers would be full, the sellers near the end of the route would stay empty.

the next problem was that the buyers near the end of the route would remain full and the shippers would never get to them.

while i would like to complete this, i am hesitant to try it again due to how to work out the problems with keeping ALL of the traps buying and selling and keeping the NPC's without anything to buy or sell.

one note, i was going to have my buying and selling prices for e-cells at 15 and 17 (same prices as the npc's use). the prices for other wares would have been set 10% below and 10% above average. i'm not sure but i THINK i could alter those prices due to npc travel time.
Your troubles with shippers is that you have copy/pastaed the first shippers waypoints, right?

Here's the solution:

-Never copypasta shipper waypoints. Period.

- Setup shippers like this:
Shipper A handles traps 1 to 10
Shipper B handles traps 11 to 20
und so weiter...

Also doing this

buytrap->shipper->selltrap

is fine for small operations. However, if you want to corner all the wares in the universe, that's horribly inefficient and a nightmare to control.

I would recommend this

buytrap -> buyshipper -> Dump (complex/TL) -> sellshipper ->selltrap

This has more flexibility, a bit more expensive however miniscule in comparison to the total costs of trapping the entire universe.

However I use this with very good results:

buytrap ->buyshipper ->Dump -> CAG setup to trade
a)food
b)ore
c)tech

each letter being that they are solely trading in that and within set sectors.

Makes it so that you dont need to search down every factory popping up.

Posted: Sun, 14. Jul 13, 23:57
by Deathtoll666
Patholos wrote:
Deathtoll666 wrote:i started a game where i was going to monopolize ALL NPC stations. while this seemed good in theory, it worked out to a LOT more credits than i originally imagined it would.

i was going to drop a mistral SF for EACH product and resource for EACH station and then have normal mistrals shipping from the buyer freighters to the seller freighters. as you can imagine, this got expensive QUICK!

the main problem i was having was keeping ALL the shippers from going to the same buyer at the same time. i had about 20 mistrals going to the same buyer at the same time. they'd empty him out and most would move on to the next buyer while i had a few going to the 1st seller. while the first few would get emptied and a few sellers would be full, the sellers near the end of the route would stay empty.

the next problem was that the buyers near the end of the route would remain full and the shippers would never get to them.

while i would like to complete this, i am hesitant to try it again due to how to work out the problems with keeping ALL of the traps buying and selling and keeping the NPC's without anything to buy or sell.

one note, i was going to have my buying and selling prices for e-cells at 15 and 17 (same prices as the npc's use). the prices for other wares would have been set 10% below and 10% above average. i'm not sure but i THINK i could alter those prices due to npc travel time.
Your troubles with shippers is that you have copy/pastaed the first shippers waypoints, right?

Here's the solution:

-Never copypasta shipper waypoints. Period.

- Setup shippers like this:
Shipper A handles traps 1 to 10
Shipper B handles traps 11 to 20
und so weiter...

Also doing this

buytrap->shipper->selltrap

is fine for small operations. However, if you want to corner all the wares in the universe, that's horribly inefficient and a nightmare to control.

I would recommend this

buytrap -> buyshipper -> Dump (complex/TL) -> sellshipper ->selltrap

This has more flexibility, a bit more expensive however miniscule in comparison to the total costs of trapping the entire universe.

However I use this with very good results:

buytrap ->buyshipper ->Dump -> CAG setup to trade
a)food
b)ore
c)tech

each letter being that they are solely trading in that and within set sectors.

Makes it so that you dont need to search down every factory popping up.
yea, that seems the likely problem. i agree that a slightly different approach would be needed for it to be successful. i'll do some more thinking on the subject and maybe even do some actual gameplay with what i come up with.

Posted: Fri, 26. Jul 13, 04:22
by ahddib
my only critique is that treasure chest is not a good ore supplier for x3ap

Excellent guide.

Posted: Sun, 8. Sep 13, 02:44
by Diche Bach
Thanks for this guide. Really awesome!

Posted: Sun, 8. Sep 13, 02:51
by Timsup2nothin
You're welcome.

Posted: Thu, 21. Nov 13, 22:59
by mjwraw
I know the thread's a bit old, but hopefully not too old.........

So, I want to train CLS pilots quickly, so I followed the instructions word for word for a basic four point set up, consisting of:

Waypoint 1: sell ecells to factory 1 @ 14 up to 1000 units
Waypoint 2: sell ecells to factory 2 @ 14 up to 1000 units
Waypoint 3: 1. fly to station SPP
2. buy ecells @ 19 up to half cargospace
Waypoint 4: sell ecells to factory 3 @ 14 up to 1000 units

I figured that setting a high buy and low sell should mean very little inactivity, and I'm not bothered about credits, but the CLS apprentice just sits at the SPP on standby ? So what am I doing wrong ?

Posted: Thu, 21. Nov 13, 23:57
by Timsup2nothin
mjwraw wrote:I know the thread's a bit old, but hopefully not too old.........

So, I want to train CLS pilots quickly, so I followed the instructions word for word for a basic four point set up, consisting of:

Waypoint 1: sell ecells to factory 1 @ 14 up to 1000 units
Waypoint 2: sell ecells to factory 2 @ 14 up to 1000 units
Waypoint 3: 1. fly to station SPP
2. buy ecells @ 19 up to half cargospace
Waypoint 4: sell ecells to factory 3 @ 14 up to 1000 units

I figured that setting a high buy and low sell should mean very little inactivity, and I'm not bothered about credits, but the CLS apprentice just sits at the SPP on standby ? So what am I doing wrong ?
Everything?

No offense, but the idea is to make profits while your pilot trains up. If you aren't wanting to make profit just set up a 'fly to' loop without any buys and sells and pay him his wages even though he's not doing anything for you. You're saying you are not only willing to pay him his wages without him doing anything, you are paying him to lose your money.

That said, the problem is that you have set him up to unload the e-cells as fast as the SPP can produce them then sit and wait while they produce more.

Posted: Fri, 22. Nov 13, 09:14
by mjwraw
Right, OK, maybe I'm approaching this the wrong way. Basically what I want is a group of 'fetch and deliver' pilots that can either get and deliver specific resources (from/to NPC factories) or just 'harvest' a specified ware, using jump drives effectively so they're not spending hours flying across sector after sector.

I've got 200m credits so money isn't the issue, but the challenge I've set myself is to rely on the NPC economy i.e. no player owned factories, so thus far all my money has come from a huge network of Sector/Local/Universe traders. And now I'm at the stage of wanting to kit out some capital ships, (and I'm not going to do it by capping, another goal is to keep a high rep with all races, successful so far), so what I need to be able to do is feed the relevant high end factories, and then collect the wares as they are slowly created, preferably before NPC traders have grabbed them.

Posted: Fri, 22. Nov 13, 09:40
by Timsup2nothin
mjwraw wrote:Right, OK, maybe I'm approaching this the wrong way. Basically what I want is a group of 'fetch and deliver' pilots that can either get and deliver specific resources (from/to NPC factories) or just 'harvest' a specified ware, using jump drives effectively so they're not spending hours flying across sector after sector.

I've got 200m credits so money isn't the issue, but the challenge I've set myself is to rely on the NPC economy i.e. no player owned factories, so thus far all my money has come from a huge network of Sector/Local/Universe traders. And now I'm at the stage of wanting to kit out some capital ships, (and I'm not going to do it by capping, another goal is to keep a high rep with all races, successful so far), so what I need to be able to do is feed the relevant high end factories, and then collect the wares as they are slowly created, preferably before NPC traders have grabbed them.
Ah. Now we're talking. In the third or fourth post there's an intermediate application talking about how to collect the fictional 'spiffkin missile'...can't miss it. That is actually the exact application you are looking for, just substitute the gun of choice that you need. It was actually written based on my standard microchip collection system, but it works for anything.

You'll want to use a fast ship for the collecting, and localized area freighters for the resource pushing to keep production going. With your basically infinite resources you should have no trouble setting it up as long as you have one logistician pilot to generate the master waypoint list. You should be able to use one collector to gather multiple types of gun because production of all the big guns is very slow.

Reading through that post should give you the basic idea, and if you need any more help I'm around pretty regularly.

Posted: Fri, 22. Nov 13, 15:36
by mjwraw
Ah yes, now that is what I had read, which is why I started to think about the best/quickest way to get a logistician pilot trained up, which led to my ham-fisted 'money no object' training plan ! I know there is a possibility of buying a logistician pilot from Herrons Nebula, but I always like to do things 'properly' so wanted to train my own. So I guess the first step I need to resolve is the quickest way to train a logistician pilot from scratch ?

Posted: Fri, 22. Nov 13, 18:23
by Timsup2nothin
mjwraw wrote:Ah yes, now that is what I had read, which is why I started to think about the best/quickest way to get a logistician pilot trained up, which led to my ham-fisted 'money no object' training plan ! I know there is a possibility of buying a logistician pilot from Herrons Nebula, but I always like to do things 'properly' so wanted to train my own. So I guess the first step I need to resolve is the quickest way to train a logistician pilot from scratch ?
Okay...here's where my methods are 'divergent'. I'll give you two 'money is no object' options, the usual and mine.

The usual. Buy ten discos at AP shipyard. Equip with nav command and CLS 2. Shields whatever they get, weapons not needed, speed, cargo, turning upgrades not needed. Pick one of them and activate CLS.

Waypoints:
station in far north of sector, fly to station
station in far south of sector, fly to station
different station in north, fly to station
different station in south, fly to station

save data and hit go.

Load data into each of the remaining discos and hit go.

You now have a disco train flying pointlessly around Argon Prime with ten pilots that you are paying while training. In ten (maybe twelve?) hours they will have promoted to Logistician. They will keep flying (and collecting pay) forever if you forget about them. You can afford it. I can afford it. I just hate paying trainees when they could be paying for themselves.

My way: Buy twenty Mercurys at the AP shipyard. Whatever shields they get, no weapons. Max out speed. CLS and nav command.

Go through one by one and give them completely willy nilly routes. Two SPPs in one sector to buy at 15, two stations in another sector to sell at 17 for one. Same thing with different SPP and different buyers for another. Maybe two ore mines buy at 120 and two ore users sell at 140 for some others, wheat, silicon, even cattle (use one cheap buy and three sells for cattle). One that buys cahoonas for 70 at three bakeries and sells them to a trading station for average in a sector with no bakeries and another buying from that trading station and feeding three fabs in the sector at 80. Just scatter them around the Argon Prime region like seeds. Then go do something else and don't worry about them

In about eight hours check back. By then all twenty will be able to take on more waypoints. Some only two, some six. Add selling points to all the sellers. The cahoona buyers, give'em a couple more buys and a second trading station to sell to in case the first one fills up. If any of them are still stuck at four waypoints make a mental note that whatever you had them doing doesn't work and set them to doing something else. Then go do something else and don't worry about them.

In about eight hours check back. By then you will have a wide spectrum of pilots, including a good number of logisticians. Every pilot in your fleet, unless you have a couple of serious dullards who are still only up to six waypoints, will have earned not only enough to cover their wages, but enough to pay for their ship. If you forget about them they will continue what they are doing forever, making you a little money and always being there ready to go if you need a CLS or CAG.

I like to build a station and homebase the training fleet there. It doesn't have to make any products or be supplied or anything, though of course it could if you want. I just use it to keep track of the trainees so I can grab one when I need them, and keep the training ships off my property list since I set 'if homebased' to not show. I've also homed them all to a handy Magnetar, which can have another pilot in training as well.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note for those just starting out...you can set this up one by one. If you start as humble merchant you can do enough manually to get your one freighter equipped for CLS, turn it loose on a willy nilly route and go do something else until you have enough money to set up a second. When you launch the second see if you can add a couple waypoints to the first, then go do something else. Repeat.

If you just take off in the Disco to map the universe (or some good chunk of it anyway) pausing occasionally to add a freighter and update the rest, by the time you are done you will have launched many freighters, and there will be a fair number of them trained to logistician. You will also be making a moderate hourly income and have a pretty good knowledge base about the Argon Prime region. You can draw on that to build something and start a good business...using those logistitian pilots to good advantage as CAGs or as profit maximizing CLS pilots.

Posted: Fri, 22. Nov 13, 23:50
by mjwraw
What an outstanding response, thank you ! Plenty for me to go away and experiment with now. This is why this game is so great, always something new to turn your attention to, and always someone willing to help if you get stuck !

Posted: Sat, 23. Nov 13, 00:43
by Timsup2nothin
You're welcome...pay it forward...share what you learn.

Posted: Mon, 2. Dec 13, 13:55
by donkthedownhiller
Hi Tim thanks for the guides, been running your "accumulating weapons" scheme. Unfortunately I'm having problems with the weapon buying CLS traps. Set them up to buy at average minus 1 and it's pretty hit and miss, eg got a trap on the swarm missile complex it will buy Wasps at av-1 but won't buy the Typhoons. Wondering if it's a problem with the number of product to buy. Have tried buy (at ave-1) max cargo, 400, upto 400 and various other numbers. All the traps I set for buying flowers and oil have been fine but they are normally set to buy specific number, eg 1000 nostrop oil @71 where there will always be atleast 1000 if the price is right.

Tried stopping command, deleting all waypoints and setting up again when the ship is otherwise empty and docked.

All pilots are apprentice traders in TS ships with CLS 1, 2 and nav software in X3AP steam version so presumably uptodate.

Posted: Mon, 2. Dec 13, 17:05
by Timsup2nothin
donkthedownhiller wrote:Hi Tim thanks for the guides, been running your "accumulating weapons" scheme. Unfortunately I'm having problems with the weapon buying CLS traps. Set them up to buy at average minus 1 and it's pretty hit and miss, eg got a trap on the swarm missile complex it will buy Wasps at av-1 but won't buy the Typhoons. Wondering if it's a problem with the number of product to buy. Have tried buy (at ave-1) max cargo, 400, upto 400 and various other numbers. All the traps I set for buying flowers and oil have been fine but they are normally set to buy specific number, eg 1000 nostrop oil @71 where there will always be atleast 1000 if the price is right.

Tried stopping command, deleting all waypoints and setting up again when the ship is otherwise empty and docked.

All pilots are apprentice traders in TS ships with CLS 1, 2 and nav software in X3AP steam version so presumably uptodate.
Buys wasps because a load of wasps at average-1 is more than 5% of the freighter's cargo bay. Typhoons at average-1 is...five missiles? Less than 5% of the ship's cargo bay anyway.

Adjust 'minimum cargo on load' to zero. Should fix it.

Posted: Mon, 2. Dec 13, 19:13
by donkthedownhiller
Aaaaah. Never messed with % cargo bay before, still getting to grips with cls, I'm a newcomer to the Xuniverse, will try that.

Posted: Mon, 2. Dec 13, 19:48
by Vim Razz
To actually disable the script from checking the cargo bay parameter at all, you can set it to 101%. Useful is some cases.

Posted: Mon, 30. Dec 13, 13:08
by Fihnakis
So might be I just don't get this but I'm trying to setup a route that will have my pilot buying microchips from 3 seperate plants then refuel jump energy on the 4th waypoint. I have tried everything with the external logistics to make this work and I'm stumped. I even had it set up for him to buy 1 microchip at maximum price and that still wasn't good enough. Can someone please guide me in the right direction. Want to set this up so I can do other missions while he's collecting for hub plot.