The best self-sustaining Factory Complex to feed the Player HeadQuarters

[Gaidin]

I think this is the best self-sustaining complex for the PHQ for game version 2.02. It has a total of 24 factories with 23 complex kits and costs only 63,687,104 with no additional sources needed. This complex does not require any additional scripts, just the base game.

2 S Boron Chip plant
1 M Argon Rimes Factory
1 S Boron Quantum Tube Fab
1 S Boron Computer Plant
1 M Split Rastar Refinery
1 M Split Chelt Space Aquarium
1 M Teladi Teladianium foundry
1 M Argon Wheat Farm
1 M Teladi Ore Mine 5 yield
2 L Teladi Silicon Mine 41 (2 factories with total 82 yield)
4 M Boron Crystal Fab
1 M Boron BoFu Chemical Lab
2 L Boron BoFu Chemical Lab
1 M Boron Solar Power Plant
1 L Boron Solar Power Plant
1 M Boron BioGas Factory
2 L Boron BioGas Factory

It produces the following resources each hour:
1790.98 Energy Cells
300.00 Cloth Rimes
240.00 Teladianium
180.00 Rastar Oil
170.69 Silicon
75.00 Computer Components
71.29 Ore
52.88 Crystals
36.00 Quantum Tubes
20.00 Microchips


P.S. Silicon factories with total 66 is enough, but silicon brings more credits than energy cells

[Geek]

If you used Teladi or Boron for high-tech (including crystal and food) it would have been cheaper.

[Etolf]

if you got your PHQ with the previous version (the first Bala Gi version) you need twice as many Microchips... and thus 4 Microchip fabs...

[mippy]

I think I got you beat, don't know the cost of it anymore, but it took hours and 6 TLs and a few trips each. 44 factories all connected into 1 HQ supply hub. though I"M thinking of adding more microchip fabs.

4 XL solal Plant, (I will never run out of evergy)
8 M Crystal fabs (god this was a beast to get going)
3 L Cahoonas (mmmm steak dinner for my whole fleet everynight)
3 L Argnu beef (enough methane to kill a man)
3 L Wheat Farms (I should add a private distillery)
3 L Cloth Rimes (I've got nothing here)
2 L Chelt Aquariame (WHY CAN'T I SPELL YOU)
2 L Rastar Oil (what do they do with the rest of the Chelt?)
4 Computer Plants (I'm gonna build the biggest and greatest computer ever)
4 Microchip plant (why arn't these needed for my computer plants?)
4 Quantum Tubes (I under stand the concept of Quantum, and tubes, but what the hell are Quantum tubes?)
2 L Teladianium (it's made from magical sand created by energy cells how good could it be?)
1 L Ore mine (used asteroid creator script, this thing cost as much as 1/4 of the rest of the fabs)
1 L Silicon (same goes for this one)

total storage
840,000-energy cells
31,952 -crystals
30,000 -beef
143,276-steak
99,960 - wheat
12,480 -cloth rimes
20,000 -chelts
5,000 -rastar oil
6660 -Teladianium
664 -Quantum Tubes + 1 empty dolphin
160 -microchips + 1 empty dolphin
1,664 -computer Components

[jlehtone]

I think this is the best

In what sense is this "better" than some other setup?

[ValiantSKYWALKER]

If I follow Gaidin's complex setup, could I attach the stations/factories in any order, or would they need to be linked according to ware production/resource requirement

[madness 3D]

I am literally just about to ship a trading station up to kingsoms end,

I was wondering if it is NECCASSARY to build a self sustaining complex

[newdean]

1. It's not necessary to have a self-sustaining complex, it just (A) requires less micro-management/trouble shooting attention once it's up and running and (B) doesn't require the presence of local cheap resources to use.

2. Self-sustaining complexes actually are less effective than non-self sustaining ones at gradually raising your rep with the local race, since with non-self sustaining complexes, over time you buy a lot of cheap energy cells (or whatever) gradually raising your reputation through buying resources.

3. Self-sustaining complexes are also expensive, and have a lower return on investment than many non self-sustaining complexes as a result (at least in areas where there is an abundance of cheap local energy cell sources).

The larger of the complexes pushed as "best" abo ve is expensive and overkill for the hourly requirements of any ship building, according to the HQ complex spreadsheet.

I saved a few credits by (1) using, where appropriate, Boron fabs for high tech stuff, when they were cheaper; (2) using a Split computer plant (more expensive, but it takes half the production of the M Rastar refinery, which otherwise is just excess); (3) building it in Ore Belt, attached to a high yield silicon asteroid, where it's close enough to Paranid space to sell off excess Teladianium inventory which is used there as a secondary resource; (4) not having it all part of one factory. The rimes and ore I get from a different factory complex; and (5) starting with one chip plant, not 2, since initially if you make a mix of M3, TS, and other fighters, your hourly chip requirements stay at about 10. They only go to 17.6 an hour if you're consistently and continuously making capital ships.

[Gaidin]

I think this is the best

In what sense is this "better" than some other setup?

By meaning the best I mean the cheapest possible. And if you use Boron and Teladi Crystal Fabs, it would be more expensive because you will also need Cloth Rimes to sustain the ship production and it would require more factories.

As to the self-sustaining part, i don't actually want to deal with the complex anymore while it's up.

This complex is designed for version 2.0.2 so I don't need any more chip plants.

ValiantSKYWALKER you can attach them in any order you want as the other complexes.

And I built it in Ore Belt. It has some good yield asteroids (I used a 5 yield Ore which is enough, and 1 56 and 1 26 yield silicon mine) and it's safe.

Finally this complex is designed to make it possible for the PHQ to build any ship possible without any delay between 2 productions.

[Geek]

By meaning the best I mean the cheapest possible. And if you use Boron and Teladi Crystal Fabs, it would be more expensive because you will also need Cloth Rimes to sustain the ship production and it would require more factories.

That is totally wrong. Player fabs are different from NPC ones and do not use secondary resources. So all player crystal fabs needs silicium, energy and the right type of food.

My PHQ is supplied mostly by Boron fabs. The others being race-specific (Rastar, Teladanium...). I only have 1 M Rimes fab because the ship (larger than M5) production always needs some, no matter the other fabs.

[Taniniver]

Hi Gaidin

I thought this looked like a nice complex and was considering building it for myself, so I decided to plug all the info into Merroc's Complex Calc, version 2.3, and check it out before I started building. I was going to look out for any excess production I might be able to use to make some weapons or shields.

I can't seem to get the numbers to add up - most of them are correct, for things like the rimes, computer components, rastar oil, that sort of thing, even the 71.29 ore, but there seems to be something wrong in the silicon/crystal/energy numbers.

With "Sell excess ore/silicon & buy needed crystals." enabled it shows 168.57% crystal production and 87.29% energy production, and without it enabled it shows the same crystal production, 112% energy production, but 292.88 crystals and 6,314.65 energy for sale per hour. This is with the stated "2 L Teladi Silicon Mine 41", or with 1 56 and 1 26. Not a major problem, but your numbers indicated 1790.98 Energy and 52.88 Crystals per hour.

With 2 L Teladi Silicon Mine 33 or 1 L Teladi Silicon Mine 66 (since you stated 66 is enough) it calculates to not enough silicon! (83.33%)

Am I plugging in some numbers wrong? Can anyone else verify these results?

[Gaidin]

Hi Gaidin

I thought this looked like a nice complex and was considering building it for myself, so I decided to plug all the info into Merroc's Complex Calc, version 2.3, and check it out before I started building. I was going to look out for any excess production I might be able to use to make some weapons or shields.

I can't seem to get the numbers to add up - most of them are correct, for things like the rimes, computer components, rastar oil, that sort of thing, even the 71.29 ore, but there seems to be something wrong in the silicon/crystal/energy numbers.

With "Sell excess ore/silicon & buy needed crystals." enabled it shows 168.57% crystal production and 87.29% energy production, and without it enabled it shows the same crystal production, 112% energy production, but 292.88 crystals and 6,314.65 energy for sale per hour. This is with the stated "2 L Teladi Silicon Mine 41", or with 1 56 and 1 26. Not a major problem, but your numbers indicated 1790.98 Energy and 52.88 Crystals per hour.

With 2 L Teladi Silicon Mine 33 or 1 L Teladi Silicon Mine 66 (since you stated 66 is enough) it calculates to not enough silicon! (83.33%)

Am I plugging in some numbers wrong? Can anyone else verify these results?

Thanks for the warning, I think I mispaste the data i generated, there are 4 crystal fabs instead of 6, 1 M Cahoona Bakery instead of 3 and 1 M Cattle Ranch instead of 3. If you count the factories you can see there are 30 factories here instead of 24. After editing you can see there are 24 factories and the total cost is 65,823,100 credits.

By the way, the Complex Calculator sometimes miscalculates the energy used. If you sum the energy input at the AE column of the excel sheet, you can see that it's more than the AP column. Anyway my calculation of the hourly produced resources should be right.

[davebispham]

how do you manage to keep 4XL SSP`s going with 8 crystal fabs? my experience is that you need 5 or 6 for each one so you must have freighters buying them in for you in which case its not "self sufficient"

[pjknibbs]

I haven't run the numbers, but the SPPs will just not produce to their maximum potential with only 8 crystal fabs--it's entirely possible he's got enough surplus e-cell production potential that he can power the entire complex using just those 8 fabs. (Although in that case it was a bit pointless spending the extra 30 million credits to build the additional 2 SPP XLs).

[Gaidin]

how do you manage to keep 4XL SSP`s going with 8 crystal fabs? my experience is that you need 5 or 6 for each one so you must have freighters buying them in for you in which case its not "self sufficient"

Actually I only have 1 L and 1 M SPP and 4 Crystal Fabs.

[Taniniver]

Thanks for the update Gaidin - I plugged it all in again and it works fine now.

With 66 total yield silicon mines there is 57.04 silicon to sell per hour, and the HQ requires at most about 53/54 per hour. If the silicon asteriods yield was only 65 instead it would be 50.10 per hour, not quite enough for the HQ. What a shame those asteroids in Ore Belt max out at 64 yield, otherwise one would have been enough!

There are only 12 silicon asteroids in the game with enough yield to need just one for this complex, and 5 of them are in Xenon or Khaak sectors. Spring Of Belief would be one alternative - that has a 70 yield and a 72, either of which would work. Cho's Defeat has a 70, LooManckStrat's Legacy has a 70 and a 72, as does Mines Of Fortune.

Your ore mine M on a yield 5 gives 71.29 ore per hour, and the HQ needs 71 per hour at the most. I notice also that 5 yield is the lowest Ore available in Ore Belt. Very nice

If you were building elsewhere, and wanted to use the lowest yield asteroid possible to save the better ones for other things, an Ore Mine L on a 2 yield would give 89.55 per hour - not as efficient, but not too bad. None of the sectors listed above have a 2 yield, but all have a 3 or 4 yield. None of them are in as good a position as Ore Belt though.

Everything else checks out too - just enough SPPs to power the complex and have enough left for the HQ requirements, just enough crystal fabs, the lot!

Kudos on the accuracy of your calculations and the superb efficiency of the design

If anyone else can come up with a better one, I'd like to see it! Otherwise I'll be building this within a few days.

[pjknibbs]

Actually I only have 1 L and 1 M SPP and 4 Crystal Fabs.

He was talking about the complex in mippy's post.

[Taniniver]

Another question for you Gaidin -

Did you manage to set up a process to automatically transfer the resources to your HQ, using Commodity Logistics Software for example?

If so I would love to hear how you did it.

[Gaidin]

Another question for you Gaidin -

Did you manage to set up a process to automatically transfer the resources to your HQ, using Commodity Logistics Software for example?

If so I would love to hear how you did it.

I didn't download the Bonus Pack so I don't use the Commodity Logistics Software, but I know transporting the wares from the complex to HQ is a real pain. At least I placed them really close.

[Maverick024]

Rather than complete an all-in-one complex for my HQ, I have factories in all the surrounding sectors (the HQ is in The Wall) that product more than enough of the resources used by the HQ, and sell them to the NPCs using Best Sell commands. When resources at the HQ run low, I just turn the prices up in the HQ to max and my own traders bring the stuff in by themselves. the extra money that the HQ dishes out is simply recycled through the other stations and back into my account. Hassle free.