Newbie Questions regarding the economy

General discussions about the games by Egosoft including X-BTF, XT, X², X³: Reunion, X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

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fraserd
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Newbie Questions regarding the economy

Post by fraserd » Tue, 14. Oct 08, 11:49

I have just started with this game and have been reading through many of the great faqs available on these forums. Most of the economy faqs mention buying foodstuffs and selling them to start off. I have bought beef and have travelled to different systems( all fairly close to one another) and have found using the best selling locator in each system have found that the price is the same that i bought it for everwhere I look, I tried buying ore and found the same thing every system had it for what i was buying it for.
Either I am reading things wrong or do i have to go further afield to sells goods? I am not expecting huge differences but i didnt think every system would have goods for exactely the same price.

David

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KoshZdryh
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Re: Newbie Questions regarding the economy

Post by KoshZdryh » Tue, 14. Oct 08, 12:00

fraserd wrote:...same thing every system had it for what i was buying it for...
[sarcasm]WHAT ? 50 bucks ? -- impossible.[/sarcasm]
You just made a bad bussiness,that's all;wait for awhile/explore further.
Besssst solution is silicon -- it could bring 550 bucks/piece profitssss. :wink:
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FyreByrd
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Post by FyreByrd » Tue, 14. Oct 08, 13:03

food, especially in the argon sectors can be slow at the start of an X3 game. The way the economy is set up at game start station wise means there are a lot of cattle ranches/wheat farms in proportion to cahoona bakeries.

THerefore it is more sensible to stick with energy trading until you can handle ore and silicon trading runs which are more profitable in the long run anyway

jlehtone
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Post by jlehtone » Tue, 14. Oct 08, 13:05

IIRC, the "Best selling" lists both the best offer, the "average" price, and their difference.


There are exactly two places that may sell Beef: Cattle Ranches and some Trading Stations (TD). The price at TS is fixed to "average".

The price at Ranch depends on the amount it has beef in stock:
* nearly empty -> max price
* half full -> "average"
* full -> rock bottom price

The price at any factory that does consume Beef (Cahoona Bakery):
* empty beef stock -> max price
* half full -> "average"
* full -> rock bottom price

As you can see, you should buy from Ranch that is full, and sell to empty Bakery.

Ok, you do find a Bakery that is full of Beef. No point in waiting there, really. But if you must wait, when waiting will be a long one?
* If the Bakery is full of Cahoonas, it will not make more, and therefore will not consume beef.
* If the Bakery has no ECells, it cannot run either, and therefore will not consume beef. (IIRC, the game starts in this condition.)
* If the Bakery has both ECells and Wheat (NPC Bakery differs from most Food factories), it may choose to run a cycle with those two instead of ECells and Beef.
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euclid
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Post by euclid » Tue, 14. Oct 08, 13:09

Welcome back, David :-)

With the economy it's a bit like in real life. So don't be surprised if the profits are rather low if you trade between close systems.

Also trading is food is not the best product to start with. Instead check energy cells or, if your ships has the necessary cargo capability, trade silicon.

In any case please recall that the npc traders are real competitiors; and there are many of them ;-)

Good luck !


Cheers Euclid

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Post by EventHorizon » Tue, 14. Oct 08, 13:23

Supply and demand my friend, supply and demand.

As others have said, Silicon and Energy Cells are the best way to start. For example, if you can buy Silicon at 250CR you can (if you find a place that is empty) sell it at 750CR (not sure about exact prices, I am at work - they are fairly close though). With Energy Cells, you will only make 7CR profit on each but you can carry a lot of them.

At the very beginning one of the best ways to get money is to take on BBS missions, you will be surprised at home much of a bonus you can get by delivering X energy cells on time. And remember, even if you have to buy e-cells at the maximum price (19CR) you still get more from them in a BBS situation (20CR) - plus the bonus if your quick enough, even my M5 was able to do a 2800 unit request in the time allowed.

You may also want to fly further afield as other extensions do make trading easier.
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Post by Laden Swallow » Tue, 14. Oct 08, 15:00

One of the trade runs that I like to do at the start of the game is running space fuel (illegal) from the space fuel distillery in herrons nebula to the trading station in the same system. Works out as some quite fast money in the short term (eventually the trading station will fill up or the space fuel distillery will run out of energy cells). And as long as you don't get caught your race reputation and trading ranks will go up (IMO) incredibly fast.

It is a S or M class ware, average price of about 700cr but (oddly) sells for 1200 on the trading station about 10k away.
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If your playing the storyline, I play the first mission to get some kills to boost race ranks. Then before the second mission I aim to get a discoverer and a mercury (to start mobile mining) by trading (space fuel). Then I start the second mission in the discoverer so that the buster can be in home of light with a collect all wares command (to pick up the hornet missiles dropped by the pirates you fight, and the discoverer can get into the wall and collect the hornet missiles from there). Each hornet missile is a quick 10k cash.
And some of the delivery missions to other stations can be excellent money earners, since the goods will give you about the same price as an average ware, and you get a bonus on top, AND you didn't have to pay for the wares in the first place. Can easily earn 100k+ in a TS mission, even on the first day.

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Post by strude » Tue, 14. Oct 08, 15:55

Laden Swallow wrote:One of the trade runs that I like to do at the start of the game is running space fuel (illegal) from the space fuel distillery in herrons nebula to the trading station in the same system. Works out as some quite fast money in the short term (eventually the trading station will fill up or the space fuel distillery will run out of energy cells). And as long as you don't get caught your race reputation and trading ranks will go up (IMO) incredibly fast.

It is a S or M class ware, average price of about 700cr but (oddly) sells for 1200 on the trading station about 10k away.
If you do this, make sure you know the available capacity in the trading station. If you buy one unit too much and get stuck with it, you either need to wait without leaving the station until there is room to sell it, dump it immediately into space, or risk flying around with it until you can sell it.

Elucca
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Post by Elucca » Tue, 14. Oct 08, 16:40

This is the easiest way to check whether you're getting a good price:
If the factory is nearly empty, the price will be high. If it's full, it's going to be cheap.

strude
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Post by strude » Tue, 14. Oct 08, 16:47

Elucca wrote:This is the easiest way to check whether you're getting a good price:
If the factory is nearly empty, the price will be high. If it's full, it's going to be cheap.
Of course, you also have to consider that if the price is cheap and the factory is full, there might be no local demand for the product, so you might have trouble offloading it.

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Post by Carl Sumner » Wed, 15. Oct 08, 05:06

And, all of that is the reason that trading in this game can be both more frustrating and also more fun that any other game. :)

The factories trade with each other all of the time. Things don't stop when you leave a sector, they keep happening in all of the sectors all of the time. There can be shortages and booms, and the influence of a new trader or a new factory can change things over several sectors.

Even though individual factories run on relativly simple logic, the net effect of hundreds of them over more than a hundred sectors can be down right startling.

By the way, the game economy is not broken. When the game starts it is in a recession due to the widespread Kha'ak attacks (and so the new player can easily find good deals to trade). Look around, there are opportunities to make Profitsss! :D
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