[TC] Hub Gate Alignment tips

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swgoddard
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Hub Gate Alignment tips

Post by swgoddard » Mon, 19. Apr 10, 15:45

I currently only have the first pair of gates available and have aligned 1 with northern gate in Grand Exchange(was connected to a Xenon Core sector previously) the other is still connected to Xenon 598 with the intention of connecting to somewhere at the other side of the galaxy around Paranid Prime(my current favourite is the north gate of Empires Edge).
Also I am at the plot point where they want me to align the 2 terran unknown sectors to progress the mission.
An on the hub plot itself I am saving up also to get crystals for Mahi Ma to get another gate working.
Anyway I have a few questions about this for those that have passed this point.

1/ If I align my current pair to the 2 terran sectors can this be reversed ?
Or should I wait till I get more gates under control.
2/ Can you re-align the gates as much as you like ?
3/ Does my current idea of gate aligning sound ok ?

All answers gratefull received.
Thanks guys.
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brucewarren
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Post by brucewarren » Mon, 19. Apr 10, 18:55

1) Yes, once this gate is completely repaired you can realign it again.
2) Eventually all three gates can be realligned at will.
There's a cooldown period and it costs 10000 e-cells a time
3) Depends what you are doing. I wouldn't connect to Xenon myself.
I would want to make it easier for my ships to collect the next lot of
resources such as ore and silicon etc. I wouldn't want my supply ships
encountering Xenon.

edit: speeling

Bill Huntington
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Gates

Post by Bill Huntington » Mon, 19. Apr 10, 19:35

You are getting somewhere, swgoddard!

I like to have the first set of gates at a central location in TC, to keep travel costs down. Good locations are either end of the Unknown between Montelaar and New Income. I've also used the gate of Legend's Home.

The second set I put between Ore Belt and Home of Light, for easy access to Jumpdrives and Transporters at Terracorp.

You can realign gates by accessing the Xenon Hub, and Gate Realignment is a menu item. You can do it as often as you like, though there is a waiting period.

Good Luck.
Bill in S.F., enjoying the game

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Post by Jeraal » Tue, 20. Apr 10, 02:25

If I'm wrong, please excuse me. I'm not sure you quite understand how the HUB gates work. It sounds as if you want to connect the gate leading to Xenon 598 to a Paranid sector. That's not quite how it works. When you choose to allign a gate, you are inserting the HUB between two sectors. It takes two of the HUB gates at a time to align. I had my first pair set to the Argon Prime South Gate and Home of Light North Gate. If I misunderstood what you meant, please ignore me. Most people do :)
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Post by GCU Grey Area » Tue, 20. Apr 10, 03:45

When you get further into the Hub plot think carefully about whether you want to use the 2nd & 3rd sets of gates. There are good reasons to use them, but there are however also very good reasons not to, & once those gates have been activated there is (AFAIK) no way of turning them off again.

Main reasons I prefer my Hub to only have one set of active gates:

1. It minimises the number of NPC ships flying through the Hub. Still get the normal traffic flying between sectors but you don't have to put up with all the additional traffic which will be tempted to use the Hub as a shortcut.

2. A Hub with only one set of active gates is IMO much more useful for abducting ships (i.e. by realigning the gates before they can leave). I often use this to relocate capital ship patrol groups, so I can board them in pirate/unknown sectors rather than in their own sectors, far from the interference from other military or police vessels. With only one set of active gates it's much easier to predict what route they'll use to get home after they leave the Hub.

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Post by kgkosio » Tue, 20. Apr 10, 04:50

I agree with GCU Grey Area in one respect, keep all of your gate connections on one side of the Xenon line. You want to force the police to traverse a Xenon sector, if they can use the Hub, you will have a problem not returning ships. (unless you use the missile/jump exploit.)
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swgoddard
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Post by swgoddard » Tue, 20. Apr 10, 12:12

Well theres some great ideas for me there, especially thanks to Bill for his encouraging words.
Also maybe I did not explain myself well enough.
Originally the hub had 2 working gates both to xenon sectors.
I had realigned 1 gate to the north end of grand exchange but am intending to connect the remaining gate to somewhere around Paranid Prime possibly the north gate of Empires Edge as this would allow my ships to traverse from one side of the galaxy to the other.
I did not want any xenon sectors connected at all.
Does that sound like a good idea?
At least to start with. :?
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thetack
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Post by thetack » Tue, 20. Apr 10, 12:54

the gates work as a pair not indavidualy so the first gate may be the existing south gate of argon prime the second would aline with the north gate of home of light, to link paranid prime you would need the second pair so 4 gates in total, all the hub does is become an extra sector between the two old ones so in the example above a ship going from argon pride too home of light would be need to have a range setting changed from 1 to 2 to travel .

Eddis
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Post by Eddis » Tue, 20. Apr 10, 13:25

I've been considering the optimal gate config for some time now. What I will eventually end up doing is taking the universe map, plotting test locations and counting how many sectors are within range ( i am probably going to go with 4 or 5) as a criteria. The idea is to get maximum sector coverage per hub gate. I'm also going to give some priority to race locations, current traffic, proximity to race homeworld sectors, distance to pirate/xenon sector traffic etc.... it's not an easy task.

It really depends on what utility you want the gates to do for you. For me, it will be about maximizing potential trade traffic throughout the universe, not just to me (I would like to fix the currently broken economy in my game).

Some people place gates near where you can get Jumpdrives and other kit... personally, I consider this a waste as I have carriers with fighters inside equipped with kit for trading/combat vessles ready to jump wherever I buy/cap a ship that needs it.

Then there are people using gates to trap ships in pirate sectors for faction, or capping, or simply for combat purposes.

The fact you can change them at will is definitely good, and at minimal cost (10k power, 2 hours cooldown)!

Decide what you want to do with them and try it out. If it isnt working how you want, just move them elsewhere.

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swgoddard
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Post by swgoddard » Tue, 20. Apr 10, 14:20

thanks eddis and thetack I had not realised thats how they operated in a pair. As I only used them once so far.

Now I understand that I can realign them for 10K each time I can have a play around to see how I can best optimise my trade routes.
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Eddis
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Post by Eddis » Wed, 21. Apr 10, 00:43

swgoddard wrote:thanks eddis and thetack I had not realised thats how they operated in a pair. As I only used them once so far.

Now I understand that I can realign them for 10K each time I can have a play around to see how I can best optimise my trade routes.
If you are going vanilla (no cheating), i'd start building 30 or more microchip fabs now :shock: not to mention all the other materials, but the chips.... ugh... slllooooow. I am down to 19k in my game and should be done within 7 days (26 chip fabs).

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imperium3
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Post by imperium3 » Wed, 21. Apr 10, 00:46

Crystal fabs too :roll:

Ho't'Shtt
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@GCU Grey Area

Post by Ho't'Shtt » Mon, 28. Jun 10, 12:52

Excellent name - I went through a phase of naming my ships after Culture ships (got too many now to keep it up), but they have prefixes like ROU or GSV.

Big Iain (M) Banks fan, currently rereading Use of Weapons for the nth time.

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TTD
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Re: @GCU Grey Area

Post by TTD » Mon, 28. Jun 10, 23:03

Ho't'Shtt wrote:Excellent name - I went through a phase of naming my ships after Culture ships (got too many now to keep it up), but they have prefixes like ROU or GSV.

Big Iain (M) Banks fan, currently rereading Use of Weapons for the nth time.
:?

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nponoBegHuk
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Post by nponoBegHuk » Tue, 29. Jun 10, 00:32

Placing of the gates is matter of personal preference but I would suggest placing at least one set of gates between Ore Belt and Home of Light. You buy jumpdrives in Home of Light and Ore Belt is good for placing SPP complex for your personal supplies. This way you'll have two most used resources just a jump away from your hub. And there are 2 shipyards 2 jumps away which is very close (i.e. buy ships in Argon Prime, fly south to Home of Light, fly south and then wherever you want from your Hub
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Ho't'Shtt
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Post by Ho't'Shtt » Tue, 29. Jun 10, 02:15

LOL, sorry for the OT post. The GCU Grey Area features in one of Iain M Banks' "Culture" novels, Excession, also known by a rather offensive alias......

The Culture has been discussed elsewhere on these boards. Just had to comment on the Banks link.

List of ship names can be found at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sh ... Culture%29

No more OT, back to the OPs topic.....

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TTD
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Post by TTD » Tue, 29. Jun 10, 20:47

I also kept the game running after I posted the save file and my complex as it stands is a sink hole for cash. The 2.5 mil I put in there has vanished in start up costs!.
Took me over an hour to fine tune the CAGs and the Station sales price till it started to make a profit. But I will be ready when the save comes my way again, so no worrys.
:)

The three main links I go for are

Home of Light/Argon Prime
Legend's Home/Akeela's Beacon
Queen's Harbour/Queens Retribution

Other links are also useful at times ,such as Getsu Fune

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Post by chrishamm » Wed, 30. Jun 10, 14:56

TTD wrote:
I also kept the game running after I posted the save file and my complex as it stands is a sink hole for cash. The 2.5 mil I put in there has vanished in start up costs!.
Took me over an hour to fine tune the CAGs and the Station sales price till it started to make a profit. But I will be ready when the save comes my way again, so no worrys.
:)

The three main links I go for are

Home of Light/Argon Prime
Legend's Home/Akeela's Beacon
Queen's Harbour/Queens Retribution

Other links are also useful at times ,such as Getsu Fune
all wise choices but keep in mind as well when you are the owner of your own sector (a new home plot) connect yourself to the commonwealth so you get traffic from to your HQ mine are
Home of Light/Argon Prime
Queen's Harbour/Queens Retribution
Guiding star /unknown sector :D
thats assuming that you put your hq in your sector theres really no need
to place it anywhere else as long as you own the xenon hub

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