Cost of Cargo Bay Extensions

[Fluff]

I've been looking, but I haven't been able to find a formula for how much cargo bay extensions cost. Can someone help me out?

[Alan Phipps]

An old, old thread, but I doubt it changed all that much across X2/X3 except maybe the start and end values. (You didn't say what X game you play anyway.)

More recent.

Even more recent.

[Timsup2nothin]

Short answer, more than they are worth except in small doses.

Extending a cargo bay so a ship can haul another 1000 units of cargo costs something very close to the cost of buying a ship that could haul 3000 units of cargo. Unless there is a very specific application demanding it I don't do it.

[Alacard1]

For M5-M3/M6 class ships, the cost is trivial and the extra storage volume is important.

For capitol ships the cost of expanding the cargo bay is also trivial relative to the cost of the ship.

For TS-class ships, their primary use is for automated traders who will AUTOMATICALLY upgrade their ship's cargo bay to 80% of the max they can purchase but is incremental. If a new trader is assigned to be a ST/LT/UT/CAG/CLS, that trader will, upon reaching a certain level, make trips to docks to upgrade their ship's cargo bay. They will not do this all at once bit over many trips. Each of those trips is a lost cargo run.

TL;DR. Do the upgrade yourself 99% of the time.

[Fluff]

If a new trader is assigned to be a ST/LT/UT/CAG/CLS, that trader will, upon reaching a certain level, make trips to docks to upgrade their ship's cargo bay.

This is an undocumented (and, IMO, undesired) behavior in CAG and CLS pilots. Are you sure this is the case? The documentation states that they will buy rudder and engine tunings, but says nothing about cargo bay extensions.

[Timsup2nothin]

If a new trader is assigned to be a ST/LT/UT/CAG/CLS, that trader will, upon reaching a certain level, make trips to docks to upgrade their ship's cargo bay.

This is an undocumented (and, IMO, undesired) behavior in CAG and CLS pilots. Are you sure this is the case? The documentation states that they will buy rudder and engine tunings, but says nothing about cargo bay extensions.

Doesn't happen. One of the many many advantages of CLS over ST/UT.

I will agree with the correction to my former response by the way. I was referring to cargo ship cargo bays, not fighters or capital ships.

[Alacard1]

My bad, posting from a mobile device. I will play test this to be 100% certain

[Fluff]

Using the information in those threads, I've compiled this list of each TS and TM in TC and the maximum amount of cargo bay extensions that should be bought for each if your concern is minimizing the cost per cargo unit:

Baldric => 367 tunings (total cargo space: 3367, total price: 860537)
Boa => 298 tunings (total cargo space: 1048, total price: 527491)
Caiman => 141 tunings (total cargo space: 2641, total price: 404302)
Caiman Hauler => 315 tunings (total cargo space: 5315, total price: 902602)
Caiman Miner => 898 tunings (total cargo space: 5398, total price: 1990737)
Caiman Super Freighter 1 => 349 tunings (total cargo space: 4974, total price: 996783)
Caiman Super Freighter 2 => 973 tunings (total cargo space: 8348, total price: 2837896)
Caiman Tanker 1 => 141 tunings (total cargo space: 2641, total price: 404302)
Caiman Tanker 2 => 349 tunings (total cargo space: 5099, total price: 995932)
Demeter => 139 tunings (total cargo space: 2939, total price: 446674)
Demeter Hauler => 262 tunings (total cargo space: 5862, total price: 842886)
Demeter Miner => 193 tunings (total cargo space: 3413, total price: 612963)
Demeter Super Freighter 1 => 293 tunings (total cargo space: 5473, total price: 934982)
Demeter Super Freighter 2 => 533 tunings (total cargo space: 8793, total price: 1694963)
Demeter Tanker => 139 tunings (total cargo space: 2939, total price: 446674)
Dolphin => 114 tunings (total cargo space: 4114, total price: 518509)
Dolphin Hauler => 230 tunings (total cargo space: 8230, total price: 1045762)
Dolphin Super Freighter 1 => 252 tunings (total cargo space: 7652, total price: 1135656)
Dolphin Super Freighter 2 => 373 tunings (total cargo space: 12173, total price: 2203688)
Dolphin Tanker 1 => 114 tunings (total cargo space: 4114, total price: 518509)
Dolphin Tanker 2 => 251 tunings (total cargo space: 7851, total price: 1135069)
Helios => 199 tunings (total cargo space: 1199, total price: 444254)
Magnetar => 196 tunings (total cargo space: 1196, total price: 478860)
Mercury => 135 tunings (total cargo space: 3135, total price: 462219)
Mercury Hauler => 258 tunings (total cargo space: 6258, total price: 886712)
Mercury Super Freighter 1 => 288 tunings (total cargo space: 5838, total price: 978532)
Mercury Super Freighter 2 => 533 tunings (total cargo space: 9383, total price: 1807971)
Mercury Tanker 1 => 135 tunings (total cargo space: 3135, total price: 462219)
Mercury Tanker 2 => 288 tunings (total cargo space: 5988, total price: 977954)
Mistral => 194 tunings (total cargo space: 3194, total price: 657354)
Mistral Super Freighter => 908 tunings (total cargo space: 10908, total price: 2112678)
Pelican => 178 tunings (total cargo space: 1378, total price: 504274)
Pleco => 262 tunings (total cargo space: 1262, total price: 518222)
Vulture => 101 tunings (total cargo space: 3601, total price: 409779)
Vulture Hauler => 224 tunings (total cargo space: 7224, total price: 900134)
Vulture Miner => 151 tunings (total cargo space: 4176, total price: 601198)
Vulture Super Freighter 1 => 252 tunings (total cargo space: 6727, total price: 999784)
Vulture Super Freighter 2 => 503 tunings (total cargo space: 10828, total price: 1980365)
Vulture Tanker => 101 tunings (total cargo space: 3601, total price: 409779)
Zephyrus => 178 tunings (total cargo space: 1078, total price: 518663)

Note that this does not take into account engine or rudder tunings, which may raise the price of the ship enough to rationalize a few more extensions.

What do these numbers mean? Okay, I took the price divided by the minimum cargo space to find the base credit price per cargo unit. Then I considered the price of adding the next extension; if that price was less than the current credit price per cargo unit, it got added (+1 to cargo space and the linerally adjusted amount added to the price) and the credit price per cargo unit got recalculated. I repeated until the price of adding an extension was greater than the credit price per cargo unit; in other words, it would be more expensive to add that next unit of cargo than it would be to save the credits for another ship of the same model.

[jlehtone]

You are not the first one with such list. They usually add one more column: (total price / total space), i.e. price per unit => cheapest ship. That is what the Nividium Miners usually look for; the cheapest hulk to fill and sell.


Personally, I find credits so cheap that price is not a consideration. (I like to mentally harass Teladi as well.)

[Alan Phipps]

That seems like good work. I think that if you did something vaguely similar for cost of engine tunings & speed, a 3D graph mapping optimum size, optimum speed and optimum resultant cost for all those example ship types would quickly identify candidates for the most cost-effective and cost-efficient freight-delivery service. The info could be useful for early game when credits are scarce.

Edit: Partial Ninja by jlehtone.

[terryokc2]

Edited: Yanked my false statement reply. My apologies for speaking up.

[Morkonan]

...Just wanted to put this in here to answer, for certain, that CLS 2 pilots do purchase these upgrades in their travels from time to time.

Good to know, thanks!

[Timsup2nothin]

If a new trader is assigned to be a ST/LT/UT/CAG/CLS, that trader will, upon reaching a certain level, make trips to docks to upgrade their ship's cargo bay.

This is an undocumented (and, IMO, undesired) behavior in CAG and CLS pilots. Are you sure this is the case? The documentation states that they will buy rudder and engine tunings, but says nothing about cargo bay extensions.

Doesn't happen. One of the many many advantages of CLS over ST/UT.

I will agree with the correction to my former response by the way. I was referring to cargo ship cargo bays, not fighters or capital ships.

Sorry to fire this thread up again, but I wanted to put this in here because I remember these responses and was thinking at the time that I had noticed cargo bay upgrades happen in my first game. (for ships at least with MK3 software...wasn't certain for any CLS 1 or 2 pilots)

It seems that CLS 2 pilots need to be added to the "documented" section of buying cargo bay upgrades. In my current restart of the Humble Merchant, I have at least one CLS 2 pilot distributing silicon who is STILL a Cargo Messenger that added 150 to her cargo bay. Her ship is a Mercury that now stands at 3150 and it started with 3000. She added 150.

From the start, I have never added cargo bay upgrades to ANY of the ships I have purchased and repaired. And I have been very observant of the cargo space available on each I have aquired. (partly for this one purpose specifically)

Just wanted to put this in here to answer, for certain, that CLS 2 pilots do purchase these upgrades in their travels from time to time.

Wow. Questions, because as much as I use CLS I would have thought I'd have seen it if they did it.

What other software do you have on that ship?

Are you really sure it wasn't a cap, or a bought used, that came with a slightly expanded cargo bay?

[Shrewd135]

In general, google is a better search engine for the x3 forums than the x3 forum search tool. I would recommend typing into google "x3 <your query>" you will probably get faster results. The game has been around for a long time on the same engine, so they have alot of questions that have already been answered.

someone somewhere showed me this url... I would book mark it if I were you.
http://www.google.co.uk/advanced_search ... gosoft.com

It directs google to only search egosofts forums for the answer to your question.

This is just an FYI to help speed you on your way to an answer.

[terryokc2]

Wow. Questions, because as much as I use CLS I would have thought I'd have seen it if they did it.

What other software do you have on that ship?

Are you really sure it wasn't a cap, or a bought used, that came with a slightly expanded cargo bay?

And now I begin to question myself....was positive each of the Merc's I'd purchased used were of the same cargo bay starting point as the ones you buy from the shipyard.

But now...I cannot say for certain. I now have to say that you are right, Tim, this one had to have come with it to begin with....dang....thought I'd had something here.

My sincere apologies for the confusion I started with my reply. Gotta check my other game for sanity reasons...hang on.

Yep...each of the Mistral's I have for CAG's and CLS2's still have their 3000k cargo bay and they've been flying longer. I am truely sorry.

[Rapier]

Using the information in those threads, I've compiled this list of each TS and TM in TC and the maximum amount of cargo bay extensions that should be bought for each if your concern is minimizing the cost per cargo unit: <snip>

This kind of calculation is nice in theory (I've done it myself in the past), but in practice maximising profit is more complicated than simply finding the cheapest ship. It is worth upgrading cargo rather than buying a new ship where you're regularly going to be buying/selling good that fill the cargo hold. Each time your ship makes a purchase, the price of the good will rise, so you want to buy as much as you can at once; you get a better deal sending one ship with a large cargo hold than two with smaller ones (the reverse maths is true with selling, but with the same effect). That's why I usually make sure the cargo bay of my haulers is large enough to empty/fill a full station load of whatever it's transporting (along with a ll the other stuff it needs to carry). Likewise, when I'm selling small things, like microchips, I don't usually upgrade the cargo space at all.

There is also the real world issue that the more ships you have, the more logic the game has to compute, so lots of ships means more change of slowdown problems.

[Fluff]

Using the information in those threads, I've compiled this list of each TS and TM in TC and the maximum amount of cargo bay extensions that should be bought for each if your concern is minimizing the cost per cargo unit: <snip>

This kind of calculation is nice in theory (I've done it myself in the past), but in practice maximising profit is more complicated than simply finding the cheapest ship.

I agree that maximizing profit is more complicated than just this, which is why I clearly stated what these numbers are good for: minimizing the cost per cargo unit.

[johnnywas]

Cargo bay upgrades are expensive if you Max out but there is one saving to factor in if you have not done already

It is definately more profitable to buy all the product in a station than to return for a remainder

So it probably depends on what the ship is going to be used for. High Tech traders don't need much space. Raw material traders do.

[Timsup2nothin]

Cargo bay upgrades are expensive if you Max out but there is one saving to factor in if you have not done already

It is definately more profitable to buy all the product in a station than to return for a remainder

So it probably depends on what the ship is going to be used for. High Tech traders don't need much space. Raw material traders do.

So don't return for the remainder, return the next time the fab is selling at your desired price. The remainder means there is less time before the station's production makes the price favorable again.

Say you want to buy at minimum price from a MSPP. It hits minimum price with about 9000 in stock.

If you have a Mercury hauler with a 6000 cargo bay the inventory drops to 3000 and price goes to 17...and the SPP needs to produce 6000 e-cells before you can do it again.

If you pour the credits into cargo bay extension the Merc can buy 8000, knocking inventory down to 1000 and price to 19...but the SPP needs to produce 8000 before you can do it again, which takes 1/3 again as much time. The same increase in time between purchases as you got in product per purchase.

Bottom line, how fast you can buy product at a given price is determined by the production rate of the fab, not the size of your cargo bay.