Is DeVries totally broken (Empire Building) ??????

[Snafu_X3]

Anyone know when the NPC shipyard would start to build if the CV is alive?

It's just around the time of the mining op; may be a little ie /just/ before you start that bit

If you go to Extinct Torch now you /may/ be lucky & find it's not yet been destroyed by Reivers..

[InDigital]

If there are no materials to buy and build stations money is pointless; ) I could do some transport missions to make money but i find them boring;) So i just cheat my self a little money. I restarted game 10 times already because of bugs so this gives me little extra for trouble that i went trough; )

Yeah bugs of this game at beginning was frustrating.
I restarted game 5 times.
Last time I restarted was Secret Service missions patch and from that point everything is fine.
Not really fine but I found a way to escape cheating.

The beginning is always terrible slow.
First station building took me more time than everything else that I have now.
But it helped me to get some millions for Construction Shop in Albion.
Now this station is a main money maker.

More I have Ship Tech Fab and I am built already 2 stages of High Tech Fab.
So after fiew days there will be lots of money and endless possibilities to further build any other station.

Yeah and I estabilished my base near Gamestone Manufacture in empty space so there are no attacks from xenon or other bastards and Gamestone's Manufacture Capital Shipyard is a main byer of my URV's from DeVries. So everything is in place.

[Nikola515]

They start building right after you finish building URV forge (first part). There is room for 7 NPC stations in DV total . PMC overwatch is one of them.... Two are blank right now but im not 100% sure i think i have seen CV building stations there long time ago..

[Nikola515]

If there are no materials to buy and build stations money is pointless; ) I could do some transport missions to make money but i find them boring;) So i just cheat my self a little money. I restarted game 10 times already because of bugs so this gives me little extra for trouble that i went trough; )

Yeah bugs of this game at beginning was frustrating.
I restarted game 5 times.
Last time I restarted was Secret Service missions patch and from that point everything is fine.
Not really fine but I found a way to escape cheating.

The beginning is always terrible slow.
First station building took me more time than everything else that I have now.
But it helped me to get some millions for Construction Shop in Albion.
Now this station is a main money maker.

More I have Ship Tech Fab and I am built already 2 stages of High Tech Fab.
So after fiew days there will be lots of money and endless possibilities to further build any other station.

Yeah and I estabilished my base near Gamestone Manufacture in empty space so there are no attacks from xenon or other bastards and Gamestone's Manufacture Capital Shipyard is a main byer of my URV's from DeVries. So everything is in place.

Im not sure why but in XR i hate beginning game and starting all over again... In X3 i loved restarting game and start all over again. In my game PMC and me are hostile. I think it have something to do with me boarding theirs ships all the time; ) So Albion is not safe for my empire.... Also with galaxy trader (mod ) I can sell my stuff everywhere

[InDigital]

In my game PMC and me are hostile. I think it have something to do with me boarding theirs ships all the time; ) So Albion is not safe for my empire.... Also with galaxy trader (mod ) I can sell my stuff everywhere

Yes, it is not easy.
You should decide your style how to play/live in this space "simulator".
I decided make back good relationships with Plutarc (it took only 3 hours) because they are nearly only ones who have materials for ship and station construction.
Even Omicron Lyrae can't produce so much.
I used them for my great start in Albion myself.
Now they are bying Reinforced Metal Plating and Fusion Reactors from me!

Yo know what I am hating in this game for now?
Now when they have those many resources they building tons of unnecessary Gignums and Fighter squadrons.
They are everywhere while bying these expensive resources I can provide.
There are no limit - limit is only resources.
So if they had million of each resources then game will crush. I think...
Because any AI faction goes out of control when you are helping them...

[Nikola515]

Yes but at beginning of game PMC will be -20 no matter what you do so only way to get RMP is to board ships..... I usually fly around and capture ships randomly or I park it at by jump beacons and board them there. Jump beacons where shipyards are in sectors have more chance to get RMP. I started a new game last week and I already am working on my third station.... I captured one of PMC ships that had over 4000 RMP and first thing I finished was one module for Construction Shop where I can build RMP and I finished one module on Ship Tec Fab for Fusion Reactors. For Tech Laboratory I had to build two modules to get Bio-Optic Wiring but now with it I can produce Chemical Compounds and I don't need to import them anymore (save me money). And now I have sufficient economy to produce stations as well as expand already what I have..... Also in my last replay I was making killing selling Space Fuel, Medical Supplies, Narcotics and Space Weed. All of them wore + 32....

Edit: I dint have problem yet with AI doing that... All thou pretty much everything shipyard produces just fly to sun after some time Sink in this game is pretty limited so it is possible to over produce economy. I wish there are mods to produce sinks in game....

[SepticTooth]

Im not sure why but in XR i hate beginning game and starting all over again... In X3 i loved restarting game and start all over again.

I think the biggest reason I dread starting a new game is the amount of tedium some of the mini games bring and the fact that you have to do them countless times every new game to have access to basic information. I'm trying to establish trade agents now that I'm in OL in my current game and I feel like a zombie right now just shuffling along with a brain dead expression on my face.

I'm sick of talking about AI and Highways. Really want to see more content that flesh out the universe and less minigames in the future, I enjoy Rebirth so far with the exception of the minigames and feel discouraged from starting over again.

In fact if I start a new game in the near future it will likely be a Pirate game where I raise a middle finger to the universe.

[Snafu_X3]

Don't forget that some lightbulb missions can now offer trade agents as well as station info.. suitcase missions may do this too

[BigBANGtheory]

Im not sure why but in XR i hate beginning game and starting all over again... In X3 i loved restarting game and start all over again.

from my pov there are a few reasons for this...

1. X3 you started in a small/weak fighter and had to work your way up to something like the Albion Skunk, so that phase is not in XR you are given a pretty decent ship at the start.

2. X3 you had more options and branches in the build up phase, in XR you are pretty much told what the mechanics are and left to get on with it. It feels more railed imho...

Now not to come across as an X3 grass is greener player, there are also some downsides or 'baggage' for lack of a better word which has come across into XR.

3. X3 offered the illusion of building a massive economic and military presence which in essence you can, however the gameplay mechanics and interaction regarding the management of those assets was simply dreadful. In other words the late game phase left you frustrated, this you learnt from X3. Now comes along XR with its NPC automation and its fleet management ask yourself has the late game phase actually improved?

So for me there in lies the biggest problem, the build up and empire expansion phase of both X3 and XR leads to poor gameplay, as the player you are not rewarded for your efforts and that I'm sorry to say is bad game design its just been left out at this point in time. Doesn't matter if you are talking about X3, XR, X:bananas or a game by any other name, the sandbox doesn't leave the player in a position to manage their empire and assets in a satisfactory way.

So you start a new game knowing what is waiting for you many gameplay hrs down the line. Just not worth it whilst there is no late game phase gameplay built in imho.

[Karmaticdamage]

At this point ive gotten starting over down to an art form.
First I run around buying up all the metal scraps I can to turn into metal alloys and then sell. Do this and missions till you're in all mk4 gear. Buy a marine officer with boarding experience at 5 stars then use small talk and gifts to get him to 5 star combat and morale. Fill the plot rahanas full up fusion reactors, bio optic wiring, and RMP BEFORE going to devires and tanking your pmc rep. The wares will still be in the rahanas when you get it back later in the plot so you don't have to worry about getting materials for the interactive urv forge. Cap a few tituerls in devires to use as protectors of the NPC cvs.

Everyone plays differently but those that say making money is hard just arent doing it right. A 7 mil destroy civilian ship mission barely scatches your rep. You can pull 2-3mil out of each zone from metal alloys alone. That and capping/selling titurels along with doing missions will fill your early bank roll pretty easy.

Filling the rahanas with the materiels you need before advancing the plot is key tho. Ive seen many posts about people having trouble with that stage of the plot due to PMC being hostile.

On a side note about pmc, my trade ships fly through wrecksville without being touched, I managed this by keeping their turrets to defend only. In fact pmc ships even tho im -20 ignore my trading/mining ships. Theirs a warden taranis patrolling around my miners in devires right now and they dont bother them, fly right into them in fact. They will however aggressively attack any reivers that show up. I actively trade in and out of albion right past the still alive and heavily armed overwatch with several ships and PMC have seemingly decided to leave me alone as long as I dont start stuff with them.

[Nikola515]

I think there was just so many things that we could do right form start in X3 games.... Here in XR we are limited. Whole point here is just to build stations and trade(that is point of all X games but there was more to them than XR have right now) . And even that is limited with AI that is too stupid do simple tasks. And almost no control over our ships and stations... And there is limited sink too so sometime there is no point building stations in some sectors.....
I think what made me start replaying X3 wore:

Reputation system that was more realistic than what we have right now. It was more fun and we had to work for it. We cant buy better weapons or ships if we don't have enough rep for them.

Able to pilot different ships. We had ability to pilot almost every ship in game and it was challenge to actually get one (especially capital). In XR this is way too easy. But on the other side it is huge challenge to try control and tell AI to do something

More station trading and freedom. I think best sell and buy opinion wore best thing EGO made. Also ability to tell ships what job they should do. Now everything is run by idiotic AI that cant do anything right

Barter System. Man I loved that thing in X3 games. If I couldn't find weapons there is always chance ill get them there (especially capital weapons).

Map was much better and we had more options for our ships. Like shot down missiles or fly to that location or defend this location. And even thou it was horrible they had fleet formation. Now I tell my ships to attack and only main ship is attacking and rest of them are just standing and watching

Also number of weapons and missiles we could put in cargo. Whole cargo system was fund and we had to make choice between them.

That was some of things that always brought me back and reasons why I had fun restarting game. There was always something different I could have done and different ship I could have piloted. But XR is not that horrible too.

I like how we build stations and how they need materials to actually build. All thou I wish we could tell Architect to just build whole damn station at once.

I like how new mining system woks... It brings life to economy.

Visual production on stations and shipyards actually build ships by using materials... This is something X3 games wore always missing.

Station interiors and cap ship docking. I think this is good idea but it is too bad there is nothing to do there. Also they should build cap ship bridges to.

I like new cap ship battles and how we can damage their modules. Also boarding is pretty fun too. In X3 boarding sucked LOL

There are a lot of good things in XR but there is not much to do just like in X3 games. And it gets boring just build stations after some time. Specially when it turns out that they are useless because they don't have sing and we don't have galaxy trader. In X3 we could just jump to pirate sector with our fleet and destroy everything just for hell of it(if I get bored). In XR we can do same thing but we need to fly tough million jump beacon and gates to get there and half of fleet will be lost do to bad AI Also we cant destroy stations in XR

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Anyone know when the NPC shipyard would start to build if the CV is alive?

It's just around the time of the mining op; may be a little ie /just/ before you start that bit

If you go to Extinct Torch now you /may/ be lucky & find it's not yet been destroyed by Reivers..

They start building right after you finish building URV forge (first part). There is room for 7 NPC stations in DV total . PMC overwatch is one of them.... Two are blank right now but im not 100% sure i think i have seen CV building stations there long time ago..

Thanks to you both!

[ubuntufreakdragon]

A few thoughts on the economy in vanilla DeVries:
What does not work:
- Food consumption by habitats (since they run full over time if well supplied)
- The fully self-sufficient food production, in entirely DeVries there is no production for spices, but these are required as a primary resource in the Crystal Palace.
- The independent shipbuilding, since no high-tech products are available.
- Construction of the Plotstation, because in the system there are no resources available and most players don't know how to obtain these .
- The mining of raw materials in the Plotgame as PMC foolishly built Overwatch right next to the Jump Beacon of bleak Pebble, so crystals hydrogen ions and plasma are practically unavailable
, , (,this makes DeVries a poor choice as a fortress against PMC).
- The expansion (the construction of new stations) fails at 3 points 1st, the CV's get destroyed but not replaced 2. The player must be IZ so that the construction begins 3. The stations are never fully extended regardless of demand.
My suggestions:
- Hydrogen ion and plasma should be present in the corona of the sun.
, , Crystals fit nicely into the Molten Archon.
- The Crystal Palace should run spices as Secondary Resource
- The habitats could recycle high-tech components in very small degree, God knows in DeVries there are enough scrap and slightly damaged components to salvage and the inhabitants should do something meaningful, I am thinking of
, , the productivity of one twentieth of the corresponding Albion module eg 25 reinforced metal platings or 7-8 fusion reactors per hour.
, , Where Refined metals and silicon wafers should be used as secondary raw materials with a bonus of + 400% (easy to explain: it's easier to repaired with spare parts)
, , It would also be useful to change the silicon module of Plotstation so that it takes raw crystals instead of cut crystals.
, , The advantages would be: The Plotstation would be meaningful completely integrated while most remaining queries about the Plotstation were solved, ship production would be slowly but ensured, the habitats would have a meaning
, , without seriously competing the player (due to too low productivity), and the habitats would no longer run inevitably fully (because there is a saleable product).
- Make the expansion mdfiles robust against above mentioned problems, and extend up to the full extension of the stations, but only if the player invest into DeVries,
, , So any further expansion move from the status quo requires x production modules of the player in DeVries.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

I agree about Spices and the food issues in particular and have been planning to try make a mod this weekend.

[Araknis]

I will have my stations this time.
Hopefully they ll make a difference.
http://postimg.org/image/ecgtzbnfv/
http://postimg.org/image/5e767lbi7/

[Araknis]

An update to all this.

With 3.52 I have started a new plot game.
The Joint mining op does not trigger anything after all.
The Albion Exodus quest however, which comes after, triggers the construction of HOA stations in DV, as HoA refugees move to DV. Specifically in Vapour Stream where the gate to OL is.
In my 1st playthrough, BEFORE the mining op, i had RoC construction vessels in
Fiendish Moloch
Extinct Torch and
Forty Two

In my 3.52 playthrough
even after the mining op there is nothing.
The ONLY CV that appeared after the Albion Exodus operation was in Vapour Stream and its HOA.
Nothing from RoC. The shipyard in DHA, builds a Sucellus.
There is no way something was destroyed, as this time i made sure to have a cap patrolling in every zone, and at least one Arawn and 2 Taranis in every zone i know for sure that a station gets built.

In my 1st playthrough i had already built the player station before i go to the mining op, in my current playthrough the station is still being built.
Maybe this is the trigger?
Also it takes forever for the station to build, although i have all the resources i m counting about 12hours now and its still at 54%.

Since i started over ONLY to save the stations in DV that i couldnt in my first playthrough, it would be very much appreciated if anyone from Egosoft, could shed some light and let us know, how many stations can be built and what are the event triggers, because it seems i am wasting time here.

Has anyone started a new game and saw the RoC stations or CVs with the current patch?

[Nikola515]

All RoC stations start building right after you build first part of URV forge ( plot ).

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

I started a new plot game in 3.50 for basically the same reason - keen to see a second shipyard/sink built in DV. I was at the Mining Op mission somewhere around 3.52 beta but I am not entirely sure.

Despite having capitals patrolling CV destinations and checking around the Albion gate regularly through the Mining Op and Exodus missions, I only spotted the CV in the zone with the OL gate.

Similarly to yourself, I have reverted to my pre-Mining Ops save in order to build up more capitals to increase my patrols before trying those missions again.

[Nikola515]

That other shipyard won't make any difference. I still haven't seen it produce anything yet. Also sense it is not finished it don't have any room for materials (there is room only for 300 RMP or something like that). Wheat plantations works ok as far as i can see. H2O is always out of Ice +50 all the time. NPC mining ships won't sell any only to H2O in furnace chamber. My H2O is loaded with ice but my mining ships won't sell any Ice to it (i think they wore selling before all extra ice... As for HoA food station it is useless too because there is already bunch of food there on first place. It would be nice if it could produce some space fuel.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Many thanks for that info, Nikola.