Trading and the war

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-John-
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Trading and the war

Post by -John- » Fri, 24. Mar 17, 22:33

Playing a Humble Merchant. I have numerous CLS and mutiple sector and local traders going. I got involved in the war without thinking what was going to happen to my ranking with ATF and Terran. Well Ive blown that and it seems to difficult to get that back up. Also I am at the point to cap a Xenon L and thats proving to be improbable. Each time I find one (or two);the Ls are in battles and someone finishes them off,lol. But, thats ok also.
I just want to get my trading empire going.
At the sake of losing my vanilla game,Im up for suggestions for mods to change the game so I can access Teran.
I would also like someone help me with boarding,,,I would love a Hyperion Vanguard. I think if I could get one of those I would not care about the Terrans,lol.
Thanks,
John

Alexeiy
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Post by Alexeiy » Sat, 25. Mar 17, 00:11

Well for the Terran reputation, it really depends on how low you got, but if you end the war you will be put back to neutral with the terrans regardless. Elsewise you can search for pirates in terran sectors, in my 6day old Universe there where 3 pirate bases in terran space and a few pirate ships to shot down. If you are tolerated in the outer sectors you can put some stations in Megnir (reachable over some Xenon sectors), set the buy prices to max and bribe the general terran puplic. And I've read that you can basically use the hub as a trading platform with terrans, when you redirect one of their jumpgates.

As someone who is relativly new to boarding myself, my main tip would be to just buy a m7m and don't waste time with tp boarding. The Yaki m7m is relativly cheap and marines + the yaki m7m would put the hyperion on a reasonable m7 pricetag of around 40miollion credits.

Personally apart from the Springblossom and perhabs the spitfyre there aren't any terran ships that exspecially stand out in their class, the m7's are weakly armed and the changes to the oos combat from TC, make 12gj shielding for m2's not mandatory. Not to forget that the wasp missile is so much better at distracting turrets for the big rockets compared to the poltergeist.

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jorganos
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Post by jorganos » Sat, 25. Mar 17, 20:06

You can up terran reputation by hunting Argon marauders in Terran occupied war sectors, and vice versa. Upgrading the Argon rep again through missions
is a lot easier.

When I entered Terran space as humble merchant, I was just above shoot-on-sight status. What helped was an escort mission from Segaris to Aldrin - while the escorted ship was unable to dock in Aldrin space while I was in sector, it attracted wave after wave of Xenon ships which did all manners of good to my reputation.

Boarding an M7M spacewalkying from a TP is fairly easy once they are out of missiles and escort, especially when you choose one that doesn't carry lasers in the turrets (minotaur or kraken). The missiles can be reduced with judicious use of jump energy, getting rid of the escort can be a bit harder without capital ships or a good supply of nukes (like remote guided warheads, belugas or hammerheads) or tracker mines, especially if there are M8 in the escort with tomahawks. Boarding an unescorted, empty M7M without turrets is like shooting at a sitting duck.

The easiest way to get an M7M is to abort a salvage mission as soon as the salvaged M7M has reached a safe harbor, or to eliminate the killer squad once you have some missiles and shields for your new ship.

9 marines with 4 stars in every skill should be enough to capture any commonwealth corvette. Not sure whether 40 million are sufficient for that and a bought M7M.

If you want to raise Terran rep through trading, place a couple of commonwealth M-sized bio factories in Aldrin 2, between the mixed food and the energy facility. Set the energy price to 18 and the Aldrin chaps will trade with you until you can dock with their food facility, then sell the bio products to the food facility.

It is the number of trades that will give you the rep boost, not the volume, so keep the credit score low in your factories and refill frequently.

-John-
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Post by -John- » Sun, 26. Mar 17, 00:58

You know,I dont know which way to head now,I think,lol.
I know I was wanting to get into a decent ship to waltz into a Xenon sector and own the place. But, I may be getting ahead of myself.
I am thinking maybe I need to buy a few factories and place them in places to make credits. I think I would like to place the bio factories in Aldrin 2 per jorganos suggestion. But,then I think, all that will need protection and Im back to needing maybe a M7. I know I can hire the placement of the factories;so, I want need anything like an elephant. I think I would want a Griffon , then I get to reading about what is the best load outs and my head starts to hurt and then you get to reading about others opinions on what M7 is better. (I have done fairly well with my Mamba Raider and Centaur tho I havent taken on a Q by my lonesome yet).
Thanks,
John

-John-
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Post by -John- » Mon, 27. Mar 17, 00:25

Thanks for the replies.
I bought a Ryu;purchased 2 Bio factories and place them in Aldrin 2;in between the two stations. Set the price to 18. Since I am ignorant/no experience with stations,should I adjust anything else. So far the stations have done no business. But, its only been like 3 hours.
Now that I have my mind on trading, any suggestions of placing other type of stations for making credits would much be appreciated.
Thank you again, you guys are very helpful,
John

Alexeiy
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Post by Alexeiy » Mon, 27. Mar 17, 19:08

Well, I would have set the EZ price to 20 and it is probably wiser to not let the bio farms run full and just dumb the produced products into space. Trade is overall very slow in terran space and the aldrin foodproduction factorys run full quickly. The mainpoint is to get liked enough by the terrans to make missions, since they give huge rep boosts at higher trader/fighter ranks.

As for complexes to build for making money: drug complexes are convenient and not very good at making money, convenient in terms of that productbuyer will be spawned by god and that there is normally enough EZ produced by the ai stations. They are not good at making money, since they only provide 1,5-2,5% interest/hour.

Selfsustaining complexes in genreal will make factorys that have a terrible interrestrate less terrible, while making good factorys worse. Basically they are convenient and therefor will all end up in the 1,5-3% interestrate. Beside you will basically add a 50-100million pricetag on any complex you want to build.

The two best products in terms of interestrate are probably the mosquito and dragonfly missiles. Mosquito missile factorys are very cheap, and have a low income per used ore, but if you manage to buy ore/food and the ez at a cheap price it has basically the highest possible interest rate.

The dragonfly missile factory basically has the same income as all non mosquito missile factorys (202k per hour, the only orebased factory that makes more credits out of 150our/hour is the ebcammunition factory, should you ever consider to squeeze out every ore asteroid in the universe for maximun profits) while only costing 1 million credits, buy everything it needs at max price and you still have an around 7% interest rate and when you get your hands on stuff at the average buyprice, it basically pays itself back in 10hours. Adding food production and non aweseome oremines to these factorys will lower the interestrate, but may be necessary if there are not enough ki mines or you build outside of boron or split territory.

For both factorys you have to set up a trader that sells the missiles to the nearest non mosquito/dragonfly selling equipment dock, since they will buy an infinite amount of them.

Going through Xadrian, I haven't found anything purely based on silicion/EZ, that comes with a 2%+ interestrate.

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Post by Snafu_X3 » Tue, 28. Mar 17, 23:19

While Alex provides good advice, it's not easy for an economy newb to follow: the ammo/missile NPC sinks will fill rapidly, & unless (as he suggests) you've a fleet of trained CLS traders specifically set to offload into EQDs you'll soon find your factories stuffed with product & nowhere to sell them!

OTOH common bio/food products are always required, so there will never be a lack of demand until you wipe out the X-verse (or corner the market) :) Stay away from the specialist wares initially (eg majaglit, teladiumiumium) as it's easy to saturate the NPC market with them. Despite their initial huge profit tempter, once you have a few fabs up & running requiring those items hunt station-building missions piecemeal as required: the excess can be sold off to NPCs via CAGs quite easily

At least as much profit can be made by providing many large quantites of cheap wares to many NPCs as it can by providing a few high-cost wares to few.. although a /few/ (four or five individual 'plexes is around saturation IME) widely-spaced single mosquito missile fabs/plexes (ie only 1 or 2 fabs making missiles) should turn a steady profit throughout the game as NPCs buy them often, presumably for MMD (not so much dragonfly IME); they can also be useful to conveniently rearm your CAG/CLS traders

[edited for clarification]
Wiki X:R 1st Tit capping
Wiki X3:TC vanilla: Guide to generic missions, Guide to finding & capping Aran
Never played AP; all X3 advice is based on vanilla+bonus pack TC or before: AP has not changed much WRT general advice.

I know how to spell teladiuminumiumium, I just don't know when to stop!

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-John-
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Post by -John- » Fri, 31. Mar 17, 23:36

Those Bio factories are just setting there. It has been several days now,maybe 10 or more hours of game time.
John

Alexeiy
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Post by Alexeiy » Sat, 1. Apr 17, 12:33

-John- wrote:Those Bio factories are just setting there. It has been several days now,maybe 10 or more hours of game time.
John
So I hope that it means sitting and not setting and this answer isn't totally pointless. (Or is setting in context of my answer also okay? I'm not a native english speaker)

Anyway, just asking the obvious. Do the factorys have money (e.g. did you put in a million credits or so in the stationsettings)? Is trading with other races allowed? Perhabs setting the price higher for ec will do something. How close to the traderoutes did you build them, the ones I build were next to the jumpgate to aldrin 2 in megenir. Actually I think that putting them in aldrin 2 next to some staions is a bad idea, if these stations are far away from the aldrin and the megenir jumpgates.

Are the stations just not selling their product and don't do something currently? If so I would just empty the cargobay with a frighter by releasing everything into space, so that you can process more bought energycells.

-John-
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Post by -John- » Sat, 1. Apr 17, 23:34

Maybe I have the wrong concept of what is suppose to happen.
Someone suggested I place the two Bio factories between the Mixed Food and Energy Facility;thus, I did. Set the price of purchasing ECells to 18,I did and have raised it to 20.
Correct me if I am wrong;but,I got the impression that the traders would dock at those factories to sell,ECells. Thus improving my standing with the Terrans (slowly of course.)
I know I would have to get rid of the product,once factory started producing.
But, no ecells,no product.
Give it money??? Im lost on that, could you explain more,thanks :)
Thats where Im at now and I do apologize for my,maybe misleading post.
Thanks,,,you guys are super
John

Alexeiy
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Post by Alexeiy » Sun, 2. Apr 17, 00:46

Well, the idea with the ecells is correct, tough I would have put the factorys at a high traffic location.

Anyway regarding the money, each complex has his own bank account. So you have to transfer credits onto that bank account, so that your factory is capable of buying stuff. You transfer credits by going into the factorysettings (keyshortcut should be d) where you ajust the product prices, further down in the list should be credits, e.g. the right number should be your current amount of credits and on the left will probably be a zero, just transfer 1000000 credits over like you transfer normal wares.

Snafu_X3
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Post by Snafu_X3 » Sun, 2. Apr 17, 01:32

In addition to the above, without a starting fund 'float' your fabs won't be able to purchase required wares or pay any assigned pilots.. leading naturally to a fab stall!

Most bio/food fabs make a profit straight away (secondaries may not.. see my post above), so once you've kickstarted them they should be fine, especially once NPCs notice them. The latter can take a while depending upon how far away from trade routes you've placed the fabs, so be patient!
Wiki X:R 1st Tit capping
Wiki X3:TC vanilla: Guide to generic missions, Guide to finding & capping Aran
Never played AP; all X3 advice is based on vanilla+bonus pack TC or before: AP has not changed much WRT general advice.

I know how to spell teladiuminumiumium, I just don't know when to stop!

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RainerPrem
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Post by RainerPrem » Sun, 2. Apr 17, 13:58

-John- wrote:Maybe I have the wrong concept of what is suppose to happen.
Someone suggested I place the two Bio factories between the Mixed Food and Energy Facility;thus, I did. Set the price of purchasing ECells to 18,I did and have raised it to 20.
Correct me if I am wrong;but,I got the impression that the traders would dock at those factories to sell,ECells. Thus improving my standing with the Terrans (slowly of course.)
I know I would have to get rid of the product,once factory started producing.
But, no ecells,no product.
Give it money??? Im lost on that, could you explain more,thanks :)
Thats where Im at now and I do apologize for my,maybe misleading post.
Thanks,,,you guys are super
John
Hi,

somehow I think that the most trivial suggestion is missing: This factory needs at least one freighter of its own to sell wares. It might be that over time some NPC freighters come and buy, but for a start a freighter of its own is the better choice.

cu
Rainer

-John-
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Post by -John- » Sun, 2. Apr 17, 14:29

Yes,that was what went wrong,I had not given the factories operating money.
Once I did,,,they are up and running.
I thank all of you for your guidance,,it aides/helps me so very much with the game. This is my second shot playing/trying and I am enjoying it so much more now.
Many profits to you guys,
John

jlehtone
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Post by jlehtone » Sun, 2. Apr 17, 21:51

RainerPrem wrote:This factory needs at least one freighter of its own to sell wares. It might be that over time some NPC freighters come and buy, but for a start a freighter of its own is the better choice.
@RainerPrem: While a freighter working for a station (prefeably a Commercial Agent, CAG) is generally a good thing, the issue here is that the OP has no docking rights to start with. Hence:
jorganos wrote:If you want to raise Terran rep through trading, place a couple of commonwealth M-sized bio factories in Aldrin 2, between the mixed food and the energy facility. Set the energy price to 18 and the Aldrin chaps will trade with you until you can dock with their food facility, then sell the bio products to the food facility.
Snafu_X3 wrote:The latter can take a while depending upon how far away from trade routes you've placed the fabs
There are no "trade routes" as such. Each Free Trader does "best offer for ware X within Y jumps" and "best place to sell ware X within Z jumps" queries. No "routes", just stations within nearby sectors. The distance to travel is a lesser concern. (A fact that the flightpath goes through a Xenon sector is apparently no concern at all.)

The sectors that contain stations producing and consuming ware X naturally attract some Free Traders that haul X.
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Post by Snafu_X3 » Mon, 3. Apr 17, 02:36

jlehtone wrote:
Snafu_X3 wrote:The latter can take a while depending upon how far away from trade routes you've placed the fabs
There are no "trade routes" as such. Each Free Trader does "best offer for ware X within Y jumps" and "best place to sell ware X within Z jumps" queries. No "routes", just stations within nearby sectors. The distance to travel is a lesser concern. (A fact that the flightpath goes through a Xenon sector is apparently no concern at all.)

The sectors that contain stations producing and consuming ware X naturally attract some Free Traders that haul X.
I realise that, but NPC traders will have to know about the stations in order to dock, shirley?

Since most NPC traders only equip L1 scanners /at best/ (most seem to have none at all), if you place fabs off the 'shortest distance' from gate to gate (out of range of their scanners), there'll be few NPC traders coming to your fabs.. at least, that's how it seems to me IG..
Wiki X:R 1st Tit capping
Wiki X3:TC vanilla: Guide to generic missions, Guide to finding & capping Aran
Never played AP; all X3 advice is based on vanilla+bonus pack TC or before: AP has not changed much WRT general advice.

I know how to spell teladiuminumiumium, I just don't know when to stop!

Dom (Wiki Moderator) 8-) DxDiag

Sovereign01
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Post by Sovereign01 » Mon, 3. Apr 17, 02:52

The way I rebuilt my Terran rep was by using the Hub (connected to Terran space). What I did was use the dock ware manager to add every item, enabled NPCs (including Terrans) to dock and put ten million credits in the station account.

Remaining OOS, the Terrans would happily buy and sell at the hub, all the while slowly raising my rep until I was able to take missions. First one I took was a Xenon invasion (in either Megnir or Segaris, I forget which), though even then they'd still take potshots at me.

Made setting up a complex to make wares so the Terrans would like me more difficult since I was towing Ore and Silicon mines into position. I had to lure the Osaka out of position before returning to tractor the station. Luckily even while towing stations I was going faster than the M2! That and while OOS the Terrans would ignore my stations :D
Last edited by Sovereign01 on Tue, 23. May 17, 15:54, edited 1 time in total.

jlehtone
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Post by jlehtone » Mon, 3. Apr 17, 18:35

Snafu_X3 wrote:I realise that, but NPC traders will have to know about the stations in order to dock, shirley?

Since most NPC traders only equip L1 scanners /at best/ (most seem to have none at all), if you place fabs off the 'shortest distance' from gate to gate (out of range of their scanners), there'll be few NPC traders coming to your fabs.. at least, that's how it seems to me IG..
In other words, when do NPC traders know that there is a Station "out there"? More precisely, when does the game engine's query function know?

Player's trade ships run commands that use the same queries as the NPC traders, but they explicitly ignore unexplored sectors.


Lets test a hypothesis.
...
Done.

I did build a Distillery L into Argon Prime, as high as possible. 225km above the ecliptic. There are no ships up there. Nobody, no ship, satellite, or station has seen the station. Ever. Energy and Wheat prices to max, 20mil to account and hit SETA.

Less than 10 ingame minutes later 3 Teladi Energy Traders, 1 Teladi Wheat hauler and one of my CAG loaded with wheat were already heading to the station. (X3AP has a station command to list inbound ships.) Five ships saw the offer, yet no ship has had the player Factory on their scanners.


I'd say that the game engine knows every station and does not bother to filter them (much extra work and bookkeeping for no real gain). Only the player ships go the extra mile to be as limited in knowledge as the player is.
Goner Pancake Protector X
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RainerPrem
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Post by RainerPrem » Mon, 3. Apr 17, 18:51

jlehtone wrote:
RainerPrem wrote:This factory needs at least one freighter of its own to sell wares. It might be that over time some NPC freighters come and buy, but for a start a freighter of its own is the better choice.
@RainerPrem: While a freighter working for a station (prefeably a Commercial Agent, CAG) is generally a good thing, the issue here is that the OP has no docking rights to start with.
I see
Rainer

-John-
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Post by -John- » Mon, 3. Apr 17, 18:51

As i posted,the factories are working now:,but I have another question and I did include it in one my earlier responses,sort of, so maybe its not to bad off topic.
I bought a Ryu, and I do not like it;because, I cant see to the left or right. Are the other Large Transports the same,visual restrictions?
If not, I would like to get another, I like to be able to look left and right.
Thanks,
John

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