[X3AP] CLS2 freighter not refuelling and trade competition

[LSFKing]

Hey all, thanks for reading my thread

I'm having some issues with my CLS2 energy cell trader. I currently have three ships in a supply chain: 1 energy cell buyer who does nothing but sit at a power plant and buy energy cells, 1 transporter who picks up what the buyer buys, and 1 seller who is parked at a factory and accepts the energy cell delivery from the transporter.

My issue is with the transporter. These are the waypoints I have given him:

Pirsex Energy Buyer Empire's Edge -> Refuel jump energy, load energy cells, maximum cargospace

Pirsex Energy Dealer Weaver's Tempest -> unload energy cells, refuel jump energy


For some reason, he will refuel in his first loop, but won't do so afterwards. I have set his jump drive settings to:

Use Jumpdrive: Yes
Jump energy: 150 cells
Minimum jump range: 0

It's driving me up the wall The CAGs with jumpdrives on my player-owned factories work just fine, but i can't use them to supply NPC factories. Any help would be appreciated!

[Timsup2nothin]

I always give my ships a refuel stop at a fuel tank that is independent from everything else. The fuel tank is a ship that just sits somewhere and either keeps itself full of e-cells or gets filled with e-cells automatically. Example waypoints:

Code: Select all

fuel tank - load jump fuel
supply source - load (or buy) e-cells - max cargo
delivery point -unload (or sell) e-cells - max cargo

[LSFKing]

Whoa, a reply from my hero I'll give that a shot! Maybe I'll pay Duke's Haven a visit for some TS "donations"

[Timsup2nothin]

Whoa, a reply from my hero I'll give that a shot! Maybe I'll pay Duke's Haven a visit for some TS "donations"

LOL...ah...Duke's Haven. I shop there myself. Most of my fuel tanks are Hermes, since they are too small to be effective buying or selling traps.

[LSFKing]

Good thinking! I think I'm going to sell off the Hermes though, I'm pretty sure that selling the Hermes to buy a Mercury on a 1-to-1 ratio results in enough profitssss to give the Demeters some cargo bay upgrades

Thanks again for the pointers! Your CLS guides are what attracted me to playing X3 again, i salute you!

[Timsup2nothin]

Glad to be of service.

You are right about the 1 to 1 Hermes to Mercury ratio, under one condition...but it's a condition that generally doesn't apply for me. My fuel tanks are Hermes that I never bother to repair. They frequently have very low resale values. If they were fully repaired hulls it would be different, but for me fuel tank is about the only application I have for them.

[LSFKing]

I didn't think of the variable condition, there I go overlooking the fine details again

Since I have you here, I was wondering you could answer another CLS related question for me (I hope I'm not violating the forum rules by doing this.)

Let's say I'm selling Spaceweed as a secondary resource to some pirate bases. The Spaceweed factories are located in Teladi space and are NPC owned. If I were to set up a few 'Buy at Minimum' traps while supplying the Bliss Places with the necessary Swamp Plants and Energy Cells, would the price ever actually reach minimum? This is considering the fact that contraband seems to be in very high demand.

[Alan Phipps]

"(I hope I'm not violating the forum rules by doing this.)" Not at all, it's your thread.

[LSFKing]

"(I hope I'm not violating the forum rules by doing this.)" Not at all, it's your thread.

Thank you! I've lurked on the forum for a few years now and I can say that, without a doubt, this forum has the most helpful moderators and posters

EDIT: still haven't mastered the 'quote' button yet though

[Timsup2nothin]

I didn't think of the variable condition, there I go overlooking the fine details again

Since I have you here, I was wondering you could answer another CLS related question for me (I hope I'm not violating the forum rules by doing this.)

Let's say I'm selling Spaceweed as a secondary resource to some pirate bases. The Spaceweed factories are located in Teladi space and are NPC owned. If I were to set up a few 'Buy at Minimum' traps while supplying the Bliss Places with the necessary Swamp Plants and Energy Cells, would the price ever actually reach minimum? This is considering the fact that contraband seems to be in very high demand.

Spaceweed is not likely to ever reach minimum price. NPC buyers that buy spaceweed tend to get destroyed, which means that new NPC buyers spawn, and spawn empty. So they will always be looking to buy at anything below average.

If you really push production by reliably shoving swamp plant and energy and set your traps at some distance below average that gives you a reliable supply at decent profit you'll do well with it, especially if you set up deliveries to pirate stations at whatever the secondary max price is and pirate stations in race space where the weed is illegal so you can sell at max.

You can also get HUGE benefits from having a solid supply in storage. Missions offered at trading stations are frequently pirates looking for a very fast delivery of a fairly large amount of an illegal product. Those missions are often paying several times the normal maximum price and are also gigantic boosts to pirate rep. If I am in the smuggling business I usually set aside a fast TP with jump drive and fuel at my source and just let it fill up so that it is ready when such a mission presents itself.

[LSFKing]

I kinda figured something along those lines. I was trying to set up a company that monopolizes production and/or distribution of illegal goods (specifically spacefuel, spaceweed, and SQUASH mines) but this information makes me think it would be a better idea to stick to Space Fuel as its an actual primary food item that gets consumed reliably.
Besides, the fewer TS's I have floating around Pirate space, the better.

[Nanook]

...
EDIT: still haven't mastered the 'quote' button yet though

That's because 'allow BBcode' is turned off in your forum profile. If you turn it on, quotes and all the other fun things will work.

[LSFKing]

...
EDIT: still haven't mastered the 'quote' button yet though

That's because 'allow BBcode' is turned off in your forum profile. If you turn it on, quotes and all the other fun things will work.

Aha! The 'overlooked profile setting' rears its ugly head all across the internet. Huge thanks again to the patient moderators!

[RAVEN.myst]

@LSFKing, to the original question: there's a simple alternative approach you can use if/when you can't afford to set up a tanker (either earlier in the game, or if you find yourself temporarily financially committed or overextended) - simply add a "Fly to [SPP]" waypoint to your route, with the jumpdrive's autorefuel settings defined. I suggest placing the waypoint early in your route so it's checked early (usually - some routes CAN demand different placement.) This approach isn't foolproof, as for one thing it's potentially possible for the SPP you designate to get emptied and thus be unable to refuel your CLS ship on a given visit (Tim's tanker approach practically guarantees this will never happen), and if you sail close to the wind in terms of fuel amounts in order to save cargo space, that can make the wheels fall off. But it's a simple stopgap for, as mentioned above, when you're unable to set up a tanker - which, incidentally, can be shared among multiple CLS traders (just be careful to keep half an eye on it - if it seems you're starting to overload it, it may be time to get a helper to fetch ECs for it from somewhere else too.)

[LSFKing]

@LSFKing, to the original question: there's a simple alternative approach you can use if/when you can't afford to set up a tanker (either earlier in the game, or if you find yourself temporarily financially committed or overextended) - simply add a "Fly to [SPP]" waypoint to your route, with the jumpdrive's autorefuel settings defined. I suggest placing the waypoint early in your route so it's checked early (usually - some routes CAN demand different placement.) This approach isn't foolproof, as for one thing it's potentially possible for the SPP you designate to get emptied and thus be unable to refuel your CLS ship on a given visit (Tim's tanker approach practically guarantees this will never happen), and if you sail close to the wind in terms of fuel amounts in order to save cargo space, that can make the wheels fall off. But it's a simple stopgap for, as mentioned above, when you're unable to set up a tanker - which, incidentally, can be shared among multiple CLS traders (just be careful to keep half an eye on it - if it seems you're starting to overload it, it may be time to get a helper to fetch ECs for it from somewhere else too.)

Hmm, interesting. I highly doubt an L or XL SPP would run out of energy cells, but regardless it's still a solid temporary fix for my problem until I can get a more permanent setup going. Thanks for your input!

[ajime]

@LSFKing, to the original question: there's a simple alternative approach you can use if/when you can't afford to set up a tanker (either earlier in the game, or if you find yourself temporarily financially committed or overextended) - simply add a "Fly to [SPP]" waypoint to your route, with the jumpdrive's autorefuel settings defined. I suggest placing the waypoint early in your route so it's checked early (usually - some routes CAN demand different placement.) This approach isn't foolproof, as for one thing it's potentially possible for the SPP you designate to get emptied and thus be unable to refuel your CLS ship on a given visit (Tim's tanker approach practically guarantees this will never happen), and if you sail close to the wind in terms of fuel amounts in order to save cargo space, that can make the wheels fall off. But it's a simple stopgap for, as mentioned above, when you're unable to set up a tanker - which, incidentally, can be shared among multiple CLS traders (just be careful to keep half an eye on it - if it seems you're starting to overload it, it may be time to get a helper to fetch ECs for it from somewhere else too.)

Hmm, interesting. I highly doubt an L or XL SPP would run out of energy cells, but regardless it's still a solid temporary fix for my problem until I can get a more permanent setup going. Thanks for your input!

They do, if your massive complex strain their production without giving any crystals.
And eventually the SSP XL disappeared. I have learned recently to give them 666 crystals to keep em running while draining 10000 energy from it.

[LSFKing]

@LSFKing, to the original question: there's a simple alternative approach you can use if/when you can't afford to set up a tanker (either earlier in the game, or if you find yourself temporarily financially committed or overextended) - simply add a "Fly to [SPP]" waypoint to your route, with the jumpdrive's autorefuel settings defined. I suggest placing the waypoint early in your route so it's checked early (usually - some routes CAN demand different placement.) This approach isn't foolproof, as for one thing it's potentially possible for the SPP you designate to get emptied and thus be unable to refuel your CLS ship on a given visit (Tim's tanker approach practically guarantees this will never happen), and if you sail close to the wind in terms of fuel amounts in order to save cargo space, that can make the wheels fall off. But it's a simple stopgap for, as mentioned above, when you're unable to set up a tanker - which, incidentally, can be shared among multiple CLS traders (just be careful to keep half an eye on it - if it seems you're starting to overload it, it may be time to get a helper to fetch ECs for it from somewhere else too.)

Hmm, interesting. I highly doubt an L or XL SPP would run out of energy cells, but regardless it's still a solid temporary fix for my problem until I can get a more permanent setup going. Thanks for your input!

They do, if your massive complex strain their production without giving any crystals.
And eventually the SSP XL disappeared. I have learned recently to give them 666 crystals to keep em running while draining 10000 energy from it.

Whoa, that must've been one heck of a complex. Luckily, in this playthrough, I'm focusing on shipping between NPC stations and keeping my own to a minimum. Knowing GoD, this will happen to me anyway

[RAVEN.myst]

Luckily, in this playthrough, I'm focusing on shipping between NPC stations and keeping my own to a minimum. Knowing GoD, this will happen to me anyway

Well, you'll be interested (and likely happy) to find out that trade is more profitable than industry (though the latter is often eventually needed to meet specific shortages - for instance, a race's food production may be insufficient for all its industry; also, and this is guaranteed if you take your game far and use missile ships - universal supply of Tomahawks, Flails and Hammers tend to fall somewhat short of Armageddon requirements )

There are some reasons for the above. Firstly, industry requires factories and (ideally) freighters, while trade only requires freighters, but that's just the initial outlay. Over time, though, industry is constrained by production cycle time + transportation times, while trade is ONLY limited by the latter, transportation times. Also, in many cases the value-add of buy-low-sell-high is greater (conditional on the market) than the value-add of converting resources into products. While I can't off the top of my head tell you the conversion rate of a mine turning ECs into ore (in terms of value added to the wares), I can illustrate with the following: until you *seriously* deplete or level the market, you can buy ore for 50 just about at any time, and sell it for 150-200. That's a trebling to quadrupling of the invested amount, so 200-300% profit, for simply moving it from one place to another, without having to invest in mines and wait out production cycles - and as soon as you've made the delivery, you are ready to make the next.

By the way, despite being a base resource, ore is one of the most lucrative wares to trade - it's a good one to start with, make good profits to launch financing expansions to your trade operation. However, as industry typically requires mineral+food+energy, you will need to move into those markets, too, otherwise your client factories will be sitting flush with ore/silicon but not consuming it, stalling your trade.

Since you are familiar with both CAG and CLS2, here's a quick outline for something I do early on to make huge initial profits. It's a hybridisation of CAG and CLS2 made possible with a small complex (no more than 2 member factories are needed at first - you want the complex mainly for its greater docking capacity, which is very important.) The following is not all hard-and-fast, I'm just using an example to illustrate the principle (and I REALLY should make a separate post of this so I can just link to it whenever it's relevant - this is literally the 4th or 5th time I'm explaining this scheme, hehehe)

- Set up ore mines on two ore-bearing asteroids near each other, and link them into a complex. Face the complex hub toward the nearest gate, and try to set this up close to a gate, as gate-to-plex travel and vice versa is a factor in your turnaround time.
- Initially, turn off both mines. Later on, when things are flowing amply, you can turn them on and contribute their production for added profit.
- So if the mines are turned off, what's their point, you might ask. Well, what you want here is the ore storage and the docking ports, to create a makeshift ore and energy trading station.
- Use CAGs to buy energy, and sell it using CLS2s
- Use CLS2s to buy ore, and sell it via CAGs.
- The above means that you are inverting the conventional flow of goods - you are buying products (which CAGs can only sell) using CLS2, and selling resource (which CAG is only allowed to buy) also using CLS2.
- Your CAGs will autorefuel when docking here (technically, the way the script works, it makes sure the ship is fuelled before it sets off), and if you include 'load X energy cells at this station' waypoints to your CLS2s, they will also be refuelled here.
- The reason not to run the mines at this point is that they will consume ECs and you will be constantly finding yourself out of balance, short of ECs for refuelling, your CAGs prioritising EC purchases, while your ore is full and not being exported. Later one, when you have enough freighters operating from this base, you can tweak things such that you get a surplus of ECs, allowing you to turn on your mines, and make extra profits via production (small compared to the trade income you will generate, but every bit counts, yes?)
- An ore mine's (or other factory's) dock can accommodate up to 5 ships, while complex hubs have four such docks, so can handle up to 20 ships, hence why it's a good idea to plex a couple of mines, though the system will also work with just a single mine, though you will eventually (once your trading fleet grows to a certain point) run the risk of a serious jam, which will bring the whole thing to a halt. Now, while the plex dock-port can cope with 20 ships, when everything's running smoothly your freighters will be spending little time docked, mostly they'll be flying to or from. Oh, by the way, I STRONGLY recommend barring NPCs from docking at that station/plex - they will sell ECs for more than your CAGs will be paying and buy your ore for less than your CAGs charge, but worse than that, they will loiter and clog up your parking lot.

A very good place to try the above is in the Argon Prime neighbourhood - you're looking at a 3x5 grid of densely settled and highly industrialised sectors, with more markets not far from there. This has become my standard way and place to get started whenever I am playing as an Argon (at least, if starting in the Argon Prime region - though I use the same principle with any race and in any location.)

Spoiler

Show

Herron's Nebula is well situated for this, as it's almost central, just 1 North of Argon Prime, or if you prefer to set up on richer asteroids with a view to the long term, there are 2 ore asteroids in range of each other with yields of 90-something in Auntie's Gone Memorial

[LSFKing]

@RAVEN.myst That is an excellent explanation! I already have an ore mine in Senator's Badlands, I reckon if I attach a wheat farm to it and then follow your method, I'll have a perfect mid-way depot for all the ore, energy, and wheat I'll need for the industries in Weaver's Tempest
Very interesting to discover that trade is the most lucrative vocation. I would regularly read threads on this site about how people would build complexes of 100+ chip factories and never have to worry about money again. This never quite made sense to me because I could never find enough stations that bought chips to justify THAT much demand
So if building running factories is really only practical for supplying a pronounced production deficit, couldn't jumpdrives theoretically replace them? For example, if rastar oil was in surplus in one cluster of Split sectors, but had a shortage in another cluster of Split sectors, couldn't you just set a CLS with a jumpdrive to balance the supply?

[RAVEN.myst]

I already have an ore mine in Senator's Badlands, I reckon if I attach a wheat farm to it and then follow your method, I'll have a perfect mid-way depot for all the ore, energy, and wheat I'll need for the industries in Weaver's Tempest

Yes, that is also a very viable, and more diverse approach (which is good - generally speaking, in business it's safest to diversify one's portfolio; multiple baskets for the eggs, so to speak. ) I've in fact used that same combination (Ore Mine and Wheat Farm or Cahoona Bakery) to accomplish this setup (Cahoona Bakery is also good as it then additionally opens up Meatsteak trade as well - something to consider, but it IS a lot more expensive, of course.) I also recommend going with the L variants of factories whenever possible, as they have much larger stock capacities.

Incidentally, I forgot to mention this, kinda took it for read, but here it is, just in case: the income derived from the above system is proportional to the number of freighters you have - the static infrastructure can remain unchanging, but as you grow your fleet operating from there, so will the trade-plex's revenue stream grow proportionally.

Oh, incidentally, since you will be servicing the Yaki production, you will gain access to IBLs should you want to use them - if not, you can buy them up when the factories are full (thus getting best purchase price) and flog them off to equipment docks. Also, keep in mind that that particular market is rather limited, but don't let that discourage you - all your freighters should be using jumpdrives, so you are not limited to serving the factories in Weaver's Tempest; you can take your trade far afield (you'll get to passively improve your Paranid reputation quite nicely, since they are your next-nearest neighbours.)

Very interesting to discover that trade is the most lucrative vocation. I would regularly read threads on this site about how people would build complexes of 100+ chip factories and never have to worry about money again. This never quite made sense to me because I could never find enough stations that bought chips to justify THAT much demand

Well, chip superplexes like that certainly are profitable, but have a few disadvantages:
- LOTS of work and investment to set up - at something like 5 mill a pop (if I recall correctly), you already need to be very rich to begin with (of course, there's nothing to stop you from starting small and adding to it as you can afford it - it will still consume a lot of time and tie up revenues)
- LOTS of infrastructure required: they guzzle energy, food, and silicon, all of which not only needs to be produced or procured, but also delivered
- Large complexes hammer game performance, causing significant slowdowns even when you are not in the same sector (a forum user named, iIrc, 'glenmcd' researched an excellent way to reduce the processing impact of large plexes and posted his findings somewhere on this forum quite some time ago - if/when you decide to go with large plexes, have a look around for it, or drop me a PM, I can explain the method, and it works beautifully.)
- As you point out, how to deal with market saturation? This requires using something that some (me included) consider somewhat of an exploit: you load up a freighter with a full bay of chips, and sell it a shipyard (or keep such a freighter docked and filling up with a CLS2, then buy a new one, transfer the goods to it, and sell it back.) You don't get maximum price for it, but you get somewhere close to market average or just less, still extremely lucrative with such high-tech goods. However, besides the inelegance of what is essentially an exploit, there's also the fact that it can't be fully automated, which to me is an even greater inelegance.

So if building running factories is really only practical for supplying a pronounced production deficit, couldn't jumpdrives theoretically replace them? For example, if rastar oil was in surplus in one cluster of Split sectors, but had a shortage in another cluster of Split sectors, couldn't you just set a CLS with a jumpdrive to balance the supply?

Yes, absolutely - but I was referring to global (well, technically "universal", I guess) shortages - where (to use your Split example) all of the Split nation's production of rastar is unequal to its demand. For me, this is usually an obstacle that I learn to live with to some extent, as I only ever own assets of my chosen starting race (a personal role-playing choice and constraint, to make the game more interesting for me - this way, whichever race I play with I have to make do with whatever they offer, be it good or bad, instead of always simply using that which I find optimal) - so if I play as any race other than Split, I will never produce rastar oil or massom powder myself. However, I can alleviate the shortage by accepting station build missions that require me to build a corresponding factory on the mission giver's behalf (ie. I don't end up owning a smelly Split factory, in this example, but help to expand production of that ware, as well as adding another supplier/customer to my trade network.) I have no problem trading in alien goods, though, so when I get my Xenon Hub and convert it into a trade hub, I can move all the racial foods I want (which is as much as they will eat, heheh.) (A primarily CAG-based trade hub is my next step, whether I use the Xenon Hub or a Trade Port/Equipment Dock to accomplish it - the latter option is inferior, though, because of much more limited parking space - so those I only use for servicing a specific region if my chosen game path delays my Xenon Hub acquisition.)