Having trouble progressing

[jlehtone]

I guess they didn't like it when i started shooting them after they stole my last kill. At least they didn't go hostile on me.

EDIT: I just killed another one and didn't get any credit for it. This is beginning to make me angry.

One does lose police license, if one shoots the "innocent" (or is caught carrying contraband).


The Customs officers in their fragile M5's are <adjective>. There I was in Paranid M2 spreading lethal phased shockwaves all around to kill equally lethal invading Xenon K, when a tiny voice announced: "Scan shows nothing dangerous ...".


I do assume that if you do check the details of a Station while not being docked, you see only a graphical estimate of the stock status and no prices. That does change once you can afford Trading System Extensions to your ship. You will see numeric stock and the prices. No even need to fly to scanner range. All details will be at your fingertips.

Better than that, you should be able to see the prices of Stations in Argon Prime even if you are in Xenon sector, as long as you have any ship, satellite, or station in Argon Prime.

You can already access the command console of your Disco, even though it is not in the same sector as you. You could tell it to dock at a different station, etc.

With Trading Extension you should be able to tell the Disco to Trade with Station, if it is docked.

[kohlrak]

I guess they didn't like it when i started shooting them after they stole my last kill. At least they didn't go hostile on me.

EDIT: I just killed another one and didn't get any credit for it. This is beginning to make me angry.

One does lose police license, if one shoots the "innocent" (or is caught carrying contraband).


The Customs officers in their fragile M5's are <adjective>. There I was in Paranid M2 spreading lethal phased shockwaves all around to kill equally lethal invading Xenon K, when a tiny voice announced: "Scan shows nothing dangerous ...".

Yeah, that's been happening, too. Absolutely hilarious. It's like, dude, do you really have to be scanning me right now? Add in the FPS drops from it, too. I think it's the loading of the sound file or something that's causing it. Once the shields go down, the AI seems to change their gameplan, and they get really spry for the rest of the fight. I'm not happy with the FPS drop right as I get the shields down, only to have them back at half by the time i can stop my PIO (pilot induced oscillation).

I do assume that if you do check the details of a Station while not being docked, you see only a graphical estimate of the stock status and no prices. That does change once you can afford Trading System Extensions to your ship. You will see numeric stock and the prices. No even need to fly to scanner range. All details will be at your fingertips.

I'm more worried about finding the stations themselves.

Better than that, you should be able to see the prices of Stations in Argon Prime even if you are in Xenon sector, as long as you have any ship, satellite, or station in Argon Prime.

I've been using Terracorp.

You can already access the command console of your Disco, even though it is not in the same sector as you. You could tell it to dock at a different station, etc.

That's what i've been doing. He's basically buying the supplies i need that it can carry to limit my trips back from black sun.

With Trading Extension you should be able to tell the Disco to Trade with Station, if it is docked.

Finally bought it.

The website was down, or I would've posted this sooner. My troubles with capping were related to the 3rd mode laser targetting: i thought they were still hostile when they weren't, so i was blowing up my own ships, which explained why i wasn't getting paid. I can't imagine how much money i lost out. However, i figured that you get the most money from scavenging those dragonfly missiles that the xenon drop should they get destroyed before ever firing a missile (you can pick up silkworms this way, too!). I went from no money to alot of money fast. I finally bought a single IonD, which is more than necessary for any target I have. I also capped an orinoco which I'm going to fix up (i want to keep it since it's the same ship i mentioned earlier, who somehow never finished that fight he started for in game days with that freighter). I'm going to work on trying to get him at least one 25MW shield, pass the IonD to him so I can survive more reasonably against a pirate freighter, then go looking for lonely freighters to buy, sell, and maybe fix up (freighter with PSGs!? awesome sauce!). From there i'll probably sell freighters until i can get some kind of station. I'm thinking about shoving a solar power plant into Akeela's Beacon, due to the 4 suns and the fact that if anything manages to buy the output, they'll probably need to buy them again when the pirates hit them on their way home. There's an unknown sector in the far east that i think i'm gonna then save money for building a base in (and i figure the Kha'ak are coming at some point, too). I'll just buy jump drives to get through the clouds (since the AI doesn't seem smart enough to avoid them). I'm gonna use a paranid M5 for my M6, since it's for exploring, not battle.

Any other recommendations for first stations?

Oh, and pro-tip for anyone reading this: Don't mix guns. When one's faster than the other, it tips the enemy off early and they dodge the other shots. So my aIREs were hitting first (and it didn't help that i was trying to time it to get alot of those early rapid-fire shots), making the target dodge, and none of my other shots would hit them very often, which is why fights took so long. IonDs you can get away with, since you're not going to be using the one for too long, so you can switch it off when you've got the shields down.

EDIT: How did i ever manage to kill pirates for the paranid? I can't get any alone, because if i do get one alone, it seems the buddy comes back through the gate.

[Hemmingfish]

Orinocos take serious money to repair in the early game, but they also sell for a whole lot of dosh. If I recall correctly it's something like 34k for 1% hull and you can get many hundreds of thousands for selling a decently intact one. I usually pawn my first captured one and use the money to max out my M4 of choice (usually a Boron Mako, I love the Boron ships in X2) so I can capture more of them easily. Orinocos are one of the weakest ships of their class, but unless you're planning on doing serious combat like Xenon invasions they're strong enough to kill pretty much anything you'll be fighting.

The easiest way to split up a pirate group is to find one that's about to enter a gate and then shoot the last one that's going through. It'll turn to fight you and the rest of the group isn't smart enough to come back through the gate.

For first stations, the classic one is a Wheat Farm in The Wall. A power plant in Akeela's Beacon looks like a good idea at first because of the sunlight, but you're also competing with four other NPC power plants IIRC. Also, player-owned power plants use crystals as a primary resource instead of a secondary, so they aren't free money.

Building Teladianium Foundaries in Boron space is also pretty good if I recall correctly, because they only require energy cells and a lot of Boron stations use it as a secondary. Whang one in any sector that has a power plant or two and rake in the cash. More generally, food items and the resources that make them (Agnu Beef -> Meatsteak Cahoona, BoGas -> Bofu, Chelt meat -> Rastar oil etc) are pretty surefire bets on making profit because they're used in lots of stations and NPCs tend to criminally underproduce them.

Best of luck with your endeavours.

[jlehtone]

An another method to separate one foe requires that you have a faster ship and the foes have different speeds. In a group of foes attack the fastest of them and then break away. You do get their attention and they will all chase you. However, if you do fly long enough, then the rest of the group will fall behind and you have some one-on-one time with your prey.

With Trading Extension you should be able to tell the Disco ...

Lets replace the "Disco" with "all of your other ships". Particularly, the Freighters. You can gather a fleet of Manually Operated Remote Traders (MORT).
There is a guide https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=186722 about MORTs, although written for X3R (X2 options are a bit more limited).


About Stations, have you already deduced how the NPC Ships and Stations operate?

[kohlrak]

Orinocos take serious money to repair in the early game, but they also sell for a whole lot of dosh. If I recall correctly it's something like 34k for 1% hull and you can get many hundreds of thousands for selling a decently intact one. I usually pawn my first captured one and use the money to max out my M4 of choice (usually a Boron Mako, I love the Boron ships in X2) so I can capture more of them easily. Orinocos are one of the weakest ships of their class, but unless you're planning on doing serious combat like Xenon invasions they're strong enough to kill pretty much anything you'll be fighting.

Yeah, i'm planning on getting a Kha'ak M3 whenever they start showing up for my main M3. This guy's going to have freighter capping duty at best.

The easiest way to split up a pirate group is to find one that's about to enter a gate and then shoot the last one that's going through. It'll turn to fight you and the rest of the group isn't smart enough to come back through the gate.

I tried that twice now, and every time I somehow end up with a second pirate shooting missiles at me, and all it seems to take is one. I feel like these two 5MW shields are more for emotional support than actual defense.

For first stations, the classic one is a Wheat Farm in The Wall. A power plant in Akeela's Beacon looks like a good idea at first because of the sunlight, but you're also competing with four other NPC power plants IIRC. Also, player-owned power plants use crystals as a primary resource instead of a secondary, so they aren't free money.

I heard of a mine in a paranid sector, too, but I'm not sure what to do with it and how mines work.

Building Teladianium Foundaries in Boron space is also pretty good if I recall correctly, because they only require energy cells and a lot of Boron stations use it as a secondary. Whang one in any sector that has a power plant or two and rake in the cash. More generally, food items and the resources that make them (Agnu Beef -> Meatsteak Cahoona, BoGas -> Bofu, Chelt meat -> Rastar oil etc) are pretty surefire bets on making profit because they're used in lots of stations and NPCs tend to criminally underproduce them.

Best of luck with your endeavours.

I noticed the NPCs criminally underproduce alot of things. I'm back near Xenon space just to get some dragonfly missiles to see if they'll let me cap or kill some pirate freighters before my shields are gone. I would at least like to start docking in paranid and split space. When you're low on money, the last thing you want to be doing is spending money on insurance. Plus, i need stuff from the split.

An another method to separate one foe requires that you have a faster ship and the foes have different speeds. In a group of foes attack the fastest of them and then break away. You do get their attention and they will all chase you. However, if you do fly long enough, then the rest of the group will fall behind and you have some one-on-one time with your prey.

I still take too long to take things down. Say i cap it (the best scenario, since i can sell it), now i gotta get his friends (who're firing missiles) off both of us. And missiles have been ruining my day. When i'm finally sitting in a ship with 25MW shields that can take a beating from everything i keep seeing being fired at me, especially with a back turret, I don't even think i'll care about my money woes anymore.

With Trading Extension you should be able to tell the Disco ...

Lets replace the "Disco" with "all of your other ships". Particularly, the Freighters. You can gather a fleet of Manually Operated Remote Traders (MORT).
There is a guide https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=186722 about MORTs, although written for X3R (X2 options are a bit more limited).

See, i'm split with myself on how I should go about this. On one hand, I would love to get my hands on a freighter and do that. On the other, i'm told the best trades early off are between boron and split for the sillicon. I'm at the point now that, if I can stop hitting friendlies with the IonDs, I could probably cap a few more orinoco and sell them and just fix up what i need to start capping faster than the manual traders can trade. Plus, free freighters once i pull that off. The other side of me is saying, I should be focusing on killing pirates to get into split docks, then send my M5 to boron space and get it to buy a boron freighter or two to start doing that manual trading until I have a fleet of 10 or something. Slowly fix them up, save up for some sort of mobile carrier for my freighters to call "home," then send them out on sector or universal trader and completely forget about them. Either way, I have to rip up some pirates before i go any further.

About Stations, have you already deduced how the NPC Ships and Stations operate?

I did the tutorial, but that was lackluster. NPC ships in combat seem to jink the moment they're hit, and they prefer to flip around at around 1KM, which alot of people fly way too fast which is why they complain in reviews how the NPCs like to go Kamikaze on them. If you dance between 1/3 and 2/3 of the speed your target is flying, you should be able to stay behind them without smacking into them when they try to jink towards you.

Outside of combat, it seems the stations and certain types of ships "own" trade ships. Occasionally they'll send escorts out to hunt or to escort freighters. They also, apparently, have their own wallet. I think when they get low on some primary resource they send them out to get more. Outside of that, i know nothing short of basic food supplies in most stations rarely ever being above 0. I'm not sure what secondary resources are even used for, but from reading the forums i get the impression that they're basically a way for an NPC to drain your account since they don't do anything.

[Hemmingfish]

Secondary resources are for the opposite of draining your account. They're resources the NPCs don't need but will accept and consume anyway, so you can sell niche or race-specific resources without having to look around for the 1 station in 5 sectors that actually uses it. They don't affect production at all and player stations don't have them.

Silicon is a popular resource to trade in general because it's got an extremely wide price range, so the margins are efficient if you're buying low and selling high. Energy cells' price scales from 12-20c each for example, while silicon's price scales from 232 to 776. It's an XL ware though, so you'll need an actual transport to haul it.

Also, capital ships cannot carry TSs, sadly.

[jlehtone]

Outside of combat, it seems the stations and certain types of ships "own" trade ships. Occasionally they'll send escorts out to hunt or to escort freighters. They also, apparently, have their own wallet. I think when they get low on some primary resource they send them out to get more. Outside of that, i know nothing short of basic food supplies in most stations rarely ever being above 0. I'm not sure what secondary resources are even used for, but from reading the forums i get the impression that they're basically a way for an NPC to drain your account since they don't do anything.

Quite good. Yes, stations own ships. They have fighters for defense. They do send freighters to buy resources from other stations.

The player is the only one that can dock a loaded ship to a station and sell. All the NPC Stations fetch/pull/buy. They can get rid of their products only if some ship comes to buy them.

Exception: Docks. Equipment Docks and Trading Stations do not produce anything. Wares in their stocks simply vanish after a while (at some rate). They are sinks.

NPC Stations with secondary resources are sinks too. The secondary resources vanish at some rate.

A station needs a fixed amount of primary resources in order to start one production cycle. The lot vanishes when the cycle start and (some amount of) product appears at the end of the cycle. The amounts and cycle time relate to product class and value. Every Factory, when running non-stop, consumes 900 ECells per hour.

(Silicon/Ore) Mines consume ECells in fixed ratio to the product per cycle, but the cycletime depends on the yield of the Asteroid. NPC Mines have some default yield. You do need an Asteroid to build a Mine. You can scan the Asteroid to see its Mineral type and yield. When you do build the Mine, the Asteroid is permanently destroyed.

Player SPP requires Crystals. The cycle time depends on sunlight of the sector. NPC SPP produces ECells nonstop without any resources. It is a source.

Wares flow from sources to sinks. NPC SPPs add wares to circulation and Docks, secondary resource consumers, and hostiles remove wares from circulation. Factories simply convert wares to different types.


X2 Bonuspack has Advanced Trade Command (ATC). It is the most efficient way to automate ships that serve your station. The Trade Mk1 and Mk2 are simpler.


I did say that NPC never sell. In other words, if you do build a station, you have to haul resources to it, or it cannot run.

NPC ships can come to buy from your station. They buy from cheapest nearby producer. Some NPC station is likely to be full of product, i.e. at minimum price and you cannot afford to compete that. You can assign ships to your station to fly out with product to consumers, whose own ships haven't yet filled their resource stocks. That is where your product is.

The Trade Mk1 and Mk2 are "one ship per ware". The ATC can trade all wares of a station with one ship.


Player stations are different from NPC stations. No secondary resources at all, and primaries can differ too.

[kohlrak]

Outside of combat, it seems the stations and certain types of ships "own" trade ships. Occasionally they'll send escorts out to hunt or to escort freighters. They also, apparently, have their own wallet. I think when they get low on some primary resource they send them out to get more. Outside of that, i know nothing short of basic food supplies in most stations rarely ever being above 0. I'm not sure what secondary resources are even used for, but from reading the forums i get the impression that they're basically a way for an NPC to drain your account since they don't do anything.

Quite good. Yes, stations own ships. They have fighters for defense. They do send freighters to buy resources from other stations.

The player is the only one that can dock a loaded ship to a station and sell. All the NPC Stations fetch/pull/buy. They can get rid of their products only if some ship comes to buy them.

Exception: Docks. Equipment Docks and Trading Stations do not produce anything. Wares in their stocks simply vanish after a while (at some rate). They are sinks.

NPC Stations with secondary resources are sinks too. The secondary resources vanish at some rate.

A station needs a fixed amount of primary resources in order to start one production cycle. The lot vanishes when the cycle start and (some amount of) product appears at the end of the cycle. The amounts and cycle time relate to product class and value. Every Factory, when running non-stop, consumes 900 ECells per hour.

(Silicon/Ore) Mines consume ECells in fixed ratio to the product per cycle, but the cycletime depends on the yield of the Asteroid. NPC Mines have some default yield. You do need an Asteroid to build a Mine. You can scan the Asteroid to see its Mineral type and yield. When you do build the Mine, the Asteroid is permanently destroyed.

Player SPP requires Crystals. The cycle time depends on sunlight of the sector. NPC SPP produces ECells nonstop without any resources. It is a source.

Wares flow from sources to sinks. NPC SPPs add wares to circulation and Docks, secondary resource consumers, and hostiles remove wares from circulation. Factories simply convert wares to different types.


X2 Bonuspack has Advanced Trade Command (ATC). It is the most efficient way to automate ships that serve your station. The Trade Mk1 and Mk2 are simpler.


I did say that NPC never sell. In other words, if you do build a station, you have to haul resources to it, or it cannot run.

NPC ships can come to buy from your station. They buy from cheapest nearby producer. Some NPC station is likely to be full of product, i.e. at minimum price and you cannot afford to compete that. You can assign ships to your station to fly out with product to consumers, whose own ships haven't yet filled their resource stocks. That is where your product is.

The Trade Mk1 and Mk2 are "one ship per ware". The ATC can trade all wares of a station with one ship.


Player stations are different from NPC stations. No secondary resources at all, and primaries can differ too.

So, basically, I never have to worry about an NPC draning my bank by forcing me to buy something. However, my objective is to shove products down their throat. If I can keep a rival producer low on goodies, I can pretty much sell at next to max price. So, can i set a ship to buy from local rivals when their prices hit a certain threshold, and shove my station full of it?