The universe wide trade network

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Timsup2nothin
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The universe wide trade network

Post by Timsup2nothin » Sat, 1. Sep 18, 21:18

I've built a lot of trade networks. A lot might be understating that. I've done a lot of X3 play throughs where the only objective was trying out some new wrinkle to improve my trade network schemes. That was NOT my objective in my current play. In fact I was trying to get through a certain amount of the "preliminaries" like the HUB and the PHQ without doing any significant trading at all.

But, I am still me.

So I had a little network based out of a TM in the Argon Military Sector. It was just keeping things humming in there so I could get CIGs, among other things. It had no permanent structures, so if I got my preliminaries done and decided I really wanted to fight with the Argons I could just pull out of there. Unfortunately the SPP which was a major component of what I was doing got blown up.

With a double handful of accumulated freighters doing nothing, plus a handful winding down in the MilSec flown by advanced CLS pilots I just had to do something. But again, I don't want to be tied down to any of the major races. I don't even want to be tied down to the Yaki or the pirates in case I decide to go all law abiding on this play.

I could have just picked a couple sectors and run a network out of a TM to keep them humming. I could have just added some components to the network I had and supplied e-cells to the MilSec from somewhere else. But...

What if instead of my tried and true regional networks, which do tie me to whatever race runs that region, I made a true universal network? What does that require?

One) It needs a home. A home not in any race space, and not in Pirate or Yaki space, but in an unknown sector so well off the beaten track that even if I declare war on the immediate neighbors the only problem I will have with them is if they actually try to come and get me, not with random through traffic.

Two) It needs to have clear branches differentiated by race so that if I declare war on a race I can shut down the affected branch with reasonable ease, and without disrupting the rest of the network.

Three) I have to be able to start it up, or more like start up an element of it that I can build around, using the assets I have currently; which don't really amount to all that much.

So off I went. The answer I chose for number one is the unknown sector behind Legend's Home. I've built stuff in there before, in plays where I cooperated with the Argon throughout. Nobody goes in there.

But what product? Legend's home provides the answer. I can start my fledgling network if I have a product that Legend's Home needs, and that product is ore. So the goal is to build a universe wide mineral distribution network.

I expect that there will be unforeseen problems in expanding my regional network theories into a universe wide application. I have already seen one, and the next post in this thread from me will be at least hypothetically solving it. (edit...okay, I lied. I just laid out the problem, but as yet haven't even started on any solutions, hypothetical or otherwise.) A regional network can get bound up when too many ships are trying to use the core facility of the network with its twenty docking ports...so for a universe wide network I will have to resolve that problem right from the start.
Last edited by Timsup2nothin on Sat, 1. Sep 18, 23:11, edited 1 time in total.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

Timsup2nothin
Posts: 4690
Joined: Thu, 22. Jan 09, 17:49

Post by Timsup2nothin » Sat, 1. Sep 18, 23:09

Here we are at the first problem to overcome.
------------------------------------------------
This is what I've done so far, which has gotten me here.
------------------------------------------------
The home of this network needs to have storage for ore and silicon wafers, so I put mines on the two asteroids nearest the gate and connected them with a hub even closer to the gate, then shut off their production. I may need to produce product someday, but I'll be going as far as I can on just buying it. Since one of the two asteroids in question has an ore yield of ONE, when I need to do production I'm clearly going to need another mine. Pretty good silicon yield though, if I ever fire that one up.
-----------------------------------
Networks mean lots of ships with lots of jump drives and that means lots of fuel. Step one is setting up an abundant fuel reserve and a CLS friendly refueling system.

A CLS pilot can only be completely trusted to refuel at either an SPP or a ship, and since wrecked ships are everywhere just waiting to happen while SPPs are expensive I opted for the wrecked ship. In fact I just jumped the fuel tank I had been using in the MilSec into the unknown sector. It is set to load up to 3000 cells from the HQ, so it should always be available as a conveniently located refuel point for ships making deliveries or picking up loads...this is where a problem started nagging in the back of my mind.

But I pushed forward.

Four Mercuries that I had sitting around got equipped for simple CLS duty ("simple" = "no jumping required") and programmed to supply e cells to the HQ. Shovel a million credits into the HQ and off they go. This part of the setup is obviously Argon dependent, and I knew at this point it would have to be supplemented with other race suppliers eventually, but getting the ball moving downfield on the fast and cheap was a factor.

They are set to fly to the XL plant in Akeela's, then buy for minimum from either of the Akeela's plants at minimum price and deliver to the HQ. This is a standard setup I've used many times and has the virtue that the ships do not linger at the HQ; if they are on standby it will be at the designated fly to SPP.

Unless the HQ completely fills with e-cells. Fifty thousand is a lot, but just four loads apiece for the four Mercs will get me close. I need to get some stuff up and burning fuel before they hit capacity.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

When reserve fuel in the HQ hit about ten thousand I started thinking about mineral buyers and product distributors. The energy buyers were all closing in on their first promotion, which would make them eligible to transfer to a simple CAG sales ship (simple again meaning no jumps). I figure four of them making the extended flights, sometimes as far as Light of Heart, will not distribute terribly fast but will produce flight time and get promotions. A couple of buyers, or maybe even just one should be able to keep up and start slowing down the rising tide in the fuel reserves.

Set up the buyer first, start building up product so that when I start the CAGs they can start selling.

I was all set to put the first buyer on, using my usual methods, when it hit me that the usual won't work. Normally I would start with a first waypoint unloading into the HQ, then a refuel at the fuel tank, followed by generating waypoints in the desired region for buying at the designated price. In this case I have a highly qualified Boron pilot in a Dolphin Tanker and was planning to target the Boron region south of Montalaar.

Easy peasy. But that means that when he goes on standby waiting for one of the suppliers to hit the designated price he will be waiting at the HQ. These are the guys who cap the size of a regional network by stacking up in the docks.

This is fine for getting things rolling, but this is a problem that has to be solved before much expansion. Having too many ships running on a "I'll change them when I figure out a new system" plan is just inviting frustration.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first thought, of course, is to set them up similarly to the energy buyers; with a 'fly to' command to put them in the general area of the suppliers they purchase from. Unfortunately, either through simple analysis or hard experience this will be proven not to work. I'll let you guess which way I learned :wink: The ship will jump to the supply area, but if there are no suppliers ready to sell it won't wait because it will hit the refuel command and jump right back. I need to get some fuel consumption going, but pointless jumps back and forth isn't the way I want to go.

So, here it is. This is the first of what will probably be many obstacles. It's probably easy enough. Truthfully, I haven't given it much thought yet. It seemed like it might be interesting to put out a little bit more of the process than I have in previous guides.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

DrSuperEvil
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Post by DrSuperEvil » Sun, 2. Sep 18, 11:25

I would save up to get more silicon mines going and then drag them with a tractor beam closer to the gate. You can then start working towards a closed loop SPP.

Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Sun, 2. Sep 18, 14:41

DrSuperEvil wrote:I would save up to get more silicon mines going and then drag them with a tractor beam closer to the gate. You can then start working towards a closed loop SPP.
Given that the universe is swamped with cheap e-cells that NPCs literally make out of vacuum I seldom burn asteroids just to make more.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

jlehtone
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x4

Post by jlehtone » Sun, 2. Sep 18, 17:35

Furthermore, closed loop merely produces something "out of vacuum" for you to sell. To sell your assets is not quite the same as hauling somebody else's wares for a fee.

I'm no trader myself, but I appreciate when I see a thoroughbred merchant. :teladi:

Furthermore, my closest vewnture to trading so far has been in X3R, where CLS2 was not so comfy yet. Hence, I had a sandwich.

The sandwich had CAG buyer(s) at Dock (PHQ), CAG salesmen in another Dock, and CLS1 jam between the breadslices. This structure can enforce low purchase price and ensure high sales price, i.e. maximal margin per hauled unit.


A CLS2 buyer trap enforces low purchase price. A CLS2 saletrap would ensure high sales price. One still needs the jam between them.

Lets not forget the Trade Mk3. That is said to trade too ...


Now we have a range of implementations. The Mk3 we have little control over but it does not require HQ. No "max margin or no sale" guarantee.

A Dock in the middle can CAG-trade anything, but in limited volumes. Not necessarily a bad thing; faster ships can haul that much more frequently.

A Complex can trade wares of the complex, but has huge stock capacity.


In X3AP we have PHQ, CHQ, and Xenon Hub. The PHQ has space, but might be dedicated to ship building.

The CHQ has better stocks than a Dock. I have mine gathering/trading weaponry. Alas, only 10 TS can dock simultaneously.

The Hub has nice stocks too. It is, if the player so wishes, "at the center", max 14 jumps from any gated sector. There is NPC traffic though, so no "peace and tranquility". I trade "resources" (except ECells) there.


A trap (be it buyer or seller) ensures optimal price and requires no jump fuel. However, someone has to distribute those ships to (all?) NPC stations, and notify the jam about the destinations.


Jump fuel is the primary concern for all approaches.


My X3R sandwich did spawn from the "Trading Networks" text of giskard. (Early X3R, a copy might be in the "X3 Handbook".)
The core of that was that even vanilla X3R trade commands could do redistribution, if prices were right.

One had a Dock in trading each "local area" and haulers hauling surplus between the Docks. The useful point in that, IMHO, is that "trade" is local and hence does not require jump fuel. The logistics between "market areas" does jump, but is not coupled to the NPC.

Then again, one had to have "Docks" spread around. That sets limitations, if some conflict would arise.


Wait, you can have "local" CLS2 buyers and CLS2 salemen without jumpdrive, if you can transfer the goods from buyer's to salesmen ...
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Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Sun, 2. Sep 18, 20:47

jlehtone wrote:
A CLS2 buyer trap enforces low purchase price. A CLS2 saletrap would ensure high sales price. One still needs the jam between them.
Just wanted to take a second and expand on this. If you are trying to "enforce" low purchase prices and high sales prices at the same time you will wind up with very low throughput. Most product will be bought by NPCs at below average but not really low prices, leaving your traps empty, and most needs will be filled by NPCs selling at above average but not as high, leaving your sales traps full should they ever get filled. Throughput is like the size of the bread. To maximize profit you have to look at the thickness of the sandwich and the size. A really thick sandwich on tiny bread isn't a meal

To get a significant share of the available transactions from this one has to take a low and a high that are not all that far removed from average, making for a bigger, but thin sandwich. The optimal sandwich dimensions are maximum throughput at half of the price band. If you sell at average price every time to every station that will pay it, then no NPC will sell, ever. This means that eventually all the NPCs stop buying and you are free to buy at minimum price from all sources. But as soon as you try to make the sandwich thicker by raising your sell price, all those NPCs that have been wandering around with a load will crash in and sell at average plus one and you lose throughput, ie, the sandwich gets smaller.

Because I find slow burning humor well worth the effort, one time I followed this Boron food transporter around.

Game was TC, and I had a network in the OmLy region that was running maximum throughput on cahoonas. My guys hit every station in the region at 72, plus shoveled cahoonas into every trading station to keep them filled to the brim and maximize their consumption rates. I had a big storage facility in Nathan's Voyage with a giant stockpile, so we never ran short. I had buyers buying at minimum price that easily kept my inventory building up, so every once in a while I would haul a couple loads out to Argon Prime in an elephant and shovel them into the trading stations. In my mind I OWNED those cahoonas.

So I'm flying through Treasure Chest and I see this Boron docking at a bakery. Selling price is in the forties, and this squid makes off with a whole load of MY cahoonas! I thought about just blasting him to atoms, but the Argons frown on that so I had to let him go.

He heads for the Medium Shield fab in MilSec. Sure enough, I check, and they are buying at 74. WTF??? Okay, I have a guy inbound, already in the sector. Mr Dolphin has no shot whatever of getting that sale. In fact, that price will be gone before he makes it out of Treasure Chest. I put this squid on my spare monitor and watched him for days. He must have headed for thirty to forty different places to sell and he never unloaded those cahoonas. Eventually he got mowed down by a Xenon migration. I missed him terribly.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

jlehtone
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Post by jlehtone » Sun, 2. Sep 18, 21:11

Okay, I'm no expert on the practical prices. :oops:

What is important is that we have multiple tools for setting up trade and we can buy clearly cheaper than we sell.


That Boron's attempt was sound, but there was that bigger fish (swarm) ...
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Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Sun, 2. Sep 18, 23:38

jlehtone wrote:Okay, I'm no expert on the practical prices. :oops:

What is important is that we have multiple tools for setting up trade and we can buy clearly cheaper than we sell.


That Boron's attempt was sound, but there was that bigger fish (swarm) ...
That wasn't intended as a put down, just sharing a hard learned lesson. I've tried a lot of ways to thicken the sandwich without losing so much throughput that it is counterproductive. I'm always game if someone has an idea I haven't tried, but I think half the price range might be a hard cap limit. You can work average to maximum, or you can work minimum to average, but if you try to work both sides the pesky NPCs will ruin the gig...unless you can just kill them, of course.

We do have plenty of tools for buying low and selling high. I'm always trying to overcome the challenge of buying lower and/or selling higher, and doing more of it. :)
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

jlehtone
Posts: 21801
Joined: Sat, 23. Apr 05, 21:42
x4

Post by jlehtone » Mon, 3. Sep 18, 16:34

There are three sales price categories too:
  • The Spiffkin types. Their price is set in stone; non-negotiable. I believe there is a separate NPC Trader faction that has necessary dock rights. Steady consumption, and limited volumes, unless you hit the black hole.
  • Primary resources. Energy, Minerals, Bio, Food. They have a price range. Large volumes. Consumption maxes, when NPC Factories are not full of product, and have enough necessary resources.
  • The snake oil. Beware the Teladi that wants to dump their Nostrop surplus on their neighbours. It has makes little difference to your business, but bleeds your credits at steady rate. (Well, it would, if you had NPC Factories.) The good(?) side is, snake oil is usually cheaper than the genuine resource.
Setting the selling price high will definitely shrink the market, for it rules out all secondary resource consumers. That too supports the "close to average for larger volume" approach.



There is a fourth price category, the chems. I don't sell any, but if you visit the nightside of the planet, then you can buy some. :pirat:
I seem to have no trade statistics on chems. :roll:
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Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Mon, 3. Sep 18, 19:01

jlehtone wrote: Setting the selling price high will definitely shrink the market, for it rules out all secondary resource consumers. That too supports the "close to average for larger volume" approach.
That's why, for most products, working a minimum/average scheme is better than an average/maximum scheme. The only time I work average/maximum is if there is such a shortage that it looks just beyond repair.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

ConorC
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Post by ConorC » Tue, 4. Sep 18, 14:44

Hi Tim,

Long time player, just got back into X3TC after an 8 year gap. I found your CLS2 tutorial the other day and I've been utilizing your methods and it's working pretty well.

I have a question that's maybe not really for you, but you may have tried this. My game is well under way and Terran Space is pretty sparse at this point, only a few fabs left. Will setting up trade networks as you have outlined in your tutorial and here to support the remaining stations save them and cause the game to spawn more terran facilities do you think?

Thanks for all the info on CLS2, I've never used it before now, even though it dates back to X2. It's a much more powerful tool than I realised.

C

Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Tue, 4. Sep 18, 18:34

ConorC wrote:Hi Tim,

Long time player, just got back into X3TC after an 8 year gap. I found your CLS2 tutorial the other day and I've been utilizing your methods and it's working pretty well.

I have a question that's maybe not really for you, but you may have tried this. My game is well under way and Terran Space is pretty sparse at this point, only a few fabs left. Will setting up trade networks as you have outlined in your tutorial and here to support the remaining stations save them and cause the game to spawn more terran facilities do you think?

Thanks for all the info on CLS2, I've never used it before now, even though it dates back to X2. It's a much more powerful tool than I realised.

C
Welcome back Conor!

First off, even if they are a bit long of tooth the mods don't usually get upset about reviving a guide thread, so if you ever have a question that's specific to something in a guide you can probably zombie that thread. If I have a current thread like this one that fits that's fine too, and I'm through here pretty regularly so if you start a thread with "CLS question" in the title I'll almost always answer.

To your question, I have to say yes and no. CLS networking in Terran space pretty much has to be done with fixed traps that never leave the stations because of the huge distances and lack of jump options. Fixed traps are perfect for preventing the removal of stations, but a fixed trap system is the least flexible and incapable of adapting to new stations as they appear.

So a network that makes NPC traders less effective (in Terran Space where they aren't very effective to start with) while ignoring stations when they reappear is just forcing them to disappear again. If you want to revive Terran space you will need to monitor it closely (which takes an unreasonable number of satellites) and then very promptly (which means looking at all those monitored sectors far more often than I like) adapt your network to stations as they reappear. It's doable, but difficult, and I found it a far less enjoyable way to play the game than most.

Bottom line, if you catch Terran space before it deteriorates networking can make it really thrive, but in that environment it's a lot better for maintenance than restoration.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

ConorC
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon, 20. Aug 18, 11:07
x4

Post by ConorC » Tue, 4. Sep 18, 19:17

Thanks for response. I'm gonna see what happens. My system is a little chaotic at the moment, I need to streamline it a bit. I started out shipping ice, then water, then moved on to the food resources to get the food fabs up and running. Then I moved onto shipping all these and ore to the couple of weapons fabs that are still there. The problem is, the Carbo cakes and food paste fabs are all gone, I can only get these from the orbital logistics docks. Everything is up and running now but I need the carbo cake fabs and protein paste fabs to respawn, otherwise it's all for nothing.


Oh yeah, and energy shipments are going on too

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Post by ConorC » Tue, 4. Sep 18, 19:20

And I'm gonna do what you said and start a dedicated thread for this :)

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Post by Timsup2nothin » Wed, 12. Sep 18, 09:59

Whelp, this completely flipped off the rails. I got sidetracked (retracked?) back into my wing command combat training that I started out trying to accomplish in this game, had a bug out fiasco that prompted me to load a save from before I built the mines...and spent a lot of time considering what to do about the overloading the docks problem.

Once again, this is less of a smooth guide and more of a look under the hood at the trials and errors.

My first thought was "Before I start working on mineral distribution, what I need is a reliable system of fuel tanks scattered across the universe." So I hared off after that and put the mining operation on hold. But since I hadn't encountered the bug yet and I had the mines built I thought I would use the mines e-cell capacity as the storage to feed the fuel system since I'm not planning on doing any production there.

About the time I found the bug I had gotten started on that, and had this nagging noise in the back of my head. With the bug suggesting I retreat to a previous save anyway... Finally the nagging noise came clear, and said:

You are worried about the mineral distribution overloading the docks.
You think the solution is to have mineral buyers refueling out in the universe.
And you are running a big fuel distribution through the same docks you are worried about overloading.

The contradiction seems so obvious once it becomes obvious. Thanks Captain Obvious.

--------------------------------------------------------
So, reloaded. The mines were built, but I hadn't laid in the energy supply, so I just didn't. The mines can wait, even though I'm running some sort of maintenance cost mod so I have to pay for them floating out there like a lawn ornament.

I built a energy storage facility out of two large bio fabs. Cheap, simple, capacity for 50,000 cells. I built this inside the HUB, which i had acquired control of during the Xenon slaughter vacation. I could have just run it from the HUB with its 30,000 cell capacity, but the same dock congestion issue made me choose otherwise. I want to save the HUB to use it for tech goods and final products. I can store e-cells in anything.

Since the HUB was connected to some good places to get e-cells I figured some apprentice CAGs would provide my base supply. Easy peasy.

Guess again. I cannot figure out why, but for the life of me I cannot get a CAG home based to a complex inside the HUB to operate. I don't know if there is something in the script that is incompatible with HUB gates, or what. I know in past games I have used CAGs home based to the HUB itself, and I've built complexes inside the HUB...but it is possible that those complexes have always run on CLS instead of CAG.

I seriously tried everything I could think of, including a full review of the very basics of operating CAGs. It was bad. I got angry. I slaughtered some Xenon.

-------------------------------------------------------------

So, reload. Still angry. Slaughter more Xenon...or maybe the same Xenon...hard to tell.

Switch the HUB gate from Segaris to my unknown sector and build the energy storage in there, next to the mines. CAG apprentices can roam to various corners of the universe grabbing cheap e-cells through the HUB. This is terribly inefficient and requires keeping the HUB in place, but I REALLY wanted to make sure I actually was doing the CAG setup right so I could narrow the problem down to the HUB location.

This CAG apprentice supply plan is less efficient than I thought, and I didn't think very highly of it to start with. Slaughter more Xenon.

When they finally managed to get the place about half full I looked, and three out of five have been promoted. Doesn't matter until they reach jump drive capability, but it was something to notice. I added a fuel tank, made of a scrappy Caiman I picked up along the way, and shifted a logistician from my MilSec business into a Merc Hauler to be the first sales rep.

He does a dump to inventory, refuel, full load, sales point sequence for every Argon Military Outpost in the universe. I set his minimum on delivery to fifty percent, so he only jumps out to make a sale if he can sell at least 3000 cells. His jump fuel is set to 500 so he can cover any out and back run that he has to make, even if I disconnect the HUB.

He filled them up pretty quickly and dropped to standby. I expect that adding a sales ship for each race, one at a time, with an inventory recovery period in between, will go pretty smoothly, so that's the plan.

On the bright side, his sales at average price brought in enough of an immediate credit infusion to keep the buyers buying at minimum for long enough to completely fill up the stock, so I expect I'll never have to put in any more credits.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

jlehtone
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Post by jlehtone » Wed, 12. Sep 18, 23:00

Timsup2nothin wrote:I got angry. I slaughtered some Xenon.

-------------------------------------------------------------

So, reload. Still angry. Slaughter more Xenon...or maybe the same Xenon...hard to tell.
:lol:
Memo to Xenon Mainframe: profitss savess chipss.

Memo to Pilot Union: if you go to strike, then the Ancient Ones will break your Gates.
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Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Thu, 13. Sep 18, 07:20

I always appreciate it when someone notices the humor buried deep in my walls of text. Thanks jlehtone!
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

Timsup2nothin
Posts: 4690
Joined: Thu, 22. Jan 09, 17:49

Post by Timsup2nothin » Mon, 17. Sep 18, 19:48

Okay, progress report.

From the standpoint of the mineral distribution company, somewhere between none and minimal. I have a Mercury Hauler set to buy at minimum prices from all the mines in Montelaar and shlep the goods to my headquarters east of Legend's Home. He doesn't have a jump drive, so it will be an extended shlep, but since I haven't got anyone to sell the goods anyway I'm in no hurry.

From the standpoint of getting the infrastructure in place things have gone great and there is a sense of completion around Military Fuels Supply Company headquarters. The distribution side is in completely in place, and the supply side is functional for the currently low throughput.

Every Military Outpost in the commonwealth is on the distribution list of a CLS seller who will jump out promptly when they are down to about half their inventory with enough cells to top them up to capacity, even if they sell out while they are waiting. Each race has their own dedicated distributor, so if I get in a scrap with someone it will idle their deliveries without affecting anyone else.

Supply is still being provided by lame CAGs without jump drives, who use the HUB connection to draw from Akheela's as well as Power Circle to Queen's Space and Queen's Harbor to that Teladi sector with the SPPs over there. They aren't very efficient since a lot of their runs to buy at minimum end at a supplier that has already sold to an NPC, but they are okay for current loading. A couple are ready for jump drives and the rest will be pretty soon. Again, there is one CAG for each race, and once the jump drives are installed they will get assigned an appropriate buying region so that a scrap will idle the appropriate one and not impact the others.

-------------------------------------------------------

I'm pretty pleased with this fuel system. The entire operation will be totally autonomous when it is fully operational.* Having every Military Outpost restocked automatically will provide reliable jump fuel anywhere I need it for anything I want to set up, and the more I use it the more profitable MilFuels will be. That's "fire and forget."




*I think. I'm not sure yet what kind of throughput limit it will have. As long as I restrain myself to using it for jump fuel I wouldn't expect to exceed capacity. Of course the temptation to set up an e-cell supplier for critical fabs using the local Military Outpost as a supplier has to be fended off regularly. I might set something up temporarily just to test the limits of the system once it is completely functional though.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

Timsup2nothin
Posts: 4690
Joined: Thu, 22. Jan 09, 17:49

Post by Timsup2nothin » Wed, 19. Sep 18, 22:54

Further progress.

My guy shlepping all the way from Montelaar made a couple three runs, or maybe four. Dunno, I was busy. Anyway, I had some inventory to work with but it was obviously going up too slowly to keep up with any sort of distribution. So off I went to the Hatikva's Faith Used Ship Emporium and did some shopping.

They were having a sale on Dolphins, so I picked up a standard Dolphin Tanker and one of those really huge Superfreighter XL things. Set an apprentice Boron to work in the tanker collecting ore from the mines in Rolk's Legacy and parked the giant transfer tank at the trading station.

Then I systematically relieved my MilSec Trading Company of their ore distributing duties so I could reassign the equipment. That operation had a Teladi in a Vulture Hauler doing the buying, importing from Teladi space, and I took him first. He is now running the route from the transfer tank in RL after refueling at the Outpost in Great Trench. Since the Boron had already filled the tank by the time I got him organized he made an immediate impact on inventory.

Distribution in the Military Sector had been handled by a Mercury Hauler, and once their transfer tank and his hold were emptied I moved him as well. Shifted to CAG, he now has the entire region to distribute to, excluding the war sectors, obviously.

He needed jump fuel, so I added a Mercury to the MilFuels operation that runs from the headquarters and sells to the minerals hub, maintaining it at 6000 cells in stock, just for CAG fuel since there's no production.

Ore inventory dropped like, well, a rock. The Vulture, with the out of the way fuel stop, is just too slow, and the laggard running all the way from Montelaar is basically no help.

However, those long runs had gotten him to the point where he could use a jump drive, so I replaced him with a new apprentice and picked him up a good low mileage Mercury Hauler. I noticed that the Vulture had started getting ahead of the Boron filling the transfer tank, so I adjusted the Montelaar buyer and now he only has to drag stuff as far as the transfer tank in RL. The veteran in his new to us Hauler is running a purchase route through the same region we are supplying, using the Outpost in BHS to refuel. Ore inventory is low, but hopefully stabilizing. I'm starting to see some silicon come in as well. When that starts to sell it will slow down the ore consumption.

If this were the usual thing I'd probably just dump in freighters ten at a time and let the chips land as they may. But with an experimental application I'm satisfied moving slowly. My intentions are to expand into new regions by installing a buyer first, to help create a shortage and drive up prices, then install a CAG distributor and move on, backfilling as needed when a single CAG or single buyer proves to be not enough for a region, or when imbalance drives my inventory out of whack.

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Speaking of imbalance and inventory out of whack, during the initial fill of the mineral hub the Mercury crashed my inventory at MilFuels, so I'm in the process of shifting the buyers there to jump drives and giving them individual buying zones. Once the initial fill was completed the Mercury slowed down and inventory was recovering, but I'm starting to use fuel from the outposts across the universe so it's time to boost the cap on my throughput.

Overall, this seems to be moving along well enough. Of course, so far there isn't anything "universe wide" about it and I could do what I'm doing so far using no new techniques at all. But there are some critical changes in the structure that will hopefully allow it to reach a higher level of throughput than my previous systems could handle.

We shall see.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

ConorC
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon, 20. Aug 18, 11:07
x4

Post by ConorC » Thu, 20. Sep 18, 11:12

Tim, a question: I've been using a lot of your methods and getting really good results, but I only have maybe 20 - 30 ships moving around different areas trading, the most being in the terran sectors. My question is, how do you keep them all straight in your head?

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