[X3] Post your most profitable factory and it's location

[cezarip]

As in the subject. No complex, but stand-alone factory!
I am curious, in a universe where everybody builds complexes, how well does a single factory?

Mine would be a Soyery L in Trinity Sanctum.

[bazola]

I like complexes because it makes energy resupply easier. My most profitable setup at the moment is a two Wheat M complex in queen's space.

However I am planning to put an advanced sat factory in Argon Prime to test the theory that if the factories in a sector are always out of product, itll be profitable to place another one. I'm going to supply it myself though so I'm not sure if it would qualify for what you are looking for.

[Dragoongfa]

Easy question...

A twin BPPC forge in bluish snout, lots of resources around and a place to sell next door...

There used to be some Xenon around too ...

[Koshea]

Stand Alone Boron Solar Power Plant L in Home of Light actually, the crystals are dirt cheap and I'm constantly out of energy selling to anyone who will pay 17 credits or more within 9 jumps. Minimum 200k/hour based on buying at max crystal prices and selling energy at my minimum but my CAG usually gets a better deal on both as Argon space is usually way under powered. I placed it there thinking it would relieve the pressure off my own factories buying cheap energy and it's turned into my most profitable single station.


After Solar Power Plants you can make a ton of money on Rastar Refinery's in Split space, I have a 3 L Rastar Refinery complex in Family Pride with no other stations attached still selling the stuff at close to max price.

[WebWalker]

Weed Booze complex in EF. Not sure how big I can go with this before the market runs dry, currently 4 Large SF and 3 Space weed and it seems to hardly be able to keep any stock without any selling ships. I have a feeling if I max this out, setting one up over on the other side of the universe will be just as nuts. From what I have seen, a microchip/Computer Comp/Quantim tube complex in argon space would sell very very well, I need to set my factories to nearly max sell price to keep the traders from eating up all these goods.

All my other big complexes are made for fleet suppuly and dont sell their wares, I have an all shield mega complex, a PHQ feeding complex that makes all the wares that are needed for the PHQ to build ships and I am setting a super weapons complex as well. To round it out I have a Closed SPPXL loop in the same sector running Ecells with a fleet of CL TSs so I dont have to add the Ecels to the other factories loops. Also a sillicon mine and and ore mine or 3 to keep me from having to add mines to my complex loops, all with many top level CL TSs to move wares out.

[Central Scrutinizer]

BoFu factory in Kingdom End.

[Graaf]

A Biogas Factory in Bluish Snout. Lots of BoFu Labs in surrounding sectors but hardly any Biogas Factories.

[poppycock]

Space fuel fact in CBSE, I can't make the stuff fast enough!!

[Painman]

If you assign CAGs with jumpdrives to a factory, then it all kind of goes out the window - you'll almost always get best price for resources and products, then it comes down to a matter of which factories are inherently the most profitable to begin with. SPPs and high end weapon forges seem to be the heavy hitters.

No factories yet in my new game, but it looks like I may be hawking delexian wheat to the Boron and teladianium to the Paranid in order to mend some horribly damaged fences.

[tclord]

Heck, you want to talk about space fuel complexes, I have a 9 wheat + 9 fuel complex in Elena's. It hasn't saturated the market yet.

But this thread talked specifically about single, stand alone factories. So, my best factory is a large silicon mine in ore belt. Not the highest possible earning factory, but has the best ROI (return on investment). I make a spreadsheet with all kinds of useful info on factories. Here's some key info:

Code: Select all

Factory Name            Buy Price     A ROI   M ROI   A Profit   M Profit

Solar Power Plant XL    $17,607,360   1.79    4.53    $314,400   $796,800
Tractor Beam Factory    $15,971,276   0.73    0.89    $117,335   $141,815
Space Fuel Distillery   $4,411,580    2.13    8.31    $94,080    $366,720
Silicon Mine L (72)     $905,688      7.23    29.39   $65,455    $266,182
Ore Mine L (102)        $730,392      13.14   55.04   $96,000    $402,000

Bio Gas Factory L       $730,392      3.15    9.52    $23,000    $69,500
BoFu Lab L              $2,161,964    2.41    8.09    $52,000    $175,000
Beta PPC Forge          $14,536,460   0.58    0.79    $84,411    $115,011

Here we can see average (A) and max (M) ROI (return on investment) and profit per hour. Average means buying required resources at average price and selling products at average price (pretty safe assumption you can make at least this much). Max means buying required resources at lowest possible price and selling products at highest possible price, so this is the theoretical maximum profit you can possibly make, but it's not usually not possible to reach this. For things like weapons (tractor beams and BPPCs for example), the max and average selling price is the same, since you can only sell to equipment docks at one fixed price. So the variation between average and max is less for these.

Probably the most important number to look at here is the ROI value. Return on investment is how much profit you make per hour as a percentage of how much you spend buying this factory. So if it is 5%, each hour you make 5% of what you spend buying the factory, so it would take you 20 hours to get all your money back. Due to the power of compounding, the higher the ROI, the more overall assets you will have at some fixed point in the future. With the 102 yield ore mine, you can get your investment cost back in less than 2 hours! (assuming you have a fully promoted CAG ready to go. CAGs take longer than that to train)

As we can see, though, a SPP by far has the highest profit per hour potential of any factory. And of course, energy is always pretty highly in demand. It's an expensive factory to buy, though, and ROI isn't that great.

One thing to consider in buying a factory is demand. Space fuel and spaceweed always seem to have a lot of demand. Weapons always have infinite demand, though you have to manually sell them to EQ docks. Weapon and such factories also are small sized, so they use half the energy of a medium factory, and thus have the highest profit per energy cell used ratio. Considering there are only so many silicon asteroids in the universe, and thus there is a limit on how many crystal fabs you can run, and thus a limit on how much energy you can produce, if you get really carried away, you'll want to efficiently utilize all your energy. For that, you want to go with tractor beam factories, as they utilize the least amount of energy and product the highest profit for that energy. Of course, the ROI is bad for it, so instead of starting off with tractor beam factories, you'll want to start off with other factories first with high ROIs. Once you run out of excess silicon, you'd start eliminating the high ROI factories and replacing them with tractor beam factories. This is all in theory, though. Practically speaking, I don't think anyone will ever run out of silicon asteroids to put mines on, unless they just really have no life.

Moral of the story: If you want cash quickly, start with high yield mines, put CAGs on them. Then you probably want to add some food factories (next best ROI), but they are going to be trickier to find the right place for. And then space fuel and/or space weed complexes, which are very simple to set up and operate. Then you probably want to put SPPs in, and maybe the other factories to make them closed loops. By this time you'll be making a lot of credits, so it doesn't matter too much after this. Invest in whatever you want to.

[Kor'ah]

Scruffin farm in Argon Prime with a CAG.

[5i1]

My Silicion mine in Herron Nebula. (I REALLY wanted ore belt but every time I tried there I died or the station and I died from Kha'ak lol)

My first station was an Ore Mine in Red Light. (I know no good yield asteroids but it was really so I could figure placing mines. But it's made me over an million since I set it up though so i don't mind. It was an ok spot too, as there seems to be quite a few factories nearby with a need for ore) And my lastest is an bio gas-wheat farm complex. (Why didn't it tell me only primary resources were needed?) I'll be adding an power plant to it soon, once my Player HQ is set up )

[Gammel]

Long way off since Im starting my game again. But I have been eyeing off the idea of putting a SPP around the area of Ianamus Zura. As thats a bit of a 'dead end' there with the Xenon sector on the other side of 18 Billion. And there doesn't seem to be any SPP's in any of the Teladi sectors in that area.

Dunno if its a good idea though. But a guy can dream.

[Danno]

Long way off since Im starting my game again. But I have been eyeing off the idea of putting a SPP around the area of Ianamus Zura. As thats a bit of a 'dead end' there with the Xenon sector on the other side of 18 Billion. And there doesn't seem to be any SPP's in any of the Teladi sectors in that area.

It would probably work great. I put one in Montalaar, with a 2 sector trading radius and it's forever sending ships through Avarice to New Income. Those are some power hungry people over there!

[Gammel]

Yeah, I scoped the area out early in my game during some routine exploration and I noticed that EVERY station in that small cluster of Teladi sectors south east of the Xenon sector is screaming for ECs.

[edit]
Actually something I noticed, going by the Factory Complex Calculator that I have. I cant check the game to verify this. (cause I'm at work, and I don't have X3 on this machine) Boron Stations seem to be generally cheaper their equivalents for other races. The Boron M SPP is 4,401,839cr (the cheapest) and the most expensive was the Split with 5,388,682cr. Thats close to a million difference.
Yet according to the FCC the output and crystal requirements are the same for all races. I cant see any reason for the massive price difference.. For the money saves I could put it towards a Transport to ferry things around.
Is there something here I'm missing?

I also apologize if Im too far off topic.

[tclord]

No, you're correct. Boron SPP and food factories too, are cheaper than other races. But Boron isn't cheapest in everything. For example, Paranid have the cheapest Alpha PSG Forges, Argon have the cheapest Gamma PPC Forges, etc. Teladi have the cheapest Ore and Silicon mines.

As for why, well, why does gas cost different amounts at different at different places? Or getting an oil change cost different amounts at different places? I think it's just meant to simulate these kinds of variations in our real world. Maybe you don't want to hire that TL to haul a cheaper station across 16 sectors and will instead go with a more expensive station that only need to go 2 sectors. Maybe the time saved is more important. And hiring costs of TLs are different with different races too. It's all designed to make choices a little more interesting and complex.

[Gammel]

Well Id probably sooner buy my own TL.
Going to want one sooner or later.

[Painman]

Well good luck with the SPP, but bear in mind - those sectors tend to gradually lose stations to Pirates over the course of game time. Not soon enough to make the station a loser, though you may end up having to protect the station from pirates as well.

There's a bright side to that - if this occurs, and you're willing to provide security, you can make your own economy for those sectors and run it off of your own energy.

[cezarip]

The sectors around Argon Prime have a high demand in energy, there are always factories buying at 19. Are there enough crystals for a SPP XL? I do not know. In my game the crystal factories in that region are always sold out. Plus getting one in that region may be tricky (unless you have your own TL or you escort the TL through the pirate sectors)
For the moment I have placed a Wheat Farm L in Reservoir of Tranquility. 1.1 M selling at 34 and buying at 13 has an ROI of 4.2. Not so bad. I sell without competition or fear for one in the future. While not a fast earner, the farm is a steady and reliable one.

Code: Select all

Factory Name            Buy Price     A ROI   M ROI   A Profit   M Profit

Solar Power Plant XL    $17,607,360   1.79    4.53    $314,400   $796,800
Tractor Beam Factory    $15,971,276   0.73    0.89    $117,335   $141,815
Space Fuel Distillery   $4,411,580    2.13    8.31    $94,080    $366,720
Silicon Mine L (72)     $905,688      7.23    29.39   $65,455    $266,182
Ore Mine L (102)        $730,392      13.14   55.04   $96,000    $402,000

Bio Gas Factory L       $730,392      3.15    9.52    $23,000    $69,500
BoFu Lab L              $2,161,964    2.41    8.09    $52,000    $175,000
Beta PPC Forge          $14,536,460   0.58    0.79    $84,411    $115,011

I see that your biggest ROI is that Ore Mine L. Ore Belt?