To loop, or not to loop. That is the question.

[Timsup2nothin]

Or is it really a question?

Consider this little money maker complex: 20 yield ore roid with large mine. Five 1 MJ shield fabs which consume almost all of the ore. Cahoona bakery and cattle ranch, both large. Makes 110 shields per hour, call it 550,000 credits...but it needs energy of course, about 14,500 cells per hour, slightly less than the full output of an M SPP.

So Captain Closedloop walks into the bar and says "Add TWO M SPP with crystal fabs to supply them, food lines to supply those, and tow over a silicon mine and hook it in as well."

But I only need the output of one M SPP.

"You need two power plants because one of them is powering the silicon mine, crystal fabs, and the extra food fabs," screams the Captain. "Any fool can see that!"

But Captain! Our complex that cost about eleven million now costs over thirty three million! I can set a CLS freighter to fly to the nearby M SPP, buy at 15, and drop off at my complex. Since the 'fly to station' has it sitting right there when the price hits 15 the price is never 'below average' so no AI energy hauler will EVER stop there. I've trapped the entire output of an M SPP, which is all I need, and it only took one CLS freighter. And since he only has two waypoints I can use an apprentice pilot, turn off his training and I don't even have to pay him.

The Captain says "Ah, but with a closed loop you get 110 shield per hour for FREE. 550,000 credits per hour of pure PROFIT! You have to BUY those e-cells you trapped from the SPP. The entire output of an M SPP! At 15! What's that going to cost?"

Well, about 250,000 credits per hour, actually. So my profit from my 11 million credit complex is about 300,000 credits per hour.

"Close the loop!" the Captain hollers. "Obviously 550,000 credits per hour is FAR superior to 300,000. Spend the extra 22 million. You'll make it back in e-cell savings in a mere 88 hours and be glad you did."

Of course he was right. I spent the extra 22 million...building two more complexes just like the first one and trapping two more M SPPs with CLS freighters. So I make 900,000 credits per hour for my 33 million. Since the Captain is only making 550,000 for his 33 million I picked up the bar tab.

By the way, silicon roids are a finite resource (huge, admittedly, but finite). AI solar plants, on the other hand, are effectively infinite. If you trap all the output from too many of them, the locals will pay you to build more for them...and then you can trap their output as well. And an AI SPP, unlike yours, makes e-cells out of sunlight and spacefly farts, they don't need crystals...or silicon.

Just a thought.

[Lea Flamma]

It’s much better to add a SPP to the Complex and build another one wihich products Crystals. I read it’s the best way to supply a factory in power. A single TS can carry much more “Energy” per trip.

[jlehtone]

Night at bar tends to include semantic argumentation. For example, the "closed" and "free". There are longer words too, which after some beer are too long. Here is one:

Self-sufficient

A rather precise term. An entity is self-sufficient, if it does not need anything from outside. Self-sufficient Complex. We all know the most pure example of that: the NPC SPP. It will spurn out ECells no matter what, forever (or up to a negative GoD event).

The player can achieve something similar with Mine-Bio-Food-Xtal-SPP construct. The player can go a step further and bolt a production line to the packet.

Production line converts ECells (or Crystals) into a Product. One Wheat Farm is not much of a line, but a Farm-Distillery, or a Mine-Bio-Food-Forge clearly is.

As example, Captain Closedloop did recommend a [Mine-Bio-Food-Xtal]-SPP-[Mine-Bio-Food-Forge] that "consumes" Asteroids and produces Shields. A self-sufficient Shield Forge. Fine and dandy.

There are variations on the self-sufficiency though. You can have a self-sufficient complex, or you can have a "stably self-sufficient complex". In the latter, every intermediate is over-produced. It is easy to get quickly into stable running state, but it will eventually fill every single stock of it. That is surplus -- unnecessary for the production of the Product. Very handy at times too.

The "non-stable" is stable too, just much more lean -- the bare minimum to keep the ball rolling. Usually does require a much stronger kick to start.



Keyser Söze
What?
Does not exist.
True, a fictional character in a movie.
Closed Complex is Keyser Söze.
What were you drinking?

In my vocabulary closed means closed. NPC do not see it, hear it, interact with it, or even know that it does exist. So it does not. It is Keyser Söze. Only the NPC auto-pillock might have a fleeting sensation that something is not "right", when it does in sector check for collision objects on its flight path that should be avoided. That is all.

There is a connection between closed and self-sufficient, but those two concepts are separate.



Tradeoffs of convenience. That is what open / closed / sufficient are. Building a 33mil something is either really convenient, or an insurmountable task. Depends on player and situation. Captain Closedloop did not count in the potential profits of actively trading the intermediate resources of his self-sufficient Compex (at minor risk of intermediate resource shortage).

[Geek]

If you trap all the output from too many of them, the locals will pay you to build more for them...and then you can trap their output as well. And an AI SPP, unlike yours, makes e-cells out of sunlight and spacefly farts, they don't need crystals...or silicon.

Be careful here. SPP that you build from missions follow the player model - they do need crystals to produce ecells.
Although I agree that more NPC interactions means more profit (at the cost of more management), the NPC ecells market is not infinite.

[Morkonan]

....

Just a thought.

There is no reason to ever buy anything other than a Large SPP.

I build only close-loop complexes unless rare circumstances dictate otherwise. It's a good policy, if you can afford it.

Your roid mine is small. It's production will be small. But, that also means that since the whole complex will be relying on that 20-value roid mine, its production will be low.

Add a Large SPP, sell the overage.

[Kirlack]

Seems to me as though Captain Closedloop has good reason not to use the entire output of that SPP M. Why?

Because then those energy cells can't be traded to other NPC fabs in the region, making the likes of MORTs or Mk3 traders far less useful. For instance, in TC I have a closed loop 4x 1Mj shield 'plex in President's End. If I was trading for those cells instead of making them myself my traders in The Wall and Ore Belt would have that much less cells to trade around the region, a region that is already starved of energy.

I build self-sufficient complexes because then I don't have to worry about things like that. I guess that means I am Captain Closedloop

[Timsup2nothin]

Be careful here. SPP that you build from missions follow the player model - they do need crystals to produce ecells.
Although I agree that more NPC interactions means more profit (at the cost of more management), the NPC ecells market is not infinite.

Good point, forgot about that. Gotta just let the AI build them itself.

On the 'more management' front...how hard to manage is a single CLS trap freighter with two waypoints? Really?

[Timsup2nothin]

It’s much better to add a SPP to the Complex and build another one wihich products Crystals. I read it’s the best way to supply a factory in power. A single TS can carry much more “Energy” per trip.

Whether the crystal supply is attached or remote makes no difference. You are still spending 22 million to produce e-cells for your own consumption (ie no profit).

[jlehtone]

Very true; a loop is a loop is a loop no matter how one implements the matter transfer between components.

Crystals are convenient form of energy to transport, but that is universally true even when there are no loops, lines, or gerbils.


How hard is freighter management?
Based on the number of new threads that pop up frequently: quite hard.
Based on personal experience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8PyTo6NyXA

[Unknnnnn]

Did someone say something about keeping energy cell prices above 15 credits on a npc station?... And about the npc traders not stopping there?

Do npc traders only stop in station where the products prices below average???


No wonder none of the npc traders visit my stations. My stations never sell products below average prices. And never buy above average.

[Timsup2nothin]

Did someone say something about keeping energy cell prices above 15 credits on a npc station?... And about the npc traders not stopping there?

Do npc traders only stop in station where the products prices below average???


No wonder none of the npc traders visit my stations. My stations never sell products below average prices. And never buy above average.

Nail on the head. NPC traders of whatever type will only buy below average and only sell above average.

So, for the sake of argument, let's say you establish CLS traps on EVERY SPP in a given area. Any AI energy transport that comes into the area and makes a sale will look around nearby...and find nothing to buy...then look a little further and still find nothing to buy...then look even further until they eventually start lumbering their slow way off to some distant SPP outside the area you have trapped. When they do make their buy they look for the nearest place to sell at above average, so chances are they will never make their way back into your area.

Now stations in the middle of your area are completely dependent on you for energy cells...which you have in abundance. Using CLS distributors to empty your traps and sell for 19 you make good profits, and have total control. Want to make a killing on meatsteaks? Buy up a TL load at minimum prices then shut off the energy flow to all the cahoona bakeries. Set a CLS freighter to load from your TL and sell to all the cahoona buyers in the area at about 110.

Some time will pass, then your TL will empty very quickly...unless of course you have CLS freighters in some remote area buying cahoonas at something near minimum and jumping in to keep your TL stocked, in which case you will make about 70 credits per cahoona pretty much indefinitely.

[Timsup2nothin]

How hard is freighter management?
Based on the number of new threads that pop up frequently: quite hard.

Another question of semantics.

CLS freighter SET UP can be pretty taxing, especially for the inexperienced.

However, networks of CLS freighters properly set up will operate forever with no management at all...and they are vastly more profitable than sector traders.

Example from my current just started game (game day four on a Terran Defender start): Heritics End has an XL SPP that is not producing because it is dead full. An L wheat farm, producing but nearly full and selling at 18. An L rimes fact that I took a load out of manually at 250 and distributed to the first six trading stations I came across.

Most players immediately recognize that a sector trader could work really well here. Good related products and a fairly remote location mostly free of interference from NPC traders.

But it isn't totally free from interference. Eventually some slob in a vulture is going to come in and punish the power plant and leave the price somewhere closer to average than 12...and your sector trader will keep it there making minimal profits per run. Same with the wheat. And eventually you will notice that your sector trader has a belly full of cloth rimes so his profit per trip on energy and wheat is down to a fraction of what it once was and you will have to do something manually about the rimes.

On the other hand I put in a CLS freighter with an apprentice pilot to buy energy at 12 and sell to the farm, the rimes fact, and the ancillary cattle ranch at 19. He's in a mercury, and truthfully he can buy at 12 from the XLSPP just about forever without bumping up the price, and dumping in 3000 cells at a time barely keeps up with consumption at the buyers. When that scheming Teladi in the vulture comes along my guy will stand by for a while, then get back to making his 21,000 credits per trip.

I also put in another apprentice shifting the wheat, also in a mercury. He buys at twenty and sells at forty. Again a mercury load at a time barely exceeds consumption so the pricing is stable. Again if a giant NPC bio hauler wanders in and screws up the pricing it will force itself to leave, and my guy will just stand by until he can get back to making 30,000 credits per very short trip.

Then I added to one of my logistician CLS guys so that if the rimes fact hits 50 below average he will jump in and buy, then hit as many trading stations as he needs to get them all unloaded. Once he is unloaded he will go back to his regular routine until the next time the rimes fact hits his price.

All three of these CLS freighters will make at least double what the very best sector trader makes on a daily basis...forever...and I will never have to look at them again. The setups took maybe five minutes. Admittedly learnig HOW to do the setups took me a long time, but that was a long time and many games ago.

[Unknnnnn]

Did someone say something about keeping energy cell prices above 15 credits on a npc station?... And about the npc traders not stopping there?

Do npc traders only stop in station where the products prices below average???


No wonder none of the npc traders visit my stations. My stations never sell products below average prices. And never buy above average.

Nail on the head. NPC traders of whatever type will only buy below average and only sell above average.

So, for the sake of argument, let's say you establish CLS traps on EVERY SPP in a given area. Any AI energy transport that comes into the area and makes a sale will look around nearby...and find nothing to buy...then look a little further and still find nothing to buy...then look even further until they eventually start lumbering their slow way off to some distant SPP outside the area you have trapped. When they do make their buy they look for the nearest place to sell at above average, so chances are they will never make their way back into your area.

Now stations in the middle of your area are completely dependent on you for energy cells...which you have in abundance. Using CLS distributors to empty your traps and sell for 19 you make good profits, and have total control. Want to make a killing on meatsteaks? Buy up a TL load at minimum prices then shut off the energy flow to all the cahoona bakeries. Set a CLS freighter to load from your TL and sell to all the cahoona buyers in the area at about 110.

Some time will pass, then your TL will empty very quickly...unless of course you have CLS freighters in some remote area buying cahoonas at something near minimum and jumping in to keep your TL stocked, in which case you will make about 70 credits per cahoona pretty much indefinitely.

I see... Thanks a lot for the info! But I only recently figured out how to train future CAG pilots via CLS.

So I'm not gonna be shutting power down anywhere soon.

[Timsup2nothin]

I see... Thanks a lot for the info! But I only recently figured out how to train future CAG pilots via CLS.

So I'm not gonna be shutting power down anywhere soon.

I have a very unconventional play style that has forced me to really master CLS programming. My son calls my style unorthodox, unless he calls it outright strange...but he admits I can produce amazing profits on relatively small investments. He is a pretty straightforward 'cap a bunch of ships, launch a bunch of sector traders, build a bunch of self sustaining complexes' guy. I can't fight worth a dead spacefly wing, never use sector traders, and almost all complexes that I build are truly self sustaining, since all the factories in them generally have production turned off.

I'm going to write a thread tracking the operations of a single company that should help a lot of people get the hang of using CLS freighters, not only the nuts and bolts of setting them up but some useful tips on networking them. No promises, but I'll try to make it interesting if you want to read it. Look for 'Tall Glass Ice and Water Company daily report'.

[Triaxx2]

Here's the problem with self-sufficient complexes. They tend to produce relatively small profits, particularly in comparison to high profit items, like shields or weapons. I mean, yes, you can build a huge self-sufficient complex and cream profits from selling energy cells.

Or you can build a self-sufficient complex, and use it to produce weaponry. It's quite impressive the amount of money you can make selling heavy missiles, like Tomahawks, or Tempests. A TL load of those weapons once every couple of game days makes a tidy profit. (They have to be manually sold because CLS doesn't sell to those that don't stock them, which will absorb infinite amounts.)

I prefer however, to build distributed complexes. Barren Shores is the best place to start the first complex. It's built to produce crystals in huge numbers. Those are then either sold to SPP's, because NPC SPP's will still buy them, or used in your own SPP's attached to other complexes.

I attach SPP's to other complexes in sectors where Silicon isn't as available. Second, crystal shipping is more effective by a huge ratio. Half a million energy cells versus 15k.

Third, it means I can build plexes or plants close to areas that use them heavily, such as wheat in and around Omicron Lyrae, or Sun Flowers around Two Grand.

[TTD]

I make a number of different types of production complexes.

1
A complex that does not need any further resources and produces it's products with the bare minimum of requirements.

2
A complex that overproduces all its resources for the product,so that it can sell more than just the product

3
A complex that has one of each needed factory,but has enough energy production to not need supply traders to restock resources in order to restart production of end product.

4 A complex that relies on local non-player stations to fill the need of resources,but at the same time supplies the local stations with their needs.

There are variations on these.

But at the end of the fiscal period,they all make a profit.

[Timsup2nothin]

Third, it means I can build plexes or plants close to areas that use them heavily, such as wheat in and around Omicron Lyrae, or Sun Flowers around Two Grand.

This actually illustrates my point. 'In and around Omicron Lyrae' there are the XL SPPs in Heretics End and Circle of Labor. In my experience these two plants, like the vast majority of XL SPPs, are idling a HUGE part of the time because they are full, even without the player producing e-cells at prodigious rates. If you trap those two plants and keep them in constant production you can power all the existing stations in the region plus a gang of wheat farms if wheat is your thing.

Experiment: Start a new game for the sole purpose of making a small pile of credits, buying a stack of nav sats, and flying around dropping them on all the XL SPPs. This shows the market unaffected by the player. In theory these plants produce over 200,000 cells per day each. Due to the inefficiency of NPC energy haulers leaving them full, in practice they produce less than half that on average. The 'energy is scarce around Argon Prime' reality is that the two monsters in The Hole are almost constantly filled to idling and if left to the NPC's own devices will produce less in a day than the L plant in The Wall. 'Energy is scarce', but watch how many XL plants disappear, at least temporarily.

It will really give you a startling shift in perception, if nothing else.

[Triaxx2]

Right, but for my CLS Salary, I'm getting far better energy density. Plus instead of one ship supplying a single complex from an SPP, I'm supplying all my complexes with a couple of ships and spending no money other than the cost of the CLS themselves. Plus since they can refuel for free at each stop, I never worry about them running out of energy.

I'm not freighter blocking, but I run a network of fast energy movers using CLS2 to pick up cheap energy from various NPC SPP's and sell it to NPC stations.

I use that trick to prop up the Terran Economy, until I can move heavy hitters in, like TL's for distribution of goods. The primary reason I have to bring in energy from outside for the wheat plex in OmLy is because I've got several TL's sitting near those XL SPP's being constantly stocked with energy which is loaded onto other TL's and sold in the Terran Sectors.

If I get far enough ahead of the problem, GoD starts working for me, instead of against in the race.

[Timsup2nothin]

Right, but for my CLS Salary, I'm getting far better energy density. Plus instead of one ship supplying a single complex from an SPP, I'm supplying all my complexes with a couple of ships and spending no money other than the cost of the CLS themselves. Plus since they can refuel for free at each stop, I never worry about them running out of energy.

I'm not freighter blocking, but I run a network of fast energy movers using CLS2 to pick up cheap energy from various NPC SPP's and sell it to NPC stations.

I use that trick to prop up the Terran Economy, until I can move heavy hitters in, like TL's for distribution of goods. The primary reason I have to bring in energy from outside for the wheat plex in OmLy is because I've got several TL's sitting near those XL SPP's being constantly stocked with energy which is loaded onto other TL's and sold in the Terran Sectors.

If I get far enough ahead of the problem, GoD starts working for me, instead of against in the race.

You are 'spending no money other than the cost of the CLS themselves'...except for the money you spent building the complex that supplies the crystals.

My original point was that for the money you spent building the crystal plex that allows all your other complexes to work 'for free' you could have built something that would be directly making you money...possibly a lot of money. Your other complexes wouldn't be able to work 'for free', but they could have been easily made to work off other sources that are really not all that expensive.

The complex in my original post is basically lame. A low yield roid specifically chosen to fit the parameters of a single M size SPP, but it is profitable working off local energy...and I could build two more of them for the cost of making that one self sustaining. 900,000 credits per hour profit versus the self sustaining plan that earns 550,000 credits per hour. And that ratio holds true for pretty much any complex of any kind whether the crystal line is attached directly or stretched to a single central crystal plex.

What is the cost of making all your complexes self powered with 'just' crystals from your crystal plex (meaning installing an SPP in them)? What was the cost of the crystal plex? Add all that up and I suggest that you could have built three times as many profit producing complexes instead, and you would be generating 50% more revenue than you are. But you would have more freighters to keep track of.

Look, I'm not saying anyone is wrong here. There are a lot of ways to generate a lot of credits. My son operates almost exclusively in pirate space and for him the more freighters doesn't work. That's true for a lot of players. I'm just pointing out that there IS an alternative that is mathematically attractive. If someone tries it out and finds out they can manage it easily they might like it. If they hate the whole CLS programming system (my son fits this as well) they won't like it. But it does work really well for me.

[Triaxx2]

Okay, I see the problem. You're getting hung up in the initial start up costs for the complexes.

Yes, the initial costs are high. But once those are paid off, you're not making more investments. All you're making is the little payment to the CLS pilot, in exchange for moving your profits.

Yes, you could make more complexes with the cash, but you have to wait for each of those to make repayment on their initial investment before you're making money, rather than just recovering their investment. And since you're buying energy, that's adding the length of time until the complex is repayed.

Alta isn't my preferred calculator any more, but for a self sufficient complex:

http://www.altanetworks.com/x3/x3tcocc. ... &sector=48

and for a non sufficient one:

http://www.altanetworks.com/x3/x3tcocc. ... &sector=48

You'll notice the profit for the self-sufficient complex is three times the profit of the non sufficient one, because you're putting back 200,000 credits into the cost of the energy. Where the self-sufficient complex isn't putting out that cost. Yes, it takes a little longer to repay, but the per hour revenue is significantly higher.