Aldrin question (I don't see how this spoils anything, but... you know...)

[Imgran]

So I noticed when I finally found Aldrin that it's 60 e-cells to jump to Aldrin from anywhere.

So I wondered... can you use that? If you set up a plex in Aldrin with autojump-enabled service freighters and topped up with at least 120 e-cells before they set out, is the world your market?

Just wondering if anyone's tried this.[/i]

[Nanook]

Won't work. Autojumps, even for UT's and CAG's, don't work for gateless sectors. The only way to get ships to jump in and out is to manually command them to do so.

[bizbag]

This is basically the FedEx approach: ship 'em all to Tennessee, then back out again in the name of efficiency.

I've thought about it, but there's two problems and a third issue:

One, when you complete the Aldrin Expansion, it loses that feature, due to reconnecting to the regular network.

Two, strategic placement of the Hub can significantly reduce your energy cell consumption. Jumping to Aldrin is always "six" jumps, twelve since you need to head back out again. Unless you're going more than twelve jumps away all the time, you'll end up in the red on ECells thanks to the small cost of short jumps.

The third issue is that the sheer logistics of setting this up is all in the name of saving a few energy cells, which is really a negligible expense at that stage of the game, really.

[Imgran]

This is basically the FedEx approach: ship 'em all to Tennessee, then back out again in the name of efficiency.

I've thought about it, but there's two problems and a third issue:

One, when you complete the Aldrin Expansion, it loses that feature, due to reconnecting to the regular network.

Two, strategic placement of the Hub can significantly reduce your energy cell consumption. Jumping to Aldrin is always "six" jumps, twelve since you need to head back out again. Unless you're going more than twelve jumps away all the time, you'll end up in the red on ECells thanks to the small cost of short jumps.

The third issue is that the sheer logistics of setting this up is all in the name of saving a few energy cells, which is really a negligible expense at that stage of the game, really.

Not so much "saving a few energy cells" as "making the whole X-universe accessible to my plex all at the same time."