Fusion reactors for plot station

[Axeface]

Hello,

I have spent a huge amount of time trying to get the first plot CV some fusion reactors. My game was started in version 3.

My question is has 3.51 introduced any 'fixes' that make the building of this tutorial station somewhat easier/automatic? I have wanted to restart for some time due to many bugs I have found, and maybe now is the time. I just dont want to start again and invest a huge amount of time, only for it to just not work again.

I just want to continue with the plot... I'm growing more and more tired and frustrated. I want to do the plot, and then start building my empire and doing other things.



If egosoft is reading the forums, please just make the plot station get the needed goods from the HoA refugees please? After 60 hours playing this game i'm starting to lose it, and I havn't even seen the other sectors... because I can't continue the plot. I want to see Omicron.

I can't fathom why they put the only stations that produce these needed goods in a sector almost completely controlled by a faction that the plot makes you at war with.... mindboggling. I understand what supposed to be happening in Devries, but it is an unnecessary blockade to the rest of the games content, and nothing but frustrating.

[Goobers]

Do you have the Teladi Outpost DLC?

(since this is spoiler sub-forum, I guess I don't need spoiler tags)

you can get to Teladi space (Fields of Opportunity) from Albion... you should've spotted a gate near the "Lonely Giant" mission location. From FO, you can explore a bit over two sectors, in the second sector is an active gate to OL.

If it makes you feel any better... I had hacked my reputation to be friendly with everyone... and even then, I couldn't find any fusion reactors in Albion space either!!! The station mentioned in a few post I found on Google... didn't even exist!

And yet... something like 208 out of 242 of the reactors appeared from some random passing trader. *shrugs*

[GCU Grey Area]

I can't fathom why they put the only stations that produce these needed goods in a sector almost completely controlled by a faction that the plot makes you at war with

Wouldn't really consider it "almost completely controlled" - PMC have a few stations & some patrolling warships you should certainly be wary of, however the majority of ships & stations in Albion belong to factions you remain on friendly terms with & who really don't care what PMC think about you. You can still trade with them, just need to take a bit of care escorting ships in & out of Albion.

If you want to trade for Fusion Reactors best place is the Ship Tech Fab in Ascendancy/Buried Treasure. There's another one in Forge-Welded Mail, but wouldn't recommend trading with it (nearby hostile PMC station). Fusion Reactors tend to sell out quite quickly so best to scan production modules on the station so you know exactly how long it is to the end of each production cycle & can be ready to initiate trade as soon as the offer appears on the trade screen. Fusion Reactors are built on a 20 minute production cycle & the Buried Treasure station alone produces around 110 FRs per cycle - possible to buy more than enough FRs to build the essential parts of the station in around 1 hour, as long as you can get to the trade offers before the NPCs snap them up - you've generally got a few minutes but don't wait too long.

If you don't feel like paying for them I recommend raiding PMC freighters to obtain the reactors - it's fun & good training for the boarding squad too. Can also do a mix of both approaches (generally my preferred method) - steal a PMC freighter, preferably one already carrying stuff needed for station construction, then send it off to Buried Treasure to buy a batch of FRs before escorting it back to DV.

[Vyrebird]

For non-Teladi space, your tradeships are actually quite safe, even with PMC hostile. Ships with the "Trade" role won't be fired on without provocation, so they can fly throughout PMC controlled areas, next to PMC stations, alongside PMC patrols, and be completely fine. Combined with Trade agents to update the offers on non-PMC stations automatically, your trading can continue relatively uninterrupted (though PMC has a monopoly on a variety of resource sources/sinks, which creates its own issues). The local pirates /will/ still attack your trade ships, but that's no change.

Hostile PMC will attack you, and will attack your "Combat" role ships without provocation. Note that the pirate capitals, "Maurader Titurel", are *wonderful* trade ships (very large cargo bay combined with universal storage - they're better than the buyable XL trade capitals from Albion, DeVries, or the Teladi, though I haven't been to Omicron yet to compare those), and they are classed as Trade not Combat. But the normal Rahanas, Sanahar, Styrvok, etc will work fine too.

Teladi space is different - some of the locals there proactively attack trade ships even while friendly. Because of that, I haven't dealt with it much.

For fusion reactors specifically, there are non-PMC stations that sell them. They weren't in stock very often, and were quite expensive, but I've managed to buy a couple hundred. From Roguey's X Rebirth site, there are two non-PMC fusion reactor sellers in Albion - a Ship Tech Fab in Ascendancy/Buried Treasure and Ascendancy/Forge-Welded Mail. Like Grey Area said, they will sell out quickly, so either check frequently to catch a batch, or examine the station to fine out when the batches will complete, so you can buy it before someone else does.

However, the stations can be bugged - for me, the one non-PMC Reinforced Metal Plates seller refuses to activate that trading port (the plate production module lists tons of plate in stock and plenty of materials --it's actually stopped due to being overstocked on plates-- but does not offer any for sale, and the map-indicated trading port location isn't an active trading port if you visit it). If your fusion reactor sellers are bugged like that, pirating is likely your only option.

There seem to be three basic ways to pirate:
1) steal cargo capital ships with Boarding, taking their cargo in the process
2) hack cargo capital ships with a Trojan drone, forcing them to drop some of their cargo
3) hack station modules, causing them to temporarily drop (some of?) that module's storage
The hacking options don't actually hurt your faction, but scooping up the station-dropped cargo will turn the station hostile (temporary only, from what I gather - I haven't tried it). Scooping the drops from a hacked cargo ship is safe. I've mostly done option 1, boarding a ton of PMC Rahanas and Sanahars for RMP and fusion reactors (they're expensive!), plus other materials as I've tried to build up other stations and kept running into PMC-only supply issues (like Nividium Cubes). I've hacked some friendly capitals when they had particularly lucrative cargo, but then you have to deal with Cargo Collect Mode to pick it up, and that's a pain imo.

Technically, you can also kill/capture the small cargo ships, but capturing them is random chance, and when killed they only drop a small fraction of their total cargo (which isn't big to begin with), making it feel impractical at scale. Can be a small side-business, though.

--

Overall, how difficult it is to build stations with PMC hostile does feel odd. They basically force you into piracy if you have any hiccup in the Albion supply chain (like my bugged trade modules). While this could be held as the "piracy tutorial", it doesn't seem presented as such, so it feels more like an odd oversight/design choice to me. I mean, I've enjoyed my piracy stint, but it would've been nice to have the /option/ to have bought the RMP and Nividum cubes (and however many other wares I wind up being blocked on) instead. As is, credits don't have much value, beyond funding buying more Captains/Engineers/Defense Officers, and the odd expensive station material that I don't get enough of as a byproduct of my captures (Plasma turrets, Bio-optics, and chemicals, mostly). Selling off even a tiny amount of the captured goods to HoA/RoC more than pays for that, though.

[PabloRSA]

fusion reactors are hard to get, but what i did was start again and then buy all the paneling and reactors, bio optics etc.. before going through the gate.
Do plot until you go through and then buy wares, if there is not enough then wait and explore for a good manager, defence officer and metallurgist specialist. By the time you find them you should have a good amount of reactors.
Need to be quick as they are high demand, also check every 5 minutes.

You need the following
Energy Cells: 5596 (easy to get after gate)
Reinforced Plating: 2455 (2100 odd on CV)
Bio Optics: 675
Fusion Reactors: 656
HIT/MA Turret: 135
Plasma/MA Turret: 55
Force Field Projectors: 57
V Launchers: 8

[Axeface]

Thanks for all the in-depth replies. With your advice I managed to get the fusion reactors in the end, it was a real pain though. I manged to grab a batch during production in ascendency (while under constant attack), as you all said my frieghter didnt get attacked - I had tried to purchase them before a few times, but I had my taranis trying to protect my rahanas, I just assumed that the freighter would get attacked too - didn't end well (and the game doesnt tell you that).

Once I finally got to Omicron... what can I say... it is gorgeous, breathtaking. That fact makes me think even more that ego needs to make it easier to progress. Omicron and Maelstrom are stunning, and the rest of the plot was surprisingly bug free and really quite good.