The X3TC Merchant's Survival Guide Version 1.0 [Spoilers Tagged]

[phoenix-it]

Nicely written.

Some might feel that they still learn a bit too much about the sandbox, but those chaps hardly visit threads titled "guide" anyway. I think it is important to clarify the usual cases where the user thinks that there is a bug, while there is not. In ideal world that would decrease the amount of false bug reports in the tech support forum, and leave more time for the Devs to work on the real bugs (which naturally should be reported there).

So are you saying I did a good job of point out those things that aren't broken and that you just have to do them a certain way? Or are you saying that I should put some more "this is not broken because" messages in there?

I'm also thinking of maybe putting the TIPS in spoilers. Some people might just want to know how to properly complete the mission without the tips on how to beat the clock.

I'm not sure if I'd classify "Trade missions" as "trading" though. If I would, I could call Assassination a "trade run" as well. You do invest in resources (weapons) and deliver the product (death) for which you get paid. The product is about as tangible as in "trade missions". Thus, almost "regular" trade.

Yes... As I progress, I am finding that traditional trading and factory building are not nearly as lucrative as continuing to do various missions.

For example: I can buy and build a medium wheat farm for around 350,000 credits. I can add freighters to that, let's say I got them cheap and just added shields, 250,000 for both. Now, I have to wait for my 600,000 credit investment to pay for itself, and then churn out free credits.

-Or-

I can get a contract from a Teladi to build an ammunition factory for... 1,600,000 credits free and clear above the cost of the station.

So, as I think about part two, I think the guide's focus will be changing. Instead of "do missions to get your foot in the door trading" it might become "do missions to become a manufacturing tycoon".

On the other hand, even the "resource shortage" mission is more like getting paid for delivery, rather than "buy low, sell high" of traditional trading. Overall, the missions seem to be the main focus of the X3TC, and the trade&build is more to provide wares for your empire. Nevertheless, using the "shooting required" as distinction between "trade" and "fight" is quite reasonable.


It is nice to hear that the tricks that work on X3R missions pretty much are valid for X3TC too.

Imagine having huge production complexes of your own churning out masses of goods. You've got a legion of super freighters selling those goods for you automatically. They jump to an unlimited range to sell your wares to whoever is buying, and refuel themselves automatically. (I haven't actually tried autojump + trade commands yet...)

Then, when you run across the guy asking for 12,000 meatsteaks in 15 minutes and offering to pay 5 million credits you can load that up right from your complex on to 3 super freighters and fill that order.

I have some ideas about using trading stations to do this early on. Seeing as how bio/food factories will sit there full until the local tech factories get enough energy to burn through their stock. There may be a buy-and-hold process there that is quite lucrative.

[jlehtone]

So are you saying I did a good job ...

Yes.

I'm also thinking of maybe putting the TIPS in spoilers.

That is probably polite.

Imagine having huge production complexes of your own churning out masses of goods. ... Then, when you run across the guy asking for 12,000 meatsteaks in 15 minutes and offering to pay 5 million credits you can load that up right from your complex on to 3 super freighters and fill that order.

That is exactly what I do in my X3R game now, except that no customer ever requests quantity that large. But that implies the empire to be there. Not the stage when the door is still almost closed.


Tip: Rather than posting three comments in a row, you can use the Edit button to add to the latest post. That is more polite on fora.

[random50]

I believe the AI traders are just not interested with the other deals floating around and that this is why the economy feels broken. What I think will happen eventually is: As those top end deals become scarce, the AI traders will start moving low margin goods. THEN the economy will start to move

That makes sense. In my game, every station in Omicron Lyrae was sitting bereft of ore, silicon and e-cells despite them being available at rock bottom one sector away. Since I had a ship camped at the Advanced Sat factory there, I bought a superfreighter to restock. I was too slow with the silicon (but managed to sell it nearby). By the time I'd got the ecells, not only was the sat factory full of them, but so was every single factory in the neighboring sectors!

Trading is going to be harder, I think. Not that this is a bad thing (with X3R you could effectively build any factory you liked and be certain of buying at minimum and selling at maximum)

[phoenix-it]

That is exactly what I do in my X3R game now, except that no customer ever requests quantity that large. But that implies the empire to be there. Not the stage when the door is still almost closed.

Actually, you can pull this off early on in TC... Just not as easily as if you had your own empire.

Look for a sector with factories completely bereft of energy cells, one will probably have a "Resources Needed" mission. Send one or two of those super freighters you bought used at a discount to some solar power plants... Buy the required amount, jump the freighters in and accept the mission. Dock the freighters 1 at a time personally and you'll make a ton of credits.

That makes sense. In my game, every station in Omicron Lyrae was sitting bereft of ore, silicon and e-cells despite them being available at rock bottom one sector away. Since I had a ship camped at the Advanced Sat factory there, I bought a superfreighter to restock. I was too slow with the silicon (but managed to sell it nearby). By the time I'd got the ecells, not only was the sat factory full of them, but so was every single factory in the neighboring sectors!

Trading is going to be harder, I think. Not that this is a bad thing (with X3R you could effectively build any factory you liked and be certain of buying at minimum and selling at maximum)

What's interesting is that once the high price goods start being produced again those same freighters will probably stop supplying low margin goods. If this goes down like I am thinking, the markets will oscillate; which is why I mentioned the using a Trading Station early on (before you have massive complexes) to play a buy-and-hold strategy. When the factories start to run low on low margin goods again, because the traders have switched back to trading the more profitable tech, you'll have a stock to take advantage of the the high prices the tech factories will be paying for food.

Yes, trading IS harder, which is why we are seeing a buzz about secondary resources. It's hard to sell anything produced at locations local to it's production. But, to be fair, trading manually, or with UTs outperformed factories in profits in X3R. (Unless you were running closed loops...) There was something wrong with the idea that factories were not your most profitable investment.

[Mav'r'ck]

Great guide phoenix...

Just a quick point though, missions and combat can never and will never sub for a good trading empire.

The point is with trading that all of it - stations, UTs, MORTS - happens in the background. Whatever you are doing is not hampered by trading.

Also trading still makes absolute fortunes...I've gone about empire building in a very backwards way as I am not touching UTs and stations until the UT bug is fixed, and I can get the commercial agent script...may even wait for the first bonus pack (actually, I must confess I'm really quite annoyed that the BP wasn't simply incorporated into the game, seems odd to me actually remove huge numbers of features from the final versions of X3 only to inevitably put them back in but anyhoo).

Back on topic, this has led me to ESD's guide on MORTs (see guides sticky) and a couple of Mistrals. In the short time I've had them, I've been amazed at how much money I've made, and this is with no satellites, no real planning or effort, and no high tech goods.

If I were really dedicated, even new TC style mission rewards wouldn't compare to a good nose for profit, a comprehensive satellite network and maybe 10 MORTS - 15-20 UTs. It also occurs that combat missions would become even more of an earner if you can afford a decent fleet before you start taking them.

Basically it's just to say if trading was your thing in X3, there's no reason why it shouldn't be now, and I'm sure some of the new sectors will have significant shortages in one thing or another...and this is coming from a very much combat orientated pilot.

Deals do go quickly, but I would think this makes even more fun potential for the committed trader as there would be real value in, as you also describe, a variety of trading ships for different goods.

Still, once again a fantastic guide on an original subject, much appreciated!

[JMCorp]

I'm also thinking of maybe putting the TIPS in spoilers.

That is probably polite.

ok now i think you guys are just being silly. if this is the case then any tip or trick on how to fight better or whatever would need to be in spoilers.

example:

i'm in a disco with IREs and i cant beat this falcon vanguard, he keeps kicking my butt... how do i beat him?

Spoiler

Show

get a bigger ship!

now doesn't that just look dumb in spoilers? nothing in that guide needs to be in spoilers IMO except the locations. and that's even iffy since your dang encyclopedia tells you anywhere you have found that has what you're looking for.

[Laden Swallow]

Tip: Your space suit can strafe at incredible speeds (far greater than forward motion), so you can with some effort repair ships up to ~70 m/s without stopping.

Corollary: You can fly slightly faster if you strafe as well as travel at your top forward speed. Useful for a few extra m/s at least.

[MeatBag]

Well, the economy isn't "broken" per se... I actually started a thread about the economic weirdness last week.

The problem is the AI traders are looking for the highest returns, which means top end goods get traded FIRST. This is why energy and ore seem to sit there in factories hardly bought while factories in the very next sector sit there completely empty.

I believe the AI traders are just not interested with the other deals floating around and that this is why the economy feels broken. What I think will happen eventually is: As those top end deals become scarce, the AI traders will start moving low margin goods. THEN the economy will start to move, but I still believe things will bounce back and fourth as tech factories start producing and then stalling from a lack of resources. The problem is, none of us have been playing the game long enough for this to happen yet... Of course, I could be wrong and the problem could actually be caused by coding somewhere. Only time will tell...

I see the logic of this and agree with you. If this is true then we should find that the most ignored resources are: E-Cells, Ore, Scruffin fruits, MeatSteaks, Plankton and Wheat.

[random50]

If this goes down like I am thinking, the markets will oscillate; which is why I mentioned the using a Trading Station early on (before you have massive complexes) to play a buy-and-hold strategy. When the factories start to run low on low margin goods again, because the traders have switched back to trading the more profitable tech, you'll have a stock to take advantage of the the high prices the tech factories will be paying for food.

Have you bought one? From memory, trading stations held too little stock to be that useful in X3R. Have they upped the capacity?

Yes, trading IS harder, which is why we are seeing a buzz about secondary resources. It's hard to sell anything produced at locations local to it's production. But, to be fair, trading manually, or with UTs outperformed factories in profits in X3R. (Unless you were running closed loops...) There was something wrong with the idea that factories were not your most profitable investment.

Hmm. I don't really agree with that. First, by setting up your own factories you increase the size of the economy. Second, if you kept your complexes *open* rather than having closed loops, your factory traders effectively end up being universe traders anyway (since they're constantly buying at min for your fabs then offloading the products at max) They do it more efficiently than UTs though since you can place your complexes for minimal travel time, don't have to put up with the occasionally dodgy UT trade selection and are more likely to have a completely full ship, particularly on the buy side of the trade (I'm assuming the use of jumpdrive capable CAGs here)

[Cantankerous]

see a lot of people saying these are “Impossible” on the forums, and I’m here to tell you that they’re not. And, in fact, I have yet to fail one…

How? Well, they are probably the most difficult THINK missions that exist in the sandbox game. But THINKing, is your key to competing them. You must be on the ball to complete these. You have to use every trick that exists in the game to minimize your flight time. There are a lot of these tricks and, if you put your mind to it, you can get places in a very short amount of time with the right plan and the right equipment.

Unless the mission changes while you are doing it.

Example: and I've had this happen more than once, I took a job to ferry Entertainment Chips, had 19 minutes to do it; undocked almost immediately used my J Drive, just before docking checked the timer, said 16 remained. Docked, took on the Entertainment Chips, checked timer, 15 minutes left, undocked , checked timer, had no time left at all. Still jumped back, got to the station with what should have been more than 11 minutes left, according to another timer that was tracking another mission I was doing simultaneously, and as soon as I get within 5 kilometers of the station it told me the time had expired and I was stuck with the 53 Entertainment Chips and an angry customer.

So, yes, there ARE mission of the sort that can NOT be completed, ever, by anyone, without regard to how well planned they are and how well executed they are.


Isshia

[EmperorJon]

Great guide, just want to know what you're going to say about build missions. There so obviously overpowered.

EG. Lowish Trade rank. Buy factory for 250,000. Reward: 1,000,000

High Trade rank, Buy factory for 12,000,000. Reward: 70,000,000

With the first one you quadruple your money, with the second you wonder how they're ever going to get the money back from that station...

[phoenix-it]

So, yes, there ARE mission of the sort that can NOT be completed, ever, by anyone, without regard to how well planned they are and how well executed they are.


Isshia

What kind of ship were you using?

I do the see dock-and-lose-two-minutes bug all the time. But I have still never failed a mission like this that has more than 3 minutes to complete.

BTW: This guide is degraded at the moment... I'll clean it up after the release of 2.0.

[phoenix-it]

With the first one you quadruple your money, with the second you wonder how they're ever going to get the money back from that station...

I only see this on stations they can't get... i.e. YOU can get a Paranid station for the Argon government, but they certainly can't buy it themselves.

BTW Rumor is missions of all types are getting rebalanced in 2.0.

[Cantankerous]

So, yes, there ARE mission of the sort that can NOT be completed, ever, by anyone, without regard to how well planned they are and how well executed they are.


Isshia

What kind of ship were you using?

I do the see dock-and-lose-two-minutes bug all the time. But I have still never failed a mission like this that has more than 3 minutes to complete.

BTW: This guide is degraded at the moment... I'll clean it up after the release of 2.0.

This has happened now in three differing ships, the third time last night, in an Elite where directly after launching with the chips in place 24 minutes of time magically vanished. The first time was in a Buzzard, the second, where I used the jump drive and should have had more than half of my time left at the end was in a Buster Vanguard. Last night as well, in the Elite, I used the Jump drive to get to my target station to pick up the chips in less than four minutes.

It has to be a bug. That's the only thing that makes sense.


Isshia

[phoenix-it]

I personally have never experienced this, but I will acknowledge the possibility that the problem can exist for others since there are so many that I have seen talk about this since I wrote the guide. Perhaps its related to third party scripts, a corrupt installation or maybe even a bug on their machine hardware.

If I still see complaints of this after 2.0 I'll note it in the guide and suggest the person post about it in the technical support forum.

[Cantankerous]

I personally have never experienced this, but I will acknowledge the possibility that the problem can exist for others since there are so many that I have seen talk about this since I wrote the guide. Perhaps its related to third party scripts, a corrupt installation or maybe even a bug on their machine hardware.

If I still see complaints of this after 2.0 I'll note it in the guide and suggest the person post about it in the technical support forum.

No 3rd party scripts whatever, and there seem to be no other abnormalities that everyone else doesn't get too, like problems with many of the Company Missions and the like...this is seemingly (as this is a twice sanitized Steam account) a problem in the game, for some maybe? Does anyone know if Steam can be reloaded to attempt a second installation?

[ThommoHawk]

Thanks. Looking forward to part 2, to see if there is any point of having your own UT fleet /or equivelant. Nothing beats working for yourself and being as independant as possible of working for bosses (which is what all missions amount to).

[phoenix-it]

Thanks. Looking forward to part 2, to see if there is any point of having your own UT fleet /or equivelant. Nothing beats working for yourself and being as independant as possible of working for bosses (which is what all missions amount to).

It will change a lot knowing what I know now... But that still may change with 2.0. It's going to be a more-or-less sandbox mission guide. I'll probably include the combat ones as well.

Sandbox missions are the only thing that doesn't really have any attention in the other guides I've read.

[Cale245]

(( ill make a new thread for the Q, my bad.))

[TTD]

First,this thread is very old.Best to open a new thread,as old ones tend to get locked.

Second you don't say which game or version number you are playing,so I will assume it is TC version 3.1.1

Third,this is a trading thread , not a combat/mission thread.

You also do not tell us which ship you are flying,so we can't tell you what gunnery is best.

Neither do you tell us which game start you are in or what sectors you are familiar with.


But

You need to learn how to capture ships before you take this type of mission
Yes you do need much better shielding.

If you open a new thread and give us more information , then I am sure we can assist you better