How to make sexier complexes [Updated, again!]

[Bishop149]

Well done!
Looks like a very nice guide.

So far I only have one biggish (more than 2 station) complex and its messy as hell!

I only have two points to raise.
1)

Ensure the 2 nodes are at least 2 and a half tunnel pieces away from one another.

Fancy putting an actual distance on that for us?

2) Can you rotate mines (Ore and Silicon)? In my experience you can't, so it might be an idea when constructing a complex to place the mines first and then align other fabs to them . . . . ?

[Ryuujin]

1) Not really, I havn't been able to work out a precise scale, even I get it wrong fairly often. But like I said, it's roughly 2/3's the width of an average, circlular perimeter station (that is, 2/3'rds going from the node).

If you position the 2 stations so you could just fit another station between them, you're on the right track.


2) I don't think so. It might be worth parking your ship over the top of the target asteroid, facing due north (use the sector map to orientate yourself), and then go to outside view, and get a birds-eye view, and then deploy the station, that'll give you a clear view of the mine, and see if it's possible to line it up neatly. I havn't tried to be honest, I usually park down a mine, and then use a sector trader or freighters to supply. If I use it at all (Many sectors have a perfectly good set of NPC mines).

[Blacjacmac]

I've not been able to create anything as nice as yours, and honestly I don't think I have the patience to do such a nice job. I wish I did, because mine are limited to 2-3 fabs before becoming unmanageable or becoming entirely too big, but this is just beyond me.

Still, the knowledge of the true north thing is incredibly useful in cleaning up even my basic complexes, so thanks again. I'll just have to wait until we get some kind of Ryuujin base optimizer software for purchase in game

Tx again.

[General Dave]

A very useful guide, just a few points.

I've recently set up a monster complex

(SPP XL, 5 MCrystal Fabs, 3 L Chelt refineries, 3 L Rastar refineries, 3 Ammo Factories, 2 Thunderbolt Missile Factories, 1 L Silicon mine 64 yield)

Points to consider......

SPPXL comes with 5 (count em) 5 docking clamps as standard (5 lots of 6)
so it would be useful to have the crystal supplying complex seperated from it to allow maximum trade.

End resource points (good eg ammo factories) only have one hub point, so your best bet is to connect your food factories in a line, and have one of these factories coming off each one, it looks very neat.

Missile factories seem to have 2-3 nodes, food factories (at least L ones) seem to have 4 nodes, three located together near the docking clamp and one at the end to allow a straight connection.

It's prolly already been emphasized but the resources your factory will sell are not neccesarrily those you want it to.

Currently my XLSPP has 300,000 spare energy crystals as it is producing quicker than the factories attached are using it, and I cannot sell the energy as it is counted as in intermediary resource.

It doesn't bother me as I use this energy for Jumpdrive fuel by docking a TS at the station and adjusting parameters till my TS is full of energy, but if you start off a factory complex the first factory you build should end up as a product.

It doesn't always work though as my silicon mine is now also an intermediary product

Sorry for the

[blackfire83]

Okay, here's my crazy idea on how to make complexes actually work. Kudos on the beautiful complex setup, though.

Anyway, I'm going to eventually make my own mega-sector. First will be a self-sustaining XL SPP complex, complete with 5 crystal fabs and all the food and silicon needed... Anyway, that complex's end product is bunchs of E-Cells, obviously.

Next up is a Food Complex for each race that I need food for (i.e. Argnu Beef for Argon, BoFu for Boron, etc.). I don't know if I can make this into one mega-complex that only requires E-Cells and spits out Argnu Beef, BoFu, Soja Husks, etc as end products, or if I'll have to make a complex for each end food product...

Next up, a few solitary ore and silicon mines. All they require is E-Cells...

And lastly, pepper the sector with Weapons and Shield fabs. Complexes where convenient (like the AI does with "Special Weapons Facilities", "PAC Complex" etc.). These will require E-Cells, food, and either ore or silicon (usually ore, unless I'm mistaken)... And here's where the beauty comes in...

Sector Traders... Grab a half dozen of them and let them loose. Make sure all my factories are buying and selling at the same price and the ST's (in theory) should move the e-cells where they are needed and move the food and ore where it is needed. It may take awhile to get going, and I'll probably need more ST's than a thought, but I think it'll be effective, with the end product being lots of weapons and shields.

-blackfire83

[Sandalpocalypse]

Dave - I was gonna say, for that number of facs you only really need an L SPP.

I would seperate the SPP from the complex and set prices of crystals and ecells so that it sells at or slightly above cost. Don't set the ECell or Crystal price too low though, your UTs might decide to get a piece of the action.

[General Dave]

I use it solely to supply weapons, I just need to add more facts to it.

How do you seperate a station from a complex without restarting?

The loop is an internal one designed to provide an inexuastable supply of t'bolt missiles and MD ammo, although I have a mamba selling some MD ammo to cover the cost of buying ore in.....

[Sandalpocalypse]

You have to destroy the hub, then use a new batch of complex kits to resconstruct the complex without attaching the SPP. The easiest way is simply to use cheats. I don't consider it cheating per se; it's simply accomplishing a task the game should let you do for free.

Seperating the SPP has other advantages, though. You can use the XL to power complexes in other sectors.

[General Dave]

I tried to destroy the near invinceable tunnels. There are 18 complex construction kits already in place totalling somewhere near 7,200,000 to replace, I think i'll just build many more weapons fabs on thank you very much.....

Great advice though, cheers

I cant hold off any longer, heres my super duper complex....You can't see it all in sector as it's cloudy, but it's really neatly laid out thanks totally to this guide. See the fruits of your labour....

Biggish Complex

[X-it]

I cant hold off any longer, heres my super duper complex....You can't see it all in sector as it's cloudy, but it's really neatly laid out thanks totally to this guide. See the fruits of your labour....

(pic)

Wow, looks amazing! I only have one wheat farm so far...

Anyway I'd say that this complex stuff is probably one of the more significant features of X3 compared to X2.

Short question (sort of):

If I were to build a complex deliving solely energy cells, in which order should I set it up / connect it so that ONLY the energy cells were available to sell?

I'm thinking of an XL SPP complex consisting of - for example Teladi:

1 XL SPP
5 M Crystal Fabs
2 L Flower Farms
2 L Sun Oil Refineries

and 2 L Silicon Mines, although these could be set up in a different location and have transporters carrying the goods.

[General Dave]

your thinking of about 30,000,000 right cause it'll cost that much....

Short answer is the SPP first and then add everything to it, but I don't really know. Save the game beforehand and practise, but make sure you don't save over your game with a complex that's crap and don't work.

[holo_doctor]

Has anyone ever though of generating a script to change the outgoign wares of a Complex, eg switching Ecells from resrouce to product. should not be hard I mean it wouldn't be much diferent to the older ware manager signed script from the X2 bonus plugins.

Maybe ego will add something like this for 1.3 should not take more than 5 to 10 Mins to kick up a simple script like that. Im no ehere near compleax building yet unless i cheat my way but someone who is there could do it.

Either that or put something in the complex console under each ware like

TRADE AS

with options of RESROUCE or PRODUCT

giving us compleate control over complex wares.

Just a thought bring on 1.3 and lets see what we get if we dont get something I may write the script myself

[jlehtone]

I wonder why the rotation of mines is not enabled. It could be a side-effect of the control interface too.

The examples of complexes look really neat. Too bad there are no precision tools to make it easier, for example ghosts of tubing directions and snap-on-nearest. Now they require work to achieve.

But I cannot help myself from thinking Ore Belt. If I ever put a mine there, I will not stop at one. More likely to stop when there are no more roids left. Leave the slideshow and never go back. Complex could be handy. Or deadly. More appalling than appealing.

[arcana75]

Someone already wrote a script that allows u to choose exactly which product can be sold at a complex. Check the scripts forum.

[subjugator]

A few tips and a question or two to refine the process.

First of all, Face North or the north gate. Place your first station.

I use normal sector zoom to initially place the second station ON TOP of a existing station (in the sector view, NOT FINAL PLACEMENT), I think you can press numpad 5 key to do this. Then I start zooming in. Each level of zoom gives you finer and finer control over positioning of the station.

On station spacing, if someone can work out what zoom level and station spacing (one blank between stations, stations touching in sector view, etc) gives you the optimal spacing for complex tubing (straight predictable connections between the nodes) that would help this process out alot.

Align the complex hub with ONE station that you choose to be the branch off point for connections with the rest of the complex.

For example: sector view 1


CH --> X
|
|
Station1 --> X---X <--station 2

Sector view 2

Station1 and CH --> X---X <--station2

Now, questions I have.

numpad 5 key. What exactly does this do. In my test, with a crytal fab anchored and placing a second crystal fab it aligned the second fab up with the first (When looking at them visually they looked like ONE station) Is this what the key does? or does it snap it to a default direction? Just some final word on what this key does would help alot in this process.

What is the mesurement of one section of complex tubing? If we know this, we can use a specifc zoom level to space stations correctly.

Sorry if this is unclear, it is difficult to explain a visual process in words....

[Ryuujin]

Pressing 5 once will show you a back view, again will show you a front view.

If you placed down the initial station without rotating it as I said, this will let you align the camera perfectly due north/due south, which means you can position the hub perfectly North or South, and gives you a point of reference to place down the next stations.

As for the tube length, I'm going to try get some measure on that next time I'm in game, and then post up piccies, then people can make their own "guage" =p (ie. get a piece of paper next to the screen, mark off the "gauge" and then in game, use the same piece of paper to hold against the screen and distance their stations).

[-XTM-]

Could somebody confirm that the Argon AHEPT/BPAC forges are bugged
as to the number of connect-points they support?

When trying to add them I always run into troubles fast cause the tube-link doesn't include them as supporting multi-connects...they always want a direct end-hub point and when that one's full, X3 just bails out (CTD).

I haven't got this problem with the Argon APPC and APBE forge (they do link-up nicely with the rest, 1 entrance, 1 exit point for the tubes) so someting is just not right.

To clearify:

AHEPT--->Complex--->HUB > impossible ?, always ends up like this :

AHEPT-------\
................ HUB
Complex----/


APPC---->Complex----->HUB > great, works.


I'll do some more testing but other feedback is most welcome at this moment.

[Mentalor]

WOOO! and indeed YAY!

I've finally managed to get station placement and distance sorted.

Once you've got your first station down, get in a nice, nimble M5 and fly right into the station to get a close look at where the nodes are (do different race's nodes look different? The Teladi ones seem to have a 3 pronged lock thing over them). Fly right up to the node and orient the ship so that the node is directly behind you (F2 twice to look backwards)...then fly forward and stop about 1.5km away from the station.

Put your next station down and place it so that you are looking directly at a node (practice runs are good...save lots). If you haven't moved the orientation of the ship, the nodes should line up nicely.

Zoom in on the sector map to place the station as close as you can...you've got 1.5km from the last station and 1.5km to the next is a good distance, though a big station may require more. When you get too close the stations seem to start flashing and jumping around.

I've used this method to place my last 4 stations onto an existing complex and got them all laid easily, quickly and without many reloads...before that I'd had no end of problems.

All we need to know now is how many nodes are on the different stations...or more importantly, which ones have 3 nodes (good to expand the complex) and which ones have 1 node.

[idimmu]

is there a list of how many nodes each station has?

previously i built a complex with 30 factories in a straight line, but they all, unknown to me, had 2 nodes each, so it was really easy.

i've now placed 100 factories in a sector to be my weapons creation fab, but i didnt realise until about 30s ago that some factories only have 1 node so it's impossible for me to hook them up in to a straight line.

does anyone have any idea how many nodes each factory has so i can work out how the **** i can link this behomoth up?

[deathhandx3]

Man this sucks hard i,ve set up more then 500 stations in X2!!!
Now i,ve read every single post about Complexes
Still all i build looks F*cked up
Have lost more then 2 days of gaming ,and i'm totally pissed off
Such a shame EGOSOFT spend so manny time and effort in something
SO BAD

*I cant Fly arrond my" gosth-factories" like we all did in X2
Then how the hell should i be able to put my stadions in the right position??
*Whit each builing added to my complex my frame rate start dropping hard!!!
*i'm Really Disapointed ,maby its time to put X3 back in the case
untill 1.04 is out!!!!