Complex builders' block (resolved)

[jlehtone]

But there's one problem with selling ECells in masses... I've seen that most of the factories in the sectors with the SPP's are level 1 - factories - they produce a lot of argnus, bogas or whatever... But there are no buyers for all their products, so these factories don't make much profit and get "killed" by God.

UT is one solution to that problem. My method are the Trading Stations (TD). Lucike's WVH or other similar script probably would be cheaper and more "productive", but I prefer the hard way. With TD you can set the list of wares to be traded in the area. Local food, minerals, (ecells), and end products. Everything that the local NPC economy requires. Thus, when those level 1 factories run, there will be my ship hauling their products forward. And my ships will do it even at 0-profit. UT's would not. Besides, nothing garantees that they stay in the area and trade every ware type of interest. I have no UT's and will have no UT's.

[Deleted User]

OK, I'll ask,

what's WVH,
and what would you need 7 billion credits for ?
(my 48 way gPPC complex 'only' cost 1 billlion)

[jlehtone]

Wrote answer, went looking for link, and lost text.

WVH is one of Lucike's unsigned scripts. Similar style as in CLS and CAG. Sector trader for multiple sectors, like CAG without homebase, ship with player-defined list of traded wares, etc. Probably with only german language file.


What is the price of 334 Tractor Beam Forges? That may explain the 6.7 bil price tag.

[-Dusty-]

This is the most profitable complex (in "vanilla" X3 with no scripted roids): (hope my translation is correct...)


Sector: Savage Spur
Complextype: self-supplying Gigasectorcomplex
Cost: 6.716.951.080 Credits
Profit: 58.899.053 Credits/hour
Amortisation in: 4 days 18:03 hours
856 stations

Boron:
3 × BioGas factory M
38 × BioGas factory L
3 × BoFu-chemical lab M
38 × BoFu-chemcal lab L
98 × Crystal forge M
3 × SPP M
1 × SPP L
18 × SPP XL
Split:
3 × Chelt space aquarium M
66 × Chelt space aquarium L
3 × Rastar refinery M
66 × Rastar refinery L
336 × Tractor beam forge
Teladi:
180 × Silicon mine L
All:
855 × Complex... the thing for connecting the factories, I have no idea what that could be in english

The main part of the price is from the tractor beam forges... So I build the energy/food-complex first, and hope that I can get the rest of the money... In worst case I could sell all the equipment in my Headquarter (worth ~1,5 Billion) and some of my M2... I could also use SINZA to get that money, but I dont like that way

@jlehtone: oh, I know that...

[Deleted User]

That's a big complex

Can't you can use the iterim profits of the partially built mega-complex
to fund building of the rest of it ?

I spy a few problems though (if the complex is sulf-sustaining):

1 you'd need a total of around 934 silicon yield, savagespur 'only' has 789.
2 some of the roids in SS are so close I wonder if you can actually--
--put adjacent mines on them - without them breaking up.
3 how 180 silicon mines?, there's only 48 silicon roid in SS.

I'm thinking that unless you 'plant' some more silicon roids,
you could only get enough silicon for a 280 tractor beam
complex in SS = 600 factories in the complex.

[-Dusty-]

Can't you can use the iterim profits of the partially built mega-complex
to fund building of the rest of it ?

Hm... I don't know if this is a good idea, my plan is to build the base complex first and wait until the stock of resources is filled. This is necessary cause of the complex is just a self-supplying, and not a stable self-supplying complex (It has only effective surplus; the complex wouldn't work if the stock is not filled with resources).
I've already got some smaller complexes (~1100 factories) - the biggest one did cost me 2,4 billions - and I don't want to build more small drug-complexes or whatever... time for something really BIG
I just hope that the profit from these complexes is enough that I can build the maximalcomplex
...and I bought ~25 M2 in the past 2 ingame-days, maybe I shouldn't have done that...

1 you'd need a total of around 934 silicon yield, savagespur 'only' has 789.
2 some of the roids in SS are so close I wonder if you can actually--
--put adjacent mines on them - without them breaking up.
3 how 180 silicon mines?, there's only 48 silicon roid in SS.

The trick is to plant silicon mines on ore-roids - those mines work like if they were on a silicon-roid with a yield of zero. They produce silicon - extremely few, but it's enough

And the roids are extremely close, I know... but I had no problems with building the mines

[Tetris Anarchist]

When I build up my infrastructure, I tend to start with a large crystal farm. (A bunch of SPP loops supporting many crystal fabs, basically)

When I want to build a certain type of fab (say, capital ship weapons), I will attach an SPP, Food fabs, and whatever type of mining fab is needed to the weapon fab.

Each of these mini-complexes is supported not by feeding it e-cells, but by feeding it crystals from my crystal farm, since it's easier to transport 8 crystals and convert it to e-cells on-site rather than directly transport 200 e-cells.

Each of the complexes will also transport their weapons (or whatever is being built) to an equipment dock to store it. Whenever I acquire a new ship, it is sent to the equipment dock, rather than spending the credits to buy the systems I need (although I will buy some ship extensions, such as fight command software and so on)...

If I pursue the Bala Gi missions, I will set up a mini complex devoted solely to providing resources for the shipyard to build new ships.

[jlehtone]

And I have a plan for that. Big Crystal production line in Barren Shores (Karge Wüste) or similar source of Silicon.

Each of these mini-complexes is supported not by feeding it e-cells, but by feeding it crystals from my crystal farm, since it's easier to transport 8 crystals and convert it to e-cells on-site rather than directly transport 200 e-cells.

Essentially the same plan. Distribute limited resource in compact form. Crystals.

I like ships. At least CLS/CAG ships. There is more challenge in choosing "optimal" freighter for each need. And there is the challenge of keeping them alive.


Darn. I think I have to replan my Light of Heart once more. I almost bought some stations already. Good that I did not. I did spot a minor need. Tried to arm some scrap metal I had in HQ. But found out that 65 times 6 beta PBE is slightly more than I have in stock.

I have CLS dropping products from my weapon complexes into Mammoths.

[-Dusty-]

Hm, this thread's a little old now...

...But just if someone's interested in some new complex screens: I've got some for you
Some weeks ago, I posted here that I'm gonna build a complex with 856 factories in Savage Spur. Now, I've finished it
It looks big and ugly... All Screens can you see in my gallery (Atm I've got only the four newest ones, it's really hard to make screenshots in a sector with a framerate of 3 spf (yes, spf is correct^^)...


The construction has taken about 45 realtime-hours and some ingame-days. That was really hard work...

[jlehtone]

Not at all old considering the time needed to achieve the goal that was mentioned before.


That is most impressive piece of work.


Some people consider that sector a good place for HQ. They obviously don't live in your universe.

[bolmy]

*claps* Well done Profitlord, I dont think I would have the patience to do something like that (we shall see though when I get a better computer that can play X3), even though I would enjoy making complexes and stuff (trader by nature).

[Gazz]

Atm I've got only the four newest ones, it's really hard to make screenshots in a sector with a framerate of 3 spf (yes, spf is correct^^)

Did you try a fog mod for 5 km visibility in the sector - at least for as long as you were building? =)

[-Dusty-]

Did you try a fog mod for 5 km visibility in the sector - at least for as long as you were building? =)

That wouldn't take any effect, unfortunately... The main performance-problem with such big complexes is the collision-calculation of the factories and the connections. The CPU has to calculate all the (potential) collisions of all factories - and that's just too much for any CPU. If you decrease all graphics-settings, or use a fog mod, the performance gets a little bit better, but that's maybe 0,5 fps more than before...

But the Tubeless Complex Mod (Sry I don't have the link to an english thread ) helps a lot to increase the Performance while building the complex

[jlehtone]

Ahh, finally the inspiration did kick in.

Sektor: Herzenslicht (Light of Heart)
Komplextyp: selbstversorgender Standardsektorkomplex
Kosten: 234.716.104 Credits
Profit: 2.316.312 Credits/Stunde (not really, only 5 MJ's will get sold)
Amortisierung nach: 4 Tagen 5:20 Stunden
53 Stationen

Argonen:
1 × Ranch L
1 × Cahoona-Presse L
1 × Beta PBK Schmiede (bPAC)
4 × Raketenfabrik Feuersturm
Boronen:
4 × BoGas Produktion L
4 × BoFu-Chemielabor L
7 × Kristallfabrik M
4 × Sonnenkraftwerk M
1 × Sonnenkraftwerk L
1 × Alpha PBK Schmiede (aPAC)
3 × Laserschmiede Beta PS (bPBE)
1 × Raketenfabrik Moskito
1 × Raketenfabrik Gewittersturm (Tempest)
Teladi:
3 × Gewächsstationen M (flowers)
3 × Sonnenblumenöl Raff. M (nostrop)
4 × Erzmine L
4 × Siliziummine L
1 × Alpha PIK Schmiede (aPPC)
3 × Panzerungsfertigung 5 MJ
2 × Raketenfabrik Taifun
Alle:
52 × Komplex-Bauteilsatz


Bit sparse, but plain vanilla build. The rocks are not quite the neat 2x2x2 cube I hoped.
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As usual, some tubes look (IMO) horrid, but will do.

[-Dusty-]

@jlethone: Mh, that complex looks good

Imho you could place the stations nearer to each other, but that's only an aesthetic point.

I see you've moved all the mines with the tractor beam... I will never have the patience to do that

(btw. Could it be that nearly everybody who understands german uses X-Freak Cartman's Komplexprüfer? *g* )

[jlehtone]

Yes, it could be more compact. But I always seem to end up with results like this.

This and Montalaar, those were towed after the 2.0 update. Smooth sailing compared to pre-2.0 tows. Besides, there are only 8 rocks here and 11 in Montalaar, unlike places like Mines of Fortune, where some of us (IIRC szuur) have towed pre-2.0.

So you can build Savage Spur, but not tow. Cannot blame you. Doing both there would be quite a lot.

Montalaar when it was halfway done:
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That S shape was kind of worth the effort.

I use both Dave Toome's tool and Komplexprüfer. I like to copy-paste from KP, although I feel compelled to translate some (obvious) things.

[-Dusty-]

So you can build Savage Spur, but not tow. Cannot blame you. Doing both there would be quite a lot.

I only tow mines if I really have to... I'm just lazy
Most times I just build long pipes with the FCC. It just takes much time to move many asteroids, and that's very boring...

[xTemon]

If you want to build a massive complex and avoid the slowing down as you enter sector then build in an unknown sector or one with almost nothing in it. Wouldn't that kind of make sense. I'm planning on doing it that way for no other reason than I don't feel like having a whole lot of crowding or competition in the sector I choose. Competitions good and all, but lets try to keep it next door.

[xTemon]

If you want to build a massive complex and avoid the slowing down as you enter sector then build in an unknown sector or one with almost nothing in it. Wouldn't that kind of make sense. I'm planning on doing it that way for no other reason than I don't feel like having a whole lot of crowding or competition in the sector I choose. Competitions good and all, but lets try to keep it next door.

[jlehtone]

This is my vanilla equivalent of "Crystal-free SPP" script.

Sektor: Barren Shores
Komplextyp: self-sufficient Megasektorkomplex
Kosten: 471.915.632 Credits
Profit: 0 Credits/Hour (but free Crystals for 75 S SPPs ...)

169 Stations

Boron:
28 × BoGas Produktion L
28 × BoFu-Chemielabor L
70 × Kristallfabrik M
6 × SPP XL
Teladi:
37 × Siliziummine L
And:
168 × CCK

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Just for self-reference, previous "failures":
Njy's Deception
Herron's Nebula
Antigone Memorial
Montalaar
Light of Heart
This p=2052579