Tall Glass Ice and Water Company daily report

[Kirlack]

@Tim: I tried buying wheat @ 20 credits, but it seems the NPC traders were constantly beating me to it as none of my traps were buying, and the farms were always empty. I know it's not an energy issue as A.C.E. is working very well to keep the whole region supplied. So I've switched them to buy @ 31 and my distributors are selling @ 42. Not a huge profit margin (actually works out a little less profitable than cells on a per volume basis), but as I take more and more control of the economy I should be able to adjust that for higher profits. I'm sure I can expand the wheat exports into Boron space as well, but I've got a mountain of other things to sort out first lol.

Right. I've now got all four of my companies set up (woohoo!)

Argon Core Energy (A.C.E.) is now running a slimmed down 31 ships (11 Mercury Haulers as traps, 4 Mercurys as collection agents for the HQ and 16 Mercurys as distribution agents). Most of the distributors are jumpdrive equipped (although that in itself has caused some problems because after they make a sale they have to fly back to collect ). I think I might need to upgrade their cargo bays a little to allow for jump fuel for both directions (and shields). Buying cells @ 12 and selling @ 17.

In the meantime Argon Meat & Wheat (A.M.W.) is just starting to turn a steady profit from their homebase up in Power Circle (sorry Tim, but it made sense ). Due to the ridiculous number of Tier 1 factories (and my need to train some more CLS pilots), the company runs on 51 ships. (!) 4 of those are dedicated to buying and distributing Space Fuel though A business within a business if you like Currently buying Wheat @ 31, selling @ 42 (except to the Boron, who won't pay more than 35 for it), buying Beef @ 80, selling @ 140 and buying Space Fuel @ 700, selling @ 1100.

Down in Ore Belt I've built In Awe Mineral Deposits (I.A.M.D.). No freighters yet but there's not that many mines in the region so I'm expecting to run the whole company on ~15 ships. Planned finances are to buy Ore @ 50, sell @ 129 and buy Silicon @ 300, sell @ 505.

And finally, over in Ringo Moon we have Prime Steaks Exports (P.S.E.). Again I've not assigned freighters to this one yet. I've screwed up slightly here, as I built 2x Cahoona Bakery L instead of one and a Rimes Fact. It's literally just this second dawned on me that I can sell Rimes all day long in Argon space Anyway, I'm planning to buy Meatsteaks @ 60 and sell @ 100. Not sure on the pricing for Rimes.

I've got pretty much zero experience with meatsteaks or beef (most of my personal trading has always been in either energy or minerals, unless I was in Teladi space).

I gotta say, I'm really enjoying this style of play, rather than going down the Mk3 trader route. I've always like playing with CLS anyway, but this has added a whole new dimension to my game.

Now, what would you do about using jumpdrives for distribution? Set up a fuel tender for each company hq (not the energy one, obviously), and have them pick up fuel from the traps, or from the power hq?

[Timsup2nothin]

I have three alternatives for the e-cell distributors selling their jump fuel problem.

1) I believe that if you set up a fuel tank for them to fuel from rather than having them fuel in the same waypoint they are loading they will actually keep it straight and not sell their jump fuel...as long as you make sure they are ALWAYS empty when they hit the refueling stop...meaning that if they haven't sold their load they need to dump it off to the HQ then pick it back up after they refuel.

2) Set up a refueling system. Put a fuel tank in the trading station of the 'problem' sectors and add a refuel stop after the sell waypoints so they can refuel for the jump back. M3s with large cargo bays work good for this since the distributor should be set to only load jump fuel for a one way trip. Then you need a 'fuel truck' to cruise around topping off all the fuel tanks.

3) Use substations. Cattle ranches are cheap, and filling them with e-cells is cheap. Scatter enough substations around that the distributors never have to fly far enough to need a jump drive. If you use the HQs of your other companies as substations I would guess you might only need one or two more...and the other freighters for your other companies can tap into the flow through their HQ for jump fuel.
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On the price of wheat...in the game I ran a wheat monopoly I started with a very narrow profit margin...like 28/32...and I set up my buyers first so I had a warehouse filling up before I started selling. When I started selling I had enough reserve that I got ALL of the sales for a long enough interval that any NPC that beat me to a load pretty much had to take it and go. After about three hours I could pretty much lower the buy price at will, but I dropped it in steps. After a day or so I was buying at 16 and had no trouble keeping up with local demand...though I must admit that was partly due to injecting thousands of units that clumsy NPC haulers kept spilling in Bala Gi's Joy.
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I gotta say, I'm really enjoying this style of play, rather than going down the Mk3 trader route. I've always like playing with CLS anyway, but this has added a whole new dimension to my game.

I gotta say...that made my day.

[Fluff]

I gotta say, I'm really enjoying this style of play, rather than going down the Mk3 trader route. I've always like playing with CLS anyway, but this has added a whole new dimension to my game.

I gotta say...that made my day.

Just add to your "feel-good"s, I'm the same way. I always felt like station-building (especially closed loops) was a brute-force sledgehammer approach, and I didn't like Mk3 traders due to survivability issues. This 'new to me' style of play has really re-engaged my interest in the game. Instead of using a sledgehammer to beat credits out of the system, I feel like I'm using a scalpel to precisely cut profits out. Thanks for this.

[terryokc2]

I gotta say, I'm really enjoying this style of play, rather than going down the Mk3 trader route. I've always like playing with CLS anyway, but this has added a whole new dimension to my game.

I gotta say...that made my day.

Just add to your "feel-good"s, I'm the same way. I always felt like station-building (especially closed loops) was a brute-force sledgehammer approach, and I didn't like Mk3 traders due to survivability issues. This 'new to me' style of play has really re-engaged my interest in the game. Instead of using a sledgehammer to beat credits out of the system, I feel like I'm using a scalpel to precisely cut profits out. Thanks for this.

Add me to that line as well...definitely a new angle to this game that was quite confusing the first go 'round. Only thing I was comfortable with back then was putting a CAG in charge of my complex/s. And even then, had a hell of a time getting the quantities of products in the HQ to acceptable levels. (and not 300k e-cells and 100k ore and nothing else)

Thanks again, Tim

[psyclon]

Hey, Tim!

As i recently gained friendly access to Terran sectors, i decided to join your army of followers and apply your idea. All was fine, until i had to set the transport to Mercury - for some reason CLS pilots refuse to use jump beacons (in this case the one in Venus). I assume it is a general thing and not due to a mistake in my waypoint settings. So in order to go to Mercury, the ship has to fly through war zones. Even if i use an intermediate ship in Mars, as you do, the first ship still has to go through Asteroid Belt to get there.

So, my question is - how do you avoid the troubles of flying through war zones (and even having stations in them)?

The most annoying thing is that when i'm in the same war sector as my other ships or satellites, nobody touches them. But if i leave the sector, Novas and Centaurs immediately become red and attack my stuff, DESPITE BEING SURROUNDED BY ATF GUYS.

[Timsup2nothin]

Sorry Psyclon...the only answer I can give is that I avoid war zones by playing TC, not AP. Maybe someone with AP experience can give you a better answer. Seems like they should have addressed using jump beacons in the CLS scripts for the AP bonus pack, but apparently from what you are saying they didn't.

[Merroc]

I'm using a slightly different, but maybe just as interesting an approach.

Currently I'm setting up my Argon Prime energy distribution as follows.
Using 2xcattle ranch L as "substations" as per your tip. (cheap storage!) furthermore, using Mercuries with 3k storage and haulers at 6k storage. I might eventually use mistrals XL (or other) at 12k storage as well for specific jobs.

The way I set it up is:

• each sector gets it's own substation, so far I have one in CBSE, Ore Belt, Presidents End, The Wall and The Hole (ships are en route).
• Each substation receives 4 collectors (haulers) collecting EC from either in-sector SPP (trapped). Or, if no in-sector SPP is available/only a single M, in case of President's End, collect from neighboring sectors. Worst case, each collector goes in one direction. E.g. CBSE collects from Presidents End and Ore Belt. Home of light would collect from all 4 angles. As a result, Argon Prime would collect in return from Home of Light.
• Each substation also receives X amount of distribution ships, also haulers at 6k. Where X is the number of EC using stations/3 (rounded up). Each is set to distribute to 3 sheds. I might increase this in case of all L-sized stations.
• Each station which uses EC has one shed, selling at 17 (I'm considering 18, as I'm trapping the sell). This shed is either a normal mercury, when the station has a max stock of 5k. Or a hauler when its 10k or more.
• Each SPP has a hauler trapper at 12. Here I'm considering a mistral XL at 12k.
• All ships inside a sector are homebased to the substation in that sector.
• All CLS II ships are lowest level, with training turned off. Reason for this is I don't need more waypoints, plus this way I never pay. Downside, I need more total ships. In the (very) ((VERY)) long run, this should be cheaper.

This way, what I'm hoping to achieve is:

• EC spreads around the region (and possibly eventually the galaxy) evenly. Where EC is in abundance (producing sectors, but also sectors with little users), the EC is collected away from. Where EC is in short supply, none of the collectors will collect there. The main buffer is in the sheds and the distributors, which are refilled constantly. The substation will appear empty sooner, while the sector might not be empty yet.
• Expandability, setting up a new sector is made easy. As it's not really dependent on other sectors, except for the collectors, of which there are at most 4 (other sectors).
• Expandability in wares. After I set up the Argon Prime region, I'm planning to add stations to the substations, so I can store food and bio. Then set up these in the same manner.
• Decentralization. both in costs, profits and effort. I did think about sectors which have many SPP, but little buyers. It's a money sink! Until I connect other wares. In the end, it should balance out.
• Humongous storage space. Take for example The Wall, I believe that sector has like 17 ships, all at 6k storage, plus 50k from the substation, 152k EC storage, just in that one sector.

As said, I'm setting it up, so no actual results on how good it preforms yet. I do notice that the setup costs are huge. After 5 sectors, I've sunk about 40-50m into it, in the sheer amount of ships...
I'll try to keep you updated .

Edit: I almost forgot, this way you can "rank" individual sectors. As I'm not removing any money (yet) and I've recorded how much each substation received in a) station cash and b) ships.

[Timsup2nothin]

Good on ya Merroc! This is what I was looking for when I started posting this stuff. I've approached the CLS economy in a multitude of ways, but I know that other people trying things will improve the knowledge base.

A possibility to consider, rather than adding stations to handle other wares when you expand you might use docked ships at your substation. They don't have the capacity, but that lowers inventory costs.

[Merroc]

I was considering that, and I will need to do that for ore and silicon. However, for other goods, its 12k storage space for ~2mil or more for likely less. Plus I'm not sure about the # of docking ports on my complex hubs. I am using the modified one, which doesn't turn the game modified, so my TL can dock too.

[Solomon Short]

IIRC Saetan's "Advanced Complex Hubs" provide docking for:
- 2x M1/M2/M7/M7M/TL
- 20x M6/M8/TP/TS
- (Unlimited) M3/M4/M5

[JDCollie]

I know this is a bit of a necro, but damn this is an interesting idea. I've struggled with economic control in X3 for quite awhile, simply because ST/UT traders are too indiscriminate for me, and I hate the way they come nagging every once in awhile. (No, I don't care that you soiled yourself with a full hold soya beans, Daddy is busy fending off Xenon right now!)

I play AP with XRM, which dramatically changes the map in some areas. Still, I'm extremely interested in giving this CLS network stuff a try. Hats off to you Tim, this looks like a hell of a lot of fun.

[Timsup2nothin]

It is fun. There are a few other threads on the subject. The guide in my sig is one and includes links to others, and there's this one, which is current.

[Jonzac]

In response to the AP question make sure you have Logisitians that use jump drives. I know that was my original problem.

[pjknibbs]

I suspect that question may no longer be relevant, given it was asked 14 months ago...