Is DeVries totally broken (Empire Building) ??????

[Nikola515]

Ok. So I give this game another try after almost 7 months of brake... I started to build my new empire with 3.0 in DV. I finished plot and started to rebuild that sector little by little. And it was pretty fun doing it Here is list of my stations:

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... 6F2698A42/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... 93E79E27D/

As you can see I have everything needed for self sufficient economy so there is no need for anything to import from Albion or OL. If I want to build new stations I have everything I need and it was pretty fun in beginning and made game more interesting because it seemed that my hard work finally paid off, and that I was actually doing something to help DV.
Well that is good part now let's get on bad part
After building everything there I just realized that there is not even any point to it. Because DV don't have sink RoC Shipyard in DHA is broken and it wont build any XL/L size ships. It is only building M/S ships at small rate. To make things even worse all NPC stations that should be built after plot are broken too. Not single stations is getting built yet and that is almost 60h after I finished plot. Habitations have drones to protect them self but they wont send them. There goes sink for my URV plot.... Only thing that makes sink there is me buying ships and building stations there As you can see my stations are almost loaded (check cargo on them) and shipyard is almost full too. Even though something might be -4 or -5 and they are almost full (I think it bug or something because it should be -12 or -13. Here is pic of shipyard:

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... 4CBBC2D65/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... BDC02ED6D/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... 4CAFC9A4E/

So I just want to know what everyone thinks about this sector... Is it useless for empire building and just waste of time. Or there is something im missing ? Also me going and selling all this staff to other sectors manually is not a opinion.....

[ezra-r]

agreed, there is no sink or traders willing to do anything in devries.

It seems egosoft does not have auto-trade for npc traders, because in albion and others building a station brings you ingredients and sales of practically evrything, in devries it mostly seems trading water and e-cells and little else, even if you have juicy deals from one of your stations to the shipyard in the same zone, you end up having to do them manually.

[VincentTH]

In my game, both stations in 42 and Vapour Stream are built fine. They even went to Stage 2 of the build with me supplying the necessary materials (mostly RMP), and a Heavy Sul in each zone as Security Guard.

In 3.10 Beta, I did not provide the patrol in those 2 zones, and neither station was built correctly.

[I should add that all necessary personnels on these 2 stations (Manager etc...) are also present

[Nikola515]

@VincentTH

Yes I have those stations too and that is only two of them. After you finish game there should be six all together. And there should be even new shipyard building in DeVries/Molten Archon/Extinct Torch. I have them in my old game but there is nothing in new game that I started. I can post some pic of them ( I still have that old save)... They fixed missing crew bug with 3.0 (but it was not in notes).

Edit: Here is pic of XL module for building ships being built

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... 4DC094869/

This one is from space:
http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... 40171C447/

And this one is part that is already finished it can build S/M size ships:

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... D9B9A0275/

@ ezra-r

I think if they actually have Teladi ships coming and buying all extra staff would for their own sector would be nice. I have seen their ships coming to DV and selling staff but not buying anything. Perhaps they should add galaxy trader or something. DV have whole bunch of Energy and OL don't have enough.... Perhaps they could sell their surplus to other solar systems ??

[GCU Grey Area]

DHA shipyard in my game is building ships. Don't know about S & M ships (haven't checked) but it's definitely building both L & XL ships. Get the majority of my station freighters from there & every single time I go there to buy a new batch I have to take some shipbuilding components with me (usually a few 100 RMP), because it's used up everything I sold it on my previous visit & there's a half-built ship waiting to be finished in one of the construction bays. Sell some RMP & it completes that one without any problems, then starts building my Styrvoks. No idea what's broken in your game but that shipyard should definitely be functional. If your game's unmodded might be worth mentioning this issue in the beta forum along with a recent save.

[VincentTH]

@VincentTH

Yes I have those stations too and that is only two of them. After you finish game there should be six all together. And there should be even new shipyard building in DeVries/Molten Archon/Extinct Torch. I have them in my old game but there is nothing in new game that I started. I can post some pic of them ( I still have that old save)... They fixed missing crew bug with 3.0 (but it was not in notes).

Edit: Here is pic of XL module for building ships being built

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... 4DC094869/

This one is from space:
http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... 40171C447/

And this one is part that is already finished it can build S/M size ships:

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... D9B9A0275/

@ ezra-r

I think if they actually have Teladi ships coming and buying all extra staff would for their own sector would be nice. I have seen their ships coming to DV and selling staff but not buying anything. Perhaps they should add galaxy trader or something. DV have whole bunch of Energy and OL don't have enough.... Perhaps they could sell their surplus to other solar systems ??

Oh, I did not know that there are 6 stations that are going to be built. What sectors are they in, and what type of stations?

[Nikola515]

I already reported it multiple times That is problem with my shipyard it wont build anything at all or it is building in extreme slow rate (NPC ships). Once I was waiting almost 2 hours and not single ships was being built, XL or L ship. But I think that might be connected with stations because shipyard wont produce any CV to build stations on first place. I wish someone can look at scripts and see how it works. Because according to devs those stations should start building and it should be triggered by plot. Perhaps that script didn't activate for me and many others ?????

[Nikola515]

Oh, I did not know that there are 6 stations that are going to be built. What sectors are they in, and what type of stations?

There should be two of those Wheat Plantation in 42 and Radiation Belt.Not sure 100% it that was Wheat P. but I know there was stations there in Radiation Belt. I cant see from map because it is not finished yet.

There is another one in Scorched Aura cant remember what it was (ill need to check) but I think is that Solar plant.....

Molten Archon has HoA Staples Farmery

Fiendish Moloch has Waster Distillery

And Extinct Torch has shipyard

I don't care much about those other stations but shipyard would have helped a lot to crate sink for my items.

Edit: I just checked Radiation Belt and Scorched Aura and I didn't see anything. But im pretty sure there was CV there (perhaps destroyed by pirates before they start building ????) anyway other stations are still there I just checked them all

[J. Spartan]

Wow... are these built in free play as well? The only fact I've seen being built in a plot game was the HOA Staples Farmery. In my non-plot game, however there's nothing. A second shipyard would be great tho.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Hi Nikola, which version of the Rebirth did you start the game in?

In one of the screen shots you have 763 Tristars. Are you using mods in game you are having problems in?

[Nikola515]

Hi Nikola, which version of the Rebirth did you start the game in?

In one of the screen shots you have 763 Tristars. Are you using mods in game you are having problems in?

Only mode im using is Capital Ship Bridge.... I edited one ship with some items and some money at beginning .But this have nothing to do with this. As pretty much everyone here is having problems with mod or not. Game with shipyard was started v2.5 and this new one was 3.0. So it worked before on older version.

Edit: Before i had game i didn't edit or use any mods at all and it still didn't build them. So i think in 2.5 game i just had crazy luck because it seems that pretty much no one have that shipyard and some have problems with, DHA shipyard(sink). Do you have that new shipyard ?

[Len5]

Wow... are these built in free play as well?

I would say no. I'm offering everything you need to build stations in DeVries for 150+ hours and haven't seen anything new.
PMC and HoA are shooting eachother's ships, so they did take that part from the plot game to free play, but apparently not the rebuild of DeVries part.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Do you have that new shipyard ?

Hi, thanks for your reply.

No but I'm not playing a vanilla or plot game so probably not relevant.

When the next beta comes out, I might try a fresh plot game and see how it goes.

Thanks for creating this thread as I was not aware that NPC station building in DV had been the subject of fixes.

[VincentTH]

Do you have that new shipyard ?

Hi, thanks for your reply.

No but I'm not playing a vanilla or plot game so probably not relevant.

When the next beta comes out, I might try a fresh plot game and see how it goes.

Thanks for creating this thread as I was not aware that NPC station building in DV had been the subject of fixes.

Same here. I may re-start a new game and have patrol set up in those sectors to safeguard the new stations. If patrols are not set up, I never got to see those stations built.

[Nikola515]

Do you have that new shipyard ?

Hi, thanks for your reply.

No but I'm not playing a vanilla or plot game so probably not relevant.

When the next beta comes out, I might try a fresh plot game and see how it goes.

Thanks for creating this thread as I was not aware that NPC station building in DV had been the subject of fixes.

Same here. I may re-start a new game and have patrol set up in those sectors to safeguard the new stations. If patrols are not set up, I never got to see those stations built.

I already did that in my new game and it didn't work. I had ships in every zone that station should have been built but nothing happened. I restarted my game because of no crew bug but it is fixed now. So i can always start my old game now, but i need to rebuild everything again. I think im just going to stop playing until this is fixed .

[spankahontis]

Ok. So I give this game another try after almost 7 months of brake... I started to build my new empire with 3.0 in DV. I finished plot and started to rebuild that sector little by little. And it was pretty fun doing it Here is list of my stations:

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... 6F2698A42/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... 93E79E27D/

As you can see I have everything needed for self sufficient economy so there is no need for anything to import from Albion or OL. If I want to build new stations I have everything I need and it was pretty fun in beginning and made game more interesting because it seemed that my hard work finally paid off, and that I was actually doing something to help DV.
Well that is good part now let's get on bad part
After building everything there I just realized that there is not even any point to it. Because DV don't have sink RoC Shipyard in DHA is broken and it wont build any XL/L size ships. It is only building M/S ships at small rate. To make things even worse all NPC stations that should be built after plot are broken too. Not single stations is getting built yet and that is almost 60h after I finished plot. Habitations have drones to protect them self but they wont send them. There goes sink for my URV plot.... Only thing that makes sink there is me buying ships and building stations there As you can see my stations are almost loaded (check cargo on them) and shipyard is almost full too. Even though something might be -4 or -5 and they are almost full (I think it bug or something because it should be -12 or -13. Here is pic of shipyard:

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... 4CBBC2D65/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... BDC02ED6D/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... 4CAFC9A4E/

So I just want to know what everyone thinks about this sector... Is it useless for empire building and just waste of time. Or there is something im missing ? Also me going and selling all this staff to other sectors manually is not a opinion.....

I get the impression that DeVries is still a work in progress.

Great for building a supply line unhindered for when you want to build quickly in other systems.

But I'm under the impression that the System is for just food and metals to repair their stations.

I'm hoping that in future builds that they extend this to having better Universal trading, so it could have a good export and import coming in from other sectors; which I posted about that each system is too 'boxed in' with it's own economy. No room for other trade factors to squeeze in.

DeVries needs it's own Stations, maybe technology shared by HoA or the Argon Military after certain plot parameters are completed (In Plot Game) and available for those as soon as you start in Free Play.

And of course, NPC run Construction Vessels finally being built for the soul purpose of building new stations, rather than spawning and jumping into the great nothing as a resource sink.

I'm sure there is probably allot more features that really do need to be implemented to make DeVries work with as much balance and polish as possible.

I hope someday we get stations that can be destroyed and replaced.

[Baconnaise]

Devries (ugh Dune book/movie reference) works just fine with player station loops and empire building. You either need to install mods to make it a little more automatic or trade manually between OL and Albion and now the TU. Closest you can get to player loops is building mono ware stations when possible and assigning the correct trade vessels that carry that ware only. Limit the faction trading and only trade openly with your end products automatically or do it manually. Water>wheat/argnu/spice>staples for example if you catch my drift. NPC's will usually be good enough for energy cell stocks or you can build your own. Mods make it even easier to do this especially Euclid's auto trader as it trades more efficiently. Yorrick's should work fine here too. Installing WWX mod or some of the galaxy station or trading mods and where you build matters little.

I would go as far as saying building in temporary zones the best course of action as you won't get scripted patrols and typical enemies in the area really. WWX doesn't even change this AFAIK. I've built quite a few station loops with Euclid's tempzone builder when I've had time to play and mess around. Trading vessels in the M class seem to be less useful in this case due to game mechanics and the need for highways. Capital traders would be best for these due to jump and boost.

Devries as an economy has and will likely always be a dead end. Albion was the only working one until the patches hit 2.0 or 2.2 I believe. Albion and OL (hopefully I haven't double checked) should be working and will build ships to remove resources. No clue on Teladi but they appear to use Albion wares which is good so the chance for it being broken is far less. You really should only build Albion stations anyways as the only thing OL has different is the neuron gel(bio optic wiring) and bofu(food rations). Aesthetics I suppose but then you need to have a bofu loops and neuron gel which just isn't worth it most of the time.

[Carl Sumner]

I don't have all of those stations in Devries, but there are at least three. They seem to be ok, but they build slower than my player stations.

I have been doing trading between systems and that seems to help. but there have been resources showing up that I didn't bring, so there are some universe trader NPCs.

Note that the station managers don't send ships out of the system, themselves. So if a Devries station needs something from an Abion station it will have to wait for an NPC system trader or a Player ship to bring it. Things happen slow sometimes, mine seem ok but I have 500 hours in.

Also note that things don't happen on a rigid script like in other games. The ships and stations are independant threads and the command scripts for most include random number generators. So every game is at least a little different, and the longer you play the more different they get. Not to say there aren't bugs, but not everything reported is actually a bug. Sometimes things "just happen" and sometimes they are surprising. See "Cellular Automata".

[Nikola515]

@ Baconnaise

Thanks for the tip I try to not to use mods for now but until game is somewhat fixed. Way too many things that can go wrong and you cant be sure if it is mod or vanilla bug. Also I do use cap bridge mod and some game editing (money and some weapons)..... Ill just take brake from XR until it is somewhat playable without getting pissed why AI is so stupid or why this ship wont move Don't get me wrong I love mods and I actually bought X3AP just to play XRM mod on it. And not because X3AP have amazing story in it

@ Carl Sumner

According to devs stations should be plot activated. Probably that mining mission that we did (they ware talking about expending) or after we finished plot. So if that is activated 200h after plot is finished it is bug. Also shipyard should be building ships to make sink. If there is not enough materials or getting low it should slow down. And if it is full it should increase speed. Yes there are some ships selling staff but problem is nobody is buying anything from there. My stations are loaded with nowhere to sell anything.

[Exavier724]

From someone who picked apart the station building code in the campaign
- The stations built by the campaign follow the same rules as a player built station. Spawns a CV, Attaches to an NPC build location (randomized from available NPC locations), and then puts up buy orders for materials (Plates, Optics, Ecells, Fusion Reactors). Then pretty much sit there.
- There is code configured to Cheat in a % of the needed resources, This code appears to be commented out and ignored in the current versions of the game. Must pull everything from economy buy orders.
- There IS NOT a script to replace the CV if it gets destroyed. If its destroyed at any time during construction it is gone for good and the station is a lost cause... especially if the first module group was never finished.
- By default Base Game there are no cross galaxy traders. If resources arn't produced (Since none of the default NPC Job Spawners spawn that transport type with resources in it) within DeVries it will never get those resources.
- Teladi DLC added exactly 3 Trade Ships capable of crossing jump gates. Only 2 of those ships have a range that will allow them to reach DeVries. They can carry any container goods but have to be able to buy them (and not sell somewhere along the way first). Meaning deliveries will be rediculously slow.
- The stations are ONLY started during the campaign. Free Play does not trigger the required chunks of code because they are contained within specific campaign chapter triggers. These get skipped when playing free play or other starts.

I'd say it does feel a little unfinished. I hope the devs get around to fixing up DeVries eventually. Though its possible a modder might do it first lol

EDIT: Also on behalf of the DeVries Shipyard not building. Compared to the other shipyards in the game it has an absurdly long delay between checks. Probably because the economy is so non existent they don't want to freeze the player out of queuing up ships as often. Specifically 170min vs 10min & 25min