Player Empire optimization

[mr.WHO]

I have my personal empire build in Nopileos' Fortune.

Originally I tend to build full production chain / multi-product molochs of a stations (e.g. construction materials factory, weapon factory, ship equipment factory).
These factories were self sufficient from start of mining, resourche processing, low to high tier components production. Al of them also have dozens of miners and freightters assigned to them.


Now I wonder if my approach could be optimized as all of my stations are in two sectors of Nopileos' Fortune.

I was thinking about making singular-purpose stations for:
- Central Gas processing refinery (process all gas based resources)
- Central Mineral foundry (porcess all mineral based resources except Ice)

Then these resources would be ferry to other stations for usage.

Do you think this would be better solution than decentralized, self-sufficient stations? I wonder if the freighters would be the bottleneck as even biggest freighters have kinda small capacity for my mega-complexes.
The benefit I see is that I could esily control my resource levels (I need to perodically check only one station) and miners (I could remember amount of miners for only one station and replenish them if destroyed).


Later on I also plan to make:
- Ammunition factory (production of consumable components, like drones and lasertowers, missiles)
- Engine, Weapons, turrets and shields factory (production components for weapons and shields, but I wonder if they overlap with consumables, so maybe it would be more practical to have them grouped with consumables?)


What I already have:
- Central food & drug production plant (argon food, pharmaceutics, spaceweed and spacefuel).
- General electronic factory (various chips and eletronic components)
- Stand-Alone Wharf
- Stand Alone Shipyard (for L and XL ships)

[AquilaRossa]

I build my main self sufficient complexes in Grand Exchange, because those three sub sectors have every resource and are more central on the map than Trinity Sanctum VII. I prefer a complex producing everything needed for factory and ship building, rather than build for single products. This is because I find it easier to manage a multi product complex than lots of single product factories (the way the UI behaves is horrible, so the less I have to use it the better).

I do build in Nopileos' Fortune though, but mostly just to get the green border on the map hex. I may be wrong but that sector does not appear to have every resource. I have built four stations in those two sectors. A defence platform equipment dock to dominate the space between the two gates and super highways. I add solar to it so it covers its own costs.
I also build a complex called Feed The Universe that produces every faction's food and medical types. This was an attempt to supply the market and stop 2.50 spamming food and medical factories, plus to supply my many EQ dock defence platforms.
Then I built a complex called All The Naughty Stuff producing weed, booze and snort. Not for any reason other than to see what happens. The last is a complex called Build The Universe. it produces Claytronics and extra Hull parts. Being self sufficient in those keeps my net building costs down.
Once my three ship tech complexes were done, I added build modules to them. But one complex would be reduced to only S/M, the next would be for L, and then one for XL. Seems to work better that way. I have a ship tech complex in Trintiy Sanctum VII too, but that is just a money spinner and will not have build modules yet.

It took weeks to build all this stuff. Getting to the first few million was hard grinding but it eventually reaches a tipping point where you have enough money to build what I need for my planned self sufficient economy (I aim for space communism where profit driven factions are obsolete and production needs are covered self sufficiently with little need for credits and there are no wars over resources etc.). I build primary products, energy and food first. Then intermediate products and finally what is needed for ships. I do this to save money not having to buy all those resources if I went straight to the end product modules. The blueprints are cheaper and perhaps easier to scan perhaps too (I always found food rations or refined metals etc easier to get than advanced electronics etc. They were hard to scan blueprints for, or maybe it just seemed that way).

When building a planed complex I build in a certain order. Docks, storage, energy. refining, intermediate products, and then end products. Sometimes i build food and medical early too. Give it traders and miners once the first modules are producing and the complex will not even need seed money.

The big downside of complexes is that they are taxing on computer hardware. My computer is not bad, but it struggles a bit with them. I manage them remotely and sometimes fly to check out what they look like.

p.s. I do not know if you are aware, but there is a tool called X4 Station Calculator. It is very useful for working out how many of each module types are needed in a complex. pps. Build as many docks and storage as you can afford.