A question about HQ with shipyard/maintenance

[Brinnie]

I have built maintenance docks and shipyards into my HQ - s.m,l and xl - s,m respectively. I originally did it to save credits on the installation of ships modifications and, later on in the game, to speed up the production and replacement of my fighters fleet.

Things worked out as intended, at leasts for the first part of my cunning plan (I am still not making enough credits to go into fighters mass production and therefore I try to use mainly L ships for combat). However, to my surprise I am getting a steady income from NPCs coming to fix their ships and...
since I bought a couple of blueprints (Moreya and Kourakami) I am getting quite a few sold. Obviously I am not complaining but the thing is that these commercial activities are hitting my hull parts stocks really fast. To my question:

Say I get enough credits and I buy 1 or more carriers will my own production of fighters take priority over commercial sales or repairs?
I wouldn't want hull parts shortages due to the above mentioned activities.

Cheers

[Feloidea]

I don't know if player orders at their own shipyard/wharf take priority over NPC orders ... interesting question actually that maybe someone else can answer.

But you can always set up a trade rule to only sell to yourself (beware that there's two options, one for trades and one for ship sales, you'd want the latter) and if you want to just build yourself a fleet you can enable the trade rule and have your shipyard/wharf to yourself for however long you need to build your own fleet, then change back to let the NPC factions buy from you again whenever you so chose.

[Brinnie]

...(beware that there's two options, one for trades and one for ship sales, you'd want the latter)...

Well, that is already helpful. I am assuming that will reduce Hull Parts usage by at least limiting it to NPCs ships repairs only, leaving more for my fighters construction.

Thanks

[H34Dru5H]

It will be the Yaki buying the Moreya and Kourakami ships, no other faction buys them. You could make a Trade global order and add/subtract the factions you want to deal with and use this order in the Wharf Logical Overview where your bays are listed. Unfortunately you can't use different global orders for different bays, for some reason they all default to whatever order you choose for one. So if you stop all TER for example from buying ships, they also will not be able to repair at the maintenance bays either.

You can also restrict the sale of ships by buying only the blueprints you need to build your own ships. Only the factions that sale these blueprints will buy those ships too, so you can add/remove them from your global orders as you like..

[alt3rn1ty]

...(beware that there's two options, one for trades and one for ship sales, you'd want the latter)...

Well, that is already helpful. I am assuming that will reduce Hull Parts usage by at least limiting it to NPCs ships repairs only, leaving more for my fighters construction.

Thanks

Its also helpful when you get to Terraforming. Create another Trade rule to restrict all factions except your own, then when churning out drop drones and supplying resources for the Terraforming projects, production of ships for sale doesn't interrupt that process.

Regarding priorities of ship builds, I have my PHQ set up as a Wharf for S & M ships, and a separate Shipyard in another sector for L & XL (separate for performance purposes) .. In my experience it seems to be FIFO (First In First Out), so if you have a bunch of other faction ships in the build order cue already, ships you wish to build will come after those. But if your ships being built already, any other faction ships ordered will follow them and tag on to the end of the build cue.

Hull parts (and Advanced Electronics) are always playing catch up imho, depends how many production modules for those you have and how much resources your miners can pull in to feed them. Your Wharf/Shipyard/Mining fleet can get ridiculously large, but can be supplemented with dedicated production stations and traders.

[Brinnie]

...You could make a Trade global order and add/subtract the factions you want to deal with and use this order in the Wharf Logical Overview where your bays are listed. Unfortunately you can't use different global orders for different bays, for some reason they all default to whatever order you choose for one. So if you stop all TER for example from buying ships, they also will not be able to repair at the maintenance bays either...

Hi.

If I understand what you are saying, the above should suit me perfectly. So that if I should need to stop Hull Parts being used for anything but my own ships production, I would simply follow your suggestion and apply it to all races. In this case, also stopping ships repairs to NPCs would be better than not be being able to do it.

[Brinnie]

Its also helpful when you get to Terraforming. Create another Trade rule to restrict all factions except your own, then when churning out drop drones and supplying resources for the Terraforming projects, production of ships for sale doesn't interrupt that process.

Regarding priorities of ship builds, I have my PHQ set up as a Wharf for S & M ships, and a separate Shipyard in another sector for L & XL (separate for performance purposes) .. In my experience it seems to be FIFO (First In First Out), so if you have a bunch of other faction ships in the build order cue already, ships you wish to build will come after those. But if your ships being built already, any other faction ships ordered will follow them and tag on to the end of the build cue.

Hull parts (and Advanced Electronics) are always playing catch up imho, depends how many production modules for those you have and how much resources your miners can pull in to feed them. Your Wharf/Shipyard/Mining fleet can get ridiculously large, but can be supplemented with dedicated production stations and traders.

Thank you for the additional info.
I take it when you say perfomance you refer to FPS and not credits making. If that is the case I will take notice as my pc is a bit old (not as much as its owner but old nevertheless). Right now, due to lack of funds, I have not bought the blueprints for L and XL shipyards, I was going to attach them to my HQ (mainly just as a challenge to put as much as possible into it).
But if the Fabs are going to cause me serious frame issues I will follow your approach and build in another sector.

Here is my current HQ plan:
http://www.x4-game.com/#/station-calcul ... 01,count:1

[alt3rn1ty]

Yep FPS

Here's my PHQ S / M Wharf (But currently using the one near the end of the topic with the Quettanauts XL Spires for habitats, as its more optimally built) ..
viewtopic.php?t=457099
(If you haven't used any "Construction Community" projects before, you just download the stations xml, and pop it into your Constructionplans folder, and import it into the station build UI in game)

Didn't use the station calculator, just refined it for many months judging its needs over time and usage (ship production and ability to do terraforming).

Tip: The Boron Storage modules are good because they have 6 module connections, so there is less need to use additional connector modules = reduces amount of modules in the build.

[Brinnie]

I will study the topic at a later date to pick up a few tips, especially with regards to the number of modules you use to supply the production chain.

The thing with the FPS impact, that only comes into play when in sector, doesn't it?
My HQ - in Heretic End - is relatively packed with modules but so far it doesn't look like it is causing discernable slow downs when in sector, I got to take a few laps around the complex to verify that.

[vvvvvvvv]

I will study the topic at a later date to pick up a few tips, especially with regards to the number of modules you use to supply the production chain.

The thing with the FPS impact, that only comes into play when in sector, doesn't it?
My HQ - in Heretic End - is relatively packed with modules but so far it doesn't look like it is causing discernable slow downs when in sector, I got to take a few laps around the complex to verify that.

It comes to play when you're next to station. 40 km range or so. "High attention bubble". Portion of the impact seems to be from presence of the ships supplying the station.

[Brinnie]

It comes to play when you're next to station. 40 km range or so. "High attention bubble". Portion of the impact seems to be from presence of the ships supplying the station.

Thanks

[alt3rn1ty]

Yep as many v's says.
I'm testing the 7.60 betas and yesterday gave them a bit of feedback in the test request topic, using my PHQ as a point of note in comparison to my previous experience ..
viewtopic.php?p=5278381#p5278381
7.60 is going to be tremendous when it releases for lower spec machines like my laptop.

[Brinnie]

@Alt3rn1ty:

That sounds good, I look forward to it though I don't want to raise my expectations (a simple rule to maybe avoid disappointment).

I like to get into the thick of fights and that is were I would welcome more FPS, even a mere 10 per scenario could make it a more pleasant experience.

[alt3rn1ty]

From the same testing topic linked previously ..

~ Also I just did the battle for the TRI "Sacrosanct Conclave", I had the Erlking in sector, Delilah's Swansong, and Gumptions Gambit (Kuraokami). Had a very good dogfight in the Kuraokami with all the enemy fighters / nemesis / gorgon, then teleported into the ErlKing to finish off the 3-4 Oddyseus-E.
I didn't have the FPS counter active, but did notice that for such a big battle on my machine I did not perceive any slow down to distract me from the battle.

Good stuff Egosoft

That was during 7.60 beta 4 (we are now at 7.60 beta 7), the betas still had other issues at that time (or, possibly it was because I still needed to adapt my game settings to use less VRAM of my 6gb card, and didn't yet understand that needed to be done for this round of betas) .. but this battle was amazing for me.

I am also sceptical enough to not let myself get hopeful about big battles, those really are the worst case scenario for my machine, generally I love dog fighting but large battles I keep away from. The battle I mentioned is after working with Dal Busta on the Paranid unification, building their Conclave, and then sometime after there are a large number of disgruntled 3 eyes who dont like the way things are going ..
.. I didn't count how many fighters (small and medium) there were which accompanied the 3-4 Odyssseus, but 3 dimensionally they surrounded the station from all directions when they popped in (North/South/East/West/Up and down).
For my machine that was an unusually large battle for me to get personally involved in, and a pretty good enjoyable experience (If I could detect visually any hint of the game struggling, hitches/stutter, I would not have enjoyed it so much).

So not to get your hopes up too much, I was not monitoring FPS at the time, and it also depends how much other stuff you have going in the game and how busy a sector is, but things have certainly improved in that regard.
Trouble with this game is its way too easy for us to expand beyond what our machines are actually capable of handling

Anyway I will butt out, going a wee bit off topic.

[Brinnie]

No worries about the short offtopic pit stop, it is very interesting info (expectations or not) that you have brought to my attention. I will join you on the other thread.

- - - -

I am not sure I am setting the restrictions for the ship production and maintenance in the right place. I am doing it in the "logical overview" of the HQ,
scrolling all the way to the right and down - I have 4 entries, one for each of my facilities (ED S-M, L, XL and Wharf S-M).

I clicked on any of the 4 and chose a profile that I made in the globals; restrict all factions - add my own as the allowed one.
After that the Yakis bought 4 ships , not quite the result I had anticipated. So, I tried again but it was past my bed time and I didn't wait to see what happened.
Is that how you guys set the restrictions?

[alt3rn1ty]

I clicked on any of the 4 and chose a profile that I made in the globals; restrict all factions - add my own as the allowed one.
After that the Yakis bought 4 ships , not quite the result I had anticipated. So, I tried again but it was past my bed time and I didn't wait to see what happened.
Is that how you guys set the restrictions?

In the logical overview, next to the Trade rule, there is a pencil icon which will take you to the correct place.
There you can create a new Trade rule. I name it Ship sales restrictions.
I tick "Sale of Ships" to be restricted, then add the factions to be restricted. And then save it (Confirm changes).
Now go back to the logical overview and select your new Trade rule from the drop down.

[moako]

I don't know if player orders at their own shipyard/wharf take priority over NPC orders ... interesting question actually that maybe someone else can answer.

As soon as I place my orders at my shipyard my order get into production given that all the goods are on stock. Independent of any NPC orders.

[Brinnie]

In the logical overview, next to the Trade rule, there is a pencil icon which will take you to the correct place.
There you can create a new Trade rule. I name it Ship sales restrictions.
I tick "Sale of Ships" to be restricted, then add the factions to be restricted. And then save it (Confirm changes).
Now go back to the logical overview and select your new Trade rule from the drop down.

Thanks

As soon as I place my orders at my shipyard my order get into production given that all the goods are on stock. Independent of any NPC orders.

I suppose it is the same for me but the emphasis of my post is on "given that all the goods are on stock", I was wondering whether the NPCs commercial activities could empty my stocks of Hull Parts.
You having said that though made me think that before I actually noticed all this ship oriented trade (it must have been going on for a while) I never noticed any slow downs when I requested ships to be build at my HQ.
Sometime I might try to keep track of the materials when placing a big order.

cheers

[moako]

I was wondering whether the NPCs commercial activities could empty my stocks of Hull Parts.

My impression is that sometimes for whatever reason my traders not really do there work properly.

For instance I have enough "engine parts" in my "engine parts" product station but my shipyard in the same sector is lacking this parts.
This parts aren't prioritised....
Sometime my L-traders buy very small quantities instead of my M-traders.

It seems that Egosoft need to improve this behaviour.