Auxiliary and Carrier Wares Distribution

[DinoDinelli]

Hi all, (first post on the board, go easy on me!).

I've been playing X4 for a while now, and recently "discovered" torpedo fleets are great at taking down stations, but the support network for them seems .. dysfunctional at best.

Carriers alone -
* don't tend to have sufficient resources to reload torpedo fleets (each Heavy Torp requires 40 Energy + 40 Missile Components + 35 Smart Chips w/ Universal = 190m3), as they choose to distribute their resource across a wide range of possible wares (e.g. Hull Parts, Claytronics, Adv. Composites, etc), leaving relatively little space for Missile Components (typically ~2000 units), which is barely enough to reload a single small-sized torpedo ship, let alone a fleet full of them.
* don't allow you any control over WHICH resources to allocate to the carrier (what if I don't NEED Claytronics on there, should I not have control over this?)

Auxiliaries with Carriers -
* Auxiliaries have the benefit of having much larger storage capacity than Carriers, which addresses one of the issues above (but even double the capacity still leaves you a long way short of supplying a full fleet, or even a single medium-sized torpedo boat).
* Having multiple Auxiliaries does not appear to add any additional benefit as the fleet always seems to prioritise rearming using the same auxiliary (even if it's empty).

Rearming Ships -
* don't appear to "partially" reload, instead waiting for all resources to be present before taking any onboard. This (in practice) means that a medium-sized torpedo boat (w/ 100+ Heavy torpedoes) cannot be fully reloaded using any existing auxiliary ship in the game -> the Honshu has the largest cargo space of 43,000m3, a full reload of 100 Heavy Torps takes 19,000m3 of materials (Universal, 18,200m3 Closed Loop), but AI selection of which resources they want means they just don't carry this kind of payload of missile resources (unless .. is the intention that we should always be using Closed Loop?). Also, 19km3 is larger than the largest medium transport can carry in one payload (and yet somehow fits on a much smaller frigate when turned into missiles). I get that you don't suddenly want Aux ships to turn into the best trade ships, but at the same time, it doesn't seem meaningful that the entire cargo hold of the largest Aux is only capable of reloading two frigates with torpedoes if optimally packed.

TLDR, it would be nice to see:
1, player control over the distribution of Carrier/Aux cargo space (similar to how you can adjust cargo in stations)
2, "partial" reload of consumables from fleet ships (this one change would resolve a lot of problems in a single stroke)
3, better selection of Aux for reloading (choose the one with the most applicable resources, perhaps?)
4, rebalancing of the cargo space for Aux ships (or build costs for missile weapons, or both) so they can reasonably expect to rearm a larger fleet.

Thanks!

[H34Dru5H]

If you use 'Closed Loop' instead of 'Universal' method for all your Carriers and Auxilary ships, you will only need Energy Cells for missiles and torpedos. Granted, a lot of energy cells but they are a lot easier to source locally and cheap. I tend to have have a couple of M traders and a Large trader in the fleet and keep them stocked with E Cells and Hull Parts for replenishing the Carrier and topping up the Auxilary ships as required. Assigning a M trader to 'Trade for Commander' for an Auxilary ship is another way but quite useless unless it's a 3+ star captain as they don't inherit the commanders star rating for sector distances which IMO is an oversight in the game.

As long as you have a safe supply route to your Auxilaries, they will advertise to NPC traders for supplies. Unfortunately it seems you are unable to tell what supplies are coming in and where from but they do magically appear.

[EGO_Aut]

If you use 'Closed Loop' instead of 'Universal' method for all your Carriers and Auxilary ships, you will only need Energy Cells for missiles and torpedos. Granted, a lot of energy cells but they are a lot easier to source locally and cheap. I tend to have have a couple of M traders and a Large trader in the fleet and keep them stocked with E Cells and Hull Parts for replenishing the Carrier and topping up the Auxilary ships as required. Assigning a M trader to 'Trade for Commander' for an Auxilary ship is another way but quite useless unless it's a 3+ star captain as they don't inherit the commanders star rating for sector distances which IMO is an oversight in the game.

As long as you have a safe supply route to your Auxilaries, they will advertise to NPC traders for supplies. Unfortunately it seems you are unable to tell what supplies are coming in and where from but they do magically appear.

No, not only Energycells. Some need Hullparts too
https://wiki.egosoft.com:1337/X4%20Foun ... 20Missile/