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[etgfrog]

I was wrong about the cargo size, the vanguard has 36k cargo hold. The costs are the same between variants, there are smaller transport ships.

The courier sentinal would be the go to ship for S class, also from the antigon republic, carries 2.3k, travels at 3k with a combat mk 2 engine and costs roughly 800k.

Pretty much all M size transport ships go 2000 or less travel speed with a combat engine. I prefer to use combat engines because they don't have any windup when entering travel mode, which allows for some very good maneuvering.

Ok, I've started to do things with the venture platform. You have to send a ship to the platform then you have to go to a console in the station to send it out.

I've also built that freighter...docking it is hard because they have little to no strafe capabilities.

Wow that was one of the most retarded things I've seen in the game. I get a message that one of my traders is being asked to drop cargo, its next door so I told them to escape and flew over. It was a pirate destroyer, it destroys my trade ship very quickly, so I go to shoot it to get revenge. I get a massive reputation penalty for destroying it.

I've never seen a pirate owned destroyer until now, could it be because I got a L size ship that the game decided to up the ante?

[Gabeux]

Pirates do have L ships, but from my experience (unless newest patches changed something), they stick to onowned, backwater sectors, and harass traders around there.
They are prime targets for boarding. I really love the pirates in this one.. 

[etgfrog]

This was in the middle of paranid space, I lost reputation with the paranid for killing a scale plate order destroyer.

On another note, decided I'm going to try something. Get a frigate, the ones that can dock S ships to, put a ship capacity mod on it, have it act like a mini carrier with several teladi couriers docking and undocking to buy and sell stuff, move to stations and manually trade. No need to worry about the pilots having a high enough skill to auto-trade. Get enough money to do the same with an actual carrier.

[dennislp3]

This was in the middle of paranid space, I lost reputation with the paranid for killing a scale plate order destroyer.

On another note, decided I'm going to try something. Get a frigate, the ones that can dock S ships to, put a ship capacity mod on it, have it act like a mini carrier with several teladi couriers docking and undocking to buy and sell stuff, move to stations and manually trade. No need to worry about the pilots having a high enough skill to auto-trade. Get enough money to do the same with an actual carrier.

That sounds like a LOOOOOOT of micro management

Once you get a station with production input/output you can just have some ships autotrade for that station even if they don't have the skill...will help them level up

[etgfrog]

Not really that bad of micromanagement. Have the default orders be set to dock to the ship. I know stations are cheap/easy to get. I was thinking of loading up the couriers with medical supplies and foodstuff, stuff every station needs in somewhat small quantities then go in a circle around the network.

On the other hand...I wonder how ventures work with a frigate loaded with missile fighters. Another player shoots the frigate then suddenly macross city.

[dennislp3]

Not really that bad of micromanagement. Have the default orders be set to dock to the ship. I know stations are cheap/easy to get. I was thinking of loading up the couriers with medical supplies and foodstuff, stuff every station needs in somewhat small quantities then go in a circle around the network.

On the other hand...I wonder how ventures work with a frigate loaded with missile fighters. Another player shoots the frigate then suddenly macross city.

That sounds like a glorious troll...

Also stations are pretty rewarding (in feeling of accomplishment)

I just finished my ~25 million credit Smart Chip factory to supply the galaxy given almost all wharfs/shipyards have deficits in the thousands with at least 2 wanting to buy 100,000 smart chips each.

I made a station with 1 dock (3 medium, 6 small), 1 pier (only a small one with 1 slot), 1 solar panel, 1 silicon refinery, and 20 smart chip production modules (it also has 21 cross sections for connections, 1 solid material storage unit for raw silicon, and 10 small storage units for containers). I am currently kicking out roughly 9,600 smart chips per hour and its making its money back really quick. Roughly 2 million per hour so far and perhaps more in the near future when I add more storage and/or production. That is not including the (small) sales I get from selling excess energy and silicon wafers.

I keep it stocked using 3 mining ships...1 small, 1 medium, and one large miner. The small one ensures it always has at least a little silicon so there is less down time, a medium to help as well, and a large to keep up with the production speed. These 3 are not enough and I am about to add 1 more large miner to see if I can keep silicon from hitting zero during the production cycles.

This should help a lot...because in my galaxy there is only a handful of smart chip stations and each of those stations only has a single smart chip module on it. So I am currently set to dominate that share of the market...


On a different topic though. I found that a really good strategy for auto traders is to set up 1 importer (sell distance 0, buy distance max)* and 1 exporter (buy distance 0, sell distance max)* for each major zone (containing lots of stations and/or the wharf and shipyard of a faction). You could theoretically do this for every sector. The benefit over a trader just wandering about trading is that you will be farming faction favor from each sale and purchase in a focused manner but it also helps prevent sectors from stagnating. I find that some sectors can import everything they need to a point where they purchase practically nothing anymore (when half the galaxy needs stuff they are producing). It seems the developers left the AI universe as a whole to be pretty damn short on needs so the player has ample room to enter markets and make an impact (which is great).

*Make sure the traders are in the zone you wish them to import/export to BEFORE setting the auto trade behavior. Whatever sector they are in when you set the buy or sale slider to 0 is the one that they will be stuck to for that range,.

[Sergius]

My experience from the previous games is that ships aren't balanced by race (or model?) but usually a race has faster ships with less cargo vs another race which has the opposite, doesn't mean that both races have tradeoffs when choosing fighters and freighters, it usually means that one race makes better fighters and the other makes better freighters.

If you're not getting the better version of a ship role, it's usually because of inconvenience (permits, too far away, too rare, not enough money yet, etc).

[Dunamisdeos]

I think I'm looking forward to station-building the most. I had a lot of trouble balancing various production/needs in X3, and it sounds so, so much easier to do now with modular stations.

EDIT QUESTION: Do they still have the mission where some guy had to bail out of his ship and he asks you to go grab it for him? Because that was how I always made my first large chunk of cash. Eventually someone would just be like...

"Ey man, I've got this fully loaded barely damaged military-grade-loadout missile frigate sitting out in space. Noone but you and me knows where it is. Here are the keys. I will not monitor you whatsoever, nor will I check on you for around 3 hours. I'll pay you 1mil to bring me back this ship that runs 36mil when sold. Thanks!"

Spoiler: Sure, bro. (click to show/hide)

[deoloth]

Just got this and started messing around since it sounds so much better then the last X game even if it still needs work.

Having some fun, but am I blind or is there not an Orders Window in this one?

Setting orders in the map, but it feels a bit clunky compared to x2 and the x3's, and harder to keep track of my property.

[Folly]

The only place I've found to observe orders is the ship behavior window, which will list the currently active order and any queued orders. And I certainly agree that this is something that should be more visible when selecting ships on the map, without needing to dive into sub-menus.

[dennislp3]

The only place I've found to observe orders is the ship behavior window, which will list the currently active order and any queued orders. And I certainly agree that this is something that should be more visible when selecting ships on the map, without needing to dive into sub-menus.

By default when you select a ship it shows a line on the map to all the orders they have. If you mean in list form then the behavior window is the only place. Using the map and the lines on the map you should be able to do everything you need except reordering the commands.

It is possible to turn this off though so maybe thats something that you have done? The option is in the mnues where you select trade filters (the last tab I think)

[Dutrius]

Soooo, I've picked up the game for Christmas. I'm enjoying it so far, but its taking a little getting used to compared to X3:TC.

My favorite part so far was not when the Autopillock drifted me into the side of a station at travel mode speeds, but what happened just afterwards.

Autopilot: Epic fail.

I laughed for a good five minutes at that.


I think this is also the first instance I've seen of a traffic jam in space. I was just watching several M class ships trying to dock/undock at the same time and getting in each other's way.

[Sergius]

OTOH it helps that you can just save in the middle of space now.

EDIT: Salvage insurance doesn't count because I'm a cheap bastard.

[Dunamisdeos]

Wow really? You can save anywhere, without a mod?

That is a big deal to me.

[ollobrains]

yeah its a new feature save anywhere not just at stations