X3: Terran Conflict

Good to know about the disruptor missles. I've got more than enough of other types to keep my "pacifist humble trader" safe (I hope). I think I got my fleet of mainly found ships sorted last night. We'll see how setting up a mine works, not to mention getting my freighters to supply and sell. Apparently there are a few different approaches to try. You can set sell and buy prices or give them MK2 trade software and best buy/sell orders and they will take off? Not sure if they become autonomous after their next trade, or if I have keep sending trade commands to them after each trade. Also do they need satellites to find the best prices in other sectors? Should be interesting. Still waiting for the learning curve to flatten. ;)

BTW, I assume the found Advanced Perseus M3 is a better combat ship than the found Advanced Pirate Eclipse, although it has less cargo space, which I suppose is fine for a combat ship.
 
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Found out I had more rare loot to sell off. It's a pain selling to a buyer for some of the junk you scavenge. Luckily the encyclopedia tells you where those rare buyers are, unluckily they may be half-way across the galaxy. There goes another evening...
 
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You mean like missiles and stuff? Any equipment dock will take them, even if they don't sell them. Sometimes you have to sell a bunch, wait a couple of seconds for the inventory to clear, and sell some more. The only thing that's really hard to sell is nvidium and I doubt you have any of that. (Conventional wisdom is to simply buy a cheap, used trade ship, fill it up with your nvidium, then sell the entire ship. You'll only get half price but it's much less hassel.)

Even without that, though, sending ships to the other side of the galaxy isn't hard. If the ship has a jump drive and enough energy cells you just tell it to jump to where you want to go and you're done (make sure to turn auto-jump on in the command console). If not, you can mostly just tell it to go to the destination station and let it chug its way there. There are only a couple of Xenon sectors that might get in the way. If one of those looks like it will be part of the path then just send the ship off to another sector first then tell it to go to the right destination.

You can set sell and buy prices or give them MK2 trade software and best buy/sell orders and they will take off? Not sure if they become autonomous after their next trade, or if I have keep sending trade commands to them after each trade.
MK2 with best buy/best sell can work but by far the easiest way to do it is to just use that CAG software. Set the trade ship's home base (using the command console again, there's a lot of neat stuff in there) to be your mine and tell the ship to land there. Transfer a bunch of cash to your factory (a million credits should be enough) and start up the CAG. One of the more abysmal janitors in your factory will be forced into the job. He'll then pilot the ship and start buying energy cells to power the mine, using the credits the mine has to buy the energy. After the mine gets enough energy cells, the pilot will also start selling the ore/silicon. Then you'll be making profitsss!

One big factor for this is the range, which I think is set on the factory itself. If you set the range to 10 then the trader will only look within sectors that are 10 or fewer jumps away. I would set that range pretty low to start with, like maybe 2 or 3. That way your trade ship won't try to go huge distances just to try and save 1000 credits. Once the CAG janito… <ahem> pilot learns how to use the jump drive, then you can push the range up.

Also do they need satellites to find the best prices in other sectors?
Yeah, they need some kind of presence, be it satellite or ship. I like to turn on the special CAG option that tells the traders to only trade in sectors with a satellite. That lets me control exactly what sectors I deem safe enough for trading without messing with sector blacklists/whitelists.

All the info for CAG ships can be found in the Egosoft topic. That will tell you what software the ship will need and what all the options do.

Still waiting for the learning curve to flatten.
It is flat! It's not exactly level, of course…. ;) That's what I've really enjoyed about this game. There's always something new to learn and benefits for learning it.

BTW, I assume the found Advanced Perseus M3 is a better combat ship than the found Advanced Pirate Eclipse, although it has less cargo space, which I suppose is fine for a combat ship.
Heck, I dunno, let me see…. (looks over at the M3 ships) Shields are the same but the eclipse recharges them quicker. Perseus is a good bit faster. Eclipse has two turrets and can use mass drivers, which are pretty good for shooting down those little ships buzzing arround. I don't know - it's a close call. I suspect the eclipse will be better against the M5s and the perseus will be better against other M3s.
 
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Thanks for the info!

The rare stuff I was referring was weapon ammo. Only some military outposts would buy small arms(?) and only Teladi outposts would buy some other sort of ammo (which incidentally took up a lot of cargo space).
 
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Gauss cannon ammunition, I guess. Not worth collecting at the start, and later on, it's not enough for yourself. Small arms is more something to produce yourself for NPCs, but also not a sure thing then. There are better goods for factories that actually have NPC customers.

As soon as you have several traders, trade software Mk3 isn't a bad fire and forget software, either, given that you are friends with nearly everyone. Btw, the standard size trade ships, especially the Mistral, work a bit better than the superfreighters, as they are faster, which is a big advantage in trading. Superfreighters are better suited for the big plot projects with your own factory empire.
 
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Yeah, that's the ammunition. It was worth about 10K, not bad. But peanuts compared to my now 32M credits. I do any taxi or mineral missions if they pay about 1 M credits or more. Ignore all the rest, as taking too much time ,for too little profitsss.

Do your station freighters need scanners? I outfitted one with Triplex Scanners for the hell of it. Spent the rest of the evening searching for navigation satellites, and covering about 11 Argon/Boron sectors who would buy ore or sell power cells nearby to the mine. Maybe tonight I'll actually set the mine up. This game is not for the instant gratification entitlement crowd. ;)
 
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This game is not for the instant gratification entitlement crowd.
Oh heavens no! It'd probably kill a casual gamer dead, too.

You CAN actually automate the satellite placement. Explorer software will let you tell a ship to do that. The ship will even hunt down and buy satellites to do it with. I found it a bit haphazard, though, so I typically just put the explorer software on an M4 or M5, use the software to explore a sector, drop a satellite, then move on to the next sector and repeat.

Have you started the Terran Conflict plot? It would be nice to have something to do while you get rich.
 
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Well I started up my first large ore mine! But let me tell you, the sell at best price had my freighter going 5 sectors away to a bad selling location to boot, when I set it to only 4 jump gates. What gives?

I have the supplier and seller set up not to use the jump drive. I worry they will waste credits unnecessarily on energy cells, but maybe it's more important to make it to their destination quickly before the prices change?

BTW, my starter Mercury can't seem to supply the ore mine fast enough. I probably need to replace it with another Mistral. I figure I'll buy 3 more Mistrals, one to supply the mine with energy, and start the other 2 as sector traders. One in Ore Belt and the other in Empire's Edge. Thoughts?

Then maybe I'll start the main quest and/or the hub mission. BTW, I got a message regarding a missing argon ship. Found a reference to a Treasure Map mission? Have no idea how to get that questline started. Ideas?
 
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You definitely want to let them use the jump drive. By the time the trader has chugged through 4 sectors the price will have likely changed.

I'm not sure how the counting is done for sector range - I never really paid close enough attention. I just set the CAG up and let'm go at it.

You might consider a dolphin SF for energy supply. They aren't quite as good but they are a whole lot cheaper than those mistrals. Mistrals are good at the sector/universe trader thing, though. Actually, I think the Goner quest that starts near the TC quest gives you some free freighters.

The Treasure Map is something of a puzzle quest. It's going to be pretty tricky to do this early in the game without checking spoilers. (Heck, it's pretty tricky even when you have the whole galaxy explored.)
 
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Well, yesterday, I bought 6 more Mistrals and outfitted them. I made 3 into sector traders, and assigned an M3 to protect each one. They are located at Empire's Edge, Ore Belt, and Queen's Space. They are doing quite well!

One Mistral I used to buy energy for my existing Mine (the Mercury couldn't keep up with demand). Then I bought another mine and set the other 2 Mistrals to buy and sell for it. All have a single escort M3 or M4.

The Ore mines are not very consistently making money. I'll allow the sellers and buyers to jump 4 sectors, hopefully that will help.

My biggest concern is how to protect my freighters and STs. They all have an escort to protect them. But a Mistral Ore seller and escort got quickly wiped out by pirates at Antigone Memorial. And I thought it was a safe location. So obviously, Mistrals (with particle accel cannons, and phased repeater guns) and their escorts can't protect themselves well even if they have good lasers and missiles. How do you protect them? I'd prefer them to jump away if they get attacked by pirates. The escorts don't seem to be helping so maybe I should get rid of them. Thoughts?
 
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I just give them some shields, NO guns, and tell them to jump if their shields start to go down. That, and I'm nice to pirates so not as many are interested in shooting at me in the first place. Some still are, of course, but very few actively come after my ships. I don't think I've ever assigned an escort to one, though I'll sometimes have to assign guards to guard a region in a sector.

What prices have you set on those ore mines? I typically tell my freighters to only buy energy for 13 or less (assuming they all have jump drives and a CAG that knows how to use them) and sell for somewhat over average. I let them roam pretty far, too.
 
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Ah, well I guess I should remove their guns. They were a hassle to get… Do you manually control freighters if they are under fire? They got killed so quickly I barely had time to notice (since I was in the process of docking my PC ship)? I'll reassign my fighters to just guard my mine sector. I've been very nice to the pirates. I even have done missions for them in their sectors. Ingrateful barbarians. ;)

Well my mines are loaded with energy but can't seem to sell ore fast enough. So I dropped the prices down to average-1, and have my selling freighters selling at best price. Hopefully that will help to attract NPC buyers. I may need more freighters as sellers. Maybe 2 super freighters to sell per large mine?
 
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My freighters only very rarely come under fire. When they do, they quickly jump away. There's a setting on the command console that will tell them to auto-jump if shields go below a certain percentage.

Aren't you using CAG traders to keep those mines under control? Then all the assigned ships will buy and sell as needed. If you're having trouble selling then you might need to widen the range. And let them jump, too!

Eventually you'll want to start turning that ore into something.
 
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No CAGs for now, just little babysteps to sell/buy at best price. There's so much to try out!!!!

That shield-based autojump setting isn't available for my Mercury and Mistrals. I think it's only for bigger ships? And only if you initiate combat? Not just while executing trade orders. A deficiency I read about…

When you say quickly jump away, you mean take manual control of them? Mine got killed so fast I hardly noticed. Is there another way to protect them?

Well the sector traders have been pretty good. I'm up to 32 million credits now. Maybe I should set up some patrols or go on pirate cleaning raids. One is at level 20. I am tempted to try it out as a universal trader, but I heard it's pretty risky...

Not very happy with factories/mines. A lot of trouble for very little profit... :/
 
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Oh, you're right! I thought for sure I had all those traders on emergency autojump. Oh, wait, I bet it's part of the CAG software. I remember them leaving reports in my message log saying that they jumped.

The CAG stuff really is pretty easy to learn. There are lots of settings but you probably will want to leave all of them at the default, at least until you see how they work. The CAG's are pretty slow and sad until they get up to 'trader' but they are handy after that. Unfortunately, when they first start, they can only buy and it sounds like your mines have all the energy they need already. You'll need to keep one selling your normal way while another learns the CAG ropes. Then swap them. (You can have the pilot move from one ship to another so the ships can stick to their current roles.)

A lone ore mine isn't going to be very profitable. You need to actually build stuff from the ore to make a profit. You might want to play around with this a bit: http://home.wolfsburg.de/kprohrbeck/eng/x3tc.html?factories=om,Argon,L,1,0
 
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Hey, thanks for the calculator link. I had seen that before, but didn't appreciate it until now. Building a complex, well that's another level isn't it?

BTW, having 2 Mistral sellers on each mine is working out nicer. They are finally up to about a million total profit. LOL! I can make more than that in a single asteroid scan or taxi mission... Not to mention my sector traders... BTW 2 of them seem to be stuck at level 10 while the other based at Ore Belt is level 20. The first 2 don't seem to be leaving the home sector, even though I have set them to use their jump drive...

I have about 32M credits now. Although I am tempted to try to build factory and mess with CAGs, maybe I should move on to the quest missions...

BTW, those laser towers at the first treasure hunt step toasted me. I suppose a Vanguard Iguana is not a good ship for it... ;)
 
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Sure, AN ore mine is pretty weak. But how many sector traders can work a given sector? Factories can build and build! One ore mine may be weak but when you've started building up your complexes, the money starts pouring out!

Hehe, the Iguana is no warship. They give you a pretty nice warship for free in that Terran Conflict plot, though...

P.S. Now you've done it - I went back in to the game to take those shots. The HUB is calling!
 
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Well, I've run to pursue the Hub mission, and doing more exploring to get there. I think I've optimized my mines as much as possible without using CAGs. The sellers are keeping up with production rate. I'll try CAGs tonight. I also need to mess around with complexes. Should build on the Ore mines, but need to do some research to figure out what would sell best. Do you bother finding the cheapest factories or just use local factories? I've got 42M credits to spend on something... BTW I had to stop and restart my one sector trader so it would pop up a window to ask me how far to let it go trade. I set it to 3 jumps. Now it's leveling up again. It should be a parameter settable under in the Command window :/
 
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Har! Silicon phase complete! Now I just need to collect a few microchips and I'll have the HUB plot done. Let's see, one chip built every 6 minutes - I can build those in just.... 375 hours!?!? I think I need a few more chip plants.
 
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Well I changed my Ore Mine freighters into CAGs and FINALLY they seem to be doing well. They bring in about 1M credits every hour or 2 (more like every 3 hours). But figuring out how to set them up easily took a day of trial and error and lots of reading on the Egosoft forums. Finally figured out that 4 jumps and setting the selling price at (average-1) worked best. They idle a lot but, but sell ore every so often in big lots when the local prices go high enough. At first, I set sell prices so they were always selling, but they were losing money by selling small amounts and spending credits on energy for jumps (I think).

I have 5 sector traders and 2 universal traders that are doing well. Every couple hours I'll add 2 new fresh STs, and convert 2 trained STs into UTs.

I have about 90M credits now. I guess I should create a factory complex at Antigone Memorial once I get about 100M credits. Probably drones or something else high tech. Hope it's worth the trouble!

EDIT: OK, I started the HUB mission. It was almost instant death for my pacifist taxi driver / asteroid scanner. ;) Yikes. BTW, are there supposed to be enemies in the HUB? When I first arrived, there was a K'hak cluster; on my second return, a L Xenon joined the party. WTF? They can obliterate me in seconds if I give them the chance. :/
 
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