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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
| Making money: freight and factories |
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I'm an entrepreneur, I is!
Next time I play the game, we'll see if I can actually produce anything. I can walk thru the dark corridors of my Solar Power Plant (aptly named "Your Solar Power Plant" on the sector map) and dream of the day when I can afford to turn on the lights and make pictures of my bare butt on the station's copy machine.
But for now, I'll marvel at how quickly a healthy bank account can be put on life support. A bit too real-life, it be. 
_________________
=Proud Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Benevolent Dictator, X2/X3 and Morrowind/Oblivion Forums=
Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys!
Last edited by dteowner on Wed Mar 03, 2004 2:31 am; edited 1 time in total |
Tue Feb 17, 2004 9:28 pm |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
Haven't got that far yet. I spent 3 hours trying to destroy squash mines and always seeming to miss one or two that got me in the end!! Very frustrating, since half my missiles seem to self destruct, half do very little and the rest just might set off a tiny chain reaction!!
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If God said it, then that settles it!
I don't use Smileys, I use Emoticons!!
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Wed Feb 18, 2004 7:48 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
You need to use 2x of the smaller missiles per Squash mine you target (I presume you're only using Mosquitos or something). I got stuck on that for a while - you should find if you use 2x on a single mine that you'll get a bigger chain-reaction.
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Wed Feb 18, 2004 8:55 am |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
If 2 did the job, I wouldn't have a problem. I've tried various distances, from 1.5km to about 7km and at least half my missiles self-destruct rather than hitting a mine, even though it's targetted as accurately as I can get it. It's my targetting that's annoying; I centre the missile on the target circle, but that's no guarantee of success.
_________________
If God said it, then that settles it!
I don't use Smileys, I use Emoticons!!
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Wed Feb 18, 2004 12:00 pm |
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EverythingXen
Arch-villain
Joined: 01 Feb 2002
Posts: 4342
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I'm having fun with my copy. Combat isn't hard... very Wing Commander. Disco can't take much of a pounding, though, so I have to make sure I don't get hit when I take out pirate ships. Easy to do at 400+ KMH strafing runs... as long as they fools don't careen into me (they have to be doing it on purpose. Or they're drunk.) I can see that combat is going to lag my system a bit.
I contemplated repairing the Express after it got bashed up... but instead I landed at an equipment deck and offloaded its shield generators for something like 400,000. I am an ex-con, after all. Destroyed in battle, they were... yeah... that's it. Destroyed in battle.  Great bit of capital to get a real light freighter and upgrade my little Disco to Ludicrous Speed.
I've got the aptly renamed Battered Merc running energy cell trade runs in the Terracorp sector, and a brand spanking new fully tricked out (save cargo compression and 25W shields, both of which ares far too expensive to show a profit margin just yet.) Mercenary running around doing energy cell trade runs in another. The engine tuning to 130 makes it so much faster than the battered 15 of the battered merc, that's for sure.
All while I huddle in a space station in a tricked out Disco bemoaning the lack of a docking computer. I have no problems landing my Disco ... but you wouldn't believe how many times that fat assed loaner committed acts of war by dinging the paint of docking ports). Though I figured out you don't NEED a docking computer as you can set the autopilot to dock. It's just slower than the magic D button.
I've got enough to purchase a solar plant factory ... but before I do I'm wondering what kind of upkeep and profit margin I can expect. It would leave me with something like 50,000 bucks after placement, which seems like such a financial setback (the Merc alone will probably take a dozen hours to pay for itself, as it makes roughly 2500 to 5000 credits an energy cell run... as does the Battered Merc - though the Shiny New Merc can make something like 5 trade runs in the time it takes the battered merc to cross half the sector).
Better investment... two more Mercs or a Solar Plant?
_________________
Estuans interius, Ira vehementi
"The old world dies and with it the old ways. We will rebuild it as it should be, MUST be... Immortal!"
=Member of the Nonflamers Guild=
=Worshipper of the Written Word= |
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Wed Feb 18, 2004 3:27 pm |
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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
@Xen- I'll tell you after get mine fired up. One thing I can tell you (found this out the hard way) is that the factory will require a good bit more cash that it's construction cost. You've got to hire a special transport for it (3000cr per gate), then you've got to put money into its bank account so it can buy raw material when you're not around, then (and here's the killer) you've got to buy a startup load of crystals (~1600cr each, "full up" is 165 units). I've covered the first 2, but I think I'm going to run out of money before I can manage hurdle #3. Oh, and BTW, a Spaceballs reference is always welcomed!
@Corwin- might I recommend fighter drones instead of missles? Takes a bit of work to order them to attack, but you can take out the entire mine field with 4 drones if you plan your chain-reactions properly. Might I also recommend the usage of the pageup/pagedown keys? Start with the gate (or the nacelle) targeted and keep hitting that key until you get back to the gate. That will put every mine on your sector map, which will help your attack planning and prevent those minor oversights that lead to The Silent Splat.
_________________
=Proud Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Benevolent Dictator, X2/X3 and Morrowind/Oblivion Forums=
Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys! |
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Wed Feb 18, 2004 5:13 pm |
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EverythingXen
Arch-villain
Joined: 01 Feb 2002
Posts: 4342
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So you're realistically looking at a startup cost of 600k or more? That would take a hell of a long time to recoup at 10 to 20 credits a cell. That's sellling 30 to 60 thousand just to cover activation, to say nothing of maintenace, etc. Urgh.
Perhaps finding a factory type with a cheaper resource than crystal...
_________________
Estuans interius, Ira vehementi
"The old world dies and with it the old ways. We will rebuild it as it should be, MUST be... Immortal!"
=Member of the Nonflamers Guild=
=Worshipper of the Written Word= |
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Wed Feb 18, 2004 8:29 pm |
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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
You might want to wait for Dhruin to check in and confirm it, but I think that 600k is probably a fair estimate. I could be stupid, though.
And just to complicate matters, your question got me to thinkin'... Looking at the factory prices and some of the "hidden costs" involved with the cheaper ones (mineral scanner for the silicon and ore mines), I'm guessing it will take 500k to get into manufacturing. Based on that, I'm giving serious thought to seeing if I still have a savegame prior to my factory purchase. It's certainly cheaper to get into the cargo business. I think I'm going to try to backtrack and buy a couple more mercs instead. Most likely, a fleet of 3-5 haulers should generate solid revenue which could then be invested in a factory. Thing with the fleet concept is that I found that after a handful of runs in any given sector, there weren't many highly profitable ones left and I had to move to new territory. That might prove incredibly difficult with multiple ships.... Now, the question that arises is whether installing a jumpdrive into a transport (might not be possible) and popping around would be cost effective.
_________________
=Proud Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Benevolent Dictator, X2/X3 and Morrowind/Oblivion Forums=
Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys! |
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Wed Feb 18, 2004 8:54 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
**** Entire post may be considered a spoiler....****
SPPs are undoubtedly the easiest way to make money but like most factories they are expensive to set up.
Ideally, you want 3x transports assigned to your SPP - 1x to buy crytals and 2x to sell them. It's much more efficient to have ships set to "sell at best price" because they'll almost always find a factory willing to buy at the maximum 21cr, whereas if you rely on NPC ships coming to you, you'll have to be price competitive and it takes a while before they notice you.
Use TPs rather than TS ships for these jobs. An Argon Express has a tricked-up top speed of 216 rather than a Merc's 130 - nearly double. It can't haul XL freight but you don't need that for a SPP and the capacity it fine.
So...1x SPP + 3x Argon Express (or other race TP) = ~ 700,00. A full store of crystals (doesn't need to be full but for the sake of calculation): 1684 * 330 = 555,720.
Real price to run an efficient SPP: ~ 1.2-1.3M
This is will nett 100k/per hour of game time with no intervention if it's in the right sector.
Alternatives...
Silicon Mine in Ore Belt is much cheaper to set up but there's a Pirate Station there and they always destroy my stations - not at first but after a few hours. Need defences which I couldn't afford. 
More remote control ships - always good but a lot of micromanagement. I made a truckload personally flying a Merc with a jump drive (free in mission 4 or whatever). Buy Energy in The Wall, sell in Atreus Clouds, check the BBS for missions every time you dock. With the jump drive a mission that pays a handsome bounty for quick delivery is a cinch. It's surprising how many missions yield 50-100k when you can do them.
Buy the Trading Ext. MkIII script put out by Egosoft with v1.2 patch ~500k but I hear they make a bundle in a good sector.
Finally, most profitable thing in the game is capturing ships. Properly done a Pirate Orinocco will nett 300-400k and a Pirate freighter up to ~200k. And it's fun. Ideally you want an M3 with Ion Disruptors but a M4 will do if you can fly.
Cheap but ideal capturing ship info:
Spoiler:
Actually, arguably the most versatile ship in the whole game is the Split Iguana (TP) and it's a steal (~350k?) - great all-rounder except for the lousy cockpit view. Over 300 top speed when tuned, over 400 freight, 3x front lasers including top end stuff, a rear turret for missiles and up to 2x 25mw shields. Fantastic! Because it's a transporter it handles like an elephant so you need full tunings. Recommended as a poor-man's M3 replacmement.
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Wed Feb 18, 2004 9:13 pm |
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EverythingXen
Arch-villain
Joined: 01 Feb 2002
Posts: 4342
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I'd love to get that jump drive but... well... ain't gonna happen. The pirates are a little ticked at me for blowing apart a few dozen of them for bounties (I can take the 3x1W shielded ones... you know, their version of the Disco basically.). Nuking the squash mines isn't a problem... though I'm still at the point in the game where I sigh at watching 2200 credit drones explode violently for the greater good. Nope... it's the fact that after a few minutes one of the heavy pirate fighters (the annoying ones with 10,000 shields and four weapons. Shields heal as fast as I can hurt them.) invariably shows up and ruins my day.
When I started playing today I had 212 thousand credits. After 8 hours of play... I have 212 thousand credits.
My Titan seems a long, long way off.
Mind you I have 212 thousand credits because I finally bit the bullet and fully repaired the damaged Merc, and bought an express... bringing my trade fleet up to two max-speed mercs, a max speed express, and a Disco that is currently sitting in the Goner base because trade runs are faster with a human at the helm (at least, I thought so at first... I'm not so sure now. Do the computers use the spacial compression drive thing? Does that even do anything besides speed the game as a whole up so you don't die of boredom flying 40k at 130K. I'll take 40 seconds to cover that distance over the minutes it would take otherwise.)
With the amount of micromanagement needed to maintain three heavy trading vessels I found myself sitting in the middle of space doing nothing in the Disco anyways.
The micromanagement is fun but repetitive. I wish the other materials were as attractive as energy cells. I also wish the trade 1 and trade 2 programs I got for my remote controlled ships actually let them trade. As far as I can tell they do nothing besides give me a menu that looks promising but is all grey all the time. I'd love to just tell them "Don't buy energy above 15 credits. Don't sell for less than 17. Knock yourselves out." That's exactly what the AI are doing, after all. Instead it's a matter of hitting R, selecting each, and punching D, sell or buy, 5 or 6 (I have the best buy/sell. Man, those really speed things up. No more checking each station in the sector by system map.), C, 2, select system, select target... and off they go.
By the time I'm done one two others are sitting patiently. Sitting patiently doesn't make me money.
_________________
Estuans interius, Ira vehementi
"The old world dies and with it the old ways. We will rebuild it as it should be, MUST be... Immortal!"
=Member of the Nonflamers Guild=
=Worshipper of the Written Word= |
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Thu Feb 19, 2004 8:17 am |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
You certainly have more money than I do. I never seem to get very far ahead before I end up buying something. All the add ons I've bought don't seem to do much yet. The only time I tried fighting a Pirate in my Disco I got wiped out, so no success in that area. Still, buying at 9 and selling at 22 does bring in a little.
Question!! The Egosoft boards seem to suggest getting the Boron Manta (?) Is that better than the merc? Are Teladi ships worth looking at?
_________________
If God said it, then that settles it!
I don't use Smileys, I use Emoticons!!
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Thu Feb 19, 2004 8:51 am |
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Badger
Stripey Forest Dweller
Joined: 18 Mar 2002
Posts: 924
Location: UK |
quote:
Originally posted by EverythingXen
Do the computers use the spacial compression drive thing? Does that even do anything besides speed the game as a whole up so you don't die of boredom flying 40k at 130K.
Hey Xen
While most of your post was far beyond the ken of this stripey novice, I do happen to know the answer to this bit.
(Headline: Community Rocked By Badger Knows Answer Revelation)
I'm sure I remember from the first game, that the time compression gizmo does something to the brain of the pilot using it, so that in order to save the wear and tear on the mind of long space trips time appears to move much faster for him.
But it does affect everything else in the game as well, speeding up the entire universe when you use it. Consider the following points of Badger logic.
1/ If only you were affected, then whatever destination you reached would be in a different time frame to the one you found yourself in. Being out of sync would make it impossible to carry out missions from the bulletin board.
2/ If you are flying in a straight line between stations, ships with more clout to their cahoonah will often whip past you en-route. Turn on the Time compression and you will still see this happening.
Hah! Answering questions eh? I amaze myself!
Oh..... while I think about it. You said that you'd love a Jump Drive, but it ain't gonna happen? Well I'm sure I've read that you get one for free on one of the storyline missions.
Badgers on a role!
Badger
Badger
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"Ducks are Dumb!" Badger-2005. Go ahead... quote me! |
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Thu Feb 19, 2004 9:07 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
@ Xen, those menu items are not for general trading; they're for ships that are assigned to Factories (Home Base setting) to buy resources for that factory or sell that factory's wares. Trading Extendion MKIII (~500k) will do what you're thinking of (confusing, I know). SETA speeds up the whole game, not just you.
Boy, you're miles ahead of me at 8 hours.
@ Corwin, a maxed Manta has a cargo hold 3000 - that's some serious freight capacity! Some of the Teladi ships are good but I haven't used any in X2 (used to love the Falcom in X: BTF).
Alcatrust's Ship data table is very handy to compare. Data is *maxed*, not original condition.
http://th.klammer.bei.t-online.de/x2/x2ships.htm
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Editor @ RPGDot |
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Thu Feb 19, 2004 9:14 am |
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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
@Xen- I'm guessing the next step for you will be to buy a better fighter and start capturing (not vaporizing) pirate ships. Nick it, fly it to a shipyard, and sell it. That's got to be incredibly profitable for a talented pilot. Dhruin, as usual, is encouraged to tell me I'm full of hooey and give the correct answer.
I did back up to a point where I hadn't bought the factory yet. I've got a pair of maxed mercs to go with my Disco. I've been trying to run the mercs remotely (I've switched a couple times to take advantage of profitable bulletin board missions). I found out you cannot remote-fly a ship into a sector you haven't visited before, which prompted me to bail out of Mercury One and pilot the Disco. I'm trying to expand my horizons by visiting Boron Space. I'm closing in on another purchase, but I'm not sure whether to pick up an Express or a Buster.
_________________
=Proud Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Benevolent Dictator, X2/X3 and Morrowind/Oblivion Forums=
Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys! |
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Thu Feb 19, 2004 10:13 pm |
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Badger
Stripey Forest Dweller
Joined: 18 Mar 2002
Posts: 924
Location: UK |
I don't know if Corwin is still stuck at the gate with the squash mines. but I've got there now and all I can say is Grrrrrrrr!
I rolled up without any missiles at all as I was obviously never a boy scout.
(Well, not a very good one anyway. I never got past the terrible accident that befell my cousin who was a sea scout. The went on a camping trip and three of them drowned trying to set out the tent pegs!)
So I had to go all the way back to Red Light to get some. But I only bought ten and my first couple of attempts have made it quite plain to anyone with eyes, that I coldn't blow up balloons with these things, let alone squash mines!
So I guess I'm going to have to go back and get more! Maybe I can risk a dash through Presidents End (Didn't Monica Lewinski (sp?) say something like that?) to cut the journey time down a little.
Hey.. a thought just struck me. Do you think that you could hire one of those big fat transport ships and ask it to fly into the mines? They couldn't hurt one of those bad boys could they? Then I'd be free to do a bit of Jacko moonwalking to get a look at those Nacelles.
Badger
_________________
"Ducks are Dumb!" Badger-2005. Go ahead... quote me! |
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Fri Feb 20, 2004 1:54 am |
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