X3 Reunion economy

[Siddha]

Would like to hear from anyone who has played the game enough to know something about the X3 economy. I understand it is fundamentally different to the X2 economy which I played and I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts about that.
Also any hints and/or suggestions about beginning and developing a business in X3R
I am based in the the Argon region and have two stations thus far; but I am finding the going very slow compared to X2. So any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks

[Gim]

Whats your current budget? I usually start out by training a bunch of universe traders in fully equipped ships. Best ship choices would be Caiman superfreighter II (Family Njy) and Demeter superfreighter II (Trinity Sanctum). Best traning places for automatic traders are Emperor's Edge and Scale Plate Green. A single ship is quite expensive though, I think 4 million for a Caiman and 3,5 million for a Demeter if they are fully equipped.

If you don't want to train universe traders, you can also try selling soybeans to soyeries manually. Paranids are bad in supplying their own food factories, so there is almost always good profit in that business.

In case you don't want to leave Argon space right now, I'd suggest you to build a silicon mine either in ore belt, Elena's Furtune or Antigone Memorial, in which there are asteroids with 60+ silicon content.

[Siddha]

Hi Gim

Just getting restarted on this game I left off some time ago due to slow going

I am producing silicon and ore in Antigone Memorial and selling them by MORT

I have a few sector traders which I pay no attention to. I dont think they make much profit, at least not that I notice. In fact I dont know how to notice, or in other words, I dont know how to see any accounts for my sector traders. Is there a way to monitor their activity?
I am using them mostly for the gradual race rep gains.

I read of people losing universe traders at a rate that makes the whole operation a loss; due to them wandering into dangerous sectors. So that put me off them.

I didn't look at soya yet so I think I will follow your suggestion and buy another MORT and start working it in Paranid space

I have yet to consider trading other high end goods - but I will get to that too

[Gim]

Hey Siddha,

yeah the important thing for universe traders are that they have decent ships. If you have slow ships with only the bare minimum if equipment (25 MJ shield and poor weapons) in combination with not fully maxed out cargo space you have high loss rates and poor income.

I cannot stress enough to get decent ships first, and then equip them with all upgrades and extensions. This comes at the price of high investment costs first, so you need to have a formidable budget, but in the long run it is worth it.

The Caiman SF II I meantioned above has enough firepower to wreck most ships that are faster and outruns most heavily armed ones. Certainly it and the Demeter have enough shielding for you to intervene when they are being attacked in pirate space (UT's have the annoying trait to not use their installed jumpdraive in pirate space) or to jump out by themselves in allied sectors.

To track their income, just assign them to a homebase, which an be any of your stations. Needless to say it should be a distinct station so you don't get confused with what the station earned and what comes from the traders. Personally I assign them to my headquarters, but andy cheap station for 300 K Credits will do the job. You also need to cash on the station, because the traders use the money of their homebase (or your personal cash, if they are not assigned to a station).

For the beans it is best to build a Soyfarm L (or a complex of then) and sell the beans to empty soyeries. Vice versa, build soyeries and buy cheap beans and energy from the paranids. Use commercial agents rather than MORT, and like UT's, make sure they have good ships (avoid video enhancement googles in those ships).

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If you want, you can also try to mine Nividium. Link[forum.egosoft.com]

[Siddha]

Thanks for those tips Gim - you know the game well :)

I assigned three of my sector traders to stations so I can track them individually and see if they are worth it. Eventually I will make one of them a UT and see how that goes.

For now I am using MORTs to sell ore and silicon and doing some weapons trading myself
My operating budget is only 8mil at the moment; and a load of weapons uses all of that up, so I will wait until I have more cash to make a UT

Then there is the whole question of self-sufficient stations and commercial agents etc - which I have not looked at yet.

A question - I bought some Laser Towers thinking they were weapons I could sell, but I could not find anywhere to sell then. Tried all the EQ docks I know of.
Can the player sell them, do you know?
For now I quickly realised they were a waste and loaded an earlier save.
Didn't lose too much time or progress.

Have you played the Reunion main storyline plots?
And if so what class of personal ship would you recommend as suitable to complete it comfortably?
The reason I say comfortably is because I play these games primarily as empire and economy sims - not as arcade space dogfighting games.
I want a ship that has good shielding and can mount weapons that can deal effectively with the enemies I will encounter.

I used an Osprey in X2 because I found the dogfighting was awful; especially against Khaak, which moved much faster than any fighter or any ordnance I could find - which made them impossible to hit except accidentally. So I had to stand off and use wasp missiles; which worked but was very tedious.
The Khaak spoiled X2 for me because they were an enemy which I was not given the proper means to fight. They were too fast for any ship or ordnance I could find in the game. I tried using PSGs but they did too much collateral damage.

I hope Reunion will give me the means to fight them

[Gim]

Originally posted by Siddha:

Thanks for those tips Gim - you know the game well

Thanks for the compliment!

Originally posted by Siddha:

I assigned three of my sector traders to stations so I can track them individually and see if they are worth it. Eventually I will make one of them a UT and see how that goes.

Don't wait for too long - the real money comes with UT's. Emperor's edge will do the job of training the fastest, because of its particular station setup. Just go for level 10 and make him an Universe trader, rinse and repeat with your other traders.

Originally posted by Siddha:

and doing some weapons trading myself
My operating budget is only 8mil at the moment; and a load of weapons uses all of that up, so I will wait until I have more cash to make a UT

Are you doing the weapon trading only in Argon space? Or did you already uncover the whole universe and doing this everywhere? If not, ti should be your next greater objective to reveal the whole map and put at least one advanced sat in each sector. Make sure to put them high above the ecliptic (about 15-20 km), so they dont get shot.

How is you rank with the various Races? are you allowed to buy the most powerful weapons? If not, you might donate some of your income to the race of the most profitable sectors, so you have more opportunities for the weapon trading.

If possible, you should do the weapon trading with a remote-controlled ship. This gives you the opportunity to use a fast ship for racing missions, which give you (depending on your trade rank) a decent amount of money just for flying the guy from station to station. Any M5 would be suitable for the job. These missions also increase your trade rank and therefore give more and more cash over time, just for flying around!

Originally posted by Siddha:

Then there is the whole question of self-sufficient stations and commercial agents etc - which I have not looked at yet.

It's not the time for self-sufficient complexes anyways - even a simple base complex (food, crystals, energy and silicon) is alreaddy tens of millions of credits, and there isn't even a single Hightech- or weapon factory in that to begin with. Such complexes are clearly for late game.

Originally posted by Siddha:

...Laser Towers...

Laser towers are standalone weapon platform. You can throw them out like satellites or SQUASH mines and they will stay there and defend their postion against enemies. You can also sell them like any other ware - not to equiopment docks but to trading station that have them for offer.

Originally posted by Siddha:

Have you played the Reunion main storyline plots?...

Yes. A Nova will do the job comfortably, an LX would be better, but has to be aquired in combat with the Xenon. If you have started your Bala Gi missions, you can buy the M3+ ships after a certain mission, in which case a Split Chimera would be the best choice.

I never played through X2, so I can't compare the two plots, but the pulsed beam emitters used by LX and Chimera roast everything you encounter. The Nova doesn't have the weapons, but the particle accelerator cannons it can equip still do a decent job.

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And at last a help to boost through the initial hurdles. I will put them in spoiler tags, in case you want to reveal the secrets of the X3 universe by yourself. Note that the thing I am going to mention will give you an absurd boost compared to what you have now.

A free Nova can be found in the 2nd unknown sector southwest of maelstrom and a free Mamba can be found in a mine field in Loomanckstrat's Legacy. Both are decent ships for the Reunion main plot.

A Starburst, the 2nd fastest ship in the entire game can be found roughly 35 km above the only gate in the sector Freedom's Reach.

A bunch of concussion impulse generators is placed in various sectors spread over the entire universe. They will give you several million credits when you find and sell them.

In trading stations there is sometimes a guy selling you coordinates for hidden treasures like wares, ships or about a tenfold of credits that you pay him. Though, from time to time he scams you and takes more money than the amount you find. Accept these offers whenever you see them as they are extremely profitable. Do not accept them for the sectors Split Fire - due to a bug the loot often spawns inside the planet's atmosphere and burns up upon entering the sector.

An excellent map for Reunion can be found here: http://www.pagemark.nl/x3activemap/

Note that most of the entries there are for the XTM extension and cannot be found in the original game. Though, the entries for Ships, CIG's, Credits and some of the wares are correct and may help you advancing sgnificantly faster.

[Siddha]

Once again thank you Gim for your generous and helpful tips - very much appreciated

I think I will do as you suggest; get myself an Express and begin uncovering more sectors and laying down satellites. The Express has good speed and shielding and cargo space. I dont want to fight anything at this time - so run and jump if necessary.

Weapons trading is good for profits; but now I have the way of it I can do it by MORT. That will make 4 MORTS which is just about manageable; any more and it will get to be a pain.

I want to start experimenting with commercial agents and station managers etc; not a complex, just a couple of standalone stations - maybe a solar power plant and two mines in one of the Paranid sectors. Those are good products for steady profit and only require energy cells.
Something like that.

So far so good :)

[Siddha]

Hello Gim
I am getting regular crashes CTD; about every hour
Is that normal or does it indicate an issue?
Playing on W7 64bit
I'm not using any mods - just the bonus pack

[Gim]

Hey Siddha,

I think it has to do either with hardware or a savegame with a very advanced progress in the game or both. I know of reports where players said they had regular crashes when the savegame became really large and there were also reports that certain hardware configurations made the game crash on a regular basis. I myself had problems with certain PCs, but that is like 8 years ago.

I doubt these crashes have anything to do with your operating system; in fact, all the X games from X2 onwars should run smoothly on Win 7 (including the 64 bit version). Did you have these crashes from the beginning? In that case i would take a wild guess and say it has something to do with your particular hardware configuration. If the prob just started recently, I'd say, one or more of your savegames are either too large or corrupted. In that case you should try to start from an older backup copy (if you have one) or start a new game to see whether the problem remains.

[Siddha]

The crashes began recently - a few days ago I think.
I dont think it can be the size of the savegames because I'm only in the early stages of this game; I dont have a lot of stuff and most of the universe is not yet uncovered - ?
Maybe the save is corrupted - I dont know
I set the exe to compatibility with XP - so maybe that will help ?
I'll see how things go for a bit and make sure to save often
I dont think I could bear to start over Gim. I find the going very slow in Reunion and I am just beginning to get somewhere. Dumping it all and starting over is not really a runner.
I may just persist for now and save often.

[Gim]

Sure, if starting new is not an option, try saving as much as possible. regarding running the game in compatibility mode for XP, it shouldn't be necessary, but if it helps, then why not? Perhaps the problem solves itself over time and is just a temporary issue.

[Siddha]

I read some other players saying it helped them so decided to try it
I had the game running a couple of hours this eve and no crashes - so fingers crossed
maybe it was just temporary; or maybe the compatibility; or maybe...I dont know :)

[Siddha]

Hello Gim

Trying to start my first UT but I am Unable to get the Start Universe Trader command to activate on any of my sector traders

The pilots seem to be level 10
That is, there is a (10) following their name on the ship

For example...
I have a Mercury TS with a pilot - Senior Paymaster (10)
Trade Commands 1 & 2 & 3
Fight Commands 1 & 2
Trading Extension
Jumpdrive
Special Command
Navigation Command
Duplex Scanner
3 x 25Mj shields

The Start Sector Trader command is active, but the UT command is greyed out

What am I doing wrong?



Thanks

[Gim]

I have no idea, honestly. According to your list, it should start with no problem. Are you sure the shields are 25 MJ and not perhaps 5 MJ or something? Can you stop the current command an then start the universe trader?

[Siddha]

Well spotted :)
I had managed - I dont know how - to buy 5Mj shields... Doh!

A few of the folks on the Egosoft forums were very helpful trying to get me sorted
I feel such an idiot for wasting their time - and yours
Thanks for replying

[HeroinHobgoblin]

Originally posted by Gim:

I have no idea, honestly. According to your list, it should start with no problem. Are you sure the shields are 25 MJ and not perhaps 5 MJ or something? Can you stop the current command an then start the universe trader?

Props to you for being so helpful to a new player!