Good way to increase station value?

[Lou the Lou]

I have a number of missions to build defense stations for NPC factions. With the recent change to how these missions work (that I kind of hate), their payout is based on the station's value. The problem is, the max payout for some of these missions is over 10mil, while the requirements for the station come to values of less than 3mil.

This leaves a huge gap between the minimum for the mission and what's needed for that max reward. An easy solution is to just slap some expensive production modules on it, but I'm not looking to hand over a dozen hull part production facilities across the universe and help the NPC factions flood the market.

So, does anyone have a good way to increase station value without running into that problem? The only other thing I can think of is just using a bunch of storage modules...

Of course, one might say, "Just build massive defense stations," but the infrastructure is not there to support massive build projects like that; my universe is still relatively young, and short on things like advanced electronics and turret components. Also, handing over a dozen 10m defense stations to the NPC factions... isn't ideal to me.

[mmmcheesywaffles]

For stations that are in safe or strategically important zones, look for what you might want in that location ;) Add turrets to satisfy your needs of their survivability.

For stations nearer the enemies, .... well... make them targets ;) Minimal turrets a few profitable modules. You might get the next order too. Just avoid competing production.

[Zloth]

I assume you're playing in beta? Yeah, figuring out the value of what you're building is all but impossible. You've got to use trial and error to narrow down what you can build without hitting the ceiling.

There's a lot of ways to up the value. Use an 8M or 3M6S dock instead of a cheap one. Add a pier. Add defense modules with no turrets on them.

Just be careful - it doesn't take much to hit the max payout. The ceiling for war missions is currently just 3 million-something. A nice dock and couple of small storage modules covered in high quality turrets/shields should do it.

P.S. Can defense drones launch from a station if it only has an 8M dock? That must look silly!

[Xpain]

http://www.x4-game.com/#/station-calculator
How about you use this excellent tool.

[Lou the Lou]

Originally posted by Zloth:

I assume you're playing in beta?

Beta, yeah. It's a beta change. Rather than getting a flat reward for building a station, we're now going to get "station value + 50%". I mean, I get it, but such a bad change. In a singleplayer game where taking these missions is completely voluntary, this nerf is just totally unnecessary and - again, unnecessarily - extends the time required to build one's wallet.

[mmmcheesywaffles]

Originally posted by Zloth:

....

P.S. Can defense drones launch from a station if it only has an 8M dock? That must look silly!

Drones arn't launched from the Drone Bays
EDIT:typo

[Oddible]

Why not give them MASSIVE amounts of Energy Cell production so you never have to pay more than 11 and you don't have to build them yourself? Or whatever other base resource you need (assuming the AI will staff them with enough miners, etc).

[Zloth]

It's a damn good change! Before, you low-ball the whole thing. You make sure you have THE easiest to build parts that meet the requirements and not one thing more. If they want a turret, you give them the cheapest one you can (with no shield). If they want a dock, you give them the one with trash all over it. Now, you can make something better without feeling like a chump.

It's got a problem in that you can't see the value of what you're building. All you know are what raw materials go in to making it. Also, I think the caps are too small.

Originally posted by Oddible:

Why not give them MASSIVE amounts of Energy Cell production...

Because there's a cap. While I think the cap is low for some of the missions, there definitely needs to be one.

[Lou the Lou]

Originally posted by Zloth:

It's a damn good change! Before, you low-ball the whole thing. You make sure you have THE easiest to build parts that meet the requirements and not one thing more. If they want a turret, you give them the cheapest one you can (with no shield). If they want a dock, you give them the one with trash all over it. Now, you can make something better without feeling like a chump.

It's got a problem in that you can't see the value of what you're building. All you know are what raw materials go in to making it. Also, I think the caps are too small.

Originally posted by Oddible:

Why not give them MASSIVE amounts of Energy Cell production...

Because there's a cap. While I think the cap is low for some of the missions, there definitely needs to be one.

I think he just meant to fill the gap with energy cell production, which would take a massive amount if that's all you used.

But, with the way the missions work, I have to disagree. It's such a bad change. If you want the station value to directly determine the mission payout, then have the mission description tell you exactly what you need to reach that amount. I'm not interested in building megafactories for factions when all they request is a simple defense station, regardless of payout.

And those defense stations are in places you'd expect to find them, not where you'd think to find factories. "Well then just build massive defense stations." That's no good either. If NPC factions were supposed to have insurmountable defense stations sitting at every sector entrance, I think they'd be building them themselves.

[Daddy Shark]

I don't like the new way.

It made sense before.

"I'll pay you 10M credits to build a defense station for me!" makes sense. That's how jobs work in the real world. If the contractor gets the job done for less then he keeps some money.

I think a more sensible change would be that you don't get paid until EVERY module on the station completes construction.

[Asmosis]

Originally posted by Star Trucker:

I don't like the new way.

It made sense before.

"I'll pay you 10M credits to build a defense station for me!" makes sense. That's how jobs work in the real world. If the contractor gets the job done for less then he keeps some money.

I think a more sensible change would be that you don't get paid until EVERY module on the station completes construction.

Well not really. It amounted to "i'll pay you 10mil credits for a 300k storage container with guns on it".

The way the missions are setup now, your not punished for actually building something useful.

Also not getting paid until everything is complete means you have to build and pay for everything yourself. The NPC faction will continue to build the station according to your plan long after you've handed it over to them.

@OP a fully kitted out defence disc costs about 3mil, just chuck an extra one on. Build the admin structure (or some other vital mission component) last so you dont complete the mission prematurely.

Also keep in mind, cost =/= Value. Just because it costs you 5mil to build a station, doesnt mean its value is 5mil, its likely higher. I'd take the mission max payout, then half that and use that as your budget.

[Lou the Lou]

Originally posted by Asmosis:

Also keep in mind, cost =/= Value. Just because it costs you 5mil to build a station, doesnt mean its value is 5mil, its likely higher. I'd take the mission max payout, then half that and use that as your budget.

That's incorrect. Cost = value. Divide the max reward by 1.5, and that's your target. I've built several in this beta, determined that's how it functions. Accidentally shorted myself once by building a station out of order and completing the request before all the modules were built.

A fully-kitted defense bridge is something like 400k-500k, iirc. Maaaaaybe 600k, can't quite remember, so I'll go with 500k. So to get the 11m reward from a request that only specifies 3 Defense Platforms and a number of turrets, you're going to be supplying them with over 7x the firepower they requested. That's just ridiculous. Over 10x if you consider the fact that you can't put turrets on an admin center, thus it does not contribute to the firepower even though it is required.

If you are going to have a house built, you don't say to the contractor, "I want a nice kitchen and a pool. Whatever you build above and beyond that, up to my maximum amount, is what I'll pay for." I'm not saying no one has ever done that, but that's not how regular people typically operate. You hire an architect, or at least go over specific plans. You don't just throw money at them and trust that they'll give you what you want.

But, again, NPCs don't build massive defense stations like that. They don't go spending 7m (or equivalent resources) on defense bridges for a single station, because that's too much power for an NPC faction to have. I mean, I guess you could create a universe where the factions simply can't attack each other successfully because their defenses are impenetrable, buuuuut what fun is that?

[Daddy Shark]

Originally posted by Asmosis:

Originally posted by Star Trucker:

I don't like the new way.

It made sense before.

"I'll pay you 10M credits to build a defense station for me!" makes sense. That's how jobs work in the real world. If the contractor gets the job done for less then he keeps some money.

I think a more sensible change would be that you don't get paid until EVERY module on the station completes construction.

Well not really. It amounted to "i'll pay you 10mil credits for a 300k storage container with guns on it".

The way the missions are setup now, your not punished for actually building something useful.

Also not getting paid until everything is complete means you have to build and pay for everything yourself. The NPC faction will continue to build the station according to your plan long after you've handed it over to them.

That's how it works. It also costs $200k for some contractors to build you a house. It actually only costs them about $50k in materials to build your house. They keep the rest.

You're not supposed to determine if what the customer wants is "useful". You're supposed to build what they asked for. I would be pissed if I contracted you a job to build me a solar plant with 6 panels on it, and I come back to find you've also built a computronic substrate facility that I didn't ask for, and I have to pay for the materials to construct said facility later after you've collected your money and left.

The current system is dumb. The old one made way more sense. As I mentioned the only change I would make is to make it so you have to completely finish construction before handing it over. That way if you just HAVE to build something "useful" then you're paying the bill and not the customer who didn't ask for your "useful" modules in the first place.

[Zloth]

Real life!? In real life, you're going to throw a fit if they build the fancy bathroom off the studio instead of the master bedroom. If Egosoft goes that way, they need to flat out provide a station export so we can build precisely what is requested.

In 4.0, missions often ask for 40K storage, 10 turrets, and a dock. I think they pay 3.6 million? I've got a standard, low-ball template with two small argon storage units, a cheap dock, and 10 turrets on the storage units. In 4.1, those missions have the same requirements but the max payout is 3.57 million. I tried using my standard low-ball template and got 2.5 million. When I checked the average price for all the components I put in, it only came out to 550 thousand, so that was quite a profit.

I tried again, this time using Teladi storage, a couple of connectors to make it work, much nicer turrets (with actual shields), and a well equipped Teladi defense disk. The mission was completed before the disk got started, but I still got 3.26M, so I was actually rather even without the disk. If I were to use, say, an 8M dock and Terran turrets with Mk3 shields, I'm guessing I would hit the max.

The problem is that, to me, that's no defense station. That's a small supply depot. Miners could hide from Khaak and I guess it could be used to store missiles, but it's no defense station. That's why I think the max should be bumped up to something more like 7 million. Possibly as high as 40 million if the war effort is going badly for the requesting faction. I can make at least that much on a Terran build-me-a-fleet mission.

[Lou the Lou]

Originally posted by Zloth:

In 4.0, missions often ask for 40K storage, 10 turrets, and a dock. I think they pay 3.6 million? I've got a standard, low-ball template with two small argon storage units, a cheap dock, and 10 turrets on the storage units. In 4.1, those missions have the same requirements but the max payout is 3.57 million. I tried using my standard low-ball template and got 2.5 million. When I checked the average price for all the components I put in, it only came out to 550 thousand, so that was quite a profit.

I tried again, this time using Teladi storage, a couple of connectors to make it work, much nicer turrets (with actual shields), and a well equipped Teladi defense disk. The mission was completed before the disk got started, but I still got 3.26M, so I was actually rather even without the disk. If I were to use, say, an 8M dock and Terran turrets with Mk3 shields, I'm guessing I would hit the max.

The problem is that, to me, that's no defense station. That's a small supply depot. Miners could hide from Khaak and I guess it could be used to store missiles, but it's no defense station. That's why I think the max should be bumped up to something more like 7 million. Possibly as high as 40 million if the war effort is going badly for the requesting faction. I can make at least that much on a Terran build-me-a-fleet mission.

Either your game is bugged, you're using mods, or I'm not properly understanding what you're saying, because you will not receive 2.5m for a station that requires a budget of 550k. It just won't happen. If it costs you 550k, you'll get around 825k. I say "around" because I'm not sure how they deal with the fluctuating prices; station building costs are not flat. They vary with the cost of materials.

I created a blueprint for a station that would net me 2.898m, after building one that didn't achieve max payout. When I created it, it was around 1.87m in order to achieve max payout from the mission, but it was around 2m when I took this screenshot because of market fluctuations:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2557449008
Factory missions only pay, like, 2m-7m, depending on the factory product. Defense stations pay beween 7m-13m, because apparently the NPC factions want to pay fortresses, but don't want to tell us how to build them, specifically. Not sure where you're picking up your defense station missions, but I find they're worth way more than what you're saying. See here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2557448996

[Asmosis]

Originally posted by Lou the Lou:

Originally posted by Asmosis:

Also keep in mind, cost =/= Value. Just because it costs you 5mil to build a station, doesnt mean its value is 5mil, its likely higher. I'd take the mission max payout, then half that and use that as your budget.

That's incorrect. Cost = value.

No, that's incorrect. At least in HF3. I tested it building some stations that "cost" exactly 4mil (at max buy value), and got approx 8mil back.

The game doesnt care how much you actually paid for the resources either.