Hull Parts Help....

[Project Danny]

So In my game every single shipyard and equipment Dock has no hull parts....

So that's a good opportunity to make money.

I want to setup in Nopileos fortune have all my main factory's there.

My problem is I don't know how big to make my hulls part factory.

So I want to make it big enough to supply myself with enough hull parts to make ships of all sizes in my own shipyards.

And make it big enough so there's leftovers to sell in my trading stations to supply all the universe starved shipyards so they can also build ships too.

So how big should I make my hulls part factory? 20 hull parts? 50? I'm really not sure

Ty for help.

[zpc]

Don't overengineer it - just start building the station. The station editor in X4 is awesome enough to extend your station later.

1x dock, 1x pier, 1x M storage, 1x hull parts, 1x energy cell production

Later you can add more storage, more hull parts productions - and even add the refined metal production.

I'd advice against a megacomplex and build smaller stations for each main product and the occasional mining station with fast distribution to the processing plants. But that's personal taste.

[Hiigy]

there are a few differant ways of doing this Personally I Tend to make not so much a mega complex but a chain for the goods in 1 that I can easy expand If it turns out to be a good venture later.

you might find the below link helpful for planning out your building and making sure you have sufficient resources to keep the manufacturing flowing :)

http://www.x4-game.com/#/station-calculator

[ExavierMacbeth]

Originally posted by Hiigy:

you might find the below link helpful for planning out your building and making sure you have sufficient resources to keep the manufacturing flowing :)

http://www.x4-game.com/#/station-calculator

This always helps alot... I usually start with with 1 each of Claytronics & Hull Parts with some storage as my first station I ever build. The Claytronics is expensive, but you can then set the wares to "Player Faction Only" so you build up a stockpile for future station construction... After that expand it enough to make it self sufficient.

Once thats done the options are pretty much endless since you can go spend several hours doing missions, plots, exploring, etc while the station slowly builds up the core resources for the next station expansion...

If your trying to keep the AI shipyards stocked of the things they burn through the fastest, you would want something like this... Plus all their supporting requirements.
9x Hull Parts
5x Advanced electronic
2x Antimatter converters
7x Weapon Components
6x Engine Parts
2x Scanning arrays
2x Smart Chips

You might need to add Turret Components, Field Coils, & Shield Components, Drone Components, & Missile Components to that as well. The AI economy usually produces enough of these on its own, but I have had some game playthroughs were odd gaps have appeared.

Keep in mind that the above is just to keep 1 AI shipyard well supplied... If your building in Nopileos then you are within the 5 jump max trade range of 18 AI shipyards... Don't try to run the entire economy yourself :P

EDIT: Of course if you do manage to meet most of the needs for a single shipyard you can always get the Ship Fabrication Modules & make your own shipyard... I do love not having to buy ships for the AI lol

[ZombieHunter]

Hull parts is one of the first stations I build b/c no one in the entire game seems to have them. But they can be expensive at first. Make sure you look at the prices you buy your resources at vs the price you sell at. Unfortunately the X4 UI does not integrate all this into one nice total outgoing and total incoming but you can calculate it from the station overview and having the check box for show economy info checked.

Ideally you would be bringing in 100% of your resources from your other stations but of course when you start out you won't have this. So for a bit you might not make many credits but eventually you will. Advanced Electronics is another one that is immensely profitable.

The manager in my game for most wharfs seem to be idiots. They buy enough hull parts to run a few production runs but doesn't keep much in stock so they always run out. Its like they are trying to run it similar to the Toyota Production System and Kanban which says you keep no inventory other than that which you need to build your products. Anything more is waste.

That sounds great but real life isn't this easy. However many factories have tried this and some succeeded and some utterly failed. For your station I recommend you keep at least 4 to 5 runs worth of inventory locally and then set sell orders for the rest. This means that if you set your supply stations to only trade with your faction and they only supply your station you won't make any credits off of those resources. But if you set a sell order to keep only about 4 to 5 runs of inventory in stock then you can make a profit on over supply. Essentially you are just selling the over supply portion from your station using the supplies than the one that created them. For sure it does not make sense to keep full inventories of all resources needed to create a product b/c there is inventory you will never get to if you have supply runs setup. Sell this excess and make credits.

So if you calculate how many resources are required for 4 runs (check the Encylopedia under wares for Hull Parts) then you know about how big your storage needs to be. If you find you cannot keep up you can always build another hull part production module and a storage module later. Don't over-build the first time. Build only what is necessary and 'see how it goes'.

I hope that makes sense.

[ExavierMacbeth]

Originally posted by ZombieHunter:

The manager in my game for that wharf seems to be an idiot. He buys enough hull parts to run a few production runs but doesn't keep much in stock so they always run out. Its like he is trying to run it similar to the Toyota Production System and Kanban which says you keep no inventory other than that which you need to build your products. Anything more is waste.

I think this has more to do with the station's total storage capacity than anything else. The automatic ratios that get assigned when you make a player run shipyard leave me to think most of the AI shipyards were designed based on the real world "Just in Time Delivery" model... which we know how well that worked when everyone started panic buying :P

The Devs really need to add a few more large storage modules to the AI's starting shipyard designs.

[ZombieHunter]

Originally posted by ExavierMacbeth:

Originally posted by ZombieHunter:

The manager in my game for that wharf seems to be an idiot. He buys enough hull parts to run a few production runs but doesn't keep much in stock so they always run out. Its like he is trying to run it similar to the Toyota Production System and Kanban which says you keep no inventory other than that which you need to build your products. Anything more is waste.

I think this has more to do with the station's total storage capacity than anything else. The automatic ratios that get assigned when you make a player run shipyard leave me to think most of the AI shipyards were designed based on the real world "Just in Time Delivery" model... which we know how well that worked when everyone started panic buying :P

The Devs really need to add a few more large storage modules to the AI's starting shipyard designs.

Haha just in time delivery. I heard that for so many years. It never worked. I mean never worked. Half the time the assembly line was down b/c we couldn't get parts here or there. I'm like 'yeah if we had more in inventory I could just go get them. But nope. You guys want to wait for them to ship on a slow boat from overseas. Whichever. I get paid either way.' And I did. LOL.

But then you get some genius that thinks hey we can build partials. So then you end up with a thousand partial products and to finish them you have to go out of process which is unsafe and untested and causes quality issues. Haha. You can't make this stuff up. It is pretty hilarious. Just hope that when you go to buy the product you don't get one of those 'partials'.

[Pathogenic]

Maybe start with 4 hull parts and 2 ore refineries, and go from there. Let it run for a bit, see how starved they are for hull parts, and add 2 hull parts + 1 ore refinery as you go.

[Project Danny]

Originally posted by Pathogenic:

Maybe start with 4 hull parts and 2 ore refineries, and go from there. Let it run for a bit, see how starved they are for hull parts, and add 2 hull parts + 1 ore refinery as you go.

Ok I'll try that thank you