When nobody's got claytronics(etc)

[MOK]

My current playthrough has ground to a crawl, because I haven't gotten my claytronics facility built yet, and there's very very little supply on the map. Everyones competing over the same tiny supply. I'd start supplying it myself but that's quite a jump from where I am.

Have yall ever had playthroughs with an extreme bottleneck like this? What was your experience like?

[alcash]

i have, mainly with advance electronics and weapon components. However i now make it a point as i do war mission and any other build def station mission to add in production modules i want to boost the overall production of across the universe.

[Wraith]

My bottleneck has been hull part and drone components

[Tin Pony]

Bottleneck, yes. After exhausting exploration for stations that supply what I need, it's back to the reputation grind with the faction that has the production, in hopes they'll throw me a bone.
EDIT: Along with supplying what I can directly to those stations.

[Gin]

At certain moments, yes.
Claytronics followed by hull parts, weapon & turret components, drone components and sometimes even smart chips.
Though, i kept being patient as shortages are temporary.
Besides, there are a lot of other things that can be done in the meantime,
such as checking up on the sector where there are shortages, see if there's any trouble caused by Xenon or pirates and if possible, eliminate those threats.
I'm not sure about any big differences but i tend to believe that it helps.

[Bozz 💀]

In my current game it's mostly advanced electronics, I supply HOP the most because they were getting invaded by both Antigonids and the Godrealm of paranids on 2 fronts and always lacked AEs.
But yeah the demand for Hull parts is always huge if they are active wars.

[Kackstift]

i start always with mining hubs near any faction for rep and fast money. Side effect is that all faction stations are always full with ore and gases and they can pump out stuff 24/7.
After that simply small factory to get the part for hull parts and claytronics(also near the miner hubs).

[theslay66]

In my current game (quite advanced with main missions and reputation grind completed) it's now mostly advanced electronics and turrets parts. I had some defense stations that have been waiting for ages, without turrets which makes them quite pointless.
Thankfully my main station is now pumping a lot of them and i'm making quite some good money. Had to do something about it because several factions had trouble to keep Xenons in check, while most shipyards in the universe were lacking those things.

These are pretty common occurence, in fact the game is designed to have low supplies of some key components so the player can actually have a big impact on the economy.
I have tried some mods that rebalances this side of the game and yes, there was more of everything available, but in the end the player lose of his agency and hability to shape the game, and Xenons often get eradicated without your intervention. And frankly, a game without Xenon troubles quickly gets pretty boring.

[Donauwelle]

You can "easiely" use shortages to your advantage tho.

Often a station containing 1X small Dock and 2-4X Desired goods can make you tons of cash and solve the issue.
In "earlygame" i tend to spam Miningstations with 1x Small Dock + 1-2 Fluid/Solid storage and a few miners mining and 1-2 selling...
Just doing the Boso-Pio plot with 2-3-4 (keep spamming them, best one per faction) of them in background can make you already 100Mil cash in just a few hrs of gameplay.

"Mid" im always "abusing" shortages with small station spam.
Its ludacris how much cash 10-20 of this super cheap small thingys can make you while your doing the plots.

After 150+ hrs on a map however i usually start dismanteling all the small mining and shortage stations and rely on 4-5 BIG ones that keep me selfsufficient.
4-5 BIG Stations in one System nuke you FPS hard.... But it does so only in ONE system...
Dozends of small ones with ships everywhere.... nuke your FPS everywhere
Looking forward to 15th when 6.00 goes live.

[SirProsik]

I have had a few where claytronics were scarce most were advanced electronics. One was so bad I could not start teleport research at all. I gave the station more than 10 mil and nothing moved except ecells.

Found most stations with Adv. Electronics with no wares as well. Made some money from looting xenon but got bored and went back to an older game. With the game as it is I want teleport 1 as a backup to disaster recovery.

[trooperrob]

check with different races. Also, lots of building will use more claytronics than npc can provide. I would put a claytronics and hull parts factory as very high priority, as soon as you can, ahem, acquire the blueprints.
As for the advanced electronics bottleneck, advanced weapons / engines etc require a different balance of wares, so if you plan on using such a weapon / engine, put electronics or whatever it needs high on your list.
as said above, every shortage is an opportunity.

[MOK]

To be clear, the original post isn't asking for advice. Just exploring the different scarcity situations people have gotten into.

In my case, it is simply the case that there's only about three claytronics modules combined in all sectors across all factions, as I have everything pinged with satellites. So every faction has their building nearly halted. Not an opportunity, nothin to do about it than scrounge and let time tick by. *shrug*

Eventually I'll start my own factory, or I'll find a new one under construction to assist, but it's really caused a galaxy-wide heart attack.

What I'm more interested for this thread is in what people have seen in these moments of extreme bottlenecks. How has it affected the factions and AI and conflicts, has it led to any interesting situations?

This one's an interesting demonstration of how the Xenon are less vulnerable. Once Xenon had cut off access to the largest claytronics supplier, along with an effective gate blockade, everyone started to choke. So with each hour that passes, Xenon are really getting the upper hand. If not for halting my potential progress, I'd be glad for the added challenge this will create.

[Rhapses]

Bottlenecks I have encountered are Advanced Electronics, Engine Parts, and admittedly Hull Parts on occasion.
A good start to the game though is where you can get an Advanced Electronics factory up and running asap. Almost acts like a money printer.
By the time i start seeing issues with Claytronics, I'll admit I usually have my own supply chain set up.

My other issues I've encountered have been resource scarcity where your production outstrips resource (Mineral/Gas) supply in the area.

[Pandorian]

Originally posted by MOK:

What I'm more interested for this thread is in what people have seen in these moments of extreme bottlenecks. How has it affected the factions and AI and conflicts, has it led to any interesting situations?

For me the holes in the economy are a solved issue but I can point out the major ones I've seen. Most major issues can be solved by providing raw goods and then transporting wares from station to station. When I refer to holes I'm referencing the supply and demand that cannot be met by AI stations alone. These are issues that pop up when you're trying to have shipyards produce a constant stream of ships and thus the production stations that I actually build.

Hull Parts/Claytronics : I put these first just to clarify that I DIDN'T have to build any stations for these. All demand was met by the AI factions and me shoving scrap into RIP.

Plasma Conductors
Scanning Arrays
Smart Chips x2
Advanced Electronics x2
Antimatter Converters
Drone Components
Missile Components x2
Shield Components
Turret Components
Weapon Components x3

All of the above factories were x50 production modules. I didn't try to balance them out just fill the hole that AI production couldn't meet. After having all of those plus AI production all of my Shipyards/Wharfs are saturated with what I consider maximum war occurring.

EDIT: Those production factories also had workforce thus driving demand for food and more economic churn.

EDIT 2: I guess I'd like to point out that even though Hull Part production isn't an issue, Hull Part storage is. Shipyards and Wharfs are often waiting on those to produce more ships. I can see where a Shipyard is down to 1% but there are shipments coming in that will fill it to 90%.