The effectiveness of traders and miners.....

[Fast]

In this game you need hundreds of millions if not billions of money to accomplish all the things and experience all the things.

And yet, this medium miner is like....dont worry here is my 60k per 15 mins....

Come the fk on, medium miners should be doing in the hundreds of thousands individually (and before you say it, blah blah prices , economy blah blah) i dont care, the base prices for ores and gases is too low, especially considering the importance of them.

Then we come to traders... Slow lumbering hulk ships , that unless you get lucky with a 3-4 star seminar you gonna get nothing out of.
Fill shortages? Wow much good lets collect some random thing without even considering a destination. and then make a whopping 300 credits for you hour long journey, so lucrative so great.
You wanna trade multiple sectors and across the galaxy? well guess what, get 3 star or suck it up buttercup.

I mean , i get it, i expect some long form gameplay and general progression systems, but who in the world decided that trader should even be allowed to profit 300 credits ever, or have a miner of any kind, earn under 300k for its efforts.

It just seems arbitrary.

I assume the devs dont really care and are like "well i like it the way it is" but ♥♥♥♥ me its boring. Traders and Miners are the heart of the economy and should be paid a reasonable amount based on their cost.

A high preset miner is around 1.7mill, at 60k a pop it takes around 35 complete mining runs to be even profitable. And that doesnt include every 5 seconds of harrassment ...flee ...go back...continue.

Traders are equally as bad until you can reach advanced auto trade. Which BTW should be a 2 star requirement not 3.

And finally....stations.... Make a station to fill an economy that cost you around 10 mill to start, dont worry youll have to lower the asking price anyway to even get the AI to show up and youll not see that investment back for some 15-20 hours of gameplay.
But hey, you made a station.

I understand people have made billions and millions and bought all the things and buy all the fleets and thats fine. But i notice more often that not its through unintended means or specific gamey routes and less through economy.

Collecting drops for 2 hours in hatikvahs choice for example has netted me near on 20 million, whilst my trader has produced a net profit of ............800k in the same period....


rant over.

[Wegadin]

Well, I can't change the price of ore or gas, but I can offer some tips.

My new game (with all DLC) at about 17 hours in has me making about 10-15 million every thirty minutes from traders and miners - non of them are three stars either. The money I make goes back into producing more L miners.

1. A huge money pot is in Terran and Pioneer Space. Those factories eat Ore, Silicon and Hydrogen, so you can make an absolute fortune ordering miners to feed them - particularly with silicon.

2. The ultimate purpose of miners is to help you feed your own stations to make money off selling things like graphene, refined metals, silicon wafers, etc. They can provide a passive income, which is great, but if you can get one of the aforementioned stations, you can make quite a bit more money.

3. Not all miners are the same. The PAR and HOP sell great L miners for cheap (3-4 million). However, if you try to buy some L miners from other factions, they can be 5-8 million and even be slower. Speed and price are going to help you the most here, and the PAR and HOP help with that. Terran has some great M miners, too.

I won't make this too long, as I am not sure if you were looking for advice or just wanted to complain, but I hope this helps. =)

[Defektiv]

Yes it takes a bit of effort to get a trader to autotrade level, but you can also skip that too. There are multiple ways to quickly train a pilot.

[Wraith]

Exploits those commissions and discount that you can get now with hacking (best addition ever)
It revitalizes trading profits

Nothing like earning a million with just a full cargo of hull parts

[Defektiv]

I also don't really consider M miners to be a survivable role in that particular task. I use them more as a supplement to L miner operations where I need a more consistent supply of resources, being they are faster. It sucks when you're getting a foothold in the universe and don't have a lot of options, but eventually you don't even really think about S and M ships much in my experience. Well at least until this Multiverse update. They have far more defined and survivable roles in that mode.

You eventually get used to losing ships.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2964990443

[Pandorian]

Have you ever seen the movie Office Space? If not; in it there is a scene where the people working there realize they're going to be fired. So they write a hack in which a company which does millions of trades a day, instead of tossing away the lowest common denominator in cash, will instead transfer that money to a new account. This is the effect of Medium miners. They don't carry as much as Large miners but they are quicker. Their worth comes in producing lots of smaller transactions rather than one large transaction.

Speaking of miners. Why are you using High Preset on a Large miner? Like have you seen what is actually added when you do a High Preset? Instead of using Mk 1 thrusters you use Mk 3 thrusters which are 20x the price of Mk 1 but don't provide 20x the utility. They're an absolute waste.

Traders. Why do you need 3-4 star pilots? Making a small trade station and assigning the pilots there will give you effectively the same functionality that 4 star traders have over local traders, trading in multiple sectors.

Production stations are a mid-late game economic step and shouldn't be built if you are relying on them for profit. Their strength comes in supplementing the missing wares of an economy and then eventually replacing them. They are very much a long term investment and shouldn't be used for quick cash. There are better uses of credits until you start having expendable income.

Originally posted by Fast:

In this game you need hundreds of millions if not billions of money to accomplish all the things and experience all the things.

...

I understand people have made billions and millions and bought all the things and buy all the fleets and thats fine. But i notice more often that not its through unintended means or specific gamey routes and less through economy.

I've beat the game using pure economic means and made 100s of billions using pure economy. Yes, beat. Check my achievement showcase and you'll see a lot of X4 achievements including the ones related to economy. This game rewards the Think aspect and when you start using the mechanics for your advantage you'll find you have more money and resources than you know what to do with. If you need help ask, this game has too many interacting mechanics and too much freedom for any ingame tutorial to cover. This game takes times to learn it's ins and outs but you'll find it's worth it if you enjoy the economic side of this game.

[Malkuth]

When the game first came out you could make 100 million off 10+ miners and 10+ traders easy. They have been reduced a lot, now they are more of just a low passive income. Its questionable if they even make anything with how long it takes to train a pilot and losses from pirates xenon and kaaak.

Money maker now is Stations and time. Historically speaking the devs have never been fans of Universal Traders (as they use to be called). In fact in older games it was a mod for UT... Miners are new but same deal.

[Kazmeister]

I crystal mined for about an hour and made enough to make and kit out an M miner. Total cost was about 350k. I’ve got her mining ore just off the highway and already doubled my investment after letting her run for an hour. Then I hired a cheap marine for about 5k and dropped a pilot seminar on her. Gave her the captain’s chair in my starter miner and put her to work. I’m just along for the ride. Saved my game and about to just let it run overnight and see what happens. If they both survive and keep mining I should have a few mil by morning. The economy in X games has always been a slow burn.

I’m really enjoying playing the game as a strategy/borderline tycoon game. I like that I can ride along in my own ship and not really have to do much except make management decisions. Feel like I’m running a company instead of just grinding.

[McMuffin]

I know this is just a rant but you do know how a basic economy works right?
If you expect your miners to get get paid 300k instead of 60k per run that would increase the ressource cost for all factories five fold, which in turn would increase the price for intermediates five fold and at last your miner will not cost 1,7 mil but 8,5 mil.
What exactly has changed besides the bigger numbers?

If you want to make money using miners, use L miners in terran space and use a mix to keep the computronic substrate factories running.
They use 18.000 ore and silicon and 12.000 hydrogen per production cycle PER MODULE. If you can manage to keep them running a single L hydrogen miner will bring in between two and maybe five million per hour.

[Aieonae]

Let me see, you might consider boarding a lucrative endeavor. For each boarded Asgard can amount between 6X-9X millions per catch, with operation cost for marines amount to 2-3 million per catch. (Captial ship are assets, are not accounted here)

Printing ships are also viable, with spec up gladius amounting to 15-27 Millions each.

Of course, for the lazy me I just spam printout on unspec Asgard for 29 million every 11 minutes.

Those are the lucrative you should be looking forward for your prospects.

[Aieonae]

Also if you plan to board do go get Vigil marines they usually have 2 star in their mixed bag of marines.

[6000 Chipmunks]

I agree with everything the OP said.

[Fast]

Originally posted by Aieonae:

Let me see, you might consider boarding a lucrative endeavor. For each boarded Asgard can amount between 6X-9X millions per catch, with operation cost for marines amount to 2-3 million per catch. (Captial ship are assets, are not accounted here)

Printing ships are also viable, with spec up gladius amounting to 15-27 Millions each.

Of course, for the lazy me I just spam printout on unspec Asgard for 29 million every 11 minutes.

Those are the lucrative you should be looking forward for your prospects.

Yes i boarded a couple of them SCA phoenix vanguards and behemoths. But perhaps ill try terran space, As its the only area i have not really been to so far. The rest of the map minus a couple of xenon controlled sectors is explored, terran space only place I have not been.

But i wish the economy was more viable early on and ofc there will be some special case person who comes to tell me "wHEelLL AKCHUALLLLLYYYYYY" i dont care about those edge cases, Check the global achievements for even the easy economy stuff its like barely anyone has done them and barely anyone seems to actually use the economy unless they are die hard invested in proving they can.
The average player....I make 10 mill from boarding in 20 mins or 150k ish from a pair of miners...i mean cmon...economy scaling should be much more productive in general.

[Fast]

Originally posted by Wegadin:

Well, I can't change the price of ore or gas, but I can offer some tips.

My new game (with all DLC) at about 17 hours in has me making about 10-15 million every thirty minutes from traders and miners - non of them are three stars either. The money I make goes back into producing more L miners.

1. A huge money pot is in Terran and Pioneer Space. Those factories eat Ore, Silicon and Hydrogen, so you can make an absolute fortune ordering miners to feed them - particularly with silicon.

2. The ultimate purpose of miners is to help you feed your own stations to make money off selling things like graphene, refined metals, silicon wafers, etc. They can provide a passive income, which is great, but if you can get one of the aforementioned stations, you can make quite a bit more money.

3. Not all miners are the same. The PAR and HOP sell great L miners for cheap (3-4 million). However, if you try to buy some L miners from other factions, they can be 5-8 million and even be slower. Speed and price are going to help you the most here, and the PAR and HOP help with that. Terran has some great M miners, too.

I won't make this too long, as I am not sure if you were looking for advice or just wanted to complain, but I hope this helps. =)

I actually found this very helpful. Thank you.

I doesnt change the problems i found, but its pretty useful.

[Finnfinn]

If you own Kingdom End: The cut off Borons are absolutely miserable. They have few factories and struggle to supply the ones they do have. Can't even keep up with ore mining even though the refinery is RIGHT NEXT TO THE ASTEROID FIELD.
I bought a minimal Boron M ore miner. Yes, they aren't good. Boron ships look amazing, leave me alone, it's my save and I'll do whatever the hell I want. But yeah, it cost like 340k with a shield generator and I made my cash back in under 2 hours.
Rebuild those sectors. As an added bonus you get a long-term personal goal out of it: Give those Provinces enough glamour that even the Queen would consider moving her place of residence there. Consume copious amounts of BoFu and huff BoGas. It's good for you. Probably. Possibly. Maybe. Only one way to find out. You got a research tab, so you obviously like research and experiments, don't you?

[Aieonae]

You see the catch here is that the economy of this game actually relies on the player.

It not directly the stations or for the matter trading done by the player that is the trigger to the economy.

It's rather that the player need to explore more sectors to make the game viable in the long run.

Typically, a veteran player in X4 would look into exploring as much of the sectors as possible as it not only open up economy it basically triggers the sector to spawn economy.