Im not making any $$$

[Mister of Battle]

After reaching about the 20 hour mark in my first trial and error play through, I was still learning the whole game, and how the economy worked, and for a while I thought I was gaining some head way.

But somewhere along the line, which im not sure where or when, my miners stopped selling, my station never really took off with the sales, and my traders designated to trade my wares wouldnt dock or carry anything to other places.

I had satellites all over the place, information on places the were buying what I was selling, but everything just kinda come to a stand still, and it became a constant routine of cancelling orders, reapplying them, and see if something different happened.

For the first 10 or so hours, my traders, and miners did great, and I had a steady income that I was able to put towards my first XL ships, and BP's for my station.

I understand this is probably mostly user error, and my lack of experience with this game and the economy, but for my next play through i'd like to see if anyone can help me out with a better grasp on the economy, as I was sure I was playing it right the first time, but obviously not.

Im in love with this game right now, but I am struggling with the building an empire part.

What station BP's should I focus on first? I think I reached selling Advanced Composites, but they would just stockpile in my station (I had them selected to be sold), even though there were stations in neighboring areas that were buying. No one came to buy, and my traders didnt take them out to sell.

Thanks!

My favorite moment so far was when I helped the Argon push back the first wave of Xenon, and then I docked my carrier, and 2 battleships right outside the gate they were coming through. And i Just so happened to be on the bridge of my Carrier "The Hera's Arms", when they launched their second invasion. So watching all that, hearing the sounds of those amazing cannons, and jumping into a fighter to scramble with the rest of my boys, was such an amazing feeling. We won that battle.

But the 3rd wave... was different... about 4 hours later, they came again... with hundreds. The Argon didn't come to aid that time, which pissed me off lol.

[Min]

I always start with cheap miners Nividium in the early game then when the demand drops off for that I switch miners to standard ore and silicon. I don't use Traders much early game I find that miners make more cash early till I can buy the trade subscriptions and explore the sectors. At the same time I will do missions to get money for player HQ. Then build stations all over the place like spaceweed in the places where they are legal. Also high tech stuff. Finally when I can afford it and the rep from all the missions end goal is wharfs then shipyard. Once I have a self sufficient ship building complex at the HQ then money is no longer a problem. Also I never purchase any war ships L or XL Id rather save that money for blue prints and build them myself. Hopefully by that time the Xenon should be kicking ass so I can come in and help with my self made fleets.

[Harrison]

I can’t speak to what might cause your ships and stations to stop selling. Some guesses though would be poor placement, overcrowding, or bad prices.

What I can tell you is what I’ve done that seems to work.

I like to start with a little capital gained from crystal mining, it’s tedious but useful.

First station for me is usually either ore, silicon, or energy. Something basic that doesn’t have a lot of overhead, then I work on building up from there. I also spread them out while looking for places with a need. For example, in my current game Argon Prime had 2-3 microchip plants and 2-3 smart chip plants, but no in system source of silicon wafers, that was a decision that made itself.

The end goal of station building has to be shipyards. Even if you can’t produce all the goods they require, placed properly, they’ll just print money.

Some people claim you can make money with equipment docks, mine never have.

With auto-trade ships I’ve been placing them where they can cover as much area as possible and assigning them a narrow range of goods. Such as one basic resource (refined metal, silicon, so on), one or two items made with that good (scanning arrays, hull parts, advanced composites, ...), some top end item (claytronics, weapons components, ...), and the a food item in their region and medicine because some income is better than no income. Then I try, emphasis on the ‘try’, to not overlap them too much, so nodal spots for their anchor: Flashpoint, Silent Witness, Grand Exchange, Pious Mist, and so on.

If you’re not modding, you can make a nice tidy sum, nothing game breaking I’ll admit, from running ventures. The 1, 2, and 8 hour especially just for the inventory items they grant.

The best money makers I’ve found for manual trading, or at least player directed, are Antimatter Cells and Microchips. In my last few games these are the definition of buy low and sell high and a large freighter, like the 55k m3 one from Antigone, pays for itself in just a few runs of either.

That’s everything I can think of at the moment.

[JPS]

Nopelio's Fortune is a good place for a station, It's like a crossroad, every Faction uses this System and in every playtrough i made a station there wich made very good money, especialy with a shipyard but it worked with all kinds of stations for me.
Most of the time I start with silicon and smartchips and it works very well too.
In my Beta 3.0 game I made a Majasnail production and they also buy it and i make profitssssssssssssssssssss.

Sry for my poor english, my native is german.

[Substancer]

You should scan wharfs and shipyards so you can check what they have in storage. You should produce wares what they are wanting. Moneymakers are high tech products shipyards are buying, plus claytronics which is used in building stations, its guaranteed hot seller. Lower tier modules can be added later to supply high tech production. Build top down, not other way around.

You'll propably find out Argon shipyard fully stocked while HOP have theirs half empty. Make buddies with folks that are good potential clients.

If there's no demand for wares, hacking stations or shipyards storage forces it to spew out some of its inventory, they won't blame you.

You can get all module BP's apart from ship construction by scanning weakpoints or triggering EMP bomb, if that ability is researched by your Boron friend. BP's for high tech modules are ludicrously expensive to buy.

Helping factions against Xenon is fun, but its also bad for business. Economy exist only to build ships and factions make orders only to replace lost units. War and destruction is driver for economy. That is problem with Argon in particular, since Xenon is only enemy they have to face regularly.

Hunting crystals from asteroids make some nice pocket money if you haven't more important matters to do.

I don't know why your station is not selling even as demand is there, but station manager tend to make small deals and only few sectors away from home. Small and fast ships make best station traders. Kestrels and Minotaurs captured from pirates fills role nicely, even as they are classified as combat ships.

[Demandred]

i mean might as well be a bug or whatnot, since i purged the HOP from other fractions sectors and suport the boarders to HOP and Xen, no faction is buying Ships anymore from my yard...
So either the market is dead somehow or perhaps building so many ships myself reduced my stock of materials sooo much, that ships are too expensive... I dont know how ships are calculated in price but it maybe also takes raw material selling price into account?

[dogshocker]

Hunting crystals in my first few hours made me over six million credits...just in Argon Prime.

After I became bored with crystal hunting, I did a couple of open missions. Some of them will pay you a quarter of a million to go and do something for them...doesn't take too long usually plus you can sometime get your rep. higher at the same time.

Check out the stations is your area. They'll be a chain that all go to make an end product. You'll be looking for the bit in the production chain that's missing. Build the appropriate factory and....cash in !

Fly round dropping satelites so that your "trading database" has plenty of input....this is the most important because, without the satelites, your traders cannot find any trading opportunities.

Lastly, autominers.....they're amazing for revenue ! I have two silicon miners and an ore miner in Argon Prime that make me over 350,000 credits every twenty minutes...yeah man...amazing !

Good luck with those profits, pilot....it's hell out there !

[Mister of Battle]

Originally posted by dogshocker:

Hunting crystals in my first few hours made me over six million credits...just in Argon Prime.

After I became bored with crystal hunting, I did a couple of open missions. Some of them will pay you a quarter of a million to go and do something for them...doesn't take too long usually plus you can sometime get your rep. higher at the same time.

Check out the stations is your area. They'll be a chain that all go to make an end product. You'll be looking for the bit in the production chain that's missing. Build the appropriate factory and....cash in !

Fly round dropping satelites so that your "trading database" has plenty of input....this is the most important because, without the satelites, your traders cannot find any trading opportunities.

Lastly, autominers.....they're amazing for revenue ! I have two silicon miners and an ore miner in Argon Prime that make me over 350,000 credits every twenty minutes...yeah man...amazing !

Good luck with those profits, pilot....it's hell out there !

I had 30 miners doing that, getting millions... then they just stopped. no amount of removing orders, and reissuing them, or moving them to other sectors helped. They would fill their hold, and then fly in a circle

[ZombiePotatoSalad]

Teladi says: One customer is good, two is better. And if they are fighting each other, well... that's just good business.

Build complexes to supply each of their shipyards with higher-tier things they need, such as Advanced Electronics and the like.

[dogshocker]

Originally posted by WhiskeyKilt:

Originally posted by dogshocker:

Hunting crystals in my first few hours made me over six million credits...just in Argon Prime.

After I became bored with crystal hunting, I did a couple of open missions. Some of them will pay you a quarter of a million to go and do something for them...doesn't take too long usually plus you can sometime get your rep. higher at the same time.

Check out the stations is your area. They'll be a chain that all go to make an end product. You'll be looking for the bit in the production chain that's missing. Build the appropriate factory and....cash in !

Fly round dropping satelites so that your "trading database" has plenty of input....this is the most important because, without the satelites, your traders cannot find any trading opportunities.

Lastly, autominers.....they're amazing for revenue ! I have two silicon miners and an ore miner in Argon Prime that make me over 350,000 credits every twenty minutes...yeah man...amazing !

Good luck with those profits, pilot....it's hell out there !

I had 30 miners doing that, getting millions... then they just stopped. no amount of removing orders, and reissuing them, or moving them to other sectors helped. They would fill their hold, and then fly in a circle

It's possible, that within your game, you've maxed out the mining potential because something in the production chain to building ships is missing. So, for instance, the ore miner can't unload to a metal refinery that's full, because the hull parts place is full, because nobody is buying it because nobody makes the next thing in the chain to finish a ship. It's possible that you need to identify that product and start making it.

This is merely speculation on my part. I would seem you've progress way further than me so far.