Any Tips for making a lot of money without grinding missions?

[Pille]

Title says it all, I hate the slow beginning in X games, especially in X3. Any Tips on how to make it less tedious and more fun? Trading is kinda dumb now, because you are forced to go at war with some factions and I hate that. I like the idea of not being best buddy with everyone, but that doesn´t mean I want to be mortal enemies with the rest.

Missions are boring and feel more like working than playing... X3:FL has a good start, but after the plot, it becomes just like any other standard X3 game

So if you have any tips, regarding exploits or some really crazy profit machine station, please let me know, otherwise I will start playing X4 again :/

Yes, yes, I know could do thereshallbewings, but then again, i could also stop playing :D

[Valkeris]

I've learned there are 3 great ways to make money in this version of X3.

1. The Cargo Hacker.
2. Piracy (Capturing Armoured Transports in border sectors)
3. Large complexes.

AVOID AVOID AVOID:
Station Managers
Universe Traders
Terran Sectors

[buffy805]

You can sell the weapons that are the cargo of the demeter
You will get several hundreds of thousands of credits

You can sell 40.000 discovery points for 200.000cr to a guild explorer man in boron royal station (the buyer randomly appear in the list of the persons in comms )

[Siccario]

Get special command software, go to sector with a busy gate to xenon sector and equipment dock, collect wares in sector on seta, profit selling tons of missiles.

[Valkeris]

Early on, the cargo hacker grants you access to obscene amounts of money at the touch of a button. All you need is a fast ship with a freight scanner, and some salvage insurance if you really want to cheese it. Find a weapons dealer, or high tech trader, scan them, and grab the most valuable item(s). (L weight or below, S weight for best chance). If they turn red, comm and apologize, then switch to another target. DON'T continue trying to steal from the same trader or they will permanently turn hostile and affect relations. I've earned myself an easy ~5-10 million in minutes doing this plenty of times.

Edit: you can get XL weight stuff like photon pulse cannons, but the odds of you being detected are so high it's not worth it I find, just get the other stuff

Piracy is great too. With the new armoured transports being so obscenely overpriced, they're giant targets with a new unique icon on the map to identify them as flying moneybags. Scan them, attack them, tell them to drop their cargo or jump ship, and enjoy easy loot. I personally use Plasma Burst Generators with my starter Nemesis, whittling away at the hull slowly to strip off the weapons and give me time to ensure the highest bail chance. (These things are really tough, a PBG will barely tickle the hull. Be prepared to use repair drones or sit somewhere safe in SETA for about 10 minutes to repair one after you capture it if you plan to use it.)

Complexes are amazing in this version. They've LU'd it up in a way, with a lot more focus on shrinking complexes and making them more efficient, while also giving the player a lot more options when it comes to setting them up. They're super fast and easy to set up now, with the in-game complex planner looking to be an amazing tool. Though it's bugged, so don't use it right now. Otherwise, there's a serious focus on empire sprawl in this version, capturing sectors and being a titan of industry will get you far as it will in LU.

Station Managers, Universe Traders, and Terran Sectors are all horribly buggy, and will lag or crash the game. Avoid them at all costs if you value your sanity.

[Sirus]

Originally posted by Valkeris:

Early on, the cargo hacker grants you access to obscene amounts of money at the touch of a button. All you need is a fast ship with a freight scanner, and some salvage insurance if you really want to cheese it. Find a weapons dealer, or high tech trader, scan them, and grab the most valuable item(s). (L weight or below, S weight for best chance). If they turn red, comm and apologize, then switch to another target. DON'T continue trying to steal from the same trader or they will permanently turn hostile and affect relations. I've earned myself an easy ~5-10 million in minutes doing this plenty of times.

Piracy is great too. With the new armoured transports being so obscenely overpriced, they're giant targets with a new unique icon on the map to identify them as flying moneybags. Scan them, attack them, tell them to drop their cargo or jump ship, and enjoy easy loot. I personally use Plasma Burst Generators with my starter Nemesis, whittling away at the hull slowly to strip off the weapons and give me time to ensure the highest bail chance. (These things are really tough, a PBG will barely tickle the hull. Be prepared to use repair drones or sit somewhere safe in SETA for about 10 minutes to repair one after you capture it if you plan to use it.)

Complexes are amazing in this version. They've LU'd it up in a way, with a lot more focus on shrinking complexes and making them more efficient, while also giving the player a lot more options when it comes to setting them up. They're super fast and easy to set up now, with the in-game complex planner looking to be an amazing tool. Though it's bugged, so don't use it right now. Otherwise, there's a serious focus on empire sprawl in this version, capturing sectors and being a titan of industry will get you far as it will in LU.

Station Managers, Universe Traders, and Terran Sectors are all horribly buggy, and will lag or crash the game. Avoid them at all costs if you value your sanity.

Hi,

What's wrong with Station Managers exactly?

[Omniconda]

the 100k wage bill,
auto pricing not working
somtimes not going for a goods even when available

[Valkeris]

Originally posted by Sirus:

Originally posted by Valkeris:

Early on, the cargo hacker grants you access to obscene amounts of money at the touch of a button. All you need is a fast ship with a freight scanner, and some salvage insurance if you really want to cheese it. Find a weapons dealer, or high tech trader, scan them, and grab the most valuable item(s). (L weight or below, S weight for best chance). If they turn red, comm and apologize, then switch to another target. DON'T continue trying to steal from the same trader or they will permanently turn hostile and affect relations. I've earned myself an easy ~5-10 million in minutes doing this plenty of times.

Piracy is great too. With the new armoured transports being so obscenely overpriced, they're giant targets with a new unique icon on the map to identify them as flying moneybags. Scan them, attack them, tell them to drop their cargo or jump ship, and enjoy easy loot. I personally use Plasma Burst Generators with my starter Nemesis, whittling away at the hull slowly to strip off the weapons and give me time to ensure the highest bail chance. (These things are really tough, a PBG will barely tickle the hull. Be prepared to use repair drones or sit somewhere safe in SETA for about 10 minutes to repair one after you capture it if you plan to use it.)

Complexes are amazing in this version. They've LU'd it up in a way, with a lot more focus on shrinking complexes and making them more efficient, while also giving the player a lot more options when it comes to setting them up. They're super fast and easy to set up now, with the in-game complex planner looking to be an amazing tool. Though it's bugged, so don't use it right now. Otherwise, there's a serious focus on empire sprawl in this version, capturing sectors and being a titan of industry will get you far as it will in LU.

Station Managers, Universe Traders, and Terran Sectors are all horribly buggy, and will lag or crash the game. Avoid them at all costs if you value your sanity.

Hi,

What's wrong with Station Managers exactly?

Station Managers aren't the worst, but they are a drain on money. Unless you -really- want to just fire and forget a station, it's horribly inneficient, and will oftentimes be a profit liability more than a help. You'll be paying to replace ships because it ignores blacklisted sectors, you can't tell a ship that's in one of those bad sectors to return home. They'll also periodically drain huge sums of money from your account. Sometimes, this can bug out, and repeat far more often than it should.

They're not as bad as UTs, but they are garbage for managing stations currently. The old CAG/CLS system was a better implementation. While I appreciate how easy it is to set up the station manager, it echoes the same problems from X4 that turned me away from the game: you have very little, if any, direct control over it and cannot fine tune the settings.

[Pille]

Originally posted by Valkeris:

Originally posted by Sirus:

Hi,

What's wrong with Station Managers exactly?

Station Managers aren't the worst, but they are a drain on money. Unless you -really- want to just fire and forget a station, it's horribly inneficient, and will oftentimes be a profit liability more than a help. You'll be paying to replace ships because it ignores blacklisted sectors, you can't tell a ship that's in one of those bad sectors to return home. They'll also periodically drain huge sums of money from your account. Sometimes, this can bug out, and repeat far more often than it should.

They're not as bad as UTs, but they are garbage for managing stations currently. The old CAG/CLS system was a better implementation. While I appreciate how easy it is to set up the station manager, it echoes the same problems from X4 that turned me away from the game: you have very little, if any, direct control over it and cannot fine tune the settings.

To be honest, I am so glad, that we have X4 now and I am kind of disappointed by X3:FL because I thought it would be this sealed off universe, where you have to find jumpgates and try to connect with the other races, the whole starting plot in the void, was so promising...

[BaZERGer]

X4 felt too small and empty for me, large sectors aren't really worth much when most of it is empty space.

[PLA2N.Tommygun]

Originally posted by Valkeris:

I've learned there are 3 great ways to make money in this version of X3.

1. The Cargo Hacker.
2. Piracy (Capturing Armoured Transports in border sectors)
3. Large complexes.

AVOID AVOID AVOID:
Station Managers
Universe Traders
Terran Sectors

What's wrong with terran sectors(except for FPS issues when going there by yourself)?

[Valkeris]

Originally posted by PLA2N.Tommygun:

Originally posted by Valkeris:

I've learned there are 3 great ways to make money in this version of X3.

1. The Cargo Hacker.
2. Piracy (Capturing Armoured Transports in border sectors)
3. Large complexes.

AVOID AVOID AVOID:
Station Managers
Universe Traders
Terran Sectors

What's wrong with terran sectors(except for FPS issues when going there by yourself)?

Terran sectors are bugged, and they are horribly unstable currently due to some spawning issues.

[PLA2N.Tommygun]

Originally posted by Valkeris:

Originally posted by PLA2N.Tommygun:

What's wrong with terran sectors(except for FPS issues when going there by yourself)?

Terran sectors are bugged, and they are horribly unstable currently due to some spawning issues.

So, you can get severe performance issues even if your trading ships are there, but you aren't?

[Valkeris]

Originally posted by PLA2N.Tommygun:

Originally posted by Valkeris:

Terran sectors are bugged, and they are horribly unstable currently due to some spawning issues.

So, you can get severe performance issues even if your trading ships are there, but you aren't?

Not sure, I know the spawned Terran stuff stays once it's there though, so it does cause a slow leak in performance.

[Sirus]

Originally posted by Valkeris:

Originally posted by Sirus:

Hi,

What's wrong with Station Managers exactly?

Station Managers aren't the worst, but they are a drain on money. Unless you -really- want to just fire and forget a station, it's horribly inneficient, and will oftentimes be a profit liability more than a help. You'll be paying to replace ships because it ignores blacklisted sectors, you can't tell a ship that's in one of those bad sectors to return home. They'll also periodically drain huge sums of money from your account. Sometimes, this can bug out, and repeat far more often than it should.

They're not as bad as UTs, but they are garbage for managing stations currently. The old CAG/CLS system was a better implementation. While I appreciate how easy it is to set up the station manager, it echoes the same problems from X4 that turned me away from the game: you have very little, if any, direct control over it and cannot fine tune the settings.

So what do you use instead? I read somewhere that CAG/CLS is gone. Is that true?

[Valkeris]

Originally posted by Sirus:

So what do you use instead? I read somewhere that CAG/CLS is gone. Is that true?

I haven't tried it, but the "trade distribution run" command looks pretty much like an overhauled CLS1. Otherwise, just use several smaller freighters with buy/sell commands. You'll probably have to focus your freighters a lot more instead of having just one big guy that can handle all your station's wares for you.

You can also set up logistics networks using Trade Stations as your end hub for your products, using the trade distribution run command to supply the station with your factories' output.