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Hi XR fans, managers, architects or other beasts...

Up to now I had a fun time without building stations in my 'regular' free play.
I have watched the official video 3.0+ and there are lots of parameters to watch and take care apparently. Also all this must be really expensive I guess. But how much reasonably? I have 100 M currently.

Did you run in big trouble with your first station, and which generic *starting* tips would you give me?

Thanks very much,
XenonS

i'm not beast.

for beginner i suggest to buy manually using cv. 100mil is enough to start REINFORCED METAL PLATE factory.

build up to second module first before expanding further to collect money (u need some money to give to trade manager so that it can operate).
just don't be hasty to buy all material and build all module at once, or you won't have the bare minimum credit for station to operate.

or if u just want to fire and forget just choose the architect to buy the material. it works but reeeaaaaaalllly slow.

NOTE: don't shy to invest on alot of construction DRONE

Hello tresstarling,
thanks for your tips. Sorry, I didn't chose the right word with 'beast', i meant to say advanced player or veteran of the game without any offense ofc.

When you say to do it 'manually', do you mean not building by doing the missions offered by NPC?

I have already noticed that the RMP will be an important ingredient, also for repairs together with Fusion Reactors and other wares which are hard to find.
Up to now I have only spotted once a L-ship with RMP in the cargo, so it must be rare (I have all PMC stations hostile for the moment).



Thanks,
XenonS

Yep; RMP and fusion reactors are typically the ones to start with, especially if PMC is hostile. You need those ingredients to build more stations

20 cURVs per CV is perfectly adequate IMO; once materials are in place it's only about 3 minutes to construct the module. You can use more if you don't want to wait even that long, but more than about 40 is a waste IMO

Remember to build stations in places where it makes sense to gather their required resources & sell their product (if you're not using them purely for cash). There's little point in building an Albion station in OL for instance, unless you've a specific requirement..

Don't forget to prioritise radar on the station; its assigned ships will only trade within that sector (eg Glaring Truth) until the radar is built

If you want cash, build a hardware supplier or pharma lab somewhere in Omicron. They'll print money like crazy and the other stations will keep your factory well stocked even with no trade ships assigned. If you're building a Pharma lab, make sure you have a pharma license from the argon government or you'll get in a bunch of trouble.

Production of RMP, fusion reactors & other building materials are good to have as early goals, however my first station is generally a Metalworks Yard or Metalframes Fab (depending on whether I'm based in Albion or OL).

Several reasons:
1. Those stations are a LOT cheaper than going straight for production of RMP, reactors, etc, which means I can get a steady passive income going earlier,
2. A significant fraction of the resources used in each production cycle are essentially free (requiring only a mining ship to collect them) so the manager won't need as much cash,
3. The products they make are essential for production of RMP, reactors, etc, so I'm probably going to want one at some point anyway, might as well build it early (although Construction Shop, & OL equivalent, can have it's own Steel Refineries it doesn't have enough internal production of Refined Metals to support all of it's Plate Foundries).

Thank you all very much for these starting tips. I'll soon save my free play in a slot and then start.

Question about Licenses:
Up to now, in the normal trade with a Trade Computer and Trade Agents in place, I understand that the wares in yellow of the trade list are illegal and need a license. So I have bought one from a HOA License Broker, my rep was +15 and I have invested quite a fortune for legalizing Spacefuel and Spaceweeds.
But they stay yellow in the trade list, also one of my Rahanas with Spacefuel onboard was forced to drop the cargo, and it was a HOA station, I'm sure.
My rep has decreased to +11 after buying license because of various actions and minigames lost, but I guess that's not the reason.
Any idea why this still happens? Or are licenses only valid for station trading?

XenonS

In Albion space licenses are required from both HoA /and/ PMC. They'll allow you to trade your own inventory as well as your tradeships/stations. Since you're hostile to PMC you will have lost any license you had with them, if you ever had one, & hence the goods are still in yellow

Snafu_X3 wrote:In Albion space licenses are required from both HoA /and/ PMC. They'll allow you to trade your own inventory as well as your tradeships/stations. Since you're hostile to PMC you will have lost any license you had with them, if you ever had one, & hence the goods are still in yellow

Ah that's the reason. I've never bought lincenses from PMC, also my rep with them is at -29 currently, so I won't buy them tomorow I think
Still trading Spacefuel is worth it because the margin is around -30% to +50 in some cases...So get 2 trades right and you have a profit even if you must drop cargo at the 3rd.

Thanks,
XenonS

jkflipflop98 wrote:If you want cash, build a hardware supplier or pharma lab somewhere in Omicron. They'll print money like crazy and the other stations will keep your factory well stocked even with no trade ships assigned. If you're building a Pharma lab, make sure you have a pharma license from the argon government or you'll get in a bunch of trouble.

NOTED.

thanks for the tip.

time to expand to OL

tresstarling wrote:

jkflipflop98 wrote:If you're building a Pharma lab, make sure you have a pharma license from the argon government or you'll get in a bunch of trouble.

If you go this route make sure you build all 3 different production modules as a first priority; Argon won't auto-stock until you have the Herb Garden ready for trade: it only needs Water & NRG.

Best route (I'm in the process of testing now) is prolly all 3 Herb Gardens (for excess Weed), then 2 Narcotics (excess Narcotics), then 1 Pharma (the compulsory module). Since you're relying on NPC trade you shouldn't need radar as a priority, but get the bulk & liquid storage up ASAP for max efficiency. This way you only need spacefuel from the NPCs as an essential resource, & there are a few distilleries in the OL system to provide that

. . . you don't have any choice. The herb garden is the initial module that gets built. . .

jkflipflop98 wrote:. . . you don't have any choice. The herb garden is the initial module that gets built. . .

Not on mine: my first module has always been Pharma Lab.. I'm playing vanilla plot 3.60x (started in beta, but only just built the initial stage of this station in Release)

Ok, I started with the station building. After getting a CV and putting in an Architect, I did as adiviced and started a 'Construction Shop', the one that will produce Reinforced Metal Plating, the most rare thing in XR, I imagine.

So, I made an enquiry about who buys RMP and where they are located.
I found it's best to place that station in Ascendancy, between the central Burried Treasure, Forlone Armory and 5-Ways. These are the places that will mostly buy this rare gem.

I went there in empty space, got the 'blue icons', I click the build command and there it goes after giving a budget of 40M to the architect.
The first module will be the 'Plate Foundry' and it needs (amongst other easier wares) 2500 RMP, and some Fusion Reactors. These FR can be bought by trading, the real problem remains the RMP. I have already posted my questions time ago here:

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=380151

That was in relation with repairing cap ships at shipyards which also need RMP. The solution is to hunt for it by capping other ships or even hacking stations to get RMP.
I have actually a good list of locations, all are Plate Foundries, in Albion or OL.
But up to now, when scanning stations I only found about 40-50 RMP stocked...Still I need 2500... Very Happy It will be a long journey methink...

What's good when you send a lot of ships to trade is: you get the radar info from the zones in which they are in, so you can take a look at the cargo of the freighters passing these zones. But until now I only found 2 ships with about 500 RMP, and they are just eternally stopped near the station. I'll need to find much more ships if I want to get the needed quantity.

I only ONCE found a station that actually has sold 384x RMP, they all want to buy it instead...

How fast have you folks got this RMP, with a lot of hacking and boarding? I mean: in Free Play.

Thanks,
XenonS

I don't know why, but all of a sudden PMC stations are selling RMP...Every time I change zone I will find about 500-1000 x RMP to be sold by some stations in Inner World. I can swear that before I went to OL this was not the case...A mystery, but it obviously speeds up my station building.

XenonS