Good Station Locations

[daneren2005]

Ok, I'm tired of looking for good stations locations. I finally got another stick of ram so I'm actually able to play the game I've had for 6 months. I just started playing, and in X2 you could do atleast 1 ore fac in the ore belt and make profit. I just tryed to do it, and after only a little while I was down to selling almost at the profit line so I wasn't making crap. I can't have the max jumps be more then 3 because if it's more then that my traders get killed.

Right before I built the ore mine I looked around and ore prices were still high, but then right after I built the damn thing, all the prices went way way down. Now that I've told my story, my question is:

Could someone tell me a low end fac (and obviously where) that will make enough money to actually get me on my feet?

[TLN]

Try a wheat farm in Argon prime, then when enough money rolls in add a space fuel plant to it, this is a great money maker, and if you hang around, and scan the ships as they leave you can gain rank points by routing out the hidden pirate traders.

Another good low end fac, is a teladianium fac in duke's domain, the paranid can't get enough of it.

or a Bio gas plant in Oceans of fantasy.

Hope this helps.

[daneren2005]

yes, it does. I'll start with the wheat farm. Thnx, and if anyone else has any sudgestions, keep them coming

[newdean]

Cheapest, fastest return on investment is a mine on a high yield asteroid, assuming that (1) you can buy cheap local energy with a buying freighter, (2) there is more local demand for your ore/silicon than supply, (3) you don't build a Large mine on a high yield 'roid that has such high output that you swamp local demand, thus leading to low prices, and (4) you have a buying and a selling freighter, and (5) you set the sector trading range at the right size to match demand and supply without sending your freighters to the end of the galaxy. At the beginning of my game, the AI silicon mine in Herron's Nebula promptly went out of business, leading to an opportunity.

Spoiler

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There is a high yield silicon asteroid in Herron's Nebula, a High yield ore asteroid in Antigone Memorial. There are also high yield asteroids of both kinds and abundant local energy in Ore Belt, but at the very beginning of the game you might be nervous about the local pirate base to the N of the N gate there.

Or you can build a wheat farm that is not very profitable, but does scale in that you can eventually turn it into a lucrative Space Fuel factory. Ore mines also scale because you can eventually build them into complexes making 1mj shields, BIREs, missiles etc. for your use and for sale.

Spoiler

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For better access to cheap energy at Ore Belt and nearby Cahoona Bakeries, I put my wheat farm in Home of Light instead of Argon Prime.

Or you can build a "flat" secondary resource factory (one input, energy, and an output used as a secondary resource by lots of nearby factories). Teladianium is such a secondary factory in Paranid and Split space, and BoGas is a secondary resource for Wheat farms. Wheat is a secondary resource for Boron plankton farms. Remember, though, that demand for secondary resources is only a third of the demand for primary resources, so (for example) one AI medium cahoona bakery or Space Fuel distillery will consume the entire output of one medium wheat farm (player, as opposed to AI, cahoona bakeries do not use wheat), but it takes three medium plankton farms to consume the output of one medium wheat farms.

An ore mine in Antigone Memorial is lucrative in that it is both a primary resource for weapon/tech fabs and ore is a secondary resource for nearby Teladianium factories in Teladi space and BoGas factories in Boron space, making it very hard to outstrip demand, in the right location.

[Christopher Chu]

If you have time and a little patience, you can outfit a MercuryTS (200K+ ~50K for basic upgrades and Special Command Software) with an ore catch (37K), and load a mineral scanner on your primary fighter (27k?); go to Ore Belt or somewhere where there is a lot of asteroids... use lasers (pref APSG but AHEPTs or BPACs will do) to breakup a non-sectormap showing roid to collectable size...

Then GO..OUT ... OF ... SYSTEM (repeat, go OOS) in your primary fighter, then command TS to collect rocks...

Initial Expense ~320K default cargo of 3000 units holds ~ 166 Si
@450ea => 74.7K/load

5 loads and you're solvent - higher yield roids are on the outskirts of the sector map