Gildargaming

Not much has hapened since the last post, I’m adding more ships, currently focusing on universal traders. I also lost to traders to priates before I found the global blocklist for UTs. Right now i’m prepairing some combat ships to be able to take on some tougher missions and maybe do osme missions in the war sectors. My most recent addition is a Zaphyrus. It has decent armoment and can carry 4 fighters. I still only have 2 M4s but planning to add something heavier, maybe a Nova. I also plan to work on Split faction, since I can’t buy anything from them at the moment.

Once I came “home” from the adventure in the war sectors, My traders had made enough money for me to consider a second factory complex. I think some more farms wouldn’t hurt, even though the market clos eto Home of light is probably saturated. After looking around for a bit, I decide to build it in Queen’s space. There are some stations in the surrounding secotrs demanding wheat and the supply of energy cells is also good. There is one problem though. The closest place to buy the farms is Argon prime, so I want to buy at least 3 of them. I only have 1.3 million at the moment and don’t wnat to spend it all, so what I decide to do, is buying the 3 farms now, and hope to have enough money to buy the construction kits to connect them when the supply mammoth arrives at Kingdom’s end., Said and done.

Now I run into the next problem. When the transport arrives at Kingdom’s end shipard, I realize I forgot to check my faction with the Borons. I’m not allowed to buy the complex construction kit there. What I decide to do is to put up one farm in queen’s space, then send the transport back to Argon prime and buy the construction kits. This project ends up taking me at least an hour.

While at argon Prime for the second time, I’ve gathered enough money to buy 2 extra Discoverers to start training CAG pilots. I also have more then enough time to complete some missions while waiting for the slow transport tro complete these runs. Now I make use of the life support I baught, making some money on transporting people.

Just as I got the new complex up and running with 1 freighter on CAG duty and another another filling it up with energy cells, something bad happens. My first complex in home of light, currnetly only has a Mercury working for it, since I brought the other one to the second complex. One high level cag pilot is enough to keep that station going for now. The Mercury, however decides that the recently discovered sector of Omicron Lyren, or one of the surrounding sectors, is paying very well for wheat. However, the trader doesn’t seem to realize there’s a war going on in that sector and as expected, it is attacked and destroyed before I can do anothing about it. Luckily I have just bought a new ship, intended for universe trading. That one will now have to work for the station instead.

Eventually, both my stations start making money and I can start to add more ships. A few missions adding a few 100K each as well as some trading on the Argon and Teladi stock exchange doesn’t hurt either. I build a silicon mine in Three worlds and with my Discoverer training CAG pilots I’m able to start making profit from that one pretty fast.

My ship roster now looks like this:

Aute(ST) = Sector trader, Auto(UT) = Universe trader, ST# belongs to one of my stations, PR is used for ships while they gahter equipment.

Right now I have a station consisting of 2 farms running and a few traders. I just managed to find some impulse ray emitters on a Baron light weapons complex in Rolks fate. I bought their entire stock, to fit my discoverer and a few of my freighters. K know this is a weak weapon, but I was still happy to find it. Now I tried a few protect and Assassination missions. THe easy protection missions are no problem but the assassination missions I found was to tough. I ran out of time twice trying to shoot down the targets. I try to stay around sectors with shipyards to hopefully find some discount ships to buy, and this finally pays off.

A nice little Baracuda raider. As you can probably tell, it isn’t in great shape, but I got it for allmost nothing and it’s quite fast to repair.

I equip a few Impulse ray emitters and a few particle accelerator cannons. I’ll use the IREs to try to capture ships without doing to much damage to the hull.

Now when I have a combat ship, I decide to travel to some more dangerous, unexplored sectors.

Somewhere during the early game, I received a mission to go to Argon sector 148 to talk to somebody. I decided now was a good time to do this, and maybe find some useful sectors along the way.

I did eventually get there and received a new mission to help in the war effort. Well, that’s easier said then done. I went off to Omicron Lyren and ended up in the middle of a fleet battle. THe AIF ships didn’t fire at me, but most of the ships in the sector ware really big ships that I didn’t want to touch. I decided to retreat and come back later.

Not sure I want to get close to these guys with my M4 fighter.

On the way back I stopped at a pirate base where I found cargo bay life support. This will enable to to transport a small number of passengers. I can now do passenger transport missions unless they require comfort. Military personal, for example, will be quite happy travelling in the cargo bay. I guess I could also trade slaves, something I’ve never tried.

After some trading and a few fraighter missions I finally got to 1.3 milion credits.

I know from my last game that building a factory will cost more then you think, so I want at least this much before I consider it. Adding more trade ships is another option, but I decide to go with the station. I will use my original mercury to supply the station while I use my Discoverer to do some other things.

For me first station I want a completely safe sector, with well-scouted surrounding sectors. I decide to go for a complex consisting of 2 wheat farms in Home of light. I frequently visit that sector and that’s where I buy most of the equipment for my trade ships. There’s also some demand for wheat in the sector.

When you build your first station, you need to either buy a transport for it for 28M credits or hire one. The Argon supply Mammoth is in Argon prime, but I seem to have trouble tracking it down sometimes. This time however, I find it fairly quickly.

I have screenshots for the entire setup of a station, but I think I would rather write a guide on that subject, or even make a video.

I order the transport to go to the Argon federal shipyard and buy 2 farms (M) and a complex construction kit. I also order my Discoverer to pick up an advanced satelite to make placement easier. When this is done I order the transport and Discoverer to head to Home of light, I also head there myself.

I put the satelite a bi out of the way to avoid accidents with the heavy trafic in the sector. This enables me to get a more 3D-like view of the sector for station placement. Once the complex is setup I switch to my Discoverer and put my Mercury on CAG duty on the station. To be able to use CAG you’ll need the Bonus pack for both X3TC and AP. I also have a full load of energy cells to get things going.

I won’t be making money on this for a while, but in the long run, I think it will be profitable.

Since I’ve spent most of my time in Argon space, I decided to put up 2 medium wheat farms in a complex there. I currently only have one ship serving the station but hoping to get another ASAP. This seem to be enough to keep energy for the factory, but it doesn’t have time to sell yet (should be getting high enough level to use jump drive shortly).

With the best buys and best selling software I can trade a little faster but it’s still fairly slow with only one ship and not a lot of sectors to pick from. I decided to continue upgrading my ship with a Jump drive. I’m not sure this is a great idea but this is what I did. I think it might be better to do this a little later and save the money for a second ship. Since this is the second time I start out as a trader, I decided to do things a bit differently.

I decided to buy a new Discoverer at this point, to scout out some more sectors and maybe do some missions while my mercury is making money for me.

I quickly ran into a problem though…

The only Discoverer I could find was completely unequipped. The shield and other upgrades wasn’t a problem, but I seem to be unable to find IREs: the only weapon this ship can use. I do a few return ship mission to try to inprove my faction but I fail one of them, as well as a mission to follow someone. I continue to map out sectors, including Three worlds, Kingdoms end and a bunch of paranid sectors. I eventually make it into Taladi space and register at their stock exchange. I only have about 400K at thhis point but manages to make a 100K buying and selling some stocks (this might be a really good way to start making money if you know what you’re doing). Another great thing with this Taladi sector though, is that they sell the Explorer software. Since I can’t find any weapons for my Discoverer I realize I might as well let it map some sectors for me while I do some trading. There’s also a lot of freighter missions that pays well.

So, I head back to Argon prime, and jump into my Mercury again. While there I manage to add a third ship to my growing fleet. A mercury tanker.

The thing I do now is probably not very smart. I’ve done a lot of manual trading and want to focus on other things (finding weapons and doing missions). I also want to start leveling a trader early. So with about 600K I order my Mercury tanker to Home of light and spend 500K on turning him into a sector trader. For some reason, I can’t trade with the Paranids (maybe a failed mision?) , so I let him start in home of light and then move him once he is idle. He still manages to gain some levels and some money for me.

For some time I keep doing return ship and deliver goods missions to get money and faction. On a visit to Argon prime I run across this.

I don’t know why my fonts looks weird in this game sometimes, but if it’s unreadable, this is a Mercury Super Freighter 28.000 cr. I think the base price for these is 1.2M. This ship is in terrible shape, but half an hour of repairs will get it as good as new.

I repair and equip the new ship, this costs some time and money but it’s a really nice trading ship. I stick to 1 25MJ shield for it for now though, since they cost about 90K each.

I do this for some time, and soon reach a million credits. Now it’s time to decide what to do next…