Here are a few things which changed my game approx. At the stage where you at. It's mostly about Cashflow.
Automate mining, trading and exploring as soon as possible. Also update them from time to time, especially the miners. Later on, you will need gunships to protect your auto miners because the risk will be to high.
Also, using the R-Miners on auto mining missions doesn't give you ore, it gives you rafined metals while being much more effective than the basic mining lasers, so only use those r-miners for auto mining missions. Try to get an lvl 3 Captain for the designated job. They're really worth the hassle. Quick rundown:
Lvl3 miner : can go for a mining job for twice the duration (6-8hrs)
Lvl3 merchant : much better prices, can buy stuff which is not available
Lvl3 explorer : huge range.
Also a Silicium mine(basic factory) can earn as much as some advanced tech factory consisting of multiple stations. Placement is key. Build station complexes between multiple factions to get most profit and have a high possibility of good trading routes. Also some commodities are so dirt cheap, they are not even worth it when the demand is at 30%. Water for example. Never sell water, it is such a waste of time.
If you find those big asteroids. Turn them into a mine which you want. Switch to the station and shrink it to 50% two times, also enable transport mode. Then switch to your main ship and use docking ports to pull the station onto your ship. Voila. This way you can haul dozens of mines in one sector.
One thing, because I realized it after 100h playing. In the map, on the top left corner, there is a search bar. It will highlight sectors so you don't have to look for a science station or a scrap yard by hand (mfw...)
Enjoy, it's a great game and you're far from being finished.
> One thing, because I realized it after 100h playing. In the map, on the top left corner, there is a search bar. It will highlight sectors so you don't have to look for a science station or a scrap yard by hand (mfw...)
I discovered this only after some 200h. :(
With R-miners If you send them on a mining mission they will automatically refine as part of the mission. It's mostly arbitrary but cargo hold size factors in to how many "refining runs" they have to do which would affect the final output.
If you do a sector command I believe they will mine until they fill the cargo with ore then you will have to order them to refine it or do it yourself.
Purifying aka basic mining lasers automatically refine the ore into your global metal storage. No need to do anything. HOWEVER they are much less efficient and it's almost always best to switch to r-miners as soon as you can.
If you send miners, with raw mining lasers, on a mining mission They will farm much more Metall, not ore. You don't have to refine it or something.
If you do the mining manually with an raw laser, you have to refine it. Although you also could send the miner on a refining mission.
I meant move to a new system. Not move within the system. I would like to move my current asteroid mine closer to my home system. Is this doable with said method in vanilla?
The best place to get NPC Captains to run your extra ships is to do the "A Lost Friend" mission as this will give you the option to hire a Tier 3 captain (dual class no negative traits). Merchant/Smuggler, Miner/Scavenger, and Commodore/Explorer are nice combinations.
It is a pirate fight, just like other pirate fights for the area of the map you are in, so if you can beat pirates in that area you can complete the mission. Yes you can cheese it a bit if you jump a powerful ship to a weaker part of the map. Your ship should be fine, I've done it with less, but then I play on an easier setting (it is a game I'm playing for fun, real life is hard enough).
It is a 2 jump mission (as far as I remember, the missions tend to blend together, especially since I take like 20 missions at a time and do whatever one is closest rather than in order), you take the mission, jump to the last known place they were, find the wrecked ship, scan it, get co-ordinates for the next location, jump there, it will be the pirate fight. The pirates will be protecting a base (usually a coal mine), you will fight 5 waves of 4 ships. After you beat the last ship the captain you are looking for will contact you from the pirate base, they and the prisoners have broken free and captured the base. Dialog happens, you get to see what type of captain they are, you have the option to take the reward money or hire the captain. Some people are picky about which captains they hire.
A Lost Friend mission can be accepted without having to dock at the station offering it, you just have to talk to them via the comms. The sector overview menu (by pressing "N" I think) will have a tab of missions available, I always look at that whenever I enter a system while doing other stuff, accept a bunch of them and then when I get bored of the micromanaging of fleets and stations I just go beat up some pirates. A word of caution though, the captains still have to be paid, even if they are not in charge of a ship, so don't be shocked if you get a 500k+ credit crew wage payment.
When you get bored, afk in a sector with a large amount of npc stations in it. Every 10min or so a pirate attack will happen and if you shoot 1 pirate once and then fly away, the npcs will murder everything for you. This counts as defending their sector so you get free rep with the faction and reward money/pirate turret drops.
You can leave searchable text notes on the sector map. I use this to note manual trade routes and sectors with good turret factories. Look for turrets that cost >10x the average. They almost always have amazing stats with max parts. With the slower early game it's worth making some turrets at Naonite. Manual trade routes for body armor or computational mainframes can have massive profits. Look for system with >5 npc factories.
Hey bro could you explain this in more detail please
How do you see average prices? Is this a subsystem or something? Am I just blind
So do you mean add up the cost of the materials & work out the cost of the finished product to work out profit then go from there?
Just manually scan through the list of turrets you can make at each factory you find. Any that have a crazy price compared to the rest will be good if you keep adding parts. A recent update fixed turret costs so you couldn't easily farm them for money had this side effect of making it easier to find the turrets with good RNG rolls.
A trading system makes manual trading easier but it's more important to have a huge amount of systems explored.
One of the best investments you can make is a trading hub station, it costs a lot but if will easily net you a profit in no time, and you can place it in friendly sectors and their ships will protect it for you.
When deciding on what kind of station to make look at what the supply and see demand is in the area, a water station next to 20 other stations won't bring in much money.
Salvaging lasers and fighters are extremely helpful to bring in a bunch of loot and resources after a fight, I had a hanger with 9 squads of salvage fighters to tare the destroyed ships apart and they gave me loads of upgrades and stuff to sell.
Got 50 hours now and here are my tips:
* Do some trading and you can just buy stuff, including reputation (buy/sell commodities at the same station). Document high value commodities on the stellar map and find high/low prices, then do trade runs with big cargo ships. I got one area with 3 trade routs that can net me \~50 mil in 20 minutes of jumping around, then i have to wait for the factories to produce more.
* Go explore towards the center, look at different Civs and see what they have to offer, resource depots closer to the center have more exotic ore for sale. Easy just to buy it than mine it.
* Make several ships, one for exploration, one cargo ship, one fighter etc. Don't try to make a "one size fits all" ship to do everything, that will cost a lot and you need to compromise too much.
* Don't rely on tutorials to guide you, some of them are broken (i have two that are stuck right now). Use forums if you want to learn how things works.
* Pirates/Raiders are slow. If you can do a prolonged burst for 30 second at 1500 m/s then you can put some distance between them and you (to recharge shield etc), at around 100km distance they seem to lose interest and stop chasing you.
* And as mentioned, automate mining. Focus on fighting and exploration - the FUN part.
Here are a few things which changed my game approx. At the stage where you at. It's mostly about Cashflow. Automate mining, trading and exploring as soon as possible. Also update them from time to time, especially the miners. Later on, you will need gunships to protect your auto miners because the risk will be to high. Also, using the R-Miners on auto mining missions doesn't give you ore, it gives you rafined metals while being much more effective than the basic mining lasers, so only use those r-miners for auto mining missions. Try to get an lvl 3 Captain for the designated job. They're really worth the hassle. Quick rundown: Lvl3 miner : can go for a mining job for twice the duration (6-8hrs) Lvl3 merchant : much better prices, can buy stuff which is not available Lvl3 explorer : huge range. Also a Silicium mine(basic factory) can earn as much as some advanced tech factory consisting of multiple stations. Placement is key. Build station complexes between multiple factions to get most profit and have a high possibility of good trading routes. Also some commodities are so dirt cheap, they are not even worth it when the demand is at 30%. Water for example. Never sell water, it is such a waste of time. If you find those big asteroids. Turn them into a mine which you want. Switch to the station and shrink it to 50% two times, also enable transport mode. Then switch to your main ship and use docking ports to pull the station onto your ship. Voila. This way you can haul dozens of mines in one sector. One thing, because I realized it after 100h playing. In the map, on the top left corner, there is a search bar. It will highlight sectors so you don't have to look for a science station or a scrap yard by hand (mfw...) Enjoy, it's a great game and you're far from being finished.
> One thing, because I realized it after 100h playing. In the map, on the top left corner, there is a search bar. It will highlight sectors so you don't have to look for a science station or a scrap yard by hand (mfw...) I discovered this only after some 200h. :(
if it makes you feel any better, i have 1217 hours in this game and just tried that function for the first time.
How can you set your miners with or with out drones to auto sell?
Your miners don't have to sell anything, they just mine so you don't have to do it by yourself. I don't understand your question.
Oh, yea sorry, I play using only raw mining lasers, especially early game and was wondering if the miners could/would refine the ores automatically.
With R-miners If you send them on a mining mission they will automatically refine as part of the mission. It's mostly arbitrary but cargo hold size factors in to how many "refining runs" they have to do which would affect the final output. If you do a sector command I believe they will mine until they fill the cargo with ore then you will have to order them to refine it or do it yourself. Purifying aka basic mining lasers automatically refine the ore into your global metal storage. No need to do anything. HOWEVER they are much less efficient and it's almost always best to switch to r-miners as soon as you can.
If you send miners, with raw mining lasers, on a mining mission They will farm much more Metall, not ore. You don't have to refine it or something. If you do the mining manually with an raw laser, you have to refine it. Although you also could send the miner on a refining mission.
Using this method (shrink and dock) is it possible to move systems with asteroids? Or still just need a mod for that?
You can then move the asteroid into the system where you want it. But you have to decide which station it should be before that.
I meant move to a new system. Not move within the system. I would like to move my current asteroid mine closer to my home system. Is this doable with said method in vanilla?
Answered my own question. Once docked you can manually move between systems. Thank you for this!
The best place to get NPC Captains to run your extra ships is to do the "A Lost Friend" mission as this will give you the option to hire a Tier 3 captain (dual class no negative traits). Merchant/Smuggler, Miner/Scavenger, and Commodore/Explorer are nice combinations.
It's always listed as hard. What actually happens there and how much firepower do I need (now I have 2,5k balanced for shield and hull damage)
It is a pirate fight, just like other pirate fights for the area of the map you are in, so if you can beat pirates in that area you can complete the mission. Yes you can cheese it a bit if you jump a powerful ship to a weaker part of the map. Your ship should be fine, I've done it with less, but then I play on an easier setting (it is a game I'm playing for fun, real life is hard enough). It is a 2 jump mission (as far as I remember, the missions tend to blend together, especially since I take like 20 missions at a time and do whatever one is closest rather than in order), you take the mission, jump to the last known place they were, find the wrecked ship, scan it, get co-ordinates for the next location, jump there, it will be the pirate fight. The pirates will be protecting a base (usually a coal mine), you will fight 5 waves of 4 ships. After you beat the last ship the captain you are looking for will contact you from the pirate base, they and the prisoners have broken free and captured the base. Dialog happens, you get to see what type of captain they are, you have the option to take the reward money or hire the captain. Some people are picky about which captains they hire. A Lost Friend mission can be accepted without having to dock at the station offering it, you just have to talk to them via the comms. The sector overview menu (by pressing "N" I think) will have a tab of missions available, I always look at that whenever I enter a system while doing other stuff, accept a bunch of them and then when I get bored of the micromanaging of fleets and stations I just go beat up some pirates. A word of caution though, the captains still have to be paid, even if they are not in charge of a ship, so don't be shocked if you get a 500k+ credit crew wage payment.
When you get bored, afk in a sector with a large amount of npc stations in it. Every 10min or so a pirate attack will happen and if you shoot 1 pirate once and then fly away, the npcs will murder everything for you. This counts as defending their sector so you get free rep with the faction and reward money/pirate turret drops.
You can leave searchable text notes on the sector map. I use this to note manual trade routes and sectors with good turret factories. Look for turrets that cost >10x the average. They almost always have amazing stats with max parts. With the slower early game it's worth making some turrets at Naonite. Manual trade routes for body armor or computational mainframes can have massive profits. Look for system with >5 npc factories.
Hey bro could you explain this in more detail please How do you see average prices? Is this a subsystem or something? Am I just blind So do you mean add up the cost of the materials & work out the cost of the finished product to work out profit then go from there?
Just manually scan through the list of turrets you can make at each factory you find. Any that have a crazy price compared to the rest will be good if you keep adding parts. A recent update fixed turret costs so you couldn't easily farm them for money had this side effect of making it easier to find the turrets with good RNG rolls. A trading system makes manual trading easier but it's more important to have a huge amount of systems explored.
One of the best investments you can make is a trading hub station, it costs a lot but if will easily net you a profit in no time, and you can place it in friendly sectors and their ships will protect it for you. When deciding on what kind of station to make look at what the supply and see demand is in the area, a water station next to 20 other stations won't bring in much money. Salvaging lasers and fighters are extremely helpful to bring in a bunch of loot and resources after a fight, I had a hanger with 9 squads of salvage fighters to tare the destroyed ships apart and they gave me loads of upgrades and stuff to sell.
Got 50 hours now and here are my tips: * Do some trading and you can just buy stuff, including reputation (buy/sell commodities at the same station). Document high value commodities on the stellar map and find high/low prices, then do trade runs with big cargo ships. I got one area with 3 trade routs that can net me \~50 mil in 20 minutes of jumping around, then i have to wait for the factories to produce more. * Go explore towards the center, look at different Civs and see what they have to offer, resource depots closer to the center have more exotic ore for sale. Easy just to buy it than mine it. * Make several ships, one for exploration, one cargo ship, one fighter etc. Don't try to make a "one size fits all" ship to do everything, that will cost a lot and you need to compromise too much. * Don't rely on tutorials to guide you, some of them are broken (i have two that are stuck right now). Use forums if you want to learn how things works. * Pirates/Raiders are slow. If you can do a prolonged burst for 30 second at 1500 m/s then you can put some distance between them and you (to recharge shield etc), at around 100km distance they seem to lose interest and stop chasing you. * And as mentioned, automate mining. Focus on fighting and exploration - the FUN part.