How to make sexier complexes [Updated, again!]

NavyAICS · Post by **NavyAICS** » Fri, 1. Sep 06, 02:32

stereophobia - was that criss cross section on purpose or did that happen as a result of what you were trying to do?

If it was on purpose, I think it actually looks kind of cool.

If not, well... it still looks cool.

Unkillable Cat · Post by **Unkillable Cat** » Fri, 1. Sep 06, 02:56

It was a complete accident, I just tried to squeeze them as close together as I could using the satalite view (press home a few times to get really tight in) Im guessing the game couldnt figure out the closest node so just joined them all

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Fri, 1. Sep 06, 08:31

They are too close and wrong orientation. The tube leaves directly outward from the node and cannot bend at all. Same for the next station. Since the tubes are on the same plane and close, they do cross each other. Then, the joining tube connects the free ends.

It is possible (occasionally) to orient the nodes so that one tube segment can join them. But I found that usually they are a bit offset, and I get three tubes almost parallel in same space. If you had placed them (stations) 1.4 km apart (IIRC) the free ends would have been close to each other and the result would look different.

Graxster · Post by **Graxster** » Tue, 31. Oct 06, 21:43

The layout on the original post's pictures looks nice, but I have a problem and question regarding what's shown there. Ideally you'd want it as shown, with a bunch of factories connected by tunnels, then a hub out in front. What I'm experiencing in-game is that once you connect the first 2 factories and place the hub, your only choice when connecting the additional factories is to connect them to the hub itself, not to other factories.

ie, random example:

SPP, BioGas, C-fab, Bofu, Silicon mine.

You drop all your facs, then connect BioGas to C-fab. This gives you 2 connected factories and a hub. If you now choose "connect SPP and BoFu", you'll get a second hub, which is not a good thing. So, you have to choose "connect SPP to Complex Hub", "connect Bofu to complex hub", etc... so everything spiders out from the hub, and you can't simply have tunnels connecting each factory as shown in the OP.

I've seen photos, so how the heck do you connect factories with tunnels w/o having to add a hub every time and get it to look like the diagram? Thanks.

Edit: Never mind, I layed down a bunch of facs haphazardly and connected them. I see what happens now. Darned if I read that explained anywhere though...

Incubi · Post by **Incubi** » Mon, 20. Nov 06, 09:43

I am still struggling with this.

3 things mainly.

First, no matter how I try, I cannot get the factories to be 2.5 tune length apart, and I cannot get straight tubes.

I have managed to avoid the uber ugly speghetti, but that is about it. Are there any more hotkeyes or tips for alignment? Ideal map zoom etc... would be very helpfull. Also what exactly does the 5 on the key pad do?

Second, the complex hub, even with makign sure that all tubes are from the same race, the hub more often than not just jumps to where the heck it wants to be

.

Finaly.

For a L factory, it takes about 75 ecells a minute. So let me see if I get this right.

1 L BioGas fab, takes 75 ecells a minute and makes 5 BoGas every minute and 50 seconds.

if this fab is buying ecells for 13 max and selling BoGas for 395 min. IN one hour it spends no more than 58,500 on ecells, and making 200 BoGas an hour. so selling BoGas would be a minimum of 79,000 leaving a profit of at least 20,500 an hour ( non seta ) taking 36 hours to break even... not including the cost of the ships? That kind of suck

even on a self sufficient fab thios fab would only make 79,000 an hour

So much for the concept of bogas being a good money maker.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Mon, 20. Nov 06, 17:46

If you think of it that way then you'd never build a single station. Factories and complexes only work well for making money when you have a LOT of them--keep putting the profits into building new factories and you'd be surprised how quickly things snowball.

bob hope · Post by **bob hope** » Mon, 20. Nov 06, 19:33

personally i use a single bogas station to get my paranid rating up, drop it 1 or 2 south of emperors ridge set the energy buying to 18 and set 1 transporter delivering set to about 4 or 5 jumps and set every race barring paranid to enemy (i doubt yaki would bring you ecells or any other pirate for that matter)

may not make much money but it makes race relations hand over fist

ryeeson · Post by **ryeeson** » Fri, 24. Nov 06, 01:07

-Edited

got the answer

GH0ST274 · Post by **GH0ST274** » Thu, 1. Feb 07, 22:00

is ther no script that will make this for you its so hard and takes weeks im still noob at this game but yer complex looks so nice i just got to try

apricotslice · Post by **apricotslice** » Sat, 24. Feb 07, 05:15

Version updated in the X3 handbook.

The 3rd pic doesnt seem to be there, so I;ve had to leave it out.

DJ Wolf · Post by **DJ Wolf** » Sat, 24. Mar 07, 18:04

Complexes suck.

Reality check. When I was doing computer graphics last centuary, we had 'snap to grid'. Then when I went mining everything was computer operated and robotic and that was when we had jackhammers and diesel fuel, not proton pulse cannons and jump drives.

I have spent two days placing ten stations... no, not having fun. The fun stopped after the first 20 minutes. In a world of space compression and interplanetary relations, I have to jump out of my space ship with a wrench to search for nodes? Are you kidding? How 19th centuary?

Where's my construction robot? "Meca, I want you to drop these ten factories into a perfect computer aligned, snapped to grid, complex." All I want to hear is "Complex completed, master"

North? In space? It's funny. I use paper and pencil to align each station to the x,y and z axis perfectly and it still looks like #^&%!!!

2.5 pipe lengths? ROFL... Well, are the stations small or am I far away? I suppose after I've laid down 500 stations I could start to get the feel of it. Give me a break.

I wouldn't have complexes at all and would just use freighters but my CPU and memory can't take much of that. This isn't fun.

See you on the X2 forums.

chilipalmer · Post by **chilipalmer** » Sat, 24. Mar 07, 18:51

DJ Wolf wrote:Complexes suck.

Reality check. When I was doing computer graphics last centuary, we had 'snap to grid'. Then when I went mining everything was computer operated and robotic and that was when we had jackhammers and diesel fuel, not proton pulse cannons and jump drives.

I have spent two days placing ten stations... no, not having fun. The fun stopped after the first 20 minutes. In a world of space compression and interplanetary relations, I have to jump out of my space ship with a wrench to search for nodes? Are you kidding? How 19th centuary?

Where's my construction robot? "Meca, I want you to drop these ten factories into a perfect computer aligned, snapped to grid, complex." All I want to hear is "Complex completed, master"

North? In space? It's funny. I use paper and pencil to align each station to the x,y and z axis perfectly and it still looks like #^&%!!!

2.5 pipe lengths? ROFL... Well, are the stations small or am I far away? I suppose after I've laid down 500 stations I could start to get the feel of it. Give me a break.

I wouldn't have complexes at all and would just use freighters but my CPU and memory can't take much of that. This isn't fun.

See you on the X2 forums.

nice reply buddy, i agree these complexes should be done automatically

DJ Wolf · Post by **DJ Wolf** » Sun, 25. Mar 07, 23:48

It's sort of funny because you'd think that included in the price of 'complex construction kit' would be factory alignment for the most sensible and unobtrusive complex.

But it seems that no matter how much time you spend on it those pipes seemed to be put down by the Three stooges on LSD.

ThommoHawk · Post by **ThommoHawk** » Mon, 16. Apr 07, 14:37

Groannnn.... I have just read all of this topic to this point. 'Complex' indeed - the method of building them, I mean, is way too fiddly. NOT satisfying. Painfully tiresome in fact. I have made a few, they make good money and I will continue to try with more.

I am grateful at least there is an option to make them - having no idea how difficult it is to develop the program to enable the creation of these things, it is bizzare that the Map placement screen blocks out the actual visual view when trying to orientate the danged things.

Even the nice ones look basically ugly - just after spending so much time making them, I can't bring myself to not like them. But really I hate them.

Think, Explore, Fight, Build er...Reload, Build...Dang! Reload again... Build? Arrggghtfg Warning, you will self-destruct if your blood pressure continues to climb....

Doom-Slayer · Post by **Doom-Slayer** » Mon, 7. Dec 09, 12:32

Im not kidding...if theres something I dont like about this game..its placing complexes....the idea is AMAZING...but holy cr@p.....its rediculous...I spent an hour trying to get the "2 and a half tunnels" and I get it perfect for oen thing...line up my hanger perfectly and it dislodges it vertically AND HORIZONTALLY....can someone please tell me..I dunno...DISTANCES? of this magical '2 and a half tunnels...because Ive tried everything and I refuse to let this stupid system beat me

mrbadger · Post by **mrbadger** » Mon, 7. Dec 09, 13:08

Doom-Slayer wrote:Im not kidding...if theres something I dont like about this game..its placing complexes....the idea is AMAZING...but holy cr@p.....its rediculous...I spent an hour trying to get the "2 and a half tunnels" and I get it perfect for oen thing...line up my hanger perfectly and it dislodges it vertically AND HORIZONTALLY....can someone please tell me..I dunno...DISTANCES? of this magical '2 and a half tunnels...because Ive tried everything and I refuse to let this stupid system beat me

The exact positions of pylons isn't stored in savegames anyway I think, or even retained when you leavee the sector (possibly) so there's no point in going for that level of detail.

I recall a post about this very issue.

CHAZZ · Post by **CHAZZ** » Mon, 7. Dec 09, 18:48

I WANT TO BELIEVE.

I am kinda new at the TC complex building, but I am already mighty missing my X2 dozens of perfectly aligned complexes. Yes, I even rotated them to make the docking/undocking operations faster and safer for both my and also the AI transporters.

The very idea about building complexes is a great one (common resource pools) but the reality is dissapointing. Crazy nooodles park haha.
Some kind of idiot-proof complex assembly mode would be useful

You know, you click on the existing fab, and command it to 'sprout' out the available nodes or something, so you can decide which one to 'use'.

brucewarren · Post by **brucewarren** » Mon, 7. Dec 09, 19:37

I gotta ask

X2 Complexes ?

How? I thought CCKs only came in with X3R.

K-64 · Post by **K-64** » Mon, 7. Dec 09, 19:53

I like complexes, but not aligning them so that docking doesn't include ploughing straight into one of the tunnels.

I think all TLs should get a "Complex Construction Software MkI" built in as standard, when you use it, it asks you how many stations you want to link together (2 to however many you have CCKs for). It opens up the sector map and you choose the place for the complex hub, then it opens up a view in-sector where you can rotate the camera as standard and place the stations as you see fit, while the game renders what the tunnels will look like with that particular configuration.

I hate trying to make these things but they are a necessity for the stage that I am at

pulzarokkit · Post by **pulzarokkit** » Mon, 7. Dec 09, 19:55

2 days ago i tried to build a 5x michrochip self sustaining complex...
after 15 minutes i gave up

The pipes were not going the way i wanted them to, and that silicon mine is a major pain in the ...

maybe i should install the complex construction script and build my next complex with that

egosoft.com

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How to make sexier complexes [Updated, again!]

Script