CC.xls V2.1! & FCC.exe V2.0.0.2 ("the old thread")

General discussions about the games by Egosoft including X-BTF, XT, X², X³: Reunion, X³: Terran Conflict and X³: Albion Prelude.

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Is this usefull for you?

Yes
314
86%
No
26
7%
I dont use/build complexes
27
7%
 
Total votes: 367

Merroc
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Joined: Mon, 16. Feb 04, 20:01
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CC.xls V2.1! & FCC.exe V2.0.0.2 ("the old thread")

Post by Merroc » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 21:10

Please use the new thread for discussion and download of Merroc's Complex Calculator:
http://forum2.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=165330
Dave Toome Standalone Factory Complex Calculator has its own thread as well:
http://forum2.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=165356

--Old text below--

This sheet has a lot of functions. The main one being a complex calculator, with which you can calculate (amongst other things) the input and output of your complex.
Some other features are a data sheet of all factories, prices of wares, asteroids and a yield calculator.

I shall demonstrate the use of the main function with a small example.
As you can see in the following picture, I have already entered all the factories in my sheet, including the number of factories and for the Silicon Mine the yield of the asteroid I built it on. All I have to do now is hit the big "Calculate Already!" In the upper left of the sheet.

[ external image ]
(1600x1200 203kb)

Entering the data is very easy with a drop down list for the race and for the factory. If the race doesnt sell the selected factory, you will see a number of red exclamation marks in the blue column to the right. The number of factories and the yield are just plain numbers.
With "I already own this factory" you can specify whether this factory's price will be included in the total cost of this complex. Leaving it blank (as i have done) will be the same as saying "No" (I have to buy this factory). The "Cost per factory" and "cost per factory type" are filled in automatically and shouldnt require changing.
That is all the input work you need to do. Everything right of the first blue column is output data (except one small bit, as you will see).

The output side is a bit to the left, and will look like the following after I hit the calculate button.

[ external image ]
(1600x1200 236kb)

The only thing you might want to alter here is the price column. The prices which are taken by default (open cell) are the average prices mentioned on the prices sheet.
As you can see, every ware important for your complex is mentioned in the output. Together with its max stock, excess or shortage, production efficiency (the excess/shortage in percentages, 100% means you produce as much as you use), whether the ware is a product, recourse or intermediate. How many NPC (S-size) factories you need in your direct surroundings to be able to sell of the excess (or buy the shortage, but they can be off in several occasions).
As already mentioned in the prices column you can enter your own prices which you have set for your complex. If you need to know the range, you can look at the Prices Data sheet. From the prices and excess/shortage the Turnover/Costs per hour are calculated.
Clearly I should include an Ore Mine and perhaps a bigger Rastar Refinery. As I seem to have a shortage of these two wares. Of course I could also choose to buy these wares from the NPC factories.

Between the last two blue columns you will see the 'totals' of your complex. Most should be self-explanatory. To highlight the two that might mean the least, Efficiency means how much percentage of the max achievable profit you earn at these price levels. And number of free nodes is to help with the Complex CTD discussion going on in the forums.

Finally I want to explain the two buttons and checkbox next to the Calculate button. "Export" will copy all the contents of this sheet to a new one. It will remove all buttons, however you will still be able to set your prices. For this it will ask you a new name for the sheet generated. The new sheet will be placed right in front of the complex calculator sheet and after that, the input side of the complex calculator will be cleared so you can enter a new complex.
"Clear Input quickly clears the input so you don't have to do it yourself and risk you remove an essential formula.
"Check if you sell the excess ore/silicon & buy the needed crystals", this option is turned off by default. If you check this box, the situation is default. e.g. normally you will have a small crystal shortage per SPP-Crystal Fab combination (about 2 per hour per SPP M). However with this box unchecked (since most people will prefer this) the sheet will simply lower the total production of EC by the ammount of Crystals you would otherwise buy. The same happens with the Silicon/Ore only this time you usually have an excess, with this box unchecked you will not sell this excess and thus save a couple of Energy Cells. In the above example I have this box unckecked. This situation would look as the following with the box checked:

[ external image ]
(1600x1200 238kb)

As a final (and most important note): This sheet is only compatible with Excel. Not the windows Excel viewer and Not Open Office.

===== Old topic text =====

Wondering whether to build that complex? Want to know how much you are actually earning with that complex? Or simply wondering what your next complex can be? Well, here's the answer!

I have made you all a nice Complex Calculator (in Excel naturrally)!

I seriously want to start by saying: you need to enable macro's, else the sheet is (on the complex side) useless.

And now, the question thats burning on all your lips, what does your sheet do?

Well, as the name already suggests it makes calculations about a Complex. What kind of calculations?
Well, here's a list:
Per Ware:
Max Stock
For Sale / hour
To Buy / hour
Product / Intermediate / Recourse
Turnover / hour
Costs / hour

Totals:
Turnover/hour
Costs/hour
Profit/hour
Total Costs Complex
Break Even (hour)
Profit/day
Max Profit/hour
Avg Profit/hour
Min Profit/hour

Does that sound as impressive as the masses of formula's and VBA code thats behind it? I do hope so!

For more information, i suggest you download the workbook, as there is quite some text there.

I hope its very usefull for you and that you may have lots of profitsss with it :).

Feedback is very much wanted! Ideas, pointers, errors, please: LET ME KNOW. I want to improve it. Im especially interested in what kind of data (useless for all i care) about the complex. A lot is posible, please give me ideas :).

==== Standalone version by Dave Toome V2.0.0.0 ====
http://forum2.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php ... 95#1561795

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Original Asteroids sheet topic:
Asteroid Sheet *spoiler*

Cheers,
Merroc

V2.1 - 20 / 12 / 06
V2.0! - 10 / 11 / 06
V1.15 - 16 / 06 / 06
V1.14 - 18 / 04 / 06
V1.13 - hasnt been made public
V1.12 - 22 / 02 / 06
V1.11 - 17 / 02 / 06
V1.10 - 12 / 02 / 06
V1.09 - 26 / 01 / 06
V1.08 - 24 / 01 / 06
V1.07 - 16 / 01 / 06
V1.06 - 16 / 01 / 06
V1.05 - 12 / 01 / 06
V1.04 - 11 / 01 / 06
V1.03 - 11 / 01 / 06
V1.02 - 11 / 01 / 06
V1.01 - 10 / 01 / 06
Last edited by Merroc on Fri, 22. Dec 06, 00:47, edited 39 times in total.

tphater
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Post by tphater » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 21:34

Very usefull tool. I haven't started building facts complexes in X3 but i have a good idea how they work (from X2). Nice, it should make things a lot easier. 8)
Haven't noticed any bugs( yet) . 8) :)
I am the one and only,the indestructible,fear me,cause i have a raging dragon and i'm not affraid to use it!
PAIN,SUFFERING,DEATH,it's all coming!
Terror feeds me,power flows through me,death is my ally!
Join me!
DIE!!!

tanaka_k
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x3

Post by tanaka_k » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 21:39

Please make sure there is a link to this in one of the stickys. Ill try it out when I build my next complex :)

Merroc
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Post by Merroc » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 21:43

I already posted to ask if someone can add it.

@tphater thats because i spend hour and hour and more hours getting the right formula's and lines of code... one slight mistake and you dont get the number you want... if you get a number at all...

tphater
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Post by tphater » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 21:51

What can i say then? THX for your hard work!
:D
P.S.
I've already made some plans for my future complex! :) Can't wait to put them into application. :D
I am the one and only,the indestructible,fear me,cause i have a raging dragon and i'm not affraid to use it!
PAIN,SUFFERING,DEATH,it's all coming!
Terror feeds me,power flows through me,death is my ally!
Join me!
DIE!!!

Merroc
Posts: 5920
Joined: Mon, 16. Feb 04, 20:01
x3tc

Post by Merroc » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 21:55

tphater wrote:What can i say then? THX for your hard work!
:D
P.S.
I've already made some plans for my future complex! :) Can't wait to put them into application. :D
Thanks for the compliments. I truely hope that your complex will give you much profitssss

Rothan
Posts: 64
Joined: Fri, 23. Jul 04, 04:30
x4

Post by Rothan » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 21:59

Hey, this is a very cool tool - I was hoping something like this would come out :)

I ran into a couple of problems though, maybe you could look into.

First, I tried adding an argon beta IRE factory, and it came up with a X in the "AA" column. It doesnt' seem to like beta IREs.

I also got something wierd with "Meatsteak Cahoona S" showing up seperately from Meatsteak Cahoonas, when I had two Cahoona Bakeries. Here's the configuration:

Argon Cattle Ranch M 2
Argon Cahoona Bakery M 2
Argon Solar Power Plant M 1
Argon Crystal Fab M 1
Argon Silicon Mine M 1 24
Argon Beta PAC Forge 1
Argon Ore Mine M 1 50

And I get the following output:

Ware Max Stock For Sale / Hour To Buy / Hour Product / Intermediate / Recourse Price Turnover / hour Costs / hour
Argnu Beef 8,000 Intermediate
Energy Cells 85,000 3,341 Intermediate 66,820
Meatsteak Cahoonas 19,992 1,200 Intermediate 132,000
Ore 2,498 450 Intermediate 92,700
Beta PAC 32 3 Product 129,720
Silicon Wafers 832 -1 Intermediate -504
Crystals 1,328 -2 Intermediate -3,370
Meatsteak Cahoonas S 3,332 -600 Resource #N/A

Note that there are two listings for Cahoonas (one with an S on the end), and costs/hour = N/A for the cahoona S.

But all in all, very cool tool.

Merroc
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Post by Merroc » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 22:03

Ill look into it directly, i have a suspision where the problem in both things are. thanks for the feedback.

EDIT:
Beta IRE Problem:
The Argon dont sell the Beta IRE factory, hence it gives an X. You should either change the race or the factory.
Chahoona Meatsteaks S:
I dont get that, but i will investigate further.
EDIT2: ok, that was my fault... I must say that X is too hard to see... will fix that too... :D
EDIT3: fixed, I hope i have improved the X too... Its hard to do that..., maybe i should do something for that in a next version, something more complicated than a colour change.
New link in the first post, you may download if you want ;).

Merroc
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Post by Merroc » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 22:50

I have just found myself a not-so-critical error. With the Teladi Sun Oil Refinery (both L and M) there would be a 0 popping up in the ware list. Not anymore. But since its not harmless, but more annoying, I have decided to not upload 1.02 yet, perhaps there are more bugs that could be fixed first...

acrh2
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Post by acrh2 » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 23:11

OMG
This is amazing.
Great work!
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EVGA gtx 280 FTW , Mitsu DP 2070SB 22"
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adowthwaite
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Post by adowthwaite » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 23:14

:thumb_up: Merroc, this is what has been putting me off from starting complexes. ie how much is it going to cost to be self sustaining, and how long will it take to pay for itself, 58million credit & 40.89 hours in my case :cry:

[Edited-while-typing]
When i'd used the sheet I saved it. How do I clear it to start another complex?
Just found my own answer... used the right-click menu 'clear contents'

All the information at the bottom of the factories and other sheets is incredible! Do you have any skin on your fingers after all that typing?

Maybe for ver 2 we could say which station(s) we already own and it would tell us where to buy what we needed and the cost of just the needed station(s).

Just noticed you released 1.0 at 8:10pm and had version 1.01 out by 9.03 pm, you work fast, at that rate ver 2.0 should be out by the time i get up tomorrow :D

Merroc
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Post by Merroc » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 23:27

adowthwaite wrote:[Edited-while-typing]
When i'd used the sheet I saved it. How do I clear it to start another complex?
Just found my own answer... used the right-click menu 'clear contents'

All the information at the bottom of the factories and other sheets is incredible! Do you have any skin on your fingers after all that typing?

Maybe for ver 2 we could say which station(s) we already own and it would tell us where to buy what we needed and the cost of just the needed station(s).
1) You can also just choose other factories and hit the button again, or if a factory is in the way, simply select it and hit del. be sure to do it with the race too.
2) My fingers are used to it by now ;), its more a question whether there are still keys on my keyboard :P
3) Good idea, a simple Y/N(or omitted) to say if you already have a factory. And actually, i already have a price per factory (multiplied by the number of factories of that time). But i hid it, becuase there is a VERY ugly formula behind it., maybe a simple =«cell» can stop that. Ill think about it.

Another note, i fixed another problem for 1.02, And also someone gave me the idea (indirectly actually) to build in a Yield calculator. Expect to see that in a future version too.

Ed666
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Post by Ed666 » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 23:31

I logged onto the forums to look for advice on building my second complex... Then i saw this posted it answers everything i could ever want to ask about them and more thanks for this its a massive help to me. I was good at setting up loops in X2 but in X3 i have forgotten the turnover rate of each resourse and which was needed for each plant etc etc so it was going to be hours of trial and error untill now.

Thanks again! :P
EdCorp:

X2; Mogul, Combat Ace 1st Grade
X3:R; N00b
X3:TC; Industrialist, Assassin

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bladeuk
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Post by bladeuk » Tue, 10. Jan 06, 23:49

the legend strikes again

Niceone! :D

Merroc
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Post by Merroc » Wed, 11. Jan 06, 00:51

Might as well release V1.02 tonight as well, if you look at the history change (i think V1.01 came too soon ^^):
Yield Calculator. An idea brought to me by Henkie, when he gave me the cycle time and products per cycle, while you need to have the yield.
Great for when you already have the factory, but, oops, what was the yield?
Changed DataType in/output to Variant, to allow decimal numbers (making for more accurate end numbers)
Added: "I already own this factory"-option and costs per factory and per factory type, see column K, M and N on "Complex Calculator"
An idea brought to me by adowthwaite.
Recopied all spaces on "Factory IO" Sheet, there should be no more "0" in the wares list on "Complex Calculator"
A (vague) attempt at improving race-does-not-match-station error sign, by making it loads of !!!'s instead of an X
Warheads and Wasp missile lacked output in the "Complex Calculator"
Reformatted factory prices to currency format
Mind you, I didnt had too much numbers to test the yield calculator with, if someone has a few values?

Again, 1.02 link in the OP.
bladeuk wrote:the legend strikes again
Err... well.... err thanks, i didnt knew i was a legend... a legend for creating a few sheets...

krynos
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Post by krynos » Wed, 11. Jan 06, 01:42

Very, very cool spreadsheet!

What's the chance of expanding it to allow for more stations in a complex? I could really use something like this to fine tune the Kryno-Mega-Complex I am constucting in Unknown Sector... I have more than 30 stations in my SPP wing alone :)

It's currently at about 160 linked stations and climbing, producing shields and weapons for my fleet. I still need to add missile factories, sat factories and MD / Ammo production heh. It's a beastly complex though nicely arranged, however managing it has gotten a little out of control, it's over producing intermediates at the moment. Watching the constant fleet of 20 freighters bringing in Ore and Silicon and exporting energy to my mines is amazing to watch!

- Krynos

Merroc
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Post by Merroc » Wed, 11. Jan 06, 01:50

:o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o :o

I guess i could make it so that you can add as many different factories as there are different factories. How does 203 input posibilities sound for you?
Dont expect that to happen within the hour though, as it will, as you probably aready thought, need more time.

For the time being, have you used the "number" column? For instance, if you have 2 Argon SPP L's, you only need to add one, and put a 2 under number.

*wishes he had another 10 simlies to spam even more :O's*

Merroc
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Post by Merroc » Wed, 11. Jan 06, 02:17

Ok, i stand corrected, it was easier than i thought (good thing excel allows for copying formula's en masse :D). I probably thought it would be hard, because i didnt calculated the fact that a macro can easily do this, while formula's would have needed more work. Anyway it comes at an price, the file size easily doubles to around 1.5 MB and im pretty sure that the speed of the macro will slow down too, if you add a lot of stations.

Good thing we have winRar. I will upload shortly and put the new link up. Ill zip it, as its a more common format and you can always open it. Zipped, it will be around 235 KB. I hope it will be put to good use, the new input possibilities.

But i honestly NEVER thought someone would build a complex of more than 30 different stations, in fact, i started out with 20, but quickly increase it...

EDIT
Oh, if you are done entering all this data, could you save it under another name, zip it and sent it over? I'd love to see the numbers that spawn from that beast! (and if Long integers, etc are good enough.)

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Hppswzd
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Post by Hppswzd » Wed, 11. Jan 06, 02:35

I suppose not all of us has EXCEL, I see these posts, (well, your idea is good) .

I was thinking this all had to do with placement of complexes, ie. how far apart to place it, so the entire complex doesn't look like a big piece of s@#$. With all those connectors being not uniform to the station their connecting too.

I imagine your spreadsheet is well thought out and it would be great for maximizing profits, with only what is needed for that complex, ie. not having 3 cattle on, with one cahoona , and between the productions of the M, L, XL stations. ----- I do know how complex station complexes are and the usefullness of your spreadsheet that it brings for a balanced complex. great idea, by the way. gj

Merroc
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Post by Merroc » Wed, 11. Jan 06, 02:40

If you dont have Excel, windows supplies an Excel viewer, but im not sure whether it also supports macro's. If it doesnt, bad luck, but excel is the most common format for this...

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