augustini's newbie guide to make credits <- Update 14/9-06

[Augustini]

Attention, there is a new, more thorough version of this guide available here: http://www.x-dc.net/tutorial.php?id=10&tid=169

Although this guide is still "useable" the new version takes account to some of the suggestions posted in this thread!

Happy Building!

First of, you will need a TS ship, so after completing the first mission, fly back to Argon Prime and fly really close to the docking clamps of the Shipyard. Eject all your cargo and equipment into space, you’ll need it later! You will then need to exit your ship.

When you have exited your ship, you will need to target it and enter the command console. Then order the ship to dock at the Shipyard.

Now you must target the Shipyard and comm. it to request landing permission. A green circle will appear where you need to go. When you have reached the green circle, you will have manually docked the shipyard.

Your ship should arrive shortly, if it hasn’t already docked.

Now trade with the station and sell your ship, then buy a Mercury (don’t buy any equipment except for the trading system extension). Change ship so that you pilot the Mercury and then head off to reclaim you equipment from your starting ship (you can find all the positions in the sector map). I advise to get the SETA first.

When you have reclaimed all of your equipment, you’re ready to begin trading. Head south past Home of Light into Ore Belt and set course to Solar Power Plant there, buy as many Ecells as possible, but only if the price is below 14 credits (I only buy them at 12 credits), then explore the sector until you have recovered some ore mines, check the details of the stations in the sector to get the best sales price for the Ecells and sell them.

When you have made enough trade runs with Ecells, begin trading with ore to the weapon producing factories scattered around Argon space (Red Light, Argon Prime and many others) Only buy ore if the price is below 70 credits, you may get lucky and sell to over 150 credits! That’s over 100% profits!

When you have accumulated about 700.000 credits, go to the shipyard and buy a Discoverer L (so you don’t need to waste time in searching for equipment!). Change ships to the Disco and order your Mercury to go to the Terracorp HQ in Home of Light.

When your Mercury has docked, go into the trade with station menu, and buy the Trade Software MK3.

Then enter the command console for the Mercury and select Trade -> Start sector trader (ST) Select a sector for which the ship will trade eg. Home of Light and you have just started of your first autonomous trade ship. When the ST reaches level 8-10, you can select the start universe trader option in the trade menu (UT). When you do this, your trade ship will travel the galaxy looking for the best deals by himself and make money for you.

You can now use time in exploring the galaxy sector by sector while your ST/UT makes a steady income. When there’s about 800.000 credits in the bank, buy a new Mercury L and send it of for Terracorp HQ for a Tradesoftware MK3 and start your second ST.

Keep repeating until you have about 10-15 ST/UT ships flying around.

You should now make about 10-20 million credits pr hour on SETA, it’s now time to buy your very own TL. This is a lot easier than hiring since you can equip a jumpdrive and instantly go to the desired sector.

You now have a small fleet of trade ships and a semi capital ship, now you can begin with placing factories.

Select a random sector and check the trading station there. Look for any wares with 0 in stock. Now check the neighbouring 2 sectors on all sides for factories producing these wares, if none exists, you will have found a good spot for a factory.

Use the above technique and you will quickly amass more income than you can spend!

A few tips.

When buying factories, always buy 1 Trade ship (TS) (with assigned homebase to the factory) for each resource to buy, and 1 TS for the main selling product.

When buying ships with turrets, always enter the command console and issue the order of choice to the turret or it will not fire!!!!!

As this is my first guide, I may have overlooked something, feel free to enlighten me 

[Torias]

Wow, -Excellent- startup guide, exactly what I've been looking for! ^_^ Though personally I prefer Quickstart so I've already got a nice mercury floating around Argon Prime waiting for me ^_^;

You know, you mention several tips that seem so perfect after you read it but I never would've thought of looking for before (the X universe is very overwhelming after all), like the tip for picking a site for a factory Thanks! ^_^

[ISammael]

This is a good start, I might suggest either fleshing out some parts (like the ST/UT section) or linking to an existing fine example of using ST/UTs. This will save much angst for the newbie looking for help. Keep it up!

[apricotslice]

A good start, but....

There are existing guides with more information.

You also assumed that one didnt start on quickstart, which actaully gives you a merc. Anyone starting out who needs a guide, should be starting on quickstart anyway.

[hova]

This Guide helped me. I didnt know what ships were for what. Now i know the trading ships and stuff it gets me a good income.

Good for newbs me tinks. Tnx alot

[solah]

Great guide!
I have a suggestion regarding setting up factories. Instead of assigning transports for each of the required resources, set the buy price for resources to 1 credit above average. This generally causes the NPC traffic to stock the factory for you without having to purchase freighters. This gives an initial saving of around 200,000 credits per resource freighter.

[Phlt]

Good guide.

I would add one thing in regards with Race Rank.

Until you did not reach the Race Rank Level which allows you to buy your own TL, you rely on the AI's TL. These are very slow, do not use jumpdrive and take the risk to be destroyed prior they can reach the sector in which you plan to settle the factory. Thus you loose time & money (your brand new factory just purchased)...

What I do when I start a new game is to get 20 UT's trading around. In the meantime, I try to eliminate as much Pirates as possible in the Race Sector about which I want to get the proper Race Rank.

Fighting & Capping increase at the beginning of the game the Race Rank pretty quickly (and additional cash as well).

Then normally, When my 20 UT's are ready, I got enough cash & rank to buy my 1st TL and start to build M cmplexes.

[Augustini]

I've updated the guide quite a bit.

You can find the new version of the guide here It's situated under Tutorials.

You may need to register there in order to see it...

[fud]

Where was this 10 months ago?

[Augustini]

Where was this 10 months ago?

In the dark and twisted corners of my mind !

[jefke12]

hey what is that eb theng in your text there is ''eb.home of licht'' what is eb

[xavierd]

1: this thread is 2 years old!
2: what?

[eladan]

1: this thread is 2 years old!
2: what?

It's a guide thread - as long as the information is still relevant, it doesn't matter how old it is.

[Slaittis]

Attention, the website doesnt open, "http://www.x-dc.net/", at all! And I cant get the damn ship to dock and the flying unit to dock at the shipyard - separately ofcourse.

[mattythedrunk]

good tip re: the shipyard at the start. however, probbaly not optimal use of credits to start a TS ST/UT with your first TS. Better to remotely trade yourself until you have a few of them.
A few satelites in good sectors and you can easily control 3/4 making fast credits while exploring.
Once you get beyond that, UT's could be the best way forward.

[Bob348]

The link to the "updated" version of this guide goes nowhere.

This guide also (in my experience) fails to take into account the standing requirements to purchase an argon ship. After completing the first mission and taking my ship to the shipyard in Argon Prime, and ejecting the components (which were randomly scattered around the sector for some reason I can't imagine), I ejected and docked to find that I didn't have the required standing to purchase ANYTHING, even another buster.

As if this game wasn't baffling enough before... =/

I would appreciate if someone could explain what exactly I did wrong (if it was something I did) to come up short in rank, or at least how to quickly gain a few ranks without moving the storyline forward.

Edit: A 3 year old thread with 33,000 views and only 15 responses? That's kind of strange

[Deadbeat_Spinn]

The link to the "updated" version of this guide goes nowhere.

This guide also (in my experience) fails to take into account the standing requirements to purchase an argon ship. After completing the first mission and taking my ship to the shipyard in Argon Prime, and ejecting the components (which were randomly scattered around the sector for some reason I can't imagine), I ejected and docked to find that I didn't have the required standing to purchase ANYTHING, even another buster.

As if this game wasn't baffling enough before... =/

I would appreciate if someone could explain what exactly I did wrong (if it was something I did) to come up short in rank, or at least how to quickly gain a few ranks without moving the storyline forward.

First, it would have been easier just to make a new topic.

Second, more often a than not the links in a topic as old as this usually are no longer functioning and if still working it may or may not be up to date.

On to your question, your rank will be displayed on the left side of the trade menu and the rank you need to buy said item X on the right. Now gaining rank (I am assuming you're after race rank and not fight/trade rank) depends if this is R or TC.

If R, do missions offered by the BBS at any given station (if said station has mission available).

If TC, if a given station has any mission available it will shown on the upper right side of the station bracket when targeted (or looking at sector map).

Edit: A 3 year old thread with 33,000 views and only 15 responses? That's kind of strange

Not really strange. Just because someone may view said topic doesn't mean that they're going to post. Most people tend to view (multiple times as responses are added) to better understand the topic esp. if they are having the same problem and if the issue that said person is having has been asked and answered already they generally don't feel the need to post the question asked a second time.

[Carlo the Curious]

Second, more often a than not the links in a topic as old as this usually are no longer functioning and if still working it may or may not be up to date.

Quite.

While most of this guide is still useful, as far as I know it's not being maintained by the original author - queries may as well be posted in separate threads.