The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post your best tactics and strategies for getting the big bux in Vega Strike
Thorsten
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The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by Thorsten »

The money in Vega Strike is in trade. Nowhere else. The most cash I have ever seen offered for a mission was 120.000 (120k) credits. That involves going off-system, fighting and nasty risks. Currently, I make 80.000.000 (80M) credits in 4 minutes, absolutely risk-free by trading (I could make even more, but what's the point? There's really not much you can by beyond 300 M which is the Clydesdale...).

The reason for this can be seen from the equations which govern trade profits. If you're able to re-invest all your money after a trade run into new cargo, you can do n trade runs per hour, you start with the investment of i credits and your profit margin (the ratio of selling price over buying price) is p, then the amount of money m after one hour is

m = i * p^n

Let's try numbers - assume a trade run takes 10 minutes, so we can do six per hour (n=6), we start with 10k credits and we get a decent profit margin of 40% (p=1.4). After one hour, we have about 75k credits, after two hours 560k credits, after three hours 4.2M credits and after four hours incredible 32M credits (in fact, the equation leads to exponential growth of our assets). Running cargo or bounty missions simply cannot keep up with this amount of growth.

However, in reality, we may not be able to re-invest all money after a trade run for various reasons, as the cargo hold may be too small, or the planet/station may simply not have enough goods available. If we're only able to re-invest a constant sum i of money on each trade run, the money after one hour in this case will be

m = i * p * n

Using the same numbers as above, starting with 10k credits, we'll have 30k credits after the first hour, 60k after two hours, 90k after three hours and 120k after four hours (the equation leads to linear growth). Thus, trading is vastly more efficient when done in the exponential regime, and the strategy to get rich must involve staying on the exponential for as long as possible.

Let's optimize the numbers and see what strategy follows. Of course, every number should be as large as possible, but that's not quite so easy.

i is trivial - this says that it takes money to make money - of course getting 40% profit on 1M credits (400.000 credits) beats getting 300% profit on 10k credits (30.000 credits).

p should be large, and we have to optimize the trade route for it. Some goods (like metals from a mining base to an oceanic planet) offer p=3 - but the catch here is that usually the amount of money you can invest in these goods is very limited, whereas we're looking for really expensive cargo to invest all our money. Such items usually get p between 1.1 and 1.4, so we aim for a trade route which offers 1.4.

n seems often overlooked - but this is where the real money is made! Being fast pays off! Being able to make more trade runs per hour generates money much faster. So, let's take a look at travel times:

In a fast ship with high acceleration (like the Dostoevsky), travel time is almost exclusively dominated by time spent in SPEC. The velocity reached in SPEC is limited to about 97 c, so here is a dependence on distance. A run like Atlantis-Serenity which is unusually far (87 light minutes) actually takes a noticeable time in SPEC, thus a shorter run of a few lightseconds should be preferred. But SPEC is not the real issue.

The real issue is the time to accelerate out of the gravity well and towards SPEC velocity, and the time to decelerate at the end to the docking clamps. An empty Dostoevsky accelerates to 380 m/s in a second. A Plowshare with heavy cargo pulling 40 times its empty weight needs more than 9 minutes to reach the same velocity! As soon as the cargo hold is full, acceleration becomes the dominant factor determining travel times.

For this reason alone, a trade route should not involve a jump point, as many ships have to decelerate to reach it properly. A Dostoevsky always comes out of SPEC 10.000 m before the jump point with velocities perfectly matched, but even my Lancelot comes out 35.000 m before the jump and I have to chase the jump point because orthogonal velocity is not aligned properly. But then, the Dostoevsky has almost 13 g orthogonal acceleration, enough to match everything while autopilot is on, but the Lancelot has a mere 3.5 g orthogonal acceleration. The (empty) Plowshare has 0.6 g - the Lancelot may still be able to chase the jump point, but the Plowshare has to decelerate before changing direction.

Even trading with a station is not really good, as we have to decelerate for docking (well, you don't have to, but the chance of hitting the docking clamps with a heavy cargo instead of smashing the ship against the station is not large...). The best trade route thus involves only planets, as one can actually accelerate towards planets into a huge docking window (technically, I'd consider that an exploit - you would not stand a chance of landing on the planet unless your velocity is reduced whereas the game allows you to accelerate towards the planet and then dock to get your velocity magically reduced to zero) - thus such a trade route involves only one acceleration phase to get up to SPEC and is thus with heavy cargo about 4 times faster than one connecting two stations via a jump point.

Thus, the travel time in the limit where acceleration rather than SPEC time matters can be estimated from the acceleration of the empty ship and the cargo mass. For example, the empty Llama has 255 tons and a forward acceleration of 6.8 g. When the whole cargo hold is packed with metals (that's actually not a good idea...), then the cargo mass is 18.000 tons. This is about 70 times the base mass, so consequently the acceleration drops to 1/70 of its basic value or 0.1 g and it takes forever to get the ship anywhere.

The relevant figure when filling the cargo hold is thus the density, i.e. mass per volume, of the cargo. That's actually pretty different, a few examples:

Base metals: 9.0 t/m^3
Alkali metals: 6.5 t/m^3
Factory Constructors: 5.0 t/m^3
Construction vehicles: 4.0 t/m^3
Dilithium Crystals: 2.0 t/m^3
AI core: 2.0 t/m^3
Recycling Tanks: 1.875 t/m^3
PAI Wetware: 1.0 t/m^3
Atmospheric Scrubbers: 0.5 t/m^3
Material Processors: 0.4 t/m^3

Everything else being equal, selecting the right cargo can make you thus more than 10 times faster.

However, everything else is usually not equal. First of all, we'd like to invest all our money into cargo, and we can't do that if the hold is full. In order what cargo is best for putting the largest amount of money into the hold, one can compute the value density of cargo, i.e. the cost per volume. A few examples:

Base metals: 2 Cr/m^3
Alkali metals: 3 Cr/m^3
Dilithium Crystals: 100 Cr/m^3
Factory Constructors: 100 Cr/m^3
Material Processors: 400 Cr/m^3
Construction vehicles: 933 Cr/m^3
Recycling Tanks: 2500 Cr/m^3
Atmospheric Scrubbers: 2500 Cr/m^3
PAI Wetware: 20000 Cr/m^3
AI core: 2000000 Cr/m^3

Thus, as long as the hold is not full, one would prefer Material Processors over PAI Wetware because of their low density, but with the hold becoming full, PAI Wetware becomes a better option because of vastly higher value density. Ideally, one would like to trade cargo with low density but high value density - this is why AI cores and PAI Wetware make excellent cargo.

Unfortunately, the usual limitation is that excellent cargo is not available in large numbers, thus eventually one has to consider hauling heavy (high density) cargo. Here, larger ships actually are an advantage. A Llama hauling 10.000 tons has 0.17 g forward acceleration, however a Plowshare already offers 0.18 g for this mass whereas a Mule still operates close to the nominal acceleration with 0.69 g. It's hard to compute exactly as upgrades have mass too, but the cargo mass at which the Plowshare is better than the Llama is about 3600 tons, but the Mule becomes better than either for them for 1800 tons of cargo - unfortunately, the Mule is quite expensive, so one cannot usually change to a Mule early on.

All this means that it is pointless taking cargo on a leg of the trade route when the cargo does is not worth a significant fraction of money and is heavy. A good example is bringing Factory Constructors and Construction Vehicles to a mining colony which can make a 2M Cr cargo on a Plowshare. Should one take metals back? The answer is no - a full hold of metals is barely more than 50k Cr but slows down enormously. It is far better to make the return trip empty to repeat the more profitable run quickly. It is even better to take an empty Dostoevsky to make the return journey.

Time has to be balanced with profit though - if you have a trade route with 40% profit, a route with 30% profit only needs to take 25% less time to be more profitable, a route with 20% profit should be twice as fast to compete and a route with only 10% profit must be more than 3.5 times faster to compete.

How, then, to get to 100 M credits quickly?

Start on the initial Atlantis - Serenity run taking expensive liquor to Serenity and metals back till reaching 50 k or so, then buy a jump drive and go exploring. What you're looking for is a system with a Factory or Trantor class planet and an arid planet or a Mining Colony. It helps to have several factories, then you never run out of cargo to buy. If not, you may need two or three such routes and change system - if so, fly empty, fly fast, use a fighter to travel. Take high-value manufactured goods such as recycling tanks, atmospheric scrubbers or PAI wetware (dependent on just what run you can find) and work your way up. Don't bother taking a return cargo, just fly back fast. Eventually you need to buy heavier and heavier cargo to reinvest all your money, construction vehicles or factory constructors will eventually become cargo of choice, and they should always be dumped on an arid planet to minimize flight time (with heavy cargo, docking on a mining colony is too difficult) and to maximize profit (arid is better than rocky for this type of equipment). If the cargo hold of the Llama is full, buy a Plowshare and a Dostoevsky. The Plowshare hold can take as much as 2 M credits in manufactured goods (both production and mining) - at which point you enter a linear growth phase. The runs are very slow, therefore always go to a planet. Take the Dostoevsky to fly back quickly (unless you consider that cheating). With 2 M credits in the hold, you can make 800 k Credits of profit per run - which means you need only 8 runs to get back to exponential, since then the AI core which costs about 10 M in a Commerce Center and can be sold with 40% profit at a mining colony becomes accessible. Fly AI core runs with fighters and other fast vessels. A good commerce center holds 20+ AI cores - the profit per run is then 80 M, so the 300 M credits for the Clydesdale are in reach with only a few runs (which moreover are very fast runs!). All of this is doable within less than 12 hours playing time.

If you want to play completely honest and account for pirates, modify as follows: Pirate attacks are usually rare, but especially with a heavy cargo, you just can't run, and shooting the pirates only attracts uln and forsaken - so don't. Instead, you have to dump cargo and run. Thus, only invest 50% of your cash into your cargo as long as cash is growing exponentially - this way, dumping cargo will only be a setback of two runs and will not ruin you. In the linear phase, there's enough cash left anyway.

Afterwards, go buy all the goodies and go bounty-hunting for a hobby...
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by MC707 »

Fantastic analysis. This might help people as long as the economy system in VS doesn't change, which unfortunately (or fortunately, actually) may change if RedAdder finishes and implements his new Market System.
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by Thorsten »

Well, a change in the economic model would be a good thing. At present, it is pretty inconsistent with the world.

Suppose I fly 10 AI cores from a commerce center where I bought them for 10 M each to a nearby mining colony (I once had one just a lightsec away) and sell them for 140 M - good for me. So, how does this transaction look from the other side?

So, there's the director of mining facilities who is in need of AI cores (he bought them after all) and who has plenty of cash (he just handed 140 M to me). On his very mining colony, there's a trader of ships where somebody is selling, say, a Dostoevshy for 360 k. What's keeping him from buying one, getting some employee to fly over to the commerce center and buy him the AI cores for 100 M - saves 40 M minus the price of the Dostoevsky minus the wages of the pilot. But to get a pilot to fly cargo from A to be costs just 10k (that's what they pay me on a cargo mission...) So unless the mining colony has really exceptionally good salaries - he'd save a hell lot of money.

But wait - piloting is dangerous and not everyone can do it. Well - you can see from the mining colony to the commerce center (it's only a lightsec) and the radar even shows if there is any danger - so you can actually be sure to avoid pirates. Hm - but piloting is difficult... no, actually most of the trip the autopilot is on. Must be the docking then which is worth the 39 M so that the director of mining facilities doesn't get to this idea.

But it gets even more mysterious - where does the money for the AI cores come from? A mine being a mine, you'd expect they make their profit selling metals. But typically, a mining colony has metals and gems for something like 50 k to sell - so unless 2800 traders visit the mining colony and all buy metals for 50 k (strangely, the mining colony never seems to have any more available) until I come back, they're spending vastly more cash than they are earning - not a good business model. And there is no evidence for so many traders... Bankruptcy is imminent...

And what on earth are all these Oxes I keep seeing transporting? An Ox is a big investment - why should any company do it if you can get rich with AI cores?! And you can't even fill an Ox...

Now to something different - the vastly underpaid joys of bounty hunting. Recently, I got an offer to destroy a Clydesdale (which was escorted by anotehr Clydesdale) for the whopping sum of 30 k credits. Now, don't get me wrong, but I kind of assumed the best way to waste a Clydesdale is another Clydesdale (an investment of 300 M, and repairs don't really come cheap I guess), or, short of that, at least a few torpedos. Oh bugger, a single torpedo costs like 30 k - so someone was really counting on a bargain bounty hunter stupid enough to try to take the Clydesdale down with his laser?!

Here's my economy of bounty hunting: Suppose I am to take down a Dostoevsky. To do so, I need one myself (always go for at least equal odds), well equipped it costs me 500 k. Assume I am a good bounty hunter and win 80% of my fights - then I need to eject every 5th time and the new fighter must be billed to someone. Thus, each client gets 1/5 of that risk premium, making for a base price of 100 k. Of course I have expenses - ammunition and repair, so let's add another 10 k here (if I assault a capital ship, I'd bill my torpedoes here). And then I want to make a profit. Traders usually get 40%, I risk my neck here, so I want 50%. Thus, a realistic market price for taking down a Dostoevsky should be something like 165.000 credits. If he is escorted, I would add another 50% to the base price for each escort (not the full price, because I don't have to take them out, but not nothing either because they increase my risk) - so if he has three escorts, the price would be 330 k. Thus, the realistic price for taking out the above Clydesdale should be something like 150 M credits. Given that 30.000 are offered, one can perhaps understand why bounty-hunting doesn't make any money.

So - the incentive system is all wrong to explain how the world is how it is. If legal trading makes most cash - why are there pirates and bounty hunters? The list of things which make money should be (from best to worst):

1) piracy
2) bounty hunting
3) risky fast cargo running, smuggling
4) bulk large scale trading
5) high value small scale trading
6) small scale trading

i.e. illegal and risky activities should let you make the most money, conservative activities the least. At the moment, it's almost the opposite. So, for a better game balance, I'd

* vastly increase the amount of money in bounty missions
* substantially increase the amount of money in risky cargo missions
* give more bulk goods to stations and planets (if one could buy 3.000.000 units of metals, operating an Ox would actually be reasonable beacuse of the factor 3 profit to be made)
* give a finite amount of money to planets and stations correlated with their output in terms of goods so that not everyone can buy 10 AI cores

And suddenly the economy becomes such that it explains the presence of pirates, bounty hunters and Oxes...
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by MC707 »

I completely agree with you - the higher the risk, the higher the gain. RedAdder is currently working on a Dynamic Economy (check his thread for further info).
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by Jno »

I've tried the money-making method with two or three fresh starts, and it all goes to a ball of chalk as soon as I venture a couple of systems from Cephid. E.g., with one kill only (a pirate), and a barely negative rating with anyone *except* the pirates, the uln-citizens pursue me through the known universe, battering me every time I launch. In another case, while I raced for a planet surface to avoid any unpleasantness, four or five forsaken suicidally rammed me, pushing up my kill count and taking me well off their Christmas card list. Unless I'm missing something, it seems very difficult to find somewhere peaceful enough just to build up enough cash to make one's Llama safe to trade in, let alone buy a Plowshare and a spare Dostoevsky to nip home again in.

Starting over so many times is dispiriting, frankly. I may go back to playing Tetris.
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by MC707 »

What do you mean with "Money making method"? Do you mean hack or do you mean the "Right way" by trading? Anyway, I don't find a reason to be pwnt by people by trading unless you somehow piss them off, or by messing up the save file by hacking it wrongly. Also, you don't need to kick uln or forsaken ass to piss them off. If you kick someone who uln or forsakens like, you will have them behind you. I recommend kicking pirate and Luddite ass, alternating. It will have more than 80% of the factions covering your ass instead of trying to capp it. Well, at least all of this is with the current faction system, which I heard is in its initial steps to be remodeled.
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by CLoneWolf »

In the very, very *very* beginning, I'd suggest you avoid pirates like plague and hunt luddites only; uln and forsaken won't be happy if you kill pirates, so you need to build a reserve of good feelings towards you, to be able to sustain a few pirate kills without making new enemies.

Also, get ready to wear a left finger off on the F1 key, spam every uln and forsaken ship you meet with it, no matter how tiring it gets; repeating that to a ship, you'll notice their callsign go from yellowish green (or red if they're hostile) to bright green, meaning that your relationship with that particular ship has become fully friendly, besides improving your relationship with the whole faction. Change target, rinse and repeat.

HTH
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by MC707 »

CLoneWolf wrote:In the very, very *very* beginning, I'd suggest you avoid pirates like plague and hunt luddites only; uln and forsaken won't be happy if you kill pirates, so you need to build a reserve of good feelings towards you, to be able to sustain a few pirate kills without making new enemies.

Also, get ready to wear a left finger off on the F1 key, spam every uln and forsaken ship you meet with it, no matter how tiring it gets; repeating that to a ship, you'll notice their callsign go from yellowish green (or red if they're hostile) to bright green, meaning that your relationship with that particular ship has become fully friendly, besides improving your relationship with the whole faction. Change target, rinse and repeat.
Hmm the last time I remember, even killing luddites made me negative with another faction, though thats just a bare, long memory.

About the F1 key making friendly ships, I used to do that. I realized, though, that even if they get a green name and start sayin' good things, they still try to ram me, and shoot me if they have shooting weps. Therefore, I stopped using that technique :roll:
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by Jno »

MC707 wrote:What do you mean with "Money making method"? Do you mean hack or do you mean the "Right way" by trading?
I meant Thorsten's trading strategy, or at least the beginning of it, as outlined in the OP. I never get farther than buying a semi-survivable chunk of armor and a popgun for the Llama, let alone make enough to buy some better wings.

I haven't tried to hack the save file, but maybe that's the way forward. :D
MC707 wrote:I don't find a reason to be pwnt by people by trading unless you somehow piss them off.
See, that's not my experience. Just trading or taking a cargo mission seems to get right up some folks' noses. The VS universe is full of homicidal maniacs on short fuses!
CLoneWolf wrote:In the very, very *very* beginning, I'd suggest you avoid pirates like plague and hunt luddites only
I haven't been hunting anybody, the one or two kills I acquire during a couple of hour's play are just to save my bacon. Do I just hit ! when I find a fight unavoidable, then? Doesn't seem right, somehow.
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by Jno »

Jno wrote:
MC707 wrote:I don't find a reason to be pwnt by people by trading unless you somehow piss them off.
See, that's not my experience. Just trading or taking a cargo mission seems to get right up some folks' noses. The VS universe is full of homicidal maniacs on short fuses!
OK, just back from the briefest visit to the VS universe yet, wherein I chose a new campaign, bought as much brandy as I could afford on Cephid_17 and launched. Got jumped by a luddite and blown out of the sky before Oswald had a chance to finish his little welcome chat!
Do you suppose I'm using the wrong soap?
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by MC707 »

Jno wrote:
MC707 wrote:I don't find a reason to be pwnt by people by trading unless you somehow piss them off.
See, that's not my experience. Just trading or taking a cargo mission seems to get right up some folks' noses. The VS universe is full of homicidal maniacs on short fuses!
Hahahaha thats so damn true xD :lol:
Jno wrote:OK, just back from the briefest visit to the VS universe yet, wherein I chose a new campaign, bought as much brandy as I could afford on Cephid_17 and launched. Got jumped by a luddite and blown out of the sky before Oswald had a chance to finish his little welcome chat!
Do you suppose I'm using the wrong soap?
ROFL no I don't think its the soap. Real Hippies usually didn't use soap, but they didn't get killed by hygiene maniacs xD
Now seriously, I think I saw that problem of being attacked at the beginning somewhere here at the forums. Lemme check...
EDIT: Here it is, this is the thread
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by CLoneWolf »

Jno wrote:
CLoneWolf wrote:In the very, very *very* beginning, I'd suggest you avoid pirates like plague and hunt luddites only
I haven't been hunting anybody, the one or two kills I acquire during a couple of hour's play are just to save my bacon. Do I just hit ! when I find a fight unavoidable, then? Doesn't seem right, somehow.
The key in what I was saying is "avoid", hunting is of course something to do when you can survive it :mrgreen:
(And trust me, the stock Llama doesn't need to be upgraded that much to get the upper hand against Redeemers)

So, when you find a fight unavoidable, hit y instead of ! and try taking evasive manoeuvres; if they're stubborn enough to chase you, they'll have to switch to travel speed too, and they won't be able to shoot. That would be the perfect time to put a robotic finger on your F1 key to tap it for you while you take care of your six :mrgreen:
(and for that matter, r and R will help you sweet talking the most immediate threats first)
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by MC707 »

I used to tap rapidly the "a" key (autopilot) while aiming at a fool (usually hyenas, reedemers or other llamas) to make a similar version of the autotracking. I used this untill I could buy a set of autotrackers, and it worked quite well. Many enemies fell to my quadro-stock-lasers :lol:
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by denyasis »

Thorsten;

I realy like your guide. It is very insightful!

i.e. illegal and risky activities should let you make the most money, conservative activities the least. At the moment, it's almost the opposite. So, for a better game balance, I'd

* vastly increase the amount of money in bounty missions
* substantially increase the amount of money in risky cargo missions
* give more bulk goods to stations and planets (if one could buy 3.000.000 units of metals, operating an Ox would actually be reasonable beacuse of the factor 3 profit to be made)
* give a finite amount of money to planets and stations correlated with their output in terms of goods so that not everyone can buy 10 AI cores

And suddenly the economy becomes such that it explains the presence of pirates, bounty hunters and Oxes...
Sorry, I love playing devil's advocate:
-I totally agree with Increasing bulk goods, and $$ in cargo missions.
-I'm a little hestitant about the Finite money thing having come from teh X universe; a "true" dynamic enconomy sounds cool, but it can be super frustrating for the player (especially a new player). In general buying a product from a factory and selling it as a resource to a foctory that needs it should net you $$. In X, that is not always true. In VS we'd have to make sure that never happens.

- Bounty hunting/piracy can be pretty profitable - though never as profitable as trading - which I agree we need to up the prices a bit for bounty missions. Yeah the most I've seen is a little over 100K. But say I take a 50K bounty mission to whack a Yeoman in my Llama. I get 50K for blowing it up, plus what ever I tractor in. AI cores, Construction Equip, etc. I can take a 50K Yeoman mission and get around 500K or more depending on my luck. That's not terrible, especially in early game before AI cores really become a possibility.
The problem, and where I totally see where you'r comming from and agree w/ you is the cargo part. If I'm in a fighter, I'm not salvaging anything - no room - no tractor.
A way to collect cargo in a fighter, ala an I-War2 Jafs type system would go a long way towards equalizing the piracy/bounty hunting profit compared to trading. It would explain why there are packs of pirate hyenas (take down an ox, call in a few plawshares to suck up the booty, go sell said booty)
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by Moganite »

I found that hauling entertainment specialty goods far more profitable than anything else you can haul to serenity. I tend to haul back precious metal which are very heavy at 19.0t/m^3 but their profit is the same as the base metals. As you're hauling to a planet the other end isn't a problem and you get out of the gravity well of serenity quickly. with your first 2 runs you want to have more than 30k when you get back to Atlantis then you can add a cheap ECM better missiles
Once you've cleaned out serenity or it gets too risky head out to Plainfield the relay you will find some more useful stuff to haul.
The biggest risk is pirates though if you can find luddites bounty in system go for taking them out. I would of thought taking out ISO and hunter would also be good ones to hunt as they aren't liked by many factions

I would really expect that Mining asteroids have lots of base metals and not so much precious metals. Also you could have the most comon metal such as iron ore, rutile(titanium),bauxite, aluminium,nickel/cobalt ores. As well as mixed ores like the base metal , ferrous metal, noble metals (gold and similar unreactive ones) in addition to various salts which are the alkali and basic metal ores. There are also a stack of metal that are used primarily as alloying elements that dont appear to be used.

Is it still possible to fit a cloaking device to a plowshare or mule? if so get hold of one will eliminate your piracy /uln or being pursued problems permanently.

I do agree that those changes need to be made to the economy
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by MC707 »

Moganite wrote:Is it still possible to fit a cloaking device to a plowshare or mule? if so get hold of one will eliminate your piracy /uln or being pursued problems permanently.
That would be too good to be true. :(
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by athomic1 »

I've heard you can pick up the occasional cloaking device at a research station, but I have yet to find one there. I imagine they're a rare find, and the scarcity of research stations doesn't help. :(

To find out whether those ships will even take the upgrade, I think you can check either units.csv, or master_parts_list.csv. I'm not sure which.

Given the Plowshare's truly abysmal stats everywhere else, I would hope the cloaking device would be an option, if for no better reason than to avoid the embarrassment of revealing you fly one. :oops:
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by MC707 »

athomic1 wrote:I've heard you can pick up the occasional cloaking device at a research station, but I have yet to find one there. I imagine they're a rare find, and the scarcity of research stations doesn't help. :(

To find out whether those ships will even take the upgrade, I think you can check either units.csv, or master_parts_list.csv. I'm not sure which.
Well yeah, you can pick up one. The problem is, if your ship can fit one, of which I only know is the Schrodinger.
athomic1 wrote:Given the Plowshare's truly abysmal stats everywhere else, I would hope the cloaking device would be an option, if for no better reason than to avoid the embarrassment of revealing you fly one. :oops:
:lol:
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by athomic1 »

MC707 wrote:Well yeah, you can pick up one. The problem is, if your ship can fit one, of which I only know is the Schrodinger.
Well, how big is it, if you've seen one for sale? Actually, that's probably in one of those csv files, too. As long as you have enough unused upgrade space, you should be able to install the cloaker, unless that's either forbidden, or not allowed (not the same thing, believe it or not). Again, that should be indicated somehow in the csv files.

The interesting thing about the Schrodinger is, while it's equipped with a cloaking device, that's not a removable upgrade. I thought I'd try to be cute at one point: buy the ship, sell the cloaker out of it, then switch ships and buy the cloaker into the other ship. Well, no dice; the cloaker doesn't show up in the list (which makes a certain ironic sort of sense... :lol: ), so we're stuck scouring the research stations, wherever you can find them. Happy hunting!

Getting back to the csv files, actually, could anyone tell us how they indicate what upgrades a ship can take? I know each entry includes a list of upgrades, but I'm not sure if they indicate permitted, or forbidden ones. (That's what I meant by not the same thing) Anyone shed some light, here? Or point out where to look?
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by CLoneWolf »

athomic1 wrote:Well, how big is it, if you've seen one for sale? Actually, that's probably in one of those csv files, too. As long as you have enough unused upgrade space, you should be able to install the cloaker, unless that's either forbidden, or not allowed (not the same thing, believe it or not). Again, that should be indicated somehow in the csv files.
[...]
Getting back to the csv files, actually, could anyone tell us how they indicate what upgrades a ship can take? I know each entry includes a list of upgrades, but I'm not sure if they indicate permitted, or forbidden ones. (That's what I meant by not the same thing) Anyone shed some light, here? Or point out where to look?
Check this:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... 5e#p111208
;)
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by Genghis Prawn »

Aera Cloaking devices are not as difficult to find. Aera Trantor or Aera Fighter Bases/Star Fortresses Have them from time to time. I have never found a ship which can mount one. Not even the available Aera ships. I have purchased one of each ship available both stock and milspec and nothing allows you the option to purchase the Aera Cloak. Perhaps that is a future feature.
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by athomic1 »

Genghis Prawn wrote:Aera Cloaking devices are not as difficult to find. Aera Trantor or Aera Fighter Bases/Star Fortresses Have them from time to time. I have never found a ship which can mount one. Not even the available Aera ships. I have purchased one of each ship available both stock and milspec and nothing allows you the option to purchase the Aera Cloak. Perhaps that is a future feature.
That's amusing. You can get Rlaan turrets, too, even though no buyable Rlaan ships can mount them. I think, though, that turret mounts on other ships will take them, at least.

I think a ship's "Can_Cloak" flag probably determines whether you can install any sort of cloaking device, Aera or otherwise. I have yet to find one anywhere, so I'd be curious to know how it's appeared when you've seen it?

What I've noticed with turrets is, they always show up white, as in, "You can buy this!" even when the ship has no mounts for them. The game will helpfully inform you that you CAN'T buy one if you try, but given that "buy" isn't even an option for other upgrades you can't get, it would be nice to have a bit more consistency.

Examining some entries in units.csv, I see one column looks like a list of forbidden and limited upgrades. I recognize the ones listed with a number as items of which you can only buy one (reactors, for example, although I see now why a Clydesdale can have more :wink: ). Items without a number appear to be forbidden, like the Overdrive on Rlaan ships. However, I don't see anything about cloaking devices, and that bothers me.

That's at least a couple of different ways of telling what ships can take what upgrades, when only one is really needed. Of course, the mounting situation sort of means we have to handle weapons and turrets differently, but a cloak is just another device. It should be permitted or forbidden the same way the rest are, I would think.

BUT... I guess that's a feature/change request, innit? :)
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by loki1950 »

The whole upgrade system is need of an overhaul the current one has lots of bugs and inconsistencies BTW is all done data side with Python and the column in units.csv does determine if a cloak can be installed the and the .blank version entry in units,csv determines what other upgrades can be mounted.

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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by athomic1 »

loki1950 wrote:The whole upgrade system is need of an overhaul the current one has lots of bugs and inconsistencies BTW is all done data side with Python and the column in units.csv does determine if a cloak can be installed the and the .blank version entry in units,csv determines what other upgrades can be mounted.
That actually brings up something else that's kind of interesting.

On board a Midwife carrier, I found a milspec Admonisher. Not a regional guard spec, which I already had along with a stock model, so I figured I'd go ahead and nab it. (I don't fly these, just use 'em as a sort of spare weapons rack. Wish we could carry upgrades as cargo... :roll: ) Anyway, things got a little bit weird.

First thing I noticed was the negative upgrade space. That's right, negative space! Turns out the Admonisher's milspec package takes up 1330 cubic meters, out of... 1200!? I don't know how they managed to shoehorn that in there, but the package apparently didn't like it; brand new, it's damaged! Down to less than 5% functionality. What's worse, I can't do anything with it! Not only is there no sell button (of course), but no fix button, either! So, here I am with a ship I wouldn't dare take out of the hangar, and can't do anything else with it, except slap on a coat of armor (no upgrade space needed). What do I do?

Well, before I sold the thing back in disgust, I wondered what might happen if I bought the basic repair? (Okay, one other thing I could do :wink: ) Well, what, indeed! Almost by magic, the ship picked up 200m^3, and now I have 70 free! The milspec package is still damaged, still can't be fixed, still can't be sold, but hey! At least I can stuff it with heavy weapons! SO, I load up, swap with another ship or two to balance a couple of things, and have a look at the regspec Admonisher. Now, things get really weird.

Here's the deal on the regspec: It has no installed packages, that is, none show up on the list of installed upgrades. However, something is definitely there. The stock Admonisher comes with 1400m^3 of upgrade space, but the regspec only has a total of 60 (as in X of 60, vs X of 1400). Note that the milspec wound up with 1400m^3 after the basic repair. I get the feeling that the regspec hasn't had one of these yet, and just might pick up the extra space, too. I'm a little afraid to try it, actually, but probably will tonight. Meanwhile, there's one more little bit of weirdness...

The system is apparently able to distinguish regional guard spec from milspec, so I can have one of each, along with the stock model in my fleet. However, when I checked whichever one was not current, it showed no mounted weapons, when in fact I'd installed several!

Just a whole lot of weirdness going on!

Okay... so... now, I started up the game again, made another quick AI Core core run, then got back to messing around with those Admonishers. Now they all report their full weapons loadouts, even when one of the spec Admonishers is the active ship (I thought one might be causing some sort of conflict with the other). The milspec package, still damaged, could now be fixed, though it still cost over a million ( for a component worth only 200K?! :evil: ), and... that's about it! So, what's it all mean?

I guess it just illustrates your point: the system needs an overhaul. I think, in this case, we're looking at some inconsistencies among entries for the different Admonisher models, which I imagine, being maybe less popular than others, haven't received quite the same attention in updates. SO, maybe it's as simple as fixing those entries.

That said, it's interesting to see how the system handled the screwy data. The fact that a basic repair changed the total upgrade volume of a spec model to its stock version suggests that particular upgrade restores a vessel's basic stats from its stock entry. I forgot to try that with my regspec Admonisher just now. I'll try to remember next time. :wink: It also looks like we're in a bit of transition in the way spec models are handled, from different stat sets to spec package upgrades. What bothers me most is how a restart was needed to fix these things. That they did get fixed is good. Getting broken in the first place... not so much.

Clearly, there's work to be done here. I think I said something about starting to dig into this stuff myself. Maybe I better get serious about that... :)
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Re: The ultimate guide to Vega Strike economy

Post by redpirate37 »

:!: In my running game the Area have no own System anymore, 1/2 Galaxy is Andolian or Purist, the rest confed, some Rlaan
an other the rest other minoritys, Ulns got some sstems, but Areas are homeless.
So i cant find any cloaking devices the whole time, now i found them suddenly after enabling debugging in a line at Vegacfg ...
but cannot mount it on any of my ships.

But i can mount a determinant milspec package or others small enough in my ox when it parks in orbit and i dock at it, give him more than one shady mechs and overdrives etc. so
when hit the afterburner i found myself in an Ox flying 850000 K away from planet and it took 1 hour to reduce the speed :wink:
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