HQ Complex - calculations and supply techniques
 Introduction
How much resource?
Limit the wares on HQ
Transport the wares to HQ
Sample Complex
Introduction: This site explains how to plan a complex to supply
your HQ non-stop. The numbers on this site is based on the patch 2.0.02, which requires only the half
amount of microchips than in 2.0.01.
First of all, you have a HQ from the Bala Gi Missions. In this HQ, you can reverse engineer any ship in the
universe, get the blueprint and build own ships - but to build (and repair), you will need resources in form
of credits and various wares. If you only build few small ships, you will probably never need an own complex
for the HQ and can ignore this site. But once if you build and repair capital class ships or the M7, you
will run shortly out of resource because the NPC stations can't constantly offer resources. This would also
increase the cost of the production.
How much resource? Well, as first take a look on the
modified HQ Construction Chart (converted in OpenDocument,
the original Excel file by Dave Toome can be found here:
Exogenesis.co.uk,
forum thread) .
On the first look, it looks like you need a huge amount of wares to produce M2, TL or M7, you could
never collect. Well that's right, if you want to collect all wares at one time. But the production
time is increasing for all ships in proportion to the required resources. That means the number of
wares you need for a certain time period isn't that high at all - it's enough if you can refill the
used resources in the production time of a ship, which can be hours and even days.
In detail (in reference to the construction chart file, line 204):
Max. resource to build any ship:
================================
ECell ................ 100.800
Ore .................. 4.200
Teladianium .......... 3.150
Silicon Wafers ....... 3.150
Raster Oil ........... 2.100
Microchips ........... 1.050
Cloth Rimes .......... 1.050
Quantum Tubes ........ 1.050
Computer Components .. 1.050
Crystals ............. 1.050
(Nividium ............ 116)
Max. resource per minute:
=========================
ECell ................ 28,2
Ore .................. 1,2
Teladianium .......... 0,9
Silicon Wafers ....... 0,9
Raster Oil ........... 0,6
Microchips ........... 0,3
Cloth Rimes .......... 0,3
Quantum Tubes ........ 0,3
Computer Components .. 0,3
Crystals ............. 1,7
(Nividium ............ 0,1)
So you don't need to produce for example 2100 Microchips at once (= 53 Chip Plants). It's enough to
produce only 0,3 per minute (= 2 Chip Plants). Now take a look on the
Complex Calculator
and calculate how many stations you need to produce the required wares for the HQ. That would result in:
Required stations:
==================
Silicon Mines*
Crystal Fab*
Solar Power Plant*
Ore Mine (>1,2 Ore/Min)
Primary+Seconday Food Fab for Crystal,Chip,QTube,Computer
1x Rimes Factory M + Wheat Farm M
1x Raster Refinery M + Chelt Space Aquarium M
1x Teladianium Foundry M
2x Chip Plant
1x Quantum Tube Fab
1x Computer Plant
* for closed cycle and overproduction for HQ
Now it's up to you to build a self-supplying complex capable of producing all these wares. If you don't
know how to plan such a complex, please use the Complex Calculator or any other complex planning tool.
Limit the wares on HQ: Before transporting wares to the HQ,
we need to limit the number of each wares on the HQ. Otherwise an automated transport will store
uncontrolled until the HQ cargo is full - and we don't want 500k ECell on the HQ. So we use the
Dockware Manager: This number is enough to build & repair any ship (actually twice of the
"max. wares" list above):
Dockware Manager, Ware Limit:
=============================
ECell ................ 201.600
Ore .................. 8.400
Teladianium .......... 6.300
Silicon Wafers ....... 6.300
Raster Oil ........... 4.200
Microchips ........... 2.100
Cloth Rimes .......... 2.100
Quantum Tubes ........ 2.100
Computer Components .. 2.100
Crystals ............. 2.100
HQ -> Station Commands -> Set ware storage space:
Important: Not all scripts are checking the DockWare limits. CLS MK1 does, but CLS MK2/UT/AI ships
don't. Therefore you need lower the price of all products on the HQ something between (average - 1) and
the minimum to prevent the HQ flooded with wares. It's also recommended to disallow trading with AI at
all.
Transport the wares to HQ: Now all wares are available for the HQ
and they have to be transported regularly to the HQ. Why regularly? The 2 Chip Plants from above example
can only hold 80 Microchips on their station, so you need to transport them regularly to the HQ
with it's 500k cargo.
The most simple way is to use a TS with Commodity Logistics Software (CLS) MK1. You will need a trained
pilot to be able to supply the HQ with all wares in one ship. If you don't have such pilot, I recommend
you this tutorial to train CLS pilots. Once you have
a Freight Pilot, use this setup:
Select the complex as homebase of the TS
TS -> special commands -> CLS add/remove ware -> <ware>, 0 (repeat for all 10 wares)
TS -> special commands -> CLS add/remove station -> HQ
TS -> Trade -> Start internal Commodity Logistics
To check the setup: CLS add/remove station -> homebase and read the incoming message. It should look like this:
That's it!
The TS will auto-transfer all wares to the HQ up to the ware limit. In the case you don't produce/repair
on the HQ, the complex can keep running: set the station trading range to 50 sectors, add an another TS
with Freight Pilot to the complex and enable the Commercial Agent (CAG) in the trading menu - all the
overproduction will be sold and helps you getting credits to produce new ships on the HQ.
Sample Complex: Here's a example from one of my games. Note it has
overproduction in all wares for more stability in the production cycle and for selling with CAG. If you
only supply the HQ, you'll need less stations.
closed cycle:
- Silicon Mines producing 25 wafers per min
- Ore Mine producing 1,5 ore per min
- 14x Crystal Fab M (Argon)
- 8x Cahoona Bakery L (Argon)
- 9x Cattle Ranch L (Argon)
- 2x XL and 1x L Solar Power Plant (Argon)
attached on closed cycle:
- 1x Rimes Factory L (Argon)
- 3x Wheat Farm M (Argon)
- 1x Raster Refinery L (Split)
- 3x Chelt Space Aquarium M (Split)
- 1x Teladianium Foundry L (Teladi)
- 3x Chip Plant (Argon)
- 1x Quantum Tube Fab (Argon)
- 1x Computer Plant (Argon)
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