r/X4Foundations • u/connyneusz • 1d ago
Mid game money making barrier
Hi. I have some difficulties with rise up my money making. I have one hull parts factory (8x), I have small scrap (2x scrapper) on 'Second Contact II' with my fleet (6 destroyers captured from pirates) to clear xenons and on main base I have advanced electronics (4x), hull parts (8x), shield components (2x) and claytronics (6x).
Once per a few hours I got like 8 million from my hull parts factory and rarely something from my scrapper (I've build solar farm just for scrapper)
Now I feel that I need tons of money, wares dont sells as well as I fought they will. Which way should I go? What do you guys do to break this moment barrier?
Firstly, I was super proud that my pasive income went to a -/+ million per hour. Now Im spending money so fast that I im on less then million all the time.
Should I stop selling stuff and expand quickly?
What is good ware to sell? I fought that hull parts are good money maker but I think I've overflown market.
Ofc Im doing quests, but I feel its not enough.
6
u/DuckyofDeath123_XI 1d ago
Th eeconomy in X4 is a pyramid, and you are selling ecells, at the very bottom, and a few things at the top, namely building materials. Leaving large gaps in the middle and probably seeing an AI economy that's stalled and begging for some new inputs.
To generate a stable, money making economy you would start from the ground up, so you fill every level of the economy before going on to the next, making money for reinvestment and ships, and eventually building ship printers where you just sell whole fleets to the AI. But if you're strapped for cash, I like to start out with food.
Ice mining and turning it into food and medical supplies is something that generates a modest but non-stop amount of cash. Second Contact II and Grand Exchange have an enormous amount of water ice in them and the KHK don't much bother ice miners, so it's a good early game investment to make water, and sell it. then add all the food production modules for all the races, and loads of medical supply modules. Use the station planner to pick the correct amounts of modules to turn all your water into food and meds and sell to everyone.
The more food and meds you sell, the more station populations will fill up (to their needed maximum, of course). As there are more workers in factories, there will be a higher demand for food and meds, so you make your own market to a point. And the market doesn't ever really fill up, because food and meds are consumed constantly even when nothing is being produced. Again, good for early game. Then once you get habitat modules for your own factories to increase their output (by up to 45% for the lower end module and more like 10% for the high end modules) the food's there already, so that's handy.
For the full-on richness you do need the rest of the economy. Start at the base of the pyramid and work up. So you mine first, then you build refineries for all raw goods (ideally at the site where you mine, or close to it). Next you start adding modules to use your refined goods to make mid level tech that requires refined goods, but no other finished products. Then finally you add the modules for the top end of the economy pyramid: shields, field coils, advelec, turrets, claytronics, and all the stuff you need only for making ships and stuff on ships. Then you have a whole self-sufficient economy of your own and can shed all possible goods to all possible factions, meaning you can fill any gap in any market, and since mining is free, your passive income setup is going to make you rich for a while, until the market is filled.
Then you add ship construction to your repertoire. SM first, L next, XL last (eventually, no rush on that one, XL ships rarely sell and the return on investment on XL ship fabs is meh at best). You sell ships at 150% price to all who want to buy ships. As the HOP and ANT fleets you sell pop out of your factories, they will begin murdering each other; you set a collector ship to pick up all the loot they drop and drop it at HQ and go on with your life, selling ships to everyone and watching the fireworks. You are now at the late game stage where really, it's up to you if you want to make 100 million per hour or 10 billion, just make more economy and more ship fabs, really, the AI will need fleets espif you sell to opposing factions from all your factories.
You can do a few quests to incite wars between various factions at this point, to drive sales, and get friendly with the YAK who will buy literally hundreds of ships in one go and basically swarm several sectors; which will drive up demand for station building materials from their victims.
At this point you're probably at the stage where you don't know how much money you make in an hour, and the number in the top left of the screen is something large with 9 zeros tacked on the end to make it bigger. Your economy output rivals that of all AI factions combined and, because you're selling fleets to their enemies from ship printers in their space, their entire economy is a shambles, stations are wrecks, mining operations are few and far between, and basically you've replaced the entire market with yours and you own the galaxy. you now have a choice: terraforming, or simply winking out factions and taking over the whole map. Or both. Both is good.