Capital shipmods / Station mining

[The NME]

Moring Everybody,

I have recently started X4 again, thanks to GeForce now

Two questions for help please (One quick, one not)

At the moment, I have acquired 2 destroyers (One Syn & One Osaka)
What are considered the best ship mods for destroyers.

Next, station mining.

I have a couple of stations set up.
My main one is in 18 billion.
It produces mid level products at the moment,
& only requires all the basic resources except ice.
All are available in system, except Hydrogen (2 systems away)
I have been controlling the miners myself, because I can't
get them to mine for the factory.
I have 4 miners (2 Gas & 2 Mineral) all with
3 star captains. The factory has a 3 star manager
I assign them to mine for factory, and they just sit there.
I can assign the ships to automine, and then empty the payload
at the factory manually.
I have been watching Captain Collins, AJ Puzzle ferret, and some ninja guy
(Kudos & thanks all for much help).
SO what am I doing wrong.

Tanks all

[Feloidea]

For ship mods: Slasher for turrets (since turrets don't care about cooling and the damage and reload buff via the mod increase their damage output considerably) and honestly whatever you want for the rest. Chassis mods to reduce mass and drag are great to increase overall agility and engine mods that increase forward thrust also increase acceleration, boost and travel speed. For shield mods I prefer shield recharge delay reduction for S shields, capacity and recharge rate for M shields and recharge for L and XL shields.

Do note that modding ships is only something you really want to do for ships you personally fly around as it's prohibitively expensive to mod an entire fleet (though using basic mining mods on miners can yield surprising extra performance and isn't too expensive). Here's a website that has a list of all available ship mods so take a look through that to see what's available and what you like.

For station mining, assigning miners to mine for commander is the easiest way to do. If you've tried that and it's not working, check the following:

• Make sure you've set them to "Mine for commander" and not "Trade for commander".

• If you're using L miners, ensure they have mining drones, otherwise they won't mine (though I think it's possible to manually mine and collect via the loot magnet, which may be why you could manually mine)

• When you manually get the resources to your station, are you trading or transfering? If the latter, check if your station has buy orders. Those are required for AI piloted miners to find your station as a trade partner.

[The NME]

Thanks for the reply.

I have a nemises I am using as my personnel ship at the moment.
I have basic mods on it, but I am going to put top level on shortly.
I was after the destroyers to help clearing out xenon.
Especially to free the Yaki.

For the mining.
They are large. They have cargo & mining drones on them
I did set to mine for commander. ( I have a smaller trading fleet to
sell of wares, which is working fine)
Sorry, confusion over english here.
I didn't mean I mine personally.
I use Automine, and when they can't find a sale
I command them to transfer the wares to the station,
which they do, & then commence mining again as it
is default behaviour.
So I know they are working fine, and are set up to mine properly
But when I set them up to mine for commander, they just sit there
with empty holds doing nothing.
Do I have to set up buy orders even if they are working
for a factory in this manner?

[GCU Grey Area]

Do I have to set up buy orders even if they are working
for a factory in this manner?

Yes. Same system is used irrespective of whether the station's supplied by NPC miners or your own. If you want the station to use your ships exclusively you'll need to configure a trade rule to apply to the relevant sections is the Logical Station Overview. This is an example: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/rdexfnif ... tp0h2&dl=0

As for ship mods, advice will be heavily dependent on what materials you have available - in particular do you have any exceptional mod parts, or are they mostly advanced or basic? Would also be helpful to know if you're planning to fly the ships yourself, or will they be strictly AI-flown instead? For example, for ships I fly personally I tend to favour engine mods which improve agility (e.g. Whirlygig), whereas for my AI ships I prioritise extra speed (e.g. Slingshot).

[The NME]

Thanks for that.

I will try setting up buy orders & trade rules then.
It just seems illogical for them to be 'working' for
a factory, and also 'selling' to a factory.

I wish I could set this up for myself in real life,

For the destroyers, I am trying to set up a fleet of about
5 to 10, & get the AI to clear out those sectors.
I thought some low level mods might help them.
I haven't got enough top level materials for all those turrets.

The high level ones I will keep for myself, as I know they
will be a lot more uncommon

[GCU Grey Area]

It just seems illogical for them to be 'working' for
a factory, and also 'selling' to a factory.

Think it's mostly just done that way so there's a single system for resource acquisition. However no money changes hands if it's one of your ships offloading at one of your stations. Furthermore it can be quite handy in some situations to be able to specify a nominal 'price' for goods. For example, I frequently setup a network of mining stations (rather than each station having it's own miners) & use prices to control the direction in which resources flow through this network (i.e. cheapest near the source, increasing by 1cr at each station the resources pass through on their journey towards the consuming stations).

For the destroyers, I am trying to set up a fleet of about
5 to 10, & get the AI to clear out those sectors.
I thought some low level mods might help them.
I haven't got enough top level materials for all those turrets.

For basic mods can recommend a combination of Polisher chassis & Reaver engine mods, for improving the overall speed & manoeuvrability, along with a hefty improvement to travel mode speed (I also use this configuration on my L miners & freighters). Although if you have any advanced chassis mods can particularly recommend Lubricator. It's primarily a Polisher equivalent, but also provides the effects of a couple of other (randomly selected) basic tier mods. Re-roll until you get a combination you like the look of. It's one of the most flexible & generally useful ship mods in the game. Agree with Feloidea regarding Slasher for turrets. For shields the choice tends to be between capacity & regen rate, with some higher tier mods offering a mix of both. Generally, if I'm modding a ship with poor shielding I'll boost capacity, whereas if it already has strong shielding I'll improve regen rate.

[Zloth2]

Huh? I don't think I ever set up buy orders for my own station miners. I just select the mining ship, right click on the station, and select 'mine for commander.' They sit there for a few seconds, then fly off with a little rock icon next to the ship.

I do have resource probes out there, though, to try and tell the commander where I've found good places to mine.

[The NME]

Thank you,

I tried this out last night, & it worked perfectly.
The factory is now working by itself now.

The trade empire building can now begin in earnest.
Move over Lord Sugar
(Cue the Montegues & Capulets)