Description Summary
Good planing planning is key to any respectable company that is trying to maximise their its profits, for that and the Complex Planer Planner is the perfect tool for this job. It allows planing of complexes to be planned based on the resources available in the proposed location, taking into account local resources like Asteroids and Sunlight, for Mineral and Energy production respectively, as those are dependent on the location. Asteroids need to be scanned for their yield before they can be added to the planing, where the sun output will be taken into consideration by default.
From the empire management entrepreneurs can access this tool to create their plans, save them for later use or adjustment and also be communicated to the Construction Service as a build order for remote complex contruction. Its important to note that the Complex Planer can only operate with information available in the ships data base or encyclopedia, limiting plans to include only stations listed in that data base.
Detailed Info
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Entrepreneurs can access this tool from the empire management interface. There they can create plans, save them for later use, adjust them as required, and communicate them to the Construction Service in the form of a build order for remote complex construction. It is important to note that the Complex Planner can only make use of information that is available in the ship's database or encyclopedia, so plans can only include stations that are listed there.
Details
As well as planning for new complexes, you can also expand on existing ones. Selecting the option to add an existing factory/complex will add them into the stations list to calculate all the products/resources needed. You cant use the Construction Service to expand an existing complex, they will only built new complexes. However you can use your own TL, using the Build Command Software MK3. If you have a TL with Build Command Software MK3 installed, you can build the build complex command available in the ships command console. This will allow you to build a complex you have previous saved in the complex planner, or allows you to open the complex planner to design and build you complex. This also allows expanding existing complexes, the TL will move all your existing complexes to their new location then build the new factories before linking them all together to form the new complex.
Neither the Construction Service nor Build Command Software MK3 can apply the upgrade kits when building the complex, as these can only be applied once the factories have started producing, and not on newly built ones.
Opening Complex Planner
To use the complex planner you must have first discovered at least 1 Complex Construction Kit, as most Shipyards sell these, you usually just need to discover a shipyard. This means its not available during the initial plot. It can be found in your Empire Management menu from the sidebar.
Once open, you can view all the saved complex plans where you can edit them, or create a new one
Simply select one of the existing complex to open it, or you can also delete it from here as well.
Complex Planner Menu
Otherwise, select the [New Complex] option to start created a new complex. The complex is connected to a sector, so it can use the available asteroids, and sun strength when calculating the various production rates.
At the Top, you will find the sector the complex plan is for, followed by the level of Sun (which effects the Energy Cell Production rate)
Then the cycle time is displayed next, the default is 1 hour. However this can change depending on what factories you add. The cycle time will increase so it can cover at least 2 production cycles of the factories added. This cycle time is uses to calculate the total number of wares produced and consumed. So if the cycle time is an hour, then the number of wares produced will be the amount over the hour.
Finally, Any asteroids are displayed next if the sector has them, then is split up by their mineral content, or "Unknown" if they havn't yet been scanned. You must scan the asteroid before they can be used in the complex planner.
The Stations section will display all the factories that you have added to the plan, including the Quantity and production information.
The Mines sector will display all the mines you have placed on the asteroids in the plan, including the resource and yield of the asteroid.
The Wares information will be displayed next once you have added factories or mines to the plan. This details how many wares are produced in the cycle time, as well as how many are needed as resources. The Surplus shows how many are produced buy not consumed, so you will have these left over per cycle.
The Buy and Sell values show how much it would cost to Buy the needed, and to Sell the surplus at the average ware cost.
The Options section gives you a number of options for editing the complex plan
- Profit Margin: This adjusts the buy and sell prices of the wares by a percentage from the average price. So setting this value to 10% will sell the surplus for 10% over the average price, and buy the needed 10% below the average price.
- Upgrade Level: Sets the upgrade level of all factories added, all factories will be upgraded to this value if they are below it. You can set the upgrade level for each induvial factory as well.
- Add Station: This allows you to add a new factory, this will open a new menu with a list of available factories to select
- Add station for product: This will allow you to select a product you wish to produce, then display a filtered list of factories that produce that ware for you to select and add.
- Add station for resource: Similar to above, but filters the factory list based on using the resource you have selected.
- Add Asteroid Min: This allows you to add a mine to one of the available asteroid, it'll allow you to select which asteroid, then display a list of appropriate mines to select from.
- Add existing factory or complex: This option allows you to add a factory or complex that is already built in the sector, this allows you to extend an existing complex
- Automatically Complex Complex: This option will add new factories based on whats needed, as well as attempt to compact the complex by replacing multiple small factories with bigger ones
- Deployment: This opens the deployment menu, which gives you a break down of the cost and profit level, and allows you to save, export, or build the complex plan. This is also where you can order the Construction Server
- Save Complex: This option allows you to save the complex plan so you can view/edit it later. Once saved, it will display on the initial complex list when you open the Complex Planner
Added Factories
To start using the complex planner, you need to add factories. You can use one of the Add options to start adding a factory. The different options will allow you to filter the list to better find the factory you wish to use
Add Station, will display a list of all factories you have discovered.
You can change the "Race filter" option at the top to filter the list of factories by their race if you are looking for factories from specific races. You can also use the search hotkey (SHIFT+F) to search by name
The Red factories are ones you do not have the require notoriety to buy, and the green ones are those that are available to build at your Headquarters (IE you have a blueprint for them).
Selecting a factory will add it to the list, if a station of the same type is already added, it will just increase the Quantity in the display, so each factory type will only show up once in the list.
Selecting the factory in the list allows you to edit it.
Here you can view the station info in the Encyclopaedia, change the quantity, remove them all, or set the upgrade level. Default will use the level of the factory, and will be upgraded by the global upgrade level, whereas "None" will ignore the global upgrade level and always state at the base level.
Changing the Quantity will open the Trade Bar selection at the bottom to adjust the Quantity, once accepted, will update the complex plan with the new quantity.
Add Station with Product/Resource, will allow to select the product you want to produce, or the resource you want it to use to filter the available list to select from.
The Ware type filter, allows you to switch between the various ware types.
When adding the station for Resource, the list will be filtered based on what resources are currently needed in the complex plan.
Asteroid Mines
Adding an Asteroid Mine, will place the selected factory on the mine, this is displayed in a separate section in the complex plan.
Only asteroids that you have scanned, and not yet placed a mine on will display in the list.
Only mines matching the asteroids resource type will be displayed for selection
NOTE: you can not change the quantity of the mines, as each mine requires an asteroid in the sector.
Add Existing factory or Complex
You can add an existing factory or complex to the list, this will add all the wares it produced and resources it requires so you view what you might need to expand the complex. This can also be used to along with Build Command Software MK3 to build the new complex, while including and moving the existing complex together with the new factories. The construction server however can not be used to extend an existing complex, only to build a complete complex.
You can only add factories that are in the complex plan sector
You can change the upgrade level of the existing complex or factory, however you can not set the upgrade level of each individual factory that is already in a complex, as the upgrade level applies to factories connect to the complex. The upgrade level will be set based on its current value, so if you build an M factory and since upgraded to L, then it'll display the L level in the complex plan rather than the original M.
Deployment
The deployment menu will list all the required factories, complex, extension and upgrade kits required to build the complete complex, as well as the potential profit and break even point
The Total Cost is the combined cost of all the factories and kits required.
The Profit value is the profit you can make based on the cycle time and profit margin.
The break even time will display how long it will take for the profit level to pay of the total cost of the complex.
And the upgrade level is the global upgrade level set to all factories (NOTE: individual factories might be set differently)
The list of Stations and Mines will show the closest shipyard that you can buy it from.
Any factories that are red are not currently buyable. The complex planner will attempt to find shipyards you can buy from, so may pick a shipyard further away if you dont have the notoriety to buy from the closer ones.
The Kits section will display all the kits required to produce the complex, this includes 1 Complex Construction Kit to build the Complex Hub, and all the required Extension Kits and Upgrade Kits.
The Notoriety section displays all the factions you need to buy from, the level of notoriety required from each one.
The TL section will display all the TL's you own, and gives an idea of how many trips it will have to take to build the complex.
The Options will allow you to save it to you message log so you can view it later (you can also save the plan itself and view it in the complex planner later)
Export will write the complex out to a log file that you can find in My Documents/Egosoft/X3FL
The Hire Construction Service will send the plan to the construction service to build it for (This is not available if you have added an existing complex/factory to the plan). This option is only usable if you have enough notoriety to buy all the factories in the plan.
Finally, the Build Complex option allows you to use your own TL with MK3 software to build or extend the complex.
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