Please help running outta crystal

buy off blackmarket is better short term

refineries are a long term investment and require crystal to build

I guess my question was:  I need tons of crystal and theres only a few planets with it around.   Are refineries going to do the job?

 

yes and no

if you need immediate then no, use black market

if you are looking for a long term (in other words you can turtle and wait) then yes

In general, refineries are good if you're going to be playing for at least another hour.  Also, try to build them in areas where they'll have 10 or more extractors nearby.  Even if you don't get much more of the resource you need, you can sell it on the Black Market and buy the other.  Consider the Favored Client discount as the TEC as well.  It drops the purchase price for resources.

The general answer is - USE THE BLACK MARKET, ALWAYS USE THE BLACK MARKET.

Refineries are only viable under very situational circumstances.  You will need a planet with a lot of phase lanes going out of it so that refineries there would cover a minimum of... say 12 extractors (more is better) for refineries to become a viable option.  In other words, you would only ever have a couple of places on a large map where you might could viably put refineries.

So the answer is, 1) build a long line of trade ports to get the income you need to buy whatever you need from the black market, and 2) if there happens to be 1 or 2 planets on your map that cover 12+ extractors, and you control those planets, put refineries there.

Agent of Kharma has it right here.  Refineries are great if you can get 12+ extractors within its effect, but if you can't get that level of efficiency, you're better off putting up trade ports and spending your income buying from the black market.

As for what numbers to shoot for, that totally depends on the map.  Some maps are resource rich, others are resource poor.  Some have lots of real estate, others have very little.  In that respect, 5 crystal per second could very good or very bad depending on your situation.  It depends on the size of the map and what kind of planets the map has. 

In general, a late-game economy should be trade-driven, and this means most of your resources come from the black market.  End-game on medium to large maps should see you with so much trade income that it's actually IMPOSSIBLE to produce enough metal/crystal to keep up and you have no choice but to buy from the black market in the bucketloads.  The key to doing this is in a long trade route.  On maps with little real-estate this might not be feasible, but on larger maps it should be easy enough to get a dozen jumps in your trade route.

thank you very much.

If the non colonizable areas with the crystal extractor keep getting taken try placing a fleet and SB in it w/ range of the extractor so it will attack any attempts to capture.  I suggest a few repair guys in the fleet there as well as MAX weapon Max shield.  Good thing is pirates wont ever attack it.    Black market was a great idea.

You don't need the fleet with a starbase.  You're better off bringing in your main fleet to defend it if the enemy chooses to attack.  And Pirates aren't really a problem anway on aneutral because they are invulnerable to weapons fire.

-Twilight Storm

Just leave a couple frigates and a colonizer/scout to guard neutrals so they can't just run in and take it on you.  If there's 3 neutrals in one sector, it may be worth throwing a SB up for that.

Edit, the maps I play the neuts split the battlefield sometimes, like foriegn invasion.  Where massive battles take place mostly the whole game, in addition the AI is going to continue to attempt to retake it.  I found placing well (placed SB) cuts down the pirates incomming to my base and keeps the AI from taking my stuff not advised for online play its a different beast.  AI is predicatable online is not. 

Black market is best for short term. Be a trader and constantly watch the rate of crystal price, while putting your metal(if you have that alot) on sale for other people, put it about 60-80%(not quite working with single play, those damn stupid AI never buy my stuff), depends on the current price, and you will have more income to buy the crystal you need. Also look for other players who put crystals on sale for lower rate than market.(I doubt many are economic players like me though, and AI never do this)

Untrue; black market is really part of any long-term economic plan.  If you have a surplus of crystal now, chances are you will have a similar surplus ten minutes down the road.  Generally until you move over to a dominantly trade-based economy, you will have at least one resource in surplus.  You can sell this resource pretty much at will (though waiting for good prices is always favourable) because it's not doing any good just sitting in your bank account.

The same works in reverse; if you have a deficit of metal now, chances are that deficit will continue to haunt you for the rest of the game.  Aside from the early-game where you're still acquiring new extractors at an alarming rate, you will almost never recover form a deficit and will be dependent on the black market for the entire game.  You can freely buy your deficit resource (again, waiting for good prices is favourable) because crystal and credits will simply go to waste if you don't have the metal to pay the full price.

 

No, put it at 100%.  The only realistic case that demand does not exceed supply is if no one is buying, in which case it doesn't matter what % of market price you offer.  If anyone at all is buying, then you will succeed in selling at 100%.  I have never encountered a situation where this is not the case.

 

It's true that few players will ever put resources on the market and the AI doesn't do this either, but unfortunately as a buyer this has no effect on you at all.  You still must pay the full black market rate even if the player is charging less than 100%.  As well, as I mentioned before, almost all human players will put their resources on the market for 100% anyways.

i would have to say that crystal is definetly the most vital and precious resource in the game,

 

meaning if you got lots of crystal you have basically already won the game, although getting lots is very hard, the best bet is the black market and manipulating it,

 

refineries are also very good sources of getting crystal,

 

advent need the upgrade for their trade port equivalent to do the same, as they dont get refineries

That's not really true.  When I was a beginner I felt this way (because, like most beginners, I bought too many high-level technologies before my empire was ready to support them, which cost a lot of crystal) but now that I've reached a certain level of mastry I find metal and crystal are about equal in value.  Although a few of your most important expenditures are high-crystal, most of your day-to-day expenditures are high-metal, so it really evens out in the end.

Where do you get that from?  Sure, a high extractor income is nice, but it doesn't matter whether that's metal or crystal, you'll liquidate the excess on the black market to supplement your credit income.  That's typical early-game economic strategy.  Late-game it's all about trade-driven economies, and once they're off the ground they will dwarf what you can do with extractors.

While I agree with you that there does come a point at which you've won the game by economic means, it really doesn't matter what kind of resource you're producing surplus of.

No; don't get this upgrade.  I've crunched the numbers, it's cheaper to leave it a trade port and use the credit income to buy metal/crystal from the black market.  It's that bad.

@ Darvin3

 

well i am pretty new to it so

your right

 

i probably use too much crystal than i should, by spammin upgrades,

 

what i mean about basically winning the game if you got lots of crystal,

 

well what i mean by that, is that you have a major advantage over the other player as you can put alot of the crystal into research which can give you the upper hand.

 

yeah i know what you mean about advent, the upgrade really sucks,

 

well its not really an upgrade more of an ability that can be autocast,

thats a major disadvantage of playing advent over TEC, and Visari

Speaking from experience: a tech advantage doesn't count for very much on its own.  You need a large fleet to take advantage of these technologies, which requires a holistic advantage.  Being the most technologically advanced player is often meaningless if your opponent simply has overwhelming numbers of lower-tech units.  If you're going to beat him by sheer attrition, it's really about your overall income, not any one specific resource. 

 

It's an alternate mode of operation.  It wouldn't be so bad if it actually did something useful, but its modifiers are so low that you're just better keeping it in trade port operation and spending the proceeds on the black market as necessary.

However, this isn't actually a huge Advent disadvantage.  At the end of the day they're still able to trade port spam like everyone else, so their potential to build a superpower economy is still there.  Sure, you don't have much in the way of refineries, but you can keep step with TEC and Vasari no problem.  The real economic advantage of the TEC is actually the Akkan, building a superior foundation and getting their economy rolling that much sooner. 

@ Davin3

 

well i just re-worked my strategy, and playing TEC more,

i seem to have lots, and lots of crystal, metal, and credits,

 

actually i got the best economic empire in the galaxy, atm.

 

only problem is that im being over run, coming from every corner which is very annoying,

 

im beginning to see what you mean about having lots one resource isnt a deciding factor, although its helpful, in fact this game i have less crystal than everything else, and im afraid to build bigger fleets which will leave my empire in recession and my economic income will be in the toilet.

 

any tips? for having larger fleets but still maintaing a good income?

also, the non colonisable planets extractors are an absolutely wonderful source of income as they have tonnes more income than normal extractors

Its a constant trade-off. You shouldnt have a large surplus of anything. If you do then your not building enough ships. You will be surprised on how many ships even a small Economy can support.

This is arguably the most difficult part of the learning curve: figuring out how to balance the development of your economy and your fleet.  Neglect your economy and you'll lose in the long-term, neglect your fleet and you'll lose in the short-term.  You have to find the sweet spot, but every situation is different to begin with.

Sounds to me like you erred too much on the side of economy here, but if you hold it together a long-term win should be in the bag.  In your situation, try to regroup and focus on building units.  You need to bulk up your fleet if you're going to survive, and that probably means producing a big swarm of Javelis LRM.




As I said, it's a balancing act.  It means you usually can't have a perfect economy, but have to make sacrifices.  Instead, try to make ends meet with less and be frugal.  Keep your units alive for longer so they need to be replaced less often, and pick lower-level techs which have high utility.

I've been able to maintain the strongest fleet with the weakest economy in many matches before.  The key is to stretch every penny and every unit.  Deploy your forces intelligently and keep expanding yourself.




Most of the time when your fleet and economy is significantly larger than the enemy's, the game is in the bag.  Instead, the question you should be asking is how to cope with smaller fleets or weakened income. 

 

This is very true.  Aside from the occasional case of massive feed, when you see someone beating back two players simultaneously it's not because they have a resource or fleet size advantage (they're probably inferior in both respects).  It's because they're using what resources and units they have more effectively. 

If you keep your casualties to a minimum, even a small amount of income will result in your fleet growing over time, and this can leave to very tiny economies supporting hundreds of command in units.  I've reached over 1000 command on less than 20 credits per second.

I didn't see it here, but there is a helpful trick to using black market.

You know that when you sell a lot of something very fast, the market crashes? Prices go down from ~500 to ~400. You can use this to buy a crapload of something cheaper. For instance, you have 1500 crystal floating but you are going to need a LOT more. The price is currently 505. You might SELL the 1500 crystal all at once first - this will crash the market and drop the prices to ~400. Then buy as much as you need.

Of course, the "insightful reader" might decide to fully calculate the profit/loss ratio of such an operation. I've just finished my midterm in portfolio analysis and have had enough for the day .

If you sell 1500 crystal at the peak of the market and cause a crash, then repurchase them at the bottom of the market, you'll lose at least 500 crystal in the process.  To break even on this deal, you'd have to spend over 7000 credits buying crystal at the bottom of the market.  That's just to break even.

Given the market is a volatile beast to begin with and occasionally can't be reliably manipulated, I wouldn't attempt this, personally.

My rough estimates say that this trick works (assuming you manage to crash the market from the 500s) if you have to buy about 2300 crystal.

But hey, it's a trick .

Even if you could get it to work - and by my math it's very risky - the problem is that there is very little overlap between people who have 1500 crystal in the bank and people who need to buy 2300 crystal.  This trick seems largely academic because in reality you'll basically be crippling yourself if you try to get your lowest resource to build up to those kinds of levels.

i usually have a surplus of metal so the black market goes well there. however, a great way to make some easy money is to get the crystal asteroids at the non-colonisable locations which has much more income than colonised planets asteroids