Whether you're remote controlling a TL (yes, the only way to buy stations) through Terran space , or traversing it yourself, it's painfully slow, as in the majority of it, a jumpdrive can't be used

Looking and thinking hard I came to the conclusion that a Split Elephant will always be useful so I bought one as I have such a low fight rank that I do not really get boardable ships as return a ship mission targets and too tired and busy to really go board armed enemies en masse to train my troops.

I see I need to advance the Terran plot more before allowed to buy ANY station whatsoever from them.

From memory I used Boron stations in my complexes, and Teladi mines. There may be savings by using some Terran stations if they are available, but they are larger, and it takes longer to fly to their shipyards, so I did not bother.

The cheapest and second cheapest factories/stations for an energy complex using ONLY the largest available stations in X3TC:

Boron or Terran SPP XL. Same price but Boron takes up less space

Terran silicone mine L, or Teladi for 100k more

these three MUST be from the same race:
crystal fab L + raw food L + processed food L. Terran cheapest, Boron for 64k more for the combo

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Not using Terran stations will cost me about 1.2MCr more for the energy part of a complex I am planning on building as soon as I can afford. Not looking at prices at all and ending up using some of the most expensive stations would cost me some ten millions more.

Looking at walk-throughs, I see me being able to buy Terran stations is several plots away anyway. Yes, I use walk-throughs in many games. You, dear reader, do as you wish and I do as I like.

It really sucks that players have to build a massive station complex just to produce energy cells, whereas computer-owned solar plants can do the same without needing ANYTHING. Seriously. They don't even need crystals. How fair is that? :|

Totally not fair :-) but then the world is not fair. If there would be lots of npc SPPs nearby I could get my E-cells from them but many places there is not enough to go around or nowhere nearby.

<goes back to gardening>

Just venting a bit, don't mind me. :P

It's just that you reminded me of one of the (many) reasons why I can't stand playing X3 anymore. It's a series with a great potential, but the sheer amount of grinding, clunky mechanics and dumb design decisions ruined it for me.

You mean like this? Actually this is one of my Mega-Plexes for producing Crystals for the Hub plot, consisting of 4 SPP XL's, 12 Cattle Ranches L, 12 Cahoona Bakeries L, 13 Crystal Fabs L, and 12 Silicon Mines. I have a slightly smaller one in another sector in Boron territory. In the background is an Ore Plex, that was supplying Ore for the Hub earlier, and is now converted to selling and profit. Later, I will probably use much of it's output for for material for manufacturing weapons, shields, ect for myself. While I agree that it sucks that the AI gets off easy in comparison, it does help to make the game interesting, in forcing you to think, and spend time locating, building, and getting these types of Plexes up and running. The nice thing is the end result....you gradually become more self sufficient building your empire as you fulfill the requirements for the plots in the game, while learning all these crazy mechanics. Personally, this is what endears me to X3TC (and AP in the future), as it gives more meaning to this wonderful space sandbox, and keeps me coming back to do more. I can definitely see how it's not everyone's cup of tea though.

Sorry, had to reduce the resolution a little bit to have it fit GOG's size requirements...

Oh I often shrink, crop and such to make the picture smaller in size. As long as it shows what it is supposed to show.

I read a smart tip to assign Falcon Haulers to a TL to serve as freight drones and I had saved three I bought second hand. Very useful :-) with some at least. Might split the fourteen docks on the Elephant so that I have eight good fighting M3s and six Falcon Haulers.

I dunno, I just don't feel like it brings anything worthwhile to the game. Making SPP require crystals simply means you need more stations to support them (which means more money, more trips with the TL, more time spent buying, moving and placing them, etc). It doesn't really make the game any harder, but it artificially inflates the time you need to reach your objective, kind of like MMOs do.
It also means you have less freedom in choosing a location (if you want a self-sufficent complex at least) since you'll need a lot of silicon, and silicon-rich systems aren't that many.

But I suppose what bothers me the most is that having so many stations in the same spot kills my fps. The biggest complex I ever built was around 30 stations, I had to stop after that because I was literally down to 5 fps. I was effectively barred from entering that system ever again.

I'm glad you folks are enjoying the game though. And nice complex by the way, it's much cleaner than mine. :P

I have read and seen on videos, so no experience of my own, that cleaner complexes = better fps. How I think the whole complex building should be, is that the stations click into place. It is not that fun to do the actual work yourself of dragging, hauling, placing and rotating the stations. Same as I think the SETA should not be a piece on the ship that can be blown up and you must remember to buy. These are the kind of things that I personally find worst in the X3 games. Complicated is alright though.

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On a totally different topic:
I am at a loss what to actually arm my Elephant TL with. It would be for defence only as I do not feel like going to war with it except maybe having it as a support ship on the side of the area of combat, way outside expected trouble. Would FAA (flak) really be worth it as the TL could only keep firing those for a few seconds? It has been flying/jumping around gunless for now but with shields of course. With a jumpdrive, E-cells and a fast (upgraded) engine maybe all I need are some guns set on missile defence. The plan is to have 4-6 Falcon Haulers + 8-6 Blastclaw prototypes + 2 uhmm not sure yet but maybe jd storing M4s or M3s that complement the others in combat, but now all I have is a single Falcon Hauler (only M3 that carries XL cargo. ONE is a must have imho).

I'm not sure if it's the ideal load-out, but my Elephant has 4 ISRs in the front and back turrets and 4 (of those darn rare) IBLs in the left & right turrets. With this setup it survived a surprise attack from a Xenon P, so it works at least at this level.

ISRs are decent at swatting down medium to slow M4-M3 fighters and any stray missiles, while IBLs give you that extra damage capability you typically require against frigates. Anything bigger than an M6 will kill you, anything smaller than an M4 you will not care about.

Both Blastclaw Prototypess and Falcon Haulers are cool to have due to their large cargo bays and respectively XL cargo compatibility, but I only use them as ware collectors for any leftover loot.

For ferrying cargo I just go with freight drones - though they are slowish, they don't take up a lot of cargo space and get the job done. Each freight drone has 800 XL cargo space, so about 4-6 of those is usually enough for regular resupply runs.

Hmm, the IBLs are not something I can get my hand on straight away though. Thanks for ideas!

I always thought all hangar space was reserved for that only and any ships in them did NOT take any space from the normal cargo bay. Was I wrong? Too tired now to check. Transporter device is a given and freighter drones are not that bad no, but I thought I might as well fill those hangar bays since I have them. Oh that is right, having at least one freighter drone certainly makes having a Falcon Hauler not necessary as the drone can ferry the big guns.

No, you're right of course. Regular ships don't take up any cargo space. I was referring to freight drones, these will come out of your cargo bay whenever you issue the trade command to ferry stuff across and get back into your cargo bay directly when they return - they're treated like cargo, not like ships, as all drones are in fact. You can technically have a gazillion of those in a ship without a docking bay.

Me: Surrender!
Pirate Kestrel pilot: Never!
I shoot it some more
Pirate: My shields are almost gone.
Some more shooting
Pirate: I'll show you how to fight.
The pirate fires off a missile and flies into it....
KABOOM!
...and yet once again I did not manage to capture a Pirate Kestrel.

I actually forgot the exact dialogue but that was the gist of it.

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The whole complex building thing makes me tired just trying to plan them. I keep postponing building anything. Most things I come up with take such a long time to return the investment. I am looking at filling in holes in the economy but I also seriously need to work on that Hub. That is one crazy plot. "Can you please get me a couple of things?"