SPOILER

You can manipulate the prices on the stock exchange yourself. You are intelligent and should be able to figure out how to yourself but go ahead and search for it if you like. I stumbled upon this piece of info while looking for other data.

I'm not sure, but I think most, if not all of the ships from TC are available in AP as well? While I am presently tooling around in my Springblossom in TC, at some point I am planning on getting either a Split Panther, or Tiger...perhaps both to eventually become my personal "enforcer" ship(s). If nothing else, if you don't have either, they could make a nice addition to your collection. Plus, the Tiger just looks badass :)

Yes, I know that and I know the basic principles behind stock market manipulation. There's a famous nividium stock market scam which you can pull off with a couple of TS-es and get millions. I like to play it fair and square though :).

Yes, they all are, although the some ship stats have been revamped, mostly in favor of capital ships.

I was thinking of the Tiger as well, but from what I remember you can't mount ion weaponry on it. Since I make a living out of capping ships, it wouldn't be that useful to own one then.

But it's fast. And it looks cool, that much is true.

The Tiger is a favourite of mine too, but if you want ion weapons the Boron Thresher is tempting - the only M7 capable of mounting Ion Cannons, and (with the exception of the Q) Photon Pulse Cannons for that matter. If you want something a bit tougher, the Griffon is faster and better shielded and can still mount ion weapons everywhere, and comes with a hanger too.

Ok, then I guess I'll aim for a Tiger :).

I've already looked at the Boron Thresher, but it's a bulky ship, with a big profile and it's hard to dodge incoming fire in one. As far as the Griffon goes, I've already got one - quite a brawler, incredibly small, well shielded and reasonably fast - but still not better than my Astraeus Hauler.

Change of plans, or at least a delay - I didn't get the Tiger after all.

But I've sort of been busy. Besides my usual raids on the pirates to capture Brigantines for profit and sometimes Carracks in order to train my marines, I've added the following ships to my collection:

- The mighty Hyperion Vanguard - the whole thing kind of pissed off the Paranid, but I'm back at 4 rep with them, so it's not *that* bad

- The impressive (and must say, visually, probably one of the nicest ships in the game) Galleon - capturing it was tricky, but not as tricky as...

- Capturing the Shuri, aka "Colossus Clone" - saw one strolling around in Weaver's Tempest and couldn't resist. Of course a whole fleet of ships coming from the north jump gate had to assault me just when my marines were getting close to hacking the computer core. Just my luck... anyway, it all came out nicely in the end, even though I lost most of my marines due to the surprise attack.

I'm also expanding into Merchant Haven - I've built a Teladi Equipment Dock to dock my Brigantine and the Shuri until they are fully armed and ready to go (and it might take a while).

While messing around with the Dockware manager, I accidentally set up the prices too high for some goods and noticed traders coming in, like swarming bees, to my equipment dock in order to sell them.

It then struck me! What if I add and set the highest price possible for IBLs? Won't someone buy them from the pirates and come to my stations in order to sell them (I'd be willing to pay the max price for that)? I haven't yet had any sellers, but the offer is still on the table and I'm biding my time. Hope it works, at least sporadically.

Congratulations on some nice loot!
The Hyperion Vanguard is something I have looked at as something to target in the future too. <eyes shining>
Capturing an M1 carrier is a feat no matter which carrier it is, well done. Capturing TWO different ones puts you in the clouds from my viewpoint hehe. Lots of fighters to kill for you.

Seems like a bright idea that about buying IBLs. Hope it works for you.

Hyperion Vanguard captain's log, stardate 200+ million credits:

- As I said above, I've acquired a small fortune through capping/selling and stock market investments

- Incursions in pirate space have yielded two more capped corvettes, namely a Nemesis and a Heavy Nemesis (which I've added to my collection)

- Never though I'd turn into a smuggler, but hey, it's a living. Since I recently found out that NOTHING is illegal in Goner space (not even slaves! - man those Goners are too permissive), I've happily cleared up the Pirate Station in Harmony of Perpetuity, to get rid of any pesky raiders, and I've set up a small covert Space Fuel production operation. Every now and then I take a load of space fuel and deliver it to hungry IBL forges in pirate space (usually in my Hyperion).

- I've set my eyes on a Yaki Akuma patrolling in Senator's Badlands, but it's protected by a huge fighter fleet, so I'll have to plan things out carefully before I can even think of boarding it. In light of this, I'm thinking of setting up a forward operations base in Paranid space, near Yaki territory.

- My expert marine squad is growing - I now have 5 marines at 100 overall skill and more in training - when I get to 20 I'll head on to Xenon space and get busy

- I've managed to get my 1MJ shield production fab to sell things at an alarming rate - turns out I was asking too much and nobody was buying. Keeping the reference price, though, attracts a lot of buyers.

- Still have to figure out how to spend my fortune... or at least a part of it

So I've been lazy and haven't posted in a long while, what's new? That doesn't mean I haven't been playing the game and that I'm not up to all kinds of mischief in the X3 universe.

Some of the highlights from my last update include:

- Making millions off of capturing Yaki ships and then selling them off + also training my marines for scarier things (aka the Xenon) while I'm at it... ok, perhaps it's not a new thing, but it's still exciting every time I do a boarding

- I've setup a new Paranid Equipment Dock down in Emperor's Wisdom with a nice view of the Emperor's planet-side winter palace (see screenshot) that I'm using as a refuel/resupply base for my personal capping/boarding-specialized fleet, mainly due to the sector's proximity to the Yaki and because I hate the smudgy-brownish nebula background of the core Paranid sectors

- That damn Akuma is still out of reach: every time I try to get close to it I'm overwhelmed by two Akureis or damn what else. I'm thinking of buying a Phoenix (10GJ of shielding) to lure most of the crowd away while I go in for the board with my Astraeus Hauler

- I've now got 20+ marines with full 100 stats, but I'm still not particularly eager to go into Xenon space yet - maybe after I deal with the Akuma

- I'm trying to build up profit-earning production centers, rather than setting up money sink holes in the form of weapon/missile and shield fabs. Got several 1MJ shield fabs, a 5MJ shield fab which still sells stuff like crazy and one Advanced Satellite Fab - now building a second

- I've got a small fleet of Sector Traders getting me some money as well - at first I was reluctant to use then since I'm into micromanaging *EVERYTHING*, but I got to admit they have their uses, such as keeping a local sector's native economy alive and thus encouraging overall consumption

- I captured an Akurei with about 7 IBLs in its cargo hold!!! First time I got that kind of drop in a captured ship really... super happy about it. I've put them all to good use :).

- I'm also doing periodical supply runs to an IBL fab in Mercenaries' Rift in my Hyperion Vanguard, using two Falcon Haulers as lateral cargo capacity extensions :). I'm thinking of getting two Keas as well for non XL-sized cargo.

Finally got that Akuma! Had to shoot about 20 Firestorm Torpedoes to get rid of its escorts and other minor annoyances I ran into along the way, but it wasn't much trouble after I successfully kited it into a more quiet corner of Senator's Badlands.

The view from the deck of the Akuma docked at my equipment dock looks somewhat like a cubist painting :P. I think I'll call it "Crates, Guns & Astral Suns".

Also got myself a second Hyperion Vanguard and set about procuring a set of Drakes and Mistrals in order to supply the needed production goods to hacked IBL Fabs in LooManckStrat's Legacy and Mercenaries' Rift. Drakes are quite useful for shipping out massive loads at decent speeds and Mistrals, well, they're good at speed :).

I'm also replacing my fleet of fast equipment and transporters based on Iguana Vanguards with Ocelots which are faster and can have a bigger freight capacity as well (at a helluva steep price, but money is not currently a problem, of course).

Meanwhile I've also amassed a small fleet of 3 Pirate Carriers (Galleons) which I'm outfitting to serve as a mobile forward carrier force. I know they're not *that* great stat-wise (some say they're the worst M1s in the game actually), but man are they the coolest looking ships ever (imho)!

Also, I blew up some pirate stations (grand explosion screenshots included) in the new Teladi territories south of Tears of Greed in order to setup a new production base in, hopefully, the adequately named (for my coffers, at least) Bright Profit.

I've also had a dive into the outer Terran territories (Saturn and above via the Neptune jumpgate) - and yeah, I know it's odd but I kind of steered clear of the Terrans up till now. And now I know why. There's something about Terran space, their stations and their ships... and probably the sector background tracks that gives me the creeps. It was a short visit and I won't go back anytime soon.

Ok, now it's time to get me some Xenon capitals!

Ocelot expensive? So what is the Drake then? Sure both cost a lot more than their cheaper equivalents but you should be pretty rich by now. Fitting out several M1s is a lot more money than getting a handful of Ocelots going.

I never meant to say it's expensive period, just that it is expensive compared to the Iguanas I'm currently using in the role of express transports. It's more than twice the price of an Iguana Vanguard after all! As for the Drake, it's only marginally more expensive than the Ocelot.

Of course a mere 1.3 million for an Ocelot, or 1.6 for a Drake shouldn't be a problem for late game players, even one (such as myself) that has most of his money stuck in equipment stashes rather than in shiny space credits. Can't even factor in how many credits I'd get to if I sold all my ships & equipment.

It is, but I fabricate my own equipment, so the effect is not as measurable as a one-off-in-bulk 12x Ocelot order :).

No, I understood what you meant that they cost a lot more as they do. I mentioned the Drakes as I had vague memories of Hardrada mentioning their cost so knew they were about the same as Ocelots, which I had to look up.

Aha, now me understand how purse yours big hole get. :-)

To whomever has ever captured a Xenon capital ship I send my utmost respects, because now I know how excruciatingly hard it is.

My initial thoughts were that if I send in 21 fully trained (full 5-star) marines to board a Xenon Q, they won't run into much trouble. Actually, it's not that simple because:
-> Xenon ships are the toughest boarding targets in the game - and I mean reinforced concrete/steel girder kind of hard
-> Usually at least 2 fully trained marines die per deck if you're lucky
-> You need at least 15 live marines after Deck 4 for the boarding to have any chance of success, otherwise the boarding will instantly fail
-> To prevent any chance of beating the odds by brute force, they changed the boarding system in AP to be per-calculated once the boarding starts, so you can't save and re-roll the dice on each deck like it's done in TC
-> The decks tend to get increasingly harder (more and more marines die in the upper decks)

So, the math seems to be against us: max 21 marines can fight at a certain time, 2 die per deck -> that would leave 13 after Deck 4, 2 below the minimum requirement, that is, if you're lucky.

After spending most of last night trying to get a lucky dice roll (sometimes, rarely, you can get a single casually per deck, but I've never seen it happen twice during a boarding) I had another thought... what if I send multiple waves of marines to do the boarding? I had no idea if it was even possible, so I checked the EgoSoft forums this morning and found out that it's not only possible, but rather indispensable when trying to capture Xenon capitals.

So what I did was to send an initial detachment of 21 fully trained marines in the first wave, wait until they were inside the ship and started the fight then send in the remaining 9 (a Sirokos can only carry up to 30 marines at a time). It turns out the second wave of 9 managed to get through the hull right after the first wave cleared Deck 3 (so in essence good timing).

In the end I lost 13 marines out of the 30, but 17 were enough to get to the core and hack the ship for me.

For bigger ships like the J, I etc I've read that people tend to use multiple M7Ms with up to 100 5-star marines in order to get a successful boarding. Anyway, I'll give Xenon boardings a rest for now.

Indeed a trophy ship, the Xenon Q. Now that I have one, to be honest I don't plan to ever try boarding another, they're way too much trouble for what they're worth.

Congrats, that's awesome! I have never tried it, but yeah, I've read that you can send more waves of marines after the first batch...and as you have discovered, it's necessary for success in some cases. I can't imagine the planning and time, and logistics involved in using 100 5-star marines for those large J's. Nice accomplishment WS...was going to say you deserve some kind of medal, but your screenshot is it ;-)