With tensions heating up down in Second Contact II Flashpoint it was time to explore other systems of the map trying to find a better location to set up. Thankfully I have found what appears to be a miner’s haven rich in resources mine for the taking or so i thought.

While I have several scouts out looking in different areas of the map not that far from Second Contact II Flashpoint. I had noticed just two systems over one of my scouts had entered into a new system called The Reach. This place had a massive ore filed right around the gate into the system.

With this knowledge at hand, I sent several more of my fleet to explore the area. It seems some of the factions I’m in high standing with have also discovered the area and were already set up to do a bit of mining.

After my scouts had explored the area a bit further it seemed like the ore belt expanded quite substantially in all directions in the system. To get a better understanding of the area I sent a ship to go buy some resource probes to drop them in a few different areas in The Reach.

The resource probes showed this place had massive potential to serve as my new mining system. The ore here was a few times over better than anything else I had come into contact with yet.

I started to formulate a plan on how I was going to take advantage of my new find. I would need to increase my mining fleet by quite a lot. Since my first station appears to be in quite a risky area I want to set up a second one in The Reach. I would also have some better station modules so I’ll need to invest in buying some better blueprints.

While I had a couple of million credits to my name at the time. It would be nowhere near what I needed to complete everything on my list. I decided to first get a couple of mining ships. As there were some other stations in the system that they could sell to if needed.

After that was done it was time to start investing in building another space station. This one I made was slightly bigger than my last station. I also placed it rather close to the warp gate. As I wanted quick access to offloading my goods and getting new ships into the operation.

This new station would serve as a fallback point if my first one would happen to fall. It would also be a refining outpost of sorts with many in my mining fleet instructed to offload their mined goods here. Where I would then slowly over time grow out my manufacturing capacity at this station.

My short to midterm goal mining-wise was to start getting some bigger mining ships. That however would present its issues along the way. They are far too large to dock at a standard docking module. They are also unloaded a bit differently.

Over time I would save up enough to purchase the bigger docking modules blueprint and have them added to my station. While it would have been nice if I had made the plot a couple of blocks larger. I did not feel like spending further money to redo that. So I made due the best I could with the size of the area I had for the station.

The L-size mining ships themselves are not cheap to buy. Not only was it going to cost me over 4 million credits. The game would struggle to come up with all the parts to produce them in a timely matter.

While I was focusing on getting set up for a major mining operation I had no idea major war of sorts must have broken out against the faction I was so reliant on. They must have lost some manufacturing stations of essential goods. As it seemed the economic side I was on came to a crawling haul.

Not only was it taking forever for the L mining ship I bought to be built. My station upgrades come to a halt as well. I even sent some of my scouts out even further to see if they could find a station selling critical goods that I could go buy and sell at the stations that needed them.

Some of those ships sadly did not return from their trips. They ended up hitting pockets of space where the enemy faction has become deeply embedded. They appear to have amassed quite a large amount of manufacturing capacity. Along with their warp gates being heavily locked down by a large military presence of ships.

I lacked the manufacturing capacities myself to try and fill any of the gaps in the supply change that kept occurring as the empty would advance and take out some stations from the factions that controlled the region of space I was in.

The best I could do was try and get my raw ores to areas that needed them most. For a while, Second Contact II was offering quite high prices for just about everything they could get their hands on. I had transportation ships working around the clock to haul goods down there.

Once things seemed to have stabilized somewhat a new issue occurred. My mostly undefended mining fleet was getting attacked by raiders. The enemy had set up a beachhead in the system I was attempting to make my mining home.

My economy came to a screeching halt as my ability to earn credits was reduced by the constant harassment my mining fleet would face daily. I did not have the funds to have an answer to this kind of assault.

Thankfully the faction that owns this region of space and system also had a heavy mining presence there. They sent in quite the reinforcements to guard their mining fleets. As long as I kept watchful I could somewhat bait any ship into their police forces. This allowed me to keep any losses to a bare minimum as I slowly started to buy my combat ships to prove some support to my ongoing operations.

Final Thoughts

So far this game has been a lot deeper and more time-consuming than I was expecting it to be. I have barely dived into much of anything and the struggle is real. There are some quite complex systems and manufacturing I’ll have to work out if I want any chance at survival in the future.

The enemy seems quite unwilling to give me enough breathing room so that I can expand out at a quicker pace than I would like while trying to learn things better. I was not expecting them to be as powerful as they are by now and so relentless against me.

• X4 Foundation | Disaster Strikes
• Start Of A Fleet

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about X4 Foundation.

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