Repeat Orders - Not What I Hoped For

[Galinet]

My PIO station needed more population so I built a lot of habitation modules. It already produces its Computronic Substrate and Silicon Carbide so I told my transporter to transfer them from ware storage to build storage, over and over and over again.

Specifically I needed 5,000 Silicon Carbide. The Baldric can carry 535 of those so that's roughly 10 trips. 10 times right-clicking on the station, clicking transfer wares with station, dragging the Silicon Carbide quantity to maximum then clicking the Confirm button. Then another 10 times right-clicking on the station, clicking the transfer wares with build storage, dragging the Silicon Carbide quantity to maximum then clicking the Confirm button.

That's a lot of clicking.

Here's what I was hoping for.

1) Allow the ship to load more than its capacity i.e. load up 5,000 Silicon Carbide then tell the ship to unload 5,000 to build storage. The game would handle the looping itself. It should be easy to prevent troublesome orders. After telling the ship to load 5,000 Silicon Carbide it would no longer have enough room to load additional cargo, not until everything was unloaded i.e. after loading 5,000 items it would not be possible to load anything else since the ship capacity would be exceeded: 5,000 of 535 ship storage and 4,465 of 535 after one run.

This approach seems simple to implement and would suit my needs quite well.


2) Add a new "Loop" action that lets us specify the number of iterations and add commands inside that loop:
Begin Loop 1 of 10
End Loop

Right-click on the loop to add these commands:
Load 535 Silicon Carbide from <Station Name> ware storage
Unload 535 Silicon Carbide to <Station Name> build storage

Resulting in:
Begin Loop 1 of 10
Load 535 Silicon Carbide from <Station Name> ware storage
Unload 535 Silicon Carbide to <Station Name> build storage
End Loop

Another example would be:
Begin Loop 1 of 10
Load 335 Silicon Carbide from <Station Name> ware storage
Load 200 Computronic Substrate from <Station Name> ware storage
Unload 335 Silicon Carbide to <Station Name> build storage
Unload 200 Computronic Substrate to <Station Name> build storage
End Loop

This approach is powerful but more complex to implement.


3) A much simpler solution for this specific problem would be an action to transfer items directly from the station to storage, from the logical overview. Currently there are Buy and Sell offers. Adding Transfer offers would alleviate the problem of a station using its own wares to complete its building needs. We could then assign ships to those orders or let NPCs handle them. However this solution is more limited than the others presented above.

[jmrc]

I think the basic option should be to order the station to transfer wares to and from building storage, which would be carried out by existing cargo drones. If no cargo drones existed, then the option would not be available and the player would have to do it manually as of now. This would give more relevance to the cargo drones.

[Galinet]

Great idea jmrc

[spankahontis]

Yeah, a Station 'Repeat Order' is better than just individual Ships outside of a Managers Command.

Problem is that I've built a Network of Storage Facilities to mine and transport all the basic resources Ore,Silicon, Methane etc. to the mega stations i've built.
But it means 'Repeat Order' each and every Mining Ship on Logistics duty to deliver these back and fourth.
I have dozens and dozens about 70/80 ships on my property list doing this.

It's becoming an unmanageable mess.

[Imperial Good]

Use 2 ships, both with repeat orders. One for the one ware, the other does the other.

That said. I am a bit confused as to the question. Stations will already automatically sell wares to their own build storage using cargo drones. It is not the fastest, but does happen.

[Virtualaughing]

Yeah, a Station 'Repeat Order' is better than just individual Ships outside of a Managers Command.

Problem is that I've built a Network of Storage Facilities to mine and transport all the basic resources Ore,Silicon, Methane etc. to the mega stations i've built.
But it means 'Repeat Order' each and every Mining Ship on Logistics duty to deliver these back and fourth.
I have dozens and dozens about 70/80 ships on my property list doing this.

It's becoming an unmanageable mess.

It is simple if you make a blacklist like "only trade with my property" then you set that in the manager or the ship individual tab under the info menu.
If you overflow a region the further built such trading stations will be "force directed"
I have one in Bright Promise where the miners goes for Pious and the mined stuff traders support Hewa.
I have a miner group no homebase in Ianamus which can reach Bright Promise. Miner group can set jump range. I have set 2for mining 3 for trading. The Bright P Trading station has no other choice jut to trade in hewa and even Black Hole Sun.
I have universal travel restriction set for Holy Vision and Hatikvah. That works somewhat okay. Sometimes traders wonder even 7-8 jumps to go around them but it is rare. Sectors named above has a travel blacklist where some of my traders can use them if i manually set them to do so.

[Galinet]

Use 2 ships, both with repeat orders. One for the one ware, the other does the other.

That said. I am a bit confused as to the question. Stations will already automatically sell wares to their own build storage using cargo drones. It is not the fastest, but does happen.

It would be great if repeat orders stopped after a certain number of wares had been transferred. Currently the only way for repeat orders to stop is when the buy price reaches a maximum or when the sell price reaches a minimum. I don't see how that would help fulfill a build requirement; they would transfer way too many items to build storage.

I never knew that drones already transferred items between the station and storage. I have not yet seen that.

I have given the station money for construction and set its construction trades to self-only (only my station). I have seen a trading ship transfer the needed Energy Cells and Metallic Microlattice after 2 hours. Currently it is repeatedly selling Stimulants to another station while my own station is waiting for goods that have been available in the station for many hours.

In summary:

• I have not seen drones working. I have 200 cargo, 100 defence, 80 repair and 40 building
• Repeat orders would transfer everything to build storage. I guess I could monitor it and cancel the orders when done. Or once construction has finished I could create new repeat orders to bring the wares back to the station
• My original post was asking about a way to transfer a precise amount of wares to build storage (for example 5,000 when a ship could carry only 535 per trip)

[Imperial Good]

It would be great if repeat orders stopped after a certain number of wares had been transferred.

This already happens. Once there is no longer a buy order for the ware (the storage is full, or all demand satisfied such as the amount needed to build a station) then it will no longer be able to sell any ware to the target and so the ship will become stuck. Yes it will still hold onto 1 additional shipment that never gets made but when you manually clean up the order (task the ship to do something else) then you can transfer the extra back, sell it or even just throw it into space if you do not care about the loss (mineables or very late game).

I never knew that drones already transferred items between the station and storage. I have not yet seen that.

It used to even work for nearby stations in the same zone, similar to XR, but this functionality was removed. It only works between a station and its own build storage. When this happens it will look like a sell order towards the station in the logical overview window.

I have given the station money for construction and set its construction trades to self-only (only my station). I have seen a trading ship transfer the needed Energy Cells and Metallic Microlattice after 2 hours. Currently it is repeatedly selling Stimulants to another station while my own station is waiting for goods that have been available in the station for many hours.

Without more details I cannot say what is going wrong. By the sounds of it there could be issues with the price, or sell amount, or even blacklist.

I have not seen drones working. I have 200 cargo, 100 defence, 80 repair and 40 building

It generally is low priority, preferring to move by trade ship rather than drone. Which was likely one of the reasons the zone based movement using cargo drones was removed.

Repeat orders would transfer everything to build storage. I guess I could monitor it and cancel the orders when done. Or once construction has finished I could create new repeat orders to bring the wares back to the station

It will only transfer as much as Build Storage is willing to buy. This is exactly the amount needed to finish the started construction. The amount may not update immediately if you change the current construction after it is started.

If this does not happen and it starts flooding the build storage then please report it as a bug. It should not be able to sell to something without buy orders for the amount.

[SunGod1]

This is pretty in depth..... My biggest gripe is if I am on a station and a ship with RO lands it will ALWAY say they are going to wait until I tell them to take off.... EVERYTIME.
You have dig thru docked ships and coms them directly.... with proceed because proceed does not show up on the menu for them...

[Galinet]

It would be great if repeat orders stopped after a certain number of wares had been transferred.

This already happens. Once there is no longer a buy order for the ware (the storage is full, or all demand satisfied such as the amount needed to build a station) then it will no longer be able to sell any ware to the target and so the ship will become stuck.

[/quote]

That makes sense. I didn't think about it like that. Thanks for taking the time to explain it.

[spankahontis]

Yeah, a Station 'Repeat Order' is better than just individual Ships outside of a Managers Command.

Problem is that I've built a Network of Storage Facilities to mine and transport all the basic resources Ore,Silicon, Methane etc. to the mega stations i've built.
But it means 'Repeat Order' each and every Mining Ship on Logistics duty to deliver these back and fourth.
I have dozens and dozens about 70/80 ships on my property list doing this.

It's becoming an unmanageable mess.

It is simple if you make a blacklist like "only trade with my property" then you set that in the manager or the ship individual tab under the info menu.
If you overflow a region the further built such trading stations will be "force directed"
I have one in Bright Promise where the miners goes for Pious and the mined stuff traders support Hewa.
I have a miner group no homebase in Ianamus which can reach Bright Promise. Miner group can set jump range. I have set 2for mining 3 for trading. The Bright P Trading station has no other choice jut to trade in hewa and even Black Hole Sun.
I have universal travel restriction set for Holy Vision and Hatikvah. That works somewhat okay. Sometimes traders wonder even 7-8 jumps to go around them but it is rare. Sectors named above has a travel blacklist where some of my traders can use them if i manually set them to do so.

I have a mega-complex in Nopileous Fortune and a storage facility, nearest storage Facilities after that are 18 Billion and Bright Promise.
I have storage Facilities with a 'trade with my faction only' command for buying and selling.
Don't know if I need to build another Storage Depot in Pious Mist or wait till the Manager of B.Promise and 18 Billion have a high enough Star Rating to reach that far?

[Virtualaughing]

Spoiler

Show

Yeah, a Station 'Repeat Order' is better than just individual Ships outside of a Managers Command.

Problem is that I've built a Network of Storage Facilities to mine and transport all the basic resources Ore,Silicon, Methane etc. to the mega stations i've built.
But it means 'Repeat Order' each and every Mining Ship on Logistics duty to deliver these back and fourth.
I have dozens and dozens about 70/80 ships on my property list doing this.

It's becoming an unmanageable mess.

It is simple if you make a blacklist like "only trade with my property" then you set that in the manager or the ship individual tab under the info menu.
If you overflow a region the further built such trading stations will be "force directed"
I have one in Bright Promise where the miners goes for Pious and the mined stuff traders support Hewa.
I have a miner group no homebase in Ianamus which can reach Bright Promise. Miner group can set jump range. I have set 2for mining 3 for trading. The Bright P Trading station has no other choice jut to trade in hewa and even Black Hole Sun.
I have universal travel restriction set for Holy Vision and Hatikvah. That works somewhat okay. Sometimes traders wonder even 7-8 jumps to go around them but it is rare. Sectors named above has a travel blacklist where some of my traders can use them if i manually set them to do so.

I have a mega-complex in Nopileous Fortune and a storage facility, nearest storage Facilities after that are 18 Billion and Bright Promise.
I have storage Facilities with a 'trade with my faction only' command for buying and selling.
Don't know if I need to build another Storage Depot in Pious Mist or wait till the Manager of B.Promise and 18 Billion have a high enough Star Rating to reach that far?
[/quote]

Wait. If you don't have places where they can trade then you must open it up to all local NPC factories.
Grand Exchange is a good place.
There is 2 way. 1 type mineral 1 type gas on one station or 2 mineral 2 gas on different.
I don't trade hydrogen and ice. 6-8 L solid or gas and 2 L container storage. My Miner trading stations also foodstuff distributors. One is open for every one 1 is buys from any sells to me only.

If you build a mining trading station in Pious IV then give it 10 miners 20 traders. If you far off from such rich places just reverse the amount.
Hewa gas miner
Bright Profit mineral miner.

If you start with this type of exchange you may end up with over doing it but that is better than starving mega complexes. Food exchangers only good if you focused for proper amount of habitations on your factories. If you mix workforce then that can benefit you. Ice on big tech complexes can mess things up. You must assign miners to your complexes as well.