[Coh] Station traders refusing to make internal trades - Explained.

[Gregorovitch]

I refer to the the two station traders assigned to the weapons components factory located in Eighteen Billion in this save:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/e18svv2nfua53 ... ml.gz?dl=0

The station is set up to sell weapons components exclusively (i.e. "My faction only") to my two trading stations located in Bright Promise and Argon Prime, both of which are are within the current three gate range of the station traders. Although last time I tried to sort out this station two or three game hours ago (relating to a previous report I made) the two traders started shipping the weapons components to the trade stations as expected but they have now stopped doing so.

One of them has just picked up a deal for ecells (which it managed to do just before I made this save) but previously they had been sitting there doing nothing "searching for trades" for some time.

It can be seen that storage for weapons components at this station is full and both the trade stations have plenty of storage space available for weapons components. Indeed Bright Promise trade station has just sent one of it's own traders to buy a few weapons components proving the demands side part of this situation is working properly.

Something is stopping this station shipping weapons components to my trade stations. I cannot see what it is and I believe there is no legitimate reason for it, i.e this is a bug of some kind.

I am aware that I could sell weapons components from this station directly to customers by changing the sell order to no restrictions and I am aware I could bodge the issue with unassigned traders on Repeat Order but I don't want to do that - I want this station to supply my other stations, especially my shipyards later on. Therefore I need this problem sorted out now - be it that I've made some kind of error I can't for the life of me see or there is some kind of bug with this station - so I can progress with my game plan. I need to get to the bottom of what is going on here before continuing.

Please note that my Engine Parts factory in Eighteen Billion is set up exactly the same way logically and it works perfectly, it's traders consistently ship engine parts to the trade stations. I can see no reason why the weapons components factory should not be doing the same.

[Vilmu]

It's because it's selling off all of its energy cells + doesn't have enough station budget money to have active buy order for them. The traders are exclusively looking for energy cells because it's completely out of stock, but with no money to buy them / any deliveries taking long time arrive and the station selling all of them again, they are 'stuck' looking for them.

https://i.imgur.com/1eggwCy.png

edit:
set the sell amount manually to something like 4-8k so it will keep that many for its own production and not sell everything off and the traders should start focusing more on weapon components (after it has energy cells again). Of course, selling them at all will divert some focus to them, so it would be best to just stop selling/buying them completely (manually set buy amount to 1 and sell amount to max storage).

[Gregorovitch]

I confess I didn't notice the station was completely empty of ecells. That's because the ecell array should be producing a surplus of about 3000 ecells per hour in the current configuration so I didn't think to check. Where did the ecells go? Has the station manager been selling them only to have to buy them again?

Anyway I understand what you are saying. I shall look into this and fix the ecell problem, certainly stop the manager from selling any more of them. See what happens.

The big problem with a station like this is that the trade stations (i.e. internal customers) don't seem to pay for their deliveries so the station has no income. Therefore the manager cannot have a budget. Therefore the wheels can fall of the wagon as far as the manager's AI is concerned.

Clearly it's ridiculous that the station doesn't get paid for internal sales, it makes no sense at all, however this is another issue. I understand that a lot of people asked for internal deliveries to be free back in Rebirth days. Why exactly I cannot fathom since it causes all sorts of budget related problems, like this one for example, and it wrecks management information - there is no record kept on the station log of sales to internal customers.

I think this needs to be corrected and quickly, but that's another topic.

[j.harshaw]

Hi.

Thanks for the report and the save.

Upon loading the game, traders subordinate to your Weapon Components Factory in Eighteen Billion are looking for Energy Cells, Metallic Microlattice, and Silicon Carbide to build the 175 Cargo Drones that the station is set up to maintain. Confirmed that when the station is provided with those cargo drones, the traders switch to normal trading, including weapon components in the list of wares to consider. Am looking at a trader with fresh orders to push weapon components out to your trading post in Bright Promise. Your TP traders from your two Trading Posts earlier pulled some weapon components to their respective stations as well.

Edit: Suggest setting the station's preferred build method from Terran to Universal as non-terran wares are more readily available in that part of space. Might also make sense to reduce the number of cargo drones it's set up to maintain.

[Imperial Good]

I recommend about 3 cargo drones per L dock point. This should allow all docks to run at full speed during traffic bursts, especially since L and XL ships usually have some of their own cargo drones.

[Gregorovitch]

Just a update/coda, I didn't notice automated drone replenishment was active (dunno why it was) but I switched it off and filled the station up with ecells. Don't need L-docks on this station for now. Traders have been working fine since.