Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

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Alareth
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Post by Alareth » Sat, 27. Apr 13, 23:58

You know what I find to be a glaring omission from CLS?

A stop command in the waypoints.

I have a TS that is a dedicated errand boy. I don't need him running continuously, just every so often to grab some miscellaneous whatsit so I don't have to go hunting for it myself.

The way I use him would greatly benefit from a built in command where I could tell him to do a single loop of the waypoint list then stop, or do it three times then stop.

Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Sun, 28. Apr 13, 02:07

Alareth wrote:You know what I find to be a glaring omission from CLS?

A stop command in the waypoints.

I have a TS that is a dedicated errand boy. I don't need him running continuously, just every so often to grab some miscellaneous whatsit so I don't have to go hunting for it myself.

The way I use him would greatly benefit from a built in command where I could tell him to do a single loop of the waypoint list then stop, or do it three times then stop.
Under supply conditions there is a 'stop work at base' setting. Just turn that on. You can only make them stop if you set their homebase as a waypoint, and they will stop after just the one loop, but it can be done.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alternatively, you can use 'buy up to' waypoints and end with a 'fly to' command. Say you want him to hang around your complex with ten 25MJ shields at the ready for you to use.

Give him as many 'buy' waypoints as you can find, a price you think is reasonable, and an 'up to' of 10. Then a 'fly to' command for your complex. If he has ten units on board he will skip all the buy waypoints and just sit there. If you take some of the shields off he will go buy more as soon as they reach the price, then come back and sit on standby again.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

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Tohron
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Post by Tohron » Sun, 28. Apr 13, 05:31

Alareth wrote:You know what I find to be a glaring omission from CLS?

A stop command in the waypoints.

I have a TS that is a dedicated errand boy. I don't need him running continuously, just every so often to grab some miscellaneous whatsit so I don't have to go hunting for it myself.

The way I use him would greatly benefit from a built in command where I could tell him to do a single loop of the waypoint list then stop, or do it three times then stop.
Another option is to just give them the "jump & fly to station" command when you want them to stop, and reissue "start external commodity logistics" once you want them to start again - they'll remember the waypoints.

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DrBullwinkle
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Post by DrBullwinkle » Sun, 28. Apr 13, 06:13

Would the "Wait for request signal" Supply Condition help?

Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Sun, 28. Apr 13, 06:46

DrBullwinkle wrote:Would the "Wait for request signal" Supply Condition help?
I've never used that, but according to the docs it only applies to ship waypoints where the CLS is unloading to a TL. Truth be told I suspect the reason I've never used it is because I have no idea what 'telling the pilot if the target needs his products' means.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

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DrBullwinkle
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Post by DrBullwinkle » Sun, 28. Apr 13, 06:50

Timsup2nothin wrote:I have no idea what 'telling the pilot if the target needs his products' means.
I think it means "pressing the CLS Signal hotkey".
Last edited by DrBullwinkle on Sun, 28. Apr 13, 09:13, edited 1 time in total.

Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Sun, 28. Apr 13, 08:00

DrBullwinkle wrote:
Timsup2nothin wrote:I have no idea what 'telling the pilot if the target needs his products' means.
I think it means "pressing the CLS Signal hotkey".

But, then, I am just guessing because I only use CLS for the rare situations where it really fits. For general trading, I use a fleet of Mk3 traders. They are simpler, easier, and generally better than CLS and CAG. (At least they are if you fix the bugs. ;) )
I assume by 'for general trading' you mean moving goods around haphazardly at minimal rates of return...if that's the case you are absolutely right about MK3 being the best fit for it.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Sun, 28. Apr 13, 08:37

DrBullwinkle wrote:Naw... you're just wrong about Mk3's... they do everything better (and easier) than CLS and CAG.
  • (But there are a couple of bugs that are easily fixed by scripts.)
Oh. When I figured out how to use CLS and quit using MK3s it must have been because the better and easier MK3s were beyond my understanding, not because CLS turned out to be better.

I should have consulted someone who knew how to use both.

Any suggestions who?

Oh, wait. Actually I know how to use both.

And I use CLS.

Funny that.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Sun, 28. Apr 13, 09:11

DrBullwinkle wrote:
Timsup2nothin wrote:the better and easier MK3s were beyond my understanding
Apparently. ;)

On the bright side, you have documented some interesting information about CLS, which benefits everyone. So at least there is that. :)
:lol:

For all the noise about how easy MK3 is to use you must think there's something pretty arcane that slipped by me...so please, enlighten me.

You have some 'secret' better training sector that no else has found?

You have identified the 'magic' number of them to unleash without saturation that is 'just right'?

You've got some way to set them up that isn't repeated in at least half a dozen well known guides...and hasn't been discussed ad nauseum in a thousand threads on this forum?

Or do you just want to assume that I don't use them because somehow all that readily available and repetitive information slipped by without me noticing...or ever trying it out?

That would seem hard to believe...but undoubtedly comforting.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

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DrBullwinkle
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Post by DrBullwinkle » Sun, 28. Apr 13, 09:18

It's not that hard... just turn them on.

But I just realized that this is your thread, and is probably the wrong place to kid you about it. So I cleaned it up.

Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Sun, 28. Apr 13, 09:28

DrBullwinkle wrote:It's not that hard... just turn them on.

But I just realized that this is your thread, and is probably the wrong place to kid you about it. So I cleaned it up.
You're right...it's not that hard...you turn them on and they do what they do. And once you find something that works better it's really easy to abandon them because they are not going to suddenly get better at doing what they do...unless someone finds a way to improve them, which is always a possibility. But I think the 'how to use MK3 traders' book is well past any sudden innovation breakthroughs that don't involve re-writing their scripts.

Thanks for the input and the cleanup wasn't really necessary.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

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DrBullwinkle
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Post by DrBullwinkle » Sun, 28. Apr 13, 09:31

There are right ways and wrong ways to do some things, Tim. You may have earned some ribbing... but not in your own thread.

In your thread, I will just say "thank you" for your contributions.

Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Sun, 28. Apr 13, 21:26

DrBullwinkle wrote:There are right ways and wrong ways to do some things, Tim. You may have earned some ribbing... but not in your own thread.

In your thread, I will just say "thank you" for your contributions.
You are most welcome.

As to right ways and wrong ways...I think in most situations there are more than one right way and even more wrong ways. I tend to look for better ways. In this case I find from having done both that the CLS economy is a much better way than the unmodified MK3 economy. I'm sure the modified MK3 is an improvement over the vanilla MK3 as well, making it an alternative better way. Whether it would be better than the CLS economy I have nothing to base an opinion on, since I haven't actually tried both.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

ruger44
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Post by ruger44 » Thu, 30. May 13, 14:10

You gave me.ideas to,use clan in ways never thought about thanks.

Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Thu, 30. May 13, 19:21

ruger44 wrote:You gave me.ideas to,use clan in ways never thought about thanks.
You are welcome. If you come up with new ideas that expand on this please post them.
Trapper Tim's Guide to CLS 2

On Her Majesty's Secret Service-Dead is Dead, and he is DEAD

Not a DiD, so I guess it's a DiDn't, the story of my first try at AP
Part One, in progress

HEY! AP!! That's new!!!

Deathtoll666
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Post by Deathtoll666 » Sun, 14. Jul 13, 16:11

i started a game where i was going to monopolize ALL NPC stations. while this seemed good in theory, it worked out to a LOT more credits than i originally imagined it would.

i was going to drop a mistral SF for EACH product and resource for EACH station and then have normal mistrals shipping from the buyer freighters to the seller freighters. as you can imagine, this got expensive QUICK!

the main problem i was having was keeping ALL the shippers from going to the same buyer at the same time. i had about 20 mistrals going to the same buyer at the same time. they'd empty him out and most would move on to the next buyer while i had a few going to the 1st seller. while the first few would get emptied and a few sellers would be full, the sellers near the end of the route would stay empty.

the next problem was that the buyers near the end of the route would remain full and the shippers would never get to them.

while i would like to complete this, i am hesitant to try it again due to how to work out the problems with keeping ALL of the traps buying and selling and keeping the NPC's without anything to buy or sell.

one note, i was going to have my buying and selling prices for e-cells at 15 and 17 (same prices as the npc's use). the prices for other wares would have been set 10% below and 10% above average. i'm not sure but i THINK i could alter those prices due to npc travel time.
playing Vanilla AP.
Death is like a box of chocolates. You lie in your box until somebody digs you out and eats you.

Infekted
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Post by Infekted » Sun, 14. Jul 13, 18:20

Excellent guide. As someone that knows a fair bit about the subject I found it informative and entertaining. Although I also would prefer slightly better formatting.

I would also recommend the joys of CLS1 and CAG and combining all three in various different ways. CLS1, 2 and CAG all have strengths and weaknesses, and it helps to play towards those.

About the "Idle" thing. I've found that this happens if they cannot complete their loop for various reasons. These include:
Enemies in sector - Happens a lot, will resume when cleared.
Don't get paid - Shouldn't really happen much.
Can't dock - Mainly see this with CLS TLs, particularly if involving the hub
Cant transport - If there are ships as waypoints and they aren't docked, ensure there is a transporter device aboard! I wont mention how many times I've have smashed my face of "idle" problems due to this.. I don't think it matters which ship it's on, but can't remember for sure. Usually best practise to ensure the CLS ship has one.

If it cannot satisfy any of it's waypoints due to settings reasons, like price or supply percentage, then it will standby.
Last edited by Infekted on Sun, 14. Jul 13, 19:03, edited 1 time in total.

Patholos
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Post by Patholos » Sun, 14. Jul 13, 18:55

Deathtoll666 wrote:i started a game where i was going to monopolize ALL NPC stations. while this seemed good in theory, it worked out to a LOT more credits than i originally imagined it would.

i was going to drop a mistral SF for EACH product and resource for EACH station and then have normal mistrals shipping from the buyer freighters to the seller freighters. as you can imagine, this got expensive QUICK!

the main problem i was having was keeping ALL the shippers from going to the same buyer at the same time. i had about 20 mistrals going to the same buyer at the same time. they'd empty him out and most would move on to the next buyer while i had a few going to the 1st seller. while the first few would get emptied and a few sellers would be full, the sellers near the end of the route would stay empty.

the next problem was that the buyers near the end of the route would remain full and the shippers would never get to them.

while i would like to complete this, i am hesitant to try it again due to how to work out the problems with keeping ALL of the traps buying and selling and keeping the NPC's without anything to buy or sell.

one note, i was going to have my buying and selling prices for e-cells at 15 and 17 (same prices as the npc's use). the prices for other wares would have been set 10% below and 10% above average. i'm not sure but i THINK i could alter those prices due to npc travel time.
Your troubles with shippers is that you have copy/pastaed the first shippers waypoints, right?

Here's the solution:

-Never copypasta shipper waypoints. Period.

- Setup shippers like this:
Shipper A handles traps 1 to 10
Shipper B handles traps 11 to 20
und so weiter...

Also doing this

buytrap->shipper->selltrap

is fine for small operations. However, if you want to corner all the wares in the universe, that's horribly inefficient and a nightmare to control.

I would recommend this

buytrap -> buyshipper -> Dump (complex/TL) -> sellshipper ->selltrap

This has more flexibility, a bit more expensive however miniscule in comparison to the total costs of trapping the entire universe.

However I use this with very good results:

buytrap ->buyshipper ->Dump -> CAG setup to trade
a)food
b)ore
c)tech

each letter being that they are solely trading in that and within set sectors.

Makes it so that you dont need to search down every factory popping up.
Sure glad I didn't purchase a new computer this release.

Deathtoll666
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Post by Deathtoll666 » Sun, 14. Jul 13, 23:57

Patholos wrote:
Deathtoll666 wrote:i started a game where i was going to monopolize ALL NPC stations. while this seemed good in theory, it worked out to a LOT more credits than i originally imagined it would.

i was going to drop a mistral SF for EACH product and resource for EACH station and then have normal mistrals shipping from the buyer freighters to the seller freighters. as you can imagine, this got expensive QUICK!

the main problem i was having was keeping ALL the shippers from going to the same buyer at the same time. i had about 20 mistrals going to the same buyer at the same time. they'd empty him out and most would move on to the next buyer while i had a few going to the 1st seller. while the first few would get emptied and a few sellers would be full, the sellers near the end of the route would stay empty.

the next problem was that the buyers near the end of the route would remain full and the shippers would never get to them.

while i would like to complete this, i am hesitant to try it again due to how to work out the problems with keeping ALL of the traps buying and selling and keeping the NPC's without anything to buy or sell.

one note, i was going to have my buying and selling prices for e-cells at 15 and 17 (same prices as the npc's use). the prices for other wares would have been set 10% below and 10% above average. i'm not sure but i THINK i could alter those prices due to npc travel time.
Your troubles with shippers is that you have copy/pastaed the first shippers waypoints, right?

Here's the solution:

-Never copypasta shipper waypoints. Period.

- Setup shippers like this:
Shipper A handles traps 1 to 10
Shipper B handles traps 11 to 20
und so weiter...

Also doing this

buytrap->shipper->selltrap

is fine for small operations. However, if you want to corner all the wares in the universe, that's horribly inefficient and a nightmare to control.

I would recommend this

buytrap -> buyshipper -> Dump (complex/TL) -> sellshipper ->selltrap

This has more flexibility, a bit more expensive however miniscule in comparison to the total costs of trapping the entire universe.

However I use this with very good results:

buytrap ->buyshipper ->Dump -> CAG setup to trade
a)food
b)ore
c)tech

each letter being that they are solely trading in that and within set sectors.

Makes it so that you dont need to search down every factory popping up.
yea, that seems the likely problem. i agree that a slightly different approach would be needed for it to be successful. i'll do some more thinking on the subject and maybe even do some actual gameplay with what i come up with.
playing Vanilla AP.
Death is like a box of chocolates. You lie in your box until somebody digs you out and eats you.

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ahddib
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Post by ahddib » Fri, 26. Jul 13, 04:22

my only critique is that treasure chest is not a good ore supplier for x3ap

Excellent guide.
Game Player, Designer, Fanatic

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