[Script] Trading Station Deluxe / Warehouse v1.08
Posted: Thu, 5. Apr 07, 21:50
Das entsprechende deutsche Topic ist hier.
Regular Trading Stations are nice. Alas they fall short because Free Traders do not shop there and their storage capacity is far too small for reasonable profit$.
Shall we...?
What the script does
This is a station script.
A factory is cleared of all manufacturing equipment and turned into nothing more than a warehouse.
Production is no longer possible in this factory.
Running this script on a "real" 30MCr Trading Station is pointless.
Since Factories come in 3 sizes, you now have a choice.
An L-sized Fab can store no less than 40 GPPC or 16000 Mosquitos.
This factory can be used in three ways.
Depot: Ships, including Free Fraders, deliver wares like weapons and shields.
Warehouse: The factory is used exclusively as extended storage space for the finished goods of your other factories in a complex.
Automated Sales Office: This creates a sales point for your goods in remote areas of the universe where your wares are bought by Free Traders.
Download . . . Trading Station Deluxe / Warehouse . . . ZIP and SPK
Wares Management
Energy Cells are always storable.
There is no direct order to add or remove a Ware manually but this works automatically instead.
When the script is started, all wares with a stock of 0 will be removed.
This script works closely with the Commercial Agent (CAG).
When an active CAG has at least 50 pieces or 500 cargo units of a ware on board, this ware is added to the station's list.
Adding one or more new Wares works by sending the CAG to where these wares are produced to buy some.
Restart the CAG script and the home base is configured to work with the new wares while the CAG is still on the way back.
Mode: Warehouse
All wares that were added via the Wares Management are treated as products.
If you would like your weapons factory to have a larger storage area you would not add 5 more highly expensive weapons factories but... a cheap warehouse. At least that seems logical to me.
The factory will not fill up anywhere as quickly but keep producing.
The station's name must contain "Warehouse" when the script is started.
The script terminates itself (not the factory =) when the factory is connected to a complex.
Mode: Depot
All wares that were added via the Wares Management are treated as resources.
This allows for easy creation of a fleet support depot since you can use your favourite station supply script to collect these "resources".
Unlike with a regular Trading Station the buying price is not also a selling price since resources are not sold.
This station only collects things for you.
You might place a small Depot for 25 MJ shields and jump fuel next to your favourite shipyard for instance.
If a shield factory is close then you don't even need a dedicated freighter in that station but can count on Free Traders to supply it.
The station's name must contain "Depot" when the script is started.
The script terminates itself when the factory is connected to a complex but I see no reason for wanting to do that.
Mode: Automated Sales Office
(This is what the script started out as. =)
As you already know, selling certain wares (like drugs) is easy. Distributing them is not.
Creating many small production complexes everywhere you want to sell these items is a lot of work and not efficient. A complex that meets the maximum local demand must be oversized for this area and will either run idle or empty.
There will also be a lot of vulnerable freighter traffic unless you make every one of those small complexes self sufficient which again, is not very efficient.
On paper, the Trading Station is perfectly suited to fulfill the role of a distributing station. Alas, it's tiny cargo capacity does not allow real profit$.
[ external image ] These are the kind of sales you want. 1.3 million Cr cash from a single sale.
Automated Sales Office: Features
This is a station script.
Prices are set automatically so free traders will come and buy your goods.
A Commercial Agent (CAG) (from the Bonus Pack or the appropriate forum thread) is required to supply this office.
The CAG must be level 4+ (Freighter pilot 2nd class ) because trading with intermediate products is required.
Using a jumpdrive is recommended when supplying the Sales Office with wares from a remote production facility.
All CAG of the sales office are automatically configured for this special task.
(Add another Thank You for Lucike's awsomely configurable CAG. =)
Automated Sales Office: Advantages
Instead of many small complexes all throughout the universe you can have a huge centralized production complex that is easy to plan, maintain, and expand.
You can have several production complexes. The CAG will buy anywhere in the station's jump range.
Fluctuations in local demand do not affect your average sales since all sales offices are supplied equally.
A production increase of the central facility directly transfers to all offices.
The central production facility acts as a huge buffer to avoid individual complexes over- or underproducing.
The number of free traders that would shop with your offices is limited. The Trading Station Deluxe allows far bigger sales to each individual trader (see the screenshot) and instead of waiting for a small local complex to produce back up to full, the CAG will fetch a new full load of goods immediately, maximizing the sales in this region of the universe.
Since only finished goods are transported over long distances, smaller, cheaper, and faster (=safer) TS can be used.
Placing sales offices only requires you to build one factory without any kind of supporting infrastructure.
This is quick and far cheaper than inferior Trading Stations.
All prices are adjusted automatically so all you need to do is build the station, attach the CAG, supply Credits, and start the script.
Your production complex can be set to not trade with other races which keeps civilian traffic out of your docking bays. They will be busy enough with your own traders.
This removes a very annoying bottleneck.
If you still want to sell in the same sector... just place a sales office right next to it. The cost is trivial compared to a production complex.
Automated Sales Office: Usage
A factory that you want to refit for this purpose must not be part of a complex but can be attached to another Sales Office afterwards.
Several refitted factories can be combined into a complex after the refitting took place in every single factory.
The only advantages of it being tied into a complex with another Sales Office is if you wish to further increase the already high storage capacity or have 10 docking bays instead of the usual 5 for a single factory.
The storage capacity of a single L Fab is enormous but you might want to attach a smaller Sales Office for high priced wares only in order to keep the stock level managable.
If you combine several sales offices into a complex then you must also start the station script on the complex hub afterwards.
It is not allowed to mix Sales Offices with producing factories in a complex. This will simply not work.
The selling price in the sales office is set 0.2 % or a minimum of 1 Cr below average.
Resources other than EC are not bought.
Your production complex can sell at minimum price which means that your CAG will always prefer it over any other supplier.
Be sure to set trading with other races to off in the producing factory before you set the price to minimum.
Note that a sales office needs a lot of starting funds since all wares are bought.
For an L-sized space weed or fuel seller, about 1.4 million credits are recommended to remain in the office.
Any CAG that is configured to work with the Sales Office is set to not fly around and sell those wares.
You are allowed to change that by manually configuring the Sell Products % value for this trader after the configuration took place.
The reason to not allow selling is that if your own freighters supply the target stations, free traders can not see this trade oppurtunity and you risk your own freighter while flying around in potentially hostile space.
Refitting a factory or complex hub costs a one time fee of 50.000 Cr.
Closing the office for more than an hour will require an additional 5.000 Cr if you decide to reopen this business.
Version History
1.08 : Apparently debug was still enabled in the 1.06 release. Oops.
Potential bug (unable to reproduce) fixed that would delete wares with stock > 0 from a station.
Resources used:
Textfile: 7023
Task ID 7023 on the station
Command slot: COMMAND_TYPE_STATION_54
Regular Trading Stations are nice. Alas they fall short because Free Traders do not shop there and their storage capacity is far too small for reasonable profit$.
Shall we...?
What the script does
This is a station script.
A factory is cleared of all manufacturing equipment and turned into nothing more than a warehouse.
Production is no longer possible in this factory.
Running this script on a "real" 30MCr Trading Station is pointless.
Since Factories come in 3 sizes, you now have a choice.
An L-sized Fab can store no less than 40 GPPC or 16000 Mosquitos.
This factory can be used in three ways.
Depot: Ships, including Free Fraders, deliver wares like weapons and shields.
Warehouse: The factory is used exclusively as extended storage space for the finished goods of your other factories in a complex.
Automated Sales Office: This creates a sales point for your goods in remote areas of the universe where your wares are bought by Free Traders.
Download . . . Trading Station Deluxe / Warehouse . . . ZIP and SPK
Wares Management
Energy Cells are always storable.
There is no direct order to add or remove a Ware manually but this works automatically instead.
When the script is started, all wares with a stock of 0 will be removed.
This script works closely with the Commercial Agent (CAG).
When an active CAG has at least 50 pieces or 500 cargo units of a ware on board, this ware is added to the station's list.
Adding one or more new Wares works by sending the CAG to where these wares are produced to buy some.
Restart the CAG script and the home base is configured to work with the new wares while the CAG is still on the way back.
Mode: Warehouse
All wares that were added via the Wares Management are treated as products.
If you would like your weapons factory to have a larger storage area you would not add 5 more highly expensive weapons factories but... a cheap warehouse. At least that seems logical to me.
The factory will not fill up anywhere as quickly but keep producing.
The station's name must contain "Warehouse" when the script is started.
The script terminates itself (not the factory =) when the factory is connected to a complex.
Mode: Depot
All wares that were added via the Wares Management are treated as resources.
This allows for easy creation of a fleet support depot since you can use your favourite station supply script to collect these "resources".
Unlike with a regular Trading Station the buying price is not also a selling price since resources are not sold.
This station only collects things for you.
You might place a small Depot for 25 MJ shields and jump fuel next to your favourite shipyard for instance.
If a shield factory is close then you don't even need a dedicated freighter in that station but can count on Free Traders to supply it.
The station's name must contain "Depot" when the script is started.
The script terminates itself when the factory is connected to a complex but I see no reason for wanting to do that.
Mode: Automated Sales Office
(This is what the script started out as. =)
As you already know, selling certain wares (like drugs) is easy. Distributing them is not.
Creating many small production complexes everywhere you want to sell these items is a lot of work and not efficient. A complex that meets the maximum local demand must be oversized for this area and will either run idle or empty.
There will also be a lot of vulnerable freighter traffic unless you make every one of those small complexes self sufficient which again, is not very efficient.
On paper, the Trading Station is perfectly suited to fulfill the role of a distributing station. Alas, it's tiny cargo capacity does not allow real profit$.
[ external image ] These are the kind of sales you want. 1.3 million Cr cash from a single sale.
Automated Sales Office: Features
This is a station script.
Prices are set automatically so free traders will come and buy your goods.
A Commercial Agent (CAG) (from the Bonus Pack or the appropriate forum thread) is required to supply this office.
The CAG must be level 4+ (Freighter pilot 2nd class ) because trading with intermediate products is required.
Using a jumpdrive is recommended when supplying the Sales Office with wares from a remote production facility.
All CAG of the sales office are automatically configured for this special task.
(Add another Thank You for Lucike's awsomely configurable CAG. =)
Automated Sales Office: Advantages
Instead of many small complexes all throughout the universe you can have a huge centralized production complex that is easy to plan, maintain, and expand.
You can have several production complexes. The CAG will buy anywhere in the station's jump range.
Fluctuations in local demand do not affect your average sales since all sales offices are supplied equally.
A production increase of the central facility directly transfers to all offices.
The central production facility acts as a huge buffer to avoid individual complexes over- or underproducing.
The number of free traders that would shop with your offices is limited. The Trading Station Deluxe allows far bigger sales to each individual trader (see the screenshot) and instead of waiting for a small local complex to produce back up to full, the CAG will fetch a new full load of goods immediately, maximizing the sales in this region of the universe.
Since only finished goods are transported over long distances, smaller, cheaper, and faster (=safer) TS can be used.
Placing sales offices only requires you to build one factory without any kind of supporting infrastructure.
This is quick and far cheaper than inferior Trading Stations.
All prices are adjusted automatically so all you need to do is build the station, attach the CAG, supply Credits, and start the script.
Your production complex can be set to not trade with other races which keeps civilian traffic out of your docking bays. They will be busy enough with your own traders.
This removes a very annoying bottleneck.
If you still want to sell in the same sector... just place a sales office right next to it. The cost is trivial compared to a production complex.
Automated Sales Office: Usage
A factory that you want to refit for this purpose must not be part of a complex but can be attached to another Sales Office afterwards.
Several refitted factories can be combined into a complex after the refitting took place in every single factory.
The only advantages of it being tied into a complex with another Sales Office is if you wish to further increase the already high storage capacity or have 10 docking bays instead of the usual 5 for a single factory.
The storage capacity of a single L Fab is enormous but you might want to attach a smaller Sales Office for high priced wares only in order to keep the stock level managable.
If you combine several sales offices into a complex then you must also start the station script on the complex hub afterwards.
It is not allowed to mix Sales Offices with producing factories in a complex. This will simply not work.
The selling price in the sales office is set 0.2 % or a minimum of 1 Cr below average.
Resources other than EC are not bought.
Your production complex can sell at minimum price which means that your CAG will always prefer it over any other supplier.
Be sure to set trading with other races to off in the producing factory before you set the price to minimum.
Note that a sales office needs a lot of starting funds since all wares are bought.
For an L-sized space weed or fuel seller, about 1.4 million credits are recommended to remain in the office.
Any CAG that is configured to work with the Sales Office is set to not fly around and sell those wares.
You are allowed to change that by manually configuring the Sell Products % value for this trader after the configuration took place.
The reason to not allow selling is that if your own freighters supply the target stations, free traders can not see this trade oppurtunity and you risk your own freighter while flying around in potentially hostile space.
Refitting a factory or complex hub costs a one time fee of 50.000 Cr.
Closing the office for more than an hour will require an additional 5.000 Cr if you decide to reopen this business.
Version History
1.08 : Apparently debug was still enabled in the 1.06 release. Oops.
Potential bug (unable to reproduce) fixed that would delete wares with stock > 0 from a station.
Resources used:
Textfile: 7023
Task ID 7023 on the station
Command slot: COMMAND_TYPE_STATION_54