Mission: No Forge is full

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Mon, 23. Apr 07, 13:39

All NPC Forges consume food, ore and energy. But they only consume when they do run. And they run only if they have resources and their product stock is not full. I intend to sell them resources, so I like see them running, and lack of resources will not be the cause of halts. It is the full product stock that may cause a problem.

Most Forges can hold 8 units of product in stock. When they have 4, the price is the same as in ED, and when they have 8, the price is at rock bottom. But when they have 8, they will halt. (The halting may not be completely true for NPC Complex, which has multiple products, not all full.) Since most Forges produce only one unit per cycle, it will be enough to buy their products, when they have 7 in stock. There is no point buying before they have 7.

All is needed is a Commercial Agent (CAG) in a station that can buy weapons. That is HQ or Dock (preferably Trade Dock). And credits on station to pay. One CAG can cover the whole universe. If it gets too busy, one can add more. If one uses a Dock, it fills instantly. Even the HQ will fill up quickly. One can try to sell to NPC Docks, and if they cannot take all, stockpile surplus into Mammoth and visit suitable NPC Dock occasionally.

So how to get the CAG buy when NPC has 7/8 in stock? Adjust price. Look at the price, when Forge has 6. You must set your price below that value. Look at price, when Forge has 7. That is the minimum price, and the real price you'll ever pay. The ED price is much higher, so you get nice profit when you sell the guns back.

But setting prices is the tedious part. First figure the acceptable price, and then use the interface to reach it. Awful.

Anyone gone through any part of that hassle yet?

Dragoongfa · Post by **Dragoongfa** » Mon, 23. Apr 07, 13:42

Yep i once thought about it and it was a pain...The only way i managed to do it was by manually trading (and i got bored quick enough).

Volition · Post by **Volition** » Mon, 23. Apr 07, 15:12

Oh yes, I hated having to manually empty out so many forges just so my ore and foodstuffs traders could have those extra places to sell to. I guess my solution was to go do other stuff and give it time. GoD built more ore and foodstuff consuming factories over time in my game, usually in a radius around where my factories have been supplying goods, giving my factories more places to sell to. Plus that A.I. expansion brought in more A.I. traffic.

Possibly because my factories supply the forges regularly when they are running low, so their production isn't as erratic as when left alone completely. I.E. they don't stop after making 0-7 AHEPTS, so they'll reach their full stocks and get to the best buy prices on a more regular basis. Combined with the increased amounts of A.I. traffic seeking deals in the area I guess makes for better chances of the A.I. coming along and buying a few of those AHEPTs at a time and keeping stuff moving. It's not optimal of course cause I've never seen the A.I. traders buy full loads of the higher priced forge wares, and it is slightly harder to buy those A.I. forge produced goods at their best prices for personal fleet use in those areas, but things do flow pretty regularly, at least in my game, especially in the areas with a hefty enough amount of A.I. traffic.

So I guess just give it time and keep up automated saturation in the area if you'd rather not tend to the A.I. forges manually. Your own foodstuff and ore mines which used to at times sit at 3/4 stock tend to end up scraping all the production they can muster to fill the A.I. need in the area given time, at which time you can expand them again or just let it stay like that, while selling at high prices of course. I guess it's just slower for the A.I. to go through most higher priced forge wares as they are truly end line products and really only equipment docks want them. Even then only 1/2 of a full load. Forge makes 8 AHEPTS, and the corresponding EQ dock only wants 4. That is, if that EQ dock stocks them to begin with, and they sell from the equipment docks rather slowly too. GoD only knows who's at the end of the line for those high end forge products when it's not you using them or vaporizing them personally. Respawning or new A.I. security forces perhaps? Pirates? Just the A.I. means of vaporizing them??

Hope that helps and best wishes.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Mon, 23. Apr 07, 20:00

Some numbers. Looked APPC, BPPC, and GPPC prices at different stock levels.

If the difference between minimum and average price is considered 100%, then at different stocks:

Code: Select all

0/8  100%
1/8   89%
2/8   66%
3/8   35%
4/8    0%
5/8  -35%
6/8  -66%
7/8  -89%
8/8 -100%

(some rounding here and there)

All it now needs is to look up average and minimum price for each ware (already available), take any value between 66% and 89% downward, and figure easiest way to entry then ingame. Naturally the cheaper, "more than 8 in stock" stuff needs some more work.

synctrance · Post by **synctrance** » Mon, 23. Apr 07, 23:29

Nice thread, i definately will try to setup this whenever i have the cash.

Im curious, why do you need to buy weapons at stock 7 and not 8 and go through all the hassle. Is it just to prevent the forge from halting for a few moments, so you could fill them up more frequently? I think all it take is a few moments for one CAG ship to pick the station.

Another question.
Are you managing some how to buy more stock than CAG's TD can hold?

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Wed, 25. Apr 07, 12:51

synctrance wrote:Is it just to prevent the forge from halting for a few moments

Are you managing some how to buy more stock than CAG's TD can hold?

Yes, the mission is "No Forge is ever full".

I don't really care if they run or not, this is just a matter of principle. Actually, setting the prices was not so hard at all.

First, I did determine that the price at Forges is 11% from bottom (as percentage of average-bottom difference) when stock is 7/8. Then I computed how many credits from bottom for each gun it takes to reach 15%. That is above 11% and way below the 6/8 price. Round as much as possible to get easy values. Then, in game:
* Hit 'Home' (changes price to bottom)
* Type in the value
* Press right arrow once
* Hit 'Enter'
Presto! Price at about 15% above minimum. Very easy.

My initial idea was to use TD/ED as buyer station. Then I thought, wth lets use HQ. Sure, there is risk that HQ is filled or its account is drained. Big deal. If it fills, I can load surplus to TL and sell manually. CLS hauls from HQ to TD and CAG sells from TD to NPC ED's.

Now I have to expand the coverage to all wares that are never primary resources. (Won't use HQ to trade ship building materials though.)

synctrance · Post by **synctrance** » Wed, 2. May 07, 09:56

jlehtone, i have established HQ/TD sandwich just like you described. Most prices are set to lowest, although rare wares like 1GJ 10Gj or GPPC are set to price -2 of max storage price. Its fairly hard to find prices for those wares as NPC's usually buy them at about 6/8 stock if not sooner.

What im now trying to figure out is how to make HQ make money to compensate for amount it spends. I dont feel like micromanaging it by supplying money now and then.
My idea was to use CLSmk2 to distribute food/bio through my HQ. Those would be the wares i dont use or produce. So assigning few CLSmk2 ships, giving them NPC fabs to trade with and the lowest price to buy at should get it started.
How realistic is that would you think?

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Wed, 2. May 07, 11:43

synctrance wrote:What im now trying to figure out is how to make HQ make money to compensate for amount it spends.

In my sandwich, HQ buys cheap weapons and Dock sells (in practice at average). CLS Mk1 ship (HQ to Dock) is set to use factory price (-1), which means price at Dock (avg-1). Thus, Dock does only one credit per unit, but HQ makes (avg - 1 - buyprice) per each unit that is forwarded to the Dock. Thus, HQ can buy somewhat more in than what the NPC Docks can consume. I do not know yet, whether that is sufficient. Naturally, this scheme can be expanded to all wares passed through the sandwich.

The key is that the In (HQ) pays less than the Out (Dock) charges for a ware. That is garanteed profit. The price setting of the CLS Mk1 between them determines, which station keeps the profits.

CLS Mk2 probably uses the player account. Thus, CLS Mk2 transfers from player account to HQ account when it "buys" from HQ, and the amount is probably the price at HQ. Not sure if that is efficient.

UT, if you have them (although they are difficult with HQ), do use account of Homebase, if they have home. That is one way to gather credits into HQ. Did I already mention that UT can cause trouble with HQ?

You haul ECells to HQ? CLS Mk1, price=0? Haul some more. Then haul them with CLS Mk1 to factory of yours. Say Space Fuel Distilling Complex. CLS Mk1 can set any price. Set the ECell price so high the SDF makes no profit. All profit from Fuel will end up into HQ's account. But be careful that the SFD does not consume all ECells from HQ.

Maverick024 · Post by **Maverick024** » Wed, 2. May 07, 23:14

synctrance wrote: What im now trying to figure out is how to make HQ make money to compensate for amount it spends.

I just set up a couple of sector traders and homebased them to the HQ. I would use UTs but they tend to enjoy overstocking the HQ, and they're just fuss.

KipperTheFish · Post by **KipperTheFish** » Wed, 2. May 07, 23:23

Buying from forges is a time consuming, low profit exercise.
If you are serious about weapons trading, build self suppling complexes and make them yourself.

synctrance · Post by **synctrance** » Thu, 3. May 07, 01:08

KipperTheFish wrote:Buying from forges is a time consuming, low profit exercise.
If you are serious about weapons trading, build self suppling complexes and make them yourself.

I hope you kidding.
This is fully automated setup which gets you profit along with trading rep. Iam finishing game day 5 and i cant be bothered building expensive weapons complexes. One of my largest food complexes worth about 30 mil (and thats alot of cheap food fabs) has break even time only 16 hours

jlehtone

You haul ECells to HQ? CLS Mk1, price=0? Haul some more. Then haul them with CLS Mk1 to factory of yours. Say Space Fuel Distilling Complex. CLS Mk1 can set any price. Set the ECell price so high the SDF makes no profit. All profit from Fuel will end up into HQ's account. But be careful that the SFD does not consume all ECells from HQ.

This is excellent idea, i have indeed such SFD complex which auto transfers cash to my account. Ill will try it if CLSmk2 fails.

random50 · Post by **random50** » Thu, 3. May 07, 01:10

KipperTheFish wrote:Buying from forges is a time consuming, low profit exercise.
If you are serious about weapons trading, build self suppling complexes and make them yourself.

Buying can be automated without much difficulty. Automating selling takes a bit more work, but it takes maybe 10 minutes per game day to load up a big ship and do a manual trade run remotely. That's quite a bit less hassle than setting up an entire self sustaining complex! It's not really that low profit either. Typically you make 5-10% return on buying price, which is significant when talking about high value items.

KipperTheFish · Post by **KipperTheFish** » Thu, 3. May 07, 02:23

And if you make them yourself the profit is 100%

random50 · Post by **random50** » Thu, 3. May 07, 02:52

Production cost of weapons at a self sustaining complex is 0 by definition. That means "profit" in the sense I was talking about can't even be defined so it makes no sense to compare by that measure.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Thu, 3. May 07, 07:23

KipperTheFish wrote:Buying from forges is a time consuming, low profit exercise.

Fully automated solutions consume no time, save the initial setup.

And ask yourself this, which makes more profit, trading guns made by NPC or just letting them rot where they are?

Besides, which go you think yields more race and trade rank, trading with NPC, or not trading? (Hint: selling to NPC Dock does not yield much trade rank.)

Edit: In case it was missed, this mission is not about trading weapons for profit. This mission is about trading with NPC and affecting the NPC economy. Massive self-sufficient complex does neither.

synctrance · Post by **synctrance** » Thu, 3. May 07, 22:56

After much testing, about 3+ hours using SETA, i noticed something is not smooth in this setup

Might have been something i overlooked.

1. Weapons into HQ using CAG.
Nothing wrong here. CAG is doing a great job at emptying all NPC forges, with settings 3-3-99 he cant sell products.

2. HQ into TD using CLS1 Freighter pilot.
Some wares are not being shifted into TD, or it takes quite a while before CLS1 decides to make the trip. It can idle up to 30 minutes, doing nothing.
Example: there are 5 AIRE in TD, 138 in HQ. CLS1 idles, while there are plenty of other slots need to be filled. I did specified all the products and i used price "-1".
When he does make the trip, he brings some of the remaining wares, but not all the required ones. There goes another idle time, while CAG from TD finishes his work(see below).

Is there an explanation to this?

3. TD sell to NPC using CAG.
Occasionally this CAG tends to buy wares at average price settings. Is there a way around it?
I dont need to buy mobile drilling system at average as i have 16 sitting in HQ. And because CLS1 is not doing his job correctly im missing the sale here.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Thu, 3. May 07, 23:20

TD must be set to "Trade with others" = "Yes". CAG will sell and sell only.

HQ must be set to "Trade with others" = "No". CAG will buy and buy only. No need for config.

CLS1 does not run if "producer" is near empty or "consumer" is near full. Not sure yet what it thinks about HQ. I had CLS2 doing the job for a while and just recently converted to CLS1. But it does not really matter to me. Point is to gather the cheap, selling to NPC ED is a bonus.

synctrance · Post by **synctrance** » Thu, 3. May 07, 23:39

jlehtone wrote:TD must be set to "Trade with others" = "Yes". CAG will sell and sell only.

HQ must be set to "Trade with others" = "No". CAG will buy and buy only. No need for config.

Ok tnx, i had no idea those setting could make such a difference.

synctrance · Post by **synctrance** » Sun, 6. May 07, 10:32

So, there is no way i could establish CLS2 in and CAG out to NPC factories using HQ setting "Trade with other races = NO"?
I do like to use large stock capacity of HQ to sell foods and bio and yet want to keep this weapons sandwich.

EDIT: I believe i answered my question here. CLS2 to sell large food stock to NPC, as it might be the only way, and same CAG to buy into HQ.

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Mission: No Forge is full

Mission: No Forge is full