[TC] Universal trader broken?

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postnow24
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Universal trader broken?

Post by postnow24 »

My stupid universal trader only deal with 2 systems. He never jump to other systems to trade. He is lv 11 and trading in Paranid space.
At the moment he's piloting a demeter tanker with jump drive, 3 x 25MW shields, fight command 1,2, trading command 1,2,3. Sometimes this stupid pilot stays on standby mode for no reasons (had this standby problem in X3R also).
I have set auto jump to yes and minimum is 1 but still cannot get my universal trader to work right.
What am i doing wrong? Is there a fix?
Universal trader is my main income right now since i dont want to set up stations yet (playing terran side)
Help please !! This is getting annoying because i have to check the pilot and move him around when he goes into standby.
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Zaitsev
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Post by Zaitsev »

Don't know if this helps, but I noticed that universal traders who is on standby for an extended period usually don't have anything to buy/sell in their current sector.
I have the best buy extension installed and noticed that it searched through a list of (presumably available) wares whenever I activated the UT from the "My property" list, and when it was on standby for extended periods the list was all zero.
I also notice that he will usually get back to work sooner or later, but that it seemingly depends on the resurce demands of the sector he's currently in.

So far this is only a theory based on some quick observations, but I'll dig around a bit and check it out.
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Nyax
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Post by Nyax »

UTs aren't good money makers in TC. I don't know if it's that they're bugged, or that the script simply doesn't work as well with TCs economy but they do spend an awful lot of the time going into standby, or missing obvious good trades. I started playing TC on the day of release. I have one UT and it STILL has not made it to level 25. (admitedly i'm only able to play a couple of hours a week)

However all that said, a UT at level 11 isn't going to go very far anyway. They have to get well up the rankings (high teens) before they start really jumping round the galaxy.
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pjknibbs
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Post by pjknibbs »

A level 11 UT will not look for trades more than 1 sector away, so it isn't at all surprising he's doing that. They have to be level 13 or above before they start checking as far as 2 sectors away, I believe.

Basically, level 11 UT = stupid. UTs don't really start to shine until they hit the high teens as far as level is concerned; even in X3R a UT would need a lot of babysitting as it levelled from 10 to 20.
Abkhaaker
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Post by Abkhaaker »

The UTs in TC just suck, even on very high levels >20
They only trade with energy cells, sometimes with cahoona meat, rastar etc.

The UTs in X3 vanilla didn't need babysitting - never.
You started the UT-Software an let them alone.
NeverSnake
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Post by NeverSnake »

If their behavior is the same as X3:R then at level 11 a UT will only buy from it's current sector and will only sell in it's current sector or sectors that are only one gate away. They will additionally not use the jumpdrive until level 12.
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Orion1632
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Post by Orion1632 »

Is there a list of what UT's and ST's will do at each level? Thanks
zazie
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Post by zazie »

A list of each level with details on UT-behaviour has been posted in the German forums. The ranks are in English too.
The proper English Thread is here . Basically the UT work the same in X3R and X3TC.

Don't forget the new feature of the "regional trader": set your trader as sector trader and add none, one or up to two (depends on your trader's rank) additional neighbour-sectors. This seems to be more effective than an UT on lower ranks.
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d-one
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Post by d-one »

After messing with UT's for a few days, I finally gave up on the things. They seem to be mostly useless in TC. Luckily, Lucike's EST (economy and supply trader) worked much better for me and though they still don't bring in massive amount of profit without a huge trader fleet, they're certainly more useful than the stock UT and they keep the economy moving. Plus they don't require the expensive trade software mk 3. In fact, they seem to work better without it.

The script can be found HERE
Orion1632
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Post by Orion1632 »

There is definitely a bug in the UT as I watch my ship go to a station for meatsteaks, check the station and it had a full load, and what did my ship do........ it bought 6 !!!!! Sigh.
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Carlo the Curious
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Post by Carlo the Curious »

Abkhaaker wrote:The UTs in TC just suck, even on very high levels >20
They only trade with energy cells, sometimes with cahoona meat, rastar etc.

The UTs in X3 vanilla didn't need babysitting - never.
You started the UT-Software an let them alone.
That's not entirely true - UTs in X3R had a nasty habit of getting stuck in a loop selling very small amounts of a ware, iirc.

However, if I remember rightly from when I looked at the scripts, the order a UT checks the ware lists for a trade run was changed somewhat in TC.
Orion1632 wrote:There is definitely a bug in the UT as I watch my ship go to a station for meatsteaks, check the station and it had a full load, and what did my ship do........ it bought 6 !!!!! Sigh.
How much a UT purchases is determined by how much the buying station (i.e. the station the UT is intending to sell to) needs, not by how much the selling station has in stock. Since the UT will buy at the cheapest it can find, it's not suprising it goes to a full factory.

6 meatsteaks doesn't sound like a profitable run though :). It does sound somewhat like the old X3R bug.
ed971
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Post by ed971 »

Hi, I really think that Egosoft should look for a bug in UT software. It worked pretty well in X3R and X3R XTM. My traeders were trained as ST till lv. 8 or 10 and then I switched them in to UT and forgot about them. Later from time to time I checked on them but very seldom did anything personally. The traeders themselves made their levels higher, used jump drive etc. But in the X3 TC it doesn't work smooth. I trained my first ST to level 10 and switched onto UT and the problems started. I tried to move him to the new SF but it didin't work. After the command "move pilot to the new ship" both SF stopped. They didint go to the station where the change was supposed to take place. After many tries I noticed that when the ships were close to each other the pilot moved to another ship (the ships were in space). I think it was because both ships had transporter device installed. So I did the first move. I sent the old ST (as UT) in new SF to trade in Sector: Home of Light. I installed the new ST in the old SF. But in the time of switching on the new ST I noticed it had the same name and level (10) like the old one. The same happened with the other one. Then I had three (2 UT and 1 ST) traders with the same name and I couldn't start to train the new one from the lv. 0. Not so bad. :D I have to do a lot of baby-sitting with my UT. One of them reached lv. 14 and it didint use the jumpdrive. That traeder tried to sell 12 pieces of Meatsteak Cahonas for a long time. I thought about taking it from him and selling it on my own.
All my ships (OTAS Mistral SF) are fully equipped. I'm using the normal version X3 TC 1.4 not the modified one (without any mods).
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Etolf
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Post by Etolf »

I have been most disappointed with the performance of UTs in TC... even on higher levels (15-25) they spend most of their time on standby, even when something viable is close at hand... restarting them often works, but I shouldn't have to babysit high level ones!

ES, please sort this out for the next patch, as it is irritating having to babysit, this script seems to have degenerated, as it worked well in X3:R...
Orion1632
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Post by Orion1632 »

My UT's are working and a couple have hit level 25, they do use their jump drives, have you enabled auto jump drive in command consol?

And once in a while I find them flying around 6 pieces of meat steak or bofu etc. then what I do is to jump them back into say argon prime, and restart the UT. that seems to set them straight and get them working again.

And if you have finished the terran missions I find that
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Aldrin is a great place for a Sector trader
space pirate
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Post by space pirate »

i reckon the problem with prolonged standby is that the script engine performs the check for profitable runs less often, possible due to the increase in ships to manage or lesser priority of those traders.
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Etolf
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Post by Etolf »

Aldrin is a good place for sector traders, I have 5 going, and they are always busy... however, they are slow earners, as the distances in Aldrin are so large...

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