[X3R] Player Owned Trading Station and CaG

TycHouse · Post by **TycHouse** » Sat, 5. Jul 14, 13:44

So i noticed a gap in the market in Pontiflex Realm (as mentioned in another thread). Trinity Sanctum makes Soya Beans and Emporers Ridge makes Soya Husk but none have ships of their own. Pontiflex's Realm have shed loads of high end factories that all need Husk.
Thinking how i could automate the process to make profitzzz i came up with the idea of placing a Trading Dock there with both items on it's list.

Now i read that CaG's won't work with TD's until they are trained, so i placed 3x Ore L's and 2x Silicon L's on any rocks worth having just to use as trainers (my school), this all worked fine. So i moved my now trained CaG's to the TD and changed Homebase and re-started the CaG.

Initially my TD filled with both items Beans and Husk (probably my UT's at work) and these items sold quickly. Now nothing - the CaG's just sit there in standby with the TD empty.
I increased the prices to encourage them to buy both - nothing.
If i decrease the price i'll be selling below average yet the stations will all pay top dollar for the goods !

Am i doing something wrong ?
Anyone have a suggestion as to how i can service this need to sell Beans and Husk where needed automatically across three sectors ?

Thanks

OniGanon · Post by **OniGanon** » Sat, 5. Jul 14, 18:28

Couldn't you have just used CLS to do this kind of thing? Did Reunion have CLS?

Anyway...

Set the price of Soja Beans to minimum +1
Disable NPC trade on your station
Set sector radius to 2
Set one freighter to Buy For Best Price: Soja Beans
Set another freighter to Sell For Best Price: Soja Beans
Do similar for Soja Husk

This should have your freighters buying at minimum price, and selling for the best deal to be found within that half of core Paranid space.

TycHouse · Post by **TycHouse** » Sat, 5. Jul 14, 19:08

OniGanon wrote:Couldn't you have just used CLS to do this kind of thing? Did Reunion have CLS?

Anyway...

Set the price of Soja Beans to minimum +1
Disable NPC trade on your station
Set sector radius to 2
Set one freighter to Buy For Best Price: Soja Beans
Set another freighter to Sell For Best Price: Soja Beans
Do similar for Soja Husk

This should have your freighters buying at minimum price, and selling for the best deal to be found within that half of core Paranid space.

Duh ! yes you're right, i haven't used CLS but yes it is available, i guess i was so distracted by the possibilities of CaG i overlooked the obvious, i'll try your way tonight - thanks

TycHouse · Post by **TycHouse** » Tue, 15. Jul 14, 22:51

Ok so i've been playing with this using two Trading Docks here's what i found:

Station manager (SM) will work for selling and so will Commercial Agents (CaG), but the only way to stock the items is to have a 'Buy ware at best price' ship. that means you need one for each item which is not very practical as there are only 5 docking bays !

So, i figured i'd try CLS.
Firstly CLS1 is useless as it will only work with player owned stations so i binned that.
CLS2 is kinda useful but.... it's absolutely full of bugs.
If you want to lower (or increase) the buy price at a waypoint it changes ALL the waypoint prices ! So where i was LOADING an item from player owned station it now tries to BUY at x plus rise etc. This means you have to get everything correct on the first go at setup or else it's a waypoint clear and start again !
Also, if a waypoint is set to buy eg 3332 Majiglit but then it can't unload it at the Trading Dock (cos it's still full) it will merrily go round another trip and buy another load of 3332 etc etc ! Not much use if the item isn't selling in the first place, the program should check how much it already has on board before buying more surely !

Conclusion: A Trading Dock is surely a warehouse that can be placed in areas lacking in certain resources but where it's not really worth building stations to manufacture the goods, think of it as a shop that sells bread but does not bake it. Therefor without some kind of software (Sales/Purchase Manager ?) it is pretty useless.
The same can be said for the Equipment Dock, as the player owned EqD does not come with 'upgrades' (why ??) that is also redundant.
The only change that is needed is to allow CaGs (or SMs) to purchase intermediates at <setprice (they already sell them at >setprice) and suddenly Docks would actually be useful

Top tip: Pilots trained using CaG can be moved into a ship running CLS and will continue at the same rank and usefullness.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Tue, 15. Jul 14, 23:57

I had "sandwiches"; Two Docks. First has a CAG that buys. Second has a CAG that sells. A CLS1 hauls wares from the "In" Dock to the "Out" Dock. Both can have different price, so you can guarantee some minimum profit.

Not all Docks are the same. Some races (Split and ?) have 10 clamps for TS.

Having two Docks is quite a large investment though. There is, however, a side plot that will (for modest compensation) hand you a special station that has much more storage capacity than the regular Docks. A perfect "In" Dock.

Remember, that you can tell a CAG where it should trade. For example, you could tell the CAG that it must trade within 3 jumps from Argon Prime even if its home station is in Getsu Fune. A jumpdrive and extra fuel tanks are recommended though.

TycHouse · Post by **TycHouse** » Wed, 16. Jul 14, 00:12

Are you still in X3R ? I cannot get my CaGs to buy for a Dock. They will happily sell anything i put there - just won't buy !

I have the aformentioned 'special' dock, but my experiment used a 'Western Central' Dock to accumulate resources that are distributed by my 'Eastern Central' Dock with a CLS2 moving the items. Apart from the 'bugs' i mentioned it works fairly well and could easily be expanded to a north and south but oh... it would be so much easier without the 'header' of unique buying ships at the source Dock !

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Wed, 16. Jul 14, 12:45

Bonuspack Readme wrote:Trading Stations and Equipment Docks: When the pilot works for a Trading Station or en Equipment Dock, he will buy and only buy goods, if the dock does not allow other races to trade with it. Agent will sell and only sell goods, if the dock lets other races to trade with it. This applies to player HQ too.

Threesixtyci · Post by **Threesixtyci** » Wed, 16. Jul 14, 16:14

I don't know how CLS works in Reunion...
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=151490
but those CLS pilots do need to level up, too; before they're useful in TC/AP.

As to what I would have done....
I would have put a single MK3 in that sector. Since there are no Sector Trader options in Reunion, when the MK3 freezes into Standby mode... would have home based it to either an Energy filled sector, or if it's level was above 12 would put it into UT mode.

CLS2 is kinda useful but.... it's absolutely full of bugs.
If you want to lower (or increase) the buy price at a waypoint it changes ALL the waypoint prices ! So where i was LOADING an item from player owned station it now tries to BUY at x plus rise etc. This means you have to get everything correct on the first go at setup or else it's a waypoint clear and start again !

http://pages.citebite.com/a3w4m7b2y6jhi
says to put a negative in front, to edit waypoints.
(bet jlehtone doesn't remember writing that.)

Are you still in X3R ? I cannot get my CaGs to buy for a Dock. They will happily sell anything i put there - just won't buy !

Cags need to level up before they'll interact with Equipment Docks.
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=151488

Code: Select all

Auxiliary courier
The auxiliary courier buys resources and sells products for his homebase. Furthermore, he can buy or sell goods to equipment docks and trade stations. He can also have these stations as homebase. The auxiliary courier is paid a wage of 20 credits per mizura flown, paid after each trip.

If they are leveled up.... then maybe you have the buy price too low?

----------------
Tell you what, though... there are a lot of thing in Reunion that I do miss/liked. Such as being punished for hull damaged. The extras that were in the BB system, such as lottery, blackjack, being able to repair your stations. The BB system Taxi setup where you had a string of taxi missions with better rewards but with shorter times. The way you could mine away rocks clearing sectors of them. That the wingmen and follow me ships actually flew sober and didn't weave all over the place. That ejected pilots were considered Small Cargo and automatically considered slaves, which made M5 S-holds with life support upgrades actually useable and police scans a tiny bit more threatening.

Though.... tons more stuff are better in TC/AP... so it's hit and miss.

TycHouse · Post by **TycHouse** » Thu, 17. Jul 14, 18:15

Thanks for all the info, i think jlehtone is right, it seems changing the setting that allows npc to use the dock toggles the way CaGs work.

Because i had 2 uniques buying Husk & Beans i never noticed that the CaGs were also buying them (dock set to trade with other races).
Because if you make a change to the station/complex you must restart CaGs, when i changed to NOT trade with other races and restarted the CaGs now they will sell happily but not buy.

Interestingly i have another Dock next to my HQ (for regulated buying) and had it set NOT to trade with other races, only way i could stock it was with 5 unique ships - having learnt my mistake i now let it trade with other races and just use one CaG to stock it - works a treat.

I still don't understand why the CaG programming is done this way, as a scripter myself i believe it would be easy to code the CaG to sell for more than 'set' and buy for less ?

BTW as with my tip above, CLS pilots can be trained as CaGs then just move pilot into CLS ship (or use the same ship). Not sure about mk3 UT's though, i doubt they use the same variables.