I really wish Ego would address station accounts

[Stumbling]

One of my biggest frustrations with the game has been the lack of control of station finances. I know they looked into station balance transfers a while ago, but I would really like more control.

The station below is still not transferring funds to me although I am supplying all of its wares! I know I can manually do this, but I wish you could set your own budget and the frequency it would check to transfer funds to your main account

[Falcrack]

Agreed, just a simple tool to set the minimum and maximum amount of credits in the station account, with money either automatically going to it from the player account if below the minimum, or being added to the player account if above the maximum.

[alexthespaniard]

+1 agree!

[Duncaroos]

It's odd, as the station transfer does it for me @ 3x the set budget. I set one factory at 8 million, and once it goes above 24 million it gives me a surplus transaction of 1x set budget and some change.

It must be something where if a station is not set up in a precise way, something wonky goes on.

[Duncaroos]

Agreed, just a simple tool to set the minimum and maximum amount of credits in the station account, with money either automatically going to it from the player account if below the minimum, or being added to the player account if above the maximum.

+1, as long as for the minimum amount I can set it to 0 so that they never auto withdraw from my main account ( in case the station is having profit problems)

[Imperial Good]

Stations will pay you the amount you set their finances to once they reach over 3 times the amount you set their finances to. It will then bounce between 2 times the amount you set and 3 times the amount you set quite reliably, transferring excess.

This is one of the parts that just works with stations. I have not had issues with it for nearly 2 years now. If this is optimal is another question, but in the end you have excess money anyway so a few hundred million tied up in station accounts does not matter.

[Midnitewolf]

I just posted a thread addressing how ridiculous the operating budgets are. I mean I do understand them when your buying products and resources from NPC factions, but I have two Wharf/Shipyards with a combined budget of over 1 billion that use it to buy absolutely nothing because they get those products and resources from my own factories. I mean it is ridiculous I have to tie up over a billion credits when everything they need is free.

Personally I would love for them to just disconnect trade from transfer of wares. The trading/ware transfer system would a a ton less complex and would work much better if this was the case.

[Nort The Fragrent]

Station budget transfer works, but is very obscure in the station overview !

Not clear at all.

Ok when you know! but there is nothing indicating this in the overview.

How are you supposed to know how it works, unless someone tells you.

It took me years to find out, and still it is not clear, or definitive.

[Midnitewolf]

Station budget transfer works, but is very obscure in the station overview !

Not clear at all.

Ok when you know! but there is nothing indicating this in the overview.

How are you supposed to know how it works, unless someone tells you.

It took me years to find out, and still it is not clear, or definitive.

Honestly I hate the automatic transfer feature because for having such a strong economic simulation, its accounting features are worse than lackluster. It is nearly impossible to determine the profitability of a station from the logs so what used to try to do was time out an hour and then look at all my accounts and compare how much more or less they were than the budget amount. For the longest time I couldn't figure out why some of my stations had very inconsistent results until I notice I was getting automatic transfers from them that was screwing up my calculations.

Honestly the fact we don't have good accounting is one of the things I hate the most about this game. I mean I really have no clue if my traders are making profits or what they might be making profits on. Also how much am I really making from my Wharf since my operating budget just skyrocketed due to be building multiple ships in rapid succession. How much of those resources am I actually importing and what do they cost verse the stuff I am making for myself. It is so frustrating note being able to look at my logs and see all this laid out neatly.

[jojorne]

Stations will pay you the amount you set their finances to once they reach over 3 times the amount you set their finances to. It will then bounce between 2 times the amount you set and 3 times the amount you set quite reliably, transferring excess.

Yes, I thought so. You can test it. If the station profits by itself, when it reaches 3 times the amount, yes, they make the transfer. But if you transfer money, it doesn't matter anymore, the station won't transfer it back. There is an exception, which is the amount they make on their own. You can shift this amount infinitely but when the station is transferring it back, it's just the triple amount it needs. See, a station that needs only 100. If you transfer credits up to 1000, the amount that when they return, will be only 300 (or just 100 when they reach 300 on their own, I forgot now) but only when they profit by themselves. The station will keep the 1000 for itself (plus the double or triple it needs, if I remember correctly, which adds up to 1200 (200 + 1000)). It's strange, I know, because if you keep messing with that amount it keeps shifting and they will never transfer it back. I think this "shifting" should be exposed to the player or at least set an amount that they should keep or transfer. I will test this. I will transfer 5 times the amount that the station needs to see what happens.

[Y-llian]

The cash transfer process works pretty well once it gets going. My stations transfers profits at regular intervals...

However, as others have stated, the entire process happens “under the hood” with no visibility to the player. If I were a new player I wouldn’t even know it was a thing. Most folks only find out how it works when they come on here and have a “light bulb” moment - often thanks to Imperial Good explaining how it works...

The process could really do with being less opaque... I hope Ego will elect to update the UI with some functions to make the process more visible and intuitive in future updates.

[grapedog]

While some of the tools are not the best implemented, it should be easy to see average profits. Just let the station run for 24 game hours or so, then go to the stations finance page, set the timeline to 24hours, and you should be able to see a regular deposit cycle. Most of mine depoait money in my axcount every 2-3 hours.

If station A deposits 15 milliom in my personal account every 3 hours over a 24 hour period... im making 5 mill roughly an hour.

I dont need the game checking every station every 10 minutes to check account balances acroas 50+ stations. I also don't need the game giving me second by second updated profit/loss reports.

That is a lot of extra background processing that just isn't super useful.

I would prefer a recommended budget of half fhe station storage though, and auto deposits when it hits around 2x budget. I think both of those would give players a lot more liquid credits to use.

[Zetoss]

Stations will pay you the amount you set their finances to once they reach over 3 times the amount you set their finances to. It will then bounce between 2 times the amount you set and 3 times the amount you set quite reliably, transferring excess.

This is one of the parts that just works with stations. I have not had issues with it for nearly 2 years now. If this is optimal is another question, but in the end you have excess money anyway so a few hundred million tied up in station accounts does not matter.

WHAAAT?? O_O Had no idea one was still supposed to even get auto transfers any more, I was getting auto transfer spam the first while after X4 was released and took a break to wait for patches, since then not a single station in 1000 hours across 2 years has sent me a single transfer a single time, even at 20 times their expected operating budgets and 500 times the budgets I want to tell them to use instead. Not joking or exaggerating, I've been annoyed since forever that the stations don't send me anything at all no matter what I try, I actually thought the function had just been disabled or removed...

ANY manual control AT ALL over station accounts would be 2 years overdue, the system DOES NOT "just work" by any stretch of the imagination, also we need to be able to override and set MULTIPLE manual parameters in a clear way that is fully explained in the game itself instead of randomly finding out 2 years down the line on a forum that "the game isn't supposed to do what it does to you".