Trader With 6 Minerals

[Galinet]

There's a lot I do not understand, and this is one of them. This is with the live version, not the beta.

I have an ore mining station in Segaris: dock, pier and solid storage (capacity of 200k). Miners have brought in 36,693 ores. And there's also a similar silicon mining station with 6,536 silicon. I have miners assigned to self trading (my faction only), one for the ore mining station and another for the silicon mining station. I've been watching them transfer small quantities (6, 4, 7, 12 and 38) of ore/silicon when they can carry up to 880.

The silicon is going to a computronic substrate station, which is a great destination since its production is stalled due to lack of ore and silicon. And the ore is going to a metallic microlattice station that has 98,520/100,000 ore in storage while the computronic substrate station right next to it has 1,340/50,000 ore. Both of those stations are in Gaian Prophecy and have accounts with 200k and 600k respectively.

The ore station has a 2-star manager while the microlattice and computronic have 4. The traders both have 2 3/4 stars and their cargo hold are empty, except for the ore and silicon they transport.

Clearly they have sufficient funds to afford to buy more so why are such little quantities being transferred to a station that does not really need that ore while another station would benefit much more?

[Buzz2005]

are prices on auto, I bet its that

set them up manually so price is lowest for selling in mining depot, and max for buying in production stations

since its all just between your own station it should work fine

[Galinet]

Forgot to detail that aspect.

The mining stations do have their sell offers to minimal and only to sell to my own stations. Ore sells at 43 and silicon at 111.

Strangely the microlattice has an automatic buy price of 43 and computronics of 58, and yet the ore trader sells to the lower buy price?

[Buzz2005]

put manually buy prices to max and see but I think then they will fill one until its full then start filling the other, not diversity between the two

[oddible]

This is a frequent complaint and I'm really surprised ES haven't done anything about it. The good thing is there isn't any cost (maintenance, fuel, etc) for ships so it isn't like it is causing a problem for income. However what often happens is my factories run out of supplies because the 40 ships supplying them are carrying 2 refined metals at a time. Just set a minimum threshold that is a percentage of the ship's hold size for gods sake.

[gorgofdoom]

This happens when you have a set price at the seller and a flexible price at the buying station.

If the price were to change due to the quantity traded, they wouldn't be selling those resources at the current price. Therefore they don't trade more than the current price bracket allows.

Two things help fix this problem:

1) build more storage so more materials fit in the same price bracket (for public trading)

2) change the buying station to a set price (for private trading) [what you set the price to determines the priority at which they'll be filled]

(or am i completely off base?)

P.s. changing the rules of the universe to solve a logistical problem is not logical.

[oddible]

P.s. changing the rules of the universe to solve a logistical problem is not logical.

No, fixing the game so that it doesn't make illogical choices is logical. This is merely tolerated because there are no direct costs in the game - only opportunity costs. So you don't pay for that ship moving 6 minerals. You do however pay for it in that you may have a station that gets stopped because it doesn't have the resources it needs. The tolerances in pricing need to be fixed to minimize "wasted trips" that have only 6 minerals. A certain percentage of the hold size of a ship should be a factor in decision making about a trade.