"Unable to complete trade"

[builder680]

This is one of many variations of failed orders and it pops up frequently with my trade ships. I have tried to track down the source of this failed order but haven't been able to. If you're going to spam us with orange font "failed orders," can we at least have a bit more information than this vague notification? Why was my ship unable to complete trade? I've been watching all stations and ships like a hawk trying to figure out these failed orders, and most of them I've come to understand and can fix. Sometimes a station just has too many trade ships for the volume of product it produces, sometimes I have too many miners for a station, etc. But "Unable to complete trade" just doesn't give me enough information to fix the problem.

[TheDeliveryMan]

Freighters search for trades frequently, a failure to find a trade does not mean there is something wrong. These messages are info level at best, but they look like error messages. I think they can be very confusing to many players.

For me these messages are just annoying noise and I ignore them. I use repeat orders to supply my factories. The way I set up the loops these messages turn up very frequently as part of the normal loop processing.

[builder680]

I figure this is the case but I do not want to ignore this. I want the problem fixed. Not covered up, not avoided, not worked around. Fixed. I want these error messages gone. I want to know what the actual problem is. This is a script-level problem and it can be solved with investigation, I have just not been able to do so. What causes a failed trade?

[dmk]

i don't think problem can be 100% fixed(for example station can be destroyed),
but as first step i would propose to stop spamming on map,
and write to ship log enough info about specific trade failed(currently i can't even find which trade failed) and reason why trade failed,
on map it is enough for one symbol "!" or "?" with specific color(and obviously player should be able to remove it after he watched log).
p.s. police scan should not spam in the log either, no point to report them if nothing was lost (in case scanning takes too long (> 15 sec) that should be reported).

[af_2017]

I think messaging in the game requires rework.
- I do not want to skip any message
- I want clearly understand what, where and with whom that happened
- I want to navigate to the event area quickly

In case of "empires" (a lot of ships and stations) there could be tons of events.
I am not sure that it is required to store them all.
Actually there's no need to store events at all. Because:
1. an event arrives
2. the player analyze what happened
3. the player takes according actions
4. forget about this event
Nothing should be skipped or ignored.
Events might be postponed, in this case they will remain in the log.
If player has something in the log then it means he need to pick some actions.

And this makes "inbox" from the logbook. Maybe that should not be "plain logbook" but something like directories/categories we have in e-mail programs where user can add custom filters for events, have them in separate categories to browse with more sense.
Currently games logbook grows all the time, degrades performance without much efficiency. We might have it in the game "under the hood" but if user need this on UI is questionable.
Yeah, currently we can find something in the history, I agree. For example, to find something missed. But with logbook changed according to the suggestions no one will miss anything and search in history will be required maybe for debugging in betas not in release.

[TheDeliveryMan]

What causes a failed trade?

Look at this screenshot https://imgur.com/a/6kTIDKN of my energy supplier. It is currently at step 1 buying energy cells, the orange messagges are actually from the previous loop.

Step 2 (previous loop): None of my factories bought energy cells for 21 credits or more. This means non of them was in urgent need of energy. The message reads "No trades found in allowed sectors". "in allowed sectors" is a little misleading. "no trades found" is spot on, but it's nothing I need to fix, the behaviour is exactly as I want it.

Step 3 (previous loop): The build storage of my claytronics factory was not buying any energy cells, they were already delivered many loops ago. Same message "no trades found ..."

Step 4 (previous loop): My ore refinary bought energy cells for 18 credits, a trade was found, the energy cells were deliverd and no error message is shown. Actuall, before that I had the Min price set to 19 and the courier was already loaded with energy cells. I lowered the price to 18 for the sake of this example.

Steps 5, 6, ... (previous loop): The courier sold all energy cells at the ore refinary, so all subsequent steps were skipped with message "Nothing to sell".


On the map the orange messages are quite annoying. There is no error, the loops works exactly as I have set it up. However, in the behaviour menu these messages could actually help to troubleshoot a loop configuration, in case it does not work as expected.

[builder680]

I'm aware of all this, this is all stuff I've figured out watching my traders for days and days. It's all stuff I've managed to track down and eliminate, except for this one specific failed order (not failed 'behavior', but failed 'order'). "Unable to complete trade." All conditions for a successful trade are/were met (most of these ships only trade with my own stations, and I have pricing set up to facilitate free flow of goods up the supply chain), but something about certain trades, that initially were ready to go, caused it to "fail." This is the condition I am trying to solve. I know about all the other ones by this point, believe me. I've completely eliminated all error messages but these ones. I know it's part of "normal" operating conditions, but I am treating these annoying messages as a method to optimize trade ship usage, and it's working. I've gone from 250ish freighters to around 100 (serving a series of complete closed loop commonwealth economy stations) by culling excess trade capacity, and I am moving the same volume of freight as before. But this one order failure stumps me. That's why I ask, SPECIFICALLY, what causes THIS SPECIFIC order failure message. "Unable to complete trade." Because I can't figure it out.

[sirprosik]

Every one of my mining ships has been getting this when connected to the PHQ. I 'think' the trade is going through, but maybe it isn't?!?
The ore is there prior to the trade and its left the ship during the trade. Maybe it went into thin air?!?

[HammerHead91]

I don't necessarily mind that a trader can't complete a trade, but any sound player needs to know exactly why a trade can't be accomplished. There's no code overhead. The thinking has already been done. All that's needed is a useful message in the logbook.

"Can't trade because global rule stops me"
"Can't trade because no profits identified"
"Can't trade because whatever"

Ego needs to do this stuff immediately. Ego should have done this stuff two years ago.

[sirprosik]

I am seeing this primarily on Magnetar Sentinels both Mineral and Gas almost every attempt to transfer wares to the PHQ.
I built a Crane Sentinel for giggles and I have yet to see this error on the Crane even though it is mining in the same places.
It has something to do with Magnetar's specifically in my case vs the Crane specifically at the PHQ. Other stations do not
get the same error at all. Building a remote station and in a couple of weeks I will be able to tell if it does the same at a
non-PHQ station.

[morning_star]

Just thought I'll better add this here than anywhere else:

Just yesterday I stumbled upon a transporter sitting idle with said orange icon above it.

the behaviour error was "unable to complete trade" so i looked up what trade couldn`t be performed.

i then manually ordered the ship to complete that specific trade - and it did so without hesitation.

so what was the problem (that caused the orange icon/message thingy AND my ship to sit still) in the first place?

[builder680]

I find it interesting that after making this thread a couple years ago (January of last year actually, after double-checking), and just having recently started playing again, that we still have people asking and we still don't have answers. Just useless. At this point I just want a mod to auto-delete the messages so I don't have to see them. But I can't even get that. Ugh. Love the game but.... grrr (at lots of stuff, not just this).

[sirprosik]

I think I see one of the issues. I have a magnetar trying to dock at an already occupied pier.
The empty ship (I just captured an SCA Heron Vanguard and docked it) left to attend to an emergency elsewhere
in the galaxy and the magnetar is trying to dock at the same pier. Well the Heron is moving back and forth from
empty space and the pier instead of staying docked.

With 36 piers (12 E docks) Hexa dock, 4 dock T Pier, 16 L fabs I guess there needs to be more dock modules lol.

[Zealoth]

I get the same errors right now. No reason. No ship will deliver Hull Parts to my PHQ, despite of a literal glut happening. Next to my PHQ is a SCA Factory under construction, my AutoTraders also try to deliver to it, then cancel with "Unable to complete" WHY? Got Maja Dust glut, tons of Black Market Traders in Argon Space (so the trade is not even smuggling), none of them work - but they did for a while. Can i force reset the trade script or something?