Why is station manager so stupid?

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Andrea92
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Why is station manager so stupid?

Post by Andrea92 » Mon, 3. Jan 22, 23:58

It might just be bad luck or an impression, but the station manager of my first complex tries hard to be inefficient:
- ships have priority to sell even if there's no problem with money, and leave even with very small amount of wares
- ships prioritize salvaging wares in space like a stupid "40 energy cells" instead of doing proper runs
- after selling, ships return home instead of trying to buy cells while coming back, effectively running around empty half the time

As a result the complex runs out of energy cells and does nothing all the time. Is this solvable?

fireanddream
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Re: Why is station manager so stupid?

Post by fireanddream » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 15:06

Using a station manager to maintain a station is pretty much a lost cause. I would have renamed it to something like "regional trade representative". I use the xenon hub with 10ish ships to buy/sell common goods, like a more organized UT guild. It has been working well and netting up 8m an hour.

Cycrow
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Re: Why is station manager so stupid?

Post by Cycrow » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 15:11

The station manager should prioritise buying resources first. 8t sounds like for some reason it can't buy energy cells at the correct price. Is there any available within the range and price limit thats set, and not behind a blacklisted sector ?

For salvaging, only salvage ships will do that, but they do promise it over trading. They can do trade duties if there is no salvaging to do however.

If you don't want all ships to salvage then don't set them to salvage roles

fireanddream
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Re: Why is station manager so stupid?

Post by fireanddream » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 16:19

Cycrow wrote:
Tue, 4. Jan 22, 15:11
The station manager should prioritise buying resources first.
I have a funny story about this. When I first moved my HQ I thought, hey, might as well add all the required wares used to product ships, set them as resources, and maybe my trade ships will pick up some cheap goods here and there.

Lo and behold my 59m credit VAPORIZED within 30 mins as 9 of my TS ships stocked the HQ with like 7000 silicon and every last piece of microchip in the universe.

Cycrow
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Re: Why is station manager so stupid?

Post by Cycrow » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 16:24

The station manager works slightly differently on factories/complexes. As it uses the production cycle, its first priority is to buy 2 hours worth of production resources.

For the HQ, it priorities your production queues first if they are empty, it will just try to fill up each ware when ever it can

Andrea92
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Re: Why is station manager so stupid?

Post by Andrea92 » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 20:28

Cycrow wrote:
Tue, 4. Jan 22, 15:11
The station manager should prioritise buying resources first. 8t sounds like for some reason it can't buy energy cells at the correct price. Is there any available within the range and price limit thats set, and not behind a blacklisted sector ?

For salvaging, only salvage ships will do that, but they do promise it over trading. They can do trade duties if there is no salvaging to do however.

If you don't want all ships to salvage then don't set them to salvage roles
it's full of SPPs around here, of all sizes. 10 stations in a 2 sectors range. No blacklisted sectors, nor negative rep factions.
I found the setting that allowed both salvaging and trading and blocked the former, so that's solved.
fireanddream wrote:
Tue, 4. Jan 22, 15:06
Using a station manager to maintain a station is pretty much a lost cause. I would have renamed it to something like "regional trade representative". I use the xenon hub with 10ish ships to buy/sell common goods, like a more organized UT guild. It has been working well and netting up 8m an hour.
I don't have a choice until I can put together an energy making mega-complex
Last edited by Andrea92 on Tue, 4. Jan 22, 20:31, edited 1 time in total.

Andrea92
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Re: Why is station manager so stupid?

Post by Andrea92 » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 21:31

I managed to exclude one of the ships (drake) from the station manager, and set it to buy energy cells at the best price (because it has a big cargo). Does the command use the price settings of the station or whatever it finds is good?

I'm trying to set that ship as a energy buyer full time, but I want it to buy only if the price is 12.

Cycrow
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Re: Why is station manager so stupid?

Post by Cycrow » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 22:13

if you set the price to 12, then the station manager will only pay 12 credits, if there are no energy cells available for that price, then it will not buy any and move onto the next task.

sounds like that what your originally issues are.

while you might want to only pay 12 for energy cells ,the reality is that might not always be possible.
to improve things, installing a jumpdrive on your ships, and increasing the trade radius, will give alot more chance to buy the resources it needs, but if theres no where in the universe that sells at that price, then theres nothing it can do

Andrea92
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Re: Why is station manager so stupid?

Post by Andrea92 » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 22:15

Cycrow wrote:
Tue, 4. Jan 22, 22:13
if you set the price to 12, then the station manager will only pay 12 credits, if there are no energy cells available for that price, then it will not buy any and move onto the next task.

sounds like that what your originally issues are.

while you might want to only pay 12 for energy cells ,the reality is that might not always be possible.
to improve things, installing a jumpdrive on your ships, and increasing the trade radius, will give alot more chance to buy the resources it needs, but if theres no where in the universe that sells at that price, then theres nothing it can do
sorry I must have explained myself in a bad way. I meant that it's not under the station manager control. It's using the "buy ware for best price" command.

Cycrow
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Re: Why is station manager so stupid?

Post by Cycrow » Tue, 4. Jan 22, 22:23

the same rules apply to buying at best price too.

however, all your issues with the station manager seem to be related to it not buying energy cells, when its likely it couldn't due to the price?

BrigandPhantos77
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Re: Why is station manager so stupid?

Post by BrigandPhantos77 » Wed, 5. Jan 22, 06:51

Andrea92 wrote:
Tue, 4. Jan 22, 21:31
I managed to exclude one of the ships (drake) from the station manager, and set it to buy energy cells at the best price (because it has a big cargo). Does the command use the price settings of the station or whatever it finds is good?

I'm trying to set that ship as a energy buyer full time, but I want it to buy only if the price is 12.
Depending on the region your working, this is going to be a very difficult task. For this reason i personally have a TL setup with Armoured TS to over-stock on energy sells for manual delivery. Truth is, the AI aggressively buys energy as well. The best regions that I get lucky enough to get it at 12 credit price is usually CEO's Doubt and Homily of Perpetuity. (Teladi sectors around Ianamus Zura).

Most other regions those Solar Power Plants don't stay stocked for long. And having set up 3 of my own solar power plants, I keep there price set at 15 credits and they get cleaned out frequently. Bluish Snout is another good location that the AI doesn't seem to clean out frequently either. But that could be due to frequent Xenon activity nearby. What sectors are you using where your having this problem?
Peace is a state of mind!
War is absolute!
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Andrea92
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Re: Why is station manager so stupid?

Post by Andrea92 » Wed, 5. Jan 22, 10:36

Cycrow wrote:
Tue, 4. Jan 22, 22:23
the same rules apply to buying at best price too.

however, all your issues with the station manager seem to be related to it not buying energy cells, when its likely it couldn't due to the price?
tbh, every time I checked there were at least 2 stations full with cells, that's why I set that price. If there were moments where there was no available station with that price, I didn't see it.
btw now it seems to be working, since the drake brings in 22k+ cells in one run and is dedicated to that.

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