[SOLVED] Problem with CLS2 and Jumpdrive

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Echo4
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun, 28. Mar 21, 12:04

[SOLVED] Problem with CLS2 and Jumpdrive

Post by Echo4 » Sun, 28. Mar 21, 14:32

I have 2 statoins (Station 1 and Station 2) and 2 TSs (TS 1 and TS 2). TS 1 is an unupgraded Argon Mercury that just stays docked at an NPC SPP. TS 2 is a fully upgraded OTAS Mistral Super Freighter. The trader is a Logistician, its Supply conditions are: Minimum transfer amount on collection: 0 and Minimum transfer amount on delivery: 75. Its Jumpdrive settings are: Use Jumpdrive: Yes and Jumpdrive energy: 200. Its Waypoints are:
1.1: NPC SPP where TS 1 is, Fly to station
2.1: TS 1, Unload, Energy Cells, Manual input: 300
3.1: NPC SPP where TS 1 is, Buy, Energy Cells, Minimum product price, Maximum cargospace
4.1: TS 1, Unload, Energy Cells, Manual input: 300
4.2: Refuel jump energy
5.1: Station 1, Unload, Energy Cells, Maximum cargospace
5.2: Refuel jump energy
6.1: Station 2, Unload, Energy Cells, Maximum cargospace
6.2: Refuel jump energy

When I dock TS 2 at the NPC SPP where TS 1 is, Station 1 and 2 are missing more than 15000 Energy Cells each, TS 1 is empty and TS 2 is full. Now I start TS 2's CLS2 script. TS 2 does exactly as scripted up to waypoint 5.2, then, with less than the 200 Energy Cells that it should have, it heads toward Station 2. Any idea on why it does this instead of returning to the NPC SPP, and on how to fix it?
Last edited by Echo4 on Tue, 30. Mar 21, 13:11, edited 1 time in total.

Aydan
Posts: 238
Joined: Sat, 8. Sep 07, 20:56

Re: Problem with CLS2 and Jumpdrive

Post by Aydan » Mon, 29. Mar 21, 12:07

I may have missed a thing, but that's exactly what you told TS2 in point 6.1:

6.1: Station 2, Unload, Energy Cells, Maximum cargospace

So it will execute this step before going back to the SPP. Just by the way, why do you use the CLS to buy energy cells? Wouldn't it be better to use the commercial agent? If you'd like to supply several separate stations with multiple supplies. You should be able to use some kind of storage station and a trading post for the distribution for over 15 stations by buying all nescessary goods on the storage station (running a commercial agent freighter) with comfortably giving you the option to set prices, delivering it to a player owned trading post by CLS and distributing wares by a second freighter to numerous stations under your control. They can even deliver several goods at the same time if you are able to manage their flight time compared to the fabrication cycles. That's a delivery in time while keeping the set price for goods bought as low as you want it to be. If you just get in the mood to grow your business by adding some more stations, this is the most flexible way. You just need a storage big enough and some time to write the schedules.

Echo4
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun, 28. Mar 21, 12:04

Re: Problem with CLS2 and Jumpdrive

Post by Echo4 » Tue, 30. Mar 21, 12:24

Thanks for your answer. I'll try to be more precise with my question: since 200 < 15000*75% = 11250, why is the Minimum transfer amount on delivery of 75% ignored?

I use CLS2 instead of CAGs because CAGs have to make the trip to the station to buy, while CLS2 are already there when the price drops to 12. Since I use OTAS Mistral Super Freighters for this role, they are able to empty any SPP enough that they can return to the SPP before its price drops back to 12. Instead, a CAG would start moving after the price becomes 12, which increases the likelihood of an NPC trader buying the Energy Cells and wasting credits for the CAG jump fuel and wage. Also, since there is no need for the CLS2 to be as fast as possible to make the purchase, I can use TSs with a bigger cargo hold, thus reducing the amount of jumpdrive fuel required to haul the same amount of Energy Cells. Finally, CLS2 don't need an homebase so they can use my balance instead of that of the warehouse, while CAGs are forced to be homebased, which means my warehouse is forced to sell what it is stocking. In the case of Energy Cells, this is a problem.

What TSs do you use for CAGs? I'd prefer to keep the buying price as the minimum product price, therefore in this scenario I would trust only OTAS Mistrals to get to the station in time. For reference, I only use CAG OTAS Mistrals that sell at average price.

I'm not yet at the point where I can buy a Trading Station or Equipment Dock, so I'm just using complexes with stopped production. Actually, I'm relatively early in the game and my goal for now is to buy Energy Cells, Ore and Silicon and sell these wares plus food (that I produce) in the Argon sectors around Argon Prime as efficiently as possible, but in order to increase the survival chance of my traders in unsecure sectors, all of the traders who have to move between stations must have max shields, Fight Command Software MK1 and MK2, and Jumpdrive and Energy Cells as jump fuel.

I figured how to solve the problem I originally had with my CLS2: refueling jumprdive energy from my own stations doesn't work, but refueling from ships works fine. One possible explanation as to why my CLS2 thought it was fine to unload less than 200 Energy Cells disregarding the Minimum transfer amount on delivery of 75%, could be that the Minimum transfer amount on delivery is not calculated over how much the CLS2 is told to transfer, but over how much of that ware it holds. In other words, instead of transferring a minimum of 15000*75% = 11250 Energy Cells, it checks if it can transfer a minimum of 200*75% = 150 Energy Cells. Luckily, the software is able to make a distinction between jumpdrive fuel that can't be unloaded and Energy Cells that can be unloaded. Again, since refueling from my own stations doesn't work, my CLS2 somehow "forgot" that those less than 200 Energy Cells it had where jumprdive fuel, considered them Energy Cells and delivered them to the next station. The same thing happened when I changed all the refuel jump energy waypoints with load up to 200 Energy Cells. The only thing that actually works is refueling jump energy from another ship.

This is how I'm currently setting up my logistics:
  • Jumpdrive Energy HQ: a complex of 2x Boron Bio Gas Factory M with stopped production
  • Ore HQ: a complex of an Ore Mine and a Boron Bio Gas Factory M with stopped production that transfers credits to my account whenever it has more than 0 Cr
  • Silicon HQ: a complex of a Silicon Mine and a Boron Bio Gas Factory M with stopped production that transfers credits to my account whenever it has more than 0 Cr
  • Food HQ: a complex of bio and food factories that produces food that transfers credits to my account whenever it has more than 0 Cr
  • Energy Cells HQ: a complex of SPP with stopped production that transfers credits to my account whenever it has more than 0 Cr
  • Jumpdrive Energy Holders: one CLS2 Argon Mercury on each NPC SPP, NPC Ore Mine and NPC Silicon Mine with a single waypoint: fly to station
  • Jumpdrive Energy Loaders: one CLS2 Argon Mercury on each of my HQs with Minimum transfer amount on collection: 0 and two waypoints: fly to station and load max Energy Cells
  • Energy Buyers: one CLS2 OTAS Mistral Super Freighter on each NPC SPP with Minimum transfer amount on collection: 0, Minimum transfer amount on delivery: 75 (to increase the amount of wares delivered per jump) and the following waypoints:
    1. fly to NPC SPP
    2. unload 300 energy cells to the Jumpdrive Energy Holder docked at the NPC SPP (in the event that the CLS2 returns to the SPP with some Energy Cells remaining, this is here to free a bit of its cargo hold before buying)
    3. buy max energy cells at min price from the NPC SPP
    4. unload 300 energy cells to the Jumpdrive Energy Holder docked at the NPC SPP
    5. refuel jumpdrive energy from the Energy Holder docked at the NPC SPP
    6. unload max energy cells to Jumpdrive Energy HQ (it's a priority to keep the Jumpdrive Energy HQ filled so that all my other traders can refuel jumpdrive energy and be able to always jump)
    7. refuel jumpdrive energy from the Energy Loader docked at Jumpdrive Energy HQ
    8. unload max energy cells to Food HQ (once my traders are full of jumpdrive energy, I use the excess Energy Cells to produce food to sell; I plan to be the only one to produce food)
    9. refuel jumpdrive energy from the Energy Loader docked at Food HQ
    10. unload max energy cells to Energy Cells HQ (once my traders are full of jumpdrive energy and my Food HQ of Energy Cells, I sell the excess Energy Cells)
    11. refuel jumpdrive energy from the Energy Loader docked at Energy Cells HQ
  • Jumpdrive Energy Distributors: at least one (but I could need more) CLS2 OTAS Mistral with Minimum transfer amount on collection: 0, Minimum transfer amount on delivery: 75 and the following waypoints:
    1. fly to Jumpdrive Energy HQ
    2. load max energy cells from Jumpdrive Energy HQ
    3. refuel jumpdrive energy from the Jumpdrive Energy Loader docked at Jumpdrive Energy HQ (this tricks the Jumpdrive Energy Distributors into thinking they are holding jumpdrive energy in addition to Energy Cells)
    4. unload max energy cells to and refuel jumpdrive energy from each Jumpdrive Energy Holder in NPC SPPs, NPC Ore Mine and NPC Silicon Mine
    5. unload max energy cells to Ore HQ
    6. refuel jumpdrive energy from the Jumpdrive Energy Loader docked at Ore HQ
    7. unload max energy cells to Silicon HQ
    8. refuel jumpdrive energy from the Jumpdrive Energy Loader docked at Silicon HQ
    9. unload max energy cells to the Jumpdrive Energy Loader docked at Food HQ (Jumpdrive Energy Loaders have a waypoint to load Energy Cells, however since the traders will stay Apprentices it will take some time for them to actually do so and I can't guarantee that the Energy Cells will still be there, so this and the following waypoints are just there for precaution)
    10. refuel jumpdrive energy from the Jumpdrive Energy Loader docked at Food HQ
    11. unload max energy cells to the Jumpdrive Energy Loader docked at Energy Cells HQ
    12. refuel jumpdrive energy from the Jumpdrive Energy Loader docked at Energy Cells HQ
  • Ore and Silicon Buyers: one CLS2 OTAS Mistral Super Freighter or Argon Mercury Hauler on each NPC Ore Mine and NPC Silicon Mine with Minimum transfer amount on collection: 0, Minimum transfer amount on delivery: 75 and the following waypoints:
    1. fly to NPC Ore Mine or NPC Silicon Mine
    2. refuel jumpdrive energy from the Jumpdrive Energy Holder docked at the NPC Ore Mine or NPC Silicon Mine
    3. buy max Ore or Silicon at min price from the NPC Ore Mine or NPC Silicon Mine
    4. unload max Ore or Silicon to Ore HQ or Silicon HQ
    5. refuel jumpdrive energy from the Jumpdrive Energy Loader docked at Ore HQ or Silicon HQ
  • Ore, Silicon, Food and Energy Cells Sellers: CAG OTAS Mistrals homebased at their HQ that sell at average price
I must admit I didn't think about making a complex with an Ore Mine and a Mosquito Missile Factory, for example, so that I could use CAGs to buy and sell Ore at the same time, but that can only work for Ore and Silicon since they are the only wares I'm currently interested in just buying and selling without using. However, is it even possible to separate the buying price and the selling price for intermediate products?

Last edited: 2021-04-01T09:26+0000

Aydan
Posts: 238
Joined: Sat, 8. Sep 07, 20:56

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with CLS2 and Jumpdrive

Post by Aydan » Tue, 13. Apr 21, 18:40

That brings back memories ;)

Ok, you found the same limitation i did. The first question is how to handle the money. The second one is how to distribute the wares to points needed to produce goods. There's a third question later, as you will see how many products are produced among all the sectors. Also, if you keep producing, you'll flood your universe with your own wares, which will make stations dissappear in the end.

Start wall of text :)

What you really want is money. You need a lot of customers who really need your trading goods. Therefore you need working and producing stations. NPC stations normally starve because of the underwhelming transportation of food or energy. It is best to think about your trading goods first in terms of capacity. You may have a legendary amount of money gained by selling a high tech weapon... but the station buying may not have enough money left to buy a second one. Also the amount of storage on the buying station is important, as NPCs can't sell wares like players do. The thing is to understand that every basic ware is used to build a more complex ware, which is also used again to build a mor complex... until you hit the level of weapons and shields. Basically everything results in building a laser. These are the end of the line. The line starts out of thin air with the production of the most basic things like ore, silicon, and energy. For basic food components and mines you'll get more if you have more of those stations in your universe. But the highest tier wares will pile up, filling up the stations quickly. The Egosoft solution is, that NPC trading stations and eq docks are acting as a sort of garbage can. The god module actively removes wares from those stations. If not, the whole universe would stall after a while, because the highest tier wares can't be consumed. So the best way to earn money is to elongate the time until a ware would be gobbled up in a dock or station by god. By having lots and lots of steps to production, which will all need a separate delivery will give you every time a small amount of money earned. The more trade runs, the more you will earn. While producing a single PPC may give you tons of money, the overall capacity to sell those things in the universe is limited.

The amount of roids is also limited by the universe map itself. Even if you place a mine on any roid you can't get more, and in the end all other mines will disappear, because the god module removes them. But you can get a decent amount of money by trading them. Producing is tied to a fixed cycle which can't be modified, but trade is only depending on the clever use of freighters and their individual setup. If you are trading goods with a small ware class (S and M), try to use fast ships that are trading often. So it may make sense to use M5 to sell energy cells in sector to keep the economy running, but not to raise/lower prices to a not wanted limit. You can keep the prices constantly on a decent level, granting you every trade run a fair amount of money. If you use high capacity traders, like teladi or paranidian freighters, you buy a very high amount of wares, but you need to wait a long time to do the next trade. That can lower your income while doing a lot of trades could be the better choice. PLUS! The stations won't disappear, as they're frequented a lot by your ships.

But how would you handle the cash flow? Basically the CAG is capable to monitor a long range of sectors for decent prices depending on the setup on his home station. That's happening automatically. You'll set up a limit for the station to transfer the money on your account. The trick for trading stations (or your sleeping complex) is that you are able to determine the products sold and bought. In case of trading stations they will be added automatically as soon as you add a ware manually to your trading station. But CAGs aren't using trading stations not like others, there's a twist. If you set them to close, the CAGs are only selling, not buying. If you open them, the CAGs are just buying, not selling. So they will never buy anything themselves, wasting time by searcing for good prices to buy. That's where the CLS kicks in. You setup a storage (complex/Storage/wahtever) and a small fleet of 3-5 freighters to buy all goods you like from the NPC stations. The goods will be transported to their home and will be distributed by CLS to all trading stations you own. A clever cycle with a paranidian freighter can deliver quite a lot of goods to 4-5 trading stations. These trading stations are using each a single CAG freighter suitable for the wares delivered. High capacity for bulky freight, fast and small ones for something like weed or space fuel ;) As you can determine the worth of the wares delivered, you can automatically feed the buying stations with the credits earned by the trading stations selling all the wares. You just need to setup the money transfer limit high enough. That grants a constant cash flow. You just need to buy on your own stations ;) The absolute upside is that the universe starts humming with activity after a while. No more missing stations, the impact of Pirates and Xenons are not that big anymore. In case of terran weapons this may be a very nice side effect, as the length of cycles to produce them yourself are a pain.

The best products to buy and sell are the tier 1 food products. That means wheat, soy beans and so on. They may look cheap on the first glance, but they have the highest amount of price range if you calculate it. Others, like silicon and ore do not have such a high range of min/max price available. As it is more efficient to trade often than to go for high priced goods, those small soy beans are generating a higher gain per trade. You may sell 300 silicon or 10000 soy beans... you'll get a lot more for the silicon, but your gain for soy beans will be higher, as you need to pay more to buy or to produce the silicon.

The only way to earn more money on a single trade is to trade manually with EQ docks by selling them wares they don't have in stock. But they will refill their money after a fixed period of time, limiting your income.

In the end it looks like this:

Wares:
Buying station (3 freighters buying) ->CLS Freighter fetching/distributing wares -> Trading station (1 freighter selling in the surrounding 3-6 sectors)
Money:
Buying station (3 freighters) <- CLS Freighter buying <- Trading station (1 freighter) generating money for CLS and your bank account

If you let the CLS run on your HQ or a specific complex, you can extract literally money on every single trade run. If you want to have the full control you don't assign a home base and you'll pay their wages from your bank account directly. But be aware that this will end up in a completely broken game, as your bank account will start to grow so fast that there's no challenge anymore. That happens normally after the setup of the 5th trading station.

End wall of text ;)

Echo4
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun, 28. Mar 21, 12:04

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with CLS2 and Jumpdrive

Post by Echo4 » Mon, 19. Apr 21, 17:03

Thank you for explaining in great detail how the game economy works, I realized I was mistaken when I said I wanted to replace all NPC food factories.

I also realized that, if I have to trade in bio and food too, using the method I described in my previous post I would have to manually set up a lot of CLS2. You suggested to buy 3-5 freighters to buy wares, but in that case CAGs might be better. In order to reduce the complexity of my trading logistics, I came up with another method that involves only CAGs and 2-3 complexes (or 1 Equipment Dock / Trading Station when I'll be able to afford them):
  • Split Ore Mine + relevant race's Mosquito Missile Factory, Food and Bio factories (since Ore, Food and Bio are intermediate products in this complex, they can be both bought and sold by CAGs, and they can also buy Energy Cells to use as Jump Fuel)
  • Teladi Silicon Mine + Boron Crystal Fab + Boron Solar Power Plant (allows trade of Silicon Wafers, Crystals and Energy Cells)
  • Argon Wheat Farm + Argon Rimes Fact + Paranid Weapon Component Factory (optional, allows trade of Delexian Wheat and Cloth Rimes)
I'd just need to set all prices on my stations to average (CAGs would still buy as low as they can and sell as high as they can), except for Energy Cells to 13 for the first and third complexes and 12 for the second one (this will hopefully reduce competition between my CAGs when it comes to buying Energy Cells).

What do you think of this? Apart from being easier to set-up, are there other pros, or cons, that you can see?

Aydan
Posts: 238
Joined: Sat, 8. Sep 07, 20:56

Re: [SOLVED] Problem with CLS2 and Jumpdrive

Post by Aydan » Fri, 23. Apr 21, 13:10

That looks like a very good plan. As you're planning to setup complexes you're also increasing the available amount of storage. On a single station storage amount is based on a formula depending on the wares price itself. The higher the average price, the lower the possible amount of storage. If you put the stations in a complex, the amount is raised, so you have more range and room to trade. Using the CAGs will allow you to control a lot of wares automatically, like you said. The only thing to look for is how many customers there are per ware. Secondary products are always on a lower price range, so its best to look for primary wares in customers. Rime is only used for laser turrets, as far as i remember, so the production is a lot higher than needed from the beginning, as there are only 2 or 3 stations producing laser towers. So trading that as an initial ware on your complexes is a bit wasted. Also snails and others. I'd start with soy beans, wheat, maybe cattle and BoGas and definately sunflowers (don't know if that's correct in english) from the teladi. Then proceed to Nostrop, Argnu etc. and silicon and ore as the freighters will have to get a bit bigger/costly. After that, you'll surely have the trading rank to buy all stations and your first 300 millions earned ;)

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