[SCR] Economy and Supply Trader [2009-10-12 X3TC 3.2.05]

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ManticoreMig
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Post by ManticoreMig » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 14:04

Hello all,

I have the same problem as dizzysoul. Running X3AP.
ESTs running fine, last rank, no MK3, running one ware only (normally E-Cells, food, ore), using jumpdrives, jump range of 3 around argon prime.
With the script "Trade Overview" installed, they are shown as making a profit 100.000/hr to 200.000/hr per trader. Yet, with no other sources of income i am losing about 20.000/hr on my global account, its almost unnoticeable.
My game is heavily scripted, but has no major mods. This only happens after i start some ESTs.

Any clues as what might be?

Triaxx2
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Post by Triaxx2 » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 14:40

If you're losing money, then the salary of the trader is probably costing more than the profit their making. You didn't stick them in say Mistral Super Freighters did you? Because those things are so slow they'll rack up a huge bill and may not make enough cash to cover that cost. As for them not going, is your trade rank high enough? They won't budge until it is.
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ManticoreMig
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Post by ManticoreMig » Fri, 13. Dec 13, 16:28

I have defined as 20% the minimum profit per trade run (instead of the default 10%)
The ships are a collection of demeter and mercury Superfreighters XL (playing a no buying ships game). So, as you point out, it might be the case that their profits per run are lower than their wages (which are calculated by travel time, right? which in this case might be a lot).

I will make some tests when I have some time to make sure.
My goal was to keep the factories on the argon home sectors pumping (wich they are doing realy great).

Thanks a lot for pointing that out :)

Triaxx2
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Post by Triaxx2 » Sat, 14. Dec 13, 13:07

No buys are some of the most fun ones. That said, are the ships fully tuned? Demeters should have no problem out running their salaries. Are they restricted to just one type of ware? If so try adding one or two other wares. Plus get them to jump drive level and let them use those. They'll get much better at getting around. I presume you've got them in Argon Prime? If so, consider expanding them one sector so they can service the local boron sectors and such. It'll increase opportunities and let them buy more from local stations which will let those stations produce more and provide more opportunities to sell to them.
A Pirate's Revenge Completed Now in PDF by _Zap_
APR Book 2: Best Served Cold Updated 8/5/2016

The Tale of Ea't s'Quid Completed

Dovie'andi se tovya sagain

ManticoreMig
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Post by ManticoreMig » Mon, 16. Dec 13, 11:44

- The ships are fully tunned and JD equiped
- The pilots are at level 5
- only 1 ware per ship
- ships are demeter or mercury superfreighters XL
- 2 are trading E-Cells, 1 is trading meatsteak cahoonas, and another is trading ore
- They are using the jumpdrives, range is 3 sector around argon prime (perfect for dealing in all of the argon sectors of that region).
- "Minimum profit" set as 20%
- "Maximum product stock" set as 60%
- according to the Trade Overview script, each trader is making 100.000 to 200.000 cr/h (and i believe this includes jumpfuel bought)
- according to this page, each trader at lv 5 earns 40cr per mizura, thats 40cr per minute, which is 2.400cr/h. So the profits should be more than enough to cover the wages

The goal is to help the local economy while making a little profit, as the sectors around argon prime supply E-Cells, Ore and food, but the NPC traders are only interested in high profit trades.

My main game has now lots of credit input from other sources (like large complexes) so I am setting-up another game to test this scenario (but it is taking a lot of time to reach the lvl 11 trade rank xD ).

Triaxx2
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Post by Triaxx2 » Mon, 16. Dec 13, 14:07

Try setting the maximum product stock lower. They might be making a profit there, but only just, so the costs are overwhelming the income. For example, the profit margin on Energy cells is very slim. So if it's buying at 12, and selling at 16, it might not be making enough profit.

I don't know if Trade Overview is counting jump fuel. You might want to check the trader settings on the individual traders themselves and see if they're making profit. I just looked at one of mine and it's incurring 6,000 credits of expense every time it refuels.
A Pirate's Revenge Completed Now in PDF by _Zap_
APR Book 2: Best Served Cold Updated 8/5/2016

The Tale of Ea't s'Quid Completed

Dovie'andi se tovya sagain

ManticoreMig
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Post by ManticoreMig » Tue, 17. Dec 13, 12:13

Well, after setting up a scenario with only 1 mercury SF XL, pilot level 5, with same settings as before, the conclusion is that the problem is not from EST. At least not in this configuration.
In this new scenario, the mercury SF XL was making a solid 180.000cr/h profit by trading E-Cells around argon prime.
I have cheked through both my player account, trade overview script (wich takes into account jumpfuel, fighter drones and mosquito missiles bought, but not the pilot salary), and the individual trader information, (with sales bonuses, salary, expenses, etc) and they all added up.

In my main game i have checked the individual information on all traders and the profits far exceeded the sum of the expenses. But the game has progressed considerably from the point when i was having this specific problem.

So the conclusion is that the problem was perhaps low performance with low level pilots, in the begining of the main game, or another problem not related to this script.

Many thanks for all the sugestions and prompt help Triaxx2

CaptainRAVE
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Post by CaptainRAVE » Wed, 18. Dec 13, 12:21

Download links seem to be dead?

DevilishMoney
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Post by DevilishMoney » Wed, 18. Dec 13, 23:27

On the first post it says

Major dealer
The freighter pilot can trade all wares within twenty jumps from his central sector.

Does this mean that I if want a EST pilot do cover the the whole universe I have to homebase EST's around different sectors in the universe to cover the whole map or if I homebase a ship in Argon Prime can find and trade wares in any sector on the map.

PalantirFX
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Post by PalantirFX » Fri, 20. Dec 13, 19:55

CaptainRAVE wrote:Download links seem to be dead?
Yeah link dead for me too.
Is there another link please ?

Thank you !

ManticoreMig
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Post by ManticoreMig » Mon, 6. Jan 14, 18:42

Hello all,

I have found what my problem was. It is related to the Marine Repairs (and Training) v2 script
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=324152

And its feature to train any marine automatically to two stars (which seems to be generaly overlooked). It wont do this unless you have more than one million in your account, like what happened to me.

So, dizzysoul, and any one with the same situation, this might be your problem.

I've found out through this thread:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=360744

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DrBullwinkle
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Post by DrBullwinkle » Mon, 6. Jan 14, 18:57

I am glad you solved your mystery, ManticoreMig.

Just to clarify for others, Marine Repairs and Training does not interact with this script (EST) in any way. They work together just fine.

Training costs in Marine Repairs are player-adjustable and well-documented (at least I thought they were well-documented ;) ).

ManticoreMig
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Post by ManticoreMig » Mon, 6. Jan 14, 19:42

Sorry DrBullwinkle, I am not saying that it was badly documented, only that in the middle of so many features it is easy to forget some of them, especially the more subtle/passive ones.

Good Job on your script by the way :) Makes playing as a pirate/privateer, more interesting and less frustrating :D

fiby
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Post by fiby » Tue, 14. Jan 14, 00:39

Good evening, Currently using Mistral freighters what would you recommend as the max number of EST I could run in anyone time for best efficiency?

ManticoreMig
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Post by ManticoreMig » Mon, 24. Feb 14, 18:16

From my experience, a good number is around 100, covering the hole universe.

Ferenczy66
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Post by Ferenczy66 » Thu, 27. Feb 14, 06:49

Is it normal for ESTs not to trade Lasers and Shields if you place them in the wares list?

Sparky Sparkycorp
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Post by Sparky Sparkycorp » Thu, 27. Feb 14, 11:08

Hello there,

Would someone be able to summarise the differences between high-level ESTs with Trade Command Software Mk3 that are set to automatic and Universe Traders working with gnasirator's MK3 Improvement Reloaded bugfix?

I'm interested in ESTs but unfamiliar so as a starting point, I am wondering how the automatic setting compares with bug-fixed UTs, which I do use.

Thanks in advance!
Last edited by Sparky Sparkycorp on Thu, 27. Feb 14, 11:42, edited 1 time in total.

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DrBullwinkle
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Post by DrBullwinkle » Thu, 27. Feb 14, 11:26

Mk3 Traders have few options. Turn them on and let them go... they will do their job (mostly) automatically.

EST's have an "Mk3 mode" which is similar, but they also have the kind of fine-tuning controls typical of most of Lucike's trade scripts. The "E" in EST stands for Economy, and one of the things that Lucike did with EST's was to give them a higher priority for boosting the economy. So they are something like a combination of CAG and UT with some extra options and different tuning.

Gnasirator's Improved Mk3's stick with the simple controls of classic UT's; adding only a sector blacklist and a ware blacklist. But those are the only controls you ever really need. Improved Mk3's can entirely replace CAG's and vanilla Mk3 traders. Improved Mk3's plus a few CLS2 traders are all that a player truly needs in a game; they are very powerful.

Improved Mk3's also have a higher survival rate. They jump away from threats with a high degree of reliability.

I mentioned economy earlier; Improved Mk3's also have an "economy booster" function which gives priority to stations that are starved for resources. Even if trading with such a station is not the most profitable trade, an Improved Mk3 will, in time, service all stalled stations.

In a nutshell, Improved Mk3's are more up-to-date than EST's, but EST's allow you to tweak the settings if you like that sort of thing. EST's also use Pilot Union pilots (Mk3's do not). (If you do not know what the Lucike's Pilot Union is, then you do not need that feature).
Last edited by DrBullwinkle on Thu, 27. Feb 14, 11:47, edited 1 time in total.

Sparky Sparkycorp
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Post by Sparky Sparkycorp » Thu, 27. Feb 14, 11:42

Dear Bullwinkle,

Thanks very much for that very helpful, succinct and prompt reply :)

I think that explains it well and I shall have a dig around in the manual options to get the most out of ESTs in the ways they will help me.

Nemesis_87
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Post by Nemesis_87 » Sat, 3. May 14, 18:06

Ok i dont seem to be able to use this properly

I want to set traders to travle round supplying my own factorys within a few systems, I have set up all the needed stations to produce food,ore,energy,weapons ect, In the exceptions menu i told it to only trade with player owned stations, But will automaticaly travle to NPC stations

I also have CLS but have to manually set the amounts to trade which becomes a hassle due to the station becoming full which means the ts stays full

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance

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