[MOD/Script] LI Freight Distribution Network (FDN) - v7.2 21/11/2010

[TheElix]

Yes, I'm using v2f. And to answer other questions:
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[Logain Abler]

It occured to me that one way of joining accross sectors is to place a string of sats that join all the gates with the stations/complexes.

I'm not sure how you would test that they all overlapped though.

But the idea being that the transporter signal is beamed through a line of sats. Which of course could be pretty long if the sectors are far apart.

It would need to account for the HUB gates bending space too.

The more I think of it the more I feel that FDN should be limited to transferring wares within the local sector.

The technology of teleport does not sit well with multi sector. Travelling between sectors takes warp gates, not teleportation.

LA

[amirite]

I would agree with that. TSes are built to handle multi-sector stuff almost exclusively, and with multi-sector FDN the player would have a huge advantage by almost never needing them.

[Logain Abler]

Yes, I'm using v2f. And to answer other questions:
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Hi TheElix,

I've had a chance to re-test the SPP & Crystal Fabs issue your having and it looks okay in v2f. I can't repeat the fault, it's working for me since the fix

Could you try restarting FDN in the Artificial Life settings? Not sue if it will help as I didn't need to restrart

Sorry about this

LA

[apricotslice]

So it takes a bit of fancy programming then. For multi sector, you fill a ship, jump it, then beam from the ship, jump it back, rince and repeat.

[Logain Abler]

So it takes a bit of fancy programming then. For multi sector, you fill a ship, jump it, then beam from the ship, jump it back, rince and repeat.

Actually that is a top idea! Once I've added PHQ and modded in FDN Node & FDN Relay Satellite I'll look at an FDN inter-sector Freight Ship.

One array with a list of stations that require a ware that is not produced in sector, compared against a list of produced wares from other sectors. One TL to do a supply loop (collect wares, jump, collect/provide wares, jump rinse & repeat).

It maybe a bit beyond me at the moment but something I'm going to look at.

Again, top idea

[apricotslice]

If you can pull that off, also do it as a stand alone script.

And dont limit it to 1 ........oh, I was going to say 1 ship, but I was thinking TS with 12,000 cargo, not a TL.

Yes, a TL doing a round robin of all the player stations picking up the excess that another needs, and delivering what it needs would be a huge asset and solve the delivery problems.

I never have more than a single complex in a sector, so the main part your building will never be of use to me. But if it extends to a TL that does a regular round robin of all stations complexes, HQ's, Eq and Trading docks that the player owns, then that really does solve some logistical problems.

The biggest thing for me is moving excess ecells, cahoonas, ore or silicon around to HQ and other complexes.

For example, my current complex is overproducing ecells and ore, slightly overproducing cahoonas, but is very short on silicon. So it would be nice to make a small silicon complex somewhere like Ore Belt, and have it fed ecells and the silicon taken back to the main complex, so that the ecell production is kept up. Occasionally a the moment it runs out of silicon, which causes a rundown in crystals that them interrupts the SPP's, and sorts itself out again. But I really cant be bothered trying organise a second silican supply complex and get ships mucking around to supply it.

But a TL that just jumps in periodically, transfers ecells to the silicon complex, and takes all the silicon would be ideal.

Dont limit it to 1 TL though. Some people have complexes all over the place, and supplying only 1 or 2 complexes needs could take a dedicated TL. Not that its dedicated, but its possible that it would never keep the first few stops on the array full and so never get to the ones on the bottom of the list.

Ideally, multiple TL's would know what the other was doing and avoid duplication or missing anything. And a really smart script would tell you that the existing ships were not enough and suggest you add another TL.

[Logain Abler]

Yes thinking about it multi TS/TL is the way to go. But I think a dedicated TS/TL per FDN Node which will service that FDN Node sector.

I would like to keep such a feature within FDN as an additional Supply Task. There are far better standalone Supply scripts out there.

On the PHQ topic, I've never owned one and will have to script one in going forward on my FDN testing save game.

What kind of options should I be looking at? I want to keep it as automated as possible but should the wares required & amounts be player defined?

From what I've read the PHQ is not only used to build ship but as a storage warehouse, so there are going to be a lot of wares that the player may not want auto supplied. But there is going to be stuff like, shields, weapons and ammo/missiles that the player may want to have stored rather than sat at a factory.

Open floor on this one.

LA

[apricotslice]

There are far better standalone Supply scripts out there.

No, there are not. I'm still waiting for one.

Most of whats out there relies on buying from one station and selling to the other, and has levels of pilots that restrict what they do, and a lot of complicated stuff I dont want. The ones that do transfers, are too complicated. Most of them are based on complexes and stations that are not closed loops, and are therefore useless for me because I only build closed loops, and I'm not interested in buying from other stations.

I just want stuff moved around my own complexes and HQ, with no credits involved, and no buying from outside sources.

What I've always wanted really is a UT(25) that only visits player stations, and doesnt concern itself with money. I dont have the scripting ability to do that though.

The big problem with the PHQ with UT's is that once its stored on the HQ, the UT acts on the price it has. If the price is high, the UT will buy them and suddenly instead of 2, you have 30 and no credits, and if the price is low, it will sell them and suddenly you have none when you wanted to keep them. And average price doesnt always work. Its why EQ and trading docks have limits. If your PHQ has stuff on it that you want to only store, you really have to turn off your UT's.

What I've always said was needed for the PHQ was the ability to set buy/sell/none on each product on it. But the devs have never seemed to address this.

So yes, you do need to identify at the product level, what is wanted in, whats able to go out, and what should be ignored.

[mostlikely]

What I've always wanted really is a UT(25) that only visits player stations, and doesnt concern itself with money. I dont have the scripting ability to do that though.

I disagree,

1. The EST has the command to Trade only with non-player stations. Simple matter of making it trade only with player stations.

2. There is a station command (vanilla I think) that automatically transfers money from your station to your global account above a certain limit. Alter that to work both ways. This links any station that is running this command to the same money pool (what one gains the other loses).

Since your stations will only trade with your own ships and your ships only with your own stations you have a closed system and you can use prices to direct ware-flows.
Yes it's not perfect and the monylessCLS you suggested will be something nice to have in general. But it would be a quick fix and very easy to do for you.



However,
I also think the idea of using TL/TS's to link FDN's across sectors is something that would be very nice to have too.

The easiest way would probably to make it a ship script like Logain suggested which simply asks for 2 sectors and transports the needs/wants as it flies (or jumps) between the 2 sectors in a loop.

Also an easy way to do it would be the following FDN options:
-Transfer product to passing player TS/TL if stock above 90%
-Transfer resources from passing player TS/Tl if stock below 10%
The second is problematic with the way FDN currently manages resource stocks however the commands could be expanded to:
-Transfer resources if stock below 10% and supplying stations in node stock below 20%
also
-Transfer products if stock above 90% and station in ship destination sector has need for this product.

Anyways just tossing out ideas.. keep up the good work!

[Logain Abler]

Also an easy way to do it would be the following FDN options:
-Transfer product to passing player TS/TL if stock above 90%
-Transfer resources from passing player TS/Tl if stock below 10%
The second is problematic with the way FDN currently manages resource stocks however the commands could be expanded to:
-Transfer resources if stock below 10% and supplying stations in node stock below 20%
also
-Transfer products if stock above 90% and station in ship destination sector has need for this product.

Anyways just tossing out ideas.. keep up the good work!

Once I have time to look into adding the planned FDN Node I could ensure it has lots of storage and change the script so all products are teleported to, and then stored in the FDN Node. It could be then teleported to the required stations in-sector.

Removing docking from the FDN Node will stop UT's in their tracks. If you want a station to see product just set it to Deny.

This would give the FDN TS/TL a single point to check in Sector.


LA

[Logain Abler]

Hi All,

Just thought I'd post a few pic's of the Menu & Reports on v2.1

The mani changes on the main Menu is the addition of the FDN - Sector Report and the two new Re-supply commands for Missiles & Ammo (just noticed the lower case r on Ammo re-supply)

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The FDN - Sector Report is just a cut down version of the main FDN - Report

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As with the first two pics the Factories & Complexes have been split and the Complexes have their child Factories group. Also the Factories & Complexes have been sorted to alphabetical order.

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I'll be moving FDN - Stop so it's at the bottem of the Global Command section.

I'm not sure if there's to much colour in the Manu & Reports. Should I lose the colour and go with a plainer option more in keeping with the standard 3X:TC menu?

LA

[Logain Abler]

Hi All ,

Progress update on v2.1
The Re-supply for Ammo & Missiles is complete.
The existing Menu & Reports have been tweaked, Complex groups added, PHQ list added & Sector report added.
PHQ progress, scripts written and tested, 25% done on the FDN – PHQ Menu.
I’ve not used PHQ’s before and was a bit put-out to find they don’t return a wares array like stations!
From the FDN – Menu the player can list defined wares, select the wares & level to maintain, update levels & remove wares.

LA

[draffutt]

I'm not sure if there's to much colour in the Manu & Reports. Should I lose the colour and go with a plainer option more in keeping with the standard 3X:TC menu?

for me i'd say stick with the color. standard menu looks a little bland after awhile

[amirite]

And for the sake of consistancy and good interface standards I would usually say lose the color. However, all of the color you are using serves a functional purpose (red/disabled, etc) I'd say keep them. You aren't using ridiculous colors like some other mods.

[SaGa59]

Very nice script!

Possible to use it in Reunion, or exist some script with similar funcionality, for Reunion?

(Sorry, i'm "read only" in english)

SaGa

[Logain Abler]

Very nice script!

Possible to use it in Reunion, or exist some script with similar funcionality, for Reunion?

(Sorry, i'm "read only" in english)

SaGa

Hi SaGa59,

Thanks

I did have a script for Reunion but never released as I wasn't happy with it. Don't think I still have it, I’ve built a new PC and had a good clear out since then, but I'll kook. The basic search & transfer logic should work in Reunion but not the Menu.
I doubt I’ll have the time to reverse write the script for Reunion but more than happy if anyone wants to give it a go.

LA

[Logain Abler]

Hi All,

Another quick update on the PHQ Menu which is about 95-99% done:

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The bottem bit:
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A shot of the PHQ Wares which matches the FDN set Stock Level minus the stuff not in Sector:
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Thought I'd put it out there for any comments before I finish on v2.1.
Just a few tweaks & testing left.


LA

[Logain Abler]

Hi All,

Version 2.1 of FDN is ready for download.

Important – To upgrade to version 2.1 FDN will need to be either stopped & re-started via the AL Plugin or via the Global FDN-Stop Command. This is due to a change in the Sector Settings array. Sorry for the inconvenience.

LA

[mostlikely]

Nice work. I'l be upgrading tonight.