[Bonus Plugin] Station Manager

[Deleted User]

You mean selling to docks that don't stock the ware?
Yes, I found that a bit of an exploit, but having said that it's a
pain having to manually sell all the excess shields & HEPTs.

Up to 22 single-ware SM ships (on 6 jump range) for a single (large) complex now,
(with only 10 docking slots) & still going strong, excellent result.

[Bront]

Does this script fuction with a Trading Station? I can see I can activate it, but the description doesn't make me think it would work right.

[Jakesnake5]

Don't think so. Nor will it work with the HQ.

The script was mainly made to work with factories, and to a degree, complexes. Since Trading Stations can't be linked to other stations in a complex, it's left out.

AalaarDB said, that working with Trading Stations would make it too much like Sector Traders. And that wasn't what he intended.

[jlehtone]

AalaarDB said, that working with Trading Stations would make it too much like Sector Traders. And that wasn't what he intended.

However, the signed version does add the commands to Docks, explicitly. Don't know why. And they appear to work. The only limitation that they do have, is that they only sell from Dock and never buy into it. So you have to fill the Dock with some other method (even NPC FreeTraders can do that, if they so please).

On single (huge) complex you can have all the wares that Dock can stock, and SM can trade them all. And there you can choose whether it buys or sells the intermediates, unlike in Dock. Is that less Sector Tradish? Besides, Sector Trader is limited to jumps=0, and that is a strong limit in the X3 universe.

But SM does not work on PHQ.

[Davidov4]

Hey The station manager is awesome for individual stations but when I try to set them up on complexes the game just crashes well rather freezes. help?! It's really great and saves heaps of time but it's frustrating that It wont work on complexes

[Darkaar]

help?! It's really great and saves heaps of time but it's frustrating that It wont work on complexes

don't be so optimistic, you have to check on all your automated ships, to see if they're STILL working or NOT, if not then you have to tell everyone at a time to continue his job. and this is very annoying

• Plz fix this problem guys, because i really like the idea of the script , and if i'm doing sth wrong tell me please.

[Jakesnake5]

@Davidov4
It does work on complexes. You may have something running thats causing the freeze/crash.

Also, before MAKING a complex, make sure you tell any ships that are part of the stations you will be putting into the complex, to 'stop' (ie, go into the station commands and remove them from the SM control).

@Darkaar
Don't think you'll be seeing a 'fix' to something that isn't really broke. The author said he purposely did not have the script re-enable the ships commands if they get kicked from a station by docking AI's. It's something you have to live with, as I do not think there will be any changes.

I do suspect, though, that it'd be possible to write a script to check on the SM ships, see if any are without their commands, then re-enable them. But then, if YOU are the one who disabled the command, that'd be counter productive, wouldn't it.

[Scoob]

Hi,

I've recently started using this feature of the latest bonus pack & like many it would appear I too am having strange problems.

My first factory, an XL SPP in Home of Light, is working like a dream. I have several ships set up, some exclusively to sell ECs (Crystals Prohibited) and some purely to buy crystals (ECs prohibited) as well as some that do both. Most of the ships are busy most of the time, my only issue being lack of Crystals for which I do the occasional "tour of the universe" in my TL to pick some up (using Bulk Transport Upgrade).

I next set up a Silicon & an Ore mine (separate, not complex) in Ore Belt & it's these two that demonstrate the odd behaviour. Firstly I have the jump range for the stations both set to 3. Initially the factory was getting good places to sell just one or two jumps away & the single ship assigned to each factory was working fine. I have ECs Prohibited so they just sell the minerals. Anyway, once I'd saturated the local market, the nearest place offering my desired minimum amount was three jumps away (Paranid prime) but my traders will NEVER go that far! If I lower the asking price & a possible trade becomes available within two or less jumps then the ship launches within moments carrying its ware.

Now, I've set the factory jump range to an excessive NINE & I've also ensured the ships jump range is set to -1 so it uses that set by the station but these ships in the Ore & Silicon mine simply NEVER go futher than TWO sectors away even though several factories are empty of both Ore and Silicon and are offering a top price as a result. Basically my Ore and Silicon mine are forced to shift smaller loads for a lower price within two jumps distance rather than take advantage of the good opportunities offered 3 sectors away.

I've checked a few obvious things that I can think of:

- I'm on good terms with the Paranid (Paranid Friend of Emperor)
- My friend/foes are set correctly on the station & ships.
- There is NO enemy activity along the route through Cloudbase SW and Emporer Mines.

So I don't think there's a legitimate reason my ships would refuse to deliver to Paranid Prime when that sector so needs what I'm selling!

Any ideas?

Cheers,

Scoob.

[Jakesnake5]

One detail you missed:

You must have a Sat or Ship in the sectors you ALLOW your ships to trade in. Do you have a Sat or Ship in Paranid Prime?

[Scoob]

Hi Jakesnake5,

Thanks for your response to this one...

Yes, should have mentioned I have put a Sat in ALL Argon sectors in that block as well as Emperor Mines & Paranid Prime. I also have ships docked at the Shipyard in Paranid Prime.

So Paranid Prime and the route to Paranid Prime have Sats in place, however my Silicon and Ore traders still aren't going any further than two sectors.

Do you think there could possibly be a way off-map enemy or something in either of the Paranid sectors that I can't see? Does this plug in take that in to account and not send a trader where a know hostile is, even if the Sat in the system can't see it?

Any other thoughts?

Cheers,

Scoob.

[Scoob]

Hi again,

I've been doing some experimenting & I think I know why my traders were ignoring Paranid Prime.

It's not just having a Sat or Ship in the sector that allows trade, if you just have a ship but it's DOCKED traders will not visit that sector. The ship must be free in space, like a sat would be.

As a test I set my Ore Mines selling price to 200 & the only place within 4 jumps that is offering that price is in Paranid Prime. Now my sat had gone at this time but I still had several claimed ships in the shipyard waiting to be sold.

At first nothing happened, my trader ship stayed docked at the Ore Mine. However moments after I gave one of my claimed ships the order to "move to position" of the shipyard so it was in space the trader set off for Paranid Prime.

So, in summary, you need a ship in space or a Nav Sat in order for the sector to be visited. My mistake was that since my Nav Sat had been destroyed I assumed the numerous docked ships would be enough but it's not. I assume the logic is that a ship needs to be in space to see that the sector is clear of hostiles?

Anyway, happpy now as I can make some good money from those Mines now - until I saturate Paranid Prime too of course!

Cheers,

Scoob.

[jlehtone]

Or may a call of 'get ships in sector' (or whatever) really return only ships in sector, rather than also returning all ships of all station environments? That would be a script-technical explanation.

[Jakesnake5]

@Scoob

I do believe that you are correct.

AalaarDB may have made it this way, since a 'docked' ship cannot technically 'scan' stations in the sector. So it requires a 'flying' ship to be able to scan stations for the wares they buy/sell.

[Ralon]

Can someone help me with this, The only command i see in my Trader's menu which is attatched to a Station Manager is the "Continue Station Manager" Command, the ones about setting jumprange and only trading one commoddity..Where are they? I can't see them lol

Thanks!

**EDIT**

Never Mind I got it, Additional Ship Commands menu

[Karlfrans]

This works perfectly for most of my stations, except for this 10GJ shield station that I have: The freighters buy the resources, but they do not sell the sheilds. Even if I prohibit all the other wares. It usually only have a stock of 1/8 shields, which is 12,5 % of total stock. Why do they not sell the shields ?
They do sell the shields if I remove them from the Station Manager, though, but if I wanted a complex that sold different wares, then it would be nice to use the station manager instead of more frieghters

[mjwraw]

Yeah, I got that as well with two different factories. Both factories are nearly full of wares, (one is a SPP in Trinity Sanctum, one a Chelt Meat Fact in Thuruks Pride), jump ranges are fine, and yet using S:M my TSs just sit in the factories doing nothing - as soon as I set them to simple 'Sell for best price' off they go. Definitely no enemies around and nav sats in every sector, so this looks like a script bug to me.

[Karlfrans]

Weird that you experience that with "normal" (non-hightech) factories.
They did that for some time with my SPP complex, but then they started to sell the energy
For me they only sit there, as soon as it is a ware, that is only sold to either an Equipment Dock or a Trading Station. (I've tried with a Drone Complex and a 10GJ Shield Complex)

[dtrowle]

Hi folks,

I have a few issues with this script. I have this running on 2 complexes, one that sells space fuel and the other sells quantum tubes, chips, and computer components. In each complex I have an Express running SM selling the products (I have all the resources and intermediates blocked for these ships). Problem is that the stock is full and they just sit there "waiting for opportunities."

Let's assume that I've checked all the obvious stuff like selling price, jumprange, and flying ships in sectors with buying stations, etc. Also, I have Mercs on the same complexes running SM that are buying resources just fine. It's just the sellers that don't work. Also, when I set an express to trade a resource then they too will start buying resources no problem.

After reading this post, I am confused as to whether this script trades at "docks" or not (assumming the dock stocks the product in question). I have also noticed that my mercs will not buy cahhonas at trading stations which further adds to my suspicions. Anyone know exactly how this works with docks?

BTW, I am running the version that comes with BP 3.1.07.

[TimeWalkersSight]

Sorry to say, but to me it seems to be complete crap.
The trader logic might be good, and it sells and buys more efficiently than the default traders, making it a nice tool in the beginning of the game, but it is completely useless as soon as complexes get a bit bigger.

Assuming a complex of maybe 150 factories, self supplied and selling with maybe 60 mercuries. It takes 2 minutes and all 60 of them go into the "waiting for manuell orders" mode. So it takes longer to put them back to service once every two minutes than it would take to just control all of them yourself without any software.

And only one freighter flies to a station at a time. That is nice for the little non player stations, but a compley needing maybe 5000 ore and 2000 silicon an hour is just not supplied with one single mercury.

uni traders, logistic system and default traders is what i think is best if you re not modified

(trade consultants btw suck too, as they only buy on level 0 and complexes are mostly self supplying, so selling is far more important)

[suntox]

i'm using station manager a lot (from bonus pack) and as well on my complex as on single stations, the assigned ships tend to dock and not do anything regularely even though there is work to do (they show "command: none" and not "command: stationmanager: automated"). i can go to their "trade" menu and select "continue station manager" in each of the ships and then they start working again for a while, but thats pretty annoying.

any idea why they stop and wait for the "continue" command? i dont interrupt them or anything. they work for a while and then just stop for no apparent reason.