[Bonus Plugin] Station Manager

[exogenesis]

Certainly you get a problem if you have more Station Manager ships
than the station/complex has docking arms, i.e. you get that waiting
for continue, after one or some can't dock.

If they've docked & then idle, maybe you've got too many assigned
to a particular ware / resource ?

Of course you could 'upgrade' to Commondity Logistic Supply (CLS),
but I too wish station mananger wouldn't do this.

Maybe TC's one will be an upgraded version (hopefull, again)

[suntox]

i left them to trade whatever they want. and they dont only sit around idle waiting for trade opportunities to show up (as shown when requesting a report by doing a "add ship to station manager" and selecting the station itself while they are docked and idle). they realy show command "none".

i did suspect that maybe they get forced to undock at times and go to "none" command when redocking. but then they did the same on my complex which should have enough docking ports as it seems. i only have 2-3 ships per station, also on the complex. kinda strange.

[zockerjoe]

I'm experiencing trouble with the script, too. Have posted the completed problem desciprtion in the German forum already (http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 14#2659214) but will give a complete summary/translation here in the hope someone solved the problems already:

I started the game with no mods at all installed, only patched up to the most recent version (2.5 IIRC). Then in the middle of the game I also installed the Bonus Package (3.1.07). At first the Station Manager worked marvellously, but then suddenly it stopped due to an unknown reason. The problems I experience manifest in two ways:

1. Freighters have lots to do (could sell Energy Cells at 19 Cr., Selling price is 16, Jump ranges are within, Extended Sattelites are placed in the sectors with opporunities), but they just dock at the assigned station and are "Waiting for business opportunities". This happend to me with a solar power plant in Wide Ditch (I translated that myself, might be wrong name) and to two Whiskey Factories in Heart of Light.

2. Freighters simply at some point "forget" that they have been assigned to the automation software. Instead they either dock to a station or remain in space and change their assignment to "Idle". This happend to me with a silicon mine in Elenas Fortune.

I can provide savesames for anyone who wishes to debug or look into that problem, does anyone know how this can be solved? Is there a new version of the script? In the current way it's pretty unusable because of the mentioned problems (and I really don't want to switch back to the plain old manual "Sell/Buy at best price" thing).

Any help greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Johannes

[nmosfet]

Hey guys, I've been lurking these forums for a while but figured I should probably create an account and reply to this.

I think I've found a solution to those who have lazy feighters who are just docked and sitting there instead of selling intermediates. I've never encountered this problem when I was using bonus pack 3.1.05 (i think, the one that came with the cd). But when I recently upgraded to 3.1.07 the problem came up instantly. My solution was to copy the backed up scripts related to station manager (from 3.1.05) to the current scripts folder and it looks like it worked (atleast no more lazy feighters).

I've uploaded the files here:http://rapidshare.com/files/170920685/scripts.zip

You should probably backup the scripts folder first, then copy the individual files in the scripts folder of the zip file to the scripts folder of the game.

[Dropbear67]

I wonder whether it would be possible to keep an accumulator of the amount of money transfered from the station to the players account, and have a command which displayed this amount on request?

I'd like to be able to keep track of how much money my station is making. Seems like it would be a minor addition to the script?

[Captain Zorg]

Ok I've got the bonus pack but I have a few problems.

I've got factories up and running in Getsu Fune. I have 1 freighter ship assigned per factory/farm and I have pilots in those freighters.

Now my question is about the station manager. I've set all my factories in Getsu to automate and the ships assigned are also automated. This means that they should go out and collect resources. When I first got the script, I set my factory to station manager, equipped my freighter with what he needs, then I sent it to dock at the factory. I then selected the factory, went to add new ship, selected the factory and the ship was added. What I then noticed are as follows.

1) I give funds to the station,
2) My freighter starts to go and collect resources,
3) It would then return to the station and unload,
4) It would just wait till I had enough resources to sell, so far so good;
5) It would sell for a while, but then I started to notice that the stations own produce was overflowing. This is when I realised that my freighter wasn't working so well.
6) I added pilots to test out a theory and my freighters started to think better. However, what I didn't understand was that my freighter was flying to a sector (Family Tkr) with a load full of scruffin? It has a jumpdrive so why does it have to fly there? I read that if its set to station manager and if it ha a jumpdrive that it should buy its own energy. Problem is that my freighter loaded too much onto his ship that not enough room had been left for e-cells.

The bonus pack works but not 100% because as stated my freighters should ship out produce once stock has reached 10%. I have a plankton farm with 10000 in stock but still nothing is being moved out? Shouldn't everything be automatic with the factories once you set it to station manager that automate the ships?

I'm really having a hard time trying to explain this. Wish I could send my saved game to someone so they can take a look.

[Llov]

NICE! thanks make my life alot easyer..

[Devonus]

all right, for those of you having issues with traders doing the job fine for a little while, and then stoping, its namely has to do with docking issues. Docks (complex or no complex) can only dock 9 ships! Basicly waht happens is if your station traders are docked while waiting to go sell something, or just happens to get kicked out while loading its goods, it will interupt the station trading process and force you to have to click the "continue station manager" button, which gets annoying after the 5th time in 30 min.

even if its a complex i'm pretty sure the docking numbers are limited to 8 (+1 reserve spot that will always only be open to YOU, not your ships). now, if you dont want to move over to CLS-commodity logistics software (much better for large scale operations in the long run), like me, bc i only have one factory on my latest game, there is somewhat of a fix.

Most Station traders are only good for short range transporting missions early on, namely bc they cant use jump drives, if you want them to use jump drives you have to make them into Commodity Logistics people, or Galaxy Traders. So, do yourself a favor, and get rid of all their escorts. I had 2 escorts assighned per TS, plus 3 station on the station as defense=9=my ships always getting kicked out of the station. If you want them to provide defense, your best bet is to set your escorts to "defend position" by dropping navagation relays along the routes your traders use. Unless someone knows a script that will keep fighters from docking while still following/protecting their designated ships(which would be really really really really nice)

Anyways, you need to leave as many open spaces in your station while docking a minimum of ships, This good for early and short range freight operations, as well as supplieing your own stations, however it is not good for stations where you may need 4-6 freighter gathering 4-6 different materials you need (advance satalite factories come to my mind right now) or long range freight operation since you can not feasably provide defense for them (this is not as much a problem with CLS, as they largely defend themselves) though as i said, navagation relays used as defense beacoons work quite nicely.

[Tolmos]

Necro time!

Ok, does anyone know if Station Manager would work for NPC factions?

Theoretical situation: NPC station is set to run Station Manager script and assigned a transport... would SM work properly or would it crap out?

[X2-Illuminatus]

Ok, does anyone know if Station Manager would work for NPC factions?

I would doubt that. Station Manager has several player-based restrictions, such as having a certain amount of credits on station's account or assigned ships, which have the stations as homebase. Things NPC Factories don't have or use. Though I don't know the code, so it might be possible with some changes.

[Sinxar]

Sorry for the necro.

Has anyone released an updated version of this, or know of a good alternative?

I cannot get this to work for me. Got 2x Silicon Mines (L) (64 yield). put 1 dolphin super for each to sell products and buy energy.

First they filled the station completely full of energy. the station is sitting there full of product and they wont sell. no matter how high i set the jump range or how low i set the silicon sell price.

Works fine when using the normal system with 2 transports. i have a merc for buying cells, and the dolphin selling the silicon.

This is in ore belt, energy buy price is set to 14, sell price is 630. jump range is 5. - works great with the normal system so far.

Maybe I have it setup incorrectly? Im kinda noob at the factory thing, made nearly all my cash with UTs. After spending hours trying to get this script to work, I kinda want to just buy more UTs

[jlehtone]

They should be simple "fire and forget", but I've never actually used them. Not for such basic task.

I've always resorted to the CAG (Commercial Agent), which by design is harder to start. If you had CAG, "Apprentice does not sell" would be the explanation. But with SM ... no idea.

[Pesanur]

In the german forum have a newer version of this script, only that is unsigned.

[jlehtone]

In the german forum have a newer version of this script, only that is unsigned.

Link, please.

[Pesanur]

In the german forum have a newer version of this script, only that is unsigned.

Link, please.

I'm sorry, but I've mistaked, isn't the Station Manager those that have a newer version, is the Dock Ware Manager.

Elsewhere if you are interested here the link

[Deeparth]

I'm unable to use this.
I am trying to use it on my XL SPP. I have two freighters i want to assign. I select Statioh Manager: Automate which works. Then, I try to add a ship but whenever i select a ship, the command slot becomes empty again and the script does not run.
The homebases of the 2 freighters do change to the SPP. What am I doing wrong?

[jlehtone]

IIRC, the script runs on the station more than on the ships. The script issues commands to the ships.

[Lexi565]

I,ve been using the stations manager for the first time and it seems to buy ecells fine but it wont sell the product wear in this case wheat, i,ve got two mercurys set to the station (in Harrons Neb Btw) one is prohibited from buying Ecells the other not, also i've placed Navsats in alot of systems that need wheat.
Ringo moon, Cloud base SW, the Wall, heart of light and power circle.

Also the price i've set is 30 for selling buying 14-16 depending
sorry if this is a really stupid question but its annoying me so any help would be nice thanks

Its still happening, any help would be very much apperciated really
its buying fine but wont sell at all

Lexi,
Lexi corp CEO


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