autominer and autotrader range too low

[Chris0132]

If you wanted to increase the range it might be more interesting to add a new module type like the Rebirth comm dish, which runs on ecells and adds jump range for subordinates and sensor range to the station for each one you build.

That'd actually be a fair solution. It's the limit to Station-assigned ships that hurts the most. You go to all that trouble of setting up a station - a huge investment in time and credits - only you have it totally crippled in regards to its own freighter fleet.

Scoob.

The problem with this is the inability to restrict station traders to sell/buy/specific wares.
They will just go around with some ecells and fill up their own cargo sooner or later..

You can sort of do this by restricting faction trade for ecells but yes better filters for traders would be welcome.

[pref]

You can sort of do this by restricting faction trade for ecells but yes better filters for traders would be welcome.

Dedicating certain ships(s) to certain wares and sell/buy role is not even close to restricting trades.

[Berserk Knight]

You can sort of do this by restricting faction trade for ecells but yes better filters for traders would be welcome.

Dedicating certain ships(s) to certain wares and sell/buy role is not even close to restricting trades.

We're stuck with mods for changing the station miner/trader warebaskets, and I don't see it changing. Ever.
Last time I posted about it in Tech Support, they moved the post out to X4 general. (Despite the fact that it was concerning a legitimate problem caused by the dumb AI and the utter lack of control over station miners.)

...Then I got this work of art as a response.

If you want control over these miners, why assign them to the station in the first place?

Why anyone would think someone would NOT want any control over THEIR OWN SHIPS is beyond me.

[pref]

Why anyone would think someone would NOT want any control over THEIR OWN SHIPS is beyond me.

I saw that thread, was surprised to say the least.
My guess is ES leaves the unimportant details to modders, and when a mod is listed in every game guide as a must have they generously include it in the base game.
Which is a bit faulty imo, if i got to know X3 in an unmodded state (without bonus pack) i would have never grown to like the series this much.

[adeine]

Dedicating certain ships(s) to certain wares and sell/buy role is not even close to restricting trades.

I think there's actually a hacky way to sort of do this right now because traders fail to update their parameters after being initially assigned.

So if you assign them and then add additional products to the factory, they won't trade in them. Likewise if level ups increase the range it won't update until you unassign and reassign the ships. It's pretty broken.

[kukabah]

Dedicating certain ships(s) to certain wares and sell/buy role is not even close to restricting trades.

I think there's actually a hacky way to sort of do this right now because traders fail to update their parameters after being initially assigned.

So if you assign them and then add additional products to the factory, they won't trade in them. Likewise if level ups increase the range it won't update until you unassign and reassign the ships. It's pretty broken.

What lvl-ups?I got over 200 hours in game,and most traders did not gain even a single star in piloting after autotrading all this time..... .Got like 8 manual traders,which made over 100 trades each and they still sitting on 2 stars.... .

[adeine]

What lvl-ups?I got over 200 hours in game,and most traders did not gain even a single star in piloting after autotrading all this time..... .Got like 8 manual traders,which made over 100 trades each and they still sitting on 2 stars.... .

In my experience, manual traders never level up. Auto traders very, very slowly level up although this is not particularly reliable and some never will. Being in combat situations (attack/flee/repair ship) seems to help. Miners are a little more reliable in levelling up.

Station managers on the other hand are very reliable, you can stick a 0 star manager in and within a couple hours they will have 2/3 stars and continue to go up from there.

[Chris0132]

You can sort of do this by restricting faction trade for ecells but yes better filters for traders would be welcome.

Dedicating certain ships(s) to certain wares and sell/buy role is not even close to restricting trades.

I mean for the problem wares, I find it helpful to turn off ecell trading and just stick a solar panel on all my space stations, for example. But yes, as I said, the ability to fine tune station traders would be appreciated.

We're stuck with mods for changing the station miner/trader warebaskets, and I don't see it changing. Ever.

Ship commands have changed quite a bit in the past few months? Seems a bit weird to say that it's never going to change when they've changed quite a lot?

[Scoob]

I do hope ES look into this again, as the current implementation is pretty rubbish. These artificial distance restrictions took things too far - I'm all for there being benefits to experienced crews (Captains mainly of course) but these ridiculous nerfs are NOT the way to go. Make high-level Captains smarter, respond more quickly, find better trades, avoid danger more intelligently etc. Even if there was an artificial "thinking time" between actions such as finding the next trade, plotting the route, asking for docking perms etc. I'd be good with that. Restricting distances to such an extreme though...no.

I must admit, it's rare that a change really annoys me but these artificial distance restrictions have. This really has become a game-breaker for me, as I simply cannot play as I wish - how I was playing just fine in 1.6 and before - any more. My stations CANNOT automate selling their products effectively any more. NPC's alone don't stand a chance at keeping the economy alive - it's stalling massively in my game and only my actions are keeping it semi-running.

The kicker is that my actions are all bloody MANUAL ones, ordering trade after trade after trade just to keep things barely ticking along. Sure, I'm making good credits doing this but I don't want this to be the game.

Rather than building giant megaplex stations - which is fun - am I really now expected to build several smaller stations just to get decent product saturation? I'm not doing that.

They've removed a huge chunk of the "Think" from this game by nerfing late-game / advanced features in the form of "Universal Traders" (to use the old name, that no longer applies) or allowing our stations to sell to the entire Universe. Am I really expected to have several hundred million credits worth of Stations and Ships and have to order them around manually because they cannot fly more than five sectors? Hell, my best pilots can only do four sectors currently with most stuck at three or under. Total game breaker.

Final point: Mods have always greatly enhanced X game, that's a given. Requiring them as a crutch just so the game can function though, well, that's not good. They were required when the turrets were broken, and thankfully they're now fixed. They're required now to fix this ridiculous range limit, and I hope that's fixed one day too.

#IncreaseTheSectorLimit

Scoob.

[Angsaar]

Seems low indeed, but if the auto AI's are similar between player and NPC factions as not to give us an unfair advantage, it's very likely having long ranges would lead to too many ships choosing the same spot in a region to trade leading to overcrowding and shortages of what traders bought/excess of what traders sold there, while leaving surrounding sectors unable to restock/drain overstock. If the overall economy stays healthier with 5ish sectors it might be for the best. edit: while better resilience measures aren't taken, that is.

[Horux]

Seems low indeed, but if the auto AI's are similar between player and NPC factions as not to give us an unfair advantage, it's very likely having long ranges would lead to too many ships choosing the same spot in a region to trade leading to overcrowding and shortages of what traders bought/excess of what traders sold there, while leaving surrounding sectors unable to restock/drain overstock. If the overall economy stays healthier with 5ish sectors it might be for the best. edit: while better resilience measures aren't taken, that is.

Since all trades are made before the trader starts its engine, this is highly unlikely. So even if for reasons unknown all traders would want to trade in one region, there will be not enough trading offers.
So fisrt trader gets best offer in this region, the next trader with same basket, will get probably a better trade offer in an other region.

[duncan idaho]

This change has completely ruined my enjoyment of X4 unfortunately. What was wrong with the way it was before? Do the devs not want us to use automation? Having some sort of blog post outlining the devs vision for automation in this game would be really nice as making broad sweeping changes that completely alter the gameplay 4 months after launch is unacceptable without decent communication with the community.