Sector and Universe Trader Guide - Contains Minor Spoilers UPDATED 22nd October 2007

[WillWilk]

Yes, STs won't move from the sector their assigned to trade in.

Will

[pjknibbs]

My other problem is Split rep. I have a heck of a time finding things to kill in there, and I'm not going to donate cash either. How is this a problem? I wants me an Elephant.

Slightly offtopic, but you could look for assassination missions which are either offered by the Split or which have a Split as target, or take a Xenon Taxi mission. The assassination will provide a big rank boost, and the taxi mission provides a whole bunch of Xenon for you to shoot up in the current sector--both would help your rank problem.

[lplates007]

I have just restarted playing, I installed from disc, installed the new patch, and installed the bonus pack and reloaded an old save.

None of my UT's show their destination they only show location 'space'.
I seem to recall that this was not the case, has something changed or is this now normal?

[WillWilk]

It's normal - that's what my UTs show. My commercial agents show their destination though - it would be nice if the UTs did as well.

Will

[jlehtone]

UTs and HQ have been a hot topic lately. An example of case where the player either wants or most likely does not want the UT to trade with his own station. It could be nice if you can add details about that into otherwise good guide.

[WillWilk]

I've never had a problem with it but then my HQ only holds resources needed for ship production and I've got a CA keeping it topped up. I'll add a short paragraph into the tips and tricks section of the guide soon though.

I'd guess that most of the HQ and UT issues come where the HQ's being used to store weapons & shields - it's easy for it to fill up with these and they'll quickly consume all the cash in the station. I have a trading station in the same sector specifically to hold these which gets round the problem nicely.

Will

[plw]

Many thanks, I will check again and confirm that the shields are installed rather than just freight!!

[Lazerous]

This whole jumpdrive and fuel delivery thing has got me a bit confused....

At level 12....I'll get a jumpdrive delivered to the ship that is UT?....how is this done? is one of my other ships sort of taken over and forced to go to get a jumpdrive then forced to go trade with my UT? or by delivered do you mean it just...'appears' on your UT and you get charged for it? Same with energy cells, how does that work?

Also the issue mentioned in the guide, about traders running small quantities to trading stations and EQ docks.....how big an issue is that or can that be? Any ways around it apart from restarting the trader when you notice it?

How much personal attention do MK3 traders need?
A guide on these forums about trading mentioned that one can make a lot more money manual trading than using MK3....is that really so? or is it more of a matter of opinion?

Before this guide, I had next to no idea how to begin using MK3 and now I do, thx for the easy to read and follow guide.

[Modeler]

guys i don't know what to do my UTs r kind of stupid
i had 30 split caimans super freighters
and after about 2 hours i had only 6 of them left
some of them went streight into xenon sector
but most of them were stoping for the fight and not runing
is there a way to fix that stupidity of theirs?

[jlehtone]

A guide on these forums about trading mentioned that one can make a lot more money manual trading than using MK3....is that really so? or is it more of a matter of opinion?

I'm quite sure that if you can keep 30 manual traders constantly running, you make more credits than with 30 UT.

Classic example: A full GPPC forge. 8 GPPC at rock bottom price. UT can buy only two, because nobody buys more. Manually, you can buy all eight, and sell all of them for maximum profit. Sure, it will take a while for the forge to refill, but if the UT buyed only two, it or NPC may buy some, before it is back full. They would buy at higher price.

If you can keep all the traders running ...

[Geggo]

Or someone might try CAG's attached to HQ, automated buying, manual selling to Terracorp HQ, should make universe nice clean and running at 100% efficiency. (leaving the non end products for UT's)

that is untested ofcourse but it's about time someone actually tried it and made a thread out of it

and since CAG's have all kinds of limiters for safety they should not run in Xenon sectors. (again untested) and with the max fuel they can jump anywhere and back without refueling. (20% of cargo space, ~2000 on caiman SF)

only problem is that for that to be effective they need to be almost top level, which means they need to be trained first which takes some time, though by planning and using other assets for training it's doable.

[WillWilk]

This whole jumpdrive and fuel delivery thing has got me a bit confused....

At level 12....I'll get a jumpdrive delivered to the ship that is UT?....how is this done? is one of my other ships sort of taken over and forced to go to get a jumpdrive then forced to go trade with my UT? or by delivered do you mean it just...'appears' on your UT and you get charged for it? Same with energy cells, how does that work?

AFAIK an AI ship is created to deliver the necessary Jumpdrive/e-cells, this caused a problem with the e-cell delivery in earlier versions (pre 1.4) where larger freighters would request more e-cells than would fit in the delivery ship (they try to have a set percentage of their cargo capacity delivered) so I believe that e-cell delivery is now limited to around 500.

Also the issue mentioned in the guide, about traders running small quantities to trading stations and EQ docks.....how big an issue is that or can that be? Any ways around it apart from restarting the trader when you notice it?

It's not too big an issue - just keep an eye on what your traders are carrying and restart them when necessary. I either wait for them to sell the small quantity of whatever they are carrying or just dump the goods if they're low value and re-issue the UT command.

How much personal attention do MK3 traders need?
A guide on these forums about trading mentioned that one can make a lot more money manual trading than using MK3....is that really so? or is it more of a matter of opinion?

Before this guide, I had next to no idea how to begin using MK3 and now I do, thx for the easy to read and follow guide.

They don't need a lot of attention - I monitor them when flying around to make sure they're not stuck in a loop and always check up on any that report attacks.

MORTS can make more profits but require much more effort to manage - I'd hate to manually manage a fleet of 20-30 manual traders, there are far better things to do with my time.

guys i don't know what to do my UTs r kind of stupid
i had 30 split caimans super freighters
and after about 2 hours i had only 6 of them left
some of them went streight into xenon sector
but most of them were stoping for the fight and not runing
is there a way to fix that stupidity of theirs?

I've not personally had problems with UTs flying into Xenon sectors, but as I understand it, this happens if they are mid trade, get attacked, jump to the other side of a Xenon sector and then try to manually fly to their destination. I thought it had been fixed by a patch though - you are running 2.0.02? I usually restart the UT command if a trader's attacked when on a buying run anyway to prevent it making a long flight rather than jumping. It can also be worth manually selling the cargo if the UT was selling when attacked for the same reason.

They won't stop to fight - I suspect that what's happening is that they're being attacked by opponents that can finish them off before they can jump to safety - often a problem with TSs that mount less than 5*25MJ shields and even TSs with 5*25MJ can be killed by Xenon patrols (a P with fighter support) before they can jump to safety.

Will

[Lazerous]

Thx for the reply.

Been trying out UTs for a few days now and they're pretty cool. I leave the game running on SETA x 10 overnight and I've made heaps of money.

However I am finding that I lose nearly all my UTs except for 2 every night. And the frustrating thing is, that it's not that they went into Xenon sectors or into pirate ones....they just died in some normal sector, for example I had 3 UTs die in Oceans of Fantasy last night And it's not like my game's bugged and they're not escaping, I see in my message log that 2 out of the 8 did escape at some point then just died at some later point.

Any tips on how to get em to be smarter or to live longer? Like any scripts or some setting to make em escape better or increase their chances of survival?

[WillWilk]

Oceans of Fantasy is a sector where Xenon Patrols are VERY common - the patrols run between Xenon sectors and this sector's between 4 Xenon ones, 534, 597, 598 and 472. Most of my UT losses occured in this NE quadrant of the map until I deployed serious OOS defences in Getsu Fune, Menelaus Paradise, Thyns Abyss and Zrts Dominion (3 Hyperions and a Python as OOS defenders, still building more Hyperions).

It also seems more likely that UTs will die if you're in SETA at the time - I never run SETA except when travelling (IMO overnight SETA's cheating, but then it's a single player game and there's nothing to stop you doing it if you want - it does seem a bit of a waste of the game though).

If you're going to run SETA unattended then plenty of OOS defence fleets should help. Concentrate on sectors adjacent to Xenon sectors, then Pirate sectors and finally Teladi sectors with shipyards (pirates will spawn from Teladi shipyards).

Will

[Lazerous]

(pirates will spawn from Teladi shipyards).

Will

@$%@%$!!!! that's just ...insanely stupid of them

Hmmm thx for the suggestions. OOS defence...is that just some ships in a sector set to sector defense or something?

[WillWilk]

Pretty much so. You'll want at least an Elephant + 2 M6s as wingmen (and preferably more - e.g. a Hyperion or M2 + 2 Centaurs or better) for the sectors adjacent to Xenon space. I set these ones to "Patrol Single Sector" and set patrol points close to the gate into the Xenon sector to ensure that the Xenon patrols don't escape them. For Pirate sectors I use an Elephant with 2 Centaurs (you can get away with just the Elephant for this) set to "Patrol Multiple Sectors" to cover a 3 sector patrol route. I'm not bothering with Teladi sector patrols at the moment - but then I don't leave the system unattended so can respond to attacks myself.

Will

[Lazerous]

As you can probably tell I'm still learning stuff about the game....but isn't an Elephant just a big transport ship? If so, why would you use it for sector defense? Is a hyperion the M7?

Thx for all your help this far.

[Geggo]

As you can probably tell I'm still learning stuff about the game....but isn't an Elephant just a big transport ship? If so, why would you use it for sector defense? Is a hyperion the M7?

Thx for all your help this far.

Well your right, elephant is a transport, but it also is the fastest transport (TL class that is) and it can mount capital ship weapons (BPPC). and ofcourse it only costs 2.5x that of a M6 corvette.

That whole thing boils to the fact that fights that happen in sectors where your not present (OOS, out of sector) are number games, biggest guns and shields matter, not speed, mobility and such. (and since you can only be in one sector at a time the rest are dealt this way)

M7 is Hyperion. which now has taken the elephants place as best suited ship for patrolling. (though limited by numbers as you have to build every single one your self.....)

[crazymanatuca]

I have a level 10 ST pilot, but when I try to make him a UT, the option is grayed out. Am I missing something?

[Lancefighter]

25MJ of shields?
fight 1&2?

those of the top of my head - check the first post for a step by step...