[X3TC Bonus Plugin] Commercial Agent (CAG)

[DrBullwinkle]

Have you set the price for your silicon wafers lower than the price in Herron's Nebula?

[The Stereotypical Brit]

Yes, any freighter I set to buy the Silicon wafers for the best price conventionally make a bee-line for the mine. Only the Commercial agents ignore it. TSB

[TechnoFreakIsBack]

This is how I use them:
CAG pilots are good for selling products only!
Use CLS pilots for critical resource delivery!

I am refering to CAG Major Dealer / CLS Logistician pilots with a fully maxed and equiped transport ship. Example: Terran Hayabusa (my favourite).

CAG (Commercial Agent) - Salesman
+ upsides, things that work (Why use it?)
1. Can sell multiple products for best price.
2. Can use jumpdrive.
3. Can defend ship with (regular drones).
4. Can repair ship.
5. Will fill the ship to the max. cargo space with products and sell them for best price.

CAG (Commercial Agent) - Trader, Shopper
- downsides, problems (Why not?)
1. Does not buy the entire cargo space of resources. Not even when avaliable at a station. Not even when free space exceeds 20% of total cargo space. Not even if there is more than enough credits in station account. Not even if you set "Purchase station credit balance" to 5.000.000 and have 100.000.000 in station account.
2. Does wait for sun to shine and rain to fall while factories are getting out of resources all the time! Useless buggers

CLS (Commercial Logistician) - Resource Buying Agent
+ upsides, things that work (Why use it?)
1. Uses 100% of cargo space when buying and selling resources.
2. Constant, planned transport of resources to your station. You set the exchange terms and they do all the work.
3. Can buy multiple resources since it has pre-programmed flight plan.

Now for the interesting part ...

The most important settings are - All the settings. But let us say that not all are so critical or confusing as Trade duties

CAG (Commercial Agent) - Salesman: Trade duties
Trade duty: Salesman
Purchase resources: 0%
Sell products: 0%
Sell products freighter cargo bay: 100%
Purchase intermediate products: 0%
Sell intermediate products: 0%
Purchase stations credit balance: [does not matter in this case]

CAG (Commercial Agent) - Salesman: Ware lists
Use Blacklist or Tradelist to specify what products can be sold. Very important! They will sell resources as well, because they count as a product!

CAG (Commercial Agent) - Salesman: Jump Drive Settings
Use Jumpdrive: Yes
Jumpdrive energy: 1.500 (Enough for 160 jumps. You will see soon why so much)
Minimum jump range: 0 (Always use jumpdrive)

In regards to jumping there is another setting that limits the range of your trader pilots. Station Advanced parameters:
Maximum jumps: 50 (all the way to the maximum value - all sectors within 50 jumps are considered a potential customer).
The ship has to have energy for at least 100 jumps to support the longest jump from the home station.

Please note that every ship has Advanced Jumpdrive Configuration. It is used to buy a minimum amount of Energy cells everytime a ship docks to a station. Set it to maximum 160 jumps. Use jumpdrive: yes. Minimum jump range: 0.

I did not go into CLS because there is not much to explain. Set the waypoints, buy max cargo, sell max cargo. That is it.

Hope this helps and have fun!

[The Stereotypical Brit]

Thanks for your advice!!! I haven't been playing TC until rather recently due to a CPU that refused to over-clock!!! However I am back on playing now, and have tried what you suggested.

I have to say that I didn't really find using the CLS MK1 very easy like you did but I have finally managed it.

It does indeed work rather well at it's job, however I have hit upon a problem. I have fully equipped the CLS pilots like you suggested,
and generally they have no problems however after losing a few recently (another downside, they take ages to set up), I monitored a few via their info pages. I was angry at learning that they would often jump to the sector where they had their next stop, and fly to that station as usual. But then if they came under attack, they would just simply chug off to the nearest station, rather than jump out!!! I have suffered numerous losses in my SDN quick-response carriers due to the stupidity of these pilots!!!

So for the most part I have gone back to using CAG software as it is quite reliable, and if they do get destroyed, it takes me less than 2 mins to set one up again.

Regards TSB

[Malaras]

It goes to destination then idles, and its not home place either. just started doing this not to long ago. not sure what happened. I reset cag but no go.

Not sure what other info you need or what not..
really lacking sleep atm. lol.

Thanks for your time,


{[url=http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=216696][b]T[/b][b]C[/b] [b]S[/b]&M Posting [b]R[/b]ules[/url] Rule #1. jlehtone}

[Timsup2nothin]

I don't use CAG much but I use CLS a LOT....when this happens with a CLS I find that most times it is because the CLS pilot is better informed than I am.

Look for a Kha'ak cluster way out in the sector or some other hostile. Might be in the sector where he is idled or might be in the destination sector he wants to go to.

[Malaras]

[ external image ]

If this helps, There is pirates in sector but it didn't bother them before? They been there pretty much entire time.

[Timsup2nothin]

[ external image ]

If this helps, There is pirates in sector but it didn't bother them before? They been there pretty much entire time.

Possibility...your pilot just reached the level of qualification where he started listening to his radio. Before he reached that level he was just happily blundering along right past the pirates.

[Malaras]

[ external image ]

If this helps, There is pirates in sector but it didn't bother them before? They been there pretty much entire time.

Possibility...your pilot just reached the level of qualification where he started listening to his radio. Before he reached that level he was just happily blundering along right past the pirates.

Ahh, yes. I remember reading that about radio talk last or 2nd to last rank i think.. Prolly what it is then, guess need to start building a fleet.

Thanks,

[SirDeity]

I just tried using CAG for the first time (sadly...), and am having a few difficulties. First off, I managed to get my fleet of 10 TS ships setup with CAG to collect ore for my Xenon Hub plot, but none of them seem to be using their jump drives! I don't have any idea why they insist of flying the long way from jump gate to jump gate. They have plenty of energy cells with jump drives and the CAG settings appear to be correct.

Please see the following images and tell me what I'm missing here, because at this rate it'd be faster for me to manually control every ship in my fleet, otherwise I'll never finish this darn tedious plot.

CAG Settings 1
CAG Settings 2
CAG Settings 3
CAG Settings 4
CAG Settings 5
CAG Settings 6
Ship Extensions

I created links to the images so my post wouldn't take up too much space. Let me know if you need them in a different format. Thanks!

[X2-Illuminatus]

Not in another format, but in a different forum.


**Moved to X3TC/AP Scripts and Modding Forum**


According to your first screenshot your CAG is still Apprentice. He won't use the jumpdrive before he becomes Trader. See the Pilot qualifications section of the manual / first post of this thread for reference.

[SirDeity]

I watched the CAGs tutorial on youtube here which says apprentice traders are limited to 4 jumps. I interpreted this to mean they could use jump drive but only up to 4 systems away.

Thanks for the clarification. This makes much more sense now.

[RayF]

hello there,

I have posted in a thread a question about the CAG script. Iam just transferring the question here , that is more appropriate.

Please keep in mind that i am not criticizing anyone! I am just trying to understand the logic behind the sliders because in my mind they dont work as i understand them.

Copy paste follows from original post:

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Now, CAG script does NOT WORK as advertised..here is what i have and please let me know if I did anything wrong:

1) my teladianium complex is under-producing energy cells just be 2,000-3,300 per cycle.
2) Assigned a CAG to buy some EC (in the future he will sell other intermediates. ) energy Cells are Intermediate products.
3) Trader level is FA.
4) Trader duty is : Trader
5) I have the following settings:
-----> Purchase intermediate products : 5%
-----> Sell intermediate products : 80% (which based on manual it means: sell if level is more than 80% !)

so, my Ecells are almost down to 2%-3% and this stupid guy goes and sells ecells! he does this repetitively..


Did i do something wrong? or is it just bugged?

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


So, the way i understand this is this ::
Purchase intermediate products ONLY IF intermediate product is BELLOW 5%
Sell intermediate products ONLY IF intermediate product stock is MORE THAN 80%

obviously, iam wrong:)
can someone explain how they work?

[Vayde]

I believe it's Buy/purchase up to %
And Sell down to %

So switching your settings could fix it.

I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, in the mean time, give it a shot. What have you got to lose.

[RayF]

really? i got that from the manual ...hmmm..

is the creator around these forums?

[X2-Illuminatus]

Not anymore. However, I checked the German description of the CAG on the creator's own website (here) and it says the same as the description / manual in this topic. This may point to a bug in the CAG version of the BP.

[RayF]

checked the screenshot, and its not the same as mine..i may be using older version of the script.

How do i update to latest? can someone give me a link for english version...? how can i check my version????

so far i have confirmed that the sell intermediates product % is not used..even if i put 100% he sells !

[X2-Illuminatus]

Yes, the BP version of the CAG is older than the unsigned one. To update to the latest version 3.4.04, download the script and the necessary libraries (the first two links in the "Handelsvertreter - Das Herunterladen" section on this site). Extract both archives afterwards to your X3 Terran Conflict directory or in case you're playing X3: Albion Prelude to the "addon"-directory. English text files are included in that download. Note though, that this version isn't signed and will therefore mark your savegame as *modified*.

[Smellfire]

Can anyone tell me how to get CAG and CLS working again in a vanilla game please?

I have played modified for a few years now, but want to start a new game and do the steam achievements for a different perspective.

When I start I get the message that I have to use 3.4.09 to use CLS and dont get the options for CLS/CAG on my freighters.

I have been using the plugin manager and have reverted to vanilla through that.

Any help appreciated, its a chore without CLS/CAG.

[NewtSoup]

You need the bonus pack installed. This won't give you the **modified** tag so you're still vanilla because you're using egosoft approved mods.

*edit* Sorry..didn't read the whole post. Thought you had a new installation. I'm not sure what to do in your case.