Do Managers...

[toepick]

Know what is going on at the different stations.. or do you have to run to each one to 'capture' the sells/buys so they know who to sell/buy to..

I have three energy freighters with full cargo and not selling it to anyone..so I was wondering if I have to run through the galaxy my plant is in.. for the so called 'manager' to know who to send the ships to lol

[GCU Grey Area]

Don't think you need to run around checking prices for managers to be able to buy/sell stuff to NPC stations. At least I haven't been doing that & my managers seem to be trading without ever needing my assistance. At present, looking at my map, a couple of my managers have decided to send their energy transports to Radiation Belt. Haven't been there for days personally & have no data on my trade screen about their current energy cell prices or stock levels. My managers though seem to think it's a good place to buy them.

As for your specific issue with the energy freighters, where are they working? If it's De Vries could be you've flooded the market. Not many NPC stations in the system to sell to & several NPC energy stations in competition.

[YorrickVander]

NPC traders definitely do not rely on player known trades to operate. That said managers are pretty buggy entities One of the reoccurring issues is the inability for players to change stock prices from their own stations - traders want to buy low sell high + stations want to sell high and buy low. Both logical premises taken individually, but both together with no ai or player interaction to balance the combination and trade comes to a crashing halt

The second possible issue ties in with what GCU said - local demand (ie in cluster) may just be saturated and npc traders will not use jump gates to find other markets.

[Dreez]

My experience of Managers is somewhat divided..

For example. I gave my Floating Meadows a Hermod(Water freighter) to buy water from my H20-fac, but instead it is buying wheat... for a factory that produces wheat - and yes - i have set my Manager to shop in DeVries.

[toepick]

They def have a mind of their own it seems..

I also do not like the buy low sell high issue. Seems like all energy is priced at 4 credits. buying or selling.. so really no profit. When they do find a place to sell it.. instead of making a big sell.. it always seems like its a fraction of what amount they could sell.

For example station x wants 5,000 E-Cells and my freighter has 20,000: instead of selling it 5,000 it only sells 200.

Same with buy request on my CV; say it needs 2,500 Reinforced Metals.. a ship will come by with 5,000 and only sell 300 to my CV. So it takes a dozen ships (all with enough to fill order in one shipment) just to fill one requirement.

Yorrick you must have some kind of patients for peeking under the hood of the trade system in this game.. it must be a mess lol

[Aragosnat]

They def have a mind of their own it seems..

I also do not like the buy low sell high issue. Seems like all energy is priced at 4 credits. buying or selling.. so really no profit. When they do find a place to sell it.. instead of making a big sell.. it always seems like its a fraction of what amount they could sell.

For example station x wants 5,000 E-Cells and my freighter has 20,000: instead of selling it 5,000 it only sells 200.

Same with buy request on my CV; say it needs 2,500 Reinforced Metals.. a ship will come by with 5,000 and only sell 300 to my CV. So it takes a dozen ships (all with enough to fill order in one shipment) just to fill one requirement.

Yorrick you must have some kind of patients for peeking under the hood of the trade system in this game.. it must be a mess lol

There is a simple reason for your CV. It has to many wares in its hold. Which in turn leaves little room for other wares. On my CV I had a problem of having to many E-cells, sure 100000 is nice to have. But, it did not leave enough space for the rest of the wares it needed to start building. I'm guessing you're having the same problem too.

[toepick]

There is a simple reason for your CV. It has to many wares in its hold. Which in turn leaves little room for other wares. On my CV I had a problem of having to many E-cells, sure 100000 is nice to have. But, it did not leave enough space for the rest of the wares it needed to start building. I'm guessing you're having the same problem too.

I don't put anything in to my CV's, I let the architect manage that; so it is empty after each phase. So if it needs 2,400 of X it should buy 2,400 of X if it can.. not 200 of X from 12 different sources.

I think how it works tho is that random freighter see a buy request of 2,400 X and 'decides' to sell some, usually a small amount even if he has a lot. The 'decision' is made at the sellers level, not the buyer (aka the architect). I have yet to see an architect (regardless of skill) actively participate in supplying the CV despite giving it several freighters. They just sit there and do nothing.

[Aragosnat]

There is a simple reason for your CV. It has to many wares in its hold. Which in turn leaves little room for other wares. On my CV I had a problem of having to many E-cells, sure 100000 is nice to have. But, it did not leave enough space for the rest of the wares it needed to start building. I'm guessing you're having the same problem too.

I don't put anything in to my CV's, I let the architect manage that; so it is empty after each phase. So if it needs 2,400 of X it should buy 2,400 of X if it can.. not 200 of X from 12 different sources.

I think how it works tho is that random freighter see a buy request of 2,400 X and 'decides' to sell some, usually a small amount even if he has a lot. The 'decision' is made at the sellers level, not the buyer (aka the architect). I have yet to see an architect (regardless of skill) actively participate in supplying the CV despite giving it several freighters. They just sit there and do nothing.

Ah... That makes more sense now. Yeah. It is a bit odd that the they offer only x amount. But, if I am right. The reason why they sell for that dink amount is. You know the ware shortages and surplus ware missions. It is most likely the Architect is looking for the best deals and the surplus ones might be the best ones so they go after those first.

But, yeah would be nice if they would buy all they need at once if the place can give them what they need.

[Snafu_X3]

It is most likely the Architect is looking for the best deals and the surplus ones might be the best ones so they go after those first.

I'd suspect that the architect's skill lvl has something to do with that.

As a complete guess I'd say that "management" is the lvl you want to concentrate on for efficient ware buying; "engineeering" dictates how quickly the station comes together, an "Administration".. maybe swap out with management? Idk.. I can't think what else those two may be used for, unless the architect turms into a manager once the station is built (not got that far yet..)

[Berserk Knight]

The architect only sets up buy orders. The NPC traders are the culprit behind either not supplying the CV or supplying it in those ridiculously small amounts.

[Len5]

I think managers don't care about making you money.

In DeVries there's a demand for food rations and my food fab's storage is full with that stuff. Do you think my manager's selling it? No, he only buys resources.
I gave him 10M credits and he lost 5M in 1 or 2 hours. I have to sell the food myself and write down how much it made me and add that to the manager's account to be able to see how much the fab is making, but it's still losing money.
This goes for all my stations.

Another thing is that I tried to supply it with spices and the ship trading with the station lost the amount of spices from its cargo, but they weren't added to the station.
The trade order changed from "selling X to Y" to "buying Z from nilnilnil.

[Aragosnat]

Just realized something. Last night when I was watching my station build. I noticed that the levels of wares slowly going down with each new look to the station. It could be possable that they are buying only enough to get y% built. Hence the many small trades and no buy all that we will need to complete it.