Auto-Trading - Can a dev explain the mechanics ?

[juju1111]

Hello,

I've been enjoying the game despite the bugs, however I'm really puzzled about auto-trading, since my 3 and 4 stars traders seems to either trade at a loss, or buy/sell at the same station for no profit, or often trade tiny quantities compared to cargo capacity.

Can a dev explain if the behavior is intended or if it requires a patch ?

Thank you

[rusky]

It'll definitely need a patch. No matter what experience the crew has or the situation of the market, trading at a loss should never happen.

At this point I can make good money from trading only by doing it manually. Which isn't terrible since the UI supports it now unlike X3, but I'd still like to eventually be able to set up a proper trading empire and that means I can't personally babysit each ship.

[marcello639]

All my traders make profit. But I set them in automatic behaviour page. Select wares by myself, not everything and maximum distance. And a lot of satellites around galaxy to keep stations updated

[Ramokthan]

Yeah i got the same... i currently have only one trader bc i cant afford more and/or want look if it is worth.

Current state: No, not worth.

It makes really tiny trades, at most 10k profit per 10 minute trade, 4 star pilot. mostly 2-3k profit per trade.

thats really shit...it even seems he never leaves his sector but hes is set to trade in galaxy and its jump range is at maximum (hes a 4 star pilot so he can do it).


but he never leaves the current sector

[ace_killer]

I wish mine would work, they just fly in circles in space when set to auto trade; given up trying to figure out why and just sending them on manual runs now... seems to be making me way more cash too!

[Scoob]

There seem to be very few profitable trades in the 10 or so sectors I've explored. My trade ship wasn't making much at all as an auto-trader. I now manually just queue up a few trades for him - Microchips and Spacefuel (if you want to risk it) give a solid return for me. Nothing else really comes close, though I've not explored thoroughly yet.

Also, be aware that trade data expires, I've just sent off three ships off to get updates from various sectors, as I've not a full Satellite network in place.

Scoob.

[AllGamer]

I'm glad I'm not the only one looking into this.

Yup, I got the same problems trying to make my NPC trade without going into a loss, also trying to make them trade in the neighbouring system, like going outside of the local system.

[rusky]

For now just do it yourself! You can queue up as many trades as you want (both the buy and sell, and then buy/sell again etc) as long as you have enough money in the bank (the money for all the buys gets reserved right away).

It's not too hard to set up an M trader with enough work for 1-2h in just a few minutes of queuing, and if you do it right you're looking at 50k - 100k+ profit per job.

[JDCollie]

I've found that limiting the traders to a very specific band of good helps a lot. Base them in a sector that has stations selling that good, and then make sure their range includes several buyers. It's a bit more work and requires more ships since each ship is only trading in a couple goods, but I've had very good returns on it so far.