Something weird is going on, and we noticed it! or did we?

[Mr.Killer]

In my unearthed knowledge about this X3 FL game, I stumbled upon some things that I find unfair and weird.
In any station where upgrades can be made to your ships, cargo bay extension, engine tuning and rudder optimization, they cost us money, understandable, but why when we claim our own station, or buy an equipmentdock or better, we still have to pay for those upgrades
That is unfair, we do not know where this money goes to, and it seems illogical for the makers to evaporate money into thin air if there can be done some good with it.
Is nobody aware of this?
Another thing, and I had this also asked Cycrow, I have this solarstationXL with providing crystals, so it is generating a lot energy cells, and I have three ships assigned to the station manager, Once on a mission building some station for some guy, I waited specifically and watched my saldo. There was the expected ship full with energycells, docked at the new station, unloaded the cells, then I checked my saldo again.... no change?
If I would manually sell my cells to a station, I get paid, why not through station manger???
If I would not know any better, this is an error....

Now I do not accept an answer that points to nowhere, there has to be a damn good reason for those errors, and I hate to see that the effort I put in to bake energy cells go to waiste by a stationmanager who should be manage instead of giving it away. Damn programmers.....

[Cycrow]

For the Upgrades, having them on your own stations doesn't mean they can be applied for free.
The money goes on the materials/manpower needed to create and install them.

for the station manager, you said unloading, is this at one of your own stations ?
as money does not get transferred if you are trading between your own stations. You only get paid if the goods are sold to NPC stations.

if it is selling to NPC stations, then check the cargo has actually gone, if the price changes, they might not sell the wares at all. You can also check the trade and transaction reports

[Mr.Killer]

Thanks for answer 1, hard to regognize though, but answer = acceptable.

Number two, I watched a station I just build for a company/person as an order(build mission) but this station was empty, as I waited long enough to see one of my cargo ships filled to the brim with energycells, and the station empty, as it began the docking move, I double checked my money, and I saw the station cargo go from empty to full (I was absolutely sure this was my ship alone and the ship I travel in, no other was near) and then I looked again at my money and nothing was added.

I did it after another stationbuild mission and had an cargovessel filled with energycells standing by now, let it dock, did the same check (because my money was not that much, I could easily tell the difference) and this time money was paid to my account.

So, there is a problem, I ask you just to do the same action to see if this is only me, or everywhere.

[iXenon]

... and this time money was paid to my account.

Did you check in both cases the both your and the station account? I did that mistake once, was thinking that ship drops cargo for nothing but then realized that money had come to the station account, not to the player one. If I'm not mistaken if UT sells goods then you'd receive funds on your account, but if SM does same then they would come to the station account.

[N8M4R3]

... If I'm not mistaken if UT sells goods then you'd receive funds on your account ...

Only In the case you haven't assigned a home base to the UT. When a home base is assigned, the credits are transfered via station account.

[Mr.Killer]

Then there is something not working at the station. I set specifically the auto transfer of money, all above 20.000 credits to my account (ship) and I checked, it had 16 million in account, so I rechecked it, did it twice (why?) and set it this time to 19 million, that worked right away, but when I set it back at 20.000 it stayed at 19 million.
So, I can't tell if the selling of stuff gets there, because a lot of ships come buy energycells and I assumed that having 20.000 in pocket, ore and other things could be payed, and all above ends up right in my account. It should work, even on the other end of the galaxy. It should work like it is supposed to do, when a cargoship sells e-cells, it should be visible in my account, directly....

I suppose I did something wrong, as usual...

[Mr.Killer]

Anyone seeing what I noticed?

Am I reading this alright? If station manager transfers from min to max, it leaves on the station minimum the given amount, all above it should directly be tranferred? or am I interpreting this completely in the wrong direction?
I always thought that the max setting was not needed, and it should not be, it is illogical if you look at it... Every amount that flows in the station under a setting of lets say min:200k, stays in the station to buy stuff from traders.
Everything between min:200k and max:2.000.000k stays there too? and only if it reaches above this max limit, then it would be transfered????? That is totally BS and illogical.

So, that is something I think is a useless setting. If I want all above min:200k to go directly to my account, then I have to set the max:201k ?????? Totally illogical.

I hear you respond that it is not, and that the money stays until max is reached. Then why is standard min=0 and max=2000000k ??? Never ever you gonna reach that amount from start, so why is that option there? (It should be disabled by default)

[Cycrow]

min is the minimum to hold in your stations account, max is the maximum to hold. So your stations account will always be between the min and max values

so money is transferred out of your account if it goes over the maximum

[Mr.Killer]

Thanks for elaborating this. I eventually got the idea. But, as illogical it seems, the max setting should be disabled by default, as many settings are in game...

(Better would be if MIN setting is the amount the stations keep to deal with and all above it directly transfer to ship... This way, the 10 options a station can use (station manager, station restrictions etc....) make another option that can let the player know that there is not enough money in the station for handling. This way the player can act upon this and change the MIN setting as asked)

but this is just an idea.....

[Cycrow]

Using "min" to mean maximum makes no sense at all.

[Mr.Killer]

Using "min" to mean maximum makes no sense at all.

Does it now? Seeing the confusing the current programming does, is telling the designers to look at it another way. If in some cases the max setting is not even there (can't tell now precisely where that occurs) tells me that giving a station at forehand the 2 million K setting as maximum, is way too big. That should be very close to zero, because it is telling me that the max setting is allowed to flow in the station, and not what you say the start moment of heaving money above the 2 million K to my ship's account...
How often do you think this happens? Did noone at Egosoft thought of that, but this setting is wrong, and I hope Egosoft thinks about it when an update is coming....
More logical would be:
Amount to hold: a number of money.... (to make purchases from other factions who want to sell stuff)
Tippingpoint: from this number, money gets automatically transferred to players ship.

So, this means adding a line to the stations that give a clear picture.


Another stupid idea that I have, every ship traveling in a straight line is the fastest, but when a very large station (Argon shipyard) is in that path, ships keep hitting it, even get destroyed, even making the Argon not happy and can be provoked by, RIGHT! Programming a game..... It is taking huge stupid maneuvers, taking a very long time to travel from a to b and in a trade run, this happens constantly.
So this ship travels like 50 Km from station a to station b, but in the end with all the weird movements it is making, the distance comes closer to twice the normal kilometers.

For this I do have an option, if Egosoft is willing to inerpret this, waypoints! Simple beacons around big stations that ships learn to use so we do not have to tell every ship the same story....

I hope this last option will become a part of the game.