"Restrict trades with other factions" don't think its working

[Browser_ice]

Hi, first my understanding of the option "Restrict trades with other factions" means my own stations will not trade with anybody else other then whatever I own (stations, traders, ...). Am I right?

I noticed that often, even if I set this option at the ware level (Logical View) or at the manager level, I see ships (mine and NPCs) doing trades anyway.
- NPC ships coming to my station and doing trades
- my own station trader ship selling its wares to NPC stations

So is this option working and what is it supposed to do?

[added comment]
Found a description of this option in the Egosoft Wiki:
https://www.egosoft.com:8444/confluence ... tion+trade

Apparently, you need to work with both restrict options (manager level and ware level) to have the behavior you want.
http://pasteall.org/pic/show.php?id=852 ... 6abd4db851



{Images posted directly to the forums should not be greater than 640x480 or 100kb, oversize image now linked - Terre}

[Browser_ice]

I checked all my stations, except for my warehouse, they all have both options set to YES.

So I still do not understand why I had one of my station's ship go sell to an NPC station. According to the wiki if both options are set to YES it should not even happen.

[Alan Phipps]

... although it will still happen if the trade has already been reserved before the conditions are set. Just in case that might have been the situation in your game.

[Browser_ice]

I noticed that the ship I was currently looking at is not assigned to my station. It is doing auto-trading in this sector.

Should any non-assigned auto-traders be able to do this when both options are ON ?

I will need to watch station assigned ships to make sure this issue does not happen.

[Vertigo 7]

station subordinates are given lists of wares the station uses as resources and produces to trade, regardless of the station itself restricting trade. All that does is prevent NPCs from docking at your station to buy/sell, not the subordinates. The wares list for station subordinates isn't editable, either. The closest you can do is micromanage the subordinates with varying blacklists to define what factions the ships will trade with and what sectors they will trade in.

[MarvinTheMartian]

This is becoming more than an annoyance for me.

I'm trying to stockpile Smart Chips but somehow they're being sold in large quantities to Argon Prime shipyard (in the same sector).

The only subordinates to my complex are miners
I have no auto traders
the manager has "restrict trade..." checked
in Station Overview Smart Chips have "restrict trade..." checked
Price is set to maximum 137Cr (not auto)

I'm also selling surplus intermediates Energy, Silicon Wafers & Graphene even though manager is meant to restrict trade (I don't mind this so much as I am not restricting trade at the product level and I'm producing far more than I need but still...).

Who are (and how are they) buying my chips by the boat load (often around 4,000 units so an L ship at least)? According to my log, the other products are being sold to traders e.g. Energy Trader Ides Vanguard XKM-422 but when a trade happens with Smart Chips it just says "Argon Prime High Tech Factory IV sold x,xxx Smart Chips to Argon Prime Shipyard for xxx,xxx Cr" usually when stock gets to 4,500 or so.

And while I'm ranting...
I did have a trader intended to just buy resources (food and medical supplies) but stood it down to rule them out because it seems there's nowhere to set detailed trader behaviour, either in the ship or factory settings, everything is greyed out, so it's a bit useless. What's the deal with this? Sorry to say but X2 had better trader control and CAG/CLS in X3 was almost perfect (if a little involved to set up) so why the backward step here?

Is there a signed script like CLS & CAG for X4?

[Vertigo 7]

station to station sales may be taking place via mass traffic, if it's the same sector and relative proximity to one another. Could be why you're seeing the station selling those off like that. But yeah, shouldn't be selling any while the trade restrictions are set.

One thing that will help are the changes to station logistics in the 2.6 beta. You can set a threshold amount for sales on individual items, so like say you have a storage level cap of 100k smart chips, you can have the station not sell any unless the inventory is over 40k to ensure you have enough for your own productions. May be worth taking a look at.

[MarvinTheMartian]

Not sure how mass traffic can transport 4700 smart chips but as you say this should not be happening regardless of proximity to another station (I am quite close to the shipyard ~50km).

and to make things worse, they're being sold well below asking price: 127 Cr instead of 137 Cr. Just "sold" 4716 for 598,696 Cr = 126.95 Cr !

Is this some government compulsory purchase for the greater good of the Argon Empire?

This needs fixing, surely?

[Vertigo 7]

i would say so. Might be worth making a post and uploading your save for the devs to look at in the tech support section. They're pretty good about looking into stuff like this.

[MarvinTheMartian]

was kinda hoping a dev was watching this thread but will have to put this to the tech support forum, just gave away another 5,000 @ 123 Cr this time.