2.6 beta - buy offer & station miners

[foxxbl]

Hi!
Do station miners follow "buy offer" eg. if buy offer is set to minimum - will they unload the mined stuff, or this option is strictly trading related?
Thanks!

[Imperial Good]

Station miners do follow it, but they will always unload no matter the buy price. The buy price does influence the manager and miner captain experience gain, with low prices being good for the manager and high prices for the miner captain.

It does influence auto miner and NPC miners when selling you mined wares. If restricted trade is enabled it still affects player owned auto miners operating within range.

[Buzz2005]

I think he means the buy offer amount, I think it even follows that like if you put 5, miner will only unload 5

[MarvinTheMartian]

eg. if buy offer is set to minimum - will they unload the mined stuff, or this option is strictly trading related?

TL;DR No, they won't. If you're asking about "buy offer amount" that is.

There's "buy offer price" and "buy offer amount"

Buy offer price makes no difference to your miners' behaviour, they will deliver up to the allocated storage BUT miners will only deliver wares up to the offer amount regardless of the storage allocation, essentially sharing the NPC behaviour. In the case of buy offer amount set to minimum (1) then you won't buy any and your miners will not see any demand and won't mine any.

The only reason to manually change the buy offer amount for minerals/gas is if you want to buy from NPC at the same time as having your own miners supply, otherwise, you would just change the storage allocation. It just doesn't work that way though.

example:
You want to buy silicon from NPC if storage drops below a certain level to maintain production - perhaps because you can't afford an extra/replacement miner right now or sector resources are becoming scarce so taking longer to mine.
Suppose your station has allocated storage for 10,000 silicon and so you set a buy offer of 2,500 units

Problem 1 - your miners will only satisfy the buy offer amount (2,500) and no more even though there's allocated storage for another 7,500

Problem 2 - your miners will mine to full capacity even if there's only 10 "needed" in the buy order and only deliver 10 leaving 6,990 in their hold - not so great if you need them to gather Ore also. This is the same if you're close to the storage allocation too but you'd add storage in this case or reduce the number/size of miners.

Problem 3 - automatic pricing works on stock level against storage capacity rather than demand (consumption) so unless you set price manually you're paying top Cr for that NPC silicon as supply will never exceed 25% of storage.

Having a buy offer amount other than 1 or max only really has a use in intermediates that you are making yourself in case your station is not producing enough to meet consumption.

Don't get me wrong, these new controls are useful and I want them to stay, it's just that you can bring your station to a halt if the combination of settings isn't balanced right.

[foxxbl]

Thanks a lot Marvin
Check this picture:
https://i.ibb.co/K5VjKJN/Trading-settings.png

Essentially I would like the following:

• My miners always mine and unload raw materials whenever there's space in the storage. Allowing this through Automatic buy amount

• I don't want to buy raw materials from NPC traders. Setting this through Automatic pricing off and buy price set to minimum OR by Restrict trade with other factions

• I want to sell excess 25% amount in storage so I can have extra $$ from my miners when bringing more than I can produce. Setting this through Sell amount and leaving Automatic pricing

If I restrict trade with the other factions then how to sell the extra raw materials? Will my traders sell it?
If I don't restrict trade with the other factions, do I risk that random NPCs will sell me stuff on lowest prices ?

Thanks!!


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

[MarvinTheMartian]

Golden rule: your own miners (and traders for other resources/intermediates) will only supply based on demand and that requires a "Buy Offer" - for intermediates, you can create and remove buy offers but things not produced within the complex itself will always have a buy offer

• My miners always mine and unload raw materials whenever there's space in the storage. Allowing this through Automatic buy amount

Auto buy amount will set the buy offer to max storage allocation so you're safe there.

• I don't want to buy raw materials from NPC traders. Setting this through Automatic pricing off and buy price set to minimum OR by Restrict trade with other factions

Safest just to check "restrict trade" and leave buy offer price and buy offer amount to automatic.

• I want to sell excess 25% amount in storage so I can have extra $$ from my miners when bringing more than I can produce. Setting this through Sell amount and leaving Automatic pricing

For any container-storage ware you would create a sell offer and set the sell offer amount to 75% of allocated storage and then decide for yourself if you want an auto-sell price based on the way it works in my post above.
However As Imperial Good pointed out, the only ships that can transport solid and liquid resources are miners and they are programmed to auto-mine not auto-trade.

If I restrict trade with the other factions then how to sell the extra raw materials? Will my traders sell it?

Theoretically you could order one of your miners to auto-trade* and it would buy from you and sell to NPC stations but I don't expect there are any NPC miners operating under that command.
* I did a quick test on a solid and a gas miner and while they accepted the auto-trade command they did not buy from me with sell-amount @1 and sell-price @lowest but this might just be because there are no buy offers in range.
If you run with excess resources you'd be better off having a miner auto-mine independent of the station and reassign it if you need a top up.

If I don't restrict trade with the other factions, do I risk that random NPCs will sell me stuff on lowest prices ?

Yes. The only thing distinguishing player miners from NPC on a buy offer is that restrict trade checkbox.

[foxxbl]

Thanks for the clarification..
Essentially you cannot trade the raw (liquid and solid resources) from the station, as only miners can transport them, but they sell them only if they mine it.. OK one thing to forget and not try to micromanage

• I want to sell excess 25% amount in storage so I can have extra $$ from my miners when bringing more than I can produce. Setting this through Sell amount and leaving Automatic pricing

For any container-storage ware you would create a sell offer and set the sell offer amount to 75% of allocated storage and then decide for yourself if you want an auto-sell price based on the way it works in my post above.

Ah, so by selling sell offer to 75% it will not sell more if less than 75% remains..
I thought it should work in that way but you pull the slider from the left.. It would make more sense if the sell offer slider is moved from right to left..

[MarvinTheMartian]

Ah, so by selling sell offer to 75% it will not sell more if less than 75% remains..
I thought it should work in that way but you pull the slider from the left.. It would make more sense if the sell offer slider is moved from right to left..

Yep, I still use the tool tip when you hover over "sell amount" to make sure I have it the right way round

[foxxbl]

Yep, I still use the tool tip when you hover over "sell amount" to make sure I have it the right way round

Oh I completely missed to check tooltip. Now it all makes sense, green color fills from right to left showing sell amount