Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑Fri, 7. Aug 20, 00:44
Is a Tug's Range limited to the jump range you set on it's outpost where it's home-based?
They should. They are a worker (it's a term for all automated civilian ships in Mayhem). All workers are supposed to respect this range limit. But i haven't used Tugs yet so you could be on a bug.
Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑Fri, 7. Aug 20, 00:44
Not sure I understand the Auto-assign Traders/miners etc. Does the A.I. just randomly pick and unassigned ship of the correct type (and homebased at that outpost) and make it do that duty?
Yes, if the AI finds a ship which is able to do the job (encyclopedia has a list with all commands and their requirements) then it assign the ship to become Agent, Worker, or whatever you have set up for autoassign. So if you need a replacement trader you only have to order one for production with the right homebase. It will get this job automatically once it has been built.
Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑Fri, 7. Aug 20, 00:44
Can you sell Meat/Vegetables/Fish/Fruit ? We start with some, but if you don't need food, can you get rid of them?
You can sell to trading stations and other NPC outposts which need the food. Trading stations will eventually run out of free cargo space for the food they are buying and NPC outposts are only willing to buy up to 8.333 units of the food they actually consume over time.
You will eventually have huge food stockpiles no matter what you do. The idea is to make you consider using the food for your outposts. But you will never be able to sell or get rid all food because any outpost produces double the amount it consumes. There is no way to prevent that all food storages are maxed out after a long period of playtime. Then they will only disappear when an outpost gets destroyed and a new one gets built.
Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑Fri, 7. Aug 20, 00:44
My outpost Looter seems to be picking up a bunch of junk. Other than Ship components, I'm wondering where to sell it? Would this manually be sold at a trading station?
If it's a resource (Chemicals, Protein Paste) it can be sold to factories. If it's missles, lasers, or shields it can only be sold to certain trading stations (definitely Markus corp and Thuruk's). Selling a lot of random crap always seems to require a lot of micromanagement. You can recycle these goods in your outpost. You only get half the value but it's easy and saves you time.
Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑Fri, 7. Aug 20, 00:44
Regarding Logistics, I seem to be following a pattern for jobs where I have an export and an import job for each factory type, so the outpost pulls everything in, and dolls it all out.
That is the default way. NPC Supply ships are doing the same thing for NPC outposts. I can only recommend to stick to this method. It makes it easier to manage your global storages and distribute stuff to where you need it. I tried different setups to prevent shipping intermediate products to the outpost first. Trust me, if you do this you will find yourself in micromanagement hell. It works up to half a dozen sectors. Then you stop playing for a week and have no idea what is going on after you come back
Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑Fri, 7. Aug 20, 00:44
It seems I can assign a hauler to a station directly and give it the "workers-Agent" command, but honestly I have no clue what that hauler would end up doing since there seems to be little control.
The Agent would effectively have two jobs similar to an outpost Agent.
1) Import what the factory needs as soon as resource stock drops below import threshold (the default is 10% of maximum cargo capacity, can be adjusted in station parameters)
2) Export what the factory produces as soon as product stock reaches export threshold (default 40%)
The only difference to an outpost Agent is that the factory Agent can import and export to and from any of your stations (outposts and factories). This allows you to for example skip shipping microchips to an outpost because there is absolutely no need to have them in an outpost. Instead the Agent would ship them directly to your computer plant.
Factory Agents are usually a waste since an outpost Agent is often able to keep at least 5 factories running. A factory Agent will only keep his homebase factory running. In my opinion this is only ever worth it on far away mining stations which drain C-Rations and produce bulky Ore/Silicon very quickly. So they can keep an entire Agent busy all the time. But even then i don't use them. Too much hassle with X3's ugly interfaces. Outpost Agents and Job Presets can be used as one click solutions.
Hairless-Ape wrote: ↑Fri, 7. Aug 20, 00:44
Would it sell to NPC's even if I needed those resources myself? Would it buy from NPC's, even though I could supply those materials myself?
No, an Agent can never buy or sell anything. The AI uses these ships too. For them they are called "Supply ..."
When an Agent loads or unloads something money will NEVER be transferred. He can only load or unload at stations you own.
When a Trader loads or unloads something money MUST be transferred. He can load or unload at your stations or at NPC stations.