Freighter Swarming

[Crazy Gunman Named Bob]

I've been playing X3 for a few weeks now and have a factory complex pumping out cloth rimes. Recently however huge swarms of freighters have begun clustering around it, and by swarms I mean 40-50 of them just flying around my complex. It is not set to trade with other species and is pretty far off the beaten path in the southern half of Ore Belt. It's not a major problem, but any insights would be helpful.

[superrob]

maybe they jsut like you?

Or did the settings get set without you knowing?

[Crazy Gunman Named Bob]

All of the price settings are around average, except for the sell price which is about 25 above.

[beyer_garratt]

If you and your ships can dock with your complex with no issues, ignore all the following as it will be redundant. If your ship takes 2 or 3 or more passes to get docked or doesn't dock at all, read on.

Might sound a bit strange, but check to see if your docking port is adjacent an asteroid or other large object.

If there is one such object that is rather close, in particular close to the invisible 'causeway' that ships use to line up to the docks, the AI freaks out and aborts the docking, and flies around and attempts again. Of course if the obstruction doesn't move, you get an endless loop of failed attempts to dock.

And the ships will slowly back up, causing what you now see.

Now, as for fixing it.

If it is a non-map asteroid (one that doesn't show on the sector map) just blow it to pieces with whatever lasers you have and clear out every last piece of rock.

But if it's a 'map-asteroid' I'm afraid your only option is to blow the docking ports to smithereens and buy a new one. Destroying the complex hub itself will leave all the stations attatched to it intact, allowing you to hook them up again.

[karl_1_marx]

Alternative for map 'roids: build a mine on it and tow it aside.


Cheers

KarMa

[Crazy Gunman Named Bob]

Thanks, turns out there was a small rock sitting right in the middle of the guide lights, not quite sure how it got there as the station's been working fine for the past few days, but oh well.