Problems with the Universal Trader

Chris150150 · Post by **Chris150150** » Sun, 19. Oct 08, 10:15

Not sure if this is really a "Tech Support" issue but what the hey.

Basically got my first MK3 trader, started it up, got it to level 8, no problems. Started the universal trader option and now it relentlessly does a couple of runs, then goes onto standby in a station. Sometimes i can get it to start again by going back into the orders menu and starting universe trader, other times it'll sit in the station its in with the "buy ware" option up before going back into standby.

Any thoughts?

Geggo · Post by **Geggo** » Sun, 19. Oct 08, 10:41

low level UT only checks few sectors away and if there's nothing to trade in that range then it goes to standby and waits.

Move it to better area, with lots of energy/ore/food users and makers.

Chris150150 · Post by **Chris150150** » Sun, 19. Oct 08, 12:03

Geggo wrote:low level UT only checks few sectors away and if there's nothing to trade in that range then it goes to standby and waits.

Move it to better area, with lots of energy/ore/food users and makers.

Yeah I know thats the principle, I've played the other X series games. I'm taking about it sitting in standby at lvl 13 when its in a silicon mine thats full of wafers, while one sector away theres a factory with none.

Last night left it on overnight on full SETA and basically made no monies.

calanorn · Post by **calanorn** » Sun, 19. Oct 08, 19:06

Ive had the same problem i have two universal traders at lvl 12 and one at lvl 13 and they have prob made about 180000 credits in the last 4 hours alot of that on seta

they seem to make much more set to sector trader.

ThisIsHarsh · Post by **ThisIsHarsh** » Sun, 19. Oct 08, 19:22

I think it is just searching for best buy/sell... it goes slow purposefully to lesson CPU load.

If you realize it's looking at a whole *lot* of potential wares, then for each of them it has to look through every single station within jump range to find where stocks it and the best buy/sell price... That's a lot of computation so it's spread out over a period of time.

Only way to test if this is the case is to just leave on SETA for ages, see if, eventually, it does get off its ass and do something.

Well, that's my understanding of it anyway. One aspect of this is that if you have a more powerful PC your Universal Trader will actually make more money!

Tyroon · Post by **Tyroon** » Mon, 20. Oct 08, 08:44

Same Problem here got one doing Universe Trade yet it normally dose 1 long run and then sits at standby in a station until I odder it to do Universe Trade, again rather hard to keep it going every time it stops.

While this ships doing Sector Trade are going fine.

Well considering it’s rather happy to do a Trading run as soon as i hit Universe trade, I don’t think its because it cant find any thing...

Enuo · Post by **Enuo** » Mon, 20. Oct 08, 18:02

I babysat a single sector/universe trader until it reached level 18, and it STILL gets stuck in standby mode unless i constantly keep telling it to restart universe trader. My sector trader in a system with a lot of factories and one solar plant, gets stuck on standby too, and everytime i tell it start sector trading, it promptly buys energy cells and goes to sell them, then standbys again. Its definitely not functioning properly.

Chris150150 · Post by **Chris150150** » Mon, 20. Oct 08, 19:24

Its definately an issue now. I'm up to 5, all leveled between 15-20, they seem obsessed by energy cells when they do move and most of the time they dont.

Anyone had any joy fixing this? I remember there was a similar issue with X3:R and it was fixable (i forget how, but it definately was) yet here no joy.

Enuo · Post by **Enuo** » Mon, 20. Oct 08, 21:31

i tried deploying adv sats around some sectors, and even giving my UTS best buy /sell locators and theyre still stuck on standby mode, or obsessively try to buy and sell energy cells and hull plating, they seem to care less about trading other items. Whenever i manually restart sector/universe trading to get out of standby, they always go for hull plating and energy cells

Cops · Post by **Cops** » Mon, 20. Oct 08, 23:58

can't believe such a simple thing isn't working. this is the main source of income for many. i can't play the game the way i wanted it. this should be fixed asap imo

Chris150150 · Post by **Chris150150** » Tue, 21. Oct 08, 08:24

It is really frustrating, i've now given up entirely and moved on to stations for my income but thats no way near as satisfying as leveling up a bunch of traders and requires a lot more micromanagement.

I'm wondering if anyone has tried starting a new game when they have this bug, see if its replicated across two games. I rarely get much time to play during the week so I've not got the time to try it at the moment.

Anyone fancy doing an experiment?

milp · Post by **milp** » Tue, 21. Oct 08, 10:00

Ive got exactly the same problem. Best thing we can hope for is that lucike gets that economy and supply trader (which is an advanced, better version of the UT) translated into english asap. So far it's released but only for the german version of x3:tc.

munkor · Post by **munkor** » Tue, 21. Oct 08, 10:54

be nice if a mod/admin/person of standing could post here to let us know...

LordDivine · Post by **LordDivine** » Tue, 21. Oct 08, 11:38

Yeah, my Universe Traders are having the same problems. Vers 1.2 @ Steam. They'll do a few trade runs and then just... stop. Was playing X3:Reunion not more than 4 days ago, and my UT's there never have these kinds of problems.

Hob Anagerik · Post by **Hob Anagerik** » Tue, 21. Oct 08, 12:27

I have 4 UTs varying between level 9 and 21. If I remembe correctly they start using their jump drives at level 8. But I'm pretty sure that my lot are a lazy bunch and don't, preferring to take that slow cruise. I also have the problem of them sitting on Standby for long periods. Plus they seem to love trading Energy Cells and Meatsteak Cahoonas and not much else. They also do some odd stuff like buying only 6 items to trade. Now it could be that the place they were trading to only needed that many but if so I would expect it to have looked at adjacent sectors for better oppurtunities. The upshot is they behave more like STs than UTs.

It's been a while since played X3:R but I'm pretty sure I didn't have these experiences with them back then.

Chris150150 · Post by **Chris150150** » Tue, 21. Oct 08, 13:09

Its definately a "new" issue, rather than being something which transferred in from X3:R. Reunion did have a couple of issues but they were quickly patched if memory serves. Hopefully that'll be the case here.

Being a proactive soul I dropped a thread into the script forum to see if any of those clever bods had any thoughts on how it might be fixed.

Watching a level 17 UT transporting 6 Cahoonas is a little bit soul destroying. Especially when the first thing it does on arriving at its destination is do the same thing again.

Sporadically they do figure it out and operate correctly. I watched one of my UT's jump into a sector, buy a bunch of 200MJ shields for bargin rates, jump to another sector and sell them for a fortune. It then promptly grabbed some energy cells, dropped them off at a fab for dragonfly missiles and sat there endlessly thinking about buying them or on standby.

On the plus side... with a lot of intervention I now have two complexes up which are doing fine. So thats something.

Hob Anagerik · Post by **Hob Anagerik** » Tue, 21. Oct 08, 14:14

Interesting that you have exactly the same 6 Cahoona thing that I have. That can't be coincidence.

Wyxen · Post by **Wyxen** » Tue, 21. Oct 08, 15:03

Same problem with my 4 UT traders, they all tend to stop at full mines that has a very cheap price and switch between:

STAND BY, BUYING ORE 0, STAND BY, BUYING ORE 0 every few minutes. I tried to manually buy the ore and restart the universal trader command and he continued but after some time I noticed that it was back on a mine with the same loop. And this is 4x UT traders that are doing the same thing at stations with 100% product -_-

BrilliantInsanity · Post by **BrilliantInsanity** » Tue, 21. Oct 08, 15:04

Yeah, my UT kept buying/selling cahoonas, too. Must be something about those meatsteaks. So I dumped him in Empires Edge and reset his UT status far away from where he was previously at, as, even as a UT, he seemed to stay in the same sector selling Cahoonas over and over and over.

Chris150150 · Post by **Chris150150** » Tue, 21. Oct 08, 16:36

Wyxen wrote:Same problem with my 4 UT traders, they all tend to stop at full mines that has a very cheap price and switch between:

STAND BY, BUYING ORE 0, STAND BY, BUYING ORE 0 every few minutes. I tried to manually buy the ore and restart the universal trader command and he continued but after some time I noticed that it was back on a mine with the same loop. And this is 4x UT traders that are doing the same thing at stations with 100% product -_-

Mines seem to be a particular favourite of my traders too. Silicon mines in particular, they turn up, start cycling and sit there forever.

Anyone with this tried starting a new game? I imagine you could restart and skim through the start with a couple of cheats. Would be really useful if someone has a spare 30 minutes to give it a try.

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Problems with the Universal Trader

Problems with the Universal Trader