[REQ]Actually working Freight Drones?

[Playbahnosh]

Hey there! I already posted a similar thread about this in the regular forum, but it seems like there is no real vanilla way to do it so I'm thinking scripts.

When I got my first real capital ship (the Griffon at the end of FF) I faced a problem never before: it can't dock, hence can't trade with the majority of stations on it's own. Lightbulb: I once saw an Atmospheric Lifter use freight drones to ferry stuff back and forth from a station so I promptly went and bought some for my new M7. I found out to my huge disappointment, that the only command using them, the "Transfer freight via drones" only works with player owned stations and the freight drones cannot actually be used to trade at all. (Unless you count ejecting them and going through the ordeal of sending them to the station, trading and then calling them back one by one, which is just too much hassle.) Docked fighters have nowhere near enough cargo capacity and I don't like the idea of jumping in a TS every time I want to get something for my M7 (like ecells), trading, transferring and then jumping it back out. I'd really like a compact solution that I can take with me, an freight drones seemed like common sense.

So my question is: is there a script that makes the Freight Drones usable so they can be used to trade with stations? Or is it too hard to modify the existing Freight Drone script to make it do that?

[Catra]

calling them back one by one,

they listen to the last broadcast command(the one that lists every shiptype)

ordeal of sending them to the station, trading

-when deployed-, they can use the trade mk1 commands: manual trade: buy and buy ware(2 1/3 800, on 3, maybe 4 drones, id hardly call that an "ordeal" ), so all you have to do is wait till theyre docked and do the broadcast command.

freight drones are very useable to trade with stations, just not using the command that was specifically made to make it easy for players to get stuff from their own complex(since, as you know, caps cant dock there(atleast, not without the complex hub tweak))

[Playbahnosh]

I understand all that, but that wasn't the question.

I just like to know if it already exists or if it can be done. I mean, a script that does exactly what the "tranfer freight via drones" does, but with NPC stations. It can already make drones pick up or drop off stuff at a station automatically. Would it be hard to modify the script to make them sell and buy stuff? Common sense tells me it shouldn't be a problem for an experienced scripter, perhaps create another "Trade with station via drones" command beside the original?

I bet it would make life much easier for many capship captains out there.
I mean with that even TL's could be used to do trade runs and other capitals ships could be self-supporting.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Nice idea, should be quite easily doable but do not think it has been done yet.

Have you checked the sticky containing a list of most mods/scripts?

[Playbahnosh]

/facepalm

I'm a huge doorknob. Of course it was there all along.
Transfer Freight via Drones v beta.07
This one does what I need, more or less. Could've done with some more safety checks concerning cargo space and ware availability, but it looks promising. I'll wait a little for a .SPK and more confirmations since I don't want to bork my current game if something doesn't check out, but I'll give it a shot.

Update: I really should be wearing glasses /headdesk
SPK file