Can factories regulate their own prices somehow?

Boringnick · Post by **Boringnick** » Sat, 15. Oct 11, 19:57

Factories owned by the AI constantly regulate their own prices, while you need to adjust the prices of your factories manually.

Is there a way to activate the price-adjustments for your factories as well?

Threesixtyci · Post by **Threesixtyci** » Sat, 15. Oct 11, 20:02

Yeah, there is. It's called Dockware Manager.
But, you'll need to install the Bonus Pack.

I can't really walk you through it, though. Because I can't recall the menu screens by memory. And it's been a while since I used it.

Just recall the menu having a place to where you could set the min and max price range. And based on what you set for the min and max, the AI adjusts the prices based on how many units you have in storage for a given Factory or Hub.

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=276039

Boringnick · Post by **Boringnick** » Sat, 15. Oct 11, 20:08

Hm, can't find in the descriptions anything that comes close to it.

All the software items seem to be for ships, and the one for stations, Dockware Manager, doesn't seem to have this functionality.

SIMON POPPLEWELL · Post by **SIMON POPPLEWELL** » Sat, 15. Oct 11, 20:14

Think you will find your can't auto set prices for stations. Dockware manager is only for stations that can have more than one ware i.e. Trading Station, Hub and PHQ. You can only really set prices for ships that are homebased to these stations and control amount of wares etc.

Triaxx2 · Post by **Triaxx2** » Sat, 15. Oct 11, 20:14

Dockware manager is for adding and removing wares from Equipment Docks and Trading Stations, and the Hub. Prices must be adjusted manually, though once set, they'll be fine unless you shift the buy/sell number for another product the station required.

Threesixtyci · Post by **Threesixtyci** » Sat, 15. Oct 11, 20:32

It's there, I used it for the SMP game I was in last year.... And it's part of the bonus pack. Maybe it's just part of CAG....

If I remember you open up the Factory's Command menu, then go to an empty slot and select. Administration.

Then you select Station settings

On the next menu, you select on any of the wares and a pop up menu appears. On the very top of the pop up menu it lists the wares min price, average price and max price. You use that as a reference to what you want the price to scale from. So using that as a reference, the first pop up is for minimum price setting, the next popup is for max price setting. After entering the second pop up the menu goes back to the previous one, and by the wares listing you'll see your two entries. (If you set the min price and max price the same, you'll only see one price entry after the ware.)

After doing that it's done.... It'll use the max price as the wares stock decrease in the station and use the min price when you are high on stock. (And it uses all the number in between.... basically working exactly like the AI's factory price setting.)

And any ware that has a min and max setting will override the slider bars of the "adjust station parameter", menu. Wares with a single value can still be adjusted via the slider bars, though. So, if you want to control the price for certain wares via the slider bars, just give the max and min pop-up menu (of the Administrator section) the same number. (of course doing that won't allow the price to scale, it'll be set in stone.)

The other thing that's useful is the Complex settings. In that you can move wares to sell or buy or intermediates at will. Instead of being forced to vanilla settings of everything being labeled as intermediate when the complex uses the final ware as a resource. When maybe you just want a ware to act as a resource, only.

pjknibbs · Post by **pjknibbs** » Sat, 15. Oct 11, 21:08

You don't really want your own stations to do this, IMHO--AI stations are quite happy to run at a loss, whereas you don't want your own to do the same!

Threesixtyci · Post by **Threesixtyci** » Sat, 15. Oct 11, 21:45

I think it'll be alright as long as you don't set the min price too low when selling, or set the max price too high for buying resources.

You must use the complex manager to separate your buying from your selling, though. Intermediate wares won't work well with the variable pricing, due to the nature of intermediates being used for both buying and selling at the same time.