Behavior of the HUB station causing headaches.

Elipsis · Post by **Elipsis** » Mon, 12. Mar 12, 16:26

I'm playing through X3TC mostly vanilla* and the HUB is giving me a massive headache. Not the HUB mission itself, but the behavior of the damn thing after it's all said and done. There are two distinct problems happening, you guys probably know the solution.

1. My Universal Traders are getting stuck at the HUB. They were doing great until I ended up owning the HUB, now I periodically find that they're just docked permanently at the HUB until I issue another Start Universe Trader command. I figured out that this has something to do with credits allocated to the HUB. Basically if the HUB runs out of money, the traders will sit there docked waiting to sell to it forever. The other workaround instead of reissuing the UT command is silly. I transfer money to the HUB, which buys from the UT and the immediately comes back to my personal account. It's annoying and it brings me to the second issue... why is the hub buying all these things?

2. The HUB seems to like to buy lots of missiles now. This one is probably my mistake, but I don't know how to undo it. When I first got the HUB I figured it would be a nice place to unload all of those unused missiles that I had collected. We're talking single or double digit numbers of missiles that I just didn't feel like carrying around anymore. I thought maybe I could sell them off from there, potentially. The command console on the HUB has selling prices all abound, but no buying price... I don't want to buy more of these things. I looked at it yesterday and it had purchased 7000 firefly missiles (probably from my UT). Why did you buy 7000 missiles?!!" I yelled at the ancient structure in frustration. There's nowhere to even set a buying price, just selling... but it seems to really like to collect these missiles now, along with 30000 energy (which isn't totally useless) and any other odd and end that I have ever put in there. How do I make this stop? Even if I set it not to trade with other races, my UTs are still going to try to sell to it, it seems. Am I doomed to have 15 different missiles types associated with this thing because I once put a handful inside?

Surely this behavior is more manageable than I'm seeing, somehow?

*I used the Apricot Very Easy Hub Plot to get the resource collection over with, but I don't think this is related to the problems?

Kapakio · Post by **Kapakio** » Mon, 12. Mar 12, 16:40

The hub behaves like any other dock station (eq. dock or trading station). There's only one price, buy/sell.

I haven't tried that, but I think you could add the Unknown Sector in the blacklist of the Universal Trader. Failing that, you can put the buy/sell price in average-1, so nobody will sell you below average (even the UTs)

Kirlack · Post by **Kirlack** » Mon, 12. Mar 12, 16:42

Or just switch off trading from the Hub altogether. That will definitely solve your problem

Elipsis · Post by **Elipsis** » Mon, 12. Mar 12, 16:49

Kapakio wrote:The hub behaves like any other dock station (eq. dock or trading station). There's only one price, buy/sell.

I haven't tried that, but I think you could add the Unknown Sector in the blacklist of the Universal Trader. Failing that, you can put the buy/sell price in average-1, so nobody will sell you below average (even the UTs)

o0o0o thanks. if I may - a couple of follow up questions.

In the few minutes since I posted this I've been reading as much as I could find about trading, and it seems that AI traders have an aversion to anything priced average (or higher?).

1. Is the blacklisted sector something I can set in vanilla? I've never seen where to do that? If it works that seems like a good solution.

2. Is there a way to *remove* those items from the HUB's list entirely that you're aware of? I'm thinking about selling the 1-off missiles at MIN price just to get rid of them and using "Sell Ware for best price" on the ~7000 fireflys. But they all stay in the list at 0/X even when I sell off the last one.

Kirlack wrote:Or just switch off trading from the Hub altogether. That will definitely solve your problem

I'm not sure about this one. I was able to shut it off for other races but my UTs are "special".

Kapakio · Post by **Kapakio** » Mon, 12. Mar 12, 16:59

Elipsis wrote: 1. Is the blacklisted sector something I can set in vanilla? I've never seen where to do that? If it works that seems like a good solution.

2. Is there a way to *remove* those items from the HUB's list entirely that you're aware of? I'm thinking about selling the 1-off missiles at MIN price just to get rid of them and using "Sell Ware for best price" on the ~7000 fireflys. But they all stay in the list at 0/X even when I sell off the last one.

To both questions, you will need to install the bonus package. Don't worry, you're game will still be vanilla (well, except for the script you already installed)

Triaxx2 · Post by **Triaxx2** » Mon, 12. Mar 12, 17:42

Don't stress Vanilla. It's only a definition unless you're after the Steam Achievements.

Shutting off the hub should be a buy/sell/none flag. The trick with the HUB is to set every price at it's absolute minimum, unless you're trying to buy.

Kirlack · Post by **Kirlack** » Mon, 12. Mar 12, 18:04

Lol, sorry, my last reply was cut short by my daughter demanding the use of my laptop

As noted above you can use the bonus pack, in this case 'Dock Ware Manager' to remove items you don't want stocked. Also, as Triaxx2 said, setting 'Trade with other Races' to No should stop your UTs selling to the hub. If that fails though I'd suggest setting them up as LTs instead and keep the hub out of the network.

Another feature of the Bonus Pack is the CAG (Commercial Agent), which can prove invaluable in getting rid of excess products. They take a bit of tweaking to set up right, but there are numerous guides available in the stickies which can help.

wRAR · Post by **wRAR** » Mon, 12. Mar 12, 20:49

You can just blacklist the Hub in the Mk3 Blacklist Manager.

Kirlack · Post by **Kirlack** » Tue, 13. Mar 12, 15:46

wRAR wrote:You can just blacklist the Hub in the Mk3 Blacklist Manager.

I got the impression the OP was playing TC, not AP. MkIII Blacklisting is not an option in TC. CAG blacklisting is though.

wRAR · Post by **wRAR** » Tue, 13. Mar 12, 15:48

Kirlack wrote:
wRAR wrote:You can just blacklist the Hub in the Mk3 Blacklist Manager.
I got the impression the OP was playing TC, not AP. MkIII Blacklisting is not an option in TC. CAG blacklisting is though.

Right, my bad.

Vayde · Post by **Vayde** » Tue, 13. Mar 12, 19:00

wRAR wrote:
Kirlack wrote:
wRAR wrote:You can just blacklist the Hub in the Mk3 Blacklist Manager.
I got the impression the OP was playing TC, not AP. MkIII Blacklisting is not an option in TC. CAG blacklisting is though.
Right, my bad.

Who's bad? http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=275123

wRAR · Post by **wRAR** » Tue, 13. Mar 12, 20:29

Vayde wrote:
wRAR wrote:
Kirlack wrote:
wRAR wrote:You can just blacklist the Hub in the Mk3 Blacklist Manager.
I got the impression the OP was playing TC, not AP. MkIII Blacklisting is not an option in TC. CAG blacklisting is though.
Right, my bad.
Who's bad? http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=275123

It is contained in the Bonus pack for AP but not for TC so for TC it means making the game modified.