Unclear on the benefit of CAG/CLS

[Maziou]

It is surprisingly difficult to find any info on what benefit using the CAG/CLS software provides. Plenty on Google or Youtube that explains "how" to use them or "what" they are used for. But this information basically just boils down to, "You can use these to supply resources for your complex".

I can do that anyway, by setting a TS's homebase as the complex, and then tell it to buy ware for best price.

Could somebody please explain what kind of benefit CAG/CLS provides to supplying a complex, that a simple "buy ware for best price" can't provide?

Thanks.

[TTD]

With CLS,although I am not experienced with that one, I can say that it automates trading with npc stations or moving stock between your own stations.
Others can explain that better.

As for CAG...
When you set a station/or complex running with TS's homebased there,you need a TS for each commodity that the station/or complex needs or sells.
Typically this would be minerals ,food energy ,crystals etc.

When I set up a station i used to do like you,which meant I needed at least two TSs.
If it was an open complex,then many more were needed.

Now I just have one GAG to learn the ropes buying in resources.
When he/she levels up, I can reset it to also sell the products.
Thus I only really need one CAG instead of two or more TSs on Best buy/or sell... routines.

[SIMON POPPLEWELL]

Not sure about CAG. But CLS you have two options CLS1 and CLS2, CLS1 in for 'internal distribution'. You can use this option to deliver wares between two stations that you own without any cost i.e. useful for keeping PHQ stocked with wares. CLS2 is 'external distribution' you setup waypoints to deliver to more than one station/ship, this is useful for supply ships in your fleet with ecells or missiles etc. You can also use CLS2 for mobile mining and supply of ore etc. to a station.

[X2-Illuminatus]

The two main benefits of the CAG are that their base commands are smarter than the normal Buy/sell for best price commands and that you have much more control over what they're doing, i.e. you can configure a lot of things.
TTD already mentioned that an experienced CAG can do both, buying and selling. In addition, when you have more than one CAG on a station and even if they do the same thing, e.g. buying the same ware, they will coordinate their work. That means, if one CAG flies to a station to buy wares, the second CAG will not fly to the same station, but look for a different one. You can also decide to what percentage wares are bought/sold, specifically blacklist stations/sectors that shouldn't be traded with/in and a lot of more things.

[Maziou]

Wow; fast replies at this hour! So if I am understanding you guys correctly, then CAG is basically smarter AI that:

-Allows a single TS to both buy resources, and sell your product
-Allows a single TS to buy more than one needed resource for your station/complex
-Allows you to blacklist dangerous sectors
-Prevents multiple TS's from drawing resources from the same station

And CLS:
-Allows you to trade products from one of your stations/complexes, as a resource to another one of your stations/complexes. Useful for obtaining free resources you're producing in excess, for another producing station/complex.
-Allows you to set a single TS to deliver resources from one of your stations/complexes to multiple producing stations/complexes you own. Useful for cutting down on the number of TSs you need to supply all your stations/complexes.

I guess the next question would be, can I use these to supply NPC stations as well. For instance, if I don't want to make my own Point Singularity Projector station; could I use CAG/CLS to automatically supply the needed resources to an NPC PSP station?

Thanks a lot for the information

[TTD]

Not CAG.

With CLS you set up way-points which can include npc stations.

[Maziou]

Awesome. Thanks a lot

[SIMON POPPLEWELL]

Worth mentioning that rank of the pilot also effects how many resources that a CAG/CLS can supply.

[Kirlack]

I use CLS2 for all kinds of things. Keeping stations and complexes topped up with resources is just one example. You could also:

• Set up automated re-supply of weapons/missiles/ammo to your combat fleets.
• Augment mobile mining fleets to make them fully automated.
• Completely control all input and output of a given factory, such as the few IBL forges in the game.

I genuinely believe there's not much you can't do with it

[Turbo12]

I use CLS2 to buy marines. First I automatically add all stations that sell marines or pirates, and then edit them so that the route between them is the shortest, and at each waypoint the ship loads 40 marines (or pirates, depending on station). I set the minimum percentage per waypoint to 15% so that it will only visit the station if it can buy at least 5 marines.
When the ship is completely full, I manually move it to an Outpost I designated as training grounds and train ONLY the marines that have more than 50 fighting skill (the others will die anyway, so I save on the training costs).
And now I take advantage of a bug in the CLS2 software. I order a second TP lo load all marines from the first. All marines on both ships disappear. And I can order the first TP to resume buying marines again.

[Timsup2nothin]

There are lots of guides about how to use CLS...in mine (linked in sig) I tried to answer why to use it.

[ajax34i]

CAG lets you use 1 ship to buy/sell all the stuff your complex needs from the NPCs, or multiple ships with coordination.

Internal Logistics lets you create a distributed complex, with your factories all over different sectors, but still linked.

External Logistics can do a number of things:
- automatically purchase all of your favorite weapons, shields, missiles from everywhere
- buy or sell Space Fuel or other contraband by following exact travel routes avoiding police
- feed specific NPC weapon forges and collect / deliver the weapons to your ships

[bizbag]

With a CAG, I can set up a huge self-sufficient complex and assign 1 or maybe 2 traders to it, and they'll sell my products, sell off intermediate goods when the profit is good, and buy it when it's cheap. So much easier than having one for every good told to do one thing.

[Honved]

The down side to a CAG is that it takes them a while to train up before they can sell as well as buy. Meanwhile, they keep the complex running, and if you set the price a credit lower than average, any STs or UTs you have running in the area can buy the finished products and distribute them.

I generally run a mix of CAGs and STs set as "Regional Traders" (ST with Range > 0). By setting the homebase's trading range, you can limit the associated CAGs from straying too far and ending up in Pirate or Xenon sectors. By restarting your STs when they reach rank 6, you can give them a Range of 1, allowing them to trade in adjacent sectors, and boost that range every 2 ranks; this again allows you to limit them to avoid having them stray into unsafe territory. If you convert them to UTs, they'll generally make a heap of cash for a short time, then get blasted into space dust when they take a stupid shortcut.

[Maahes]

There is a shortcut for the training that someone posted a long time ago (can't find it now).
But basically CAG and CLS pilots share the same training, so you can put CLS in a fast M5 and have him fly between two stations. Then once his level is up to LO transfer him to your freighter and start CAG.

[TTD]

Herrons Nbula,iirc,above Argon Prime

Buy cls etc from the trading station and you get a trained pilot too..
Not sure of what max level is given.

[Kirlack]

No need to save and reload, if you don't like the level of the pilot you get, just fire him (CLS menu -> Trader settings -> fire trader), and hire another by starting CLS again.

I think the max level for pilots hired like this is Cargo Messenger (rank 4 of 6).