Problems with my stations in TC

[Aven Valkyr]

I only really have experience with self sustaining mega complexes, and for one reason: I can't get NPC traders to stock my stations with necessary goods

At first I launched a small energy cell factory in a system that had mostly ore and silicon plants that were starving for energy. But traders wouldn't stock my station with the resources needed. So I decided to build a complex and run 3x 1mj shield complexes as my end product, which sold like wildfire.

I have since set up an even bigger complex in ore belt, realizing that I can tow asteroids into position My new setup is quite slick I must admit. But the missiles are for myself and all that money spent setting up the plex was simply to provde my fleet with wraith missiles.

Now realizing that I need some majour passive income if I'm not to spend 2000 hours running combat missions just to get a couple M2's and M1's. I would like things to progress a little more quickly. So in power circle, I have set up an advanced drone factory, a second cahoona bakery and an argu beef factory. They have been sitting there for quite some time, empty. I can't figure out why NPC's won't fill them with resources, when the 2 surrounding systems provide much of the needed resources, and those factories are full of their selling product. Even most of the stations in power circle have much the resources my factories need to get up and running and to stay running.

So am I missing something here? Do I need to enable something on them that allows them to buy secondary resources? I tried looking but can't seem to find anything. All I can see is "set prices". Any help would be appreciated, thanks

[Aven Valkyr]

sorry and part 2 of this post:

Once I do figure out how to get merchants to stock me with 2ndary resources, is there a way to set dynamic pricing? Or do I have to micromanage each of my stations? I did notice under the special commands -> administration -> station, that there is a "set pricing >> active <<" option that is passive by default. Is this where I set dynamic pricing?

By dynamic pricing I mean, when the station is full of a certain resource it buys cheap, and when it's empty it buys high. That kind of pricing..

[Aven Valkyr]

Update: Ok I think I figured out how to get traders to fill up my secondary resources. I set buy value's to max and they filled up pretty quick after that. But that doesn't answer the question of the dynamic price changing. Is there any way to get my stations to buy high when stock is low, and buy low when stock is high?

[OniGanon]

In my experience, relying on NPCs to provide your resources or buy your products is a waste of time and money. They will never provide resources with any reliability at anything approaching a reasonable price, and the only products they seem to ever buy are booze/weed, 1mj shields and microchips.

Get yourself some Mk2 Traders or CAGs and stop worrying about NPC traders.

[Aven Valkyr]

Hmm good to note... thanks

BTW I figured how to set min/max price of my goods

[Aven Valkyr]

OK I hate answering my own questions but here it goes:

Maybe it's because I run XRM, I don't know. But I also have the bonus pack installed. Not really too sure how it is with vanilla, but here's what I've come up with.

Each factory has a command console. When you enter that console you have 10 slots for special commands. Clicking any one of these will bring up a list where you have 5 options. One of those is "report inbound ships". I'll get to that for a sec. I'm not sure what the Trader Prohibition option is, but I go into administration. Clicking that yields 1 option (for single factories), so I click that and get to the next page.

On the next page I have an option to stop or start the factorie's processes. Making sure it's on start, a little further down is the option that I noted earlier, "Pricing" which is default to deactive. So click activate. Towards the bottom of the page you will see each of the resources your factory needs/produces with a price set beside it. The prices that you see are the ones you have set by going into station tender (pressing D in the assets window when clicked on the station). So clicking on one of these resources yields a popup window. This is the min price. The min/av/high prices are listed across the top of that screen. Type in the value that it calls for min price. So for example with energy cells, this value would be 12. Press enter and you get another popup. This is the screen that sets max price, so for energy cells, 20. Press enter again and you go back to the previous settings page. You will now see your min/max prices reflected next to the resource.

SO, here's where the magic happens. You have now automated your factory and it will set prices high when you need a resource, and low when you have said resource. Same goes for selling the end product. Will sell low when you have lots and high when you don't. Automated

Now getting back to that command screen, under special commands: incoming ships. After setting the prices for all my stations and giving them anywhere between $5 - $700K I noticed after a short while that this screen shows several NPC freighters inbound with my primary/secondary resources. Some of these freighters are coming in from several jumps away. I also noticed on a couple of the systems where I have a heavy presence, MANY trade ships have now entered the system and it's like an anthill full of transports. It's like the game literally spawned a CRAPload of new traders to deal with my stations. I only have the one sector trader so far dealing with the 2 systems that I have placed stations in. I plan on setting up another sector trader down in another one of my systems where I self destructed a bunk complex and decided to let the individual stations do their thing. Most of my stations are still blinking yellow, but that being said, they ALL show inbound traffic with supplies to get them running

Yaaaay problem solved, and I hope this also helps someone else

[jlehtone]

I also have the bonus pack installed. Not really too sure how it is with vanilla, but here's what I've come up with.

Bonuspack does include a Readme. That document describes some commands that the Bonuspack adds to the Stations, including the "dynamic pricing".


"Trader Prohibition"? You play german version and did translate the command? I think that you refer to a command, which stays active when started like the Mosquito Defense on ships. It tells Commercial Agents (CAG) of other stations that they are not allowed to visit this station. CAG ships have similar setting that can forbid them from visiting other Player stations.