[X3AP] CLS Trouble

[NewtSoup]

Hi there,

I have six CLS running and five of them are working well. The one that isn't is as follows:

SPP M Beta in Empires Edge
Fly to station
Refuel Jump Energy

Your Complex Hub - Senators Badlands
Load up to 2125 Delexian Wheat

For each station within 10 jumps
Sell up to 2125 Delexian Wheat for 44cr

Min transfer amount on sell 5%


What it does is it flies to Cahoona Bakery M Beta in Eleanors Fortune, sells maybe 200 wheat then goes back to SPP then Complex hub and repeats

I have noticed that the price for Dex in the selling station when it leaves is 43cr. I was wondering if it was selling 1 wheat at a time and then bailing when the price reached 43 which was below my sell threshold of 44cr

So what I did was I changed the min transfer amount on sell to 80% to try and make it dump the bulk of its cargo at a price greater or equal to 44cr. I know that that bakery can take this amount because I sold off all the wheat manually and restarted the trader to see if that would fix it.

However with Min transfer amount 80% all it does is bounce between my complex hub and the SPP. It ignores the other 40 or so stations which may need wheat, I don't believe for a second that none of them can take 1800 wheat.

My ore freighters are set to buy up to 465 ore and sell up to 465 ore and they seem to work just fine.

Anyone got a clue why the pilot of my wheat boat is being such a deadhead? It's kind of important to fix him because I need him to sell my wheat.

[RayF]

1) Get rid of the SPP waypoint. Your pilot can refuel at your complex & load the wheat.

2) complex waypoint: load MAX cargo not upto.

3) all selling waypoints. sell MAX cargo not upto!

that should do it.

[NewtSoup]

I will try the max cargo thing

But I already tried telling him to refuel at my complex hub and he just went everywhere with no fuel at all so I put the SPP back

but perhaps I should tell him to load up to 500 fuel (so he will top up) and then set the other things to max cargo.

I'll give that a try and post back with the results.

[NewtSoup]

Yep that seems to have done it -

Your Complex Hub Alpha - Sentator's Badlands
Load up to 500 energy cells
Load Max Cargo Delexian Wheat

then sell Max Cargo Delexian Wheat to any station within a 10 jump range of eleanor's fortune

It just jumped and sold all its cargo after starting with an empty bay.

Thanks for the help

[Jimmy C]

Can you tell what was your mistake the first time refueling at the complex?

[NewtSoup]

Oh I told it to:

Your Complex Hub Alpha - Senator's Badlands
Fly to Station
Refuel Jump Fuel
Load Max Cargo Delexian Wheat


I think because Energy Cells are not a sales item at the hub (it just grows wheat) it was refusing to refuel. But simply telling to

Fly to Station
Load up to 500 energy cells
Load Max Cargo Delexian wheat

seems to work.


Incidentally - Load Max Cargo puts in a constant (in my case 2500) wheat as my ship had 5000 cargo bay available

When I increased the cargo bay to 7000 this was not automatically picked up as I expected it to be having told it to fill up with "max cargo" - it was still only loading 2500 wheat (slightly less actually because of jump fuel, missiles and drones)

So after upgrading the cargo hold you must re-do your waypoints. You don't have to tell the CLS to stop command to do this, you can reconfigure it on the fly if you'll excuse the pun ( actually that's the correct use of the phrase I guess)

[Timsup2nothin]

If I am remembering, a CLS pilot won't take a e-cells for fuel from a station if they are just a resource unless it is homebased to that station.

I use a junk freighter as a fuel tank at all my complexes for that reason.

Fuel tank CLS:
Fly to complex, load up to 1000 e-cells

add a 'fuel tank' reload jump fuel waypoint right before loading at the complex.

You can also stash stuff in the fuel tank...those guns you pick up as salvage that you know you will need someday when you get the right ship, some salvaged space fuel that you wont to hold on to for that 'bring me space fuel' mission you know you would get right after you dump it for average at some pirate base...stuff like that.

[NewtSoup]

Right, that's what I thought was happening but as I say telling it to load instead of refuel works just fine.

I just came up with another idea -

I want to buy the glut of space fuel in Weavers Tempest becuase it's always cheap. Then I want to market it to the denizens of the X Univers. But I don't want to sell it to pirate stations and get all illegal and stuff.

I thought about using a trading station but that's expensive and doesn't hold a great deal so I just had the thought -

Use a Space Fuel Distillery- it holds LOTS of space fuel and can dock ships and it's cheaper than a Trading station.

It will never actually produce space fuel - I'm just going to use it as a mall. I'll buy the SF cheap in Weavers with a CLS and have it unloaded in my SF in Occaracokokes Storm (or whatever the sector's called.

That way the local paranid have a much better chance of making it to my station to buy the stuff rather than running the gauntlet through Senators and getting reamed by my Yaki pals.

[Triaxx2]

Being a little further in the game, I have a TL setup as a Gas Station, and have another one shipping fuel to various capitals. The principal works the same for smaller ships. Just make sure that the ship delivering fuel is fast enough to catch up to ships being fueled.

[ancienthighway]

I've found using the Fuel Resupply Quantity (jumps) on the Command Menu to work nicely. No matter what ship, home based or not, or what player owned station, the jump fuel is replenished. Even CLS ships dealing with energy cells keep their jump fuel. I don't remember off hand if this functioned properly in TC, but in AP, it works just fine as far as I can tell.

[NewtSoup]

I've found using the Fuel Resupply Quantity (jumps) on the Command Menu to work nicely. No matter what ship, home based or not, or what player owned station, the jump fuel is replenished. Even CLS ships dealing with energy cells keep their jump fuel. I don't remember off hand if this functioned properly in TC, but in AP, it works just fine as far as I can tell.

I had wondered about that - I wasn't sure if the CLS Re-Fuel would override the Egosoft one.

Going back to my Space Fuel Distillery I can confirm that it works -

I have loaded it up with the fuel from weavers, plonked the station east of the east gate in Savage Spur and lots of couriers have started appearing to buy my lovely alcomohol.

[Timsup2nothin]

In the world of small added risk for great added reward...

I have found that a CLS pilot in a cheap Discoverer goes fast enough that he will hardly ever be scanned by passing cops, and if he is delivering ten units of space fuel at a time to a station that pays max price he will likely never fill it up anyway so he will run all the time and the most you can lose is ten units...which you are buying cheap anyway. The cost of the ship and any losses you incur will be more than covered by the difference you get from selling at max instead of average.

[NewtSoup]

I may do the disco thing as well but in my universe none of the pirate trading stations are in their usual places ( I think they have ALL been blown up) and I only have trade rights with the Yaki IBL factories which I will supply with my own Space Fuel for the best price possible.

Part of my "open complex". By that I mean I would never build a complex of Cahoona bakeries, wheat farms and cattle ranches,.

instead I'd build 3 complexes. 1 wheat, 1 cattle and 1 bakery I'd sell my produce to the AI for top price and buy resources for cheapest. Self sufficient complexes are, in my opinion, wasteful

[Triaxx2]

The other fantastic thing about a Disco Fuel Trader is that it's very efficient at training them up to Logistician. They're landing at either end, so they'll level up as soon as they can, and as they get better the deals will as well. As long as you remember to change them out, they'll tend to cost less than they make.

[Timsup2nothin]

Yeah a good fuel operation is usually my main source of trained pilots throughout the game.

[NewtSoup]

The other fantastic thing about a Disco Fuel Trader is that it's very efficient at training them up to Logistician. They're landing at either end, so they'll level up as soon as they can, and as they get better the deals will as well. As long as you remember to change them out, they'll tend to cost less than they make.

That's a common misconception - They level up after they've flown for a certain amount of time regardless of how many runs or how fast they've flown. I think it's a total of about 8 hour flying time. Unless you mean simply that they land more often so they land sooner after they hit their training threshold. I tend to train my CAG's and CLS in mercurys or fully fitted OTAS Super Freighters doing ecell runs. I find it fast enough.

When I build my own fuel stations (for producing ) I'll give the Disco Prohibition Smuggler a go.

** Edit **

Actually I'm not sure I will.

Even the pirate base in Brenan's has gone. I remember seeing and argon destroy blow it to pieces. I've mapped, explored and nav satted every sector I can (bar what the war has locked out for me at the moment ) The only stations which will take space fuel are red to me in Loo'Mankstrats and Merceneries Drift or whatever it's called.. the pirate anarchy ports and training facilites.. but they're all red to me. If I'm missing something please tell me

[ancienthighway]

Unless you mean simply that they land more often so they land sooner after they hit their training threshold

This.

I just set up a support complex for my PHQ. I picked up 10 Mercs from Legand's Home so support that complex and 4 mines in Light of Home. With no trained pilots, I've had to run 11 traders back and forth with supplies, while my trained energy transporters feed the new construction.

I had 6 Discos and 2 Disco Haulers slotted to be replaced by Adv Discos, so as their final mission, the set about on a training run from Legend's Home to Akeela's Beacon, to Montalaar, the furthest points from the gates being used for each. Before the Mercs were able to level to Courier, the Discos leveled up to FA. One Merc on the support complex now, and planning my next move.

[Timsup2nothin]

Unless you mean simply that they land more often so they land sooner after they hit their training threshold

This.

I just set up a support complex for my PHQ. I picked up 10 Mercs from Legand's Home so support that complex and 4 mines in Light of Home. With no trained pilots, I've had to run 11 traders back and forth with supplies, while my trained energy transporters feed the new construction.

I had 6 Discos and 2 Disco Haulers slotted to be replaced by Adv Discos, so as their final mission, the set about on a training run from Legend's Home to Akeela's Beacon, to Montalaar, the furthest points from the gates being used for each. Before the Mercs were able to level to Courier, the Discos leveled up to FA. One Merc on the support complex now, and planning my next move.

The more critical factor is that they fly all the time so they accumulate flight time as fast as time passes.

As to finding places to sell the fuel...just grab a logistician pilot and use generate waypoints buy spacefuel with a gigantic range. He will spot every pirate base in any sector you have on your map, because they are all spacefuel docks. Make note of the sectors you want to service, take a disco with CLS, generate a 'buy' waypoint on the sector, range one...then edit the waypoint to turn it into a sell and turn him loose. Not only will he make you credits, but when he docks the first time the pirate base will appear on your map.

[NewtSoup]

That's handy - so he will trade with "undiscovered" stations.

I assumed that he would only trade with revealed stations.

I just bought a 1mj shield facility and 3 disco raiders to train up on it.

[ancienthighway]

The more critical factor is that they fly all the time so they accumulate flight time as fast as time passes.

Exactly. The stops on my training route are simply to make them fly the furthest distance, whereas my support complex and PHQ are in the same sector resulting in almost no flying time.

The AI is very good about finding paths and stations through undiscovered sectors. Unfortunately, many of those paths have led me through pirate heavy sectors and my ship never made it out.