Need help - Ordering ships to collect ware and sell according to best price.

[bionoman]

I cant figure out how to order my ships - i call them drones - to pick up a set amount of available good from my complex, then sell it according to best sell locator in distance of more than 1 / 2 sectors.

:L please help.

Im having a hard time getting customers to buy anything in my complex unless i set goods to be dirt cheap or i buy at very high price.

So far building stations had proved to be a massive credit loss.
And the economy - according to Teladi stock exchange seems to be doing TERRIBLY with supply always being low and demand always being high.
Every good in stock exchange amount to below 50 index.

I figure that simply the ai doesnt have enough money or something!?

[DrBullwinkle]

CLS2 (Bonus Pack) is easy to use (for easy things) and is very flexible (if you dive into the details). Timsup2nothin can do pretty much anything with CLS2.

If you cannot sell wares for a profit, then you need to widen your trade range.

[Timsup2nothin]

It does wonders for my ego when I wander in to answer a question like this and see that someone has mentioned my name...that said, the answer here I think is that you would do well to expand your vision.

A complex is a consumer and a producer, generally speaking, but we'll start off talking about it as a consumer. If you count on AI to deliver your resources the reliability of your deliveries is going to be a reflection of how competitive you are in the marketplace...a marketplace that is basically beyond your control.

Say your complex consumes ore. If the local ore mines aren't well served by energy haulers there will be a shortage of ore. AI mineral haulers will wander off to far reaches looking for cheap ore, and when they find it they will find nearby markets in which to sell it. They won't be drawn back to buy in your area until the nearby mines are selling at minimum. On the other hand, when they arrive in your area they will probably find that many AI fabs in the area, having been underserved, will be paying prices close to max, so they won't be interested in selling to you.

Now, you try to enter this market with a ship designated to supply your factory. The AI mineral haulers move like a swarm of locusts. Your guy will maybe get a load or two when prices get low before they arrive and drive them back up. Then your ore boat has to wait out the whole cycle again, probably including a stretch where the energy haulers (also like a swarm of locusts) have wandered off and left the mines with no energy supplies.

Bottom line, the AI haulers are a plague. They are only good for supplying AI factories because AI factories don't care that they are terrible at it and leave the factories idling for a significant fraction of their lives.

So...what to do?

Because the AI haulers are so lame, immense profits can be made from doing the job better. Pick a nearby power plant that produces enough to feed your complex and the suppliers of any other resources it needs. Buy the e-cells, feed your resource suppliers at a profit margin that allows you to skim off enough energy to supply your factory and break even, or maybe even profit on the deal. This keeps your suppliers producing. Buy all of their product. Distribute at a profit while skimming off enough that again you are getting the resource for free.

If you bounce that against the locust swarm methods of the AI haulers you will see that your operation prevents the kind of overproduced idling factories and resource barren idle factories that attract them...so they will visit the area much less often which will allow you to get things smoothed out.

There is a general assumption that production is where profits come from...particularly in the realm of the self sustaining complex that basically make finished goods out of asteroids. That can't be argued with. But looking deeper you find that credits, as opposed to goods, are produced in AI factories. They buy resources at max prices to make goods that are generally sold at minimum prices endlessly.

So they pay more for the resources that they put into a product than they sell the product for, while buying secondary resources that just disappear into thin air on top of it. Credits just pour out of them. Transporting is where the real profits are.

The guide to CLS networking in my sig will show you plenty of ways to make tons of credits, and you will find that in my complexes I usually don't even turn production on. I just use them for storage space.

[Lea Flamma]

Technically, the easiest way to do is use a CAG as a supplier. He will fly around the universe and get goods for your station at the prices specified in the station's settings or lower. He will then deliver those wares to your station untill a specified ammount of goods are stored. That's the 101 of complex supplying.

But... If you want to get as much cash as you can, as quickly as you can. Keep away from multi-product complexes. If you want a complex, make all the stations the same. Then add another complex that is using wares from your previous one making new things.

It might seem stupid but... Example.

Complex A is producing Maja Snails.
Complex B is producing Majaglit.
Complex C is producing Navigation Relay Sattelites.

If you pop them all together, you will need to supply E-Cells and Food. Produced goods will be used to produce the higher tier of wares. Simple, easy to maintain and clear in upkeep.

But if we do 3 seperate complexes. There is a Snail Ranch in the same sector, that's producing Maja Snails as well. Usually it has higher prices then your station, resulting in your ships buying goods in your complex. But there comes a moment when it has lower prices due to lack of customers. Your suppliers will go there instead of your place, uping the price again. The surplus in your Snail Ranch will be used by AI customers. The same process can happen between your Space Jewellry and Sattelite Factory.


Now how to attract AI customers to your complexes. That's fairly easy. The initial price your complex is set on selling is the average price for this good. Lower it by one and see the customers approaching.

Example.
Ore is sold at the avg. price of 128. Drop it to 127 and see AI customers lining up in front of your Mining Outpost.

[Ormac]

Ore is probably not the best resource to use as an example, or Silicon for that matter. due to the abundence of Mines in the Universe for each of these. Ore often sell at close to minimum [50] so you would be unlikely to see much AI Custom.

Using just about any other resource as an example would result in a better demonstration.

Soya Husks selling at 360 in Paranid Territory rather than the market average of 364. Will Probably often be close to empty. But Full of Credits.

-- Ormac

[Lea Flamma]

Ore is probably not the best resource to use as an example, or Silicon for that matter. due to the abundence of Mines in the Universe for each of these. Ore often sell at close to minimum [50] so you would be unlikely to see much AI Custom.

Using just about any other resource as an example would result in a better demonstration.

Soya Husks selling at 360 in Paranid Territory rather than the market average of 364. Will Probably often be close to empty. But Full of Credits.

-- Ormac

It was just an example. I went first with space fuel, but considering mine is selling even when maxed out, I figured something else will be ok. I never built any mines as I use remote miners to gather resources for me.

Let's say 1MJ shields then. Avg price is 5192 Cr. So sell it for 5191 Cr and watch profits.