How to keep Universe Traders alive?

[pagulhan]

It's my third attempt to play TC. I never managed to keep my UTs alive. Sooner or later, they were killed after flying into sector that was full of pirates and I still have no idea how to prevent their miserable death. I even bought them jumpdrivers, but no! They seemed to not use it, not at all. How do I guard them? Is there a way to force them to jump away or to send some battle ships with them?

[Zaitsev]

It's my third attempt to play TC. I never managed to keep my UTs alive. Sooner or later, they were killed after flying into sector that was full of pirates and I still have no idea how to prevent their miserable death. I even bought them jumpdrivers, but no! They seemed to not use it, not at all. How do I guard them? Is there a way to force them to jump away or to send some battle ships with them?

Stupid question, but did you remember to enable autojump in the ship's control panel? Also, setting the minimum distance to zero and giving them a generous amount of jump fuel (80-100 jumps is preferable) will help to keep them alive.

With that said, part of the problem comes from the ships themselves (paper thin hulls) and how Out-Of-Sector combat works in TC. I would recommend getting the most heavily shielded freighter you can get your hands on to give them at least some survivability, cause once the shields are gone the ship is as good as dead.

There are also mods that will give your UTs half a brain and, if I remember correctly, makes you able to blacklist sectors, but that's a discussion for the scripts and mods forum.

[Bill Huntington]

Many of us have given up on UTs and don't use them. We use LTs, Local Traders. We set a Trader up with a radius of three or so which doesn't include a Xenon or pirate sector. It is rare to lose an LT and they can rise in rank to Level 20.

Some areas like around Argon Prime can take more than one LT. I cover the TC universe with LTs as I get them trained. They bring up my trading rank slowly but surely. When you have an LT in an area, you don't have any stations disappear because of non-use.

You can even set up an LT with a dangerous sector on the outside as long as you don't have a real trading area on the other side. You'd think a JD would make a difference but sometimes they are out of Energy.

Good Luck.

[jlehtone]

No Trade Mk3 pilot has died in my service. I do use the enlightened job interview method:

1. Strap the applicant to a primed Firestorm Torpedo.
2. Detonate.
3. Satisfaction.

• If the pilot does not survive the detonation, then there is no-one to hire.
• I do not hire invulnerable pilots. They might get the silly idea that I don't pay them enough, and negotiating with juggernauts is not profitable.

There is an another Pilot Union, whose members serve as Commercial Agents and in Commodity Logistics (CLS1 and CLS2). They can perform various tasks and are much more controllable. There are Guides on this Forum about them.

Even the Trade Mk3 should be somewhat controllable, if it stays as Sector Trader (ST) or Local Trader (LT). Those stay within designated area. Only the Universe Trader wanders haphazardly.


I also shoot all bypassers that potentially could consider starting a career as Mk3 pilots (currently all Terrans qualify; no Valhalla captain shall trade on my watch). That gives me a reputation of being "not harmless". That in turn has been my main source of revenue in these games. YMMV

[Timsup2nothin]

I find that not hiring them keeps their mortality rate at zero.

Since I find them to be grossly inefficient this is pretty easy for me to do.

[RAVEN.myst]

I, too, have long since stopped using Mk.III traders, and prefer to use CAGs mostly (with some CLS2 thrown in for specialised tasks.) In X3AP, there is the ability to designate no-fly sectors for the Mk.IIIs (so, sectors adjacent to Xenon sectors I add, as well as war-zone sectors, and sometimes pirate sectors), making UTs a lot more useable in X3AP (though I still don't, usually), but unfortunately the sector blacklisting feature is not available in vanilla X3TC.

So I also use not hiring them as my method of avoiding awkward calls to their next of kin. (Incidentally, did you know that marriage is the no.1 cause of divorces? Same logic )

[Honved]

I'm a heavily addicted Mark III trader user. MOST of my traders are set up as "Local Traders": Sector Traders with a Range > 0. Once your trainee Sector Trader gains 6 levels of experience, you can restart them with a Range of 0 or 1. The latter will allow them to trade in the adjacent sectors to the one they're assigned to. Each 2 levels, that range can be increased.

With careful placement of starting sector and range, you can avoid having them EVER stray into pirate or Xenon sectors, unless they're chased by some random passing hostile ship and randomly jump there to escape. In most games I lose about 0-2 such traders over an entire game. If I convert them to Universal Traders, they usually make a bit more money for a while, and then get toasted somewhere they don't belong. Generally, I'll field about 10-20 Local Traders for every Univesal Trader that I make. The only good point about the UT over the LT is that they can help balance out products between different areas; the LTs cover the individual areas FAR better, with a lot less time wasted chasing half way across the known universe for a slightly better price.

Note that a LT based in Argon Prime, with a Range of 3, can cover EVERY Argon sector in that whole Argon area, without reaching a pirate sector. If I set up more than one, I'll position one in the "north" and one in the "south", wiht ranges of only 2, so they're more likely to go after more localized trades. This seriously fires up the Argon economy by moving E-Cells, food, and other essentials, so the factories can produce an impressive amount more than they would otherwise.

CAGs are better for supplying your own factories, and eventually selling your products after they gain sufficient experience. Again, remember to set the trade range of the factory, so the CAGs stay in safe areas. Between those and a few CL1 and CL2 traders, you've got a LOT of safer options than UTs.

[MrFiction]

Depends on the rep with others. In my current game I'm friends with everyone, even most of the pirates are blue (non agressive). About 40 UTs roam around. It's rare to lose an UT, it mostly happens in sectors adjacent to a Xenon sector. I use UTs with 125 MJ or 200 MJ shields.

[pref]

Iirc TC does not have sector blacklists, but you can mod the game to have it.
Blacklist all sectors with hostile traffic, but your ships might still wander through blacklisted sectors if they run out of jump fuel. Though in AP i had no such problems with friendly pirates and a war on terrans.

Probably the safest solution though is to not make them UTs, but keep them on a high enough range to make profit (5+ should be fine), but never reach enemies. This usually turns more profit then UTs (according to my last game's stats) anyway - maybe they spend less time scanning for deals like that.

[ancienthighway]

No Mk3 traders in my games. When I do want something similar I use the Economy and Supply Trader, brought to you by the same person that created the original CAG and CLS scripts, and coincidentally uses the very same pilots.

Transport chance of surviving an attack in general, 0%. Scripted trader chances of surviving a pirate attack are superb if they can use a jump drive and have fuel. Chances of surviving a Q, 0%.

With the sporadic upgrades applied to AI ships, if your transport can fly at 100 m/s or better, it can outrun most pirate M3s, a less than even chance of outrunning pirate M4s, and little chance of outrunning M5s. Jump drive is the best defensive weapon you can buy for transports. I rarely send a transport out with full shields. Many are equipped with just a single 5mj shield.

[Snafu_X3]

I concur with the above

My plot games, when I need to make a lot of cash in a hurry, may have up to around 10 Mk3 Local Traders, carefully placed; I ignore UTs (except for Albion pre-link) as they're too easily killed.

Most of my cash comes from missions, repair/resale of ships, boarding & suitably placed stations with CAGs

[Alan Phipps]

[OT]

I find it slightly amusing that one common gripe about X Rebirth is the lack of a vanilla Universe Trader function yet when it is available in vanilla X3 games the experienced common wisdom seems to be not to use it.

Sorry for the OT observation - and definitely not wishing to start any further Rebirth discussion here!

[/OT]

[zazie]

I loooove UT-traders, in all of my games I have ~50 of them (yes, about 75% are used as LTs).
In Vanilla-Games it is important to use the FASTEST freighters, Mistrals, Caimans. Always equip them with the best available shielding. In combination with their use of drones, they might outrun most Pirate attacks.

I have to say that in my games I normally take over several Xenon sectors (472, 347, 101) and guard them. Of course this helps limiting any losses, not only UTs.
But if you are playing the 'original layout' you might consider to use Springblossoms as LTs around in zones with heavy activity of Xenon or Pirates. They are strong enough to fight back those M5/M4 that are fast enough to keep up with them. And they outrun most of other attacks.

Of course, about once in a IG-day you must accept that you loose an UT from OOS-insta-kills by heavy missiles or a unexpected encounter with a Q-patrol.
But in such a case, I blame myself for not having kept clear space from this patrol.

[Honved]

[OT]

I find it slightly amusing that one common gripe about X Rebirth is the lack of a vanilla Universe Trader function yet when it is available in vanilla X3 games the experienced common wisdom seems to be not to use it.
[/OT]

Depends on how you define "UT". If you're referring only to Universal Traders set to use their unrestricted travel range, then it's true that a lot of players don't use them, or use them sparingly. If you're talking about Mark III traders in general, as Sector, Local, and Universal Traders, then they're VERY popular. There are also other options for specific purposes, some of which partly overlap the functions of ST/LT/UT.

My suspicion is that the complainers are using the term "Universal Trader" to mean all or most of the various autonomous trade options, not just UT's specifically.

[jlehtone]

The "UT (aka Trade Mk3)" was an idea that the ability to script made possible in X2. There was certain amount of appreciated challenge in gathering first substantial lot of credits in X2. In that profit landscape an UT fleet felt (to some) "free money" or "I win button". Simply fire and forget and credits will flow in.

By X3TC, there were so many other "free money" options in the game that the UT had turned lackluster. Now you have players, whose dislike started in X2, players, who like other revenue methods better, and players that find a downside in the "just press Start".

When you do have a fire and forget device that has only the Start button, it has to do the Right Thing. UT does that, to an extent. It was made to be simple to use (it is -- one button press) and to make profitsss (it does). It is more slightly more efficient than the NPC Free Traders that essentially do the same thing.

The downside is the lack of control. (S&M has had solutions for that all along.) The need for additional management that turned out to be unavoidable: the Pilot Union (CAG/CLS/etc) requires more initial work, while the Trade Mk3 calls your attention much later -- or post-mortem.

Q: Which do you prefer? To pay (1) before or (2) after we deliver you the product?
A1: Can I do both?
A2: Neither.

Some of us do not like to pay attention to pilots at start (e.g. to train a CAG). Some of us do not like to replace pilots that met Q. Some of us do not like micromanagement in any form or shape. Some of us would not give up the chance to manage. Some hate "free" credits. Some accept the

Code: Select all

add credits to player account

@Alan:
I know neither the game you referred to nor gripes about it, but I presume that it has gathered a bit different demographics and that the other features within that game differ from X3 TC/AP options too. Different users gripe from different things and a lack of race car is less severe in cultures that haven't invented a wheel. I suppose.

[ancienthighway]

I stopped using the unrestricted UTs for two reasons.
1. Q's with the one shot because the pilot took the shortcut through a Xenon sector.
2. The initial cost for the Mk3 software.

Okay, I expect every transport to be a loss at some point. Some places are safer that others and ships there tend to last longer. Other places, life expectancy is shorter. With this in mind I only equip the ship with what's needed to do the assigned task. Equipping ships with the Mk3 software increased that start up cost by 500k cr. I want to make sure that ship doesn't have the opportunity to go wandering into Xenon space or migration routes. I'll assign them as sector and local traders instead.

Which brought me to use EST, basically an ST/LT without the high cost to start. It does have limitations similar to CLS based on pilot level, so it's not just free ST/LT from the start.

[Snafu_X3]

There's another update to TC Mk3 traders that /isn't/ EST; sadly I can't find it ATM

It does make them a lot more survivable (they jump out), useful (they'll get fuel when they need it, along with more profit-making cargo), & doesn't make them compatible with CAG/CLS pilot's guilds (which I personally find more 'believable'). Once you have this script installed you'll only lose a UT to a Q every game week, rather than every hour

It /does/ make the moneymaking side boring though; in a new start with this script I tend to restrict myself to 10 UTs (once trained, natch) & pretty much never replace them after HUB plot; they can die from attrition as my LT, CAG & CLS pilots keep turnover churning nicely

[pommie]

I just came back to X Universe after a few years away .. is there still a universal trader in AP??? its almost 10 yrs since I started playing ....

[RAVEN.myst]

I just came back to X Universe after a few years away .. is there still a universal trader in AP??? its almost 10 yrs since I started playing ....

Yes there is - and the script has been improved to include sector blacklisting functionality, which helps to keep them from most tragedies.

[pommie]

Yes there is - and the script has been improved to include sector blacklisting functionality, which helps to keep them from most tragedies.[/quote]

Thanks ... so next is where to get the Mk3??...