Can't get NPC's to buy/sell to my stations. How do I do my own traders?

[YouTube.com/StoneLegion]

7am a bit tired and played all day / night long haha. So I built a Silicon Mine L in Ore Belt. I build a Wheat Farm M in the home of light I think it was called. I set both them to buy energy at 17, avg was 16 and I told them to sell their products also one cheaper.

Sadly running x10 for 30 Minutes nothing happen. That is I think 5 hours in game time?

I hear you can set a trade ships home at the station and have a best buy / sell going. Not sure if I need 2 ships one for buy and one to sell. I really don't know the easy way to set this up or the correct way. I was hoping you guys could walk me through it. I'm having a lot of issues searching X3 information on google sadly due to the poor seo of the forums. They tend to bring up mostly the most oldest post possible but list them even recent as the last few years and be back in 2008 lol.


Also I like to build even more stations of the next few days just single ones not complex. If you got other suggestions on a good station and area of space and why I love to hear it :)

Thanks :)

[EveLykano]

Hi there.

You`ll need two frighter if you go with the best buy/sell option. With the addon scripts you can set a automated sales man in the frighters. They are more efficient but you`ll have to pay them a little wage.

NPCs seldomly visit your stations, except for some Tech-Products like 1MJ shields.

At the beginning I prefer some single stations to cover secondary demand but build complexes later in game.

[FourGreenFields]

NPCs will trade with your stations unless you tell them not to (there's an option in the station settings). However, they won't usually trade unless there is a good bunch of profit to be made. That's why NPC stations often end up with completely empty stock of a resource, or a full stock of a product. If you don't want to use freighters, you need to make the prices much worse for yourself.

Which is why it's generally better to use freighters. You can get away with just one (either through that bonus stuff, or by regularly changing whether they sell or buy), but for "set up and forget" you'll need one for each resource and product.
Jumpdrive recommended. Have him auto-jump at one sector range, and automatic fuel supply for twice the max trading range of the station. Then tell him to buy/sell a resource/product. (I have tried with setting up proper tradesmen (CLS stuff), but they refused to jump, so went back to this system)

[Bionic Gamer]

The CLS will only jump at cargo messenger rank or above.

[Irrehaare]

When it comes to selling to stations:
Option A: Every freighter (or M4) for each product, and select "Buy for the best price" or "Sell for the best price"
Option B: CAG (Commercial Agent) is more advanced option, you can find some basic info here:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=275924
Not an easy thing to set up, but it's effective and gives you many possibilities.

[Naturallog]

What I do to attract NPCs to my station is make a simple complex of an ore mine, food production, and a few factories making cheap missiles, 1MJ or 5MJ shields, or other such goods. The NPCs love that stuff, and you can turn a profit even buying e-cells at 18-20 credits each. Then just ignore the station. Free money with zero need for interaction for the rest of the game. Be sure to build in a core sector (or somewhere far from pirate/xenon sectors) so there are lots of traders and few enemies.

NPCs don't seem to be interested in trading with any mines or food factories I build, I think there's just too much competition with NPC factories. Shields and missiles sell like mad, however.

[Irrehaare]

Originally posted by Naturallog:

What I do to attract NPCs to my station is make a simple complex of an ore mine, food production, and a few factories making cheap missiles, 1MJ or 5MJ shields, or other such goods. The NPCs love that stuff, and you can turn a profit even buying e-cells at 18-20 credits each. Then just ignore the station. Free money with zero need for interaction for the rest of the game. Be sure to build in a core sector (or somewhere far from pirate/xenon sectors) so there are lots of traders and few enemies.

NPCs don't seem to be interested in trading with any mines or food factories I build, I think there's just too much competition with NPC factories. Shields and missiles sell like mad, however.

Amen to that.

[Muffin]

just a thought but did you transfer some credits to your station so they can buy the mateials needed

[Plays In Traffic]

If your good with the Terran's Protine Paste Factory's don't exsist till you build them. Teladianium Foundry's do very good in non-Teladi & non-Terran space. And when you finish a station construction mission take a good look at what that station needs.

[DrSuperEvil]

NPC ships never sell to your factories so you need a freighter with CLS or CAG to to the purchasing. With CAG set the ware list and then click for it to start (ship must have the station set as the home base). Once it reaches level 5 it will also try to sell wares in the leash range.

I personally only use stations to gain rep with hostile factions (space fuel/weed). All my complexes are self sufficient for personal use.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by DrSuperEvil:

NPC ships never sell to your factories

I doubt that.

[DrSuperEvil]

They sell to docks but not factories.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by DrSuperEvil:

They sell to docks but not factories.

Still doubt it. Had a complex partially supplied by NPCs for a while, before using it to train traders. They sell wares to, and buy wares from your factories.

[DrSuperEvil]

Even at max price I have never had NPCs sell to any station of mine even though it is set to the most advantageous prices for any NPC.