station manager is still stupid

[DrwHem]

I have a station that needs 40,000 hull parts with 8 idle traders right now. this station is set to only buy hull parts at the highest price from my faction only.
it is 1 jump away from another station that produces hull parts and only sells to my faction at the lowest price.
can someone explain why these useless ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ are not picking up these hull parts? i tried to screen shot it but steam screenshots is a pain.

[ZeroAffex]

Sounds like an issue with trade rules to me. You'll want a trade rule your hull part station to sell only to your faction. I think it helps if you put the selling price to the minimum, so I'd do that when you set it up.

Then for your other station, you can set a trade rule to buy only from your faction. Personally, I'd leave the buying station open for anyone since there's a chance an AI might swing by.. maybe xD And opposite for pricing of your selling station, put it at max price to buy.

After you set them, find each trader and remove all their commands/assignments and re-order them to work for the station commander (selling). Hopefully you'll see them pick up loads and distribute them out.

I will say too, another thing people overlook is satellites. Hopefully you have them around your own stations too if you plan on auto's. Sometimes people forget about those but it does help AI for autotrading. Anywhere you plan to make a sale needs a satellite essentially.

[Raholan]

easy fix, make your station to produce all it needs from raw ore,gas and then only sell the end product, that helps a lot with the logistics

Check this site: http://x4-game.com/#/station-calculator

[Sinius]

Make sure both stations have a budget. Make sure both stations can buy/sell open market before putting in trade restrictions. Make a save before you do this. After you have confirmed it is working you can reset to the save and set up the restrictions as you like.

[trooperrob]

I think there is a problem with traders.
I have found an issue. If the station wants 1 item, that it can't find in range, then all the traders on that station will (eventually) idle waiting for it.
eg if your station many sectors from terran needs silicon carbide, more and more of your traders will get stuck.
is the station looking for anything else?
I also seem to have a problem with hull parts if you have the recycling stuff on the same station and it produces hull parts. If it doesn't produce enough, then it will not buy them as fast as I would like.

I presume you have:
ensured both stations have plenty of money.
docks capable of docking the ships.
no trade restrictions / enemy activity preventing trade.

try:
removing any other trade orders temporarily
reassigning traders (sometimes they get confused)
check there isn't a delivery sheduled. I have had an npc agree to deliver something from many sectors away, then never arrive.
can also try re-assigning the station manager

For the person suggesting producing from raw materials.
the stations can also get confused with all miners going for silicon rather than some going for ore...... same if 2 gasses. :)

what does it list as buying?

[ZombieHunter]

If you set the station that has 40,000 to be able to only keep 20,000 in stock then it will probably work. If you have it set to maintain max stock then they won't send any to your other station b/c they must maintain max stock. I've found most things can be fixed by messing with the green bars and quantities to keep in stock. If you just leave everything at default nothing works. And make sure the one you set to only store 20,000 is set to trade with your faction only. Then set the max stock of the station that needs the ware to 20,000 or some other value above 20,000 and it should start to work.

A big part of the problem is the UI is not clear about what it is you are affecting.

[Ariki]

its probably because you have shortage in critical supplies like food or medicine, or maybe parts needed for making drones. your trader will only focus on those wares if you have shortages and delete everything else from their trade list until the shortage is accounted for, and when you have nowhere else to buy those critical wares your trader will be idle.

[DrwHem]

so heres my setup.
my metal factory only purchases and sells to my faction for all materials. the sell price is set to minimum and sell all but 10,000.
my shipyard is set to only purchase from my faction and the price is at max. it is set to buy up to 50000.
the metal factory seems to be working ok in terms of pushing goods out and keeping the food and meds in stock. the shipyard is the one with 8 idle ships and they need hull parts and food and meds ect. they are just not buying it even tho there are eligible offers only 1 gate away.

[Azrelus]

How many stars does your manager have?

[Sinius]

Double check to make sure you did not assign the traders to trade for build storage accidentally. Also firing and hiring a new manager is a thing.

[DrwHem]

manager is max level. both stations are quite old and they are trading for station storage not build storage.

[Azrelus]

Hmm, I'm afraid we need pictures of the settings to spot the problem, if there's any at all in the setup.

Personally I always use repeat orders for that kind of supply between stations I own as it is more reliable. With a single type of ware, the setup is fairly quick.

[Meme Turtle]

Originally posted by Sinius:

Make sure both stations have a budget. Make sure both stations can buy/sell open market before putting in trade restrictions. Make a save before you do this. After you have confirmed it is working you can reset to the save and set up the restrictions as you like.

This. My observation is manager's budget may affect trade offers, so no offer is generated or for very low quantities. Considering your station is a shipyard, they have a very high minimum trading budget. Double check trader offers are generated on both stations, and buying price is indeed higher than selling price.

[korac]

It does sound like this sort of thing is being addressed in the next update... but FWIW, I've found that 'push' generally tends to work a little better than 'pull' where station managers are concerned, i.e. given enough ships, the hull parts manager should supply the shipyard more readily than the shipyard manager is able to identify his own needs / use his own ships to meet those needs.

It's as if the current priority leans more towards selling than buying, if that makes any sense.

[Daddy Shark]

I see the same. Shipyards sitting with 4 or 5 traders "looking for trade" while the different production stations are happily delivering goods.

[DrwHem]

yea i am noticing a problem with station managers pulling resources. the metals factory is actively selling things so i may just remove the shipyard traders and give them to the metal factory.