Trading Mechanic Question

[Venerable_Sin]

Issue: Warf needs water to continue production but I do not produce water. I rely on NPC for water. I am using the ware basket on the station's traders in an attempt to trump the station managers priority ware but it doesn't appear to be working.

How do I get the basket to trump a station manager's priority ware? Anytime a station is low on inventory for any specific ware, nearly all trading stops. (Haven't spent hours watching to see if NPC ships can still dock and sell or buy station wares)

I do not want to produce water and I want to support the NPC faction that produces water but I would also like for the ware basket to trump a station manager.

What do I do? Day three on both Egosoft and Steam forums. I seem to keep running into this issue in different ways.

[Venerable_Sin]

Here's a screenshot for more clarification.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2520408642214148114/1C9D24A5D8C396272ECD2FE6F2229740A4E7EAC9/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

The trader shown is buying and selling water, even though the station wants many other wares, the station manager only wants the trader buying and selling water.

Another question I have for a trader assigned to a station manager: If the trader is using the ware basket- Does successful docking/trading give the % chance roll to increase the station managers skill level or the does the % chance roll go to the captain of the trader using the ware basket?

[conrado.lacerda]

Uncheck the water.

[Venerable_Sin]

If i did that then wouldn't obtaining water would be at least a 50% slower process since I would have to rely on an NPC trader coming to the Warf.

[conrado.lacerda]

You can leave a couple of traders responsible for buying the water (since you don't produce it) and the rest focusing on the other wares.

[Andros]

Well I have a work around and that’s to make water.

[Venerable_Sin]

Originally posted by conrado.lacerda:

You can leave a couple of traders responsible for buying the water (since you don't produce it) and the rest focusing on the other wares.

I would have to do this for every ware every station has which is incredibly inefficient at scale. I really need to know how to trump the station manager.

Originally posted by Andros:

Well I have a work around and that’s to make water.

Producing water myself would limit my support for the NPC faction. :( How do I have my cake and eat it too?

[conrado.lacerda]

A trade fleet with "fill shortages" for water on the leader and "mimic" for the subordinates, and with a trade blacklist allowing only that faction and your own.

[Venerable_Sin]

Originally posted by conrado.lacerda:

A trade fleet with "fill shortages" for water on the leader and "mimic" for the subordinates, and with a trade blacklist allowing only that faction and your own.

I am not familiar with "fill shortages". If I understand you correctly, you're saying to avoid using a station's trade manager and instead set up a fleet with very specific buy/sell/travel orders. I can trump the station manager's priority ware mechanic by not using a station manager? That seems like an odd thing to do.

[conrado.lacerda]

A ship set to "fill shortages" buys the chosen wares where they're cheap (price lower than the average) and holds them until it finds a good price to sell (higher than average).

The only way to avoid the manager's "low inventory madness" is to keep the station well-supplied, and this is one of the best ways considering your constraints.

[Venerable_Sin]

Ah, ok. So that doesn't change the underlying issue when the galaxy runs out of a certain ware. If the ware simply is not available, I would like the traders of a station to keep trading instead of waiting around for the next production cycle of the station managers priority ware to finish, which is an hour.

I'm totally confused why the priority ware is a mechanic in this game. It seems to only function to reduce a station's efficiency.

[trooperrob]

It should prioritise a ware in very short supply, but I think it is wrong that every single trader backs up, and waits for ever....

surely if 2-3 traders are searching for water the others should get on with other things.
Allegedly in 7.0 it is possible to select actual wares by trader, so theoretically you can set some of your traders to do all wares except water. Not tried it myself.

[conrado.lacerda]

Have you tried station-building missions? As long as you build the required modules, you can put all sorts of extra stuff on them...

[trooperrob]

That isn't the issue.
The issue is when 1 ware is not available all the station traders stop working.
You can notice it when you get a Terran turret / ship.
Your shipyards suddenly all want Terran goods, which may not be available. So all shipyard traders will just stop working....

By the time you have the money to build station missions, you probably have enough to build that module of your own.
Doesn't help much though because to build Terran production, you have to trek the construction mats from the other side of the galaxy....

[cwsumner]

Originally posted by conrado.lacerda:

Have you tried station-building missions? As long as you build the required modules, you can put all sorts of extra stuff on them...

Interesting, I never thought of that. So, you can have a faction build something you want but they will not object to it? (At least, not right away...) 8-)

Originally posted by trooperrob:

That isn't the issue.
The issue is when 1 ware is not available all the station traders stop working. ....

That sounds like it might be an actual bug. I don't think they should all stop, unless they are still searching for other factories. However, the experience of the managers and pilots does matter, so it would be good to check how many stars they have.

In this game, you and I are just another NPC. We don't have the authority to override station managers unless they work for us. And it's limited even if they do. More then once I have seen my employees take off doing something I did not tell them to do, and sometimes it works, even. 8-)
(See "cellular automata" and "emergent behavior". i.e, the NPCs are the cells)

[Venerable_Sin]

Originally posted by trooperrob:

It should prioritise a ware in very short supply, but I think it is wrong that every single trader backs up, and waits for ever....

surely if 2-3 traders are searching for water the others should get on with other things.
Allegedly in 7.0 it is possible to select actual wares by trader, so theoretically you can set some of your traders to do all wares except water. Not tried it myself.

I totally agree with you. If the station manager was smart enough to assign a maximum amount of L,M,S ships for one priority ware (and the assigned ships had some kind of notification, like a colored symbol) then the priority ware mechanic would be much more powerful, which would make the game much more interesting, in my opinion.

It's simply not fun to have to pause your entire play through because you need to build 50 modules at 15 minutes each in order to nothave to wait 1 hour, every hour. This mechanic reduces enjoyment for me, as well as other more casual players.