Blacklists not working

[Auftragsmoerder]

Why are blacklists not doing anything? Another great subject in X4 where every of your crewmen is just doing whatever they want.

After blacklisting and evacuating a sector it takes now 26 seconds until a new order right through that sector is given. I can delete all i want - they just try it again and again, until their damn freighters are finally dead.

I was this glad as i read about added blacklist option. Now testing it the first time in a time of great need it fails blatantly.

[eMYNOCK]

there are 3 Blacklist Types in total.

Travel, Activities & Factions

To prevent Ships from going through a sector you need a Travel Blacklist, unless the Ship in question has Business in that Sector it will stay away.

To prevent Ships from having any kind of business in a Sector you need an Activities Blacklist, this will prevent Miners from going into Sectors you don't want them in, Traders from accepting Deals and in general forbids any kind of interactions within such a restricted Sector.

To prevent Business with certain Factions in a Sector you want your Ships to be in, like in 2nd Contact, you need a List that specifies with whom they are not meant to deal with.


Now go and setup at least a Travel and an Activity List, hand this list either by default or via Station Settings to your Ships (Military, Civilian or both) and start to observe.


Be aware that you can also handle those two very crutial Lists on a Ship to Ship basis.

If you have trouble to understand how the Blacklists actually work or you need further help, feel free to ask Questions.

[Auftragsmoerder]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

unless the Ship in question has Business in that Sector

Why this unnecessarily complicated again?

If a ship is not allowed to fly into a sector, stop it from flying into a sector. At least clarify this somewhere, as no one can expect to make this conclusion on their own.

On a sidenote: i am already betting that having two lists is NOT doing the trick. None of my six L-traders and -miners that i lost in minutes had any business in that sector. Just give the player an option to blacklist a sector totally, without any fancy stuff necessary beforehand.

[Auftragsmoerder]

Update: second list did not help. Imagine my suprise.

[eMYNOCK]

Show me the lists and an example of a ship / station that uses them.

[Auftragsmoerder]

Hope this works, i have no clue what i am doing.

https://ibb.co/g3fFq1Y


Factory in Hatikvah's choice III is still calling everyone to fly through.

[Tech Enthusiast]

Now,... is that sector owned by the Xenon, or do they just have some stations and are still trying to get control? Because those lists only specify Xenon owned sectors. By default the sector in question is not a xenon sector.

[Oddible]

Originally posted by Auftragsmoerder:

Hope this works, i have no clue what i am doing.

https://ibb.co/g3fFq1Y


Factory in Hatikvah's choice III is still calling everyone to fly through.

Those look right but again, if you have ships that already have orders in their behaviours tab they won't modify those orders. Show the Behaviors tab of a ship that is going there.

[Auftragsmoerder]

Originally posted by Tech Enthusiast:

Now,... is that sector owned by the Xenon, or do they just have some stations and are still trying to get control? Because those lists only specify Xenon owned sectors. By default the sector in question is not a xenon sector.

Xenon, Khaak and Hatikvahs Choice I

Originally posted by Oddible:

if you have ships that already have orders in their behaviours tab they won't modify those orders

Bad design. But even if, the ships order lists were deleted entirely over and over again. No 30 seconds later they were ordered to fly through again.

[eMYNOCK]

kha'ak can not own sectors, that entry is obsolete.

these two lists are defined correct.

i assume your ships are trying to cross hatikvahs choice trying to go into either silent witness or argon prime.

do you have knowledge about the alternative routes? can your ships reach the other system by taking detours or do they simply have no other choice but to go through?

[Tech Enthusiast]

You guys sure it is done right?
I always though the lists had a "AND" modifyer attached. So "Owned by Xenon AND Hatikvahs choice I" - so in this case, unless the sector is really owned by Xenon, the blacklist would not show that sector as a "hit" and allow it. At least that is how I do my blacklists and they seem to always work like that.

I either do "avoid all factions in that sector" and they never go there, or I do "avoid this faction in any sector" and they never go to any sector owned by that faction.

[Auftragsmoerder]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

do you have knowledge about the alternative routes? can your ships reach the other system by taking detours or do they simply have no other choice but to go through?

There is no alternative route.

Alternative routes are of no concern. It is a "no fly zone" not a "maybe if the circumstances are right not fly zone". This entire black-list-thing is getting messier and messier...

[eMYNOCK]

the blacklists are supposed to work like this:

example:
blacklist "owned by enemy" disallows all enemy sectors
blacklist "owned by enemy" + [insert sector] disallows enemy sector + [selected sector]

if the ships have no choice but to go through the selected sector they will have to go through it, if they can take a detour that is within their commanders distance they will prefer to take the detour.

thats why i asked if the ships have a choice.

Originally posted by Auftragsmoerder:

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

do you have knowledge about the alternative routes? can your ships reach the other system by taking detours or do they simply have no other choice but to go through?

There is no alternative route.

Alternative routes are of no concern. It is a "no fly zone" not a "maybe if the circumstances are right not fly zone". This entire black-list-thing is getting messier and messier...

read above...

but if you want to really ensure that not a single ship has to traverse hatikvahs choice you will have to define a hand crafted additional list that disallows the 5 sectors that go into the direction your ships want to go and you will have to give it either to the commander of your ships or to your ships drectly via their individual settings.

i KNOW that its complicated and not really user friendly... i am by no means responsible for how the logic works.

i am a mere walking and talking help guide for that matter... and just a more than experienced player my self.

try the described method... thats all i'm asking for.

i my self use multiple blacklists... more than i have fingers to count... but they do what i want them to do.

[Oddible]

Originally posted by Auftragsmoerder:

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

do you have knowledge about the alternative routes? can your ships reach the other system by taking detours or do they simply have no other choice but to go through?

There is no alternative route.

Alternative routes are of no concern. It is a "no fly zone" not a "maybe if the circumstances are right not fly zone". This entire black-list-thing is getting messier and messier...

Agreed, that if this is in fact the logic then this is problematic - personally I see the Travel blacklist as trumping the Activity blacklist. But again, Egosoft's UI often lacks "human" features but is always incredibly internally consistent. If an Activity is allowed somewhere, then the ship will try to get there even if it has to go through a blacklisted travel sector. Activity seems to get priority over Travel. So you wouldn't need to mark all those other sectors in the travel blacklist, only the one, but you would have to add all sectors behind Hatikvah's on the Activity blacklist.

[hurepoix]

Black list are not friendly user, like X4 in some extend. I sometime though it didnt work, when really I didnt set it correctly.

Most time I had forget to set section civil/military ships. So I asked to blacklist a sector (hatikvah 1 for exemple) then set it for travel, and make a second blacklist for activities.

So I had 2 blacklist that forbid travel and activity at hatikvah and that applied to ... none of my ships..

Add to that egosoft devs have probably worked for microsoft since you ve have to validate many time any decisions.

Validate yes, are you sure ? yes, really it is what you want ? yes. May I ask you to confirm ?

In early versions iirc Blacklist hativah requiere you enter in hatikvah I and hatikvah3, and blacklist both, because Hatikvah 1 wasnt not considered as a sector but as dependance of an assembly.

Except when I forget to set all sections, then validate my choices a dozen of time, Blacklist always works correctly for me.

[Auftragsmoerder]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

the blacklists are supposed to work like this:

but if you want to really ensure that not a single ship has to traverse hatikvahs choice you will have to define a hand crafted additional list that disallows the 5 sectors that go into the direction your ships want to go and you will have to give it either to the commander of your ships or to your ships drectly via their individual settings.

Thank you for the advice. I think i will stop using blacklists now.

Seriously, who programmed this and thought "yep, that is how that should work"?