X3AP: PHQ and CAG/CLS

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Fightguey (6)

Posted 12 years ago.

Hi again everyone!

So I've been playing around with my shiny new PHQ, reverse engineering anything I can get my hands on. I've also just begun the Xenon Hub plot and have been trying to get CAG to do my bidding.

So I've been experimenting with a single CAG ship (Mistral with all the upgrades + Logistician CAG/CLS Pilot). I am trying to make it buy Mosquito missiles. I have the Ware List set to (Trade List) and have Mosquito Missiles set as the only ware. The PHQ should have plenty of cash on hand (200k CR) to at least start the CAG running, but he's just sitting there in the PHQ on stand-by.

I cleared the Ware List altogether and set it back to (Blacklist) then started CAG again and he ran off and bought some drones and brought them back to the PHQ.

I looked around the sectors for the missile fabs and EQ docks that sell the Mosquitos and decided that maybe I needed to set the Jump Range higher, so I set it to 15, restarted CAG, nothing.

So next I gave him the Stop command, then Fly to Sector (just the home sector of my PHQ), set the Ware List back to (Trade List) and added the Mosquitos back, then told him to start up the Commercial Representation again... He flies back to the PHQ and what do you know, stand-by.

I'm confused. Could it still be a jump range issue? Am I possibly missing something else?

I'll be playing with the jump range and other options some more to see if I can't get him kickstarted in the right direction.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have.

Morg.

PS. I've just watched all 3 CAG / CLS YouTube vids by CdrDave - I found them very helpful for everything else I'm doing so far, just not this. I'm sure I've just missed something.

** Update ** I'm not sure which of these things did it, or a combination of both, but I set the Buy price for the Mosquitos to max and set Jump Range to 50 sectors and voila, he is buying Mosquitos!

Seygantte

Instruguey (13)

Posted 12 years ago.

Have you gone into the trade duties menu and changed the Trade duty from (Trader) to (Shopper)?
Does the CAG have the PHQ assigned as it's home base?

You also might want to go to the PHQ's dockware manager from the commands list and put a limit on how many mosquitoes it will accept, or your CAG will fill it up with 500000 of them. Seriously, it did that to me with silicon wafers and it took me ages to get rid of them all.
*EDIT* Apparently this doesn't always work. CLS seems to ignore the limit imposed by dockware manager, which means you'll have to manually set the limit using the "Unload up to" option in the waypoint for each ship. Not sure if it CAG is affected though.

à² _à²°à³ƒ My monocle and I disapprove â™‹

Morgund

Fightguey (6)

Posted 12 years ago.

Have you gone into the trade duties menu and changed the Trade duty from (Trader) to (Shopper)?

No! I'll try that too.

Does the CAG have the PHQ assigned as it's home base?

Yep! Smile

You also might want to go to the PHQs dockware manager from the commands list and put a limit on how many mosquitoes it will accept, or your CAG will fill it up with 500000 of them. Seriously, it did that to me with silicon wafers and it took me ages to get rid of them all.

Looking into this now... At first it wasn't very intuitive, but now I think I've about got it figured out.

**Update: So he filled me up to 5500 Mosquitos before I got that valve shut.

Thanks for the tips!

Morg.

Seygantte

Instruguey (13)

Posted 12 years ago.

No problem! I agree that it's not intuitive, which is why it happened to me xD

By the way, if you're quoting someone you can use the (quote=username)text(/quote) replacing () with [] so that it appears separate.

à² _à²°à³ƒ My monocle and I disapprove â™‹

martimus

Boneguey (9)

Posted 12 years ago.

I prefer CLS2 for this task, as it is more direct. (You literally tell it to buy the product and drop off as many as needed to fill up your target to the level you specify, and it will top it off automatically when supplies diminish.) No need to set additional external.restrictions like dockware this way.

Roguey

Trueguey (22)

Posted 12 years ago.

If you want something like Mosquitos, why not just build a mini-complex? You can make Mosquitos in massive qualities.

Seygantte

Instruguey (13)

Posted 12 years ago.

If you want something like Mosquitos, why not just build a mini-complex? You can make Mosquitos in massive qualities.
- Roguey

Not everyone is confident in building complexes. I, for one, have just a single complex at the moment to supply my PHQ, and most of my revenue comes from missions.

à² _à²°à³ƒ My monocle and I disapprove â™‹

Morgund

Fightguey (6)

Posted 12 years ago.

I used the quote link on your post and when I did a preview the quotes were invisible... Lets see if this works...

**edit: ok so it works regardless of the preview. Thanks for that Smile

Morgund

Fightguey (6)

Posted 12 years ago.

Would you have a link to something giving a step by step guide to set this up with an example commodity? I've been having some intermittent trouble with this.

Morgund

Fightguey (6)

Posted 12 years ago.

Not everyone is confident in building complexes. I, for one, have just a single complex at the moment to supply my PHQ, and most of my revenue comes from missions.
- Seygantte

This, except my revenue comes from my UTs and the stock market.

Seygantte

Instruguey (13)

Posted 12 years ago.

Would you have a link to something giving a step by step guide to set this up with an example commodity? I've been having some intermittent trouble with this.
- Morgund

I don't have a link but I can write a brief summary to the best of my knowledge. Provided that you have the necessary software, let's say you want to move energy cells from a specific power plant to a station:

Open up your ship's commands and go to [Trade] -> [external logistics]. You will be presented with a list of option.
For a specific station, hit [Waypoints] and then chose load, the power plant, and the ware. You will at some point get asked how much. Manual will add x amount to the ship's cargo, manual up to will fill your cargo to x amount.
If your cargo ship will be jumping to and fro the stations, here would also be a good time to add the [Refuel ship] command at the SSP. You should then check on the jumpdrive options from the previous menu.
Next go through the same process for the destination station, selecting unload and the ware. In this instance, manual up to will be the limit that the station will accept. Your ship stop unloading when that limit is reached, but will hold onto the unloaded wares unless you order it to unload elsewhere.

When you are satisfied with the orders, go back to the previous menu and hit the start option.

à² _à²°à³ƒ My monocle and I disapprove â™‹

Morgund

Fightguey (6)

Posted 12 years ago.

I must have misunderstood something in your previous post... This is what I've been doing to keep the silicon wafers stocked up at my PHQ supply complex, and it works quite well.

Using the CLS2 method you have to either have your own factory providing the necessity, or rely on a particular NPC factory to keep stock up for you? I suppose I could run a supply chain for an NPC factory to ensure myself some stock from them but other NPCs will invariably beat me to a pickup now and then.

Is there a simple way to have CAG go buy 1 or 2 commodities/wares and deliver to my PHQ? For instance, 15,000 Stotts Spices?

I may need to reset all my PHQ station settings to defaults to go this route, I think I've buggered some things up when I was trying to get rid of the 5500 Mosquitoes automagically.

Seygantte

Instruguey (13)

Posted 12 years ago.

Using the CLS2 method you have to either have your own factory providing the necessity, or rely on a particular NPC factory to keep stock up for you? I suppose I could run a supply chain for an NPC factory to ensure myself some stock from them but other NPCs will invariably beat me to a pickup now and then.
- Morgund

Well if you want to have NPC stations in your waypoints you can change the Load command to a Buy command. This method of adding waypoints works best if you just want the CLS to go to specific stations. On the flipside, If you choose the Generate Waypoints option from the first menu, you can set a jump range around a certain sector and tell the ship to go to every station that sells a certain resource (with the option of choosing NPC and/or Owned exclusively.. By adding other waypoints you can then decided if you want the ship to visit them all in succession, or visit your station to unload in between stops. The benefit of this method is that you can plan the route to take as little time as possible, whereas the CAG will always go Home->A->Home->B->Home etc etc, which may take much longer, especially if A and B are in the same sector. I also stopped using CAGs for moving my own wares from my own stations, because it was buying from myself and I had to manually resupply my unloading station with credits. The Unload option in the CLS bypasses this.

If you do want to use CAG though, as I do often when I'm in a hurry, there is a way to make it search for specific items. After assigning a homebase, what you need to do is open the Wares list and change the type from a blacklist to a trade list. Then just add the wares you want on the option below. If your CAG is going to be working for a factory and you just want all the resources, leave it blank and the CAG will by default trade everything. On stations I use the trade list because there's often something I'm just storing there until I move it elsewhere, and I don't want the CAG going and buying a whole load more.

You can add multiple wares to the same CAG, and have multiple CAGs with the same wares. If you go to the Trader Settings on the first menu, and make sure that the Agreement with Colleagues is set to yes (it should be by default) then those CAGs shouldn't try and go for the same resource at the same station, but will head for different targets.

Next head over to the trade duties menu, and you can pick the CAG's role. Shopper will only buy things, salesman will only sell things and trader will do both. For your purposes I'd recommend shopper, otherwise the CAG may try and sell on those Stott Spices to another station for a profit. If you're trying to stockpile something then obviously that's a bad idea. There are also a bunch of other options you can fiddle with, changing levels to which they will fill the station etc.

Next head into the Exceptions menu, and check over the options there. By default, the CAGs will wander to anywhere that they detect cheap resources. Mine kept getting attacked, so I enabled Trade only in SEWN sectors, so I'd know they'd be safe. They usually stay in those sectors anyway, because the Advanced Satellites I put down keep track of the prices and not all my CAGs have bestbuy software. Adding unsafe sectors to the blacklist (which can be made into a trade list if you want to be specific as to where they can go) makes them safer Imho. I'd then recommend getting them a jumpdrive and let them use it all the time, otherwise they'll still wander through sectors they're not allowed to trade in to get to a target they can trade with. Mine kept wandering though the war sectors. Really I think there should be an option to blacklist your ships from passing through certain sectors altogether, but I don't think such an option exist in vanilla.

Lastly, if you're intending to set up a bunch of identical CAGs, (or CLSs for that matter) you can save the setting for one ship in the Data storage menu and load them into another. Time saver.

That's all I can think of, sorry if some of the stuff you already know Wink

à² _à²°à³ƒ My monocle and I disapprove â™‹

Morgund

Fightguey (6)

Posted 12 years ago.

If you do want to use CAG though, as I do often when Im in a hurry, there is a way to make it search for specific items. After assigning a homebase, what you need to do is open the Wares list and change the type from a blacklist to a trade list. Then just add the wares you want on the option below. If your CAG is going to be working for a factory and you just want all the resources, leave it blank and the CAG will by default trade everything. On stations I use the trade list because theres often something Im just storing there until I move it elsewhere, and I dont want the CAG going and buying a whole load more.
- Seygantte

This got it done nicely!

The CAG wares blacklist / trade list took me a little bit to get a handle on for some reason, but it seems to be going rather smoothly at the moment.

I have the bonus pack and I take advantage of both the MK3 sector blacklist and the CAG sector blacklist. It only took me losing a couple of freighters (they were just Mercuries so it wasn't a huge loss) to figure that one out. I didn't want to try losing my Mistrals.

I had an Advanced Disco out dropping adv sats for SEWN but I think he died. I hadn't been paying him any attention. I'll need to crank a couple or 6 more out to finish mapping my 'verse.

I've found that if I set their "Use Jumpdrive=Yes" and "Minimum Jumps=1" that helps keep them from running into blacklisted sectors in transit. I may be losing some cash to ecells but I'm saving myself the headache of replacing them, and in 16hrs of non-seta afk trading I haven't lost a single one. Granted I still only have about 60% of the universe explored... I know, slacker. I've spent a considerable amount of time playing with CAG/CLS/Station management/etc. and then waiting and watching to see what things are doing.

Now I've moved on to experimenting with using the Dock Ware Manager to manipulate the CAGs. Do the ware limits work both ways? If I set a ware limit to 1000 will my shopper CAG only buy to that level but if I were to have more than 1000 my salesman CAG would sell down to it?

Seygantte

Instruguey (13)

Posted 12 years ago.

I have the bonus pack and I take advantage of both the MK3 sector blacklist and the CAG sector blacklist. It only took me losing a couple of freighters (they were just Mercuries so it wasnt a huge loss) to figure that one out. I didnt want to try losing my Mistrals.
- Morgund

If you have the bonus pack, do you use the Turbo boost? And if so, have you discovered the big bug yet?

I had an Advanced Disco out dropping adv sats for SEWN but I think he died. I hadnt been paying him any attention. Ill need to crank a couple or 6 more out to finish mapping my verse.
- Morgund

This is why I do all of my Adv Sat. placement myself, with multiple ones in each sector. I think if you just issue the Deploy Sat Network command they get placed 1 per sector at (0,0,0) and end up getting destroyed. I put them 16k up on the Y axis, and if the sector's big I spread them 54k apart. That gives total coverage of the ecliptic while keeping them out of the way of wandering pirates. I'm now moving on to putting laser towers on the gates in vital sectors to weed out these pests.

Now Ive moved on to experimenting with using the Dock Ware Manager to manipulate the CAGs. Do the ware limits work both ways? If I set a ware limit to 1000 will my shopper CAG only buy to that level but if I were to have more than 1000 my salesman CAG would sell down to it?
- Morgund

Erm, I'm not sure. I think in the trade duties there are options that tell the CAG what level to sell from, eg, sell if over 20% full. If it's a station like the PHQ which doesn't have a pre-specified limit, I would assume that it would take the limit as imposed by the dockware manager. Have a test and report back.

The CAG wares blacklist / trade list took me a little bit to get a handle on for some reason, but it seems to be going rather smoothly at the moment.
- Morgund

Just to clarify, if the CAG is working for a factory as a general shopper, leave it as a blank Blacklist. I think a blank Trade List would just mean it not do anything at all.

à² _à²°à³ƒ My monocle and I disapprove â™‹

Morgund

Fightguey (6)

Posted 12 years ago.

If you have the bonus pack, do you use the Turbo boost? And if so, have you discovered the big bug yet?
- Seygantte

I have not used the Turbo boost... Maybe once I'm independently wealthy I'll invest in the cheaper version and play with it. Until then, no spoilers please Wink

I could change my mind on that later though.

This is why I do all of my Adv Sat. placement myself, with multiple ones in each sector. I think if you just issue the Deploy Sat Network command they get placed 1 per sector at (0,0,0) and end up getting destroyed. I put them 16k up on the Y axis, and if the sectors big I spread them 54k apart. That gives total coverage of the ecliptic while keeping them out of the way of wandering pirates. Im now moving on to putting laser towers on the gates in vital sectors to weed out these pests.
- Seygantte

I know I *should* be doing this instead of just staring at the property screen. Mayhaps I will. When I use the deploy sat network command I usually set my sats at 0,0 and 24km above the ecliptic. I mostly use them for keeping track of ware prices than anything else.

Erm, Im not sure. I think in the trade duties there are options that tell the CAG what level to sell from, eg, sell if over 20% full. If its a station like the PHQ which doesnt have a pre-specified limit, I would assume that it would take the limit as imposed by the dockware manager. Have a test and report back.
- Seygantte

So I set Stott Spices to a max of 15k units with the Dockware Manager, but my CAG pilot wasn't smart enough to buy just enough to fill the last 20%... oh wait... as I typed that I just realized, the 80% could be a barrier I have set in the CAG? If you set limits on the PHQ with the Dock Ware Manager are they read as normal station limits on other stations? That would make sense.

Just to clarify, if the CAG is working for a factory as a general shopper, leave it as a blank Blacklist. I think a blank Trade List would just mean it not do anything at all.
- Seygantte

Understood!

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