[X3AP Bonus Plugin] Trade MK3 Blacklist Manager

kylania · Post by **kylania** » Wed, 4. Jan 12, 22:16

Just to confirm, you need to activate this by opening the secondary command for MK3 Blacklist for each ship it's not just standard to the whole game right?

There's no visible feedback if this is active or not so I need to ask.

Also if we take a UT and reassign him for something else, will we need to reissue this command to them when we turn them back into a UT?

--

I'm 100% convinced there's some problem with this script and X3:AP since my UTs will NOT stop doing into blacklisted areas (where the system and every system around it and even stations in those systems are blacklisted).

UT has gone from a wonderful source of funds while I did other things to a nightmare of micromangement having to constantly fling idiots across the universe to get them out of black listed areas. Out of 7 traders running I've had them go into blacklisted areas 8 times in 3 hours. Does no one have any idea what's wrong or how to make this stop?

Perhaps this is why? The Bonus Pack for AP uses the same code as TC in some cases: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 41#3770141

infy dev · Post by **infy dev** » Thu, 5. Jan 12, 23:19

kylania wrote:Just to confirm, you need to activate this by opening the secondary command for MK3 Blacklist for each ship it's not just standard to the whole game right?

There's no visible feedback if this is active or not so I need to ask.

Also if we take a UT and reassign him for something else, will we need to reissue this command to them when we turn them back into a UT?

the blacklist is supposedly global for all UTs, but just to be sure I reloaded & tried manually setting it on the offending UT, and he still did it.

(also if the author needs a savegame where a UT is about 1 minute from making the decision to jump into blacklisted space to trade with a blacklisted station, I can provide one)

Darz · Post by **Darz** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 04:44

This script is not working. Even after blacklisting I've had one UT destroyed in Omicron Lyrae, and then shortly after another UT jumped to the same system (probably to get the same deal), and was attacked.

I'm not even sure if this script has ever worked. If you go to the original thread the author says that he won't be able to get to fixing it for a while, and then he never responds again. http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... sc&start=0

Why did Egosoft include this script in the bonus pack when it is obviously not working? And a better question is why wasn't a working version included in vanilla AP? It seems pretty short sighted of Egosoft to create war zone systems but not implement a feature to prevent the player's traders from going into those systems.

Raikyn · Post by **Raikyn** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 09:42

It is not just UTs , my sector traders that I have setup in neptune with a range of whatever, have also entered blacklisted sectors(ie the warzone sectors)

petr.ishimu · Post by **petr.ishimu** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 11:29

ap...

is this meant to work with remote best sell/buy?

i have a mistral with mk3 installed (but not activated), told it to best sell flowers within 99 sectors. it picked a pirate base that's on the black list (that's right... the base in the sector is blacklisted, but not the sector) and promptly gets destroyed by the laser towers

ship also has fight 1/2 installed.
...

if not. any idea how to set up a blacklist for such purpose?

Darkhan · Post by **Darkhan** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 21:58

Agreed, Blacklist Manager does *NOT* work. I've lost 5 UT's in the last half hour as they're trying to provision bases in Pirate sectors that are both blacklisted (sector and ALL stations in it). Yet they're trying to deliver silicon,Ore or energy).

More specifically I built those stations on build missions, they don't belong to me and they are ALL blacklisted).

Game setup is unmodified (I.e. plain + bonus pack only). ALL UT's have Fight 1/2 as well as Trader 1/2/3.

jlehtone · Post by **jlehtone** » Fri, 6. Jan 12, 22:50

petr.ishimu wrote:is this meant to work with remote best sell/buy?

No.

Foxbyte · Post by **Foxbyte** » Sun, 8. Jan 12, 03:40

I can also confirm the blacklist isn't working at all. Omicron Lyrae seems to be the most common graveyard for my new merchantmen UTs, despite it being on the blacklist.

theredman · Post by **theredman** » Wed, 11. Jan 12, 09:17

my work around was to label atf and terran as foes for my uts to minimize losses but I occasionally lose one to argons attacking my ai controlled ships.

oddgit · Post by **oddgit** » Sun, 15. Jan 12, 05:01

So, I would like to chime in on the Blacklist not working.
I am running a clean install from steam of TC and AP, i have only installed the bonus pack for AP.
So i started as Poisoned Paranid, worked very hard and got my ATF rank up to Lunar Access and Terran rank to Servant of Terra. I was tired of my UTs getting attacked in Omicron Lyrae and the other warzones. I made sure all of this game i did not enter any warzone. Finally i decided to test out my new awesome relationship with the ATF, Argon and Terrans. Well, the Argon are pissed at me for having good Terran and ATF rank.
I started a rank 25 mk3 trader in sector trade mode and it was chased around by some Argon rapid response ships. It is just the AI in the warzone. I trained my MK3 traders in Argon space in The Wall then moved them to Aldrin. It seems that the AI has the faction that you have lower rep with be the agressor in the warzones. I have not done any of the Argon war stuff, i have not even been in Argon Sector M148.
Ranks are as follows
Argon Trusted Ally [L] - 95%
ATF Lunar Access - 49%
Terran Servant of Terra - 66%
Its pretty irritating, in a previous start, i set up a blacklist for all of the warzones and adjacent sectors in a attempt to keep the UTs from resupplying or entering, but they still kept going to Omicron Lyrae, luckily Mistral and Mistral Super Freighters are pretty tough, they usually would jump out after dumping their fighter drones, but then they would get stuck in a station next to one of the warzones, and idle there until i jumped them to a new sector and reissued the universe trade command.
It isn't the worst bug around, but it would be great if i didn't have to babysit my traders, especially when i told them not to go to specific places, its like they are one of Doctor Who's companions or something.

Legionos · Post by **Legionos** » Sun, 15. Jan 12, 11:29

i have had 1 instance of the blacklist not working, ST came into Jupiter to sell remaining Ore

however i only have one UT which is a recent addition and my other ST's do not have the trade range to go near the terran war sectors so its still an indication that i may not work properly

Pruvmerong · Post by **Pruvmerong** » Sun, 15. Jan 12, 11:59

It's not just refueling/etc that causes UT's to enter blacklist sectors. I sat there and watched one of my UT's enter Omicron Lyrae and sell a load of ore at one of the stations. I had that sector and most of the individual stations within blacklisted. I've also had numerous UT's try to sell stuff in Spaceweed Grove, and try to fly through Asteroid Belt (I have all Pirate/Terran sectors blacklisted). Luckily, I've only actually lost one UT so far.

Nick Northern · Post by **Nick Northern** » Sun, 15. Jan 12, 23:35

I am running this from the bonus pack inside AP.

In about 20 hours game time running UT's with blacklist running and about 15 sectors on the list, I have had my ships go into blacklisted sectors about a dozen times. Every single time it was either Omicron Lyrae or the pirate sector to the right of PTNI Headquarters. They have never run into any other blacklisted sector. All the times they did this, they were trying to sell food. Meatsteaks in Omicron Lyrae and Rastar Oil in the pirate sector east of PTNI Headquarters (sorry forget its name in AP).

I'm not annoyed by this as Blacklist still works better than not using one at all, but hopefully this info will be informative to someone.

oddgit · Post by **oddgit** » Mon, 16. Jan 12, 06:07

I agree with you Nick, it is usually Omicron Lyrae that they go to with a natural product. I havent had them go to pirate sectors yet.
I know that the script at least kind of works. I had been attacked in Empire's Edge so that sector went on the temp blacklist and I tried to sart a new sector trader there, i got a message from the pilot saying he can't work in this sector because there is no place to land.

infy dev · Post by **infy dev** » Mon, 16. Jan 12, 10:18

oddgit wrote:I agree with you Nick, it is usually Omicron Lyrae that they go to with a natural product. I havent had them go to pirate sectors yet.
I know that the script at least kind of works. I had been attacked in Empire's Edge so that sector went on the temp blacklist and I tried to sart a new sector trader there, i got a message from the pilot saying he can't work in this sector because there is no place to land.

the temporary blacklisting is already built-in to the UT code, even without the blacklist manager, and appears to work perfectly (if you watch the entries, you can see that it's how your UTs avoid taking the same deal from the same station - the first UT to "see" a bargain temporarily blacklists the station, so none of the other traders will land there); the blacklist manager is supposed to let you add permanent exceptions to the list, but the UTs don't seem to properly check them. that's why I think it's actually a bug in the UT code, rather than in the blacklist manager itself.

Post by **Cycrow** » Mon, 16. Jan 12, 10:37

it is a bug in the UT code, and it will be fixed.
the blacklist manager is just the UI for it and doesn't actually control the blacklisting.

the problem is that the blacklisting is only used when searching for the intial deal. So once it has bought the wares, and the station to sell at no longer has the best deal, it'll search for a new station.

this search ignores the blacklist so the ship can end up selling anywhere

ChristensenCT · Post by **ChristensenCT** » Wed, 18. Jan 12, 06:48

I wasn't sure if the Blacklist Manager was an official part of the game so I didn't post a bug report.

Anyway, due to the lack of jump beacons in Terran space, ST/UTs will ignore sector blacklists if there are no closer routes to a target.

For example, most players will add Asteroid Belt to the blacklist, as it's a war sector. However, ST/UTs will still jump to Asteroid Belt if they are attempting to reach a target in Mars/Jupiter2/Jupiter3. The sector blacklist DOES NOT prevent pathing through a sector if no other route is available.

For traditional Common Wealth sectors this would never have been an issue because ALL sectors have their own jump gate to bypass a blacklisted sector. However, Terran space does enjoy this luxury so the blacklist is having difficulty coping.

Warped · Post by **Warped** » Sat, 21. Jan 12, 02:31

the problem is that the blacklisting is only used when searching for the intial deal. So once it has bought the wares, and the station to sell at no longer has the best deal, it'll search for a new station.

Q1. Does the blacklist manually configured prevent the trader from entering the sector when buying or selling?

I have applied the latest x3tc/ap patch(1.1) which states this is fixed, but I still cannot trade using the script(BLM) supplied by the bonus pack 5.1.

I had to re apply the bonus pack after the 1.1 upgrade due to readtext string errors showing up in the UI.

And I have another problem, my traders will not trade since applying the bonus pack (ST). I have set the sectors I do not want to buy or sell(refer Q1), however all the sectors I do want to trade appear in the automatic blacklist for some reason. I do not know why.

Q2. Is the auto blacklist also considered when buying/selling?

Q3. Can the auto blacklist be configured to be ignored.

Q4. Can I just uninstall the bonus pack from the PC to not use th BLM, and if not, how do I remove it totally.

Cheers

Zzyn · Post by **Zzyn** » Tue, 30. Jul 13, 23:58

infy dev wrote: it'd be nice if you could restrict the UTs to sectors you have a satellite in (as with CAGs), and also (unrelated) if it didn't occasionally reset the emergency jump parameters.

I guess it's STs with a jump range of 10 all round. that's almost as good as a UT, right?

right?

I had written a script for X2 that adjusted UTs to only go to sectors where I had placed a nav satilite with the name Trade, or something like that. I believe I also updated the script for refueling to follow the same rules.

It seemed successful to me and the others that use it, but it's probably lost to the ether. It was on this board at some point, but I have no clue what may have happened to it, and I haven't scripted in a long time. I know that doesn't help much, but your idea worked well in X3 when I actually had time to implement something of the sort!

Cursed Ghost · Post by **Cursed Ghost** » Wed, 19. Aug 15, 14:36

hi

there seems to be an issue with the black list in so much as ships ignore it and still enter blacklisted sectors whats going on ? because just now i had one of my UT springblossoms fly into asteroid belt despite the fact that i have put asteroid belt and all the other war sectors on the banned list

i though the whole idea of the black list was to prevent your MK3 traders from entering sectors where they are likely to get blown to bits like for example the war sectors

whats going on is there a bug in there script ? or have i just miss understood what the black list is supposed to do ? if it is a case of miss understanding what the black list is supposed to do how then do i configure the black list to keep my traders out of Terran space ?