Xai Corp. Manual Trade Commands [7/3/05]

[moggy2]

[Updated: 25/2/05] 1.4 released!
- Various code tweaks for signing
Please test this in every bizare situation you can imagine to check it doesn't screw up some how, to help the signing process.

[Updated: 25/2/05] 1.2 released!
- Best buy and best sell now check for player property in sectors. (no cheating now )

Download: Manual Trade Commands 1.4
A handfull of manual trade commands for the cargo runners among you. The commands allow your remote ships to trade between AI stations much more easily.

Most of the calculations are done by the player rather than in script, the ship just does what you tell it.

The Commands:
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
1. Manual Trade Run
- Select the ware and station to purchase at, then select the station to sell at.
- The ship will complete the run once.
- The ship will not complete the sale if it cannot make a profit.
- requires the Trading System Extension

2. Best Buy
- Select a ware from a station's list, and enter the maximum number of sectors to travel.
- The ship will buy that ware for the best price found in range.
- requires the ship have a Trading System Extension and Best Buys
Locator

3. Best Sell
- Select a ware from the ship's cargohold, and enter the maximum number of sectors to travel.
- The ship will sell the ware for the best price possible in range.
- requires the ship have a Trading System Extension and Best Selling
Price Locator

Tips:
¯¯¯¯¯
1. Provide the ship with a jumpdrive and enough energy cells and the ship
will use the jumpdrive for journeys over 2 sector.

_______________________
© 764 Xai Corporation,
Cloudbase South West
www.xai-corp.tk

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

What makes that any different from buying a ware using the basic 'default' trading commands? I mean, I can find the ware, and then just set 'buy ware for best price' and set basic station range. Unless the script had a repeat purchase option, I'd just look it up manually myself for a single trade run. Perhaps a buy wares option that made the ship travel to the same supplier every time the price went below X amount... instead of galavanting across forty million sectors within range, across less than safe trade routs to find a ware that got snapped up by an AI at the last second.

[moggy2]

sorry, didn't make it very clear. This is a manual version of the Mk3 trader. It has nothing to do with player owned stations.

[Carl Sumner]

Oh, The other commands always finish at the HomeBase station. Will this script work when the ship does not have a homebase?

Might be usefull!

[Greyhawk1]

I'm not sure I understand what this is useful for either. Can you give specific examples of usage?

As far as I can tell I can do all that manually anyway using existing commands. Maybe I'm not reading it right?

[Carl Sumner]

I'm not sure I understand what this is useful for either. Can you give specific examples of usage?

As far as I can tell I can do all that manually anyway using existing commands. Maybe I'm not reading it right?

Those commands only work if the HomeBase is set. It sounds like this work independantly, like the MkIII Trader.

[Greyhawk1]

I'm not sure I understand what this is useful for either. Can you give specific examples of usage?

As far as I can tell I can do all that manually anyway using existing commands. Maybe I'm not reading it right?

Those commands only work if the HomeBase is set. It sounds like this work independantly, like the MkIII Trader.

Well I've been doing that kind of thing manually since I first got a TS. No homebase, just freelance trading while I'm busy elsewhere. I suppose it could help maximise profits since its slightly automated....

Oh well, I dont think its for me...

[Carl Sumner]

Well I've been doing that kind of thing manually since I first got a TS. No homebase, just freelance trading while I'm busy elsewhere. I suppose it could help maximise profits since its slightly automated....

You can give the individual commands, sure, but that is five times the commands. And you have to remember to give the next command.
I think this is for when you have more than one or two ships but do not have the money for MkIII trade software.

[moggy2]

...

Well I've been doing that kind of thing manually since I first got a TS. No homebase, just freelance trading while I'm busy elsewhere. I suppose it could help maximise profits since its slightly automated....

Oh well, I dont think its for me...

that's just what it's for. Instead of giving the ship 4 commands; 1) go here (twiddle thumbs here), 2) buy wares, 3) go there (twiddle thumbs again), 4) sell ware; you can give it that command in one go.

saves you time, and saves you missing out on a deal because you forgot about the ship.

I think it'd be perfect for you.

[Burianek]

These scripts are incredibly useful for manual trading. Exactly what the title of the script is.
You ever try to find the best station to sell some wares that your TS has in it's cargo bay? Let me walk you through the steps.
Assuming you have a best buy/best sell locator and trading system extension installed, let's say you want to sell the meatsteak cahoonas your mercury has in it's cargo bay.

1. you can only run the best buy / best sell locator in sectors that you have a ship in (sats work too)
2. but here's the kicker, you can only run the best sell locator for the wares in your mercury if you run the command from your mercury's interface. This only works for the sector your mercury is currently in.
3. if you try to run the best sell command for another sector, using a satellite, you'll get the sell list of the wares in your player ship.

So using the standard best buy / best sell screens, if you want to search for the best place to sell the ware, you have to move your mercury from sector to sector to look at the screens. Or, god forbid, manually look through every station in a couple sector radius to find the best one. How long does this take? A long time.

With these commands, you select your Mercury, you select best sell, you select the cahoonas, you give it a jumprange within to search, and off it goes. Extremely useful.

The best buy command, heck I can think of how much time it would save me searching for energy for jumpfuel for my capital ships alone. Whenever I need to stock up, I have to manually click through three or four stations, scrolling down the sector list again and again. Now, I just select the TS, tell it to buy energy, give it a jumprange, and off it goes.

And the manual trade run is cool too. Buy here go there, fire and forget.

I think they're very useful. The fact that no homebase is needed is key.

I'm going to go out a limb here and say that I don't like the mk3 trader (sry BurnIt!). It's a beautifully written, wonderfully intelligent script, that plays the game for you. Set three of these things up, go hide in a station, turn on seta, and come back later to your empire. Too much automation for me. I don't mind bph because it's only taking care of a single factory, but mk3 trades the galaxy. These manual trade commands I would have no problem installing. Even as somewhat of a purist these don't feel like they're giving me too much of an advantage. If I'm a die hard trader playing the game, I'd love to manage five or six freighters, plying the galaxy, looking for deals. I'd love the ease with which I could control them using these scripts, and appreciate that all the work is not being done for me. I still have to decide what to trade. I still have to find the best wares and the best deals. I have to actively control my fleet. I actually have to play the game.

I plan on using these scripts.

Cheers.

[Greyhawk1]

Ahh, now I get it! I'm a bit slow today (and yesterday...well possibly all of last week really )

[KarlHemmings]

Excellent scripts - I mean just excellent.
Once my empire gets too large I get bored. I much prefer playing as a mobile miner / trader. I have a save a little into the plot (PE is gone) that I like to revert to.
I'm looking forward to owning a TL and using it as my base - sit in the arm chair send my TS out to mine. Team to collect and a couple of sellers using these scripts....

[KarlHemmings]

My goodness not for a long time have I taken to a script set like these!!!

Question
If my M5 is set to home base M6 does it buy ecells for free or is this charged to my account? Please charge to my account.

Suggestions
1. Charge me to use the script. Through the ship commanfs assign ship to "manual XAI trade"; this does two things a. gives the ship a pilot b. charges me x credits per hour. The commands do not work without setting ship command to "manual XAI trade".
2. When I select best buy, I am charged for being lazy; say cost*0.1
3. When I sell best, I am charged for being lazy; say sell*.0.1
So if I set my TS to buy silicon and it gets a hold full for 207 it charges me the cost per hour + 21 credits.
It sells the silicon for 600 credits and takes cost per hour plus an additional 60 credits.
That buy and sell cost per hour is not quite what I mean but you know what I mean. You have an upkeep cost plus a skim off to the pilot. No need for levels - these guys/girls/xennon (hired from SilentWitness?) are working for you to make a living so you pay them and when they make a good trade they get a bonus.

Excellent scripts. I have reverted to an early save because I love trading and mobile mining. I have a Demeter mining and two collecting and selling. These scripts are the business. Thank you....

[Burianek]

Suggestions
1. Charge me to use the script. Through the ship commanfs assign ship to "manual XAI trade"; this does two things a. gives the ship a pilot b. charges me x credits per hour. The commands do not work without setting ship command to "manual XAI trade".
2. When I select best buy, I am charged for being lazy; say cost*0.1
3. When I sell best, I am charged for being lazy; say sell*.0.1
So if I set my TS to buy silicon and it gets a hold full for 207 it charges me the cost per hour + 21 credits.
It sells the silicon for 600 credits and takes cost per hour plus an additional 60 credits.

I'll give you my thoughts on the matter. (whether or not you asked )
Since this script doesn't do any 'thinking' for you, I see no need to charge the player for simulated pilot expenses. If the script were changing destination enroute to find a better deal or doing any sort of evaluations of which wares to trade, that would warrant fees. I think the scripts are simple enough, in that all that they do is save you the tedium of pulling up multiple screens to find the best location at the moment to trade.
I think it is fairly balanced (and intuitive) to simply require your freighter to have the bestbuy/bestsell extensions on board. Logic being: you have them on your playership only, you can bring up the screens, but then you need to tell the freighter where to go. If you put the equipment in your freighter, then he can bring up the screens and find where to go on his own. I think requiring the one time expense of placing the extensions on the freighter costs enough to balance out the saved tedium these scripts provide.
Just my thoughts.
Cheers.

[3iff]

Neat little script. I like it.

It saves having to spend ages searching for a deal. My command ship (Dolphin for now) had a surplus of silicon that the current sector didn't want. I gave the xai best sell command with 1 jump and my ship headed in the direction of the best sell. I recovered control and jumped to that sector. Managed to sell the silicon for a fair price.

I guess some purists might consider this 'cheating', but having to buy ~75k of upgrades to make it work is reasonable. It still requires player manipulation to reset commands so it's really a helper script.

It's just a bit unnerving when I find a ship sitting at a station (having sold the goods I told it to sell) and I can't work out why that ship is there...I thought I had misordered a ship...then I realise what had happened!

Thanks again to Xai Corp.

[KarlHemmings]

I think it is fairly balanced (and intuitive) to simply require your freighter to have the bestbuy/bestsell extensions on board.

I almost forgot that part - in essence you have already paid a fee.
I much prefer these to the MK3 and for my role as a miner / trader they are superb.

It saves having to spend ages searching for a deal. My command ship (Dolphin for now) had a surplus of silicon that the current sector didn't want. I gave the xai best sell command with 1 jump and my ship headed in the direction of the best sell. I recovered control and jumped to that sector. Managed to sell the silicon for a fair price

I keep 250 ecells in my Demeter and when I fail to sell give it the command XAI Best Sell 5 jumps - it jumps into sector and moves into the dock and then I take over to complete sequence of getting into the docking cradle (checking for any spare cargo on the way!).

It is hard to fathom how a couple of simple scripts like these have brought the game back to life for me (and I have played at least every week since I got the game - every night this week as I have the house to myself….).

[3iff]

I keep 250 ecells in my Demeter and when I fail to sell give it the command XAI Best Sell 5 jumps - it jumps into sector and moves into the dock...

An even better idea. I usually have a supply of energy on hand and of course I have a jumpdrive!

I've often thought that the bestbuys/sells was good (vital in fact), but it was still very limited in what it could do. If I have navsats in local sectors then I ought to be able to check on prices of ALL wares in these local sectors to find where silicon (for example) can be bought or sold at best prices. It would beat having to manually go into each sector and manually check buy/sell prices. This script is a step in the right direction, it's simple to operate and it doesn't automate play.

I've also played the game almost constantly from Dec 03 (just 2 breaks of a month each when I overdosed on the game!) and I also find this script a useful improvement to play.

[moggy2]

Updated to 1.2
- Best Buy and Best Sell commands now check for player property in nearby sectors before checking the prices. No property = no prices from that sector.

[Burianek]

Just a further advertisement that these scripts are currently being put through the signing process. Hopefully before long, you guys will have another signed script to play with.
Cheers.

[KarlHemmings]

Updated to 1.2
- Best Buy and Best Sell commands now check for player property in nearby sectors before checking the prices. No property = no prices from that sector.

That makes more sense. My current game has "stuff" in just about every sector; I'll get bored soon and restart. Presume that Nav Sats count as property? (Good ol' X-Tension trick). No need to reply - I'll try it our for myself....