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Primary Resources section shows all the resources needed for production and their current stock level. The number underneath in \ [Brackets\] is the required amount per cycle. If its red, it means there are not enough resources available to start production
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The Trade bar at the bottom is used to change the current price between its minimum and maximum price
The number in \ [Brackets\] shows the current production cost. This is how much it costs to produced, based on the current price of your resources. So setting a price above this will make a profit.
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The command slots allow you to select additional commands to run on the station. Each command needs a separate slot, and are mainly used to automate certain areas of the station. This includes things like the Station Manager, Automatic Money Transfer and Automatic Pricing.
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These are the settings used by the station manager (see Station Manager for more info)
Adjust Friend/Foe
This is the Friend/Foe settings, of how the station sees any faction ships.
3.3
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Automating Station
While you can manually transfer wares, or rely on the NPC traders to buy/sell at the your stations, its often best to run your own ships instead and automatic the buying and selling of wares.
3.4 Distributing Goods between your Stations
As well buying and sell wares, you can also move goods between your own stations, and essentially connect multiple stations together via ships rather than relying on NPC stationsIf you prefer, you can hand control over the station to the Station Manager, who will take control of the ships and buy/sell wares where needed. This however costs you wages for the station manager, and reduces the control you have over the station and ships.
3.3.1 Assigning Ships
If you prefer to maintain control yourself, you can assign ships and issue commands individually to keep the station running.
To assign a ship to the station, you need to set its homebase option in the ships command console.
Most of the Station Ship commands require a Homebase to be set before they can be used.
3.3.2 Buy/Sell Ware commands
The Buy and Sell ware commands are simply commands where you define the ware and the destination station to buy or sell at. These commands simply follow you orders and don't make any actual decisions themselves.
The ships requires the Trade Command Software MK1 to make use of these commands, and are found in the Trade Submenu in the ships command console
When selecting the command you need to choose the ware you wish to trade with, when using Buy Ware, only the resources/tradeable wares will display, and Sell ware only the products/tradeable wares will display
The Buy Ware section contains the options for the command.
- Repeat Indefinably: When set to "Yes" the ship will keep going back and forth until you manually stop the command. If set to "No" they will just make a single trip and return.
- Wait until Full: When set to "Yes", the ship will remain at the station and wait until it can fulfil the order, when set to "No" will buy whatever it can then return, even if it cant get the full amount.
- Amount: This allows you to set the amount you want to buy
- Fill Cargo: This will buy enough to fill the cargo bay of the ship, when set to wait, will not leave until the cargo bay is full and it cant fit anymore wares
- Needed: This will buy the amount thats needed by the station, upto the maximum of the cargo bay size. This depends how full the station currently is
- Custom: This will buy a set amount, you can set how much you want it to buy each time
The ship will only buy/sell if it meets the price set in the station options. So if its buying a resource, it will only buy if the price is at or below the value set in your stations settings. If its too expensive, it will either return, or wait until the price drops, depending on if you set the Wait until Full option.
Finally, the Destination Sectors shows all the know stations where the ware is available. Simply select the one you want it to goto and the command will start.
The stations highlighted in red are either not dockable, or are being blocked by you Global Blacklist
3.3.3 Buy/Sell ware for Best Price
Unlike the basic Buy/Sell commands, the Best Price commands dont require you to set the destination station, instead they will search the universe and select the best station themselves based on their Homebase's settings.
These commands require the Trade Command Software MK2 to be installed. These commands are easier to setup, and will generally work better, but gives you less control about where they will go.
If the Command is not available, then you dont have the required Software installed. You can view what each command needs in your Encyclopaedia.
You simple have to select the ware you want it to trade with. You can only trade with 1 ware per ship. So if you want to trade with all the wares in the station, you need a separate ship for each one.
If you assign multiple ships to the same ware, they will coordinate with each other so they dont end up all going to the same station. This cooridnation also extends to all your ships, regardless of what command they are running, this includes the Local/Universe Trader and Station Managed ships.
3.3.4 Jump Drives
To allow ships to get to their destinations quicker, they can make use of the Jumpdrive and to as close as possible to the destination and back again. They can only jump to actual gates (Not Trans-Orbital Accelerators), so they will just the closest sector with a gate and travel the rest of the way
To make use of Jumpdrives in the trade commands, you first need to install them along with the Navigation Command Software MK1 to your ships. You can make use of the TerraCorp Jumpdrive Installation Kits, which will install both the Jumpdrive and the Software to your ship.
Then you need to set the Advanced Jump Settings in your ships command console to enabled Auto Jump.
Setting Autojump to "Yes" will automatically use the jumpdrive to jump to the destination sector as long as there are enough energy cells
The Minimum Jump Range determines when the jumpdrive will be used, the sector must be at least as far as this otherwise the ship will fly instead. This is to allow faster ships to simply fly short distance rather than waste energy cells.
Setting it to 1 will jump to all but the current sector, and setting it to 0 will also jump in the same sector if another gate is closer.
You will also need to setup the Fuel Resupply settings so the ship can refuel itself. The buy/sell commands do refuel themselves automatically if the Autojump setting is enabled, but you can override the amount they will load if you want them to keep extra on board just incase (IE to used emergency jump, or if they need to change destination mid flight).
Setting this value to at least twice the jump radius of the Homebase, so they have enough fuel to get there and back. However, if the price changes before they arrive, they may find another station to goto before returning, therefore using extra energy.
3.4 Distributing Goods between your Stations
As well buying and sell wares, you can also move goods between your own stations, and essentially connect multiple stations together via ships rather than relying on NPC stations.
You can do this by assigning ships to your station and using either the basic Fetch/Deliver commands, or the more complex Trade Distribution Run.
The Fetch/Deliver commands work in the same way as the Buy/Sell ware commands, except they will use your own stations as the destination, and they will not use money, just loading and unloading wares between stations
These commands are also limited to 1 ware per ship.
The Trade Destruction Run command can setup a trade route between your stations, its more complex to setup, but allows you to moving multiple wares, between multiple stations without only a single ship.
3.5 Reports and Graphs
To help you run your stations, there are a number of reports and graphs available to see how your station is doing
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