Fine control over what a Station sells and to whom

[Scoob]

Hi,

I have a Station that processes Scrap Metal into Hull Parts and Claytronics. These are for my own use exclusively, as I'm in a build phase currently. I have two M-Class Transporters assigned, that are actively selling.

This station, prior to me assigning those two ship, also sold Energy Cells with no restriction as I have a slight excess of production. What I want is for ANY Faction to be able to buy those excess EC's from me (I've set a minimum stock level) but for my ships to ONLY sell to me, not to other factions. Two rules, one for other Factions and one for my own ships. I can manage this using individual trade rules on the assigned ships of course, but it's a shame I cannot do it at a Station level.

With Hull Parts and Claytronics, the rule is easy. Just me. Period. Factions cannot buy. With Energy Cells however, I want ships from other Factions to buy freely, as long as stock is above a minimum level which I've set. However, I want the station-assigned Traders to ONLY sell to me. Pretty sure the only way to achieve this is via separate rules on the ships.

It'd be nice if I could set such rules at a Station level, but I can see how it would clutter up the UI even more. Especially as the game already adds spurious Buy / Sell offers we cannot remove. For example, this station Produces EC's, yet has forced-added a "Buy" Offer for EC's that I cannot remove. This clutters up the UI already, for no valid reason. I of course have to set the Buy Offer to "No Trading" to block this. So, the game forces a Buy Offer on me, which I have to override with a separate trade rule, which is silly.

The distinction between whether a ware is limited to just the Player's Faction or open to set factions (or all of them) is an important one. It's easy to be one OR the other, but when I want separate rules for ONE ware, that's where station-level configuration cannot do it.

As mentioned, the way to do it is rules applied directly to the subordinate Trade ships of that station. However, this means that any time I add more ships, or swap them around, I need to remember to apply the rules again. Not a problem, just a shame there's no station-level solution.

Note: I do find it odd that I cannot simply apply one of my existing trade rules to the subordinates. Rather I have to use a new trade restriction instead. Basically, I have a Trade Rule that's "Me Only" and now a Blacklist Trade Restriction that's "Me Only" both do the exact same thing, yet I need them both to achieve what I want.

This post is just a general ramble, as I configure things to work how I want. My method does work just fine, it just seems a little more involved than perhaps it needs to be.

As a final thought... When I set trade restrictions (Black lists) on individual ships, I rename the ship to make this clear. I.e. the Transporters assigned to my station are suffixed with "(Me Only)" - which is the name of the blacklist. It would perhaps be useful though, if when selecting a ship with any non-default rules applied, we had a tooltip saying "restrictions in place" to make it clear.