Update: I'll come with the CAG tutorial in a short time.

This guide is a living guide at the moment.

More that will come as linked subguides in this document.

- A step by step, picture by picture guide on how to set up a CAG with tips on troubleshooting.
- How to use the global administration for CLS2 and CAG.
- Probably more that I forgot but will find its way into this guide or as a subguide

I'll post in the foru,thread that this guide is mentioned in when I update the guide.

This is a newcomer friendly CLS2 tutorial that shows you step by step, with indepth explanation what CLS2 is all about.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=154577293

I've made a small guide for the terran start. Argons refuse you access to their equipment docks, and thus you must find an other option if you want it as fast as possible.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=154946575

Until I finish the CAG tutorial, here are the links to the creators explanation.
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=275924

Read up on the first posts where he explains the software and basic use.

Let me tell you something, for years I used the trade command III. I started a game, I saved up money for a TS then saving up some more for a trade command III which often cost twice as much as the ship. I equip the ship ,and off it goes to a sector where I started it to level it up to a Universe trader.

Often what happened was that this trader/daredevil found a bargain in a pirate sector or in a sector heavily under attack, jumped in anyways and got pancaked between a Xenon Q and a Pirate Carrack. If he didn't do that, he was moaning about he needed help.And where did I find him? Slacking off in a station with a cargohold full of crap he hadn't been able to sell. Especially frustrating was it finding them flying around in Aldrin.

So a new approach was needed. I read up on the official forums regarding CLS2 trading and started to experiment. What I found out is this:

Commodity Logistics Software II (CLS2):
- Does exactly what you said it would do. And I do mean exactly.
- Software is extremely cheap.
- Pilots when trained are interchangeable between CLS1/CLS2/CAG. Meaning if you are tired of him being a CLS2 trader, you start him up as a CAG trader at the equivalent level.
- Pilots level up from flight time, not profits.

Trade Command Software III (TSC3)
- Does his thing, for better or worse. Most of the time, okayish.
- Software is insanely expensive, especially in the start of the game.
- Pilots trained are trained solely for this software. You cannot use CLS1/CLS2/CAG with this pilot, starting them will replace the TCS3 trader with a new pilot.
- Pilots level up from profits, not flight time. No profits, no levelling.

Quiet! Do not speak nor think about Trade Command Software 3.

You are reading this because you want to be in control. You want to be certain your ships are doing what you planned, not mucking about delivering 1 water in a Terran sector. With this setup, you set the prices for when a ship will buy and sell a ware and where it will do it.

You have total control.

You are still reading?

Alright then, young apprentice. Let us begin our path on building a truly economic powerhouse.

Let me just tell you, there are many ways to Rome. The same applies to this guide. CLS2 and CAG are customizable in many ways and the setups here shows only a few ways on how to utilize them.

You might and will find other ways when your understanding of the dark si... your understanding of CLS2 and CAG increases.

Please read the tutorial chapter: How to setup your first trader within this guide

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=154577293

This is a 2 or 4 ship setup for buying wares that NPC traders tend to buy fast,ie Foodstuffs. This is where the term "Trap" comes into play. A trap is a ship docked permanently at a station, it's only purpose is to buy/sell at a given price. I use them to carve out monopolies quickly.

1. Buy 2 freighters, fit them out.
2. Open up the Commodity Logistics console on the trap ships console.
3. Repeat step 4-13 from previous setup, with sector, station. ware and prices replaced with whatever you are trying to buy and at what price.
4. Start the trader.
5. Open up the Commodity Logistics console on the sellers ships console.
6. Click waypoints
7. Add trap ship
8. Select Load
8. Select what ware the trapship is buying
9. Select maximum cargospace
10.Now you have a choice, you can
a) Make waypoints to factories where you can sell directly
This is the end if you want him to be a seller. He will now do as the previous setup or read on to expand on this.

b) Buy 2 more ships, one will be a warehouse so a big hold is preferrable while the other one will be a seller.
11. If you bought another ship as a warehouse, your seller from 10a) is now a collector as I like to call em.
12. Open up the Commodity Logistics console on the collectors ships console.
13. Click waypoints
14. Add the warehouse ship.
15. Select Unload
16. Select maximum cargospace.
17. Now setup the seller so that it is loading at the warehouseship and selling to npc-factories.

This setup allows for several trap ships to be serviced by 1 collector which dumps it in a "hub" where sellers waits to pick it up and sell it as soon as it's there. It's a setup which allows you to quickly gain control over a ware regionwide and in time, universewide.

This is currently what I'm doing in my game. There's some spoilers here. So if you do not want to know, I do not recommend you read the end.

Now you might ask yourself. CLS traps sounds swell, but if I want a global logistical network... then I would need to set up hundreds maybe thousands of CLS2 traders. And since factories tend to pop up, I have no way of keeping track AND retain my sanity.

Yes, this is true. If you go full CLS2 across the entire universe on every station, expect to lose most of your hair and sanity.

So does that mean we can not haz economic hegemony?

Of course we can. The beautiful symbiosis of CLS2 and CAG is the answer to this problem.

You use CLS2 on the basic resources, since there arent that many factories that produce food/ore/energy/tech compared to those who use it.
You use CAG as a fire and forget trader who trades in the wares and sectors you specify him to trade in. These automatically finds new stations that popup and fills em up.

This setup will save you a lot of grief.

Oh well, on with the show.

You will need a functioning trapsetup with collectors and a complex, the complex will be the warehouse in this situation

For the complex,you need the minimum of:
- A TL, your own or a hired
- two sacrificial asteroids (for ore and silicon mine) I recommend two low yield ore asteroids, you are not going to use em anyways.
- 1 Ore Mine L
- 1 Silicon Mine L
- 1 Food factory (Rastar refinery L or whatever you choose)
- 1 Bio factory (Same race type as the food factory you went for)
- 5 Complex construction kits.

1. Place the stations.
2. Join em up in a complex.
3. Make it so that other races cannot trade with your complex.
3. Add the complex to the collectors who transport the ore, silicon and food you "need" in your complex.
4. Tell them to unload maximum cargospace in your complex. It will begin to fill up

Now, I hope you have been levelling those CLS2 pilots. Because now, we will change them into CAG pilots. And you want skilled pilots as CAGS, greenhorns will be sitting for a long time scratching their heads before they undock to sell anything.

PROTIP! Always buy trade command II when outfitting CLS2 freighters. Because now you need it.

5. Homebase the CLS2 ships you want as CAGs to the new complex.
6. Open their command console.
7. Select the commercial representation

8. Select Ware list

9. Change ware list type from blacklist to tradelist

10.Select ware list, add the wares you want sold from your complex.
Here I divide the CAGs into Food, Minerals and Tech. These trader only trade in these ware.
See pic from one of my Food CAGs.
11. Exit ware list.

12. Select exception.

13. Change sector list type to tradelist
14. Select sectors and add sectors you your CAGS to trade in.
15. Select yes on Only trade with non-player stations to avoid them being confused.
16. Exit.
17. Select trade duties.

18. Change trade duty to salesman
19. Set the sell parameters as you like. Look in the CAG thread if you do not understand them.
20. Back to main CAG menu.
21. Start the CAG.

The CAG will now pickup and sell the wares from your very big warehouse.

/////Spoiler ahead/////

In my case, I use my PHQ as the universal hub for all food stuffs.

I have traps in every factory producing
- Soja Husk
- Bofu
- Rastar Oil
- Nostrop Oil
- Teladianium

- 10 ore mines
- 5 silicon mines

With collectors picking it up, dumping it at the PHQ up to a certain amount, you do not want to overfill the PHQ.

I have currently 45 CAGS homebased to the PHQ, where they trade in foods I bring in, ore, silicon and Teladianium with only 1/3 of the universe locked down and many resources left to monopolize, this number will swell. But setting up 1 CAG takes 30 seconds or so, so that does not bother me at all.

I'm currently burning off excess food in my complexes to drive up demand so that my traps are always empty and my HQ have a stable buffer. This means NPC factories will be starved and since NPC traders can't buy the food because I beat em to the punch, I decide the selling price.

It does indeed feel good to be evil sometimes.

First of all, I must apologize if my english is a bit weird sometimes. It's not my first language, and therefore I tend to think in my native language and roughly translate it to english before correcting it. But sometimes, small mistakes do slip through the cracks.


When I started writing this guide, I must say that I didn't start out in a very positive mindset. Stressful week. But now that I'm at the end, I feel that writing this guide is giving something back to the community and thus actually fun to do.

The setups here are those I use and have used, they are NOT something I claim to have come up by myself. The Egosoft community and the steam community have been an inspiration and from there, I have made slight adjustments here and there, but the grand principle is not mine to claim.

Nor do I want to. This guide is purely to show the Steam community some of the thoughts that are being discussed on the Egosoft forums where some smart oldtimers have way too much time on their hands to experiment ;)

Three tips I can give you if your traders are just sitting there doing nothing.

1) You have done something wrong, and given wrong input somewhere.

Check the waypoint list. I've taken myself in setting up an bofu collector who collected from bofu from 6 trapships but never from the 7th.
It turns out I had told him to pick up ore instead of bofu at that trapship. So again, check your waypoints.

2) Use the log feature. If the traders sit tight, use the log feature, open it outside the game. It's a text file thats generated in your default X3AP savegame folder.
You find it here in ....Documents\Egosoft\X3AP .Read through it.



I've had several traders not flying because their FoF settings were wrong or that the station they were trying to fly to was full of npc ships. Easiest solution to a full station is to stop the trader, blacklist the station and restart the trader.

3) If it doesnt fly, it's 99% your fault. Find the mistake and fix it.


Thank you for reading and good luck on creating your own economic hegemony.

For reference:

Ver 1.0
21.06.2013
- Guide created

Ver 1.1
24.06.2013
- Standalone CLS2 guide added.
- Basic CLS trade setup updated with link to standalone guide

Ver 1.2
28.06.2013
- Revision history added

Ver 1.2
30.06.2013
- CLS 2 for terran start added

Ver 1.3
??.07.2013
-CAG tutorial will be added