I'm running a test game with the default settings before I start a "real" game to get a sense of what to change and how hosting works. A few of my players report that many of the port stocks are very low, and it seems to have something to do with the Aliens and Ferrengis. They report that this makes it hard to make money.

Are the aliens liable to deplete port stock? Can I adjust the extent to which they do that? Or is it a problem that solves itself?

This is probably caused by a bug I recently fixed that makes the aliens more active than they have been in the past. I will probably need to decrease the port activity for default Gold Alien Traders and Ferrengi.

Have others noticed a difference here? Or have they always been too active on port trading?

Regardless, you can definitely decrease the amount of port depletion by modifying your Gold alien races.

I've seen them killin' ports on Cruncher's server. But the Ferrengi are on steroids in her games.

In the Gold race editor, page 2, there is an option called "Trade port pairs?" Try turning that off.

Does that require having internal aliens off? Or, rather, external aliens on?

That is being caused because your GOLD aliens are set to high
in movement and trade ports to a high percent
as well as your aliens are not set to sleep mode when there are no players
in game (common mistake , and if put in sleep mode is easier on cpu).

When you get these setting right , your ports will remain almost full.
There is not much you can do about the internal ferrengi or aliens.
They are set Y/N in big bang , I almost always set these to No.
Gold aliens are the only ones YOU can edit/control.

I hope this helps.

Hi Vid Kid,

Where in the settings is the "sleep mode" setting? I don't see it in the editor.

T-Edit - This will make the aliens sleep when no users are online.
<H> - General Editor Two
<Z> Alien Srvr Offline Mode: Active