Newcomer / Intro Trade: what to do when rare trading isnt enough money

[Alteph Four]

Hiya folks,

You have helped me out a ton already and I have been very appreciative of that. I have finally earned to make a few credits here and there, mainly through trading rares. I am in a type 6 right now, looking to upgrade to the 45m credit ship, but 45 credits will take amny weeks of running this trade route everyday.

Is there a quicker way of making money via trading? I dont know where to get performance enhancers cheap enough for the seeking resources guys to make any money. I am at the dealer trade rank now, and I imagine it wouldnt be too hard to rank up with my rare trade route, but it feels like there is another faster way to make the big credits.

Combat so far, is not making me much money. I got 56k off an anaconda the other day in a nav sight, but usually my kills get me 3-5k tops. It doesnt matter where I go, or what system I am in, ive tried areas like Lave or Marditj, and a few other areas around 150 LY away. COmbat for me is fun, but not something that I can make any real money at. I hear bounty hunting is good money but what I thought was bounty hunting is not, and again I dont make any money at it.

 

[purf]

I have no idea as I have been having fun with Elite since december and I still haven't been able to outfit a Viper A-Grade.
And that's my answer to your question. There's a ton of advice right in there.

 

[Gully Foyle]

SMUGGLE.

 

[Lupin]

Find a better trade route, get surface scanning,explore system and get paid for it on top of your trading.

 

[Ferris]

I found that once I had gone over the 100t cargo capacity mark I was making profit faster by running standard trades rather than rares.

Try Thrudds elite trading tool because it can find you 2 systems with a good trade route and stations that are close to the jump-in point.

 

[EtherDragon]

Rare trades only get you so far when you have limited cargo space. Once you get a bunch more space than you can fill with rares, you will crank out more income by doing regular trading from the commodities market.
.
It may take a bit of exploration to find, but you want to locate a two or three system trade loop that has the following features:
1. Good profit margins at each stop. 10% below average to buy and 10% above average to sell.
2. The loop should have all of the stations within, say 500ls of the central star. 100ls or closer is ideal.
3. Plenty of supply and demand. This is not as important, as the supply and demand grows over time - assuming no other trades are occurring.
.
Good luck!

 

[cmdr lowest]

I'm going to ask a silly question... why the rush? I'm trying to ask in the nicest possible way.

If you treat the game as a quick rush to accumulate wealth and ultimately obtain the biggest ship, what are you then going to do then? What's the plan?

 

[Starnr]

I flip back and forth from a T6 to an Asp. What is a lot of credits. I run a 1M cr an hour max milk run on 100T load out, there may be some higher profit making going on but i have done a few scouting expeditions to find a better run but I keep running into the distance to CR ratio issue. So I go back to my 500Cr fuel bill and 5.96ly one way run. It is tedious but it will get me into a T7 and some kick but combat Asp, while i continue to prepare for the long game which is to wipe the Feds and the Empies off the Galaxy map.
I dream of a Fer De Lance in my future.
Nose to the grind, happy hunting and good profit to you CMDR.

 

[andyraptor]

I'm going to ask a silly question... why the rush? I'm trying to ask in the nicest possible way.

If you treat the game as a quick rush to accumulate wealth and ultimately obtain the biggest ship, what are you then going to do then? What's the plan?

Hurrah ! a sensible (to me) answer....

what's the rush bruv... car on a meter ?

<shakes his old head and mumbles into his complan>

 

[Mountain Dewed]

I flip back and forth from a T6 to an Asp. What is a lot of credits. I run a 1M cr an hour max milk run on 100T load out, there may be some higher profit making going on but i have done a few scouting expeditions to find a better run but I keep running into the distance to CR ratio issue. So I go back to my 500Cr fuel bill and 5.96ly one way run. It is tedious but it will get me into a T7 and some kick but combat Asp, while i continue to prepare for the long game which is to wipe the Feds and the Empies off the Galaxy map.
I dream of a Fer De Lance in my future.
Nose to the grind, happy hunting and good profit to you CMDR.

I'd like them wiped also. I am rising in ranks with Fed, so when the time comes, I can Shhh.. help cripple from the inside out...

 

[cmdr lowest]

Hurrah ! a sensible (to me) answer....

what's the rush bruv... car on a meter ?

<shakes his old head and mumbles into his complan>

It's probably because I'm an old git but these young whipper-snappers... always eager to finish the game as fast as possible like it's a race and then trade up or 'tweet' about it on their friendface pages or what-not. (jk)

I like to savour my time in the galaxy. I don't want to be done with the game in a couple of weeks after I've grinded a trade route I looked up on a gameFAQs.

There's a ton to look forward to with future updates/expansions and I'm already committed to playing this for the next year and beyond (and again when Oculus release their retail product). I have plenty time to amass a small fortune (currently doing not too bad with 2m cr) and don't want to be burnt out on it too quickly before the game gets really exciting.

 

[thorn-]

I have finally earned to make a few credits here and there, mainly through trading rares. I am in a type 6 right now, looking to upgrade to the 45m credit ship, but 45 credits will take many weeks of running this trade route everyday.

45 Million will take awhile no matter what you do. With very few (like, one) exception that I'm aware of, doing the Perf Enhc to Seeking run is not the most profitable over time. It's certainly EASY, but not the most profitable. The simple answer is that you need to find a route that pays well. For me, it's mostly precious metals and drugs.

I currently trade in a T6, and make about $200,000 per round trip between 2 systems (1 jump.) It takes around 10-15 mins max for the whole trip, taking into account the time I also spend reading bulletin boards and that sort of thing (faction missions can heavily increase profits). So on average, that's around $1Mil per hour if that's all I do. 45 Hours of that. 2 Weeks if you play 3 hours every day, which I don't. I also don't only trade; at least half of my time is spent hunting and I usually make about $200-250K per hunting session.

 

[Alteph Four]

45 Million will take awhile no matter what you do. With very few (like, one) exception that I'm aware of, doing the Perf Enhc to Seeking run is not the most profitable over time. It's certainly EASY, but not the most profitable. The simple answer is that you need to find a route that pays well. For me, it's mostly precious metals and drugs.

I currently trade in a T6, and make about $200,000 per round trip between 2 systems (1 jump.) It takes around 10-15 mins max for the whole trip, taking into account the time I also spend reading bulletin boards and that sort of thing (faction missions can heavily increase profits). So on average, that's around $1Mil per hour if that's all I do. 45 Hours of that. 2 Weeks if you play 3 hours every day, which I don't. I also don't only trade; at least half of my time is spent hunting and I usually make about $200-250K per hunting session.

ive tried, and I cannot make money doing combat. I have yet to successfully complete a single combat mission (pirates never show up, and when they do I never get credit for killing them), and the highest single payout ive gotten in combat (and im in a viper taking on anaconda's and NOT instantly dying, so I dont exactly suck at combat) is around 56k. That has happened twice now. And it took like an hour for the anaconda to spawn at the nav beacon I was at. Ill hunt for fun, but I wont do it for profit, with my luck hunting will never be profitable. Its only a way to pass the time, which is why I put less than 1 hour a week into hunting.

Ill use Thrudds and start looking for a good trade route.

 

[slipperysquid]

Become a space stripper! Doing shows for bored Type 6/7 space truckers! You'll make a killing! but leave your hat on, it notoriously hard to breath in space...

 

[Alteph Four]

Lol Ill give that a try ;p

 

[Surly_Badger]

Whenever I see an "I want to get rich really fast" posting, I know I just have to wait a while and eventually there will be a matching "OK now what do I do? I'm booooooored." posting.

When the journey is the goal, you'll find that if the journey isn't fulfilling, the destination won't be, either.

 

[SpydersByte]

I found that once I had gone over the 100t cargo capacity mark I was making profit faster by running standard trades rather than rares.

Try Thrudds elite trading tool because it can find you 2 systems with a good trade route and stations that are close to the jump-in point.

Yup, I've found that with 112 (or even back when I had 60) cargo space there were 1-jump runs that netted more, and faster, credits than long rare runs. Of course there are also the seeking luxuries trades. I highly suggest you watch the Dangerous forums for luxury routes. They're usually posted like this: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=105164 though that one is no longer an option. When they find another good system they will post it. That's going to be your best bet for making money. From what I've read there's a cap on profit as far as credit/ton/hour goes and these tiny luxury runs are about the best you can do. So yes.... affording the dozen-of-millions ships takes more in the way of patience than it does in the way of finding a super-great route.

 

[thorn-]

ive tried, and I cannot make money doing combat..

I've made 3.9 Million doing combat since Launch. I'm not insulting you, just pointing out... you may be doing it wrong.

For example: when you're taking a kill contract, you don't just go to a Nav and hang out for an hour. You go to the system and check USS points (drop out of SuperCruise at a USS) until you find your target(s). I've only done less than 5 of those combat contracts, I think, btw - highest payout was around $220,000 maybe. One or two were no cash reward, just Fed Rep.

Another tip: there's a lot of money to be made hunting via INTERDICTION. Many Nav Point bounties are in the $2-5K range, and you've gone a ton of Cmdrs all shooting at them. In SC Hunting, the bounties are often a lot higher, and it's pure one-on-one combat once you interdict... no kill stealers and higher bounties. I made -far- more cash hunting this way, than a Nav or in an Anarchy with a KWS.