Tried smuggling, not impressed.

Steve50 · Jun 12, 2015

I bought myself a T7 this morning and outfitted it with 214t capacity and went off to try my hand at smuggling imperial slaves. I found a system to buy from and filled my hold to the cost of close to 3.5m credits and off I went.

Made 3-4 jumps and found a nice place to sell them via the black market. My profit on the trip?
446,000cr. I can't say I'm that impressed really. The trip took me close to half an hour and I can make that much from mining these days.

Am I doing something wrong?

Tldr: was expecting to make a heap on slaves and really didn't.

badwolf77 · Jun 12, 2015

Steve50 said:
Am I doing something wrong?

No. It's been double-nerfed. It's now only marginally better than it was in 1.2. Of course it was utterly ludicrous for about a day, so a bit of rejigging was needed.

Commander Starcloak · Jun 12, 2015

This would explain why my trip that I just made had a similar amount of profit involved. Ah well.

Nagual · Jun 12, 2015

Slaving should get you between 3 and 4.5 profit per tonne. If you are lucky enough to buy at a discounted station @13.5ish and sell at a black market bonus payment station you could get 17 - 18 gross. However, since you have no way of knowing if the slaves you're transporting will be in demand (High, med or low) in the BM, you'll just have to pray to whatever Gods you believe in.

Steve50 · Jun 12, 2015

Nagual said:
Slaving should get you between 3 and 4.5 profit per tonne. If you are lucky enough to buy at a discounted station @13.5ish and sell at a black market bonus payment station you could get 17 - 18 gross. However, since you have no way of knowing if the slaves you're transporting will be in demand (High, med or low) in the BM, you'll just have to pray to whatever Gods you believe in.

I doubt I'd get any bonuses or discounts as I'm not signed up to any faction. Thanks for the info everyone, think I'll head on back to mining

Nagual · Jun 12, 2015

Steve50 said:
I doubt I'd get any bonuses or discounts as I'm not signed up to any faction. Thanks for the info everyone, think I'll head on back to mining

Don't need to be pledged, all players get them. However you are basically correct. Smuggling is pants.

{SAS}Stalker · Jun 12, 2015

the 3 stages of smuggling that we have seen in a week;

1. Was exciting, had an insane credit return compared to difficulty in doing it. Carried a reasonable financial penalty if caught.
2. Was exciting, had an decent credit return compared to difficulty in doing it. Carried a high financial penalty if caught because of the reduced return
3. Was exciting, lol return why bother?. Carries an insane penalty if caught because of the laughable return.

By next week expect to be losing money on smuggling if the trend continues.

Chaz · Jun 12, 2015

Imperial Slaves have never been massively profitable despite the huge outlay for them. However for a 214t capacity ship, 446k is very good profit. Even with a 452t hold I usually only used to make about 350k profit on Imp Slaves. Only getting up to 400k+ if the demand was high. So you've actually made very good profit for your size of ship. (EDIT: That was regular trading BTW, but 446k is still very good profit for a ship of that size.) I'm not sure how a 3-4 jump route took you 30 minutes though.

The smuggling missions probably offer the best rewards right now, as they can pay up to about 250k depending on your trader rank (mine is Tycoon and that's typical of the offers I'm getting), and a Cobra is perfect for the job as the loads are rarely more than about 24t and are more likely to be in the region of 4-8t per mission. Also the goods are often illegal in the station you are leaving too, so you need a ship that can make a fast exit just as well as a quick entrance. In other words, I wouldn't use the T7 for doing the BB smuggling missions.

{SAS}Stalker · Jun 12, 2015

Chaz said:
Imperial Slaves have never been massively profitable despite the huge outlay for them. However for a 214t capacity ship, 446k is very good profit. Even with a 452t hold I usually only used to make about 350k profit on Imp Slaves. Only getting up to 400k+ if the demand was high. So you've actually made very good profit for your size of ship. I'm not sure how a 3-4 jump route took you 30 minutes though.

The smuggling missions probably offer the best rewards right now, as they can pay up to about 250k depending on your trader rank (mine is Tycoon and that's typical of the offers I'm getting), and a Cobra is perfect for the job as the loads are rarely more than about 24t and are more likely to be in the region of 4-8t per mission. Also the goods are often illegal in the station you are leaving too, so you need a ship that can make a fast exit just as well as a quick entrance. In other words, I wouldn't use the T7 for doing the BB smuggling missions.

The thing is, I can get 400K from 230t of palladium and only have to do 2 jumps to do so. In the same time that I can buy from Torval (or what ever her name is) and flog it to Archon I could have made nearly 2million credits (because of return profit of nearly 300K). And I'm not running the risk of a 1.8million credit fine.

Its simply not worth doing it if the profit isn't even comparable to normal trading.

HipToss · Jun 12, 2015

Not sure where you are trading, but trading Imp Slave at Tepertsi (Langley Gateway) and go to Facece (Simpson Depot), if you have a permit. 500t is netting me 1,718,500cr, and this is legal trade BTW.

Chaz · Jun 12, 2015

HipToss said:
Not sure where you are trading, but trading Imp Slave at Tepertsi (Langley Gateway) and go to Facece (Simpson Depot), if you have a permit. 500t is netting me 1,718,500cr, and this is legal trade BTW.

Blimey! I've never seen profit like that on anything. I'm guessing that's your 2 way trip of course, not profit from one way. Which even so is pretty bloody good. Anyway I don't have the Facece permit yet. That's what I'm working towards right now, well plus the Baron rank. Hence my doing smuggling missions in a Cobra for a welcome change of pace.

I really only ever used to get Imp Slaves as a return fare with metals and hi-tech producing the meat of the profits.

Has trading profit jumped back up after 1.3 then?

HipToss · Jun 12, 2015

Chaz said:
Blimey! I've never seen profit like that on anything. I'm guessing that's your 2 way trip of course, not profit from one way. Which even so is pretty bloody good. Anyway I don't have the Facece permit yet. That's what I'm working towards right now, well plus the Baron rank. Hence my doing smuggling missions in a Cobra for a welcome change of pace.

I really only ever used to get Imp Slaves as a return fare with metals and hi-tech producing the meat of the profits.

Has trading profit jumped back up after 1.3 then?

That is a round trip, but the imps are making me 1.2 million one way, which is pretty good. I also do not have to risk the 2 million fine for that many Imp slaves.