Newcomer / Intro Buying commodities and cargo weight

[Poacher886]

Hello.

Landed at my first 'proper' station and checked out the commodities screen....a little confusing i thought.

When looking at the commodities for sale, there was no indication under "Cargo" of anything, no figures at all, thus how do i know the weight and size of each of these, thus how do i know how many i can fit in my sidewinder? Im hardly going to purchase an item that nets me 50cr per item if i can only take 4 units!

Also, to the right it lists what systems / stations? that the commodity is exported to....are these the only places in the galaxy that purchase these goods?

Also on the top right of the commodity list is a drop down menu listing either systems or stations, im not sure, what is the purpose of this?

And lastly, is there a way of finding out the buy / sell prices of other stations before entering them?

Oh and just to add, my ship specs when outfitting have a category of MASS. there are two columns, the first seems easy to understand and under the title "current" has two values 46.7t / 72t thus im guessing that means im currently weighing in at 46.7t (though i dont actually understand WHAT is weighting this), and i have a max Mass of 72t (What before i cant take any more goods / equipment?)

The column next to it is harder to understand, this is titled "Maximum" and below says 51.2 / 72t, i dont understand what the first figure means, surely the current and max weight is shown under the "current" column so what is the first weight here and what is different in the second weight to the 72t shown under current?

Can you increase your maximum weight?

Thanks..so many questions,,Lol

 

[Wasp0]

you need to go to the outfitting to get more cargo space, but you are limited in a SW. It will also tell you how much cargo you can carry in the Cargo tab in the right panel and also when in the martket place bottom right side of the screen you will see "o of 4 used" or what ever your cargo is.

You don't need to know what the weight of any otem are. A ton of feathers weighs the same as a ton of gold....'A Ton' !

Use some of the online Trading tools available to get a few hints on where the best trading is (Systems) and what commodities to trade! Some people think these are cheating, but it's all personal. if you don't want to use them, just have a look to get you used to what trading is all about and either use them or not from then on.

There is no way of finding out what another system/station's prices are until you land there and take copious notes. Best to take some of the easier hauling missions in the BB to earn some Creds, then as you visit destrination station you take take note of what prices and demand is like at that station.

There are some tools available that take screen shots and put it into your own database so you are not using advice, but just using a tool to take the place of pen and paper. Just google ED Trading Tools and hunt out what suits you best.

Good luck, i Love Trading, but it does get really monotonous when you do stumble upon a good route going from a to b to c to d to a..........and so on, but earning the Cr allow you to buy better ships and play stress reliving is my Combat Vulture which certainly breaks the stress of Trading!!!!

 

[Sapyx]

All commodities are bought and sold in 1 ton increments. If your sidewinder has only a 4 ton capacity, you can only buy (or be given via a mission) 4 pieces of cargo.

The list of stations in the "Exported to" and "Imported from" categories is a list of stations to and from which other human players have carried those cargoes. It is NOT a perfectly reliable indicator of profitable trade routes: it does not, for example, take into account people buying and selling things at a loss: unless the items in question are actually illegal, the game allows you to sell pretty much anything pretty much anywhere, although if the cargo is not in demand at your destination, you can make a serious loss. Which makes sense: taking fish farms to an airless mining colony will be a terrible idea, as the miners don't want no stupid fish farms cuz they got no water to grow fish in. Fish farms need to be sold to an Earth-like Agricultural planet.

Nor does it take into account whether or not a cargo is legal, since black market sales also count as "exports". Nor are they the only places in the galaxy you can trade with; if your ship has the jump range, you can go anywhere you think might be profitable to do the trading.

The "drop-down list of systems" is something I hadn't actually spotted before, so thank you for asking about it. This lets you know at a glance what the imports and exports between your location and the selected system are. The list comprises all of the star systems in the galaxy which players (including you) have recently traded goods to or from your current location. Try selecting a nearby system: it pops up "imported from" or "exported to". It's handy if, for example, you've bought all they have in stock of the best commodities to take from A to B, and you're wondering what else to acquire to fill your hold; it saves you clicking on each commodity in turn to see if it's "exported to" your destination.

Regarding market prices, the short answer is, "No". Apparently, planets don;t want their market prices broadcast throughout the galaxy, for fear of competition. You have to physically go to a station to see the prices there.

The slightly longer answer is "Yes". There are external (non-FD-approved) websites you can visit, where people have hand-crafted price lists - FD has asked that people don't attempt to auto-skim the data directly out of the game, so it has to be done the hard way, through manual typing-in or OCR-reading of screenshots. This does mean that these trade assistance websites are often using data that's slightly out of date, and perhaps not entirely reliable, especially if you're visiting a system hardly anyone else ever visits. http://elitetradingtool.co.uk/ is a popular one which I use to find Rare Goods planets.

Some people see the use of external sites as a form of "cheating". Whether you find it acceptable or not, is up to you.

As for your ship's mass question: "Current" is telling you how much your ship weighs, right now, including all weapons, modules, cargo and fuel. The first number, "46.7", is your current mass.

The "72", which is the same number given under both "Current" and "Maximum", is the theoretical maximum mass which your current engine configuration is capable of moving; the game will not let you fit modules etc. that weigh more than this maximum figure, unless you upgrade your thrusters. Be aware that, the closer your ship weight gets to this maximum mass, the more sluggish and difficult to fly your ship becomes.

The "Maximum" mass, "51.2" in your above example, is the maximum weight your current ship configuration would have if you filled up your cargo hold and your fuel tanks. You need to know this when plotting routes on your galaxy map, because plotting a route while your ship is empty and then filling up your cargo hold will very likely make your route unviable, as your ship is now too heavy to make some of the calculated jumps. There's a slider on the galaxy map route planner, letting you adjust the weight of cargo you hope to be carrying.

Hope this answers your questions.

 

[The Tick]

Hello Poacher, welcome to the world of Elite: Dangerous!

did you yet check out the game manual? There are answers to some of your questions in there. But let me try answering some of yours:

- Cargo units are 'tons' which weigh a ton and all have the same container size. In game lore, loading and unloading are automated and therefore require this. So even slaves are put into those containers. But don't worry, those containers also contain life maintainance systems. But you don't want to trade slaves, do you? You are a lawful trader!

- The game is very weak in helping you find a good trade. But don't worry, read http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Goods for example. Look out for station economy types, and only buy at stations with high supply, and sell at stations with high demand. The bigger and the wealthier the population, the better. The Galaxy Map offers filters to search for specific types of systems

- To understand your ships specs (also: weight), read the manual on 'Outfitting'. Then play with some online outfitting tools like coriolis.io or edshipyard.com. Some ship modules like thrusters and FSD have optimal and max mass requirements. That's probably what you are referring to. Optimal means that your overall ship weight should be as close to optimum as possible, otherwise you get a performance penalty. Max is max, as it says. Watch out: shields work a bit differently, though - they only look at hull mass, which is fixed per ship

Search this forum for more advice, there's a lot of player generated stuff out there to help you.

Happy trading, fly safe, and remember: never fly without insurance!

 

[Poacher886]

Thanks guy's, very helpful....one thought, how can you have sites listing the buy / sell prices at stations, surely these fluctuate in a 'living economy' which i thought ED had?

 

[Hellhawk666]

Thanks guy's, very helpful....one thought, how can you have sites listing the buy / sell prices at stations, surely these fluctuate in a 'living economy' which i thought ED had?

Yes, they do, but a couple of things make it possible. Firstly, the player-contributed data tools (like Slopey's BPC, Elite Trading Tool, etc.) are continually updated (more or less - data for some stations can be very out of date sometimes). Secondly, the galactic average prices are static, and local prices fluctuate around the average based on supply and demand, so you can certainly have a list of known average prices.

The ED economy is (as far as I know) not a true 'living economy'. If it was then everything would be interconnected. The amounts of minerals mined would affect their prices, which would then affect the cost of secondary industry using those minerals, and this would then influence the prices of modules, ships, the type of missions offered by the competing factions, and everything else.

For example, no-one mines bauxite because the profit is very low - everyone wants the big profit minerals and metals, and nothing else. So if ED had a real economy then by now the price of bauxite should have gone through the roof because no one supplies it, and gold should be comparatively cheap. Similarly, the types of bulletin board missions available do not reflect the actual demands of the changing local economy or political situation.

Prices are not absolutely static, but their fluctuations are determined by the effect of player activity on algorithms that model a situation, rather than arising from the background situation directly.

The economy may be more complex than I understand, but essentially the above is correct. ED certainly does not have the sort of dynamic economy that exists in EvE, but you can argue that it doesn't need it.

 

[Poacher886]

Thanks for that, shame its not a little more the X universe economy really, i think the economy should have been a vital dynamic one in ED, as its always been core part of the game.