Newcomer / Intro Does anyone make money from normal trading?

[CMDR Derrida]

while rare trading you make a constant amount of money, the size of your ship not being important beyond a certain limit. That profit looks great while your ship is smallish, but when you get a T7 things change. Those 1100cr/t runs suddenly mean 220000cr per run, and it's usually a fast run. Add the same (on a good route) for your way back and you look at about 400000cr per round trip. Each round trip may be from 10 to 15 minutes, so you will quickly out earn the rare trading. And the T7 is NOT the biggest trade ship.

I can make 480k profit every ten minutes on a 6 hop round trip with 200 cargo; so that would be 96k for your 40 cargo space, every ten minutes. I could make more if I optimised the cargo space but being a combat pilot and pvper at heart, it felt wrong dropping any and all defence for the sake of a few more credits per hour when profits are already so damn high.

Note, this is not some optimised trade route, I did not pull it from a website, or spend ages finding it, I was so annoyed reading and hearing about the profits of trading compared to other trades, I decided to try it myself. I sold my asp, bought a type 7, and simply traded the most expensive items available between the station I was at, and a station I knew would have items to trade in the other direction.

The bit you are interested in, I am sure, are the items and stations, I was trading between a high population High tech and high population extraction/refinery, hauling Palladium to the high tech and either Performance enhancers or consumer tech the other. After a few hours I found rotating the consumer tech with performance enh I was not saturating the route dragging down my profit as much as I would otherwise do only trading one and not the other. The palladium price being far more per ton than anything else available, the profit V profit loss due saturation was not so much that I could make anything like the same trading an alternative on that leg of the trip.

Although I am sure you are not interested, and nor would I blame you, I became so disgusted after a few days that this sort of profit is available, so easily, that I have stopped playing until such time that the developers get a clue and the other careers are brought in line or failing that, until they reward the career paths requiring the greatest effort, and greatest player skill more than the easiest mechanic in the game.

I know that this is an old thread but I am getting tired of hanging out at RES zones bounty hunting - it's like watching paint dry after a while and not especially challenging combat wise. I often hear people boast about the 1-2 million credits an hour they can make doing this but my experience is that it is quite random. Big bounty ships sometimes don't turn up and you waste an hour, and factoring in the time it takes to reach the place and get back is also, often overlooked, as well as the time it takes to pay off fines from stray shots hitting the cops who swarm around your targets (making this a lousy combat victory).
Anyway, enough slating RES zones, I wanted to say that I found these two posts very interesting because I would really like to be able to make money through 'normal trading'. I can currently afford a Type 7, so I'd love to know if you can make 'regular' money in normal trade and how much you guys and other people in this thread are making these days (since these posts).
Regarding rares, I know this makes money, but I'm also kind of bored of that as it seems that the ASP and Cobra are as good as anything for this. Repeating myself here, but I'd really like to do some large tonnage trading and would appreciate any reassurance from you pros as to the viability of this method in the current game. Cheers
PS currently in a dropship (big shopping trolley with guns) which can hold around 140 T cargo, or 100 T with some defences, but I imagine the jump range (which I don't think you can get much above 16 light years) is probably better in the T7...?

 

[Philip Coutts]

I have only ever done "normal" trading. I've never touched rare trading although I will at one point just because I fancy giving it a go. Trading is not that difficult once you do a bit of legwork it can be pretty easy to find a group of systems in reasonably close proximity that you can trade between. There are also some excellent trading aids out there to help you on your way.

 

[CMDR Derrida]

I have only ever done "normal" trading. I've never touched rare trading although I will at one point just because I fancy giving it a go. Trading is not that difficult once you do a bit of legwork it can be pretty easy to find a group of systems in reasonably close proximity that you can trade between. There are also some excellent trading aids out there to help you on your way.

Thanks for this, Philip! What sort of tonnage and ship would you recommend for decent profit? I have a choice between buying a Type 7 or keeping my Dropship - can hold 140 tonnes but shorter jump range of max 15.7 LY (thereabouts): does a longer jump range facilitate with large haul trading the way it does with rares (increasing the rare value with long distance?) Normally I would buy the Type 7, however, I'm a little reluctant to do so as I will lose 4 million on the re-sell of the Dropship. However, if there is good money to be made 'normal' trading, I'd be happy to do this as I really am bored of bounty hunting (I can always purchase another cobra or viper for this).
Also, please forgive this barrage of questions, but how much of a threat are npc pirates? - I can guess how dangerous player commanders are

 

[DWorth]

High tech systems are usually a good place to base yourself to trade with surrounding systems, but the key thing is to check the prices of goods for sale against the galactic average (lower is better) and the amount of supply (med to high is good). There will also be information against each item as to which type of systems will want it, and which nearby systems it is exported to. You generally find a two way trade between high tech and agricultural, high tech and industrial and industrial and agricultural. Everybody will buy food except agri systems, and everybody wants shiny consumer goods and expensive medical treatments except high tech.

The one thing to be wary of is systems with mixed economies. These will have stations with different economies within them, you need to make sure you select the right station to arrive at. Profits are often not great in something they can get from elsewhere in the same system.

 

[Ganjanoof]

High tech systems are usually a good place to base yourself to trade with surrounding systems, but the key thing is to check the prices of goods for sale against the galactic average (lower is better) and the amount of supply (med to high is good). There will also be information against each item as to which type of systems will want it, and which nearby systems it is exported to. You generally find a two way trade between high tech and agricultural, high tech and industrial and industrial and agricultural. Everybody will buy food except agri systems, and everybody wants shiny consumer goods and expensive medical treatments except high tech.

The one thing to be wary of is systems with mixed economies. These will have stations with different economies within them, you need to make sure you select the right station to arrive at. Profits are often not great in something they can get from elsewhere in the same system.

Right. My 3 cents here below :

1) More than 'low' 'medium' or 'high' level of demand and/or supply, the size of the economy is often a key. Try visualizing the universe map by economic type and use the minimum population size slider to display bigger economies (you set the threshold). anything as big as 'large' is allright. Try to find a quite large high tech no too far from a big refinery/industrial system. You will probably end up identifying a trade route that runs more than 2.000 credits a ton (forth and back). Anything that's above 2.000 a ton is a very good route. Given the levels of absolute, not relative, demand and supply, the route can be farmed for a while with the same profitablity (eg a supply of 300,000 Performance Enhancers rated as Medium will last longer than a so-called 'high' supply of 450 in a tiny economy )

2) 3 stops-routes are not my cup of tea. A good pair of stations will do.

3) 1 or 2 more jumps won't make a real difference in the profit per hour. What takes time is approaching planets, landing and taking off. So I increase my trade runs distances beyond my ship's jump range.

And about NPC pirates, you just have to be able to run fast when interdicted. This usually means being able to use engine boost 3 times in a row before your FSD is back online. A good power plant and a good power distributor will do as you will recharge the engin capacitor quickly. BTW this also applies to human players. I have D thrusters, C power plant and C power distributor on my trade ship, and never get annoyed.