Fastest way to increase trade rank?
- Thread starter glynie
- Start date
Can't talk for the fastest, but the funnest is to fly a t7 with no shields to a trade cg.
Every hollow square benind you gives you a buzz and you still have a great chance of evading the interdictions.
Get yourself allied in Ochosi or Chakpa running bulk data missions. get any ship with a decent number of internals (python best) and stack single passenger transport missions. Board flipping you can get 30m credits for 4 deliveries within 90ly, taking about 40 mins. I flew through tycoon in a weekend and got the corvette.
Fastest way is to complete trade missions as you get more rank than would if you just go A-B trade route for example.
The Long Distance Biowaste Transport missions from Sothis are quite a good rank builder. Passenger A-B are good too as mentioned above. The sightseeing ones add to explorer rank btw.
The recent trade CG was good too as there was a large profit margin (up to 5k/t) I finished off the last 15% or so of Tycoon to hit Elite doing these Chapterhouse CG's to make Elite in Trade
The Long Distance Biowaste Transport missions from Sothis are quite a good rank builder. Passenger A-B are good too as mentioned above. The sightseeing ones add to explorer rank btw.
The recent trade CG was good too as there was a large profit margin (up to 5k/t) I finished off the last 15% or so of Tycoon to hit Elite doing these Chapterhouse CG's to make Elite in Trade
Find a station giving missions Source items they sell in their own market, park yourself there and buy and sell your way to Elite Trade.
A to B passenger missions are pretty good for trade rank too (both the "Transport X" and "N passengers require transport" types). That's what I'm currently doing for the last few percent on my second account. The "Transport X" are also good for superpower ranks too, that's why I'm incrementing my Fed rank at the same time. (Elite trader is looking to happen before I get my Corvette though).
Ugh!
I know there are a couple of places where you can do that but, lordy, it's soul-destroying.
The missions aren't usually well-paid and you just sit there, accepting missions and then buying commodities and then handing in the missions.
And then you accept a mission, discover that they don't have the commodity for sale and (assuming you don't just bin the mission) you've suddenly got the hassle of going elsewhere to find it just to complete a pokey Cr100k mission.
When I ground out my Empire rank at Aditi I would do the delivery missions in an Anaconda. As the session went along I would cherry pick the best trade missions back to the bubble (The ones with the largest payouts for little cargo) and drop them off on my way home for the day. After a little over a week I was trade elite, a billion credits richer and about to buy a second Cutter. IMO Elite is about killing several birds with one stone.
Maybe it hasn't been mentioned because obvious, but if you trade, trade in a shieldless cutter in solo. 792 tons of cargo fasten the things up by quite a bit.
Aw heck, do it in Open. There aren't many other humans where the good slave routes are, and the ones you see are traders like you. Wave!
Take it from a professional slave driver.
Aw heck, do it in Open. There aren't many other humans where the good slave routes are, and the ones you see are traders like you. Wave!
Take it from a professional slave driver.
But don't forget to insult all the commanders you see doing this in a fer-de-lance, because obviously, they are stupid and doing it wrong
But don't forget to insult all the commanders you see doing this in a fer-de-lance, because obviously, they are stupid and doing it wrong
Don't Forget to tell them they don't Need all those weapons. Space is safe here after all, since you are unarmed.
It's not about the mission pay - it's about making Rank.
And the question raised was not "What's the most fun way to raise Trade rank?" but "What's the fastest way to raise trade rank?", and this is it. As long as you pay attention to the missions and the supply in the market, this is almost never an issue.
The amount of trade rank seems to be tied to the amount of pay for the mission, at least in my experience.
What I did :
A Big Ship : Rank is tied to profits, profits are tied to ship size ( all else being equal ). Get the biggest ship you can and run missions when available supplementing with trading to the destination, pure trade when not. A Cutter will be your best choice, followed by an Anaconda, then a T-9. At least until the rumored Panther comes out.
Local Rep : Good missions require local rep, so keep that in mind. A regular run/route helps. I ran the TUN circuit and it worked well, gained Fed rank as well. Just watch for stupid runs to stations 200k LS out..
The Cargo : Reliable commodities is also key. Prog-Cells and Performance Enhancers ALWAYS sell at a good profit, somewhere. Slave trading is highly profitable, but morally reprehensible. Trading Basic Meds to outbreak systems is highly profitable, and even better when you have a return run, but it changes weekly so you need to stay on top of it. Also, moving large amounts of specific items tends to depress the local need for said item. Route Fatigue is a real problem with bigger ships.
CG's do really well for profit margin, but it changes weekly as well. Not sure if the bonus at the end applies to your rank ?
One thing I have tended to notice ( but not done any deep analysis on ) is that a station tends to be a specific percentage point above/below galactic average ( GE ). That is : If they are a 'selling' station, all items tend to be the same percentage below GE. 10% of a 300 credit item nets you 30 credits per ton. A 10k credit item nets you 1k per ton. The same tends to be true of 'buying' stations. They are either + or - an given percentage. If you're going to be hauling junk around the universe, don't haul cheap stuff. "It takes money to make money" rings true in ED.
A Big Ship : Rank is tied to profits, profits are tied to ship size ( all else being equal ). Get the biggest ship you can and run missions when available supplementing with trading to the destination, pure trade when not. A Cutter will be your best choice, followed by an Anaconda, then a T-9. At least until the rumored Panther comes out.
Local Rep : Good missions require local rep, so keep that in mind. A regular run/route helps. I ran the TUN circuit and it worked well, gained Fed rank as well. Just watch for stupid runs to stations 200k LS out..
The Cargo : Reliable commodities is also key. Prog-Cells and Performance Enhancers ALWAYS sell at a good profit, somewhere. Slave trading is highly profitable, but morally reprehensible. Trading Basic Meds to outbreak systems is highly profitable, and even better when you have a return run, but it changes weekly so you need to stay on top of it. Also, moving large amounts of specific items tends to depress the local need for said item. Route Fatigue is a real problem with bigger ships.
CG's do really well for profit margin, but it changes weekly as well. Not sure if the bonus at the end applies to your rank ?
One thing I have tended to notice ( but not done any deep analysis on ) is that a station tends to be a specific percentage point above/below galactic average ( GE ). That is : If they are a 'selling' station, all items tend to be the same percentage below GE. 10% of a 300 credit item nets you 30 credits per ton. A 10k credit item nets you 1k per ton. The same tends to be true of 'buying' stations. They are either + or - an given percentage. If you're going to be hauling junk around the universe, don't haul cheap stuff. "It takes money to make money" rings true in ED.
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It did when I did the mission just before the nerf. Don't know about the current state of it. If it still does, you would only need to do the mission 9 times to make Trading Elite.