Newcomer / Intro Help with trading

CMDR Memphis

C
Hello,

Having earned money through mining and bounty hunting, I wanted to get into trading now. I am following the "absolutely best trading guide" on reddit, which is easy enough. But several locations yesterday just were not profitable. I assume because everyone is following the same guides, the dynamic economy levels that out pretty fast.
But I still hear of people trading regularly, so it must be possible. Travel distance is not a problem, I relocated from Alliance Space to Hatmehing in the empire for better trades
So, what is the trick - if there is one?

Thanks.
 

CMDR Memphis

C
The rare trading does work for me. I did a lot of it in my cobra, although it was occasionally tedious to fill up 36t. Except in the alliance space of course
I am now in a T6, so it should no longer be worth it.
 

cmdr lowest

C
CMDR Memphis said:
Hello,

Having earned money through mining and bounty hunting, I wanted to get into trading now. I am following the "absolutely best trading guide" on reddit, which is easy enough. But several locations yesterday just were not profitable. I assume because everyone is following the same guides, the dynamic economy levels that out pretty fast.
But I still hear of people trading regularly, so it must be possible. Travel distance is not a problem, I relocated from Alliance Space to Hatmehing in the empire for better trades
So, what is the trick - if there is one?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

You are exactly right.

If you follow any kind of online guide then chances are hundreds of people are doing the same and the route gets tapped out quickly.

The real way to trade is to find a route yourself, which no-one knows about, on the edge of populated space...

Good luck commander.
 

CMDR Memphis

C
Thanks. I did finally find a route last night that is pretty good. Hopefully still good today.
Only annoying bit, i am less that 0.5 ly from a direct jump.
 

Pyrion

Pyrion
Try to lighten your ship. Get a smaller fuel tank. Discard weapons. Get all D-class modules. Maybe that will be enough to get the 0.5 LY for you.
 

CMDR Memphis

C
Pyrion said:
Try to lighten your ship. Get a smaller fuel tank. Discard weapons. Get all D-class modules. Maybe that will be enough to get the 0.5 LY for you.
Click to expand...
Actually, yeah you are right, I should do that. I still have the no-use pulse lasers on the ship, that might do the trick with a sidewinder (if I am lucky).
There is a secondary problem that the system does not show up on the NAV screen, so I would have to select it in Galaxy View - therefore, for now, the other way might be slightly faster.
Is there away to easily select targets that do not show up by the bottom of the NAV list?
 

Fyrd Judge

Fyrd Judge
CMDR Memphis said:
Hello,

Having earned money through mining and bounty hunting, I wanted to get into trading now. I am following the "absolutely best trading guide" on reddit, which is easy enough. But several locations yesterday just were not profitable. I assume because everyone is following the same guides, the dynamic economy levels that out pretty fast.
But I still hear of people trading regularly, so it must be possible. Travel distance is not a problem, I relocated from Alliance Space to Hatmehing in the empire for better trades
So, what is the trick - if there is one?

Thanks.
Click to expand...


Right from BETA i tried different methods in trade to make it profitable and there is no getting away from one fact, regardless of all the manuals out there on how to do it, you will be wasting time in trade if you don't not have a database on station commodities. This over time will grow showing all the best commodities to sell or buy.

There are two directions to take from here, use a database tool already created by commanders that have recorded many stations commodities and which information is shared with other commanders. The only negative thing about this is, you are restricted to where they work. If you want peace and keep your trade secret, then move to a less populated area in space and create your own database from scratch, this will take time.

Your aim is to make money, to buy the next best ship with larger cargo space and aim to do your trade in little distance as possible. Do not forget large ships can not dock on all the stations.

I would forget rare goods, the reason why? I earn 900,000 in a round trip (1 jump) every time i decide to go trading, with a large ship, rare goods will not make that kind of money. But as i said at the start, you need a database to get to this level of trading.

A database is information - Information is knowledge - Knowledge is Power.
 
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Blaubart

B
CMDR Memphis said:
Thanks. I did finally find a route last night that is pretty good. Hopefully still good today.
Only annoying bit, i am less that 0.5 ly from a direct jump.
Click to expand...
if it's that close i would consider changing the outfit of your ship a little to expand the jumprange. Sell some stuff you don't really need on a trader (like weapons or shields) Or upgrade your FSD.. You can also try to find modules that just have a lower mass than the same modules on the same class... I think rank D modules are the ones with lowwest mass - arent they?

- - - Updated - - -

CMDR Memphis said:
Actually, yeah you are right, I should do that. I still have the no-use pulse lasers on the ship, that might do the trick with a sidewinder (if I am lucky).
There is a secondary problem that the system does not show up on the NAV screen, so I would have to select it in Galaxy View - therefore, for now, the other way might be slightly faster.
Is there away to easily select targets that do not show up by the bottom of the NAV list?
Click to expand...
The Nav screen always shows only systems that are in range of a singe jump. When you optimized your jump range, it will show up. (the ones showing in read will become yellow again when you fuel up - i think)
 
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CMDR Memphis

C
Ah, good to know. Time to optimize!

Fyrd Judge: You are right, I am sure. I kind of need to work with public databases, because I am generally not an exclusive trader, and with a T6, you cannot spend 4-5 hours finding a trade route, because you could rather to a rares run then. I agree, in a Clipper/T9/Conda, you need to do that. I guess the experience that I make right now will be helpful.

And in any case, I hope that I can milk the current system up to a T6 --> ASP Upgrade.
 

CMDR Memphis

C
Fyrd Judge said:
There are two directions to take from here, use a database tool already created by commanders that have recorded many stations commodities and which information is shared with other commanders. The only negative thing about this is, you are restricted to where they work. If you want peace and keep your trade secret, then move to a less populated area in space and create your own database from scratch, this will take time..
Click to expand...

Hi, I need to ask you again, since my trade route predictably died over night - how far out can you go and still have a healthy economy to work with? I understand that you cannot name systems (that would defeat the purpose) but a rough guideline of how far to go beyond Empire and Federation with less competition and more income.

I guess the way to go would be to scout ahead with the Cobra, and then bring the T6 when I found a good location.
 

Matzov

Matzov
CMDR Memphis said:
Hi, I need to ask you again, since my trade route predictably died over night - how far out can you go and still have a healthy economy to work with? I understand that you cannot name systems (that would defeat the purpose) but a rough guideline of how far to go beyond Empire and Federation with less competition and more income.

I guess the way to go would be to scout ahead with the Cobra, and then bring the T6 when I found a good location.
Click to expand...

Not sure where you are based now, but I am around 100ly from Sol and it is pretty quiet where I am, and there is money to be made. You don't have to get far from the starter systems to have things quieten down and find a place/route to settle on. I mean I suspect even 20ly might be enough.
 

Rob_the_Sparky

R
Although I pet trade route is not ideal at about 17-18 mins per round trip I make >2300 per tonne on it and it is approx. 200ly from Sol and no where near a High Tec system so there is money to be made in the sticks. The advantage of this is that there are very few players up there so PvP piracy is unknown so using a T6 or similar is viable.

I now use a Clipper and should really go find a shorter route but I'm not a pure trader so have yet to get round to it! Been RES hunting and made reasonable returns on that with MUCH less boredom! OK not as good as trading even on my route but much less dull and you get to meet people now and again.
 

CMDR Memphis

C
Blaubart said:
The Nav screen always shows only systems that are in range of a singe jump. When you optimized your jump range, it will show up. (the ones showing in read will become yellow again when you fuel up - i think)
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, this is not always true. Currently, with a jump range of 19.7 ly, I still only see up to 18.5 ly. I think the system I am in has too many other systems around, and there is a hard upper limit.
Fortunately, however, it turns out I can select the system in the galaxy map while undocking. It is a bit harder, but possible. Overall time per trade is about 5 minutes ( I think 4:45 best) with a T6, and 140-150k on one leg, and 105k on the return leg. I just completed 1h of trading.
I thinking RES hunting can pay more at the moment.
I was going to get an ASP and trade in the T6, but maybe I will get a vulture instead...
 

the100thmonkey

the100thmonkey
CMDR Memphis said:
Hi, I need to ask you again, since my trade route predictably died over night - how far out can you go and still have a healthy economy to work with? I understand that you cannot name systems (that would defeat the purpose) but a rough guideline of how far to go beyond Empire and Federation with less competition and more income.
Click to expand...
In the lore, it's the frontier worlds in the Federation where the fortunes are to be made (Federal subsidies). I find this to be generally true, although I suspect it's because there is so little player trading to even out the prices.

I guess the way to go would be to scout ahead with the Cobra, and then bring the T6 when I found a good location.
Click to expand...
Filter the galaxy map for large population systems. That seems to prevent prices from crashing, in my experience.
 

the100thmonkey

the100thmonkey
Sorry - to be clear, I was assuming that the previous advice about heading to the frontier and avoiding heavily traded routes (and not posting your routes up on Thrudd's) was a given.

Most of populated space is actually unpopulated. There are whole sectors where you can be the only ship on the traffic report.
 
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Philip Coutts

Volunteer Moderator
Philip Coutts
Always check the bulletin board as well. Often people will pay you big money for sourcing stuff that you can easily get. Also check the board before you sell any cargo just in case someone is looking for the stuff you are selling. Finally always check the bulleting board for additional income such as delivering messages or parcels that don't take up any cargo space. Those jobs usually don't pay that much but 1000 credits isn't to be sniffed at if you are going to where the stuff needs to be delivered anyway.
.
Did I mention you should check the bulleting boards...:p
 
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