here's how I do it. It works for me but YMMV.
I start looking for a trade route by scanning systems in the galaxy map. At this point I'm looking for appropriately positioned economy types that may have a profitable trade between them. I try and avoid back and forth trading, looking for a place where there is probably a circular route with at least 3 legs. I regard more legs as a good thing because it reduces my impact on individual markets making big hauls, since I'm visiting each market less frequently.
When I've found a few candidates like that I'll buy system data if I need to in order to look at the system views. At this point I am not looking at pairs of systems, I'm looking at pairs of stations. In particular, systems where there are stations with different economies are a positive for me, because there's a good chance of finding a nice insystem trade or picking up a profitable route with something that wasn't obvious. I'll refine down my list of candidate routes to two circuits at the most using this info.
It's while I'm picking my two best potential candidates that I look at the trade data in the galaxy map. I regard indications of heavy trading, in commodities that I could predict from the economy types, as a BAD thing. I consider that an indication of a probably saturated market and low margins or losses "trailing the trend" like that.
With one or two "good" potential candidates, I'll pick the best looking one and go there then fly it empty, looking at prices and seeing if the route is viable. At this stage I might edit the route, if one leg isn't going to work out I might delete a station from the route or look for a nearby alternative. The important factor is that from the in-game data I'm identifying stations where something can be profitably traded but I'm not deciding exactly what or investing any credits in it until I've been there to check it.
After I've found a good route I grind the heck out of it until the margins start going down. Using this technique it usually only takes me 15-20 minutes to find the next one.
I start looking for a trade route by scanning systems in the galaxy map. At this point I'm looking for appropriately positioned economy types that may have a profitable trade between them. I try and avoid back and forth trading, looking for a place where there is probably a circular route with at least 3 legs. I regard more legs as a good thing because it reduces my impact on individual markets making big hauls, since I'm visiting each market less frequently.
When I've found a few candidates like that I'll buy system data if I need to in order to look at the system views. At this point I am not looking at pairs of systems, I'm looking at pairs of stations. In particular, systems where there are stations with different economies are a positive for me, because there's a good chance of finding a nice insystem trade or picking up a profitable route with something that wasn't obvious. I'll refine down my list of candidate routes to two circuits at the most using this info.
It's while I'm picking my two best potential candidates that I look at the trade data in the galaxy map. I regard indications of heavy trading, in commodities that I could predict from the economy types, as a BAD thing. I consider that an indication of a probably saturated market and low margins or losses "trailing the trend" like that.
With one or two "good" potential candidates, I'll pick the best looking one and go there then fly it empty, looking at prices and seeing if the route is viable. At this stage I might edit the route, if one leg isn't going to work out I might delete a station from the route or look for a nearby alternative. The important factor is that from the in-game data I'm identifying stations where something can be profitably traded but I'm not deciding exactly what or investing any credits in it until I've been there to check it.
After I've found a good route I grind the heck out of it until the margins start going down. Using this technique it usually only takes me 15-20 minutes to find the next one.
