Most profitable trade route

Felix DiCestria

Felix DiCestria
Hugh Jardon said:
Different people have different objectives. Some people always strive for optimum efficiency in everything they do. To optimise a task, it takes experience, testing, analysis, lateral thinking and downright cunning. Those things have to be then repeated. After 10 years and around 300,000 dead pirates, I'm still getting ideas about how to do it better that I can never wait to test. The kill rate or the credits per hr is how you measure the success, not the goal. Everything is boring if you make it boring, and everything is interesting if you make it interesting. The only boring things are people.
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Apparently you completely missed the post I was replying to; "OMG the grind is real!"
400,000,000,000 systems, 20,000 inhabited (soon to be more) and you're indicating players stick to a few. That has seen our player numbers dwindle and has been a factor since people started following YouTube guides and relying on 3rd party sites.
Try and avoid the cookie cutter stuff there's far more out there that gets completely missed.
When I first set out the Commodity screen showed prices in systems within about 20ly. I used to pick my next cargo and destination from the board and go.
They changed it to show only systems you'd visited which is near imperceptible in a region you've travelled frequently, but turns going to a new area of the Bubble into a frustrating slog.
The next technique was use Galmap filtered for economy and population, which works for the orbital stations but falters a bit with surface ports and completely airbrushes the Odyssey settlements.
I still frequently fall back on the Galmap technique if don't know a particular region but keep my eyes on the Commodity screen for Odyssey opportunities.
 
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Hugh Jardon

H
Felix DiCestria said:
Apparently you completely missed the post I was replying to; "OMG the grind is real!"
400,000,000,000 systems, 20,000 inhabited (soon to be more) and you're indicating players stick to a few. That has seen our player numbers dwindle and has been a factor since people started following YouTube guides and relying on 3rd party sites.
Try and avoid the cookie cutter stuff there's far more out there that gets completely missed.
When I first set out the Commodity screen showed prices in systems within about 20ly. I used to pick my next cargo and destination from the board and go.
They changed it to show only systems you'd visited which is near imperceptible in a region you've travelled frequently, but turns going to a new area of the Bubble into a frustrating slog.
The next technique was use Galmap filtered for economy and population, which works for the orbital stations but falters a bit with surface ports and completely airbrushes the Odyssey settlements.
I still frequently fall back on the Galmap technique if don't know a particular region but keep my eyes on the Commodity screen for Odyssey opportunities.
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Interesting comment. I can add to it a bit. Last time I looked at game statistics was about a year ago. At that time, they showed that the average total playing time was 60 hrs, but that doesn't give a true picture because many of the guys on this forum have been playing for 10 years with many thousands of hours, which drags the average up. The modal total playing time was around 10 hrs. That's right, half the players that ever started didn't go past 10 hrs!

My assessment is that new players start doing stuff and get pretty confused by the complexity and how easily they get wiped out. They see the big strong ships and how engineering can help them, but it's all locked behind a massive grind, and they want it now. When they realise it's too much work, and all they want to do is fly around doing stuff like a boss, they give up and go to other games where they get what they want. In that respects, any shortcuts would get them to where they want instead of having to givie up.

Every player has their own way of playing, their own objectives and satisfaction from different rewards. 10 hrs modal total playing time is a bit sad as far as I'm concerned, so I do my best to help people enjoy the game, for which I get no reward other than the satisfaction that occasionally players express their gratefulness for the advice.
 

Felix DiCestria

Felix DiCestria
Is (was?) the path from Sidewinder to Python (T8 now?) a slog? Yes.
Was it a slog to unlock the engineers? Yes.
However the process of making the credits for those first upgrades and going through the unlocks tells you how the game works.
Telling someone the solution to a problem, but not how to solve the problems leaves them in the same spot when they hit the next snag.
 

geoffrey.hdt

geoffrey.hdt
Hugh Jardon said:
Yes, a low RES in the target system, which means you can kill 60+ mission targets an hour.
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I'm not sure about this. I did both High RES and Signal Sources at Misir, and believe the latter is also fast and more consistent:
  • Drop at one and it is around 6-10 pirates, with some reinforcements showing sometimes (never understood the pattern)
  • At the RES, some pirates are not of the right faction, and therefore does not count.
On the other hand, it's good to have the option to switch to RES, for a change of pace flying in an asteroid belt.

BTW, my choice of Kokopatji is mainly for the high number of Imperial factions. I regularly take 10+ donation missions at once, on top of the KP missions. Ranking up goes fast!
 

Hugh Jardon

H
geoffrey.hdt said:
I'm not sure about this. I did both High RES and Signal Sources at Misir, and believe the latter is also fast and more consistent:
  • Drop at one and it is around 6-10 pirates, with some reinforcements showing sometimes (never understood the pattern)
  • At the RES, some pirates are not of the right faction, and therefore does not count.
On the other hand, it's good to have the option to switch to RES, for a change of pace flying in an asteroid belt.

BTW, my choice of Kokopatji is mainly for the high number of Imperial factions. I regularly take 10+ donation missions at once, on top of the KP missions. Ranking up goes fast!
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You probably need to change your thinking a bit. What you say makes sense for normal pirate killing operations, but the idea here is simply to kill as many pirates as possible in any period of time. That means you find the easiest to kill pirates (low ranks), you go to a place where they're concentrated in the highest number (low RES), use a ship that's optimised for that type of killing (laser Chieftain), and use strategies and techniques to optimise your method of killing them quickly in that situation so that you get the highest hourly rate. There are many little tricks that save time and get you optimum spawns, etc.

I'd be interested in actual data from your results. Can you keep some records that show your rate of killing mission targets from the time you leave the last station to the time you have completed all missions. I'd appreciate it if you could message me the results. That must include any time to rearm and/or repair, e.g.. 20 missions works out at around 180 pirates maximum to complete all missions for say 5 factions. You leave the station at 17:00 hrs and return to cash in at 20:00 hrs, so 180 in 3 hrs =60 per hr. I don't want estimates. I need actual data so that I can decide whether to do some further testing.
 

geoffrey.hdt

geoffrey.hdt
Hugh Jardon said:
You probably need to change your thinking a bit. What you say makes sense for normal pirate killing operations, but the idea here is simply to kill as many pirates as possible in any period of time. That means you find the easiest to kill pirates (low ranks), you go to a place where they're concentrated in the highest number (low RES), use a ship that's optimised for that type of killing (laser Chieftain), and use strategies and techniques to optimise your method of killing them quickly in that situation so that you get the highest hourly rate. There are many little tricks that save time and get you optimum spawns, etc.

I'd be interested in actual data from your results. Can you keep some records that show your rate of killing mission targets from the time you leave the last station to the time you have completed all missions. I'd appreciate it if you could message me the results. That must include any time to rearm and/or repair, e.g.. 20 missions works out at around 180 pirates maximum to complete all missions for say 5 factions. You leave the station at 17:00 hrs and return to cash in at 20:00 hrs, so 180 in 3 hrs =60 per hr. I don't want estimates. I need actual data so that I can decide whether to do some further testing.
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Sorry, I'm not the rightman to do that. I am not interested to fly the most efficient full pulse laser Pirate Killer build, and have taken the opportunity to PK using challenging builds such as a shieldless triple double-shot frags+beam FAS (my old PvP build), then Krait II with fighter hangar (to train an NPC crew), a bit of multi-cannon / beam Corvette (new build that I plan to use for the next CZ Community Goal), and have now switched to practice a bright new full Plasma Accelerator FdL (my new PvP build...I am stocked up in mats to refill witout docking).
Besides, my current PM spot is to rank up Imperial, not the best for pure profit since there is only one station per Source system.

About RES, my issue (profit-wise) is that sometimes I end up flying in circle waiting for pirates to show up...or when they do it is not of the right faction. Are there any tips to get the right pirates to spawn, maybe?
 
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Hugh Jardon

H
geoffrey.hdt said:
About RES, my issue (profit-wise) is that sometimes I end up flying in circle waiting for pirates to show up...or when they do it is not of the right faction. Are there any tips to get the right pirates to spawn, maybe?
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You need to watch my video. I explain in it how to deal with all that. Here it is again to save you from looking for it - and no skipping because there are many important details that come at random times.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vEF1ZyTZCo
 
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