Newcomer / Intro New member - Question about trading

Hi

I just started playing Elite last week. I'm having a great time so far, but I'm finding it a bit difficult to locate a reasonably easy trade route to follow. At present I'm only using the stock ship, but I have added a docking computer (because I'm terrible when it comes to that) and a fuel/ram scoop (because running out of fuel once was enough).
I'm not looking to make large amounts of credits, at least not yet...I just want to get to grips with delivering and collecting commodities in order to better acquaint myself with the game. Can anyone recommend a good starting point, commodity and delivery destination?

Thanks
Saiper
 
Well, you've lost at least 4 tons of cargo space in an already very limited ship.

I suggest that you learn to dock, and buy fuel at stations until you've got a bigger vessel - you can carry what... 4 tons? You can get that to 6 or 8 if you lose the add-ons.

If you're in and around Eravate, try Cleve Hub to Ackerman market with marine equipment, and Ackerman Market to Cleve Hub with some kind of foodstuff - tea and tobacco get a highish margin at industrial stations. Cleve Hub is Fed (spit) though, so tobacco is illegal and you'll have to sneak in or get fined. Until you're ready to do that... stick to tea. Frigaha is also nearby, with an outpost pretty close to the main star. IIRC, you can get metals there to sell to Cleve Hub.

The best thing to do would be to travel about 50 light years in any direction (keep your fuel scoop for that) and set up shop there. The areas with high concentrations of players tend to have few market differences due to high volumes of trade in the high markup commodities. Moving aweay from the starter systems will help you to find better trade routes.

It's difficult for me to recommend a specific set of systems, as I do my trading well away (>150ly) from Eravate out twards the frontier - you get great prices there.

Nice pairings would be:


  • Extraction > Refinery and industrial (and back)

Take ores to the refinery/industrial system; take mineral extractors back.


  • Refinery and industrial > High tech (and back)

Take computer components and precious metals to the high tech; take performance enhancers, progenitor cells or consumer tech back to the ref/ind. Rinse and repeat.

You may also wish to give the Bulletin Board missions a go, or even turn your hand at bounty-hunting at the nav point or in a resource extraction site. The money you can make there in a Sidewinder is significantly higher, in my opinion, than you can make trading in one: It's just too damned small! Additionally, you'll learn how to handle NPC combat, which can only help you with the inevitable interdictions if you go trading.

Oh, and learn to dock. Seriously. There's even a training mission for it in the combat training in the launcher (below the main game option)
 
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I'd just add, that when you're starting out, I think the fetch/collect type missions can be a very good source of income. If you set up shop somewhere for a while, it's worth regularly checking the bulletin board and doing a few of these sorts of mission, because as you trade with and complete missions for the faction that runs that station, your reputation will increase, you will be offered better paying missions.

The first few you take will probably be paying 1000 - 3000 credits, but if you keep working the same station, you should soon find missions offering 10,000 or 12,000 credits popping up, and sometimes they only want you to source some really cheap stuff. I seem to remember getting paid about 12,000 credits for a couple of tons of animal meat, for example. These missions can be very handy when you're starting out, and you can often work them into a trading run.
 
I seem to remember when I first started in the Sidewinder that I started trading with Tea, Coffee and worked up to Gold. There's a system around the start which had a pretty good price for Gold.

I also ripped out the discovery scanner and added 2T of cargo giving me 6T in the Sidewinder and this opened more missions to take too.

As others have said too, I'll reiterate. You should really learn to dock when you have a small ship with limited compartment space. It's really not that difficult after practice and is a core skill you need to use over and over. Remember you can come to a dead stop any time and use lateral thrusters to position yourself.
 
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