Newbie question! How do y'all find great trade missions?

[AustinHH]

On the advice of a helpful redditor I have been doing missions out of Aditi for the last several days. Unfortunately the boom has ended and now I can't find many missions that are worth the trip. I'm trying to find other opportunities but the galaxy map is so massive that I don't even know where to begin. Is there some resource or menu that can reveal booming economies or places that might have great trade missions?

Thanks for any help you can provide! I'm saving for my Asp so I can head out to Colonia and I'm still about 10 million away from being able to build out the ship. Hope to see some of you in Colonia soon!

 

[W4LD0]

Inara is a wonderful resource for trading along with a few others. Check it out and see if your profits dont get better. Also, find a few systems you like and stick to them; getting your reputation up with factions unlocks better paying missions.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

If you don't mind a good trek(300-450ly), head out to Sothis, and run some basic data deliveries between Sothis and Ceos(1 jump), until you earn good reputation with the factions, then haul biowaste back to the bubble for huge profits that make no sense.

 

[Ca$hback]

You have to explore. Took me years, even with the help of a trade tool. I was making profits but nothing like I'm making now. I like to find a triangle trade route no more than 1 jump apart each and take missions that stay within those. I fill my hold with one of everything and the rest with whatever makes me the most profit. Rinse and repeat and your missions will get better but it feels lame when you work on a place and find a much brighter jewel right next door.
Make some money to get a ship you feel like you can survive in and travel around a lot. Try not to get seduced by anywhere in particular. Note it down and keep traveling.
Try the Alliance. Try the Empire. Try the Federation again. Try a bunch of the yellow guys. Good money everywhere but it takes a while to find sometimes.
After a while you'll get to memorize what a good price is for commodities at a glance. You'll still probably want to use the trade tools once in a while.

Or the glory could all be yours. It's frustrating but the most rewarding. You can miser a good route to yourself and chuckle your way to an Anaconda.

 

[Troz]

http://etn.io/ is a great tool if you have no philosophical objections to third party assistance.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

I'll give you my thoughts for what it's worth...

So the key imho is to explore and make some notes, what you are trying to do is spot or work out patterns, conditions and opportunities. The AspX is a great ship to do that role in and make some money on the side. The big bucks mostly come from big cargo hauls but you don't really want to be exploring in a T9.

Then as you discover these things you'll come across places where you'll think 'if only such and such was here or this was happening, then I'd make a fortune' and the point there is you can always come back later or know what to search for. I think half the players exploiting Sothis wouldn't know what to do if it stopped generating missions because they are fixated on the credits... Knowledge is far more valuable than credits because it can earn you a fortune and building that knowledge then capitalizing on it is imho a big part of the ED gameplay. I'd advise you to figure stuff out by yourself before using external tools like Inara and EDDB that way the tools help in your search and work for you rather than them telling you what you should be doing.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I'll give you my thoughts for what it's worth...

So the key imho is to explore and make some notes, what you are trying to do is spot or work out patterns, conditions and opportunities. The AspX is a great ship to do that role in and make some money on the side. The big bucks mostly come from big cargo hauls but you don't really want to be exploring in a T9.

Then as you discover these things you'll come across places where you'll think 'if only such and such was here or this was happening, then I'd make a fortune' and the point there is you can always come back later or know what to search for. I think half the players exploiting Sothis wouldn't know what to do if it stopped generating missions because they are fixated on the credits... Knowledge is far more valuable than credits because it can earn you a fortune and building that knowledge then capitalizing on it is imho a big part of the ED gameplay. I'd advise you to figure stuff out by yourself before using external tools like Inara and EDDB that way the tools help in your search and work for you rather than them telling you what you should be doing.

And this^^

Sothis and Ceos are good for a quick cash injection, but ultimately can ruin the game by making money meaningless.

I only go there to mix things up, but since the shadow delivery nerf, it's not actually that much fun.

If you can work the map to work for you, which I can never seem to do, it's a valuable tool in finding trade. Or anything you like.
I'm improving with using the map (which does need some serious TLC, and regular updates!), But I still use eddb.io to find a good route, or the nearest/best location for CG goods.

 

[Adhock]

If you're looking for another Boom system. The Galaxy map is a great place to start. You can scan through the systems and just selecting one will give you a tooltip that will give you the state of the controlling faction. Usually this is a good place to start looking.

You can switch to system view to see if any of the other minor factions are in a Boom State which will give you places to look.

Otherwise you can hang around your system and continue to trade. Continued player trading will cause your current system to go back into Boom once the state has had a chance to cool down.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

If you're looking for another Boom system. The Galaxy map is a great place to start. You can scan through the systems and just selecting one will give you a tooltip that will give you the state of the controlling faction. Usually this is a good place to start looking.

You can switch to system view to see if any of the other minor factions are in a Boom State which will give you places to look.

Otherwise you can hang around your system and continue to trade. Continued player trading will cause your current system to go back into Boom once the state has had a chance to cool down.

There are also map filters for system states now.

Not that they're always up to date. Lol

 

[AustinHH]

First off - Thank you all for your advice! While I've owned the game since release, I didn't venture out of my home system for literal years for the most part. My Aditi runs have opened me up to a love of exploration and discovery, and I'm really enjoying the entrepreneurial element of the game. My little Cobra is doing me well right now, but I'm interested in upping my game a bit and I'm hoping as I learn more about trade and exploration I can find ways to have fun and to see the galaxy!

While I'm currently aligned with the federation, I've been doing most of my trading in Imperial space. I haven't even found the alliance yet, but I'll likely make a trip out to their space to see what it's like. I'm probably going to stay away from Sothis as it seems like the community resents the ease of credit gain and I'd prefer to earn my credits honestly as opposed to gaming the system. I'll check out the external tools like eddb, as it seems fitting to me that a trader would find ways to be smart about routes.

For pure credit gain, is there a specific ship I should look at as an alternative to the Asp? I'm definitely interested in getting to Colonia on the ground level before it's really developed as that seems like an exciting opportunity, but if I can get some credits in my pocket before the trip I'd be very interested in doing that.


Thanks for all the help! I love how friendly the elite community seems to be to new players, and despite my time owning the game I think I fit into that "new player" category.

 

[cygnusa]

First off - Thank you all for your advice! While I've owned the game since release, I didn't venture out of my home system for literal years for the most part. My Aditi runs have opened me up to a love of exploration and discovery, and I'm really enjoying the entrepreneurial element of the game. My little Cobra is doing me well right now, but I'm interested in upping my game a bit and I'm hoping as I learn more about trade and exploration I can find ways to have fun and to see the galaxy!

While I'm currently aligned with the federation, I've been doing most of my trading in Imperial space. I haven't even found the alliance yet, but I'll likely make a trip out to their space to see what it's like. I'm probably going to stay away from Sothis as it seems like the community resents the ease of credit gain and I'd prefer to earn my credits honestly as opposed to gaming the system. I'll check out the external tools like eddb, as it seems fitting to me that a trader would find ways to be smart about routes.

For pure credit gain, is there a specific ship I should look at as an alternative to the Asp? I'm definitely interested in getting to Colonia on the ground level before it's really developed as that seems like an exciting opportunity, but if I can get some credits in my pocket before the trip I'd be very interested in doing that.


Thanks for all the help! I love how friendly the elite community seems to be to new players, and despite my time owning the game I think I fit into that "new player" category.

I think doing Sothis runs is fine, but keep in mind its repetitive and if all one thinks about is grinding credits, the game is going to be boring quick. For me, I do a few Sothis runs for a quick cash injection to fund urgent matters then I'm back to zooming about for the fun of it elsewhere. I'd suggest trying a run or two. You may bank enough for an Asp in short order. The side benefit of doing Sothis is you learn a bit about navigating if a newer player, as one has to deal with crossing a zone of non-scoopable stars between Sothis and the bubble. Its quite easy to get through but it gives a taste of what its like exploring as you will need to navigate through/around certain expanses with few scoopable stars. An important skill to have in order to save yourself from having to call the Fuel Rats while far from home.

The Asp is a great step up from the Cobra. An extremely versatile ship with excellent jump range. I too would like to swing out to Colonia and spend a big chunk of time there, so I'm (very) slowly tweaking up an Anaconda. My build will likely be quite combat capable.. i'm not going with a light exploration build. I just have a feeling some combat prowess might be needed at some point. A Python is also highly capable, but its jump range even with engineers mods might make a trip out to Colonia rather tedious, for me at least. I still have a ways to go.. and as I play a few hours here or there I may not be among the first wave of people heading out there.

Enjoy the Cobra while you are in it. Still one of my favorite ships. I flew mine again for about a month a couple months back for a change of pace. Put the Annie in dry dock for a good cleaning I'm back in the Annie now... damn that A power plant is painfully expensive! (~156million with discount).