Rare vs regular trading: when to switch?

TehGems · Jan 16, 2015

Hi guys! I used to rare trade a lot in my 32t Cobra and the profit was obviously much larger than regular trade, but now that I upgraded to the Asp I'm not sure if it's still the same case.
I like to keep my ship combat enabled, so my Asp has "ony" 80t of cargo space. Should I switch to regular trading or should I stick with rares on a longer route? I can fill my hold doing [Rajukru - HIP 80364 - Kongga - Altair - Epsilon Indi - Zeessze - George Pantazis - 39 Tauri - Fujin - Witchhaul - Momus Reach - CD-75 661 - Orrere - Uszaa - Leesti - Diso - Lave - back to Rajukru], netting around 1.5mln cr, but I'm not sure it's the most profitable method with 80t cargo.
What's your consensus?

Shintai · Jan 16, 2015

Take time on it. And compare with regular trade runs.

Theev · Jan 16, 2015

Well I have asp with 112t cargo. Now I have 2300cr/t route (1500 + 800) with only one jump (I love ASP range) so trading rares is not worth for me. Now i get almost 1,3mln per hour.

FoxTwo · Jan 16, 2015

Easy answer - when you get bored of doing one thing, do the other.

Personally, I detest trading. I only do it when I need money quick. Otherwise I'm happy exploring, running missions, and generally mucking about doing what I want.

If I'm in my Cobra and I'm feeling lazy to switch to my L6 I just run the rare trades for 1 or 2 rounds... I make a million or so credits and I'm happy and back I go to mucking about again.

If I'm feeling somewhat more determined I'll go get my L6 and do a few rounds of trading and make a million or 2 and stop again, and go back to my Cobra to muck about

Kloothufter · Jan 16, 2015

I'm rare trading/exploring in my asp, need a few more upgrades to make it a fighter, profits are good. I have 112 ton cargo space, it is rarely completely full so 80 should be alright.

jadefriendly · Jan 16, 2015

I have only ever rare traded twice - both times i randomly stumbled upon the rares too, and only did one run.
and i've maybe 3 times killed ships who have dumped STOLEN rares

also, i've been playing since Gamma and currently have 2 cobras, a type-6, and about 2m credits. so you should probably not take my advice.

Arktac13 · Jan 16, 2015

I constantly sell my Asp for a Lakon 7 and find myself making slighly better money than rares, but to be honest even if I found a nice route and was making even more I don't think I could sit there and truly enjoy the game that way. Rares may take along time, but the thrill of players attempting to pirate me and the profit all coming at once and exploring new systems on every route really makes it more enjoyable for me to stay with the rare trades.

steeve95430 · Jan 16, 2015

Am in the same boat myself so would be interested in the responses... Personally I am still doing rares but obv is taking longer to fill my 80 cargo. I tried doing a 2 jump normal trade route making 1200 per ton which makes about 100k a run but for some reason it doesn't seem as satisfying or rewarding (per hour) than doing rares. I am tempted to splurge on a T7 which would net about 270k per trip via normal trading but am still on the fence .

Vandaahl · Jan 16, 2015

The ASP was the last ship I used to truck rares in. I had a route that gave me a full hull within 30 or 40 minutes. Then I flew to Empire space to sell it there and start the Emp route back to the Feds.
I quit rares when I bought a ship that was able to haul over 200 tons (a Clipper, but a T7 or Python can do the same). A quick route with 1200 credits/ton give you more profit/hour than rares.
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TehGems · Jan 16, 2015

Theev said:
Well I have asp with 112t cargo. Now I have 2300cr/t route (1500 + 800) with only one jump (I love ASP range) so trading rares is not worth for me. Now i get almost 1,3mln per hour.

Mmhh this is interesting...I think my actual profit with rares and 80t cargo is more than 2mln per hour, I'll time it tonight.

I've read a bit on the forum and it looks like expert traders say that regular trading starts to beat rares at around 200t cargo. But I will never go Type-7 I think, I really find the repetitive two-way trading really boring.

Now what about the Cobra? Would a shorter run with 40t cargo be more profitable than a long 80t one on a per hour basis?

MTemplar · Jan 16, 2015

If you find a good route for regular commodity trading and can buy a decent fit T7 then do it. I have a 200T route that gives 245k one way and 180k return trip. It's one jump. I timed it to 5 minutes and change for one and 4 minutes and change for the other. Say average 6 minutes allowing fuel scooping.

Average 6 minutes a trip, so 10 trips in total in an hour, half that to give each system.

5 x 245k = 1,225,000
5 x 180k = 900,000

Add and you get 2,125,000 an hour.

Compare that to rare trading which you tend to spend more time lining up docking runs, fuel scoops, dodging pirates, and waiting for the rares to spawn and you may make a tad less an hour but with a more laid back casual experience. Also it allows you to park a second ship, say combat, in one of the two systems and if at any time you get really bored with trading you can just go dock and get into that ship. Some times when rare trading I would get over to Zaonce and sit there wishing I was back in my Python shooting things. With a one system jump route you can decide when to call it quits and not worry about income loss per hour having to travel all the way back without getting that cluster of systems rares.

Jericho · Jan 16, 2015

I think that once you approach 100T cargo capacity and if you can find a decent trade route (1000cr/ton average per direction) between nearby systems (2 hops) you begin making more credits per hour.

Lethargus · Jan 16, 2015

Jericho said:
I think that once you approach 100T cargo capacity and if you can find a decent trade route (1000cr/ton average per direction) between nearby systems (2 hops) you begin making more credits per hour.

This lines up with what I've seen too. Around 100 tons is the magic tipping point for a decent trade route vs rares. Rares can have good runs and bad runs depending on RNG, but on average if you can find a standard trade route that nets at least 2k/t profit per round trip then 100 tons is more or less a break even point. In an Asp or Type 6 rares seem to be the way to go, but in a Type 7 or Clipper, standard trade goods should be more profitable. That said, I find rare trading more interesting because I tend to have more encounters.

Fozz20 · Jan 16, 2015

Just out of curiosity, where can you get these rare items you are all talking about? (only started trading last night)

gazzareth · Jan 16, 2015

I found that swapping to the T6 from the Cobra and was making more on trading than I was on rares. Not sure how much an 80t vessel would help since you are still limited in what you can buy.

That said the rares route was more fun, and will hopefully be better after vs - hits and long distance planning is less of a pain.

G

TehGems · Jan 16, 2015

Thanks a lot for the info! Tonight I'll time my 80t rare run and see if it's more profitable or not, so we'll officially know!

CMDR Cheknov · Jan 16, 2015

id like to know where the heck you guys are finding better than 1100/per ton trade routes? been trading for a while and havent been able to do better than 1200 credit per ton foe a few loads until demand goes down.

MTemplar · Jan 16, 2015

Fozz20 said:
Just out of curiosity, where can you get these rare items you are all talking about? (only started trading last night)

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=63119&highlight=color
http://eliteraretrader.co.uk/

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CMDR Cheknov said:
id like to know where the heck you guys are finding better than 1100/per ton trade routes? been trading for a while and havent been able to do better than 1200 credit per ton foe a few loads until demand goes down.

http://www.elitetradingtool.co.uk/

Yokai · Jan 16, 2015

You can easily count on making 8000 cr/ton/hour in a standard 1- or 2- or 3- jump trade route, with just a little work. You can find such many such routes in either a 15-minute or 20-minute round trip distance. (By round trip I mean total time taking off from station A, selling at station B, and selling again at station A before repeating the loop).

With a little more work/luck, you can find such 15- or 20-minute routes that net between 10,000 to 12,000 cr/ton/hour. My current route nets 10,500 cr/ton/hour and is a 15-minute round trip. That's a guaranteed 1 million credits per hour with the 96 ton capacity of my current Asp config. I could easily change that same route to 1.26 million credits per hour by just dropping my shields down to a D3 and upping my cargo capacity to 120.

So do the math with a typical T6/Asp cargo capacity (~100 tons) and a typical T7/Clipper cargo capacity (~200 tons) and see for yourself if you can be making better money doing basic ommodity trading like this versus what you're currently making per hour on your favorite rares route.

Speaking for myself, I don't like the variability or time committment of rares trading. Every 15 minutes, I can swap to a combat ship and go do something more action oriented. Every 7-ish minutes, I can quit or take a break. And when I'm facing short play windows (20 minutes here, 30 minutes there), I can still make tangible progress.

CMDR Cheknov said:
id like to know where the heck you guys are finding better than 1100/per ton trade routes? been trading for a while and havent been able to do better than 1200 credit per ton foe a few loads until demand goes down.

Check the orange link in my sig block.

Phier · Jan 16, 2015

FoxTwo said:
Easy answer - when you get bored of doing one thing, do the other.

This. Don't get too focused on min/maxing your profit. In the long run it will burn out most sane people.