Some data on trading rare commodities

[Antoon]

In perspective of the discussion about nerfing the availability of rare commodities I wanted to test the profit of trading rares.
Today I did a rare commodities trade run.
I collected all the rares on one side of the map, flew about 190ly and sold them all at one place.
It took me 4 hours to collect en sell 108 rares.
Profit about 2 million credits.
That's 500k per hour.

I don't know if this good or bad, I don't care, I had fun doing it

 

[Raf von Thorn]

It can be even better, if you keep buying them in close located stations and keep going one direction, selling those which have reached a good price and buying more in their place. Im preparing an article on that (and the whole rare trading history), that we will release on the forum and friendly Elite blog (http://elitedangerousdiaries.com/). I just hope they dont change too much till then, i got it half prepared .

 

[evoelise]

In perspective of the discussion about nerfing the availability of rare commodities I wanted to test the profit of trading rares.
Today I did a rare commodities trade run.
I collected all the rares on one side of the map, flew about 190ly and sold them all at one place.
It took me 4 hours to collect en sell 108 rares.
Profit about 2 million credits.
That's 500k per hour.

I don't know if this good or bad, I don't care, I had fun doing it

500K per hour would be good for a smaller ship but less in my experience than you could make with standard trading with a Type-7 or above. But as you say it's probably more fun than standard back-and-forth trading.

 

[Mephane]

I have recently started trading rare goods from time to time, doing runs from Lave/Leesti to Altair and back, in a Hauler optimized for jump range. It works very well and really feels like this is the niche for small trading ships, whereas the big ones can do regular goods in bulk over short distances.

 

[smsKONG]

It's definitely easier in a small ship these days.
But I enjoy scraping a hold full together - it can get quite tense with a days work in your hold!
Pro tip - don't boost inside stations until you've sold them all; and really don't do it when you're at 86 out of 88 units of cargo

 

[Antoon]

500K per hour would be good for a smaller ship but less in my experience than you could make with standard trading with a Type-7 or above. But as you say it's probably more fun than standard back-and-forth trading.

I use a ASP and it's definitely a lot of fun. I got interdicted twice in an anarchy system with my hold almost full of rares

 

[MissMeYet]

I've maximized my Adder with 24 cargo slots by dropping shields (I was considering dropping the autoland but that's my bathroom break). I stay in-system where there are 2 stations ~320Ls apart and I just trade on volume (machinery one way, tea back, for a profit of ~20K). It's not glamorous but I'll have my Millenium Falcon AKA Cobra MK III by the end of today.

 

[Andromalius]

A T7 has 196 cargo slots while keeping a decent size fuel scoop and both exploration sensors, so it's pretty easy to get 130-150K profit per single trip, so rares aren't really interesting.

 

[Red Kite]

I'm one of those who did quite well out of rares before the amounts were capped. I don't feel I cheated, that's just the way the game was at the time and the changes since have, in my opinion, balanced it more. A rare commodity is now... well... rare! Which it should be.

You won't find enough of one item to make a dent in a large ship's capacity. I'm lucky to fill my Cobra's hold in one visit, but even half a hold is a reasonable profit and the journey is interesting and challenging. I don't do it to the exclusion of other things, but it makes a nice change of pace.