Newcomer / Intro Total stuck can't trade can't complete missions - giving up at the moment help needed

[lookslikespace]

I am really struggling to get into the game, as far as i can see all commodities to trade make a loss Can't work it out at all. Also the missions I'm given i can't get to any of the destinations Navigation says no route found. So I can't trade and can't do missions. Ran out of credits so had to wipe save game. I can find no clear information on trading and I need to understand how the navigation works in terms of where I can go. I am really missing something here as no one else seems to have issues, i'm totally lost. Can someone help me out please? It seems to me at the moment that even if I could buy a commodity that looks like i can make a profit i can't get any where to sell it!!


Thanks,

 

[Luponator]

Hello there!

dont worry, the entry difficulty is a bit high.
First of all, I highly recommend all tutorials, you will need them.
After that read the Harmless Guide to the Galaxy on this forum.

Having done that, dont start trading on a guess. Do small missions off the bulletin board and keep finishing them in the same system. This will build reputation and provide more lucrative missions later. Once you got some cash, youncan upgrade your ship for a bigger powerplant and a better FSD for more range and things get easier.

Let us know how things go, good luck commander!

 

[zenoic]

Greeting commander.
Yes trading can be tough to start off with, the various numbers and amount of info can make it hard to figure out what to buy /sell. What you're looking for is some goods which you can buy at one station which has a High supply of them and sell at a station which has High Demand for the same goods. High supply means a low buy cost and high demand means a high sell price. This requires some local knowledge, so at the moment you don't know these stations, so i'd suggest starting of by identifying a local agricultural system and a local Industrial system, Agricultural systems will export fresh food, industrials may export crop harvesters.


When you land at the agricultural system take some time to examine their supply and demand, note down the High supply and demand goods. Buy the food goods with the highest supply (or the one which has highest supply that you can afford to fill your cargo bay with).


Travel to the Industrial system and if you'd make a profit sell the food, if not move on to other stations/ systems. Always check the bulletin board when you land for goods in your hold, sometimes you'll find someone offering over the odds for the goods you have in you hold, if so accept the mission and give them the goods straight away. Again check the supply / demand rate at the station your visiting and note down the highest demand/ supply.


Other ways of identifying routes is to check the trade route view in the galaxy map or look at the system which import / export the goods on the commodities market, some of these however won't be very profitable however it does give you a few clues. Other things to look for is the size of the population, a station/ planet with high population will obviously have higher demand, stations that are wealthy will have more cash to spend on consumer goods. Some of the decriptions of the goods can also give clues as to the sort od systems that may demand the goods your looking at.


There also third party tools -Sloopeys trading tool for example. There are also lots of guides out there that may be of use try this one as a starting point: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=80291&highlight=trading+guide.


Could you also tell us where you are? Perhaps someone will be able to tell you a few good local trade routes?

 

[lookslikespace]

Thanks, Started again for the second time. I'm convinced there is something wrong. Can't do any missions anywhere, cargo bay to small or no reputation so can't make money that way. Guides just gloss over trading buy low sell high, how are you supposed to know where to sell? oh well Seems far to hard for beginners to get anywhere. I will keep trying It may sink in eventually.

 

[Luponator]

Thanks, Started again for the second time. I'm convinced there is something wrong. Can't do any missions anywhere, cargo bay to small or no reputation so can't make money that way. Guides just gloss over trading buy low sell high, how are you supposed to know where to sell? oh well Seems far to hard for beginners to get anywhere. I will keep trying It may sink in eventually.

Let's see. Can you post you the system you're in, and why the cargo bay is too small for a mission?
Don't let the initial low pay scare you off. The money will come in, but you will have to do a few 900cr missions first.

 

[Richard]

Not sure why the navigation isn't working, but try plotting your course manually. There should be some systems in range that you can jump to, and then find your way round to the system you need to be at. It's unusual for a mission to send you to a system that's more than a couple of jumps away, so doing the navigation by hand shouldn't be too bad.

As for trading, there are various online tools. Failing that, the in-game descriptions of the commodities can give clues as to the kind of stations where they can be sold. Some starters to get you going:

Food - any kind from algae to coffee. Buy at agricultural stations, sell anywhere else.
Clothes - buy at Industrial stations, sell anywhere else.
Natural fabrics and leather. Buy at agricultural stations, sell at Industrial stations.
Crop harvesters. Buy at Industrial stations, sell at Agricultural stations.
Microbial furnaces. Buy at High Tech stations, sell at Extraction stations.

Remember - check your buying price, make sure you're buying as far below the galactic average as possible. that way, provided you sell at the right station you should make some money.

 

[lookslikespace]

managed to find a mission it would let me accept says deliver algae to Whohler station, I am at wholer station, in the mission section all i can do is back or abandon how do i complete the mission?

 

[DMLeeroy]

managed to find a mission it would let me accept says deliver algae to Whohler station, I am at wholer station, in the mission section all i can do is back or abandon how do i complete the mission?

Go back into the bulletin board in the station services in wohler station, you can finish the mission there.

 

[ReaperAlex]

managed to find a mission it would let me accept says deliver algae to Whohler station, I am at wholer station, in the mission section all i can do is back or abandon how do i complete the mission?

that is probably a find and collect mission.

bring up the galaxy map. go to the view tab. unselect all the trade types. now dig down and find algae and tick that and its parent. now juggle the view about a bit until you find a system with coloured lines coming out of it (you can tell by the direction the pulses travel in).

this will help you find a system that sells algae, then you have to fly over there and buy enough to bring back for mission completion. it is not 100% accurate though, eg i have one system that says it exports imperial slaves but when you fly there they dont sell them.

in the future it might be preferable to avoid the find and collect missions. a general haulage mission will have a fine for failure, this is a good clue that they will give you the goods to be delivered. if there is no fine then they expect you to source the goods yourself.

also try just going out there and shooting pirates then cashing in the bounty vouchers at the station. pirates (and all sorts of other ships) spawn at nav beacons, resource extraction sites and any unknown signal sources you might spot as you fly about in supercruise.

 

[gooddoc]

i was lucky to start in a system where i could trade animal meat to an outpost in the same system for 500cr profit/ton, so i was making 2000cr profit on the trip, even though i couldnt trade on the return trip. I did this for the first couple of days, then i watched a tutorial on exploration & iv been exploring the systems & collecting the data & selling it for better profits than i could in trading.
i sold 20k cr in about 2hrs gametime - bear in mind you can only sell data that's 20LY from where you explored. it also gets you used to the galaxy map & mapping routes.
I may try some mining next - just been watching a couple of tutorials...iv yet to even select a mission, in waiting to have enough cr to buy a better ship.

 

[Zylark]

managed to find a mission it would let me accept says deliver algae to Whohler station, I am at wholer station, in the mission section all i can do is back or abandon how do i complete the mission?

You go to the Bulletin Board. At the very top of the messages there, is your mission. Open it and select 'Give algea' and you're done.

The vessels on-board mission list is just that - a list of your current active missions so that you don't forget what you're supposed to do where and within what time.

 

[BishopC]

First of all, don't get discouraged, Elite is not meant for the mentally impaired CandyCrusher or CoD'ler, but for the strat/tac/sim/civ/traders, so it assumes you are willing to invest time and work your way into it without taking you by the hand.
You can do it. If someone with a CandyCrush/CoD background like me can understand it, anyone can do it with some time ^^

managed to find a mission it would let me accept says deliver algae to Whohler station, I am at wholer station, in the mission section all i can do is back or abandon how do i complete the mission?

This is probably a "fetch" mission, which asks you to find the described item ("algae") at another station and get it to the station where you are ("Wholer"). What you probably have to do is, fly to an agricultural world/station (Since I get the impression you skipped on the tutorials:
a) open the left sidebar by pressing "1" on your keyboard (this does NOT work when in the outfitting screen)
b) move to the tab "Navigation" if you aren't already in it with the buttons "Q" and "E"

c) Select "System map" if you think there are multiple stations in the star system you are in, or "Galaxy map" if you know there isn't.
d) Find a planet that looks like Earth. It's usually agricultural

Regarding missions, before taking on a "Transport the stuff we are giving you to station X" mission, check if you can really reach the system given. At the start there might be some systems too far away for you and you need a bigger Frame Shift Drive to fly farther.

Also, trading is REALLY easy if you read the Galaxy/System map right. The stations at the start are always described as either industrial, agricultural, refinery, extraction or hightech.
Buy one 4 tons of something that is in high supply and way below galactic average.
Use your common sense (or read the description of the items in the commodities tab, they usually drop a hint in like "...is used to refine ore..", "..is the processed in industrial.." etc.) and find a station that probabyl needs your stuff.



If your common sense and/or reading skills aren't up to par, google for the elite dangerous trading bible, which is an image showing you what you need.



If you have no idea, you can click on the "Galactic average" header, and in the drop down menu, find a system close to you. It will show you "export to", "import to". While this may be deceiving, it is usually a good hint where you can sell stuff (hint: it's where goods are exported to).

Hope this helps.
Good luck, Commander.

 

[lookslikespace]

Thanks everyone, finally getting the hang of it, completed mission and traded for profit a few times now. Appreciate all the help. Loving it now.

 

[BishopC]

Cheers man.

Read the "Harmless guide to the galaxy" in the Newcomer forum thread, it might take you half an hour, but it will save you hours of confusion and rage.

Really, it's that good.

 

[DMLeeroy]

Thanks everyone, finally getting the hang of it, completed mission and traded for profit a few times now. Appreciate all the help. Loving it now.

Good stuff, you'll be in a type 9 in no time

 

[Howe]

One thing I've found in my game is that, in the starting system (LHS 344?), there's an agricultural station. Dalton something, it's called. Buy fresh meat from there and, in the same system, sell at Oleskiw (I think). That turns a decent profit. Look for some FedEx missions to nearby systems and check out the commodities menu from there. Hopefully you'll find something the agri station wants and then you can potter around from agri to Oleskiw to new system to agri.

It's a pretty simple strategy, but it took me bumbling around aimlessly for several hours before I figured it out.

 

[InMemoriamSirocco]

The galaxy map and system maps are not working properly at the moment. They are bugged and provide false information. The only way you can know whether or not a system provides certain goods at a good price is to go there and write down what they got and what they want (MED + HIGH Supply/Demand). Do the same with the other systems around it and compare the data. With luck, something that is in high supply at one place will be in high demand at another place. Don't trust the Maps, they are lying and buggy.