What am I doing wrong with trading?

[Murrdox]

I've been getting really into this game (REALLY into it... I've even picked up a HOTAS and I'm loving it).

Over the weekend, I was really working on establishing a trade route. I'm still pretty low on the totem pole, I just have an Adder. So my cargo space is a little limited, with just 8 tons available after upgrading. Then I upgraded my frameshift drive so I could jump farther when I was ladden with cargo.

After some work (literally work. I created a spreadsheet listing commodities and what stations were selling for cheap, and buying for high) I found what I thought was a good trade route.

Just over 20 light years, 7 jumps for my little Adder. I could buy 8 items in one station and sell them to another for about 1000 profit per ton. On the way back my profits weren't quite as good, about 500 profit per ton. Took me just over 10 minutes to make a full back-and-forth trip, so that's about 70,000k per hour of work. I then sold off my scanner and replaced it with more cargo space so I could haul 10 tons instead of 8.

I thought that was pretty good in terms of the amount of money I could make with my Adder.

Then last night I had 30 minutes to kill, and I figured I'd go check out a Resource Extraction Point and kill a few pirates, since I'd heard Pirates spawn there regularly.

In about 30 minutes I made over 120,000 credits from kills! This made me feel like an idiot spending all this time making a trading spreadsheet and boring back-and-forth trips when I could just kill some pirates for quick cash! I'll be upgrading to a Cobra today probably because I made money so quickly!

This makes me think I'm doing something WRONG with trading. It has to be more profitable than this. What am I doing wrong?

 

[DYSEQTA]

8 tons is baby trading. Once you are working with 100 tons plus things get moving

EDIT: With trading Profit/time is much more important than Profit/ton. With such little cargo space to work with I would be looking for a single jump route or an intra-system route you can use to build capital quickly.

 

[Jay8ch]

The amounts you were getting were pretty good in my opinion, but you can find them closer together than that with a bit of looking around. You'll never make a fortune with such a small hold though. A cobra can carry up to 40 tonnes, which starts getting worthwhile, and the bigger carriers like the T-6 start to make really good money.

 

[NettiWelho]

Try trading rares when you get the cobra; you get to see the galaxy and it pays quite well.

 

[snotface]

I've been getting really into this game (REALLY into it... I've even picked up a HOTAS and I'm loving it).

Over the weekend, I was really working on establishing a trade route. I'm still pretty low on the totem pole, I just have an Adder. So my cargo space is a little limited, with just 8 tons available after upgrading. Then I upgraded my frameshift drive so I could jump farther when I was ladden with cargo.

After some work (literally work. I created a spreadsheet listing commodities and what stations were selling for cheap, and buying for high) I found what I thought was a good trade route.

Just over 20 light years, 7 jumps for my little Adder. I could buy 8 items in one station and sell them to another for about 1000 profit per ton. On the way back my profits weren't quite as good, about 500 profit per ton. Took me just over 10 minutes to make a full back-and-forth trip, so that's about 70,000k per hour of work. I then sold off my scanner and replaced it with more cargo space so I could haul 10 tons instead of 8.

I thought that was pretty good in terms of the amount of money I could make with my Adder.

Then last night I had 30 minutes to kill, and I figured I'd go check out a Resource Extraction Point and kill a few pirates, since I'd heard Pirates spawn there regularly.

In about 30 minutes I made over 120,000 credits from kills! This made me feel like an idiot spending all this time making a trading spreadsheet and boring back-and-forth trips when I could just kill some pirates for quick cash! I'll be upgrading to a Cobra today probably because I made money so quickly!

This makes me think I'm doing something WRONG with trading. It has to be more profitable than this. What am I doing wrong?

First of all what area are you in, Secondly a 20 Ly jump just for 1.4k round trip is a little less than you clearly want.

What you could do is look for a place that buys, for example sells gold, but requires food, and look for a system, one jump, which sell food but requires gold. You could make that 1 jump last just 8 minutes and get you 1.4k instead of doing 7 jumps just for the same amount.

Let me know where you are and we can see what we can come up with

 

[bigshep]

Ok, you have a fighter and are wondering why you make naff all cash trading? You should be making next to no cash trading in a fighter. As it is you have a 7 jump route that makes you 1Kpt one way and 500pt in a return trip, which is not that good. If you can find an refinery station and an industrial station next to each other then you will make more cash per ton (pt), roughly 1k one way and 1k the other trading metals/consumer tech/minerals.

However if you really want to trade then you need to go down the flying brick route and start on the space trucker line of Lakon space trucks, rather than the fighters. A cobra mk3 is a good compromise as you can have a reasonable sized cargo bay and a decent slug it out fighter as well.

So in summary, yes your 20 jump route is not that good, and the Adder is not a good trader, so you are better off bounty hunting.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

i think what you are missing is that once you move up to a larger trade ship 240k an hour is an abysmal amount to earn, try plugging in the figures of your current route for a 212 tonne cargo hold and you will see that the profit far outstrips the amount you can make in combat.

1500 Cr x 212 = 318,000 credits per return trip, 1,908000 credits per hour.

 

[Rikk]

Also, 20ly in 7 jumps, that's a lot.

Check your navigation settings, you might be on economical rather than fastest.

 

[Oevaag]

Too long a trip would be my guess. Made the same mistake myself. Then I found a system with an agricultural planet and the rest mining planets and found the mining star ports were paying more for the food I was hauling (animal meat) to my starting system 7 or 8 light years away. Spent more time docking and selling stuff than I did travelling between the 2 stations and got lucky a lot with each station having "quests" requesting what each station held. It's a ridiculously easy route so sold my shields and scanner and replaced with more cargo space. So try and find a similar place would be my suggestion.

Once you upgrade your ship I understand the best thing to do is trade rares but I only found that out after I had upgraded to a ship big enough to make "normal" trading more profitable so, know sod all about that.

 

[ermtony]

Also, 20ly in 7 jumps, that's a lot.

Check your navigation settings, you might be on economical rather than fastest.

Looks like it. In my Adder I'm managing 26ly in two jumps. It's rigged as a general purpose ship and still has 16t of cargo space. Works nicely for me anyway.

 

[Murrdox]

Thanks, all great ideas.

I'm aware that my Adder isn't really a trader ship. I could fit SLIGHTLY more cargo on a Hauler, but not much, and I couldn't afford anything better at the moment.

You make a good point that at the low-level trading that I'm doing, bounty hunting likely pays more just from the basic premise that I can't haul very much. Bigger ships will lead to bigger profits, and I'd quickly outpace what I could make bounty-hunting with a larger trade ship. So there's that.

I may have had a misconception that LONGER trade routes are more profitable. It seemed to me that systems that are close to each other usually don't buy / sell for much difference. For example, if a system sells grain for 10 credits, the system next door may want to buy grain, but they'll only buy it for 11 credits. However if you go to a system further away, they may buy that grain for 20 credits.

It seems I may have been wrong about that, since everyone is encouraging me to find systems that are CLOSER to each other. So maybe I need to concentrate more on finding systems that are nearby each other where I can generate more profit, rather than farther away.

Also, I'm currently operating around the Neto system.

I think I may bounty-hunt a little while longer, get my Cobra iii, and then see how trading with a larger hold works out.

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Looks like it. In my Adder I'm managing 26ly in two jumps. It's rigged as a general purpose ship and still has 16t of cargo space. Works nicely for me anyway.

Maybe I've got the wrong upgrades installed... my max jump distance is about 10ly and I've only managed to get up to 10 cargo. How do you get up to 16, by selling your Shield Generator?

 

[BillyHey]

I think you need to upgrade some of your cargo bays, I can't remember exactly what an adder can hold but it was way more than 8, even with the scanner.

Get your cargo capacity up to about 20, it's all grind but it gets quicker once you get a Cobra - just remember to upgrade the standard cargo bays on every ship.

 

[Oevaag]

Ye if you sell your shield generator you can add another cargo hold.

 

[Eisenengel]

The Adder is an exploration ship, and quite a fun one at that. I like it. But it's not a trading ship. BOunties or discoveries is the way to go until you get a fairly decent trader, like the Type 6.

The Cobra is an all-purpose ship, so go with what you like in it. (Definitely a good little ship).

Now, in my experience, if you want to do trading early on, you should go to Lave, Leesti etc. and do the rares trade. That is what nets you amazing profits for small investments. (1.2 mill an hour in a cobra, less in an adder but still respectable.). That's not to say it's without work - you need to plot rather long jump routes and it's exhaustive to plan it out without a guide.

To some extent I find the whole lave trade counterproductive, but it serves a specific purpose - it lets you get high profits without a large investment; it is ideal for new players. Unfortunately, new players don't know about it. Also, there's the whole issue - easily avoided by solo mode, if that's your fancy.

Only later, when you have a type 6 or higher, is actual trade runs going to be more profitable. And you won't regret your spreadsheet-wielding antics then.

With that said, I have a 3-jump route with 1200, 11019, and 660 profit with short starbase trips (<500). There's a 1300 profit route nearby that I hope to incorporate but right now it's not cooperating. Not saying it's the best around, but it's the best I've found, and that's kind of the fun as a trader - to find new and profitable routes.


@Billyhey: Good pooint!
Yes: Every ship other than the cobra is fitted with smaller cargo bays than the maximum when starting out. (Class 2 cargo bays in class 3 internals, for instance.). It's pretty important to upgrade those.

 

[Taxid]

You're going way too far for too small a profit. Take a look at this, you should be able to find a 1 jump near where you are that probably pays more, remember people have to manually update the market data. The initial credit grind is kinda tough because of limited cargo space etc, but you'll get past that pretty quickly.

 

[Heuristic Method]

26

Late response just wanted to say..

Advice:
You can Squeeze 26 units of Cargo into an Adder my friend.. Keep your shields though, even landing wrong will make her pop.. Trade route should be 1 maybe 2 jumps at Laden.. After you get the hang of that buy a Cobra she can run 60 Cargo.. Since your trips should be in familiar space and short, sell all that internal and protective crap for a while. At least until the numbers start to look good in ye old bank account!

The trading ships have SERIOUS Inertia problems and no thruster power. Recovery time Does NOT exist.. Flying Brick is an understatement.. But damn they can hold some goods!