I'm closing in on being able to afford a fleet carrier, thanks to both hard work (hauling Tritium) and the VERY GENEROUS DONATIONS of other CMDRs (see my signature). I should reach 5 billion this week. My original goal was to acquire 6 billion before buying a FC, to ensure I have the extra needed for outfitting and upkeep, but these credits are burning a hole in my pocket. So my question is, what is the bare minimum required to use a carrier to make additional credits? If I buy "vanilla" carrier for 5 billion credits, no extra outfitting, will that give me the tools required to use the carrier to make the additional billion credits I'd like to have before setting off into deep space? For example, if I want to use the carrier to help me in trading (which is my preferred money-maker at the moment), will I have everything I need? When is the upkeep due - is it a weekly tick or some other schedule? IIRC, I can fall behind a little bit in upkeep and recover later. Normally I've very fiscally conservative, but in this case I don't mind going in a little bit of debt (upkeep) if a vanilla FC can aid me making the credits needed to outfit it properly. In other words, I really want to buy as soon as I hit the 5B credit mark (plus the buffer required to cover my T9 rebuy).
What's the bare minimum?
- Thread starter Old Duck
- Start date
Deleted member 182079
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I'd say 6-7bn if you want all mod con's (apart from shipyard & outfitting, which I don't think is worth the investment/cost).
Also don't forget that if you want to put out buy orders, you have to allocate the funds in advance. Because players won't bite if the price isn't right (and you also need volume), this can become quite expensive very quickly. Unless you stick to selling mined resources first.
Also don't forget that if you want to put out buy orders, you have to allocate the funds in advance. Because players won't bite if the price isn't right (and you also need volume), this can become quite expensive very quickly. Unless you stick to selling mined resources first.
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Make sure you're reading my OP - you answered the wrong question, unless you are saying I need 6-7 billions BEFORE I buy my FC.
Deleted member 182079
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You said you prefer trading. That means buying and selling, right? Or what kind of trading are you planning for? If you want to buy low and sell high elsewhere (works well with Tritium) then you need to have additional reserves. If you don't need anything apart from the base carrier I'd still suggest 500m to 1bn in reserves to make those buy orders. If you just want to sell mined commodities you don't need it.
If you want to sell ships and modules it'll be a lot more expensive.
Deleted member 182079
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And that's in the current situation where credits are thrown at you by the game if you don't keep the airlock closed.
Amusing though.
I've got two things in mind, either buying low and selling high from players (no orders), and / or loading up my bare minimum fleet carrier using my T9 and then jumping to a lucrative sell system and unloading it there, thus reducing back and forth travel times. I thought cargo storage was "free". Is it not? Do I need to buy cargo storage for a FC?
The bare minimum carrier will let you stockpile goods and sell them, but you'll need some liquid capital if you plan on doing the buy side of things.
I've just got the basic repair/refuel/rearm installed and a billion credits in the carrier's bank will keep the upkeep on that going for two years.
One thing you could do is mine something other than low temp diamonds. The core materials have higher galactic average prices, meaning you can list them for more than you'd be able to list LTDs. Once you've stuffed a stock of them onto the carrier, just jump it somewhere populated, dock at the carrier and update EDMC, and let the trade route finder do the rest while you're offline. Next time you play you can jump right back to the rings and stock up again, with all that business of finding the highest sell systems taken care of for you.
50k/t is a pretty lucrative trade route for them, while for you it's like a 5% discount in exchange for being able to go right back to mining again.
edit: cargo storage is free.
I've just got the basic repair/refuel/rearm installed and a billion credits in the carrier's bank will keep the upkeep on that going for two years.
One thing you could do is mine something other than low temp diamonds. The core materials have higher galactic average prices, meaning you can list them for more than you'd be able to list LTDs. Once you've stuffed a stock of them onto the carrier, just jump it somewhere populated, dock at the carrier and update EDMC, and let the trade route finder do the rest while you're offline. Next time you play you can jump right back to the rings and stock up again, with all that business of finding the highest sell systems taken care of for you.
50k/t is a pretty lucrative trade route for them, while for you it's like a 5% discount in exchange for being able to go right back to mining again.
edit: cargo storage is free.
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It depends on what you want to do to earn those credits with your carrier. If going mining you don't need much extra, the carrier is just storage space and repair/refuel/rearm, but I suspect this is not how you intend to play (if you were into mining you would already have enough funds). You should have enough extra for it to support whatever activity you want to undertake. For example, tritium trading: Get your carrier into a low-buy system and set a competitive buy order that makes the peons (sorry, tritium haulers) interested in filling you up. Jump carrier to system where tritium is going to be in demand but is not cheaply available (current LTD high-sell system would probably be a good idea). Place sell order at a higher cost than you bought the tritium. In that case, you should probably plan to fill your hold with tritium at a rate of 20-50k per ton depending on how close to the buy station you manage to place your carrier (the closer, the less time taken for the peons and the more attractive you become even if your price is not as high as someone at a planet several minutes away in supercruise). Filling up on tritium will then cost of the order of a billion, but if you manage to buy tritium at 30k and sell it at 45k, you will make 375M in passive profit. Note: Numbers more or less made up, I am a miner, not a tritium trader. Just my observation of the tritium market.
Deleted member 182079
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I'm talking about stock. You have to pay when you buy stuff
And that is in advance - doesn't matter if and when someone wants to sell to you or not, that money will need to be ringfenced in the commodity trading screen.I ran out of a billion credits very quickly putting up 2-3 high value commodities in quantities of a few hundred tons only.
Say you want to buy 500t of LTDs - nobody is selling you any for less than say 550,000cr/ton. That alone is 500 * 550,000 = 275m. It adds up very quickly.
Fwiw, I have a buy order for LTDs at the max price that can be set @575k, and nobody wants to sell at that price thanks to stations paying three times that (or the dozens if not hundreds of FCs parked next door getting the sale instead). The credits for that are reserved and can't be used until I take the buy order off my FC market, and the game won't allow you to put an order in if you don't have sufficient funds for it (it either limits price, or quantity).
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You have around 25k free cargo storage. This is reduced if you install other services.
The standard carrier is all you need to trade and to carry your own ships and modules.
Edit: 5 B credits + 5 M credits basic upkeep
Edit: 5 B credits + 5 M credits basic upkeep
What else is free for the initial 5B cost? Personal ship and module storage, yes? What about the ability to buy and sell like a market to other players, is that free?
Yup, commodity market comes with the carrier.
Yes
Edit: but you need at least some credits transferred to your carrier to set up buy orders as this amount of credits has to be present and ist reserved for that
But can't I stock the shelves myself by purchasing at stations using my T9 and loading up the FC that way? I do realize I need to keep extra cash for day-to-day flying costs (60 million should be more than enough), but the FC itself shouldn't cost me anything if I don't use these "stock" features, upkeep notwithstanding.I'm talking about stock. You have to pay when you buy stuff
Forgive my noob questions, but how much cargo?