Ships When can you start making a 'real' profit on trading?

[Hector]

Howdy all,

I was just taking a brief break from CZ farming in my Vulture and i decided to have a brief play around with some basic trading using the Thrudds' tool to try and find the most profitable route near me.

So i got a Type 6, fitting it with an A-class FSD, fuel scoop and 88T of cargo space but was only able to make a maximum profit of around 77k per run, seeing around 100-150k per 10-15 mins, or around 500k credits/hour or so.

Comparatively i can make around 5-8M in CZ farming provided i don't get forced to jump in and out often due to being ganged up on. My question is what class of vessel really do you need as a minimum to get into trading? I was looking at the Python and found i could get it a python with 240T cargo for around 71M (this included a full rack of weapons to help dissuade pirates...) but is it a case of this being overkill OR do you really need something of this size or larger to make a competitive earning?

Altneratively is the only way to make a sizable profit with rare trading and, if so, what would be your recommended ship of choice? I was thinking that if you wanted something fast where cargo space isn't necessarily an issue then i could e.g. go for the DBE with 27 LY jump range+188LY max range fully laden, 40T cargo room and still armed with teeth to fight back if necessary....

Opinions and thoughts?

 

[Ryan256]

It depends on what you're trading. Look into Imperial Slaves. They are currently the highest margin 'legit' cargo you can trade.

 

[Dark Skies]

Coo that's some going at a CZ 5-8 mil really?

wish I could do that I thought I was doing well hitting nearly 3mil in my Vulture.

got a clipper which is fun and holds a lot
currently got a run earning 2.2k one way and .9 to 1.2 the other taking 13 mins which is 3.7 mil an hour tops.

but those figures are realistic if you earning that much in a CZ I think trading is gonna be disappointing for you perhaps.

 

[Rex Skylark]

I was having fun in my Cobra for a long time wondering the same thing as you. Then I had an Asp which, honestly, isn't too bad, I think you can get up to 123 cargo in it or something like that. Also I made about 10 million off the latest Community Goal (Bast pirate hunting). Asp is a GREAT ship. For a while I was trading imperial slaves and was making about 330,000 per round trip in my Asp. each round trip was about 10-12 minutes, so that was pretty good money. Then I bought a Type 7 which you can get something like 208 or 220 cargo in there. I filled it with slaves which cost me about 3 million.... then I got interdicted and blown up and lost everything, which scared me. So I went back to the Asp.. but then I tried again. I bought another Type 7, but this time i fitted it out with insanely overpowered shields, thrusters, FSD, hull, chass, shield cell banks... all to make sure I could escape any interdiction. It became a lot of fun to fly. I filled it up with slaves and started making 590,000 one way, and then 90,000 on the way back selling crop harvesters i think. so now i was making close to 700,000 a round trip, which took about 12-15 minutes. Not bad at all - that's a few million an hour. In one evening of trade grind I made I think 6 million or more just making these trips. I still need more money to get my clipper but after selling the Type 7 i was able to rebuy an Asp, except this time I've outfitted my Asp to the brim with high tech stuff, since I have all this extra cash. I'm going to do some combat zones for a while to relieve myself of the trade grind. Once I feel like it, I'll do Type 7 again, or maybe I'll have enough for a clipper then.

So yeah, in the beginning I felt kind of hopeless and couldnt figure out how people were making 2-3 million credits/hour. But I think once you put about 80 hours into this game, it starts to open up. Credits become easier to earn and once you get tons of money, you can buy some of the lower class ships and outfit them like beasts. Pretty fun. Skip the hauler and the Type 6- the Asp has a bigger cargo hold than those and I think is the first big "money making" ship, in my opinion.

TL;DR: once you get a Type 7, make sure to OUTFIT it properly with good stuff. then sit down with a six pack of beers for 1-2 evenings and grind trade imperials slaves one direction, and crop harvesters the other. Dog it out and you'll make millions. I made more in one evening trading slaves in a Type 7 than I ever did spending all night farming RES or Combat Zones. Watch a show on your ipad next to your computer and it's more tolerable. Once you finish with the Type 7 consider getting Baron rank in Empire and buying an Imperial Clipper, that's my next goal anyways. Apparently it's fast and (somehow) has an even bigger cargo hold than the Type 7.

- - - Updated - - -

P.S. the Type 7 becomes better to fly once you realize that it has great Yaw factor... so evading interdiction actually isn't that hard. Just stop pitching and do all your movement with yaw. It's the fastest yaw of any of the ships I've flown yet, it's kind of funny/ridiculous actually how quickly the thing yaws around.

 

[Ryan256]

So yeah, in the beginning I felt kind of hopeless and couldnt figure out how people were making 2-3 million credits/hour. But I think once you put about 80 hours into this game, it starts to open up. Credits become easier to earn and once you get tons of money, you can buy some of the lower class ships and outfit them like beasts. Pretty fun. Skip the hauler and the Type 6- the Asp has a bigger cargo hold than those and I think is the first big "money making" ship, in my opinion.

While I agree with your statements about the Asp I don't agree with the recommendation for skipping the hauler and T6. Those two ships are stepping stones to get to the Asp. I started out as a pure trader. My trading ship progression has gone: Sidewinder -> Hauler -> Cobra -> T6 -> Asp -> T7 -> Clipper -> Python -> T9
Getting enough credits to afford an Asp and properly outfit it will take a very long time trading with a Sidewinder, Adder, or even a Cobra. They just don't have the cargo room.
The great thing about the Asp is it can do quite well in CZs or RESs if you refit it properly.

 

[Lucky Dice]

Personally I swap the fuel scoop for a cargo rack when trading. Fuel is cheap and time is money. Although I don't really care about the hourly rate, just that scooping isn't that exciting to me, so I only do it for long range missions.

 

[Xathanaelus]

I really didn't start making "real money" until I outfitted my Python for slave smuggling. I was pulling a profit of 3,100 credits per ton using the Archon Delaine Black Market boost. Then I would get about 1,100 credits per ton on the return trip. This allowed me to earn enough to get an Anaconda outfitted for trade.

http://coriolis.io/outfit/anaconda/...4824.Iw18ZlA=.EwBhEYy6duoMxA==?bn=Wulff's Den

Once you get in an Anaconda you will be printing money. The Type-9 is nice, but if you get interdicted you will die.

 

[Ryan256]

I really didn't start making "real money" until I outfitted my Python for slave smuggling. I was pulling a profit of 3,100 credits per ton using the Archon Delaine Black Market boost. Then I would get about 1,100 credits per ton on the return trip. This allowed me to earn enough to get an Anaconda outfitted for trade.

http://coriolis.io/outfit/anaconda/...4824.Iw18ZlA=.EwBhEYy6duoMxA==?bn=Wulff's Den

Once you get in an Anaconda you will be printing money. The Type-9 is nice, but if you get interdicted you will die.

Not necessarily. Whenever I get interdicted by an NPC in my T9 I can sometimes escape. But if it becomes apparent I can't I submit and immediately go into turtle mode. 4 pips to shields and 2 pips to weapons. Target the aggressor, get the turrets firing, and try to maneuver them in front of me. I have fought off numerous NPCs this way. The only one that almost killed me was a clipper but thankfully I was able to warp out before it killed me.

 

[SAB380]

The Lakon 7 is the first ship to make 'real trading money' in .
A lot of people hate it because you can't do anything else at all but its where bulk trading starts.

From there you can go to the Python or just grind right up until the Lakon 9 (that's what I did).
And the Lakon 9 is where the mega dollars start rolling in.

 

[bootsam]

I made my money in the T6 doing the Leesti/Lave rares circuit then to witchaul rares circuit.

 

[PenguinActual]

I went with full D-grade and A-FSD and pure Cargo Racks then did the same with an Asp. I'm now rocking a T7 (Yippee...) and closing in on a Python thanks to a trade route I picked in ETN.


EDIT: I'm also a Solo player.

 

[Clumsywordsmith]

If you're already hitting the 5-8m mark bounty hunting, there's really no point to trading unless you're trying to multitask -- I.e., grind and 'study' at the same time.

Beyond that, just kit out a python for 284 tons and a class 3 shield. You'll make just under 5 million an hour running slaves and palladium. Swap out the smallest cargo rack for a docking computer if you're really trying to get hands free with it.

But trading seems to have been pretty much outmoded by the new bounty hunting -- I was skeptical at first, of claims ranging from 8-20m/hr mark, until I joined a faction, got a few hundred merits and tried it myself. I am no longer so skeptical