Guide / Tutorial Yokai's guide to recognizing (and finding) a great trade route

Rares win out until approximately the 100 ton ranges of the type 6 and asp. You need a strong route to outperform rare goods at that point.

Bulk goods pull away once you cross into type 7 and above territory. Good luck trying to fill your hold with 200-500 tons of rare goods in a reasonable amount of time.
 
Rares win out until approximately the 100 ton ranges of the type 6 and asp. You need a strong route to outperform rare goods at that point.

Bulk goods pull away once you cross into type 7 and above territory. Good luck trying to fill your hold with 200-500 tons of rare goods in a reasonable amount of time.

True. I have 28m or so to play with. (I love that we can trade back ships at full value.) So, T6 or Asp is what I've got. No, I can't fill the hold, but I still can't find a "normal" goods route that can remotely match a rares route, even though the rares can't fill the hold.

I would love to learn the art, but as of now it's just not something I'm "getting."
 
Before you get too crazy trading ships, you should know that you don't sell them at full cost. It is more like 90%. Equipment gets sold at full price though (save cash by selling all equipment before selling the chassis)
 
Before you get too crazy trading ships, you should know that you don't sell them at full cost. It is more like 90%. Equipment gets sold at full price though (save cash by selling all equipment before selling the chassis)

Hmmm, seemed like full price when I traded in my Cobra and T6. Ah well, guess I'll keep the Asp then. Heh.
 
Does going for a big ship and only part-filling the hold give an improved jump range over filling a smaller ship to its limit?
 
@PhilHibbs - Yes. You can put X cargo in then check your current max jump range via console nav points within range. Or you can use the Navigation tab on the Galaxy Map. Near the bottom is a little slider control that you can set to any point between fully laden or unladen and see your exact range that way.

@Vendraen - The guide was written specifically about commodity trade routes. I didn't want the title to be too lengthy, and I figured the executive summary would make it clear that I wasn't going to talk about rare routes. To me, rare trading is not challenging, because it's a matter of googling the best circuit for rare trading. Every point is fixed. Nothing is dynamic. Not to mention, FD recently nerfed rare trading. As @Armchair says, once you get a T6 (which comes pretty fast even if you've never traded a rare, ever, like myself) the numbers move quickly in favor of regular commodity trading if you can learn how to find the cash cow routes yielding >8000 cr/ton/hour.

To wrap your head around the process, start with the notion of "buy from HIGH supply and sell to HIGH demand or MEDIUM demand". In other words, look at the supply column at every station you land at. See a "HIGH" value there for any of the good commodities (Palladium, Gold, Progenitor Cells, etc.)? Then stop and look at the right side of the window for the list of "exported to" systems. Those are all prospects for a profitable sale. Pretty much all of those listed systems will be a HIGH or MED demand. Go investigate.

But now let's refine the technique and save yourself some time. Go into the Galaxy Map and on the View tab enable "Show trade routes". But NOT all of them! Click the Clear button. Then expand the category that contains the commodity you're interested in. For example: Metal > Palladium. Make sure only "Palladium" is checked. Now hover over every nearby system one or two jumps out from your current position and spend the 100 CR to buy the trade data for each system where available. You'll quickly see that the Palladium trade lines that appear correspond to that list of "Exported to" systems in the commodities window. What you're looking for is the ONE close by system that seems to have MULTIPLE lines converging on it. If a system has multiple converging lines from two or more other systems, it's _probably_ a HIGH demand system. So your best bet is to go check only the one or two systems from the "Exported to" list that seem to have multiple incoming trade lines for that commdoity. (By the way, conversely you'll notice that if you're currently at a HIGH supply station, you should see multiple lines originating from your current system to other systems.

Next nuance to master, to save time: When you find a HIGH supply item, check the "Buy" value against the "Galactic Average" value. If you can't buy it for AT LEAST 1000 cr below Galactic Average, stop right there and move on. You'll find that nearly every "cash cow" trade route features one or both commodities involved being purchased (by you) for at least 1000 cr below average, if not more. Most of of the huge variance from average is on the SUPPLY side, not the DEMAND side!

Got it so far? HIGH supply that you can purchase at more than 1000 cr below galactic average. That's where you start. If you don't see anything like that, move on to the next station. If you find something like that, then look at the "exported to" systems and spend the 1000cr or so it will take to populate all the current trade lines in the galaxy map to show you what's what in the area.

That's the basic "in-game" pattern to finding likely best candidates for a trade route. At least for one commodity, in one direction. The trick is to find a good target station that ALSO has a HIGH or MEDIUM supply commodity that is also in HIGH or MEDIUM demand at the current station from which you're shipping out (for example) Palladium. This is where the elbow grease and the pencil and paper and spreadsheets come in if you're doing it the hard way using only in-game tools. Why? Because in-game, the only way to see whether there's a good profit to be made on the return leg is to actually fly out to your top candidate stations and look for HIGH or MED supply commodities, then cross reference each one against the list you made of "Sell" prices from the first station. Yes, it's a PITA. A seriously time-consuming PITA, but some people enjoy that. :)

It's much easier to let a crowdsourced tool like Slopey's do the heavy lifting for you. Here, you don't care jack about HIGH or MED, etc. (In fact, some of the best profits can actually be had from MED supply to MED demand, but in both directions). When using a tool, all you care about is having it crunch the numbers to find the highest unit profit available in both directions. You're using the same general principles as in-game, but you're just using a souped-up calculator and a huge database of crowdsourced information from far more systems than you could possibly investigate for yourself.

Now, why do I say that some of the best profits can actually be had from MED supply to MED demand? This is my main beef with the in-game tools, which really serve to highlight only HIGH values on one end or the other. When you find a juicy HIGH supply item that is priced at something like 1400 below Galactic Average, one of the good target systems to export too will typically be buying it at roughly 200-350 above GA. For a nice juicy profit of 1600-1750 cr/ton. Sweet, right? But chances are VERY VERY CERTAIN that you won't find any decent trades from that other system back to the system you're making a sweet profit on. You might be lucky to find something you can schlep back at only 200 cr/ton, making your round trip worth something like 1800 cr/ton. If your round trip takes 15 minutes, that's only 7200 cr/ton/hour, which is below the "cash cow" benchmark.

However, if you can find a route where the profit in one direction is a modest 1150 cr/ton, and in the other direction it's 950 cr/ton, that's 8400 cr/ton/hour. These are actually fairly common to find, but you'll never find them in-game by keying in only on HIGH values to narrow down your list of candidates. Almost all runs like these will be based on commodities that are MED supply and MED demand at both ends.

Hope that helps!
 
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I just found an 8,480 Cr/ton/hour route. And in the spirit of the Pilot's Federation sharing data with each other: it's between the two systems in Ancate. Tobacco and Marine Equipment, >800 Cr/ton profit on each leg, 12 minute round trip of 493ls each way.
 
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Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
I just found an 8,480 Cr/ton/hour route. And in the spirit of the Pilot's Federation sharing data with each other: it's between the two systems in Ancate. Tobacco and Marine Equipment, ~800 Cr/ton profit on each leg, 12 minute round trip of 493ls each way.

Wow, stock and demand for each commodity levels?
 
Currently I'm on Rare trading (since I'm in a Cobra and can still hope to mostly fill it with Rares).

I use a three-way system, where I collect Rares from three reasonably close systems, travel to another point in a triangle ~150LY away (which also sells a rare), offload those, pick up rares from the three systems in that vicinity, move to the third point in the triangle, offload, collect, return to start.

Easily making 1M credits an hour. (22K/Ton/Hour in a 44 ton trade-specced Cobra unless my maths is off).

I appreciate that once I'm in a 100T or more ship it probably won't be lucrative any longer.

Additionally, depending on how you define your time, logging out after cycling the nearby systems, then logging back in again after doing something else (eating dinner, playing another game, whatever) often allows you to double your take in that section of the process. Technically that's taking longer in real time, but not in game time.
 
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I found a triangle route which nets me approx 1.45 million/h in my 106 t T6. From A to B I get 1500 cr/t, from B to C 1000 cr/t and from C back to A 1500 cr/t. A round trip takes 20min. Do you consider this a good route or should I search for a better one?
 
Quick question guys, sorry if it's already been covered in the thread.

Do any of the online tools show you whether a station requires internal or external docking, apart from when it is obvious (i.e. have "hub" or "outpost" in the name)?
 
Quick question guys, sorry if it's already been covered in the thread.

Do any of the online tools show you whether a station requires internal or external docking, apart from when it is obvious (i.e. have "hub" or "outpost" in the name)?

Thrudds will bring up the station type (Coriolis, Ring, Dock, Outpost, etc), and the landing bay sizes (small, med, large) for any port that comes back in a search result. As such:

vonarburg.jpg

There may be other shortcuts to this method, but this works for basic determination.
 
So if in a T7, I'm making a million CR's every 15 minutes, and roughly 4 million an hour... Would this be considered a decent route?

Lets consider you have been intredicted and the pirates killed you.

How much do you lose when you miss a trade?
 
Great post, very informative, and very nice to see I am up at the profit limit like I was hoping :) Then again, even at this rate the pythons and condas seem years away :/
 
Thanks for the great post. It's rather hard to find reliable informations when it comes to trading. You never can tell if someone's lying, bragging or just guessing his profits.

Looks like I have found myself not a too bad route: about 3 millions per hour (stopped the time and noted down cash at start and end), three-jump-route, two stations, about 35 LY. Current profit in a shieldless 292t Python after deducting fuel costs: about 10,500 CR / ton & hour. Gross profit: 1309cr/ton in both directions. Prices are stable since weeks. Hint: not too far from Aulin, hauling Progenitor Cells & Superconductors.

Please keep on posting your measured profits, so we all can get an impression on where we are in comparison. Thanks!

How to optimize a good trade route? Improve your navigation and flight skills!
Check-List from start to to landing - solo play (more caution in multiplayer at docks and stations needed):


  1. Buy commodities
  2. Launch
  3. During Launch-phase: open galaxy map, set direct course (select fastest routes) to target - Caution: for some odd reasons the launch phase on large pads has a shorter duration than on medium or small pads - so be quick
  4. Lift-off vertically, retract-landing gear, align your ship close to the center axis of the station while approaching the exit
  5. Leave station: stay at the edges of the docking bay, learn to align the ship for a boost out of the station. Don't stop for anything but a Lakon Type 9 (vice versa when flying one) ;)
  6. Keep on boosting on a straight line out of the station. Don't align to your target system yet.
  7. Out of mass-lock: Charge your jump drive and align to target
  8. When you jump to an unknown system or a known system with a small star (like white dwarfs): reduce throttle before entering, small stars have a very small critical heat area and there's not much time to evade while approaching with full throttle
  9. When disengaging from a jump move off from the star in a steep angle and hold the direction, again you have enough time to align when charging the FSD once it cooled off again. This helps greatly when the target is behind the sun and helps to avoid overheating
  10. Final system: lock to target destination and approach at full throttle
  11. Time your breaking (any ship):
    < 1000 LS: watch the ETA Timer under the target distance. When it reaches 0:07 reduce throttle to optimum (center of the blue are on the throttle panel)
    > 1000 LS: go to optimum when the ETA timer is at 0:10. Once at < 1000 LS adjust again
  12. Adjust throttle till you get the ETA Timer to 0:06 then set throttle back to optimum
  13. No further throttle-adjustment needed, the ship will continue to slow down and ETA Timer will stay at 0:06 until the final approach (< 25Mm)
  14. Try to approach the station from the direction of the planet/moon it orbits, this way you usually end up in the hemisphere ahead of the station's entrance when disengaging super-cruise
  15. At 10 Ls (=30Mm) your speed should be around 5 Mm/s and at 10 Mm it should be down to about 2 Mm/s
  16. Adjust your speed so you end up with just under 1 Mm/s (=1000km/s) when entering the safe zone for disengage at <1000k - then disengage super-cruise
  17. a) Approaching a station:
    - Boost to the entrance area and ask for landing permission
    - Check landing pad position on this great map: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=51709
    - With pads in the front row: you can approach the station in a steep angle and aim for the holos in front of the entrance. Slow down at the holos and align to the station. Don't enter too fast (<120m/s), you can release your landing gear already.
    - With pads in middle or back row: aim for the area ahead of the the holos so you can align earlier and in a longer curve to the station and enter at a higher speed (200-250m/s). Release your landing gear half-way.
    - Train to land from a flat angle (plane-like) or in a parable from steep angles (front row pads). This way you can keep an eye on the pad and just have to adjust throttle and pitch. Greatly saves time compared to pure vertical landings.
    b) Approaching a dock:
    - Boost towards the dock and ask for landing permission at 7.5km distance
    - Keep on boosting
    - Learn the best stopping range for a full stop so you slow down just in time. Start at 4km and adjust depending on your current ship
    - Land in a flat angle
  18. Refuel & repair if needed. Sell & buy your commodities
  19. Back to step 2

Try to master navigation and stop your flight times, there's some challenge and fun in it! Spice up your boring space hauls! If you have hints to further improve flight time, share em please!

More hints (thanks to Negative Entropy for additional hints!):
  • Gravitational slow-down:
    Use planets or moons as speed breaks! It's rather helpful if you're getting in too fast or as a general part of your approach to the station.
  • Too fast? Slow down by increasing distance to target:
    If you get too fast on your approach, turn away from the target and use UI Focus to zoom out so you can watch your speed panel while turning (else it's often out of sight while turning). When the actual speed gets into the optium area, turn back to the target. Your ETA Timer should be near 0:06 again.
  • Side and vertical thrusters:
    Learn to use em, they help greatly with adjusting your flight path. They often saved me from a crash.
  • Invest in your ship:
    FSD and jump range ain't all there is to improve. If your jump range allows it and you got the spare cash upgrade other parts too. I pretty much maxed out my Lakon Type 7 to improve boost and general maneuverability.
    - Power plant improves power capacity and heat efficiency
    - Thrusters improve speed and maneuverability
    - Power distributor improves capacity and recharge rate for engine (boost's ready again earlier then), weapons and systems
    - Rating D components have the lowest mass and that means a higher max jump range
  • Know when to switch your ship - selling a new ship and rebuying your former ship means a financial loss.
    Check: http://www.edshipyard.com to plan your next ship's setup and costs. Don't forget cargo cost in the new ship (for safeguard add insurance cost and double cargo cost = 1 "free" death :p)
 
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Just have to say that I'm pretty happy milking a sweet trade route: I'm running ~1345 per ton (performance enhancers or consumer electronics) in one direction, and 1307 (superconductors) in the other direction. Supply and Demand are both high. One station is ~13 ls out from the home star, and the other is ~55 ls out. I can run the round trip just shy of 6 times an hour, gaining a profit of just shy of 16,000 credits per ton per hour. Fuel costs are fuel costs, of course, but they are not huge given that the systems are only 13.4 ly apart, and I am milking this thing for all it's worth.

Boom.
 
Thanks for the great post. It's rather hard to find reliable informations when it comes to trading. You never can tell if someone's lying, bragging or just guessing his profits.

Looks like I have found myself not a too bad route: about 3 millions per hour (stopped the time and noted down cash at start and end), three-jump-route, two stations, about 35 LY. Current profit in a shieldless 292t Python after deducting fuel costs: about 10,500 CR / ton & hour. Gross profit: 1309cr/ton in both directions. Prices are stable since weeks. Hint: not too far from Aulin, hauling Progenitor Cells & Superconductors.

Please keep on posting your measured profits, so we all can get an impression on where we are in comparison. Thanks!

How to optimize a good trade route? Improve your navigation and flight skills!
Check-List from start to to landing - solo play (more caution in multiplayer at docks and stations needed):


  1. Buy commodities
  2. Launch
  3. During Launch-phase: open galaxy map, set direct course (select fastest routes) to target - Caution: for some odd reasons the launch phase on large pads has a shorter duration than on medium or small pads - so be quick
  4. Lift-off vertically, retract-landing gear, align your ship close to the center axis of the station while approaching the exit
  5. Leave station: stay at the edges of the docking bay, learn to align the ship for a boost out of the station. Don't stop for anything but a Lakon Type 9 (vice versa when flying one) ;)
  6. Keep on boosting on a straight line out of the station. Don't align to your target system yet.
  7. Out of mass-lock: Charge your jump drive and align to target
  8. When you jump to an unknown system or a known system with a small star (like white dwarfs): reduce throttle before entering, small stars have a very small critical heat area and there's not much time to evade while approaching with full throttle
  9. When disengaging from a jump move off from the star in a steep angle and hold the direction, again you have enough time to align when charging the FSD once it cooled off again. This helps greatly when the target is behind the sun and helps to avoid overheating
  10. Final system: lock to target destination and approach at full throttle
  11. Time your breaking (any ship):
    < 1000 LS: watch the ETA Timer under the target distance. When it reaches 0:07 reduce throttle to optimum (center of the blue are on the throttle panel)
    > 1000 LS: go to optimum when the ETA timer is at 0:10. Once at < 1000 LS adjust again
  12. Adjust throttle till you get the ETA Timer to 0:06 then set throttle back to optimum
  13. No further throttle-adjustment needed, the ship will continue to slow down and ETA Timer will stay at 0:06 until the final approach (< 25Mm)
  14. Try to approach the station from the direction of the planet/moon it orbits, this way you usually end up in the hemisphere ahead of the station's entrance when disengaging super-cruise
  15. At 10 Ls (=30Mm) your speed should be around 5 Mm/s and at 10 Mm it should be down to about 2 Mm/s
  16. Adjust your speed so you end up with just under 1 Mm/s (=1000km/s) when entering the safe zone for disengage at <1000k - then disengage super-cruise
  17. a) Approaching a station:
    - Ask for landing permission and boost to the entrance area
    - Check landing pad position on this great map: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=51709
    - With pads in the front row: you can approach the station in a steep angle and aim for the holos in front of the entrance. Slow down at the holos and align to the station. Don't enter too fast (<120m/s), you can release your landing gear already.
    - With pads in middle or back row: aim for the area ahead of the the holos so you can align earlier and in a longer curve to the station and enter at a higher speed (200-250m/s). Release your landing gear half-way.
    - Train to land from a flat angle (plane-like) or in a parable from steep angles (front row pads). This way you can keep an eye on the pad and just have to adjust throttle and pitch. Greatly saves time compared to pure vertical landings.
    b) Approaching a dock:
    - Boost towards the dock and ask for landing permission at 7.5km distance
    - Keep on boosting
    - Learn the best stopping range for a full stop so you slow down just in time. Start at 4km and adjust depending on your current ship
    - Land in a flat angle
  18. Refuel & repair if needed. Sell & buy your commodities
  19. Back to step 2

Try to master navigation and stop your flight times, there's some challenge and fun in it! Spice up your boring space hauls! If you have hints to further improve flight time, share em please!

More hints:
  • Gravitational slow-down:
    Use planets or moons as speed breaks! It's rather helpful if you're getting in too fast or as a general part of your approach to the station.
  • Side and vertical thrusters:
    Learn to use em, they help greatly with adjusting your flight path. They often saved me from a crash.
  • Invest in your ship:
    FSD and jump range ain't all there is to improve. If your jump range allows it and you got the spare cash upgrade other parts too. I pretty much maxed out my Lakon Type 7 to improve boost and general maneuverability.

very nice checklist.
I will compare it with my own procedure in my next run but I think I can mention a few things:

5. I have seen videos where skilled players don't bother with any alignment but seem to launch and exit in one fast & smooth arc. I hope to master this.

6. very good point. I will adjust my procedure

11. I think it is safe to reduce to 75% (a bit faster than optimum). specially when planning to use gravitational breaking

17. in a) you ask for docking permission first but in b) you boost first. why the difference. I always immediately boost in both cases.

additional: between 17 and 18: 17.5: select enter hangar and immediately without waiting select station services.

more hints:
if you can see that you will come in slightly too fast to disengagement you can slow down by a short pitch away and back
upgrades: better power distributor allows shorter waits between boosts
vertical thrusters are useful during station approach to align with slot while you are nearing the station
 
I have COMPLETELY reworked the guide in the OP to make it simpler, more to the point, and to describe how to find good/great trade routes by using ONLY in-game methods.
 
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