Profitability (Career Opportunities)

[Corbeau]

I didn't browse through all of the old topics, so it may happen I'm repeating an already existing one, but I'm curious, am I the only one to think that bounty hunting is much more profitable than just simple trading? I mean, the most profit I can get by trading is from rich industrial to poor agri carying computers, getting 40cr per ton which, in a 35 tonne Cobra, is 1400 creds, while on a single run through an anarchy system, on a lucky day, one may pick up to 2000 worth of creds cargo plus bounty plus insurance? And still stay perfectly clean?

Yes, I know simple trading is safer, but it's also boring.

Or am I missing something?

[Frame]

Or am I missing something?

Not talking about OXP ships...

maybe the boa class cruiser with 175 tonnage of cargo and very good
handling abilities and a decent speed... with a shield booster and military shields, its next to unbeateble however a large target at range, and thargoids in witch space is a bit of a problem too, unless you spend an energy bomb Or more exspensive Q Bomb.. after tricking all the motherships to drop their robot fighters by poking them a bit with your lasers..

Also if you know how to go perfectly safe in trading

Go for the anaconda with 750 ton cargo space and sell almost at will your cargo at the best prices...

Rock Hermits dwellers seem to love to drink, so anytime you happen to bumb into one of these, dock and sell your Liquor/Wines and buy up all the precious at cheap prices...

Afterwards you can expand your profits with the ore processor OXP and go mine for even more precious from the asteroids that is usually around a Rock hermit, With a hefty 750 tonnage ability you will almost never have to sell to make room for more precious..

I find scooping Cargo canistors is taking far to long unless you Explode your target when he is quite close and directly in front and below..

I usually make with a boa class cruiser 7600 credits on a 3 planet Trade route plan... route Rich industrial to Rich industril to poor agricultrural..

its a simple matter of logistics..

i prefer trading as you can tell ^^

Cheers Frame....

[Jack_H]

Good in theory, but it takes so long to get the money to buy a boa or anacondayou hve to do what corbeau talks about for awhile.

Any whenever i hit any system, they never have more than about 40-50 tonne of computers anyway, so an anaconda would be a waste anyway, wouldn't it?

On another note, i went to reidquat and took out my first five-strong bunch of pirates. im not 'average'. woop.

[Captain Hesperus]

One tactic that I used was to trade in the Cobbie III for a rusty Python (using murgh's Mpak.oxp) after a few high-profit trade runs. It allows for rapid improvement of your financial status with that extra 80t cargo space (before large cargo bay extension) in a slightly slower, slightly tougher, considerable bloody larger package. I'm now saving up for a factory-spec Python ET Special.....

Captain Hesperus
"Dammit, they all have Galactic Hyperdrives! Who needs a prakkin' Galactic Hyperdrive!!!"

[TGHC]

Hey Corbeau have you visited Hoopys casino, there are some interesting prices there.

Scooping cargo tends to be more profitable if you have a large enough cargo hold. If you are desperate for cash, it's worth flying around the coriolis you can scoop escape pods on their way in and sometimes cargo too.

[Commander McLane]

I agree that bounty hunting is indeed the much more profitable thing compared to trading--not to mention that it's far more fun and brings you closer to being ELITE as well.

I described in another thread (don't remember where) my favorite way of living in Oolite, which is a sort of "expanded" trading. That means I do the usual "milk-runs" with computers and furs, but after selling them in their respective systems I don't buy the other commodity, but save my commander (very important step!) and launch again, to go hunting for criminals. I try to kill all of them in the system systematically, each time scooping everything scoopable. That doesn't only earn me their bounties, but another full cargo-hold as well. I then return to the station to sell those "found and scooped" commodities. In a system with very many pirates I even go for a second raid (don't forget to save!). Only when I have cleared the system and scooped everything valuable I fill my holds with computers/furs and jump into the next system.

Usually the extra raids earn me two or three times as much as the simple trading.

[Commander McLane]

And by the way:

@ Jack_H: Hi and welcome to the boards and this great game!

[Frame]

Any whenever i hit any system, they never have more than about 40-50 tonne of computers anyway, so an anaconda would be a waste anyway, wouldn't it?

That is where route planning comes to mind...

Im flying the Boa Class cruiser with 175 tons of cargo ability because
a station can only buy 127 minus stock..

which is why i go from rich industrial(62 ton computers) to a rich industrial(62 ton computers = 124 tons computer total, fills the rest up with luxuraries and then jumps into the next poor agricultural system that is on my route, its fuel efficient, but not that it matters since fuel is cheap..

but more importantly its time effeciant, i clocked it, pr hour i earn more this way than the usuall back and forth jump..

[Commander McLane]

But then you should also do two poor agricultural systems, as the stock amount of furs tends to be even less than computers.

[Frame]

But then you should also do two poor agricultural systems, as the stock amount of furs tends to be even less than computers.

which is quite rare to find such a setup where you have 6 or 4 planets on a route.

Where i am right now the best route is

poor agricultural(buy furs,food textiles and wine, radioactives) (sell computers and luxuaries)
average agricultural(buy furs, luxuaries)(sell food, textiles, radioactives and wine)
poor agricultural (buy furs,food textiles and wine, radioactives) (sell luxuraries)
rich industrial(sell everything) (buy computers)
rich industrial(sell remaining agricultural cheaps), (buy computers and fill up rest with luxuraries)

start over again

Cheers Frame...

[Corbeau]

Only when I have cleared the system

And you know you've cleared the system when... you go from the station to the witchspace beacon without bumping into any offenders/fugitives, eh?

If that's the case, I did that a few times and realised I killed off all/most of them on the first run already.

[JensAyton]

Don’t forget the station-sun route.

[Dr. Nil]

...and the witchpoint-sun route (if you've got the sunskimmers OXP installed)

[Corbeau]

Did anyone make a rough estimate the sizes of the planet and the sun? I mean, I may go to one side of the sun and completely miss fellows skimming the other side.

[JensAyton]

It looks as though the sun always has a radius of 100 km and the planet radius (if not set in planetinfo.plist) is ([11, 25] * 256 + [0, 255]) / 100, that is, 28.16 to 66.55 km, with a reasonably even distribution. Values in planetinfo.plist are 100-metre units.