A hint for traders

[Alex]

I made my first million just trading. In a Cobby 3.
Took a bit of work that did.
But really wanted that new super Cobra, was a wopping 1.6 mill. Back then.

So got myself a wee note book, spiral type with 20 lines (5 pads for AU$2)
Marked the left side as;

FT (food and textiles)
R (Radios)
S (Slaves)
L (Liquor)
N (Narcs)
M (machine)
A (Alloys)
F (Guns)
Fu (Furs)
A (What's That?)

Enter a system and F8 (commodities Price) Then 'P' Pause. Note the prices.

The commodities in the list missed, are fairly stable and you get used to a good deal with them..
Leave minerals to miners.
Some great profits are to be made dealing with miners. Metals and gems. Forget minerals, too much cargo for profit.
Miners tend to like furs, booze, drugs, machinery, depending on the miner.

This trading came about with oxps that allow multiple dockings within a single system
Con store (Your Add Here), Anarchy Base (Random Hits), Planet landing (self exlained).
And there are quite a few more oxps that let you dock and deal.

By having the Home stations prices at my note just after entering the system has hugely maxed my profits.

WARNING:

Adding the oxps that allow the profits also increase the "Press Space" Command.
So:
Save every time you dock with a main station, At least till you can dock at full speed without a beacon.


Tis the Game.

[CaptSolo]

Sound advice. I would add Ore Processor to the list. It seems that if one has both Pirate Coves and Ore Processor installed there tends to be more asteroids. Probably scripted that way but what do I know. Breaking up asteroids and boulders is a relaxing break from dog fighting and profitable as well. Of course if players are not willing to dedicate one gun position for a mining laser then it's not for them.

[Makara]

Of course if players are not willing to dedicate one gun position for a mining laser then it's not for them.

I still maintain that a mining laser is only needed to fill up a big ship when mining. Using military lasers will waste a lot of rocks, but you only need a handful of splinters to fill up a combat-orientated ship. And a lot of OXPs add asteroids around their stations (to the point where I have started editing the numbers down to reduce my entity count).

As long as it fits in your personal Ooniverse, I'd say the Ore Processor is a good buy for any ship with more than 10 tons of cargo capacity. The fact that it gives a non-vital system to be randomly broken if things get hairy is completely incidental

[CaptSolo]

Of course if players are not willing to dedicate one gun position for a mining laser then it's not for them.

I still maintain that a mining laser is only needed to fill up a big ship when mining. Using military lasers will waste a lot of rocks, but you only need a handful of splinters to fill up a combat-orientated ship. And a lot of OXPs add asteroids around their stations (to the point where I have started editing the numbers down to reduce my entity count).

As long as it fits in your personal Ooniverse, I'd say the Ore Processor is a good buy for any ship with more than 10 tons of cargo capacity. The fact that it gives a non-vital system to be randomly broken if things get hairy is completely incidental

None of my current OXP's add asteroids about the stations but I can see that would be a bother. The Ore Processor is a boon for beginning Jamesons needing to buy equipment. They can sell their 35 tonne of whatever, fuel up, go back out and fill their hold with enough splinters to earn an additional 2 to 3 thousand credits. If they choose to do this in "non-vital systems" well then they must decide between risk and reward. Naturally they will need to earn enough credits to buy the thing.

[Alex]

What I was getting at was that when you have multiple docking places in a system. It's good to note down the main station prices on what I call marginal commodities. The ones I don't mark like computers and lux's are fairly stable margins, but have made huge profits ferrying some of the other stuff in system.
The ones I've found to have some of the biggest margins have been food, textiles, narcotics and furs.
Just remember that if you take narcs from the main station. It's instant offender status and you can't land at a seedy bar or military station.

[Ganelon]

I'm a little lazier than using a wee notepad, I usually just take a screenshot at the main station when I'm going to kick back and "farm" a single system for a bit.

If you also have one of the OXPs that adds other planets and moons, it can make for quite an in-system market, altogether. In-system play was one of the things I always felt was a bit lacking from Elite, and that I liked about some later space trading games. Considering the limitations it was done within, Elite was a tremendous breakthrough, of course, but in my old age I enjoy having more options. If I'm saving up for a piece of kit or want to try a new ship, I may spend most of an evening or two just bouncing between a few nearby systems and maxing the in-system trade profits. Well, until that gets to feeling dull, and then one takes a contract at the Seedy bar or maybe a transportation contract to start a jaunt of system hopping again. LOL

I will scoop minerals if I have any space for them, though, or do some mining sometimes. No sense in having any empty space in the hold, if you're doing money runs. No big thing to jettison the minerals when you find something better.

[Alex]

I will scoop minerals if I have any space for them, though, or do some mining sometimes. No sense in having any empty space in the hold, if you're doing money runs.

Isn't that what Boa's are for?