First off I have to give the obligatory praise to the makers of this game. Absolutely amazing! I remember playing this on my friends NES when I was in primary school. Beautiful! Fantastic.... I can't wait to start working on some OXP's.
And this wonderful game runs flawlessly on my MacBook! Nothing better then cruising around a universe with Floyd pumping.
On to my question...
I'm wondering what the economics of smuggling, what planets are more likely to give good prices for smuggled goods (Slaves, Narcotics etc) and what planets are more likely to provide them cheap?
I'm asking this because I seem to be stuck with one of my commanders. Unfortunately I chose to downgrade my craft in the beginning (I'm in a cobra II-X) and now I can't seem to trade enough goods or engage in piracy or anything to even match the depreciation of my craft. Usually I can take out my prey with little fuss so spending money on repairs doesnt impact upon my profits...
Don't know if I'm been around long enough to say "Welcome", but welcome anyway. I, too, was excited to discover Oolite after finding the newer versions of Elite too difficult (that "realistic spaceflight" floored me!).
Re smuggling/trading, you can make BIG profits through smuggling, but sometimes you'll get a big fine next time you dock if a police viper catches up with you.
Making money is often a long boring slog of buying furs/liquor&wines from agricultural planets, and computers/machinery from the industrials.
Sometimes you can win big at the casinos: not through gambling but by trading gems and precious metals, sometimes even in the same system. And casinos always have cheap Furs (left-behind clothes I guess). I even made a spreadsheet of prices at different systems - how sad!
Avoid fighting if you want to avoid big repair bills: get a witchdrive accelerator to take the "better part of valour". I saved up for a Python and did lots of trading with its large cargo bay (also got a ore processor to make mining profitable) until I could afford a proper iron-arse ship.
Have fun
The most profitable trading method with normal goods, is furs and computers between low agricultural and high tech industrial systems. once you have found a good trade route stick to it and run to and fro untill you can afford extra cargo space and a fuel scoop. If you install Hoopy's casino you can earn some extra dosh too between that and the base planet, just check the prices. Rock hermits offer low prices on minerals and precious metals/diamonds etc. There is no upper limit on how much "precious" cargo you can carry but the max you can sell at any one time is 126 kg (IIRC), but you need plenty of credits for that. Typically you would buy say platinum at 72credits or less and sell at over 78.
As you've figured, downgrading is a bad idea. Your shiny new Cobra Mk III has a high trade in value and the ability to haul 35 tones once you've spent a mere 525 credits upgading its cargo bay. At best you'll make about 35 credits per tonne of goods traded doing the Furs & Liquor / Computers & Luxuiries between a Rich Industrial and Poor Agrigultal. The Cobra I with its mere 10 tones can only make a third the profit of a Cobra III on the same run. Here's some tips to get out of the hole! :-
1) When the Option to service your ship comes up take it. This restores the trade in value. It goes down over time but a recently serviced ship gets back its full trade in value. So wait until the option to serevice your ship comes up in the ship yard before you sell it.
2) Install Murgh's rusty ships OXP (from Ooast2). This adds rusty old banger versions of all the Classic Ships. These ships are a little bit slower, have a little bit weaker shields and a slightly less agile that the normal versions and have lower trade-in values. BUT a rusty Cobra III will still let you haul 35 tones rather than 10!
3) Travel around in your Mk I going to lots of different systems, trading as you go. The ships for sale at each planet's ship yard are unique but only change slowly over time. So don't go between the same two planets, explore. Sooner or later you'll see a rusty Cobra III for sale. You'll have enough cash to buy it. So grab it. Fit the basics and do the Furs / Computer run for a bit making 1000 Credits per run. Then trade up to a rusty python. Now you can haul 115 tones a run, so make 4,000 credits a run. You'll soon have enough cash for a decent ship.
OXPS : The Assassins Guild, Asteroid Storm, The Bank of the Black Monks, Random Hits, The Galactic Almanac, Renegade Pirates can be downloaded from the Elite Wiki here.
I have started a new character without downgrading. After the buying the expanded cargo bay it was very easy to make more money. Now the ship is fully decked out and piracy is way more profitable with a decent cargo bay.
