Newbie Guide to Making Money Through Trading

thelebk · Post by **thelebk** » Thu, 23. Jun 05, 11:30

Creston & Crew--

As a relatively new player to X2 I found this post INCREDIBLY Useful. The game has a steep learning curve with many undocumented commands, so it can get overwhelming. This advice really helped me zero in on the fun. After reading your post and the replies, I do have a few questions:

1) You use the term "capping" several times, exactly how is this accomplished? Does this stand for capturing? DO you have to eject from your ship to capture another? If you do so how do you pilot your orginal ship back to a base so you can fly off to sell the new acquisition?

2) You refer to ludicrously lucurative BBS missions. Can you be more specific? Examples?

3) I found this thread after Pres End was attacked, and began your trade method from that point. I have discovered that I have plenty of 500+ places to sell, but very few places to buy silicon for under 350... Losing those three mines in Pres End hurts... What is you work around? Is this an opportunity to build Silicon mines of my own? How do you go about doing so?

4) You mention the MKIII trading software. What does it do for .5 mil creds? Even more importantly how is it implemented in the interface? This game need a more robust in game help menu for specific features...

5) Can you post a link to a thread that gives highly detailed instructions on mining?

6) A fair amount of my micromanagement time is spent hitting the SETA key after every gate, is there a way to force the SETA to stay on until the final destination is reached?

7) One poster mentioned calling for help if pirates attack your transport(s). How do you do this in the interface?

What is a FAB?

While it is not profitable I have enjoyed shipping energy sells to the silicon mines to keep them humming along. Also special thanks to WWII for his excellent map... I use it constantly!

grumman · Post by **grumman** » Thu, 23. Jun 05, 11:50

thelebk wrote:1) You use the term "capping" several times, exactly how is this accomplished? Does this stand for capturing? DO you have to eject from your ship to capture another? If you do so how do you pilot your orginal ship back to a base so you can fly off to sell the new acquisition?

In simple terms, you find a ship you want (up to TP/TS size), and shoot it until it either dies, or the pilot bails out. Then you tell it what to do by targetting it, and pressing C (to enter the command menu).

4) You mention the MKIII trading software. What does it do for .5 mil creds? Even more importantly how is it implemented in the interface? This game need a more robust in game help menu for specific features...

Once you have a ship with the software, enter its commands menu, select Trade commands, and select Sector trader. The ship will then fly around the sector, buying and selling goods when it is profitable. Once the pilot reaches level 8 (one level is gained for every 50,000 credits of profit earned), if the ship has a Jumpdrive, both Fight software upgrades and at least 25MW of shields, you can start the Universe Trader command. This is similar to the Sector Trader, but is not limited to a single sector.

What is a FAB?

A fab is a station that produces a product, as opposed to things like Equipment Docks which store products.

esd · Post by **esd** » Thu, 23. Jun 05, 11:53

thelebk wrote:1) You use the term "capping" several times....Does this stand for capturing?

Only if you're lazy. The rest of us just say "capturing".

thelebk wrote:8.) What is a FAB?

"Thunderbird One to Thunderbird Three, F.A.B!"

xalien · Post by **xalien** » Thu, 23. Jun 05, 12:18

1. There's a good capture guide to read

2. There are two of them, but are only worth taking when you have high enough trade/combat rank:

2.1 Assassination missions (Presented like "Federation betrayal", "xxx must not be allowed to live" etc). The higher your combat rank, the better their payment and, naturally, stronger opposition. Ace 3rd is about 1mil, Ace 1st ~3mil, AoA 1st ~20mil, etc. You better get the M3 if you want to do those and work on your combat skills. It also requires a decent race rank with the race offering the mission, so Split and Paranid won't accept your services at the beginning.

2.2 Taxi missions (factory incpection tour, gambling etc). You'll be given new destinations and increasing rewards after each stop with a certain time limit that starts to deacrease after a few stops. You'll need a fast ship like Pegasus with the docking computer. Later on you'd want to pair it with a jump-capable ship like M6 or TL to save on your travel time - you may be asked to fly 4 sectors in 2 mizuras after few stops!

4. It's all in the readme file from bonus pack

5. TD's guide for mobile mining

thelebk · Post by **thelebk** » Thu, 23. Jun 05, 21:06

Great stuff guys, thanks for the responses!

.:DR:.burtha666 · Post by **.:DR:.burtha666** » Sun, 9. Oct 05, 09:57

thanx a millon, amd i mean a millon

Kalfireth · Post by **Kalfireth** » Sat, 5. Aug 06, 15:48

Hey guys, another n00b here.

I've exhausted my trading of energy cells from The Wall to Argon Prime, guess I saturated the market there as it's no longer very profitable. At any rate I've been reading about the much higher profit margins of the silcon trade and have wanted to give it a go - but having flown around I can't seem to find *anywhere* that cells silicon for under 700. Were I to trade it, I'd be making a loss.

Also, Presidents End is a wasteland. I've not yet begun the second mission (escorting the Gonar freighter as turret guy) so I wasn't expecting this... but a lot of the guide inidicates it *was* a great place to buy silicon if it wasn't blown to hell.

Does anyone have any ideas about trade routes I can definitely use, preferably trading between one sector and its neighbour as my freighter isn't that fast (about 160 I think). I'll go back and read through this some more of course as I only got to the second page...

Dogshocker · Post by **Dogshocker** » Sat, 2. Sep 06, 18:37

I've just read your Silicon trade route for wannabe millionaires. I'm totally new so I'm going to give it a go. Thanks for the effort.

angels7707 · Post by **angels7707** » Mon, 4. Sep 06, 06:16

newbie on the floor.. could someone plse explain the term "packages"...looked through the manual but was unable to find it...???

..

gmoney202 · Post by **gmoney202** » Sat, 13. Jan 07, 19:14

first great guide. very helpful.

I m not the kinda guy thats content just flying around trading in one good no matter what the profit is, so if any1 still reads this post and is frustrated when the silicon profits drop off u can try trading in the following goods which are almost always same sector/next sector "milk cow" profit runs:

1) argnu beef to cahoona facs. buy it at 61 sell it for no less than 105. never had a problem finding a cahoonas fac that wouldnt pay at least 105 for my cattle and there is almost always a cattle farm with full stock.

2) of course there is always the energy trade-maybe not as profitable as silicon but faster(usually), at least until u get a jumpdrive.

trading in the following will make u modest profits but can have the added bonus of stabilizing the economy a bit-with the side benefit of making your facs more profitable later on:

cahoona meatsticks(or other foodstuffs in other races sectors) to whatever factories need them. i personally supply Crystal fabs first as they almost always seem to be low on food-i just buy them from the trading docks for avg price and sell em to the fab. THis means there will be more crystals on the market later in the game when u build your own SPPS and before u build your own crystal fab.

warheads bought at a trading stations will often sell for a modest profit at teh missile fac with the benifit of more missiles available when u need them.

Sirus5 · Post by **Sirus5** » Sat, 13. Jan 07, 23:03

This is an OLD thread - but still very pertinent for those using X2..

It would be very useful if a Moderator could update the Title of the thread to include "(X2)" in the title.

@Angels7707 - Packages.... read containers... Containers are hidden inside docking bays in X2 - I did a very long post on this - if you look for all the posts I did, you may just find a good on "Secret Containers" or something like that.

Creston · Post by **Creston** » Fri, 2. Mar 07, 06:09

I'm not sure which amazes me more :

- That this post is still here
- That people are still finding it useful

Thanks for all the kind comments

Creston

liam1412 · Post by **liam1412** » Thu, 6. Sep 07, 09:08

Well it will amaze you even more that it is now 2007 and 7 and having had x2 on my shelf for a year or 2 (only did first mission when I got it) I have got it out and am getting very addicted. Excellent Thread

Jezarel · Post by **Jezarel** » Mon, 11. Feb 08, 19:11

Cheers Creston. Awsome system.

Regards
Jez

rabiddeity · Post by **rabiddeity** » Tue, 12. Feb 08, 01:10

I hear the moaning and wailing of a tormented thread being kept alive through the dark arts of... thread necromancy!

(runs to fetch his holy water)

Post by **Nanook** » Tue, 12. Feb 08, 01:43

This is a guide thread, and guide threads have a much extended life on this forum, as they should. Since people are still actively playing and posting about X2, the age of this thread is really irrelevant. If you're playing X2. So that moaning and wailing you hear, could it be your significant other's reaction to you playing too much X?

rabiddeity · Post by **rabiddeity** » Tue, 12. Feb 08, 06:26

LOL, point taken.

It just surprised me to see the thread pop up to the top like that, clicked on it and went "huh? you can buy energy cells for 9 credits? wait a sec, but there's nothing in President's End!" and then I looked at the post date and realized it was a thread from X2.

I don't know if moderators can do this (or even want to), but for guide threads like this it might be helpful to add [X2] to the subject, or something similar, seeing as this thread is pretty specialized.

Coolio101 · Post by **Coolio101** » Tue, 24. Jun 08, 00:18

Hey guys i got the following problem. I dont seem to be able to buy silicon, the option to buy it is red. Does that mean my ship cant hold it? Im on a Manta S.

Post by **Nanook** » Tue, 24. Jun 08, 00:30

That's exactly what that means. Manta's can't hold XL class cargo, which is what silicon is. All TP's were changed in a patch so that they could no longer carry anything larger than L-class cargo. You need a TS.

Coolio101 · Post by **Coolio101** » Tue, 24. Jun 08, 03:07

Ok, so what do you suggest i do? Save money for a TS?

egosoft.com

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Newbie Guide to Making Money Through Trading

X2

Much Love