Having seen quite a few forum posts about the viability of trading, I've decided to record a running journal of my trade experiences, with a generalized description of how I am approaching it as my primary means of making credits.
I won't go into detail about each and every ware I trade, as I can see that becoming a massive PITA to keep recording, after a while. But I'll describe my overall activities, the start and end profits for the day, and around how much time I spent playing.
If you have any suggestions, feel free to share them here. If they make sense and seem like they would be useful, I'll incorporate them into my trading. Any suggestions should focus solely on trading; capturing ships, does not count.
The goal is to record this information through 50 hours of gameplay, to determine if trade is in fact a reliable, primary means of making money.
So here we go.
Hours 0-5:
Began new Aspiring Merchant campaign. Started out by acquiring trade agents on every base in Commerce Core and Devoid Clime sectors. After getting trade agents on all Commerce Core stations, sold the smaller of my two trade ships for nice influx of cash, and started trading with my Lyranea. Continued recruiting trade agents, while I manually traded wares with my Lyranea. By the end of today's session, I was able to get around 10 trade agents in the Eclipse Clouds sector, as well.
Day 1 starting balance: 400,000 credits.
Day 1 ending balance: 10,352,301 credits (around 4 million of which came from selling the smaller trade ship)
Most valuable trade: Newtonian V Launchers
Total time spent in current campaign: Around 5 hours
Time left to completion of experiment: Around 45 hours
Impressions: Pretty slow start; but that's to be expected, since most of my time is currently being spent getting trade agents on every station in Omicron Lyrae.
<Edited to change "Day 1" to "Hours 0-5">
Trade Journal
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Trade Journal
Last edited by GinZakana on Wed, 22. Oct 14, 06:39, edited 2 times in total.
Interesting idea. How aggressively are you pursuing trade discounts, and what approaches are you taking there?
With the aspiring merchant start they don't make quite as much difference as they do in freeplay since you get a hefty faction discount right off the bat, but that's still where you get the bulk of your margins on trading from.
With the aspiring merchant start they don't make quite as much difference as they do in freeplay since you get a hefty faction discount right off the bat, but that's still where you get the bulk of your margins on trading from.
I've also started a new game with and eye to trade and to only fight cartels, though I'm starting poorer as an Argon Mercenary and now have a Gigurum Container with the cash from doing station missions.
Aside from the start up cash the station missions (none that have me attack another faction) enhance my rep
I'll be interested in further updates to this thread.
Aside from the start up cash the station missions (none that have me attack another faction) enhance my rep
I'll be interested in further updates to this thread.
I fully intend to pursue the unlocked commissions; as well as smalltalking my factions' reputation up, and hacking stations to boost my profits. Right now though, I'm just focusing on getting trade agents on every station in Omicron Lyrae, so I can have trade access to all possible wares in that system.Vim Razz wrote:Interesting idea. How aggressively are you pursuing trade discounts, and what approaches are you taking there?
Kind of regret selling one of my trade ships, off the bat. May have been the right thing to do, as 400k credits isn't much to start with. But now I find that no single purchase order has anywhere near enough to fill my Lyranea's cargo hold, and it's hard to find one that exhausts my total income and has good buy/sell percentages listed in the trade window. So it feels like I have credits just sitting around, doing nothing; when they could be better utilized on a second trade ship. Once my total income rises to 20mil, I'll get a second ship, so I'm not just sitting on credits.
Also, I probably won't do strictly-daily updates, as it can be hard to get 5 hours in, on a weekday. So after getting at least 5 hours of cumulative gameplay, since the previous update, I'll post my progress here. Usually 2 or 3 weekdays, or a single weekend day.
I'll also start posting how much money I spend; not just how much I make. I just haven't spent any, yet.
Hours 5-10:
Finished getting trade agents on all stations in Omicron Lyrae and Devries, as well as one of the Albion sectors. Original plan was to start hacking stations by now, but it's difficult to find a high-value ware in decent numbers to trade; so I need to get more trade agents, in order to increase the diversity of wares I can trade. It has also become apparent that I will need more than 1 trade ship, to make a profits at a reasonable rate. Hopefully, I can start the station hacking method soon. Though I'm not sure just how profitable that really is.
I thought that perhaps getting trade agents in Devries could be profitable, since surely their starving stations are in desperate need of wares. Seems I was mistaken. For a starving system, they seem pretty unhurried to stock up on wares. Maybe if the economy there stabilizes, it could become more profitable. But for now, there isn't much reason to focus on Devries.
Plan for next session is to get a second trade ship so I can turn profit more quickly. If I finish getting trade agents in Albion, I'll probably start station hacking, at that point. I'll report on how effective that tactic is.
Session 2 starting balance: 10,352,301 credits.
Amount spent: 50,000 credits (for refueling trade ship)
Session 2 ending balance: 18,201,174 credits.
Profit made this session: 7,898,873
Total time spent in current campaign: Around 10 hours
Time left to completion of experiment: Around 40 hours
Impressions: Trading with one ship is extremely slow and boring, and not worth the effort. Hoping when I get multiple trade ships, the manual trading aspect of the game will become more enjoyable.
Finished getting trade agents on all stations in Omicron Lyrae and Devries, as well as one of the Albion sectors. Original plan was to start hacking stations by now, but it's difficult to find a high-value ware in decent numbers to trade; so I need to get more trade agents, in order to increase the diversity of wares I can trade. It has also become apparent that I will need more than 1 trade ship, to make a profits at a reasonable rate. Hopefully, I can start the station hacking method soon. Though I'm not sure just how profitable that really is.
I thought that perhaps getting trade agents in Devries could be profitable, since surely their starving stations are in desperate need of wares. Seems I was mistaken. For a starving system, they seem pretty unhurried to stock up on wares. Maybe if the economy there stabilizes, it could become more profitable. But for now, there isn't much reason to focus on Devries.
Plan for next session is to get a second trade ship so I can turn profit more quickly. If I finish getting trade agents in Albion, I'll probably start station hacking, at that point. I'll report on how effective that tactic is.
Session 2 starting balance: 10,352,301 credits.
Amount spent: 50,000 credits (for refueling trade ship)
Session 2 ending balance: 18,201,174 credits.
Profit made this session: 7,898,873
Total time spent in current campaign: Around 10 hours
Time left to completion of experiment: Around 40 hours
Impressions: Trading with one ship is extremely slow and boring, and not worth the effort. Hoping when I get multiple trade ships, the manual trading aspect of the game will become more enjoyable.
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Lander1979
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