Like reading a good book;

[RainerPrem]

In case you missed it in earlier posts: JumDrive (JD) is a /crucial/ install for traders travelling more than one zone! It reduces cargo capacity (for fuel), but more importantly it reduces losses: JD-equipped freighters will jump out of danger provided they have the ecells onboard (& set to use as fuel)

Simply put: I never own a ship without a Jumpdrive (apart from the first hour of the game). Mostly I buy Mistrals as freighters because those are the only ones which can directly been equipped with JDs. Otherwise I have 4 fast M5s around to buy JDs from the nearest source and put them into the newly bought freighters. There is also a big eCell-Tanker stationed at the shipyard where I buy my freighters to give them the initial load of fuel.

For used ships/bails/boarded ships I've got a TM with 3 M5s outfitted with JDs to provide them to the newly acquired ships ASAP.

cu
Rainer

[jorganos]

Simply put: I never own a ship without a Jumpdrive (apart from the first hour of the game). Mostly I buy Mistrals as freighters because those are the only ones which can directly been equipped with JDs.

I find Legend's Home a pain in the posterior because you have to send your ships away for tuning and navigation software. Even if you provide the shipyards with E-cell donors, you will still have to jump the ships individually, and then dock them manually. (I use Company Pride because it complements most of the things the OTAS HQ does offer). Cloudbase SW is fairly close to Home of Light, and Paranid Prime offers a range of useful ships, too. If you are a CLS2 fan, proximity to Herron's Nebula trading station is a positive effect, too.

Queen's Retribution is one system away from Atreus HQ, another good place to get your jump drive quickly, and offering SPPs for filling up jump fuel, too. Patriarch's and Heaven's Assertion are within reach of that, too, but Heaven's Assertion (and Grand Exchange, Ceo's Sprite, Rhonkar's Trial, Megane) suffers from the lack of EDs, too.

Saturn shipyard offers transporters (from the research station) linked to the shipyard, but makes you ferry in jump drives from the orbital defence station in the same sector. Best starting point if you like baldrics (which I haven't decided yet - slightly better than the mercury at about twice the price). Baldric Miners and Hayabusas need jump drives ferried in at The Moon, probably from Saturn, otherwise that's a fairly comfortable place to equip swaths of TS.

That's a consideration for placing the HQ, too - a source of tunings should be no more than 5 minutes away. Luckily the Hub can provide such proximity, except in most of Terran and Albion space.

Otherwise I have 4 fast M5s around to buy JDs from the nearest source and put them into the newly bought freighters. There is also a big eCell-Tanker stationed at the shipyard where I buy my freighters to give them the initial load of fuel.

Just 4? Later in the game I buy TS by lots of 10, and often several of these. Having one of those frigate carriers ready at the shipyard with lots of M5 or M4 carrying the necessary equipment saves a lot of time, even though there still is lots of micro-management to be dealt with.

Or I buy or capture used TS. In that case, I should use the supply software's "equip like ..." feature, only I need some pointers how to do that correctly.

I tend to equip all of my TS fleet with transporter, bioscanner, explorer software, cargo life support, boost, SETA, nav, supply and special software, trading extension and trading software 1 and 2, even if I run them as CLS2 (which really only requires CLS2 software and nav software to start with). That way I can delegate them to other tasks or hop onto one of these at any time without losing functionality. When money stops being a consideration, I might add docking computer for ships I am more likely to commandeer away from their normal duties. The cheap ship extensions might protect the more expensive transporter and jump drive when some PBE-armed pirate or xenon comes too close. 10 fighter drones, 2 fighter drones Mk2 and 5 Keris drones usually supplement the initial load-out of full shields and jump energy for 12 jumps (my usual CLS2 range is 5 sectors or less). I don't use fighter software, turret lasers or mosquito missile defense on automatted freighters as it makes them behave like corvettes without either the durability or the firepower. Miner types might carry a mobile mining gun or IREs/PACs/EMPC when on mobile mining duty, though.

For used ships/bails/boarded ships I've got a TM with 3 M5s outfitted with JDs to provide them to the newly acquired ships ASAP.

Similar here, although as the game goes on I usually capture an Ariadne or two for equipping and ship retrieval duty - that covers TS and TPs with lousy speed, to. (The alternative is to jump those lame beasts as close to the target station and then tow them in with the tractor beam at speed 80, but both Ariadne and Guppy beat that speed, and don't require personal presence).

In the earlier phases of the game (like my Terran start right now, which sees me spending most of my time commerce-raiding in Aladna Hill where some pirate-paid patrol mission applies to all Argon shipping, and just won't end unless I get enough frigates to blockade all four gates while mopping up the rest of the sector), I donate the jump-drive and some initial jump energy of my personal M5 (a Valkyrie in the current game) to my salvaged ships, have them jump to the nearest opportunity (rare in Terran space), where I have my TM waiting to refuel them and to wait for my arrival by conventional means, then to ferry me towards the loaned JD. The loaned navigation software can be taken back during the silent jump countdown of the salvaged ship, allowing "jump to station" commands.

[RainerPrem]

Hi,

Simply put: I never own a ship without a Jumpdrive (apart from the first hour of the game). Mostly I buy Mistrals as freighters because those are the only ones which can directly been equipped with JDs.

I find Legend's Home a pain in the posterior because you have to send your ships away for tuning and navigation software. Even if you provide the shipyards with E-cell donors, you will still have to jump the ships individually, and then dock them manually.

Nope, not necessary. There's the "Command all ships ..." command "Dock at ..." and I use the EqD in Company Pride, where they can get everything. You only need to activate autojump in advance.

cu
Rainer

[RAVEN.myst]

RAVEN.myst,thank you

You're welcome

A couple of quick thoughts/answerlets (before I head back into space )

You have to enjoy the journey.

Respect! I find it all-too-sadly all-too-often that people are more interested in the destination than in the journey (personally, I find the adjective "goal-oriented" troubling - and those who are proud of it doubly so! After all, dictators, serial killers and all sorts of other unsavouries are all "goal-oriented", usually more so than true philanthropists! But I digress... As usual....) I blame a society that is obsessed with results and rewards those, with few points given for style or integrity.

OK, all these traders are getting difficult to keep up with,lol.
I was up to 21 but pirates have taken 3 out already,,,,,is this normal??

Others have already covered this admirably, so I'll just do key-words here: jump drives: must have! I, too, essentially never have a ship without a JD - even my static sector sentinels (when I have any) carry them - if nothing else, they serve as a handy reserve, able to hand over a JD to a nearby ship in need. Fight Command Software: again, this is useful, and again with the qualifiers mentioned: traders operating near the Argon-Terran warzone are prone to stray into it to replenish fighter drones at Omicron Lyrae, and sometimes similar situations can cause traders to attempt to cross Xenon sectors to get drones (this latter only happens when they are level 3 'suppliers', qualified to use drones but not yet qualified to use jump drive). Also, fitting a weapon can help slightly (at least, they won't be embarrassingly killed by lone M5s. Usually.) Personally, I prefer the Missile Defense turret command (requires both FCS1 and 2) which gives you Protect Ship functionality plus anti-missile defense for occasions when you are in the same sector as the freighter and it's being attacked (this will generally be a low-frequency event, however, so only doing Protect Ship is very nearly as effective.) Basically, don't skimp on outfitting your freighters, look after them in this manner, and they will repay you with profitsssssses.

I have around,almost 9 mill credits now. So dont know if I should go for a TM (or even if I can afford one) or continue buying these CLS traders.

Once again, all that's left for me here is to echo other players' excellent advice: first and foremost, invest. The only time (in the early to mid-game) that you should have a large excess of cash is when you are saving up for something specific (a possible goal, for example, is a TL - this would allow you to carry out lucrative and beneficial station-building missions), or when you are frequently accepting station-building missions, and thus need to be able to front capital for that. Other than that, any cash that is sitting around is not doing much - turn it into a freighter, for example, and it starts making you money.

Regarding the TM, you can set up a fully functional TM for very little - they cost around half a million bare-bones, and not a whole lot more to upgrade and equip - you'll put a small dent in your 9 million, but you'll be left with the vast majority of it.

You mention that managing your growing fleet of CLS2s is becoming more difficult. This is the price of the extremely tight control you get over them - they need some supervision, or rather, direction. If you find that the micromanagement is getting too heavy and you'd like them to be more independent, you have some options. The easiest, most "fire and forget" option is to use Trade Command Software Mk.3's Sector and Universe Traders. However, given how you are so enthusiastically and without flinching managing a fleetlet of CLS2s, I would urge you to consider a more controllable alternative that requires a bit more management than TCS3 UT, but less than CLS2: a homebase with CAGs (Commercial AGents). These are in many ways "parallel" to CLS2s, but while the latter are experts at untethered semi-autonomous trading, CAGs are expert buyers and marketers for a factory, complex, or trade dock. And if you combine both CLS2 and CAG, you can achieve some things that may at this point appear not far short of miraculous. (Consequently, I would recommend NOT repurposing your CLS2 fleet to CAG - rather have them running side by side and find how to integrate them with each other - each has strengths and fortes over the other, and they dovetail really well.)

FURTHER READING:
In case you are interested in a VERY brief outline of a possible CLS2-CAG synergy (which I have used MANY times), consider this: (it's an example, so I'm not saying "do precisely this" - the specifics of where, for example, are entirely up to you.)
- Ore Mine in Antigone Memorial on one of the 90-yield asteroids
- CAGs buy energy cells for the station, and sell the Ore it produces. (CAGs can only buy resources and sell products.)
- CLS2s sell off excess energy from the station to nearby factories, and BUY cheap ore from nearby mines (which gets re-sold by the CAGs for huge profit.) (CLS2s, unlike CAGs, can be made to buy products and sell resources.)
- In effect, that mine becomes a trade station that both buys and resells energy cells and ore. Energy cells are modestly profitable but essential to drive industry and thus maintain demand, while ore is both needed as a resource for continued production AND is hugely profitable. This just leaves food, so...
- You could then, for argument's sake, add a bakery to the mine, plexing them together. You then get CLS2s to buy up cahoonas in the area for redistribution by your CAGs.
- Alternatively, you could plex in a cahoona-consuming factory, with the CAGs buying it as a resource and CLS2s redistributing it in the region.

I will not go into the relative merits of the two alternatives at the end there - probably best to leave that to your own experimentation. (However, HINT: CLS2 tend to be more effective buyers given their literal transactional aggression, while CAGs are expert marketers, making the better sellers, in general. Both points, however, have their exceptions.)

Alright, "a few quick thoughts" turned into yet another wall of text - my apple-orgies. Good fortune to you!

[-John-]

I am outfitting all my TS with jumpdrives. In the command,I have given them 2 jumps and 10 ecells;to get them out of harms way. Is this enough or should I do more? Also,will I have to order them to a SPP to replenish the ecells once they have used them? I have already saved one of my traders.
Ok, I dont think equipping them with guns/lasers would help them against a group of pirates ( you tell me, I may be wrong here) , I am thinking of missle defense, for distracting the pirates,while they can either dock or give me time to jump them to another sector.
Sector Traders, from what Ive read, I may like this;especially since you can expand them to neaby sectors. I almost purchased a Mistral S for EE sector,but backed off for now as it cost almost 300k,hahahahha. I am a bit of a tight wad.
TM, I do want one,but for now I am staying in a Mecury so I can make manual trades (I am in Siezewell and making good profits selling ore.)
I think,for now, I will buy more CLS traders and then a couple Sector Traders so it want get to complicated for my small brain,lol.
All of you that have helped, thank you very much.
John
you guys are great

[RAVEN.myst]

I am outfitting all my TS with jumpdrives. In the command,I have given them 2 jumps and 10 ecells;to get them out of harms way. Is this enough or should I do more?

Definitely give them more - personally, I would give them a LOT more. I generally let them have up to as much as 20 jumps' worth for local area traders, and 50ish on wide-area traders. Some may say that this is too much and cuts into the cargo capacity, but for one thing I always max out their cargo space, and secondly I do not want them to EVER be crossing a Xenon sector "on foot" - or, for that matter, travelling ANY distance at all "on foot" other than from gate to destination. Your 2-jump setting is likely not even enough to let them jump between their trade stops. Also, the smaller the fuel capacity, the greater the chances of a fuel shortage (with 20 they get to jump ONE sector, that's all), and also the more often you will have to intervene to put out a fire and manually send them to refuel.

By the way, here is how the jump fuel usage is calculated:
ECs Used = (1 + distance in sectors) x ship consumption.
Where ship consumption is as follows:
M5, M4, M3, M3+: 5
TS, TM, TP, M6, M6+, M8: 10
TL, M7, M7M, M2, M1: 20
and "distance in sectors" is self-explanatory.
So, a TS jumping 1 sector uses 20 ECs, jumping 2 sectors it uses 30, jumping 5 sectors it uses 60. Don't consider this an expense as such - the amount of time you save with your ships skipping all that distance cranks up your turnaround and eliminates MANY missed trades, and so despite this "running cost", your freighters will improve in profitability by as much as an order of magnitude (depending on their operating area.)

Also,will I have to order them to a SPP to replenish the ecells once they have used them?

Your CLS2s will need to get refuelling stops added to their routes (when you create a waypoint to an applicable location, one of the available commands is to refuel). Unfortunately, it IS possible for your CLS2 to run out of energy upon arriving at an SPP only to find it has just been emptied - this is just one more reason to make them carry a larger reserve, to reduce the chances of them running dry in this fashion. CAGs, on the other hand, don't need a separate refuelling stop, as they draw their jump energy from their home base. It may, however (depending on the nature of their homebase) be necessary to make special provision to ensure that there is enough energy - usually, however, this is not an issue, if the station is sufficiently supplied in the first place.

Ok, I dont think equipping them with guns/lasers would help them against a group of pirates ( you tell me, I may be wrong here) , I am thinking of missle defense, for distracting the pirates,while they can either dock or give me time to jump them to another sector.

Right you are - a freighter's gun will generally only defeat a single M5 or perhaps M4, but never a group - that's what the drones are there for, they spam the area and engage/distract the pirate fighters, buying the freighter time to complete a jump-out (occasionally, the drones do in fact kill at least one or two of the fighters, depending on the pirate group's composition - but while this is generally not a problem, it isn't the aim: they are simply intended to serve as speed-bumps 90% [thumb-sucked figure ] of the time.)


Regarding Sector Traders: I don't like them, and because of my bias against them, I better not say any more, as it wouldn't necessarily be fair commentary (I do have valid reasons for my dislike of Trade Command Software Mk.3, but there's also a considerable degree of "different strokes for different folks" involved...)

[Honved]

Regarding Sector Traders: I don't like them, and because of my bias against them, I better not say any more, as it wouldn't necessarily be fair commentary (I do have valid reasons for my dislike of Trade Command Software Mk.3, but there's also a considerable degree of "different strokes for different folks" involved...)

I use very few Universal Traders, because they become far too vulnerable to Pirates and Xenon on their wanderings. While you can black-list sectors, and they won't trade in those sectors, they may still wander through those sectors enroute to somewhere beyond. That includes flying through them to reolace their depleted E-cells after the last jump (and therefore unable to jump away if attacked).

An experienced Sector Trader (ST) restarted at or above Level 6 becomes what is commonly called a Local Trader (LT). You can give them a home sector and a Range (initially 0-1, but that can be increased by +1 for each 2 further levels of experience), which allows you to tightly control where they may and may not go. I lose VERY few, as in 1-4 over the course of an extended campaign including the major plots. In most locations, anything over Range = 2 will let them reach someplace you don't want them to go, and most of them end up with Range = 1, which forces them to concentrate on a specific locale and boost the economy, rather than run off in pursuit of some high-tech good deal 3 sectors away that will just get dumped into a Trade Station or Equipment Dock and vanish from the game anyway, if the AI doesn't get to it first.

An LT with a fairly short range can do wonders for the economy, supplying the stations with whatever resources they lack, and thereby creating demand for the other resources, meaning more opportunities for profit.

You can play the game to either support the local economies, kicking them into high gear, or else work against them to try to shut them down and replace them with your own. Either way, there's a fortune to be made.

At level 7, you can make them a Universal Trader instead, which typically earns somewhat more, but then gets toasted.

Combine the tethered LT with a Jumpdrive in case something serious wanders through their sector, and provide the Fight1 and 2 software to let them buy and deploy Fighter Drones, plus a light weapon on Missile Defense to ward off pesky M5s or protect against missiles, and they're about as safe as you can possibly make them. If you're on passably decent terms with the Pirates and/or Yaki (I often deal with one, and prey on the other), only wandering Xenon, Kha'ak (in TC), or those random stray "red" pirates are ever a threat.

[jlehtone]

TM, I do want one,but for now I am staying in a Mecury so I can make manual trades (I am in Siezewell and making good profits selling ore.)

Why not both? The MORT (Manually Operated Remote Trader). See esd's Guide

[jorganos]

TM, I do want one,but for now I am staying in a Mecury so I can make manual trades (I am in Siezewell and making good profits selling ore.)

Why not both? The MORT (Manually Operated Remote Trader). See esd's Guide

If your main activity is a killing/capturing spree, you will end up with a lot of TS hulls that you didn't have to pay for (except in jump energy and mosquitoes spent) and that you don't have time to manage as a MORT. That's where you can use CLS2 to make sure that you don't miss any buying or selling opportunities.

Equip a (badly) damaged TS with CLS2 and Nav software (an investment of 13kCr or so, forget about any tunings), and dock it with the station you want to buy from/sell to. Give it exactly this one CLS 2 command (if buying, if selling, you can set the prices you want to sell for for each commodity the station wants). Wait.

After a time, your buyers will have bought stuff. Send a MORT (or CLS2), transfer the cargo. Go to a seller, dump the stuff into the seller's hold, pick up the next buyer's commodity. Sooner or later, the stuff will get sold - if not, adjust your price range, make sure that the other resources the station needs arrive there, or arrange for the product of the station you want to sell to to be bought. In the meantime, the stations won't be disappeared by the God module.

[jlehtone]

If your main activity is a killing/capturing spree, you will end up with a lot of TS hulls that you didn't have to pay for (except in jump energy and mosquitoes spent) and that you don't have time to manage as a MORT.

-John- seems to be on trading spree and has already taken the first steps into CLS-empire.

Flying a TS personally or simply commanding it as a MORT is very close to same; both ways you do about same amount of "personal trading". However, in the MORT version you can sit in, say M5, and explore new territories. If you do uncover a nice deal and your MORT has the JD, then you can quickly call it in to collect.


You can check remote prices, if you have assets in remote sector.

If a (remote) ship has Best Buy & Sell Locators and its menu is open, then you can press '6' or '5' to see the best deals in the sector of the ship. You can even command the ship via that list.

If a your ship has Best Buy & Sell Locators and you open the menu of your Satellite (Nav. or Adv.), then you can press '6' or '5' to see the best deals in the sector of that Satellite.


You can be in one place only. That does not scale.
You can have 0 or more MORTs. That does scale (up to your micromanagement tolerance).
You can convert a CLS2 into a MORT in acute need and let it resume its regular route afterwards.

[Timsup2nothin]

Flying a TS personally or simply commanding it as a MORT is very close to same; both ways you do about same amount of "personal trading".

There's really only one difference, but it's a huge difference. You can only fly one TS personally, but you can MORT a whole fleet of them.

[-John-]

So much to this game and so many ways it can be played.
Guys, seems I can not thank you enough. Wish you all were close by;I would invite you all over and cook steaks or some good Cajun food.
I have placed JumpDrives in all my ships w/ecells. I went back and added a stop (to s SPP) for fuel;however,they dont refuel,lol.
BUT, I have reorganized.
RAVEN.myst, I am sorry and hope you do continue to give me advice;but, I have 2 Sector Traders now;flying small Mystrals. I trained one in Empire Edge,moved him to Ore Belt,purchased a second and place it in Empire Edge.
I put most of my Traders on standby around the Argon Prime area (but I will restart those abit later.
Guess I should say now,I wanted to play this game as a Trader,but want him to become strong and powerful (I do want combat,fight his enemies,protections for him and his properties as he progresses and his empire grows). ( At this point, with so much to learn ,micro managing is difficult for me)
I havent gotten into any combat yet as I still spend a lot of time thinking,restructuring and piloting a freighter myself.
And Im sorry,and I dont know why,I guesss security reasons ;possibly, I was wanting to make a great deal of cash (and it isnt for the Win Button thoughts.) Greed maybe,lol.
The Sector Traders/Local Traders has taken some stress off my game for me,for now.
I now need to reinvent the idle CLS I have.
Then,maybe, I want to know more about the TM,exactly what fighters to dock (opinions of the best to use and best equipment for them) and best weapons (and why) for the TM. Also , what fighters do you enjoy/prefer and their eqiupment. I know in other games I always enjoyed a medium size fighter, that could evade shots and missles etc via pilot experience, and has plenty of punch,lol.
Thanks,
John

[-John-]

One other thought/question;I hope this isnt hijacking my own thread,lol.
and maybe it isnt as it is pertaining to the protection of my investments/traders.
I would like to set up ( once funds are available and I see this as an investment;after all, its for protection) some type of combat ship with support at entrances to a sector.
example:one at the South Gate in Elenas Fortune and one at the North Gate in Priest Pity;purpose to keep pirates from entering sectors?
Or,maybe this is in vain,lol. Do the pirates just pop up anywhere??
Thanks
John

[Alan Phipps]

Pirate patrols routinely start at Pirate Bases. Most just set off on a voyage across several sectors attacking or being attacked by what they encounter. However, some rarer special patrols will actively set out to attack a specific player station.

Pirates spawned by and for missions usually just spawn either in the sector where the combat is intended to occur, or in a sector next door so that they can enter through the relevant gate.

Depending upon your rep with Pirates, some Pirate ships may show as neutral to you although, even with good rep with them, a few others will always be hostile towards you. Sometimes scanning a hostile Pirate ship will make it go neutral in such circumstances - I guess they think you are a fellow Pirate too if you do that to them.

As far as routine Pirate capital patrols are concerned, I found that after a while killing or capturing them when they regularly appear in one area (usually a Pirate 'corridor'), after a while they stop travelling through there and start routinely cropping up in a similar area elsewhere in the galaxy map instead.

[Timsup2nothin]

I have placed JumpDrives in all my ships w/ecells. I went back and added a stop (to s SPP) for fuel;however,they dont refuel,lol.

They won't buy at a refuel stop, they will only load. So it has to be somewhere that they can access the cells for free. I would put a banged up hull at the SPP with a "buy max price max cargo space" command and then use the ship as the refuel point. Fill it with cheap cells before you turn it on and even if it occasionally has to pay a high price all it is going to do is refill after one of your ships fuels so it isn't a big drain and the SPP will usually stock up to keep your costs down.

[Snafu_X3]

John,

• REMEMBER to make sure your default orders for CAG/CLS ships have JD use turned on (unless you've a specific reason to turn it off): it's off by default & the pilots won't automatically enable its use even when lvled up, unlike ST/LT/UT pilots
• REMEMBER to save (& tweak) default CAG/CLS (& LT) orders for their own 'zones', as well as having a suitable 'training' vanilla order profile. This will help you a /lot/ of time later on when you may be dealing with dozens if not scores or hundreds of trade ships!
• REMEMBER ST/LT traders & CAG/CLS traders use different 'guilds', so the chances are if you move/change an experienced pilot from one type of trade to the other, that pilot's experience accrued will be lost! (I have had pilots change jobs & retain experience successfully, but I haven't tested this mechanic & so generally stay away from swapping them)

Sector patrol is available via Fight2 s/w IIRC, but may well be non-optimal without mods If you want a clearing force to protect your asset(s) IS then have them 'Defend Position' near the relevant gate, giving you a 10Km radius to work with. NOTE this is sub-optimal if you're trying to be friends with pirates (or other hostiles), as it can lead to a rep spiral

[-John-]

Thank you Snafu_X3.
Is it wrong of me to use ST/LT??? I have CLS (no CAG),and for now until I learn more(Im pretty dense,lol, oh and old to) I would like something I can keep up with. Seems Sector and Local traders are much easier for now.
I still want to be a trader, and maybe combat will come;and sure it will (I like combat). Just want to work it in as I progress in trading.
Thank you, and thanks to all,
John