Is Automated Trading worth it ? (or am I doing something wrong)

[thekid84]

I bought a TS ship, Mk3 Trading Software, upgraded speed and container space + a few other things I cant remember right now. Roughly $700,000 in costs. Currently a Sector Trader.
My ship has been running for 3 hours and I am currently $10,000 in profit. But that keeps going up and down. Sometimes when I check back it's in debt.

Q1. Is that how automated trading goes ?

Q2. Have I missed something that could earn faster profits?

Q3. Is there anyway to check a single ships current profit of effectiveness ?

[Hydris]

1.) Yeah, it's pretty normal for your cash to go up & down because of sell/buy transactions.

2.) Automatic Sector/Universe traders give passive income, of course there's a lot of other ways to get money on top of having passive income. As for more income from a Sector trader, it can depend on the sector you put it in.

3.) Not that I'm aware of. They'll occasionally report the amount of money and trade runs they've made so far in the event they get stuck and ask for help, but it doesn't really happen often.

[markdb92]

once you get 20 or so universe traders going you pretty much solved the universe ecomny and you usually make a profit on a trade run. After awhile the damn traders run out of stuff to buy/sell cause they filled up all the stations.

[Butterkugel]

Originally posted by thekid84:

Q2. Have I missed something that could earn faster profits?

Remember that the traders level up. With higher level, they're overall more effective and you can increase the maximum amount of gates they can pass through, starting from the sector you sent them to. If I remember correctly, you can enable universe trading after lvl 8, but I usually hold off doing so until lvl 12 when they can utilize jump drives (don't forget to buy them). At lvl 8 I usually just set the maximum travel distance to 2-3 gates or so and then set universe trading at 12.
Oh, if you notice your unis flying through terran sectors, it's probably a good idea to make them jump out manually and restart them when you don't already have a lot of them - since in vanilla XTC the terrans don't have jump gates, your traders will take ages to reach their destination in these sectors

[snowman]

what butter said lol.

[BDK]

Most of my automated traders have made over 26 million each, so yeah, they are totally worth it lol. I have like 20 sector traders, all jumping between 10 gates around the universe, then I have a ton of universe traders jumping around pretty much everywhere. I lost count on how many I have, but it sure is bringing in profits. One automated trader isn't going to make you righ over night, but the more you have, the richer you get (faster).

I'm actually so rich that I maxed out my personal bank account and had to put all my credits in a factory. That factory (and sector) is now the most secure in the entire game lol.

It took roughly 2 years of on/off playing to get to the point where I am now, so don't rush it ;)

[ryan21393]

Empire's Edge seems to be a great place to start out your sector trader. They'll level up quickly, which I asume means they're making good money, though I am only guessing on the later.

[ryan21393]

Originally posted by markdb92:

once you get 20 or so universe traders going you pretty much solved the universe ecomny and you usually make a profit on a trade run. After awhile the damn traders run out of stuff to buy/sell cause they filled up all the stations.

Wouldn't you be able to expand the market by building more factories? I've noticed some sections are huge and practically empty.

[CTHOMP]

Also, don't forget to equip you sector/universal traders with full shield. Even with a jump drive, they need to be able to take some fire before they can jump out.

One of the best things you go to is get Mistral Freighters and use those as sector/universal traders. Solid cargo space, great speed, great shields. You just need to seek out Legends Home and the OTAS group.