Trading commodities noob question

[{FoP}Nep]

I hope my screen shot works - im trying to trade computer components and i used the galaxy map and it said Hollatja buys computer components for 1154CR so i travel there and it will only let me sell them for 298CR - so i must be reading this wrong?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1878917434

[{FoP}Nep]

sorry for the resolution im playing on 3 X 27inch screens and love it.

[ZomBeGone]

You might want to use a photo editor to edit it down. It is not readable (to me), not that I could help :D

[Rhudda]

I'm a noob myself, but it looks to me like you're in the wrong station. The price you want is at Popper Keep, but you're at Fermat City.

[{FoP}Nep]

just found that out thanks - i didnt know if propper keep was a title lol

[{FoP}Nep]

i also assumed i would be given all the stations in a system - is there a way to buy mapped data?

[Darnell.]

some systems have the option to buy system and trade data from the galaxy map but its only good for 24hrs

[{FoP}Nep]

Thanks good to know!i guess with the storage of 10 trading commodities are not very profitable :/

[malorob]

Originally posted by {FoP}Nep:

Thanks good to know!i guess with the storage of 10 trading commodities are not very profitable :/

i did a bit of trading yesterday and if you look around you can find places with really good trades close by.

good trades well steady income.

found one at jamersons memoral buy for 200 sell for 3,000 only due to so much stock and high wanted in a system 12Ly away

trade missions seem to give much more money. but tend to have higher risk

[Naryoril]

I guess you are at the very beginning if you are transporting 11k worth of items, so you probably don't know about all the amazing tools out there.
For example have a look at this:
https://eddb.io/trade/loops
Set your location and other parameters, such as Max Hop Distance and hit find Loops "nearby".
For example if your Location is Hollatja and you set the max hop distance to 20 light years, it will tell you to buy Polymers in Willis Station in Guayambaan and sell them at Vasquez de Coronado Dock in Muri, buy Power Generators there and fly back to Willis Station, netting you 8786 per ton capacity. The problem is the "nearby", these systems are 170 light years away from Hollatja which is nothing if you are further into the game, but it might be an issue now, i don't know what your jump range is.

So let's use another tool on the same sit to find something less profitable, but more suitable.
https://eddb.io/trade/hops
This tool takes a starting system and finds the best trade route starting from there. So set the Origin to Hollatja, cargo capacity to 10t, hop count to 2 (just to make an easier example) and distance to 1000 ls (you don't want to fly too far inside a system).
The result is Buying Polymers in Fermat City in Hollatja, sell them at White Ring in LHS 3802, buy Survival Equipment and sell it at Henson Station in Veroandi, total profit 59'700 credits.

The prices in the game change, so prices on the site might be incorrect, that's what the time info is for, when the prices were updated the last time. If you want to contribute to the price updating, then install and run the Elite Dangerous Market Connector. Among other things it reads the current prices when you land at a station and reports them to eddb.io and other places (or rather, i think it reports them to one place and the websites take their info from there).

All the tools are really powerful for a lot of stuff, e.g. finding the nearest station that has certain ships or modules, finding nearby planets with certain properties and so on. inara.cz for example helps you with planning the items you need for engineering (you'll definitely want to do engineering later in the game) and keeps track of where your ships are and what you have in them and so on. And there is much much more.

[Planewalker]

The downside to using things like eddb is that you tend to forget the most profitable trade routes, just like using a gps will affect your spatial intelligence negatively. (yes it's a thing; look it up if you don't believe me ;)



The best trading fun i've had in this game is finding my own routes, and meanwhile buying information for routes from stations once in a while, to see if i needed to expand my loop.
(the new trading 'Compare' tool has a crazy amounts of options once you figure it out)


Best advice is to find a 3-part (or more if you want) route, that goes in a complete circle.

Another good habit is combining data courier missions with manual cargo trading.

Eventually you will begin recognizing which stations often have missions asking for a certain good, and can bring it in advance; hefty profits ensue. =)



Also, welcome CMDR! o7