Best Trade Routes?

[Bertie Ahern]

Name where you are making your cash from? Selling what?

[l00k3y]

^^ this, I'm going in between Luna (sol) and Shiver (Altair), selling clothing in shiver and luxury goods in Luna. I'd like to know if there is somewhere better to farm from anyone?

[kursku]

I was doing some routes but the mainly problem at that time was the mortgage payment. Still I wasn't profiting more than 20k per trade, while the missions I was doing something like 55/60k per mission.

[l00k3y]

I just went around stacking missions until I got freighters

[Antiga]

Originally posted by l00k3y:

^^ this, I'm going in between Luna (sol) and Shiver (Altair), selling clothing in shiver and luxury goods in Luna. I'd like to know if there is somewhere better to farm from anyone?

You can improve on this by going one system further, to Sirius. Luxury goods sell here for a lot more and clothing is a lot cheaper to buy. Best no-risk (edit: Low risk, just encountered my first pirate.) trade route I've found so far but i'm not far into the game.

So to clarify:
Buy Clothes on Relic, in the Sirius system.
Sell Clothes on Shiver, in the Altair system.
Buy Luxury goods on Shiver.
Sell Luxury goods on Relic.
Repeat.
Buy more freighters at Luna in the Sol system when you can.

[Hexarobi]

I've been running Alphard (NW from Sol) to Delta Velorum, trading Metal for Luxury Goods. Only 4 jumps (so no landing in between) and makes 727c per cargo spot per round-trip. There is certainly more pirate activity in this area so I couldn't survive in anything less than a light freighter. I'm currently making about 700k per trip with 3 light freights, a behemoth and a few support ships (Firebird+Raven+a few captured pirate Furys and Hawks)

[l00k3y]

Originally posted by Antiga:

Originally posted by l00k3y:

^^ this, I'm going in between Luna (sol) and Shiver (Altair), selling clothing in shiver and luxury goods in Luna. I'd like to know if there is somewhere better to farm from anyone?

You can improve on this by going one system further, to Sirius. Luxury goods sell here for a lot more and clothing is a lot cheaper to buy. Best no-risk (edit: Low risk, just encountered my first pirate.) trade route I've found so far but i'm not far into the game.

So to clarify:
Buy Clothes on Relic, in the Sirius system.
Sell Clothes on Shiver, in the Altair system.
Buy Luxury goods on Shiver.
Sell Luxury goods on Relic.
Repeat.
Buy more freighters at Luna in the Sol system when you can.

agreed this makes more, thanks!

[Valentine Michael Smith]

Originally posted by kursku:

I was doing some routes but the mainly problem at that time was the mortgage payment. Still I wasn't profiting more than 20k per trade, while the missions I was doing something like 55/60k per mission.

doing purely trade routes isn't very lucrative until you have a couple hundred tons of cargo space

[Antiga]

Remember that you can sell most your outfits to make room for more cargo expansions. Weapons, of course, but even shields, battery, and you can even replace your fuel cell with a lower mass one. This also clears up some extra funds :)

[l00k3y]

Originally posted by Antiga:

Remember that you can sell most your outfits to make room for more cargo expansions. Weapons, of course, but even shields, battery, and you can even replace your fuel cell with a lower mass one. This also clears up some extra funds :)

note to self: small thrusters absolutely screws the handling of your ship. lolol.

[Antiga]

Hah I almost wanted to mention I do NOT recommend getting worse engines or thrusters, for any ship.

[Compiled_]

Currently using 1 Behemoth and 2 Freighters. Running from Alderamin with a full heavy metal load of 790 to Sabik and selling, then buying a full food load and running back to sell and repeat. When I was using 3 Freighters I was getting exactly 500k profit (no loan to pay off) so with the Behemoth I'm getting even more.

Edit: I just checked my profit with 1 Behemoth and 2 Freighters, 622k. I'm using 2 fuel pods with all three of them to have a perfect trip there and back. I stop at Rutilicus both on the way there and the way back as it is the dead middle and you require fuel at that jump using my setup. Using one A370 Atomic Thruster and one A255 Atomic Steering on my Behemoth and one A250 Atomic Thruster and two A125 Atomic Steering on my Freighters allowing me to jump very quickly between each.

Edit: Now an 825k profit with 1 Behemoth and 4 Freighters. Seems like a very efficient path although you will need to have a good defense for yourself if you find yourself slow. You also encounter pirates much more often when your fleet begins to gain a size like mine.

[Bertie Ahern]

Originally posted by Antiga:

Remember that you can sell most your outfits to make room for more cargo expansions. Weapons, of course, but even shields, battery, and you can even replace your fuel cell with a lower mass one. This also clears up some extra funds :)

This is a good point, on the sirius-altair 2 jump run, you dont require a shield.

[Hexarobi]

So I'm judging a route based on credits-earned, per ton of cargo carried, per day required to complete a full cycle (Credits per Ton per Day or CTD). To calculate this, I take the total difference between trade goods between two systems. For Example in the best trade route I've found, Alphard/DeltaVelorum (72.7 CTD), I look at the profit on taking Metal from A to DV (+263) and the profit on taking Luxury Goods from DV to A (+464). Combined this means a round trip earns 727 credits per ton of cargo carried. Now you must also consider how long it will take to make this round trip, since you might make more money overall doing two less profitable short runs than one more profitable long run. Alphard and DeltaVelorum are 4 jumps apart from eachother so it takes 8 days to make the round trip, plus one day spent on each planet trading, for a total of 10 days. I divide the credits per ton of cargo by the total number of days to make the round trip to get the Credits per Ton per Day, 72.7 CTD.

To see how much you would make from a trade route, the formula is:

Total profit = CTD * Total Cargo Space of your Fleet * Days to complete round trip

This calculation means I should make about 990k per round trip, which is exactly what I make.

Anybody have a route that works out to higher than 115.85 CTD?

Common Trade Route CTDs
115.85 CTD (811 / 7) | Nihal/Bellatrix | Heavily infested with pirates, no refueling stations for 4 jumps.
73.5 CTD (441 / 6) | Sirius/Altair | Easy and safe for starting out, just running back and forth around Sol. Safe enough to strip your freighter fleet of weapons and shields and just go heavy hauler.
72.7 CTD (727 / 10) | Alphard/DeltaVelorum | Almost as much profit as Sirius/Altair, but with the potential added income of looting pirates you kill

Edit: The Sirius/Altair route actually has only *2* jumps, not 3, so it only takes 6 days, not 8, making it a slightly better route! Updated stats above

[Elegant Caveman]

I haven't done any specific calculations, but Alphard-Delta Velorum is also what I use.

After finding this thread, I tried out Sirius-Altair, but I find it's not as good. I probably would have liked that earlier on in the game, though, as it's easy to do very early on, and shorter.

By the time I got a Freighter, I started doing Alphard-Delta Velorum (paid for the Freighter by doing missions/trading randomly as I explored the galaxy). Then I got another Freighter, and another, and another...

I stopped when I had about 10 million, started doing other stuff, missions, more exploring. Returned to it when I had about 20-30 million.

I didn't want to have to go back and do it every time I needed money, so I decided to just grind it. By now, I have a net worth of about 100 million (if I sold everything), and a fleet of 9 Behemoths following me (I'm flying a weaponless blackbird with lots of fuel, which I was using for exploring).

At this point, I'm getting about 6 million profit from a round trip of Alphard-Delta Velorum. Sirius-Altair is about 2-3 million.

In terms of what ships to use, I think custom Freighters are the best value, but I got really annoyed after I had about 20 of them, so I started testing out alternatives.

The Hauler II is probably the second best choice. After that, I'm not sure between the Behemoth and the Syndicate heavy freighter (I forget the name). The latter gets a bit more cargo space, but I prefer the Behemoth for a bit more speed and almost double the shields.

All this is for custom models. I'm not sure which is best for stock models.

[Bertie Ahern]

Originally posted by Hexarobi:

I've been running Alphard (NW from Sol) to Delta Velorum, trading Metal for Luxury Goods. Only 4 jumps (so no landing in between) and makes 727c per cargo spot per round-trip. There is certainly more pirate activity in this area so I couldn't survive in anything less than a light freighter. I'm currently making about 700k per trip with 3 light freights, a behemoth and a few support ships (Firebird+Raven+a few captured pirate Furys and Hawks)

Delta Velorum is about 4 jumps to the southwest of Alphard btw.

You can make money faster here with less time spent in menu alright.

I get blown up occasionally but its worth it.