Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[TrashMan]

 Pristine frigates are slightly scarcer and are priced higher. The cost for losing a pristine ship in battle is much higher as you must pay to restore it to retain the pristine quality in addition to the higher store price. Losing one of these would obliterate profits from 2-3 low tier bounty missions, depending on whether you recover the ship.

A brand new Wolf is around 20000 credits.
Even starter bounties are around 40000.

You should NOT be able to replace half your fleet from a single bounty.

Hyperbole doesn't help your argument. If you lose half your fleet of the size and quality needed for high tier bounty missions, you could not replace them for the price of the bounty even assuming you could find the ships for sale. You certainly couldn't profit doing this.  If you're successfully  doing low tier (50k bounty) missions with only two frigates, frankly you deserve whatever rewards you get by being so skilled.

And that's how it should be. Bounties are high-risk high-reward.
If you loose half of your ships you don't deserve to come out of it with a profit.

[StarGibbon]

Pristine frigates are slightly scarcer and are priced higher. The cost for losing a pristine ship in battle is much higher as you must pay to restore it to retain the pristine quality in addition to the higher store price. Losing one of these would obliterate profits from 2-3 low tier bounty missions, depending on whether you recover the ship.

A brand new Wolf is around 20000 credits.
Even starter bounties are around 40000.

Store price + restoration fee youre looking at around 50k plus to restore a frigate to pristine if damaged. Bounty may be 40-50k, but thats not how much you make. Subtract repair costs, fuel and supply for round trip for how ever many ships you're fielding, and that loss obliterates profit from at least two missions. Likewise if you simply buy another to replace it.

Mundane frigates are not supposed to be difficult for a player to obtain. In the game currently, Wolves are mundane frigates, extremely common and freely available. Frigates are fragile and expected to die, and there *should* be a threshold that a player can still easily compete at even after taking losses. It's not great for the game if a player suffers a serious setback, and the game basically grinds to a halt for them. Consider the merits of always being able to get back into the game at some level, and always have a bounty mission within your ability to take on with minimal investment.   Higher tier bounties require much more investment.

You should NOT be able to replace half your fleet from a single bounty.

Hyperbole doesn't help your argument. If you lose half your fleet of the size and quality needed for high tier bounty missions, you could not replace them for the price of the bounty even assuming you could find the ships for sale. You certainly couldn't profit doing this.  If you're successfully  doing low tier (50k bounty) missions with only two frigates, frankly you deserve whatever rewards you get by being so skilled.

And that's how it should be. Bounties are high-risk high-reward.
If you loose half of your ships you don't deserve to come out of it with a profit.

I dont disagree, and have said this myself. But your point was that you should not be able to replace half your fleet from a single bounty. This was another incorrect statement that you're simply side stepping when caught out.

Since you wont stay on point, won't address arguments you've made that are demonstrably false when people correct you (still waiting for you to address ANY of the many arguments people have made correcting your assertion that trade isnt profitable),  and simply shift from one goofy assertion to the next, I'm done with you. Utter waste of time.

[Draba]

Yes, I'm sure; I do this all the time in the early game.  Removing 2 dmods from a Kite is cheaper than buying new (breakpoint is 10k credits); removing 1 dmod from a wolf is cheaper than buying new (breakpoint is 20k credits).  It's only destroyers and higher that are more expensive to purge a single dmod, than to buy new.

My bad, probably only checked badly beaten ones.

Nvm went back and checked, it's much cheaper to buy a wolf on black market or build a new one than to restore a single D-mod.
Restoring 1 mod is better than buying on the open/military market.

In other words, regular trade isn't profitable.
No, it's NOT friggin profitable when even during a shortage what I earn cannot even cover the fuel/supply cost

Made a quick demo:
- new game with normal start/skip tutorial
- sell starting ship, buy a buffalo
- stock up on the first commodity that seems nice in the starting system
- sell it at the closest opportunity

Sold 280 domestic goods:
- 7500 profit with tariffs
- ~3 days
- 5 fuel used
- less than 1 supply used

Spoiler

[close]

Spoiler

[close]

Later on the core tends to destabilize so trade is even easier.
Tariffs are high but even with them it's entirely possible to make money, just not on the colony income level.
TL;DR is try things, then complain about them.

[Xan]

In other words, regular trade isn't profitable.
No, it's NOT friggin profitable when even during a shortage what I earn cannot even cover the fuel/supply cost

No, I am not. Only bar mission give a decent profit.
Buying low and selling high is very unprofitable as it is, due to *** tariffs and a operational costs. And bulk selling doesn't work since you cannot even FILL your freighter fleet on the markets.

The entire trade/economy aspect of the game right now is HORRIBLE.

If you legitimately burn enough fuel and supplies to nullify your trading income you either have a large combat focused fleet and none of the reduction skills, or just an absurdly large fleet.

If you do not use the black market, that is your own mistake.


During my latest midgame when I was more or less farming intel resource requests and freight missions to fund my colony, I frequently did "regular" trading on the return trips and made at the very least enough money to pay for my upkeep, the key is to actually using the black market and preferring high value goods. If you're trying to cover expenses with low margin goods like food or organics then of course you aren't going to make profits easily unless you already have an atlas or something.

Example: with just 2000 cargo space you can easily make profits upwards of 300cr per unit of rec drugs, organs or heavy weapons if you exploit shortages, and about 100-150 without an explicit shortage. So using about 1700 of my cargo space of my mostly combat ready fleet (only freighters were three mules and a hound I forgot I still had at that point, rest was combat ships) I still made anywhere from 170k and 600k profit, the latter admitedly only during lare shortages of these goods (upward of 1000 units at higher prices).
If you go black market and don't overdo it, you dont even lose any real amount of standing for it. After doing this whole thing for multiple cycles on and off as my main source of income I have no less than -10 on any major power, since the resouce requests give you standing back, countering out the occasional losses from black market trades.

Again, this was all without an optimised trading fleet and just a few combat freighters amongst my almost 20 combat ships, including eagles, herons and later even a dominator.
The magic is in the upkeep reducing skills (industry and fleet trees) and keeping your speed to 9 for as long as possible (Navigation 3).



And as correctly stated by other users, once you get past cycle 210 or so more and more shortages appear, making profits even easier.

Sure, bar missions and open requests from the intel tab are definitely more profitable, but that is not to say its not profitable to still do regular trading, depending on shortages it can even come pretty close.

[Draba]

...

Agreed with the entire post, just some notes on top.

If you legitimately burn enough fuel and supplies to nullify your trading income you either have a large combat focused fleet and none of the reduction skills, or just an absurdly large fleet.
...
Again, this was all without an optimised trading fleet and just a few combat freighters amongst my almost 20 combat ships, including eagles, herons and later even a dominator.
The magic is in the upkeep reducing skills (industry and fleet trees) and keeping your speed to 9 for as long as possible (Navigation 3).

If you are willing to pay attention to the sensor "minigame" supply/fuel/crew costs don't really matter, you do not need any combat ships(use Tarsus if you can't avoid getting caught).
If not then yep, can still profit even with a combat fleet and no skills(probably have to factor in distance for some runs in this case).

If you're trying to cover expenses with low margin goods like food or organics then of course you aren't going to make profits easily unless you already have an atlas or something.

Dunno how prices are calculated but the things that tend to give less profit/cargo space(ores, food, organics that I'm sure about) can have very high margins.
Ores specifically can have a 10x multiplier between buying/selling price. Those runs definitely need big freighters, but if you keep cost down are also nice.
Might be just a result of shortages being more severe for these(probably not as 3-4 missing drugs are also common).

If you go black market and don't overdo it, you dont even lose any real amount of standing for it.

Ties back to the sensor minigame, if dock without transponder you don't take a rep hit at all for black market activity.


That said, tariffs are a bit too punitive IMO.
20% on both transactions would still make smuggling an obvious choice without making "honest" trade too good(and still only possible on shortages).

[StarGibbon]

I tend to lump salvage in under the purview of my "trade" fleets, in which case I do carry around a light compliment of frigates and destroyers, sufficient to handle the typically light screens of [Redacted] defenders guarding the best salvage ops.  I then use those plundered goods to fulfill procurement (trade) missions, which will then always be profitable because the goods require no investment.

Granted, this is slightly tougher to do in .9 now that storage costs rent on unowned worlds. It will require you to have at least a basic colony somewhere near the core worlds to avoid storage fees on warehoused goods, but this seems logical to me, and low risk as long as you know how to avoid colony pitfalls.

[nomadic_leader]

Later on the core tends to destabilize so trade is even easier.
Tariffs are high but even with them it's entirely possible to make money, just not on the colony income level.
TL;DR is try things, then complain about them.

I like your experimental approach, but in your example you've got n=1.

 ie. you did one run and have concluded trade is profitable.

What about doing it for an hour? Is it still overall profitable? (your later post suggests yes)

How big can your cargo fleet get before it becomes unprofitable?

Also, are you discounting the galatean stipend and/or any colony income/other income from your record keeping?

Thanks!

[StarGibbon]

How big can your cargo fleet get before it becomes unprofitable?

Well, if you're going to cruise around without a fleet of warships to protect you, it behooves you to keep the fleet under the size at which you can no longer flee from battle. In the early game I try to keep fleets from going over 2 supply cost per day. Anything over that and it starts to feel  painful to make long range trips. A player invested heavily in the industry tree can mitigate this with the large amounts of salvage they rake in while on the road.

The expanded cargo holds add on is really a boon for trade/salvage fleets. In the early game it lets you make even cerberus decent cargo ships, that can still easily flee from most battles, while keeping your fleets burn speed high. Buffaloes are more supply efficient, but also riskier.

[Draba]

I like your experimental approach, but in your example you've got n=1.

 ie. you did one run and have concluded trade is profitable.

What about doing it for an hour? Is it still overall profitable? (your later post suggests yes)

How big can your cargo fleet get before it becomes unprofitable?

Also, are you discounting the galatean stipend and/or any colony income/other income from your record keeping?

Thanks!

I know that trade is profitable because I did an entire playthrough doing that to build up to the doomfleet.
Since black market drugs/organs/heavy machinery are the biggest moneymakers ~1000 cargo space is enough. Food seems to be next, want a few thousands for that.
Trade tops of below bounties and way below colonies(especially with tariffs), my point was it's possible.

Take a look at the economic overview in any of your games, there are always tons of shortages.
Stipend is a tiny fraction of income.

The post is just a quick reply to an easily falsifiable claim, pony guy and this one apparently need pictures.

Granted, this is slightly tougher to do in .9 now that storage costs rent on unowned worlds. It will require you to have at least a basic colony somewhere near the core worlds to avoid storage fees on warehoused goods, but this seems logical to me, and low risk as long as you know how to avoid colony pitfalls.

IIRC abandoned mining station is still free and is easily accessible.

The expanded cargo holds add on is really a boon for trade/salvage fleets. In the early game it lets you make even cerberus decent cargo ships, that can still easily flee from most battles, while keeping your fleets burn speed high. Buffaloes are more supply efficient, but also riskier.

Tarsus has same upkeep as Buffalo(ok, needs 20 more crew) but has burn drive to run.

[StarGibbon]

Tarsus has same upkeep as Buffalo(ok, needs 20 more crew) but has burn drive to run.

Good call. I'll look into that.

IIRC abandoned mining station is still free and is easily accessible.

Also good call.

[Xan]

Dunno how prices are calculated but the things that tend to give less profit/cargo space(ores, food, organics that I'm sure about) can have very high margins.
Ores specifically can have a 10x multiplier between buying/selling price. Those runs definitely need big freighters, but if you keep cost down are also nice.
Might be just a result of shortages being more severe for these(probably not as 3-4 missing drugs are also common).
ng "honest" trade too good(and still only possible on shortages).

Youre right, I was more trying to get across that you have to move prohibitively large volumes to get the same kind of profit you do from the more risky goods.

[nomadic_leader]

I know that trade is profitable because I did an entire playthrough doing that to build up to the doomfleet.
Since black market drugs/organs/heavy machinery are the biggest moneymakers

Thanks for the info. But now I'm confused, i thought you were talking only about open market, legal trading. Was your playthrough using blackmarket or open market only? I'm more curious to assess open market only trade; pretty sure that's what Trashman is talking about as well.

[StarGibbon]

I know that trade is profitable because I did an entire playthrough doing that to build up to the doomfleet.
Since black market drugs/organs/heavy machinery are the biggest moneymakers

Thanks for the info. But now I'm confused, i thought you were talking only about open market, legal trading. Was your playthrough using blackmarket or open market only? I'm more curious to assess open market only trade; pretty sure that's what Trashman is talking about as well.

If your definition of "trade" limits the game to only buying low at one port, and selling high at another legally, then no, this is not easily profitable by design, and the game tells you this. It's not Sid Meiers Pirates. Black market mechanics are there for a reason. Additional trade style missions are there for a reason. You can make it work with effort, but it's definitely not the path of least resistance.

[Draba]

I know that trade is profitable because I did an entire playthrough doing that to build up to the doomfleet.
Since black market drugs/organs/heavy machinery are the biggest moneymakers

Thanks for the info. But now I'm confused, i thought you were talking only about open market, legal trading. Was your playthrough using blackmarket or open market only? I'm more curious to assess open market only trade; pretty sure that's what Trashman is talking about as well.

Trade in general, that includes open market on occasions where relations are already low and it's hard to dock without transponder.
Decent money on a few dozen runs is enough to conclude that yep, open market still works.
Anyone curious can start a new game and get up to ~500K in a few hours tops.

Note that heavy machinery was a brainfart, meant heavy armaments.

[TrashMan]

Store price + restoration fee youre looking at around 50k plus to restore a frigate to pristine if damaged. Bounty may be 40-50k, but thats not how much you make. Subtract repair costs, fuel and supply for round trip for how ever many ships you're fielding, and that loss obliterates profit from at least two missions. Likewise if you simply buy another to replace it.

You don't seem to grasp what "brand new" means. No D-mods. No restoration costs.
Even small fleets with minimal fuel and supply expenditure is enough to complete 50K bounties without loosing a single ship.
Even with bigger fleets (carrier, two destroyers,  5 frigates, support ships), total cost for fuel+supply after a run would be around 10K.


You want to protect the player from failures too much. If he constantly keep loosing bounty missions he deserves to fail and start a new game.

AGAIN - expecting a player to loose a ship on EVERY TRIP and giving him enough $$ to bounce from that is treating the player as a moron. If you loose a ship every now and then - fine, it happens, and the money earned before is a safety net.
But if you really need to earn enough to replace big losses every time, then you simply suck and should not be a bounty hunter. There is no crew that would follow someone as incompetent.

I'm done with you. Utter waste of time.

That's my line.