I am probably going to write quite a few things that will have people going 'well duh, Captain Obvious', but some people won't know about them, so bear with me.
When I refer to 'Pirate/s', I am referring to Players playing a Pirate.
Discovery Freelancer RP 24/7 is a ROLE PLAYING Server.
This means that pretty much everything works around role playing. Keep this in mind and you will be ok.
Things written in PINK are important and may affect your Disco experience. It is a good idea to read them.
Here is a link to the Discovery Wiki -->Discovery Wiki -- Main Page
There are more links to relevant pages in the Wiki further on in this guide.
This is due to the fact that people have kindly done a lot of the work already, on some of the subjects in this guide and I would be silly to not point people in the direction of, as far as I know, correct information.
What is Trading?
Trading is when you buy something at one place, take it to another place and hopefully sell it for more money than you bought it for.
The result is more money than you started with. That is called Profit.
How much Profit you made is worked out like this;
How much money you spent buying item X = IC
How much money you got selling item X = IS
IS - IC = Profit!
One thing you should know is that Trading can be boring in the extreme.
You will spend a *lot* of time traveling.
You will get to see the ugly side of of the Sirius Universe, as well as some outstanding scenery along the way.
You will run into interesting people, some who will just be looking for a chat and some who will want to rob, kill or take your cargo, sometimes all three.
You will learn to love/hate Asteroid fields, depending on your situation.
How to find a Trade Route
To find a Trade Route, you need to travel around or in other words go exploring, stopping at every station, base, Planet and basically anywhere you can dock.
When you dock anywhere, the first thing to do is go to the market and see what they have.
This does two things;
1.) Adds the place where you docked to your Trade List (this actually happens as soon as you dock)
2.) Lets you see what they are selling at that base.
The bigger your Trade List, the better of finding a decent Trade Route.
The ideal 'Trade Route' is one that makes you money in both directions.
A good example would be taking 'oxygen' from Planet A to Station B, selling it for a profit there and then buying 'passengers' at Station B and taking them back to Planet A, where you again sell them for a profit.
Unfortunately this is not often the case and you may need to travel to another place in order to pick up something to take back to your starting point.
If that is the case you may be able to take something to the place that has the item you can sell at Planet A for a profit, but you may have to run empty, which is something you want to avoid if you can.
One thing to mention is that the server GOD's (read as Admins) occasionally change the commodities lists on the server, which means that amazing Trade Route you have found may disappear one day.
If that happens look closely at the commodities in your normal starting point and there *should* be something there that you can take on your normal route and make a similar profit. Of course, that may not be the case.
Trading and Pirates
One thing Traders have to deal with are Pirates.
It is important to be aware of your surroundings and who is in them as much as possible.
Avoiding Pirates is fairly important to a Trader, as they will want CREDITS or CARGO from you which is going damage your profit margin for the trade you are doing.
Here are a few tips;
1. Treat everything that comes up on your scanner as a possible Pirate.
2. If the ship that has come up on your scanner is more than 10k away, you really want to keep them there. If they manage to get within 10k of you, they will get a 'pointer' and it's pointed at you!
3. If the ship tells you to stop, you are in Cruise, more than 10k from them and you *know* you are moving away from them, tell them no, but be polite!
4. Use Trade lanes only when you are sure there are no Pirates in the system.
5. If you are in a Trade lane, look ahead. If a Pirate has come into the system and disrupts the Trade lane, with a bit of luck you should be able to see it happen and drop out of the lane before you get there, giving you a greater chance of getting away.
6.Use the 'Long Range Scanner' (chat screen) to see who is in the next system you need to pass through.
7. There are players that belong to Factions out there, some are 'good guys', some are 'bad guys'.
Figure out which is which and avoid the bad ones.
8. Buy a *good* Thruster, as good as you can get your hands on, it will save your life/cargo.
The Enhanced Thruster is as good as you are going to get without paying an insane amount of money.
9. Jump Holes are your friends.... most of the time. Traveling from system to system using Jump Holes can take a long time, but it can also give you a very good chance of getting to your destination without running into trouble.
10. Try to avoid doing the same Trade Route over and over again, even if it is a really good one. Some of the Pirates out there look for a pattern of movement and you may find them zeroing in on your route!
11. Hire an Escort for the more dangerous trade routes. An Escort may bite into your profit margin, but if you get to where you want to go, it will be worth the cost.
12. As the "Discovery Freelancer RP 24/7" server is a ROLE PLAYING server, some Pirates may ask for less money/cargo if you role play well with them.
Ships, Shields and Armor Upgrades.
Ships.
There are different classes of vessels available to Traders.
These are;
Freighters: have from 180 up to 650 cargo space.
Transports: have from 750 up to 5000 cargo space.
The larger Transports, from 4000 cargo upwards, do mount countermeasure launchers and tend to have less than wonderful self defence capabilities.
Liners: have from 3300 up to 4300 cargo space and they are mostly used to transport people of various sorts. Liners tend to have more turrets than most Trading vessels.
NOTE: You WILL be limited by the type of ID you have. As an example, someone with a 'Freelancer' ID can only fly a Transport with a cargo hold of up to a maximum of 3800, while someone with a 'Universal Shipping' ID can fly a Transport up to the maximum cargo hold of 5000.
For all the information you could ever need about ID's, go here ID's - all you need to know
Shields.
Getting the right shield for your ship is important.
While you are flying a trading ship classed as a 'Freighter', the type of shield isn't that important, just buy the heaviest one you can afford and be done with it.
However, once you move up to the next level of trading ship, the 'Transport', there are several shields which people use, depending on their style of play.
1. Civilian Transport Shield.
This shield comes with all transports when you buy them. Capable of absorbing 35,000 points of damage, 6 or 7 secs 'reset' time when it goes down.
2. Transport Positron/Molecular/Graviton Shield.
These shields provide more protection against specific weapon classes. Capable of absorbing 50,000 points of damage, around 9 secs 'reset' time when it goes down.
3. Advanced Transport P/M/G Shield.
The same as above. Capable of absorbing 100,000 points of damage, around 12 secs 'reset' time when it goes down.
I personally prefer 3, the '100k Shield', but that is due to the way I play my Trader.
I normally only have NPC's to deal with and as long as there is nothing with more firepower than a fighter, I can usually survive to trade another day, that is if I have to stay and fight because of Cruise Disrupter missiles, otherwise, I go to cruise and get out of there.
Armor Upgrades.
Being able to buy an Armor Upgrade for your Trading vessel is a wonderful thing, it will increase your hull strength up to 2.5 times for the highest level armor upgrade, but it comes at a price, both credit and cargo space.
For a complete list of Armor Upgrades, see the Discovery Wiki --> Armor Upgrades
You will note that there are also Capital Armor Upgrades available. While they provide a much better hull strength increase, they are also much more expensive in both credits and cargo space.
Trading Factions
Just as other player groups, such as Pirates have various factions, so do Traders.
Joining a Trader Faction has it's benefits.
The Trader Faction you join may *loan* you enough money to get a decent sized Trading Vessel.
You will probably be told of certain trade routes that have been found by members of that Trade Faction.
They will also run a 'convoy' of Traders, everyone carrying the same items from place to place, learning the route and giving support to each other along the way.
There are not many Pirates who will try to rob a Convoy of ships and the ones who do don't often live to tell the tale.
You may be less bored than other Traders while doing your trade route because you may be able to 'group' with other members of your Faction and talk to them.
You will be able to call upon your Faction mates for help if you need it.
*Note: people who have contributed to this guide
OMG Ivan
Ian Desari
Nooblet
Ashes
Dusty
Everyone who contributed to the Discovery Wiki
I agree with Bob, this guide supports a shred of metagaming.
Also, the guide itself if bias. This won't help traders who come in contact with Pirates at all.
There is no section in the "Trading and Pirates" about dealing with pirates themselves.
' Wrote:One thing Traders have to deal with are Pirates.
Okay, you said it, but you didn't explain it. You set out lot of points about how to avoid pirates, but nothing about the actual encounter.
What if you get stopped? What if the pirate catches you?
' Wrote:12. As the "Discovery Freelancer RP 24/7" server is a ROLE PLAYING server, some Pirates may ask for less money/cargo if you role play well with them.
That's all you put down. Some advice about roleplaying well to your advantange, but you didn't write anything about obeying demands, or bartering, or anything.
And this was the last point of yours!
Try adding a section about reasoning with pirates, and advice about the different pirate factions of Sirius, and their views on different trade factions and pirating habits.
This is no good to a trader who has already been stopped.
Also, remind people that Pirates are players too, not looking for profit (as most aren't), alot of the time they want company, someone to talk to, an experience.
Entertain them, offer them a joke or a funny story. Some pirates are reasonable enough to wave your fees if you entertain them.
As for me, i do not blame this light meta-game , its been around since ages and no one really care about it.
Anyway, the best solution to apprentice is to talk to them in-game and ''teach them'' .
Newer player are not always fully community members (and away from forum).
I have come across several new player begging me for a loan, and instead , I give them tips.
In fact learning this game is not a piece of cake, and I am not talking about the server rules so often miss understood or ignored.
' Wrote:*snip*
Try adding a section about reasoning with pirates, and advice about the different pirate factions of Sirius, and their views on different trade factions and pirating habits.
This is no good to a trader who has already been stopped.
Also, remind people that Pirates are players too, not looking for profit (as most aren't), alot of the time they want company, someone to talk to, an experience.
Entertain them, offer them a joke or a funny story. Some pirates are reasonable enough to wave your fees if you entertain them.
Hmmm didn't I see you post in the thread I've had in FLOOD for several days?
The one where I asked for suggestions?
Seriously though, everyone handles a pirate encounter differently, and it does say it's a 'guide', not a "THOU SHALL DO IT THIS WAY OR ELSE".
@Everyone else.
However much it looks like something I threw together in a few minutes, it's not the case. This came together over a few days.
I'm not perfect, I don't know everything and I don't pretend to, that is why the links to the Wiki are there.
Please, if you have suggestions post them, write them up as you would like to see them and I'll paste them in directly if you wish.
I'm thinking that maybe I should have bumped the 'preview' thread in flood a few times over the next few days to see if there were any more usefull suggestions. :unsure:
"Dealin' with Pirates is simple... if you have turrets, use 'em!.. Or you can use Zoner's tactics- be diplomatic and funneh. If it is female pirate- be romantic, flirt with 'er, they all like sweet words. Believe me, it helps."
Man tried and did what he thought was right. Prove him that you can do better.
I did promise a guide but I had no time whatsoever because my hedonistic desires to use a weekend for the person I love the most - me - have interfered.
' Wrote:Man tried and did what he thought was right. Prove him that you can do better.
I did promise a guide but I had no time whatsoever because my hedonistic desires to use a weekend for the person I love the most - me - have interfered.
Thank you for the support, OMG Ivan.
I've decided to leave it as it stands..... for now.
It's a GUIDE to Trading, not a 'How to RP a Trader' Guide.