New Commodities & Trading habits

[looqas]

So folks,

I find the new commodities interesting as well as the new trading system. The profits are not too high and trading is now more of exploration than going from point A to point ad infinitum.

My guess is that everyone has a commodity that he/she likes to haul over others. I feel very differently about the cargo I'm hauling. Slaves are a non-interesting for some reason. Too generic illegal stuff like Cardamine. Too many people do that already.

To me that commodity is Gaian Wildlife at the moment. There are many things contributing to that among others high profits, very nice icon of a fluffy monkey, a bit on the illegal side and it's not a generic Cardamine type of illegality (lookie mee. I'm a bad smuggler), but a very specific and possibly passionate Gaian reaction to the matter. And I get to spank the monkeys while making money.

Also I find the new Gallic commodities having a lot of appeal to me. Tobacco, Wine, Neural Processors and human organs. So I'm definitely going to be running between Gallia and other houses to get a feel for the commodities. Some of you may be a bit baffled about this "feel for commodity" type of talk, but I'm sure many traders out there have similar views on the matter.

My personal preference is maximum profit per item type of runs. You get to explore at the same time. I don't mind how long the route is, but it has to very profitable.

So what's your take on the new commodities and commodities in general?

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Flying under radar.

[ophidian]

My ship is a Lux. Liner and has Orbital Spa IFF so I am basicly running around the 4 houses, carrying goods and people fitting to Orbital's general definition, like VIPs to some place, lux.cons goods to one of the other liners or jewelry to another liner etc.

I basicly wander around all four old houses and my trip worths like 30 mil in the end, after a brief 45-50 mins tour. I make good money but the fun of it is that as you wander around 4 houses full of people, you face up with many good RP events on the way. You get pirated sometimes and it is really fun to have a good RP talk over it.

I am planning to go to Gallia now and see if I can find some good alternative Orbital routes for tourists and VIPs. Since there is no Orbital faction here (I haven't seen one so far, at least), I guess it would be cool to be able to find some stuff, fitting to RP on my own.

I just made a calculation, it is now 2 weeks since I first started my trading and I realized, without doing mad power trade trips, OORP trips, I made roughly 250m credits. spent some on my other char and sent some cash to friends etc, bought myself a Liner.

I don't think easy - quick routes are that appealing to me. I love exploring and facing up with random RP events.

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[looqas]

Gallia has Tourists at least and passangers too I believe.

Check the place out.

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Flying under radar.

[Benjamin]

2 of my 5 characters are traders - one's an out and out strict lawful Orbital Spa and Cruise, one's a Junker who probably spends a solid 70% of his time trading, and he'll do a bunch of different things, as long as at least one aspect is unlawful (out of buying point, commodity, and selling point).

I'm not 100% sure on what's new and what's not, but my favourites would have to be:

Tourists and vacationers (obviously). This turned Orbital Spa & Cruise from a horrific snore-fest where you were running empty half the time, there were only about 3 good destinations, and you basically never made money, into a fun, ridiculously profitable, always-something-to-do huzzah of a faction. Wherever I drop people off, there are more people to pick up, often two different types, and there's always at least 2 decent spots to take them, so I get to keep some variance to keep things interesting.

Just a bunch of the illegal stuff. Black market munitions and blood diamonds are good ones from my perspective of doing a lot in the Omegas.

But on the whole, and to segue into the 'trading habits' part of it, what I like is how the new commodities all work together. It feels somewhat more organic - a bit exploratory like the OP said - you bring a good to a base, and there's most likely something 'inRP' for you to take to a new place. There are a fair few bases that are admittedly basically pointless, which is not so hot, but forgivable, and quite a few bases that are basically just 'consumers' and quite a lot that are basically just 'producers'. That's cool too, and is logical, but you do end up with a little bit of running empty, but oh well, I can take it, I'm a big boy.

As for trading style, long, big profit all the way. That's how my mind works. I don't think 'Let's go trade for 48 minutes,' I think 'let's do a couple of trade runs.' I'm fairly sure (in fact, I am positive) that a lot of the routes I do would be more profitable if I dropped off a little sooner, or took a jump hole (which is against playerfaction rules for my OS&C) or dropped it off/purchased it from a lawful base instead of an unlawful one (which doesn't click with my Junker most of the time), but that doesn't bother me. I don't see 160 credits per second, I see purchase price 800, selling price 3600. Plus, my favourite way to trade basically involves clicking a jumphole 100k away and then switching windows, so the long times don't really bother me and I'm hardly the most efficient. But I make crazy money and have a good time.

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Join Cryer Pharmaceuticals

[Unseelie]

I never experienced much of whats been described as the evils of the past system. The new system frustrates me to no end.

By the way, I've found that the profitable cr/sec routes are the long and highly profitable routes.

As for the organic sense of the routes, they feel very mechanical and planned to me. Every route I get on, I find it easier to imagine my characters on a scripted path, prearranged by the companies beforehand. I've over 300 bases mapped, and I find myself checking flc for every route.

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[bluntpencil2001]

I've found a good two stop RP route that I like to use, hauling Pharmaceuticals and Human Organs for Cryer.

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[cmfalconer]

Agree w/ Uns on some respects.

I've got just about every logical base (order bases and gallia no) mapped through exploration, and use FLC every time I go trading.

But, I'm not a route-trader either. As a freelancer (tagged and ID'd), I fly wherever I feel like. Land on a base, pick up a low-priced commodity, look at the commodity list and see where I can go. Benjamin hit the nail on the head. cred/sec isn't my driving force, it's make some profit and have fun doing it.

I have tried several of the routes on Xoria's google.doc, and I'm not impressed with any of them. quite low on the profit scale, incredibly long on some routes (the metals route took hours, for less than 30m profit in a BW trans).

Now I do like the new system in regards to a distinct lack of AB powertrade routes, but some commodities don't seem to have any real point other than RP cargo. Quantum Multiplexors sell for at most (what I've found) 200-300 credits profit from lowest buy to highest sell...that's squat for a commodity that costs 2000+ to buy one unit of. Same with many of the new commodities.

Space requirements for them have drastically changed a lot of routes as well. I'm a fan of this. Gate/Lane parts, different space reqs for different people-sizes, etc, all add an element missing before.

It's a work-in-progress with a decent start. Autoupdater should give the opportunity for tweaks to the system.

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[Capt. Henry Morgan]

So far, I like the new trade system, overall. It's not without it's flaws, but I am rather enjoying it thus far.

When I trade, I usually shoot for the highest profit per second I can manage, but even those routes are decent RP, rather than simple powergrinding.

Of the new commodities, I'd have to say that the Pineal Amulets are my favorite. There's nothing else like them, and trying to hand them out to people on my TAZ trader can be rather interesting RP.

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Natio Octavarium
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