Little Advice?

[NightmareFuel]

Are there any traders who would be willing to wing up sometime and do a few trade runs and explain some of the tips and tricks for finding profitable trade routes? I understand credits are a grind but I think my inability to find and/or understand trade routes hinders a bit of my enjoyment of the game which has caused me to get on ED every handful of days.

Prior to this most recent patch I was trading palladium and mineral extractors between 2 stations near the starting area for half decent beginner income, but after the patch it seems all of the supply and demand as reset which killed the only trade routes I had been running. Since that point I've probably spent more on fuel looking at systems and trying to utilize the number of trading tools in an attempt to discover some little treasure.

Anyway, I'm always up for playing in a wing for pretty much anything so feel free to add NightmareFuel.

Thanks all

[Flip]

Check the teamspeak page (link at the top of every page here). There's always traders on, there.

[evovi]

http://www.elitetradingtool.co.uk is a good place to mess around without spending hydrogen! I use it all the time when I'm taking missions to systems to see if I can drop any goodies off or Bring some back with me

[JohnLuke]

It seems that when we have a version upgrade, several commodities are altered at stations. Availability, cost, and value may change a lot. It will take a few days of traders updating the 3rd party commodities websites to get accurate data in the database again.

It may be frustrating for a little while, but things will get back to normal for trade routes soon.

If you are interested in winging up for some bounty hunting, hit me up. I sent you an in-game friend request.

[Roger Wilco Jr]

Or - don't use 3rd party trade tools and look for deals yourself.

Some general advice taken from this board: find a wealthy huge population high-tech/refinery system nearby a poor extraction/refinery system. Ideally only 1 jump apart with the stations/outposts near the sun. Use a ship that can land at outposts as a lot of extraction/refinery systems don't have stations. Buy progenitor cells, performance enhancers, or consumer tech at the high tech station. Buy gold, palladium, or other metals at the extraction/refinery system. It may take a while, but you can probably find a route with a good profit in each direction.

If you don't mind trading slaves, find a station with a large supply and low price and then check the nearby systems for a large demand and high price with something you can trade on the return trip.

Btw, what time do you play?

[NightmareFuel]

Thanks for the replies all, I'll definitely accept any friend requests once I'm back on and try to plug away a bit more at finding routes. As far as what time I play, it varies. I'm currently abroad so for most people it's around evening or late morning.

I'll check out teamspeak as well and hopefully will see some more people around.

Thanks again.

[CMDR Abil Midena]

As Roger said, Imperial slaves one way and whatever else back is the most profitable. Horizons introduced some new commodities, so maybe that will change. Cheap Impi's can usually found in high supply in Torval control systems.

The Trade Computer Extension (TCE) is an excellent tool to keep track of prices of places you've been. It's not cheaty like Thrudds or other trade helpers. I've been using TCE since June, but it's in flux right now due to Horizons borking OCR. The guy that writes it is active, and he's updating it to a version that doesn't need Excel. Watch his thread in the main forums for the release.

Good luck!

P.S. Just to be clear, using thrudds tools, etc is NOT cheating.

[evovi]

How's it cheaty? It requires data we feed in - like our own spreadsheets when we first started - I like it, extra assistance when needed

[JustSomeGuy]

Never heard of TCE before, but looks like it needs M$ Excel to work, so I guess I just need to wait for Elite Trading Tool to update and go back to good old screenshots for now

[Roger Wilco Jr]

I don't think "community" trade tools are cheaty.
I just think they're not in the spirit of the original game.
Commodity prices were supposed to be closely guarded secrets.
(from The Dark Wheel novella)