Trading is driving me nuts

[crazyokie]

First, let me say that I think Star Traders is a great game. It fulfills Sid's first axiom that a game should first and foremost be fun to play. Eye candy is nice but shouldn't override the fun factor.

One thing is preventing me from loving Star Traders though and that is trading!

Each time I land on a new world and go to buy or sell, I get the list of 20+ items that are available. Short of writing each down, I have a hard time remembering what I paid for each item in my hold and whether the price on the new planet is better or worse. Am I missing something, or is this something that could potentially be addressed in an upgrade to the game?

[contributor]

crazyokie welcome to the forum. It takes a while to get a feel for trading and what good prices are on things. I'm sure that some players have probably tracked it and made some spread sheets. Personally I've just gotten to know more-or-less what a good price is. This thread might help a bit. startradersrpg.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tips&action=display&thread=3199

Other advice would be:
1) Start with one commodity and start tracking it. Spice is often cheap at the top left Rychart worlds and can be sold for a profit in the mining zone to the north or on Thulun prime. Metals are generally cheaper on the mining planets.
2) Pay attention to the average prices, displayed in parenthesis on the purchase screen. This will give a benchmark when buying and selling.
3) If you click on the image of the commodity on the buy screen it will give you a list of prices at the different planets you have visited. The prices displayed are what they were the last time you visited that exchange so they may be different, but they would give you an idea of what you paid for something if you know where you got.
4) The biggest way to make money trading is through surplus and shortage rumors. If you're a trader you should get every rumor at every planet you land on. You will always come out ahead if you buy during a surplus and sell into a shortage.

[fallen]

@crazycookie - you should try the Resource Report. Try the following, go to your Status -> Cargo -> scroll down -> Click on the Resources of Interest. Or, in the Exchange you can click on the commodity while in the Buy / Sell as contributor pointed out.

This shows the resource report which will give you a listing of all the buy / sell prices for this item in all the Exchanges you have recently visited. You have to actually enter the Exchange on a planet to get the prices registered here.

Hope that helps and welcome to the forum!

[hordriss]

I noticed the resource report, and it is very useful. It is very hard to turn a profit trading though, unless you're taking advantage of surpluses and shortages. I've found, in my quite limited experience, you often barely cover the fuel costs.

[contributor]

One other bit of advice is that you may not be able to immediately start trading. You may need to do some contracts or exploring to build up enough capital to get started. If you're trying to only trade from the get go, it's probably not going to work. I think you can make a living, actually a good one, as a merchant but you will need to level up a little and get some upgrades on your ship. The Water-Fuel tank will allow you to bring an extra 25 units of whatever you're trading and that could suddenly make it profitable for you.

You might want to follow this guide for getting started (you'll have to invest some xp in explore) and then shift more to a pure merchant style. startradersrpg.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tips&action=display&thread=3968

[BlastGT1]

Finding a matching surplus and shortage can be often difficult at best, impossible at worst. Depending on how far apart they are and how close to expiring rumors are, you have to plan accordingly.

I typically buy at a surplus and sell on nearby worlds if I need quick cash, although others recommend caching surplus goods and waiting for a shortage to sell those, provided you can afford to do so. In a shortage, I will often hit every world that's not far out of the way between my location and the shortage world to buy as much of that item as possible, since I will come out well ahead anyway.

Watch the rumors closely. They expire in order from the top of the list to the bottom, so don't try to make a cross-quadrant run if a rumor is about to end. Save your money for a better opportunity. Nothing sucks like spending all your credits just to find the shortage has ended, and now you have lost a big profit.

_______________________________

"Issue the standard Cadar greeting, Ensign."
"But sir, that's one of our allies!"
"I know that, Ensign. We're confirming that the treaty is still in effect!"

[slayernz]

Take a look at the planet too. Less developed planets sell commodities at much lower prices than advanced planets. Eg Javat Mining, you can get raw materials relatively cheaply, then go and sell them at DeValtos Prime.
Still - waiting for the right Shortage is by far more profitable than lots of small trades. With Shortages, you should be able to get $100k revenue with a good trade ... and close to $1m revenue if you have large cargo capacity and a full hold. Note, I say revenue rather than profit, but remember that shortages typically increase the price of a good by 500%. This means you're going to make a hefty profit, but it's a patience game.

Once established (ie, I have about 50k - 100k in cash), I continually bounce between the main planets in north-west quadrant, and search rumors. It isn't glamorous, but within a game year, I normally find one or two that I can respond to.

[he]

I'm going to side with lurker and warn against trading in the early game.

Trading is good if you want to optimize for real time. A starting Merchant with 6 negotiate and Aperio Caligua can expect to make between 3-5k every minute of real time, or more, provided they don't get boarded or run into an embargo.

However, trading sucks if you want to optimize for game time ($/turn). Unless you're willing to spend 15 or more points in Negotitate, I wouldn't recommend trading at all; even with shortages.
The formula for Transaction time on trading is $amt/1000/Negotitate
This is applied for both buying and selling. $amt is the absolute value of the trade.
Compare to avg. $400/turn for spying + XP + Rep or 1k/turn + XP for blockading/destroying ships.
Suddenly, that political officer looks more useful doesn't she?


If you still insist on trading... Know that a very high negotiate changes the game dramatically.
At 100 negotiate, price differences between faction worlds are almost non-existent, the effect of planet economy and random market fluctuations are non-existent. You can only make money trading in specialty goods between planets, shortages, surpluses, and buying at faction worlds and selling to independents. It renders taking goods from ships you pirate almost pointless.

Knowing that, if you STILL want to be a trader early on, pick De Valtos or Javat, the Aperio Caliga, and then trade spice. Spice has a (typical) minimum profit of about $150/unit and is very stable. Javat Prime to Thulun, or De Valtos Prime to Cadar UTF or Cadar Prime to Syndicate Core are short runs that generate a lot of profit and aren't very dangerous.
If you have the elite version, you can also go to the southwestern corner and trade between steel song worlds, or to the far east and trade artifacts between the two Javat worlds.

Finally, be aware that the world cache resets every ~50-100 turns (the exact # of turns varies by random value each reset.) This means it takes at most 100 turns for a world's supply to be replenished. Use this to plan efficient trade routes.

Happy Hunting!

[he]

Some explicit trade routes in the starting quadrant's (free version) syndicate space:

De Valtos Prime -> Syndicate Core ; Trade Spice
De Valtos Prime -> Syndicate Core ; Trade Electronics
De Valtos Prime -> Cadar UTF ; Trade Spice

Cadar UTF-> De Valtos Prime ; Clothing
Cadar UTF -> De Valtos Prime ; Chemicals
Cadar UTF -> Syndicate Core ; Electronics
Cadar UTF -> Anywhere except Baza ; Luxury Rations

Cadar Prime -> Syndicate Core ; Trade Spice
Cadar Prime -> Cadar UTF ; Artifacts

Syndicate Core -> Steel Fortress ; Artifacts
Syndicate Core -> Cadar UTF ; Artifacts
Syndicate Core -> Aro Prime ; Artifacts (very small profit, but helpful with embargoes)

Steel Fortress -> Syndicate Core ; Chemicals
Steel Fortress -> Syndicate Core ; Electronics


Rychart is special. In the starting quadrant, they often have the lowest priced goods out of all the syndicate planets; they are equally spaced from all other planets in the syndicate section of the quadrant. But they have extremely random quantities available. I find them too unreliable to use as trading posts in the free map but they're worth checking out if you're low on cash. I've seen spice as low as $150 on Rychart Prime, without a surplus.
Of course, they had 0 units to sell me.

[slayernz]

he, fantastic information about the trading routes in the Free game. Even with Elite, you still end up sticking in the North-West quadrant for a while until you get your space legs under you

I agree that Negotiate makes a difference to trade, but in my experience, you can still be wildly successful even with the starting Negotiation level of 1, and even more so at Neg = 8 or 9. When I start out, I don't have spare XP to invest into neg - everything goes into Pilot and Stealth initially then Pilot and Tactics. I might take Neg up to about 3 or 5 by turn 3000, but that's about it really. Within the first 50 turns, I would have tackled at least one shortage if not two. By about 500 turns, it's not uncommon to have $300k - $500k AND a new ship with larger cargo space.

Higher pilot reduces fuel consumption. Low negotiation reduces (or even negates) any benefit for trading out of surplus/shortage, but there should be enough of those rumors to keep you occupied at least 60% of your time. the other 40% can be used to do some contracts, kill some Steel Song, or other fun activities.

[ncaoa]

May 7, 2013 3:16:11 GMT -5 he said:

Some explicit trade routes in the starting quadrant's (free version) syndicate space:

De Valtos Prime -> Syndicate Core ; Trade Spice
De Valtos Prime -> Syndicate Core ; Trade Electronics
De Valtos Prime -> Cadar UTF ; Trade Spice

Cadar UTF-> De Valtos Prime ; Clothing
Cadar UTF -> De Valtos Prime ; Chemicals
Cadar UTF -> Syndicate Core ; Electronics
Cadar UTF -> Anywhere except Baza ; Luxury Rations

Cadar Prime -> Syndicate Core ; Trade Spice
Cadar Prime -> Cadar UTF ; Artifacts

Syndicate Core -> Steel Fortress ; Artifacts
Syndicate Core -> Cadar UTF ; Artifacts
Syndicate Core -> Aro Prime ; Artifacts (very small profit, but helpful with embargoes)

Steel Fortress -> Syndicate Core ; Chemicals
Steel Fortress -> Syndicate Core ; Electronics


Rychart is special. In the starting quadrant, they often have the lowest priced goods out of all the syndicate planets; they are equally spaced from all other planets in the syndicate section of the quadrant. But they have extremely random quantities available. I find them too unreliable to use as trading posts in the free map but they're worth checking out if you're low on cash. I've seen spice as low as $150 on Rychart Prime, without a surplus.
Of course, they had 0 units to sell me.

Exalt! Damn fine list.

[fallen]

he - awesome work! Exalted

[Cory Trese]

Great list ... all of them start at large Econ Civilized worlds.

The profitable routes in Elite map zones are are often in raw materials. The resources not represented above can still be profitably exploited -- Metals, Crystals, Plants, Rations.

[contributor]

I feel like we're killing this thread. Hopefully crazyokie has been back to get all this wonderful advice. If not hopefully it will help others.

So I stayed up too late last night and started a merchant, my first in months. Found out some surprising things. I was able to start trading almost immediately despite the fact that De Valtos (who else for a merchant?) my starting faction was in a trade embargo immediately after I delivered my first contract. I only did two contracts to get a little money when I was low. Otherwise running spice from Rychart Prime to Cadar UTF was what made it possible to stay afloat. I did do a few metal runs from the planets in the top left, bringing spice from Cadar Prime up and metals down to various planets. I found a mechanic early which really helped keep sail repair expenses down. I have to say though (this relates to another thread I started recently), it is really hard to gain xp as a merchant. A few more pointers that haven't been mentioned.

1) In order to gain rep and get a trade permit, buy and immediately resell records, when you have extra cash. That will keep you from having to wait for Trade Alliances.
2) Once you know the trade route you want to run look for contracts going to the same planet. Who knows, there might be one and you've just made more money and gained rep, without incurring any more expenses.
3) Invest in stealth and sail upgrades. This will minimize encounters and enable you to escape from potential threats. Getting looted at the wrong time can be devastating. My captain, now at level 8 on insane has only had about 4 encounters that turned hostile (all with indy pirates) but I was able to ignore/retreat from all of them. I'm flying the Aperio Caliga with Sail Command Probe and Advance Sail System upgrades.

[captain nemo]

very good tips here. I'll see what I can do with them...