Buying and selling, how to make money as a merchant
Feb 9, 2017 1:07:32 GMT -5
Alex Fury, John Robinson, and 8 more like this
Post by johndramey on Feb 9, 2017 1:07:32 GMT -5
So, you want to go into business for yourself, huh? Always dreamed of flying between planets, making a buck where it can be made, and just generally hauling cargo around in your brand-new (and soon to be damaged) ship? Well, look no further, Uncle John is here to help you out.
I'll be updating this thread from time to time, trying to keep it up-to-date with all the best tips and strategies that can help you, an aspiring merchant, succeed out in the quadrants.
The Basics
The Mathematics of Profit
Before I start going into too much detail, I want to lay out some basic math concepts for you. If you have a good handle on math, you can probably skip this stuff. I'm not trying to insult anyone, just want it all right here so anyone, even my 6 month-old niece, can understand this stuff.
Variables are basically letters (or whatever) that stand for a number. I'm going to use these two:
X = Supply number score
Y = Demand number score
So, an example is in order. If I buy a good at A-, X = 8 and I sell a good at C-, Y = -2,
I can calculate my trade gap using this equation:
X - Y = Trade gap
So, plugging in the numbers, I get:
8 - -2 = 10
A gap of 10 is good, you'll make a pretty big profit margin off of that trade.
Supply and Demand
As a merchant, you're going to need to know these two basic concepts. Supply is how much of a product there is, and demand is how much of a product is wanted. Now, what one planet supplies, another planet demands, and vice versa. In ST2, the concept of supply and demand uses a very easy to understand scale, A+ to F. A+ is good, F is bad. Now, keep in mind, both supply and demand use the A+ to F scale, so we want to think of it as a scale made up of 20 steps. Like this:
The letter is the grade of your trade, and the number below it is that grade's score.
What you want to do is maximize the gap between your supply grade and your demand trade when you trade something. The bigger the gap, the better your profits. Does this mean that you should only buy things at A+ supply and only sell things at A+ demand? Not at all.
Your trade gap can be calculated using this simple equation:
X - Y = TG
Legality
This, my friends, will catch you out at least once. You'll be happily flying between systems and buying and selling goods when, all of a sudden, you spot a deal on some good. Let's say, vudka. You'll happily dump tens of thousands of credits into that good and expect to off-load it at your next port of call. Well, you probably didn't notice the legal score of the good. See, there are goods out there that certain governments want to regulate. These goods can be as innocuous as basic medicine, or they can be as harmful as narcotic spice. Depending on the Law rating of the planet you are trying to trade at, you might not be able to sell such items.
How does it work? Well, each good that you buys has two different kinds of score, a legal score and a permit score. The legality score ranges from 10 (totally free to trade, no worries at all) to a hypothetical 0 (totally impossible to sell, no one will buy this). As far as I know, legal 0 goods do not exist in ST2, but the theory is there.
You'll want to treat the legal score as the maximum law score of the planet that you can sell the good at.
e.g. If I buy a legal 8 good, I can sell that good at planets with a law score of 1-8. Law score 9-10 planets will not legally buy my good.
It is important to understand the legality system when trading, and will be even more important for smugglers. At this phase in the alpha, however, smuggling has not been implemented yet
Trade permits
These babies are the life blood of every merchant and it should generally be a priority to land with your faction. If you can, getting trade permits with a couple factions will really, really boost your ability to make money. I generally like to find at least two factions that tend to either share quadrants or have quadrants that border each other. What these do is unlock more advanced goods for you to trade with.
Two things to keep in mind, 1) trade permits are issued just like ranks and 2) they only work with the faction that issued them to you.
1) means that if you have a level 1 trade permit, you can trade in free and level 1 goods. If you have a level 2 trade permit, you can trade in free, level 1, and level 2 goods. Generally, goods that require a trade permit will be quite expensive, so you'll generally want a large amount of money saved up before you start trading in them.
2) means that you will only be able to buy and sell trade permit goods in ports controlled by factions that you hold the required permit level with. Well, you can also trade any good with independent settlements regardless of permit status, because they don't care about permits.
To explain the above, I'll use the example of terraforming components. To trade in terraforming components, you'll need at least a level two trade permit with a faction. Let's say I have a level 2 trade permit with Javat, a level 3 trade permit with Thulun, a level 1 trade permit with Alta Mesa, and no trade permits with anyone else. I can buy or sell terraforming components at Javat, Thulun, or independent ports, but cannot at any other ports.
Survival skills
While it would be nice if everyone, and everything, in the quadrants would leave you alone and you could trade in peace, this just isn't going to happen. You're going to want to know how to let your captain and your crew survive all those that want to steal, kill, or capture you, and that's where I come in!
As a merchant, you really shouldn't be engaging in combat at all. So, first order of business is being willing to surrender when it won't hurt you too much, bribe a hostile captain to get him or her to leave you alone, or, if all else fails, run from an engagement.
The skills that you'll want to focus on to get out of combat are, in order:
Honestly, you can focus on either tactics or electronics, whichever you feel is more important. I usually go for tactics because I think that a little bit of damage is a small price to pay for getting out of combat, but if you feel confident in your ability to get out of combat you might be well suited to beef up electronics.
Now, thanks to this post by fallen I know that pilot and electronics give strong dice and command gives standard dice when dodging, but I'm not sure on the strong/standard dice related to changing range. I'm going to guess that navigation gives strong dice when changing range at long ranges, pilot gives strong dice when changing range at other ranges, and command and tactics give standard dice when changing range at any range, but those are just guesses.
Captain Templates
This is a section where I'll put up a few templates that have been successful for me or others.
Long Hauler
I named this template Long Hauler because it is geared more towards the later game, sacrificing a bit of safety in the early game in order to give you a good amount of skills and attributes for later play.
Priorities are:
For skills I put 4 points into command and intimidate, 5 points into navigation, and 10 points into negotiate.
For attributes I put strength and quickness at 15, wisdom and resilience at 20, and fortitude and charisma at 26.
For ship I choose the Frontier Liner.
For experience I select merchant. (duh!)
For contacts I select a prince.
Basically, this template is built to allow your captain to trade, be relatively tough in order to avoid dying due to accident/the occasional torpedo hit, and have a good middle-of-the road trading ship that is very upgradable.
The only thing I'd recommend for you to do is get at least one passenger cabin ASAP as the prince likes to give out escorting missions and, at least in my opinion, escort missions pay top dollar.
Clutch Popper
As a counter-point to Long Hauler, the Clutch Popper is designed to give you a smoother start but sacrifice a little late game staying power.
Priorities are:
For experience I select merchant. (duh!)
For attributes I put strength and quickness at 15, wisdom and resilience at 20, and fortitude and charisma at 26.
For ship I choose the Frontier Liner.
For b]skills[/b] I put 1 point into command and intimidate and 2 points into negotiate.
For contacts I select a prince.
As I said, you are sacrificing some of your late game oomph (the skills) for a lot of extra help in the beginning. By having experience at priority A you will start at level 6, your officers at level 3, and your crew at level 2. This gives you a lot of extra skills for your ship as a whole, and also allows you to get some much needed job levels (like maybe doctor and repair) on a few of your officers.
Strategies
So by now you've got a pretty good handle on the basics and it's time to fill your little head with nonsense. Take a seat and get ready for some talk on trade!
The Independent Trader
This isn't really a trade circuit, more like something you should keep in mind. Independent ports will sell anything that is legal, and will likewise buy anything that is legal. What that means for you is that you can turn a very, very large profit on normally-restricted goods if you can find an independent planet that produces said good and another independent planet that wants said good. You should always keep an eye out for any independent ports you can find and, when you find them, make a note of anything they produce or demand. If you are lucky enough to find two independent ports that are relatively nearby and have the proper goods, you can make a very large profit. I, personally, like to keep an eye out for industrial or orbital independent ports and buy their power generators. In my experience, you can sell power generators to just about any other kind of planet (mines and refineries are the best, but population centers also like them) and make a very good amount of money. After all, each power generator will set you back a couple thousand, but when you sell a bunch of them and make a 20% profit, you can easily turn ten thousand in pure profit.
The Cruise
This is a little strategy that I like to employ when I'm doing missions or exploring. It won't make you a lot of money, but it will help to offset some of your travel costs. Put simply, it's buying some safe good that are easy to offload. right now you might be thinking "safe goods that are easy to offload, what are those?!" Well, that's why I'm here. I'll give you a list right here, but you do have to keep in mind that this list is subjective. I've built it up based on my experiences, but you may think different goods are safe. If so, please tell me!
If you stock up on any of these items (or, even better, 2 or 3 of them), there's a pretty good chance that any planet you go to will give you a smallish profit for them. Even better, you can get them pretty easily from Agricultural, Industrial, Refinery, or Mining planets, so you have 4 possible places to replenish your holds.
As a general rule, I've found that clothing will turn a very good profit if purchased from an industrial planet and sold to a population planet. You can also get clothing from orbitals and turn them for an okayish profit. Frozen food and ready-to-eat rations will get you a good profit if sold to orbitals as well.
The Javatian Circuit
This strategy requires a little more luck, as you'll want to pinpoint at least one of each kind of necessary economy. Keep in mind that it is always better to have more than one. I'll put a list of the economies below with the goods you'll want to buy in a parenthetical.
Necessary economies: (* = legally-restricted and/or permit-restricted good)
I'll be updating this thread from time to time, trying to keep it up-to-date with all the best tips and strategies that can help you, an aspiring merchant, succeed out in the quadrants.
The Basics
The Mathematics of Profit
Before I start going into too much detail, I want to lay out some basic math concepts for you. If you have a good handle on math, you can probably skip this stuff. I'm not trying to insult anyone, just want it all right here so anyone, even my 6 month-old niece, can understand this stuff.
Variables are basically letters (or whatever) that stand for a number. I'm going to use these two:
X = Supply number score
Y = Demand number score
So, an example is in order. If I buy a good at A-, X = 8 and I sell a good at C-, Y = -2,
I can calculate my trade gap using this equation:
X - Y = Trade gap
So, plugging in the numbers, I get:
8 - -2 = 10
A gap of 10 is good, you'll make a pretty big profit margin off of that trade.
Supply and Demand
As a merchant, you're going to need to know these two basic concepts. Supply is how much of a product there is, and demand is how much of a product is wanted. Now, what one planet supplies, another planet demands, and vice versa. In ST2, the concept of supply and demand uses a very easy to understand scale, A+ to F. A+ is good, F is bad. Now, keep in mind, both supply and demand use the A+ to F scale, so we want to think of it as a scale made up of 20 steps. Like this:
Supply --------------------------------------------------------------------------Demand
A+ A A- B+ B B- C+ C C- D F D C- C C+ B- B B+ A- A A+
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 The letter is the grade of your trade, and the number below it is that grade's score.
What you want to do is maximize the gap between your supply grade and your demand trade when you trade something. The bigger the gap, the better your profits. Does this mean that you should only buy things at A+ supply and only sell things at A+ demand? Not at all.
Your trade gap can be calculated using this simple equation:
X - Y = TG
Legality
This, my friends, will catch you out at least once. You'll be happily flying between systems and buying and selling goods when, all of a sudden, you spot a deal on some good. Let's say, vudka. You'll happily dump tens of thousands of credits into that good and expect to off-load it at your next port of call. Well, you probably didn't notice the legal score of the good. See, there are goods out there that certain governments want to regulate. These goods can be as innocuous as basic medicine, or they can be as harmful as narcotic spice. Depending on the Law rating of the planet you are trying to trade at, you might not be able to sell such items.
How does it work? Well, each good that you buys has two different kinds of score, a legal score and a permit score. The legality score ranges from 10 (totally free to trade, no worries at all) to a hypothetical 0 (totally impossible to sell, no one will buy this). As far as I know, legal 0 goods do not exist in ST2, but the theory is there.
You'll want to treat the legal score as the maximum law score of the planet that you can sell the good at.
e.g. If I buy a legal 8 good, I can sell that good at planets with a law score of 1-8. Law score 9-10 planets will not legally buy my good.
It is important to understand the legality system when trading, and will be even more important for smugglers. At this phase in the alpha, however, smuggling has not been implemented yet
Trade permits
These babies are the life blood of every merchant and it should generally be a priority to land with your faction. If you can, getting trade permits with a couple factions will really, really boost your ability to make money. I generally like to find at least two factions that tend to either share quadrants or have quadrants that border each other. What these do is unlock more advanced goods for you to trade with.
Two things to keep in mind, 1) trade permits are issued just like ranks and 2) they only work with the faction that issued them to you.
1) means that if you have a level 1 trade permit, you can trade in free and level 1 goods. If you have a level 2 trade permit, you can trade in free, level 1, and level 2 goods. Generally, goods that require a trade permit will be quite expensive, so you'll generally want a large amount of money saved up before you start trading in them.
2) means that you will only be able to buy and sell trade permit goods in ports controlled by factions that you hold the required permit level with. Well, you can also trade any good with independent settlements regardless of permit status, because they don't care about permits.
To explain the above, I'll use the example of terraforming components. To trade in terraforming components, you'll need at least a level two trade permit with a faction. Let's say I have a level 2 trade permit with Javat, a level 3 trade permit with Thulun, a level 1 trade permit with Alta Mesa, and no trade permits with anyone else. I can buy or sell terraforming components at Javat, Thulun, or independent ports, but cannot at any other ports.
Survival skills
While it would be nice if everyone, and everything, in the quadrants would leave you alone and you could trade in peace, this just isn't going to happen. You're going to want to know how to let your captain and your crew survive all those that want to steal, kill, or capture you, and that's where I come in!
As a merchant, you really shouldn't be engaging in combat at all. So, first order of business is being willing to surrender when it won't hurt you too much, bribe a hostile captain to get him or her to leave you alone, or, if all else fails, run from an engagement.
The skills that you'll want to focus on to get out of combat are, in order:
- Navigation is used when changing range at long and extremely long ranges
- Pilot is used when changing range at other ranges -and- when dodging attacks
- Command is used when changing range at any range -and- when dodging attacks
- Tactics is used when changing range at any range
- Electronics is used when dodging attacks
Honestly, you can focus on either tactics or electronics, whichever you feel is more important. I usually go for tactics because I think that a little bit of damage is a small price to pay for getting out of combat, but if you feel confident in your ability to get out of combat you might be well suited to beef up electronics.
Now, thanks to this post by fallen I know that pilot and electronics give strong dice and command gives standard dice when dodging, but I'm not sure on the strong/standard dice related to changing range. I'm going to guess that navigation gives strong dice when changing range at long ranges, pilot gives strong dice when changing range at other ranges, and command and tactics give standard dice when changing range at any range, but those are just guesses.
Captain Templates
This is a section where I'll put up a few templates that have been successful for me or others.
Long Hauler
I named this template Long Hauler because it is geared more towards the later game, sacrificing a bit of safety in the early game in order to give you a good amount of skills and attributes for later play.
Priorities are:
- Skills
- Attributes
- Ship
- Experience
- Contacts
For skills I put 4 points into command and intimidate, 5 points into navigation, and 10 points into negotiate.
For attributes I put strength and quickness at 15, wisdom and resilience at 20, and fortitude and charisma at 26.
For ship I choose the Frontier Liner.
For experience I select merchant. (duh!)
For contacts I select a prince.
Basically, this template is built to allow your captain to trade, be relatively tough in order to avoid dying due to accident/the occasional torpedo hit, and have a good middle-of-the road trading ship that is very upgradable.
The only thing I'd recommend for you to do is get at least one passenger cabin ASAP as the prince likes to give out escorting missions and, at least in my opinion, escort missions pay top dollar.
Clutch Popper
As a counter-point to Long Hauler, the Clutch Popper is designed to give you a smoother start but sacrifice a little late game staying power.
Priorities are:
- Skills
- Attributes
- Ship
- Experience
- Contacts
For experience I select merchant. (duh!)
For attributes I put strength and quickness at 15, wisdom and resilience at 20, and fortitude and charisma at 26.
For ship I choose the Frontier Liner.
For b]skills[/b] I put 1 point into command and intimidate and 2 points into negotiate.
For contacts I select a prince.
As I said, you are sacrificing some of your late game oomph (the skills) for a lot of extra help in the beginning. By having experience at priority A you will start at level 6, your officers at level 3, and your crew at level 2. This gives you a lot of extra skills for your ship as a whole, and also allows you to get some much needed job levels (like maybe doctor and repair) on a few of your officers.
Strategies
So by now you've got a pretty good handle on the basics and it's time to fill your little head with nonsense. Take a seat and get ready for some talk on trade!
The Independent Trader
This isn't really a trade circuit, more like something you should keep in mind. Independent ports will sell anything that is legal, and will likewise buy anything that is legal. What that means for you is that you can turn a very, very large profit on normally-restricted goods if you can find an independent planet that produces said good and another independent planet that wants said good. You should always keep an eye out for any independent ports you can find and, when you find them, make a note of anything they produce or demand. If you are lucky enough to find two independent ports that are relatively nearby and have the proper goods, you can make a very large profit. I, personally, like to keep an eye out for industrial or orbital independent ports and buy their power generators. In my experience, you can sell power generators to just about any other kind of planet (mines and refineries are the best, but population centers also like them) and make a very good amount of money. After all, each power generator will set you back a couple thousand, but when you sell a bunch of them and make a 20% profit, you can easily turn ten thousand in pure profit.
The Cruise
This is a little strategy that I like to employ when I'm doing missions or exploring. It won't make you a lot of money, but it will help to offset some of your travel costs. Put simply, it's buying some safe good that are easy to offload. right now you might be thinking "safe goods that are easy to offload, what are those?!" Well, that's why I'm here. I'll give you a list right here, but you do have to keep in mind that this list is subjective. I've built it up based on my experiences, but you may think different goods are safe. If so, please tell me!
- Food (Edible plants, Frozen or synthetic food, and ready-to-eat rations)
- Basic Medicine
- Clothing (not Luxury clothing)
- Fuel (hydrogen, methane, and hydrocarbon)
- Crystals
If you stock up on any of these items (or, even better, 2 or 3 of them), there's a pretty good chance that any planet you go to will give you a smallish profit for them. Even better, you can get them pretty easily from Agricultural, Industrial, Refinery, or Mining planets, so you have 4 possible places to replenish your holds.
As a general rule, I've found that clothing will turn a very good profit if purchased from an industrial planet and sold to a population planet. You can also get clothing from orbitals and turn them for an okayish profit. Frozen food and ready-to-eat rations will get you a good profit if sold to orbitals as well.
The Javatian Circuit
This strategy requires a little more luck, as you'll want to pinpoint at least one of each kind of necessary economy. Keep in mind that it is always better to have more than one. I'll put a list of the economies below with the goods you'll want to buy in a parenthetical.
Necessary economies: (* = legally-restricted and/or permit-restricted good)
- Mining (common, scarce, and rare metal, common, scarce, and rare ore, hydrocarbon crude, crystals, and raw spice*)
- Refinery (vudka*, common and rare* alloy metal, common, scarce, and rare* refined ore, and polymer ingots)
- Industrial (clothing, ore extractors*, power generators*, basic medicines, water purifiers, explosives*)
) and am a little busy, but if I can find the time I'll add your info in there and also work on adding some more basic info + another strategy.
