Flieger, grüß' mir die Sonne, grüß' mir die Sterne und grüß' mir den Mond. Dein Leben, das ist ein Schweben, durch die Ferne, die keiner bewohnt! - Hans Albers, F.P.1 antwortet nicht (Adaptation in the 80s: Extrabreit)

Friday 5 December 2014

Short range trading

Ackerman Station, Eravate system. The hauler´s cockpit feels claustrophobic after having been so long with the Eagle´s panorama view. There is a mission for 13k CR, but I rather bet on commodity trading. Spending some time updating the prices here in my notes, I buy 5 tobacco and the rest fish. More cash I do not have at this point. The next few tours are meant to update my notes and then to decide whether trading here is still worth it.


The travel to Cleve Hub is eventless, just 200 ls to cover; the most boring part is waiting for acceleration to finally kick my ship up to speed. Over there, I have to realize that  the prices have shifted to the worse; I make only half the profit I used to have a few days ago. Since I only have few high price tobacco, the profit is just overal 3000 CR. Hmpf. And yes, Cleve Hub offers an A1 sensor for 20195 CR. This would boost my scanner´s detection range from 4km to 6km, a 50% increase! And not only this, I also find a class A2 frameshift drive whohoo! For a small fee of 160224 CR, that is. But I could sell  the power plant from my Eagle and take the FSD, in order to finally get ahead and around a bit in this galaxy...

I will come back here, soon. After updating my notes I get back to Ackerman Market;  but I have no routine anymore, as I forgot to load something and arrive with an empty cargo hold; what a waste. Next trip: Bring coffee to McMahon Dock.

The coffee tour to McMahon is also not optimal, only about 4000 CR; prices have been a bit shaken up indeed. If there is no opportunity here anymore, I might have to switch to contractual work again. Loading power generators, I fly back to Ackerman Market.

Next trip: Russel Ring, with tobacco again. Good, back to normal profit here, 1000 CR per units. There is also a A2 FSD and power core here. Back with power generators again to Ackerman Market; a full load, full price range brings me 5800 CR.

Next stop: Sylvester City, with tobacco. High profit again, but power generators to bring back to Ackerman Market are not so good to buy here. I go instead for marine equipment; low supply but still an even slightly better profit span than with high supply power generators, according to my notes. On my way there, I become complacent. While I happily type away on my blog notes, an interdiction happens and I am not fast enough to alt-tab back and evade it. I already had about three or four interdictions, but evading is really not difficult for me anymore. This time though, I am forced out and land into a Viper´s fangs. A Viper, versus me in a hauler, uh-oh.

Desperately I first try to boost away. Of course it does not work and the Viper happily gnaws at my shields. Then I engage the dog fight. I am lucky insofar that this Viper is rated "novice", and it does not fly with shields at all! Like this, I indeed am able, not to destroy, but to whittle it down to about 20% hull and thus to make it flee. I did not even loose my shields in the process, lucky I am.

Once I have about 80k CR cash again, the profit for a round trip is again back to 25k CR, travelling only overall 400-800 ls depending which station I choose. But I still do not know where I can find A2 thrusters, a very important outfit for my combat Eagle. And I am also pretty sure, there must be somewhere a round trip with >1000 CR profit / unit waiting for me and I should probably spend some time on finding it.

My next trip is therefore to Yakabugai. Two contracts from the bulletin board totalling about 20k CR lead me there, and I can collect commodity data. Before arriving at Serebrov Station over there, a Cobra tries to interdict me, but since I do a "loop" approach in supercruise, i.e. circling in at high speed, thereby changing vector very often, it does not get me in time before I arrive. I was aware of the Cobra´s interdiction attempts because it was zipping past me very closely repeatedly, and there would be no other motivation to do so than to interdict a hapless hauler.

I take two small transport contracts back to Eravate; shouldn´t have, they are to different stations and a waste of time, as I could have already loaded some better profit commodities. But first, the outfitting vendor offers: gimbal pulse lasers (finally) and a B1 power distributor. A B1 sensor for 8000 CR. And B2 thrusters and B2 shield generator for 53.408 CR, bingo, this will suffice for a better combat experience. Back to the money grab in order to be able to afford all this stuff.

The second station in Yakabugai, Levi-Montalcini, has an A1 power distributor for 20195 CR, but no commodities worth carrying back. I hurry to finish the contracts to Eravate, so I skip visiting the third station here, and head first to Ackerman Market, then McMahon. For synergy, I take some more tobacco onwards to McMahon. Once I am done and back in Ackerman Market, CMDR Wheeljakk is back online. He can already afford a Cobra. This makes me realize that I probably can do so, too, if I sold every asset. So far, in every iteration of beta, I always forgot about the Cobra. It is set in my mind right next to the Viper, as a combat ship, and not as a freighter, but in fact, with up to 56 tons cargo capacity, it is a huge improvement over the hauler´s 19 tons and therefore mandatory to take if you want to make cash with trading.

First, I locate a shipyard with a Cobra: This is in Russel Ring, Eravate, for 379.718 CR. Then I fly back to Ackerman Market and make my calculations: I have 207.114 CR cash, selling my Eagle for 269.270, selling my hauler for 67.000 CR, would be enough to start hauling with a Cobra, sporting about double my current ship´s cargo capacity. I could later rebuy my Eagle, with the downside that I would have to pass by a few stations before it is again properly outfitted. But right now, the larger cargo with the Cobra will definitely boost my profits and thus get me a fully pimped up Eagle much much faster! If I still want it after flying the formidable Cobra, that is.

Since it is late, I will ponder a bit about this decision until next game session.

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