[Request] Avorion Marketing - Trading Routes Guide - How to make Credits

[Zemiarch]

I want to know how to continue paying for my behemoth of a ship without starving and slave laboring my crew.

 

Thanks : )

[Blaine]

I have nearly 3 billion credits in my current game, so I think I've learned a thing or two about trading. I may write a guide at some point, but I can offer a few pointers right now.

 

Firstly, the best way to make money in the very beginning is by doing three things simultaneously: Jumping/taking gates toward the galactic core while also investigating unknown mass signatures (the yellow dots; make sure you have a +Deep Scan scanner upgrade equipped), claiming and selling the large asteroids that you find along the way (there's a small Steam guide about claimable asteroids here; unknown mass systems with pirates almost always have 2-3 claimable roids), and finally being on the lookout for wormholes that will lead you even closer to the galactic core.

 

The closer you are to the core, the more money you make for selling claimable asteroids. Selling them also increases your reputation with whomever you sell them to.

 

Additionally, you will want to visit unknown energy signatures (green dots) along the way, explore various NPC organizations' space, and check every Equipment Dock for Improved Trading System upgrade modules. You want at least a an Exceptional (gold) ITS that will record the trade routes of at least the last 3 systems visited.

 

Kill pirates and xenos alongside selling asteroids in order to increase your reputation with the civilizations you're exploring. The higher your rep, the cheaper they'll sell you things and the more they'll pay you for what you're selling. Selling off unwanted upgrades won from combat also helps increase rep, in fact later on you can sell 100+ upgrades and max out a new faction's rep almost instantly.

 

Mine higher-tier minerals along the way too, of course, and scavenge upgrades that drop from fleet battles you're too weak to directly participate in.

 

Once you have 1m+ credits, a good enough Improved Trading System, a good amount of explored territory where you've increased your faction reputation, and ideally are at least up to Trinium tier, you can finally begin trading. Build a ship with at least halfway-decent cargo space (1000+) and a respectable jump range, then jump between systems in areas you've explored that have Trading Posts, Military Outposts, and/or lots of tech-type factories (avoid systems full of cattle ranches, farms, mines, solar power plants, and other low-value factories), letting your ITS software find some routes for you. Always be on the lookout for a better ITS.

 

When you find a good trade (the ones near the top of the ITS menu are usually the most profitable), always check to see how much stuff the destination factory is buying before trying to run a route. You don't want to buy 2,000 Targeting Cards only to find that the place you're selling them to merely needs 100 of them.

 

Faction reputation is the main factor in good buying/selling prices, but also, the amount of goods a factory has in stock plays a major part. If a factory is full of the items that it produces, it will sell them much cheaper than if it's only got a few. Similarly, a factory that needs Targeting Cards and is at 0/2500 Targeting Cards will pay much more for them than if it's at 2230/2500.

 

Body Armor, War Robots, and other high-value, high-profit trades (usually from Trading Posts to Military Outposts, but sometimes from one Trading Post to another, or from a factory to either a Military Outpost or Trading Post) are where you'll make your first fortune. There's a lot of RNG, so be patient and explore a lot. You can make hundreds of millions from a single Body Armor trade.

 

You'll soon find you don't need the ITS anymore, but it's very useful when you're just getting started.

 

By this point, you'll know how to trade and don't really need my advice. The most profitable trading of all is trading Accelerators to Research Factories, but Accelerator Factories are extremely rare (you can build your own, but their production is highly complex). Trading Accelerators also requires massive superfreighters with tons of cargo space, because each Accelerator uses up 12-15 cargo space and it's best to buy and sell in bulk (if you buy and sell a little at a time, it's less profitable because the cost to buy them steadily increases, while the profit from selling them steadily decreases). I was lucky enough to find a full Accelerator Factory S in my game, and made almost 2 billion from it.

[Weylin]

I'm tempted to cheat myself a legendary trade module and nothing else, just for the convenience it provides.

 

Why that whole interface isn't standard is kind of beyond me.