Ok here we are at 3.9/3.10 in the PU/PTU. In 3.10 ship pricing is being balanced manually, so is trading. This is in alpha state so everything I write here will be obsolete when dynamic pricing and trading gets into the game. So for now, this is what I learned and as always its just my opinion and doesn’t matter (Like a certain comedy game show.)
Here we go… I have in my fleet a cutlass black w/ 46 SCU cargo hold, a freelancer basic w/ 66 SCU cargo hold and a constellation andromeda with a 96 SCU hold. I will start the game with 40k UEC credits unless they allow us too enter the beta and the real live version with our credits intact. I was able to use the loaner ship of the month, a carrack with 546 SCU hold for a while and so it gave me a bit of perspective. If you want to start trading when the game goes live, start with as much cash as you can. It will literally make the early game go so much faster. For instance, A cargo run that nets you 180K UEC in the carrack will net you 80k in the connie and 35k in the black. Using the same route with all 3 ships you can see how fast each ship will net you cash depending on the cargo size. The gross investment for the carrack was about 1mil UEC, for the connie its just short of 500K, for the black I started with my base 40k and wasn’t able to fill my hold for awhile. but it looks like around 125-150K UEC gross. That makes the profit margin around 15 -18 % That’s about the best ingame you can get. I didn’t factor in any overhead because the only overhead you have is fuel costs and all the other potential overhead has not been introduced yet.
This doesn’t include the initial investment for buying each of these ships, but I wanted to give you guys an idea where trading in the alpha is right now. What that measn to me is that trading alone is possible if that’s all you want to do. But combat missions and delivery missions are about the only other options right now. I mix it up though.
I choose mining for my primary source of income. I usually pull in about 15k aUEC for about 1/2 hours work and there is no risk involved. If the game crashes I might lose a load but I have not sunk my income into that load so I just carry on. I am not particularly fussy about what I pull in mining so I could conceivably pull in even more. Ship of choice is the prospector with the hofestead mining head attached. The default mining head can’t cut through butter so upgrade as soon as you can. Hofesteasd costs about 12k at the moment. Helix is the best head but costs about 100k making it not a good starter head. Make sure you get the size 1 heads which fit the Prospector. Size 2 heads only fit the Mole.
Yup…just pointing it out as another way to earn UEC. There is also word out that they will be creating a greycat mining buggy which will fit in most cargo ships including the Cutlass Black. It is supposed to cost somewhere around $65 so a good entry way to expand your cargo fleet into a mining fleet. Hand mining is broken at the moment but when it comes back any ship with a scanning package will be viable for hand mining. I have avoided trading at the moment because of the risk…if you go all in and have a crash you are starting from scratch and only really have the option for combat or delivery missions.
and you could combine that with some trading to make even more faster once you know the ports and markets. I like being able to make funds with ways other than combat. I suck at FPS and ship combat.
Thanks Simdor. Where are they with single players and multi crewed ships? At one time they said we could hire NPCs to man them. I have a 315P, Caterpillar, and Starfarer.
Yeah, refueler is an issue. Also, in your trade and mining runs, are you including fuel costs? I halfway planned on using the fueler to scoop and refine, then park it in my hangar and use it to fuel all of my other ships to cut costs. Are we still seeing that as potentially viable? Also, do you think they’ll let us know when the “last” beta starts, where there won’t be a wipe? That’s when I’ll stop lurking and start actually playing.
You know I think I heard last week that CR is wanting to do a “Soft Start” to the game. I guess that mean moving into Beta might actually mean moving into live?
I heard mention of soft start but nothing beyond that. The current community that actively plays are dedicated to the game but also very critical of it. I can understand doing a soft start if they pay attention to what the community feedback is and work on that before rolling out anything fast and hard.
Still alpha for now.
Beta is probably closer than most think. CIG wants to get main features in place and build on those.
SQ42 has been the focus for the past year and a half. Many expect hard push to get SC PU into a beta state by end of next year.
Not sure what you mean by soft launch exactly. Where will be a point where beta ends and version 1.0 of the game is pushed out. At that time wipes will end. But until then expect them. And it is confirmed there will be an end of beta wipe before 1.0 is released.
I expect SQ42 very soon. By “soft start” likely they mean 1 system, subset of systems, but truly persistent. If that’s the case I’ll likely pass on that, the last thing I want is to lose 100s of millions of ships to a bug and have it be permanent
Just saw they changed fuel to a solid the miners are going to be able to mine. That’s pretty damn crappy in my book. I purposely got that ugly Starfarer for the ability to be the only ship that could capture and refine fuel. It’s by far the worst ship available.
There are more than 1 type of fuel. Hydrogen for maneuvering, Q-fuel for Q-driving and I guess there are jump drive engines coming and then we will need Jump fuel. So its not over yet. Also Hydrogen Is #1 on the table of elements, so In real game life, everything should be able to refine it. Or I could always be wrong. So sue me.
