Just spent 1,552,000 aUEC on a brand new, slightly used, Drake Cutlass Black at Teach's. It took us about one weeks worth a work but for a casual player, it wasn't that bad.
It's been a great ride. We started out with a caterpillar and a little over 100,000 aUEC we had pooled together. We loaded up with cargo and headed out. In the first few days we managed to get up to 500,000. We were rolling in the creds.
Then to our surprise the ship despawned at the outpost with over 350,000 aUEC on board. Then, a few hours later, a random Vanguard flew in and for no apparent reason just blew the second cat up, that cost us another 100,000 credits. So at the end of day 1 our we had a net loss of nearly half a million credits.
We changed our game plan, we made it a rule to always run at least two players per caterpillar to prevent the cat from despawning and always ran with an escort and a turret gunner to deter player pirates. This required at least three players on at a time to run the cargo, but we worked it out and slowly built up our capital again.
Of course we ran into more problems when we switched from Titanium to WiDow. Somehow another pirate had got aboard our ship and killed the pilot, and stole the ship. Our escort fighters shot it down that time, but it cost us another 50,000 or so. Another time a player had boarded our ship at Port Olisar while carrying over 100,000 worth of Medical Supplies. We got out of the Armistice zone and asked the player politely to leave with two shotgun rounds to the face. He didn't leave us any other choice. Of course landing at another non armistice outpost with a crime stat turned out to be bad, as an over zealous player came in to claim the parked caterpillar. I was running to the outpost as a missile exploded off the shields, the area was lit up like daylight as the constant stream of rounds exploded against the shields. At this time we had two caterpillars on the ground with over 500,000 credits. The second Caterpillar took off as I tried to sell those commodities before the ship blew. The pirate flew off after the other caterpillar and gunner laid a few shots into him. Somehow both ships survived without a scratch, and we were able to cash in that close call. We stopped trading at Jumptown for this exact reason, how do these pirates keep finding us at these obscure outposts on Celin, like Tram and Myers.
Then we ended up at SPK, trying to clear our crime stats as we've killed now the third or fourth player trying to sneak in on us, not to mention countless AI. Crime doesn't pay, as we've found sitting in timeout at the security station. Of course we made the mistake of leaving the ship door open for two seconds too long rushing into the station, and we had to clear out more intruders on board the ship. Then return back to the terminal yet again. After serving our time we got out, and got back to cargo hauling.
Today we pooled our credits together and managed to have enough to buy the cutlass. We used a Combat or transport beacon to send it to one of our friends who didn't have a cutlass, then flew off to Levski so that he could buy that brand new, slightly used Drake Cutlass Black of the showroom floor at Teach's.
For me this was a great proof of concept that multi crew ships and working as a team are not only the best ways to make a profit but a fun way to play the game. Sure, our accounts will get patched out in the next few days and we'll lose the ship and all the hard earned UEC but it was worth it.
If you're a caterpillar owner and want to get in on the action just send me a PM. If you don't have a cat and don't mind sitting in a turret you're welcome too!
I'll see you in the verse!
It's been a great ride. We started out with a caterpillar and a little over 100,000 aUEC we had pooled together. We loaded up with cargo and headed out. In the first few days we managed to get up to 500,000. We were rolling in the creds.
Then to our surprise the ship despawned at the outpost with over 350,000 aUEC on board. Then, a few hours later, a random Vanguard flew in and for no apparent reason just blew the second cat up, that cost us another 100,000 credits. So at the end of day 1 our we had a net loss of nearly half a million credits.
We changed our game plan, we made it a rule to always run at least two players per caterpillar to prevent the cat from despawning and always ran with an escort and a turret gunner to deter player pirates. This required at least three players on at a time to run the cargo, but we worked it out and slowly built up our capital again.
Of course we ran into more problems when we switched from Titanium to WiDow. Somehow another pirate had got aboard our ship and killed the pilot, and stole the ship. Our escort fighters shot it down that time, but it cost us another 50,000 or so. Another time a player had boarded our ship at Port Olisar while carrying over 100,000 worth of Medical Supplies. We got out of the Armistice zone and asked the player politely to leave with two shotgun rounds to the face. He didn't leave us any other choice. Of course landing at another non armistice outpost with a crime stat turned out to be bad, as an over zealous player came in to claim the parked caterpillar. I was running to the outpost as a missile exploded off the shields, the area was lit up like daylight as the constant stream of rounds exploded against the shields. At this time we had two caterpillars on the ground with over 500,000 credits. The second Caterpillar took off as I tried to sell those commodities before the ship blew. The pirate flew off after the other caterpillar and gunner laid a few shots into him. Somehow both ships survived without a scratch, and we were able to cash in that close call. We stopped trading at Jumptown for this exact reason, how do these pirates keep finding us at these obscure outposts on Celin, like Tram and Myers.
Then we ended up at SPK, trying to clear our crime stats as we've killed now the third or fourth player trying to sneak in on us, not to mention countless AI. Crime doesn't pay, as we've found sitting in timeout at the security station. Of course we made the mistake of leaving the ship door open for two seconds too long rushing into the station, and we had to clear out more intruders on board the ship. Then return back to the terminal yet again. After serving our time we got out, and got back to cargo hauling.
Today we pooled our credits together and managed to have enough to buy the cutlass. We used a Combat or transport beacon to send it to one of our friends who didn't have a cutlass, then flew off to Levski so that he could buy that brand new, slightly used Drake Cutlass Black of the showroom floor at Teach's.
For me this was a great proof of concept that multi crew ships and working as a team are not only the best ways to make a profit but a fun way to play the game. Sure, our accounts will get patched out in the next few days and we'll lose the ship and all the hard earned UEC but it was worth it.
If you're a caterpillar owner and want to get in on the action just send me a PM. If you don't have a cat and don't mind sitting in a turret you're welcome too!
I'll see you in the verse!
