New Overage and Demand of Commodities in newest update 13.3.1

[Zookajoe]

Haulers, seems we are getting a new update coming: Overage and Demand.
Now we can buy low and sell high when it comes to cargo hauling, have seen several vids on it:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD6wPSRzazA

 

[Cugino83]

Very interesting news and gameplay addition...
I wonder if this is some sort of first interation of quanta (sort of actually): in a video some times ago CIG mentioned the idea of having dinamic trasport mission generated during the event for re-supply event location, with food, or other amenities the domand of is spiked during events or particular situations.
Even if that is a hand made setup, I think is a good preview of what CIG aim to be the future dimanic economy system.

Now Ifor a cargo ship... about those new C2....

 

[SoloFlyer]

I haven't been in the game in over a year, except to get the helmet for the Halloween event. I may get in to do some space trucking if I get the time. Are 30ks still a plague?

 

[vahadar]

30k are less a plague but trading is still quite random because of servers. I hope to get in trading again as I prefer that to mining 100%.
Very interesting news.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Thank the maker(s)!

This is something which has been cramping getting my trade on, to this point it's been suck-it-and-see (UK Andrews antacid commercial get your minds out of the gutter) with the emphasis on suck. Glad to see its opening up like this and not just becoming a series of fetch quests. I'm going to feel like a Commodities trader rather than a delivery boy.

 

[Bambooza]

Thank the maker(s)!

This is something which has been cramping getting my trade on, to this point it's been suck-it-and-see (UK Andrews antacid commercial get your minds out of the gutter) with the emphasis on suck. Glad to see its opening up like this and not just becoming a series of fetch quests. I'm going to feel like a Commodities trader rather than a delivery boy.

No thank you. After many years of being online my mind is forever warped and stuck in the gutter.

But I agree with you i am excited to see how this impacts trading.

 

[Vavrik]

Interesting - going to finally give me something to do other than just mining or wasting my time.

 

[Bambooza]

Well I tried to find some trade commodities today and given how the servers are linked it seems that anything worth a slight profit has been picked up. Most locations i visited had less than 10 scu and that doesn't even put a dent in the cavernous cargo plates of the C2. Most things I found that had a slight profit on 600 units would barely cover fuel costs and then often had sell restrictions so it would take hours to offload any of it. Several times I just ended up reclaiming the ship to clear its cargo.

Anyone else able to find trade routes at scale?

 

[Deroth]

I did a few runs between NB and Lorville:
NB: Audio-Visual Equipment
Lorville: Fireworks

Didn't have any trouble filling the C2, but I did watch the profit margins shrink rapidly (which were already atrocious for the AV Equipment as even at the best of times it is only a 2% profit on investment.)

 

[Zookajoe]

I logged in and no joy. Seems those get picked up so fast, that unless you are waiting, they are gone.
Maybe after Invictus Week.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Gah! I always knew I was going to need a fast ship to beat the other traders to the loot but if everyone is always within a stone's throw it sounds like I'm outta luck.

We might be looking at resources having to be made on a planetary scale for trading at scale:

So imagine it, you have 15 factories spread across Hurston makeing Pies. They all have a combined production rate of 2000 SCU an hour which is more than enough for a ship like a C2 to be able to swallow but it's only 133 SCU a peice which is definitely not.

Getting all those those combined goods in one place is the challenge though, and becomes the job of local delivery services such as Freelancer Max's and Connie Taurus's.

it's not only a problem for the Hurc, the Hull C's, D's and E's which can't land with cargo will only be able to operate this way with a world's capacity being collected together and focused at orbital ports for them...

Although having Overproduction and Undersupply called out now is a boon, with such large holds available to we crate shovers, it may only really benefit the smaller ships while production is spread out across a world with low refresh rates individually... it needs a point of focus for scale movers or we need some Mega Factories which can churn out thousands of SCU an hour to cope with the demands of our cavernous maws...?

EDIT - And there is my name for my C2: The good ship 'Cavernous Maw'

 

[Vavrik]

Filling a Hull E with a C2 is going to be like filling a dump truck with a wheelbarrow. 'Cavernous Maw' is going to have it's work cut out for it.

 

[Deroth]

Yeah, at this point a TS-2 quantum engine is pretty much required for the C2, plus side is it has the fuel capacity to feed it without issues.
I'll hang out at a trade terminal until the Price Alert notification drops, fill up on the cargo I decided on in advance, then start my loop. With the faster engine I seem to be able to easily complete my loop without issues filling up.
After that I'll go run bounty missions or hang out with other players in-game until I feel like doing another trade run.

 

[Cugino83]

Well I tried to find some trade commodities today and given how the servers are linked it seems that anything worth a slight profit has been picked up. Most locations i visited had less than 10 scu and that doesn't even put a dent in the cavernous cargo plates of the C2. Most things I found that had a slight profit on 600 units would barely cover fuel costs and then often had sell restrictions so it would take hours to offload any of it. Several times I just ended up reclaiming the ship to clear its cargo.

Anyone else able to find trade routes at scale?

Have you try the understock/overstock item trade? You should have a notification and an entry in the log of Mobiglass, that shouldn't be scarce.
Lets be clear: those are comodities that trade well if:
- you have a fast QT ship
- you have large ver LARGE cargo hold.

I've try them with the StrarRunner and my final income was a round 14k... considering the route was Hurston-Tressler not a great earning... but with a C2 I've see videos of 60-80k per run that is not bad at all... of course you'll need a LOT of money for the first purchase...

 

[Bambooza]

Have you try the understock/overstock item trade? You should have a notification and an entry in the log of Mobiglass, that shouldn't be scarce.
Lets be clear: those are comodities that trade well if:
- you have a fast QT ship
- you have large ver LARGE cargo hold.

I've try them with the StrarRunner and my final income was a round 14k... considering the route was Hurston-Tressler not a great earning... but with a C2 I've see videos of 60-80k per run that is not bad at all... of course you'll need a LOT of money for the first purchase...

Money is not an issue. But only making 14 to 22k per round trip doesn't seem to be profitable for the amount of time required and the amount of fuel spent. Especially when you look at mission rewards and how quickly they can be completed.

 

[Cugino83]

Money is not an issue. But only making 14 to 22k per round trip doesn't seem to be profitable for the amount of time required and the amount of fuel spent. Especially when you look at mission rewards and how quickly they can be completed.

Well, that's true as it is for any other trading route, in that this new scarcity and overstock item are no different.
So, unless you have a Caterpillar or bigger cargo ship, no, it's not worth the time.... and that's sucks IMHO.
For really being interesting cargo gameplay need some hight valuable but limited quantities item, maybe some hard to find, or recoverable only from cave or other small outpost, so that it make them unappealing ot large ships but very interesting for small cargo ship (cutalss, aurora, 300-series, 100-series etc...).
And I'm not speaking of delivery run, I'm speaking of actual treading....

 

[FZD]

The trade remains decidedly unfixed.

For example, with a Cutlass Black you could be doing some combat missions netting like 200k UEC an hour (I've seen more, but let's just go with easy 200k), and you'd be risking basically nothing.
Judging by the prices seen in the video, with a ship with similar price, Freelancer Max, you could make, at best with AVE, something like 36120 UEC profit per run, risking 3 million per run. So you'd need to do just 82 runs to cover that risk. If you lose the cargo more often than once per 82 runs, and you're in the negative. Wow. That's even worse than what we had before.
But let's say it only takes you 15 minutes per run and you got some invulnerability cheat, you'd still be making just 144k/h, way less than with combat.

That remains the worst way of making money in the game. Not to mention that you should ideally be making enough to entice a combat pilot to escort you. Maybe a couple combat pilots. Not going to happen with these profit margins. And they're even thinking of making trade more tedious, having to manually load the cargo hold OR PAY FOR IT. Seriously, how can they get this so wrong?

 

[Vavrik]

That remains the worst way of making money in the game. Not to mention that you should ideally be making enough to entice a combat pilot to escort you. Maybe a couple combat pilots. Not going to happen with these profit margins. And they're even thinking of making trade more tedious, having to manually load the cargo hold OR PAY FOR IT. Seriously, how can they get this so wrong?

I've been wondering what they're thinking for a while now too. They've done the same kind of thing with mining, at least with the Prospector or MOLE. You won't likely loose your shirt all in one go, but you can lose money fairly quickly. 30K's are the worst, you lose more to those than to unwanted combat. You cannot possibly make enough to pay an escort either, not when he can make 10 times what you earn in an hour. It's been a little disheartening, but it's still a little fun too. What I do is just do a little trading, and a little mining to break up the monotony until more interesting game play comes into the game. Forget high ticket items, they're just an invitation to lose money. I flew 4 or 5 trade runs with the C2 and M2 so far, that's all I'm going to do until it's a little more balanced - and I can afford to share some of the profit with others. Right now, anyone who flies with me is going to be doing it for fun, cuz I'm not earning much more than break even on a great day. I've also reduced the number of hours I play just so I don't get disappointed in the game.

 

[Radegast74]

Well I tried to find some trade commodities today and given how the servers are linked it seems that anything worth a slight profit has been picked up. Most locations i visited had less than 10 scu and that doesn't even put a dent in the cavernous cargo plates of the C2. Most things I found that had a slight profit on 600 units would barely cover fuel costs and then often had sell restrictions so it would take hours to offload any of it. Several times I just ended up reclaiming the ship to clear its cargo.

Anyone else able to find trade routes at scale?

Money is not an issue. But only making 14 to 22k per round trip doesn't seem to be profitable for the amount of time required and the amount of fuel spent. Especially when you look at mission rewards and how quickly they can be completed.

I was watching Raveir (trading guru who makes gallog.co) and another streamer and they pointed out exactly what you were saying -->
a. The commodity alerts don't always show up timely,
b. the amounts are limited, the first one or 2 players who get to the terminal and buy "win" the rest are out of luck,
c. You have to sink a lot of money into the cargo, and profit margins suck. At least 30k's are down, but still, anything happens and you are out a lot of money.

Hopefully, CIG will keep on tuning...

 

[Bambooza]

I was watching Raveir (trading guru who makes gallog.co) and another streamer and they pointed out exactly what you were saying -->
a. The commodity alerts don't always show up timely,
b. the amounts are limited, the first one or 2 players who get to the terminal and buy "win" the rest are out of luck,
c. You have to sink a lot of money into the cargo, and profit margins suck. At least 30k's are down, but still, anything happens and you are out a lot of money.

Hopefully, CIG will keep on tuning...

Hopefully sooner then later. As of the moment while the C2 is enjoyable flying not being able to fill it up or worse not being able to sell the commodities means so much downtime as to not make it worth the risk in braving 30k's. As of this moment it's possible to lose upwards of 100 hours of trading time in one 30k given the 20 to 60k an hour profit margin on a 5 mill cargo purchase price.

So I find myself reverting back to running missions or even courtier missions in the freelancer until i get bored and start looking for someone willing to tango at a station.