OK, so the key for turning some quick coin is intraplanetary shipping - I turned 500 aUEC into 35,000 just by going back and forth between Hickes Research and Tram & Myers Mining on Cellin. Medical Supplies from Hickes to to the mining site, and Astatine Gas from Mining Site to Research. Threw in a couple Mineral runs back to Oli (Beryl, made bank on one and pennies on another).
I may now explore a bit to see what other intraplanetary runs look good on Daymar or elsewhere.
As Glorious Leader suggested in the Cryptocurrency video, take your profits along the way - DON'T take 100% of your balance to finance the next run (server can crash, might make a bad buy/sell, Space Pirates, etc.), I used no more than 50% at a time. FWIW, this is the same way I gamble when in Vegas IRL, I am always taking winnings off the table and that is why I am up against the town lifetime - but in less than 2 hours, on a stable server, I made 33,500 aUEC just by shuttling back and forth between two sites less than 100 km apart. Compare that to risking life and ship for a 300 aUEC contract.
I started with the F7C since my SpacePenguin was MIA on an insurance claim due to a server crash, then I switched to the Penguin once I felt comfortable - the Penguin is the ultimate stealth freighter and you can make good money - at some point I'll break out the Connie but for solo runs the Penguin is perfect (I am sure the 'Lancer and Cutty would work too with more lifting ability but also more tempting target).
By staying planetside, the NPC pirates that are doing the interdictions are no threat - only issue will eventually be players or if CIG starts adding NPC pirates planetside.
I saw little to any variability in price between runs even though they were growing exponentially - I only cubed out the Penguin once, I was always limited by my limiting my exposure in case the server crashed and I lost a load. I was doubling my invested monies roughly every load, if buy price was 1, sell price was 2-2.2.
Even though it was a bit grindy it was reasonably safe and it was nice to get away from the currency anxiety I was feeling when I got down to around 2,000 aUEC after losing too many loads trying to do interplanetary runs.
In larger ships I am sure interplanetary will be a necessity to have adequate demand (I did have one time where the Mining Site did not have as much of the Gas as I wanted to buy, but only once). I can envision a 'Lancer, Cutty or Connie having a single pickup and then a route to sell off all it has, or maybe make mixed cargo runs (unless someone has found you can fill a Connie and dump it on the same planet, which would be epic).
This is a far more interesting play type than I expected.
'Gimp
CEO and Chief Pilot Fast Inter-Stellar Transport (F.I.S.T.)
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