Talk:News:Commodities
A quick and dirty guide to buying and selling cargo.
Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the market.
First - You need the proper skills. That means Value and Bargain at 40 adjusted or higher. These skills will directly impact what you can and cannot do in using the market. As well they will directly effect the price of commodities, as well as the prices you can sell them for.
Second - You need money. Commodities cargo can be expensive, and filling the hold can cost a lot of money. Cargo's like sundries and protein are relatively inexpensive, while things like Star ship parts and High Tech can cost an arm and a leg.
Third - You need a ship. Cargo is purchased at the commodities office on any given planet, where it is loaded into or removed from the ship that is going to be used to carry the cargo. While a ship is being unloaded or loaded with anything it goes into cargo lock down, where the ship is unable to take off until the transaction is completed.
Fourth - The hard part is picking which cargo you're going to buy. This is where the real skill comes into play. You consider things like the distances involved, the prices of the commodity, and the potential profit to be made Vs. the expenses of operating the ship on the cargo run. Here are a few screen shots that will be invaluable.
Typing +mkt/help will bring up this screen, which shows all the basic commands needed to use the commodities market. The code indicated above is the manifest code for the ship, which is usually the same as the boarding code but not always. Ask your captain! The +mkt/manifest command is a good place to start, since it will tell you how much free space your ship has as well as what is in it already.
Look Market will bring up this screen, which shows the raw prices and other information for the planet you are on. If you are buying cargo from a planet, you will pay the export price. If you are selling cargo to a planet, you will receive the Import price. When you buy something with a low export cost, and sell it somewhere with a higher import cost you make money.
The problem is finding out which commodities are profitable, and where they are profitable. The higher your value skill is more of the tools you'll be able to use. The +mkt/commodity command becomes available when your skill is over 40, and is useful until you get your skill high enough to use +mkt/compare.
+mkt/Commodity will return a screen like this for the selected commodity. In this case grain. The planet you are on will show up highlighted in red. This screen shot is of a very favorable commodity. The closer to the top of the list your planet is, the more profit in more places you can make. In this example the grain can be sold damn near anywhere for a profit of some sort. By finding the planet with the highest import cost you can make the maximum profit. In this case the most profitable trade route for grain would be to take it to New Melborne.
+mkt/Commodity will give you a good idea of what to sell where, but it spams up the screen entirely and you have to scan through the lists pretty closely. Especially when you run it for each of the commodities involved. That brings us to the much easier to use command of +mkt/compare
Once you are able to use it the +mkt/compare command will show a brief run down of all commodities that will be profitable to trade between any given planet and the one you are on. It's a LIFE SAVER, because it will show you exactly what you will be profiting and where. When I need to buy cargo I go to the planet and just do a quick +mkt/compare against every other planet and then boom. I know exactly what will profit me the most. After that, it's a simple matter to +mkt/buy the proper amount to your ship, and then you're off!
