When you say "jumps" I assume you mean trade gates and not jump gates. I've got a couple that I use when I want quick cash without too much hassle.
Planet Manhatten -> Planet Pittsburgh = Pharmaceuticals
Planet Pittsburgh -> Planet Manhatten = Boron
Using a Rhino, you make about 2000 credits each way. It's a good, safe, run when you're starting out.

Planet Curacao -> Kingstone Border Station = Water
Kingstone Border Station -> Planet Curacao = H-Fuel

The water just gives you a little return for the trip back, the real money comes from the H-Fuel. This requires a stronger ship than the Rhino, as Cruise-Disrupting Corsairs and Liberty Rogues attack the trade lane intermittently. My experience is that they'll attack in force the minute you put all of your money into a load of H-Fuel.

The beauty of the Curacao/Kingstone run is that it's one jumpgate, and one trade lane, a quick and easy run. If the trade lanes seem to risky, you can also run the route with cruise engines, as it's only about a 35m trip. Just make sure to steer clear of any enemy you spot along the way.

Note: I'm in no way endorsing these two routes as the best there is. They're simply two that I happened upon and made use of. They helped me in time of need, until I could afford a big boat for the longer, high profit runs.

I have a few I tend to use, altho you need to have a better ship I prefer Humpback.

Go to Holman Mining station and buy Niobium and sell at stokes, trip is short and trough a jump gate and 2 lanes, 1 lane each zone so you get autosaved when you jump. ( nice if you get shot on the last part of the journey )
There is nothing to buy at Stokes tho so run empty handed back.

but as the trip is short and you earn 80k a pop its a nice way to get some wasy money.



WARNING, Cliche tag coming up...

May the force be with you[!

The best run I have found is this. You can turn $5 into almost $1400 per cargo hold. Its a long trip and filled with lots of badguys .. but thats half of the fun!

Start in Britonia and find the cheapest water you can. I think Planet Leeds is a good source of $5 water. You then want to head towards Reinland space. When you hit Omega 3, ( or is it 7 .. the one with all the asteroid miners ) Look for the jump hole to Omega 7 ( or is 5 .. sigh! ). There you will find Sirius were you can sell your water for almost $200 a unit. Decent profit.. BUT you can buy diamonds for cheaper than you sold the water. Take those diamonds back to Leeds and sell it for almost $1400. So at the beginning of the run you fill your cargo hold up with $5 water and in the end you sell each hold worth for nearly $1400. Thats some tidy profit per cargo hold.

I never fight on this route. Its RUN RUN RUN. If you follow the trade lanes its roughly 25 waypoints, I find it less hazardous to only use the System Jump gates and then I fly across the sysems through open space where there is less chance for pirates. Trust me pirates will come after you with a shipload of diamonds. My ship always gets battered and Ive died a few times .. but thanks to the autosaves Ive never lost too much time in real life..

The best Ive found so far..

The best trade route that i have found is:

Go and buy a Humpback in New Berlin, and at the same time a full load of diamonds. Go to the Sigma-13 jumphole next to the trade lane thwards Brandenburg (its about halfway). From there continue your way to New Tokyo and sell it.

Afterwards, get in New Tokyo a full load of Optic Chips, and repeat the whole route backwards.

You'll come accross a area with a lot of pirates in Sigma-13, right out of the jumphole, but they are low-lvl and dont carry Cruise-Disrupters.

I can get a million in half and hour with this rout

I agree with the first part of your route Ranma.

New Tokyo->New Berlin w/Diamonds

however, I find that instead of brininging optics back to berlin, buy niobium and bring it to The Ring (near New Berlin) for a 200k profit.

yeah the niobium, or you can go one system further, stuttgart i think, the freiburg station there sells diamonds even cheaper and buys the niobium for even more

but the shortest one is from new berlin, buy consumer goods, sell at yanagi depot in sigma 13, then from the depot in sigma 13, buy artifacts (or was it cardamine?) illegal stuff it is..then sell it back to new berlin

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There have been a lot of posts about high yield runs, but as far as getting a good yield over a short amount of time, thus getting a good turnover rate, there has not been much discussion. Anyone have any ideas to share? I'm talking about trade routes in 5 jumps or less (about 2-5 minutes total time).

I'm sure there must be a better than what I have, which is:

New Berlin (Planet) to Sigma 13(Yagani) - diamonds, 300$ profit/unit
;then cardamine (drug, sp?) back to New Berlin for 800$ profit/unit

By using jump holes and afterburning away from attacks, it usually takes less than 5 minutes per run

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This run works better if you take Engin components to Yagani and Artifacts Back

No Blood For Oil

Edited by - saydo17 on 18-03-2003 02:26:42

All I have to say is this... Getcha a nice, big Dromedary class Freighter. Biggest hold in the system. Pickup a nice, easy run between Manhattan and New London. (Yes, you CAN make a grand per ton on this route.) 275 tons, times 1,000 PLUS credits per ton, equals 275,000 to 300,000 credits PER RUN, and it's only four jumps. Dia Duit, and enjoy!

Captain C.B. Waller,
S.S. Enam De Eire