I just built a little database using the numbers on this site. It seems that there are some bases missing, but based on the numbers here the following trades are good:

Alien Organisms from Ruiz base and Freeport Nine fetch a high profit at Cambridge, Cal Minor and Willard, the highest profit being 1900 from Ruiz to Camb. Obviously there is a perishability problem here and since I don't have any data on travel times this profit could reduce drastically.

The best non-perishable is Diamonds from Freital and Ronneburg to New Tokyo, yielding a profit of 1452 per unit, while Niobium from Falkland to Leipzig yields 1440.

The earliest entry for Cardamine I can find is at number 65 on the list, when trading from Malta to Manhattan at a profit of 1200.

The database is pretty simple at present and I haven't checked the numbers. What I really need is a table of transit times from each base to each other base. By my calcs that means just under 26000 different route times.... but if anyone has such a piece of kit it would be powerful in calculating a profit per minute gametime KPI.

Too much time on my hands!

PB

I find a "bi-directional" trade route which gives you a good profit and you don't need to make friendly to any criminal.

Buy Gate/Lane Parts from Pueblo Station in Colorado to Tau-31 Gate Construction Site in Tau-31. Buy-in price is $140 and sell-out price is $1400, at a profit of $1260 per unit. On the return trip, buy Beryllium at $300 and sell them at $1020, at a profit of $720 per unit. Total profit is $1980 per unit. If you flying a Humpback, the total profit will be 495000!

The most improtant thing is... The trip between these two bases is really short! It's only required 4 system jumps between Colorado and Tau-31 if you find all the required jump holes. However, if you are hated by the Outcasts and don't want a hard fight, don't use the jump hole from Kyushu to Tau-31 because you will pass the Outcasts' Cali base in Tau-31. Jump through Tau-29 as the alternate route, and the Tau-31 GCS is just a few steps away from the Tau-31 -> Tau 29 Gate. So 1 more system jump doesn't matter at all.


What is a "Fire-&-Forget" weapon?
- Once it's fired, you can forget the whole thing... it won't usable again...

Ruiz to Willard with Alien Organisms £2,000 per unit selling price from buying them at Ruiz for about £150

I evaluated some of the round-trip trade lanes recommended on this forum

Here is the (interim) result, which I will update by editing this posting:

Note:
1. No offense meant to all who recommended their prefered trade lane - if I comment negatively on the route, it's just because of the measurement taken.
2. My only enemies are the Bounty Hunters, so if you have trouble with other factions, some of the trade lanes may not be feasible for you.
3. The measurement runs have been done in a Dromedary freighter (a big thank you to Gnavpot for pointing out the benefits of that ship to me !), but should be valid for most other vessels, too.
4. I prefer not to trade in Cardamine, therefore those routes are not included (yet). Still, it seems those are the most profitable short-range routes.

The statistics shown consist of:
- The trade route (self-explanatory),
- the profit per unit (based on a complete round-trip. Multiply this with the cargo capacity of your vessel, eg x250 for a Humpback, or x275 for a Dromedary)
- the tour time (full round trip, including trade lane disruption, queuing at gates, buying, selling, mapping, but not natural breaks for the player . These times may vary from mission to mission.)
- the profit per unit/ minute: This is the objective measure of a tour's quality

If I don't mention a destination's system, use F6 and the Base List to locate that system.

And here we go:

Tour 1:
[Recommended by Pinger, modified by Dunham
[Comment: Avoid, avoid, avoid

Buy engine components at Honshu
Sell at Mactan
Buy gold
Sell at Manhattan
Buy Luxury Consumer Goods
Sell at Honshu

Profit: 2340$ / unit
Tour time: 60 min
Profit/unit: 39$/min

Tour 2:
[Modified tour 1
[Comment: Barely better

Buy engine components at Honshu
Sell at Denver
Buy Luxury Consumer Goods
Sell at Honshu

Profit: 1432$ / unit
Tour time: 33 min
Profit/unit: 43$/min

Tour 3:
[My old favourite
[Comment: Not too bad

Buy Niobium at New Tokyo
Sell at The Ring (New Berlin system)
Shuttle empty to New Berlin
Buy Diamonds
Sell at New Tokyo

Profit: 2182$ / unit
Tour time: 24 min
Profit/unit: 92$/min

Tour 4:
[Recommended by Airborne
[Comment: A waste of time

There are two routes for this mission - one north via Kyushu (passing harmless minefield and using jumpholöe to Shikogu), one south via Leeds (using Magellan jump hole). Both take approximately the same time.

Buy Beryllium at Tau-31 Gate Construction Site (system Tau-23)
Sell at Pueblo Base (Colorado)
Buy Gate lane parts
Sell at Tau-31 Gate Construction Site

Profit: 1980$ / unit
Tour time: 46 min
Profit/unit: 43$/min

Tour 5:
[Recommended by hairfarmer
[Comment: Pretty good, although illegal

Buy Engine Components at New Berlin
Sell at Yanagi Depot (Sigma-13)
Buy Cardamine
Sell at New Berlin

Profit: 1138$ / unit
Tour time: 5 min
Profit/unit: 227$/min

Interim summary: You either trade in Cardamine or you go back to Crete, Malta, etc., and kill Bounty hunters for money. Trade doesn't pay (enogh).

EDIT: Sorry, I have posted this list twice - Updates will be done on the "optimized trading" thread


Edited by - Dunham on 12-05-2003 04:38:24

Edited by - Dunham on 12-05-2003 16:35:23

lol intresting thread. I went from about 250,000 creds to about 800,000 creds in 3 runs. Bought luxury consumer goods at manhattan for a cheap price of (100?190?) take the route to the badlands, use magellan jump gate (and prey that not too many ships are waiting for you on the other side...) then slip past mactan base (or not if your friendly with them) and get to the leeds jump hole. There go to Edinburgh jump gate, and fly to planet gaia, where there is a luxury spa and (cruise?) ship, which will take the luxury consumer goods for about 1000 each. You now have +250,000 creds. (btw I used a humpback freighter to do this route three times, 250 cargo space) Seems long, but if you want, in the cloud nearby gaia there is a jump hole back to leeds, if you dont wanna use cruise all the way back to the gate. Be wary of the gaian base near it, and on the other side of the hole, if you havent gotten it already, there is a wreckage. The hole ends up near LD-14.

Neo-Archaic
'I trade insults with the Xenos. Very profitable'

LOL! Honestly though I find the Xenos the best of the 'bad' groups... they seem to be the easiest to make friends with, I remember I used to blow the **** out of them near colorodo, near the beginning of the game. Now we are allies. Unlike the other groups, (it seems) the Xeno's forget over time. (or atleast much quicker then the other groups) Anyways I dont like small fighter users like the xenos, very annoying, I have enough to deal with, with the corsairs and outcasts.

Xenos only forget because they hate everyone else.. so whoever else you kill your rep with xenos goes up

My Fav trade route is the Yanagi Depot - New Berlin one.

-----------------------
WARNING: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF PEANUT

Shadow51689 wrote:

---

(it seems) the Xeno's forget over time. (or atleast much quicker then the other groups) Anyways I dont like small fighter users like the xenos, very annoying, I have enough to deal with, with the corsairs and outcasts.

---

Well I tend to be friendly or neutral with all except the Xenos . The Outcasts and Corsairs tend to have quite good ships both for sale and used in patrols while I have no problem with anything the Xenos can throw at me.
Plus I use the Outcasts for my Cardamine runs to NY.

Looks like I should time the profitability of some of my runs by the looks of it though. I tend to go for this one:
Freeport 7 - Tau something : Niobium - Sell at Leipzig -Desden system
Empty to Bautzen -Dresden system, buy Diamonds. Sell on Planet New Tokyo - New Tokyo. Buy consumer goods there and fly back to Freeport 7.

Thanks for all the posts:

the best rout that i found after try most of them was this, simply for the time factor. Unlike other routes that span systems and systems and can take alot of time and comitment for reativly little profit of the time taken! this one you can choose how meany runs to do depending on how much you need to make, then fly off and kill some people. its this:



hairfarmer
Flight Commander
posted 07-05-2003 11:16 CET
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If your playing SP, this is hands down the best trade route

Planet New Berlin, New Berlin system
Buy Engine Components @ 225
take jumphole to Sigma 13
go to Yanagi Depot
sell Engine Components for 524
Profit 299

Yanagi Depot, Sigma 13 system
Buy Cardamine @ 510
Go back go New Berlin
sell Cardimine for 1,349
Profit 839
Total profit per unit round trip 1,138



thank again for all the posts


NB you must be friendly with the junkes if you dont want to have a nasty puprise like i did the first time i tryed it!

Edited by - mouse on 12-05-2003 18:08:12

Edited by - mouse on 12-05-2003 18:09:01

Ok, this is a round trip so you can start it at any point closer to ypu, here is what I do:

1)Planet Manhattan, New York
Buy: Luxury Consumer Goods - $180

2) Planet Baden Baden, Stuttgart
Sell: Luxury Consumer Goods - $1,260
Profit: $1,080 per unit
Buy: Water - $15

3) Solarius Station, Omega 11
Sell: Water - $195
Profit: $180 per unit
Buy: Diamonds - $219

4) Planet New Tokio, New Tokio
Sell: Diamonds - $1,650
Profit: $1,431 per unit
Buy: Luxury Consumer Goods - $810

5) Planet Honshu, Honshu
Sell: Luxury Consumer Goods - $990
Profit: $180 per unit
Buy: Engine Components - $150

6) Planet Cambridge, Cambridge
Sell: Engine Components - $1,275
Profit: $1,125 per unit
Buy: Luxury Food - $160

7) Planet Denver, Colorado
Sell: Luxury Food - $1,360
Profit: $1,200 per unit (you loose 12-16 units on the way, the food rotts and won't smell pretty in your ship )
Buy: H-Fuel - $269

Planet Manhatan, New York
Sell: H-Fuel - $360
Profit: $91 per unit

Total Profit (per complete round trip, disregarding the Luxury Food loss): $5,287

I run this cargo with the Hammerhead (cargo 70), it takes me 30-50 minutes, and I gain $350,000 per trip (including the Luxury Food loss)

*notes: if you are friendly to Hessians (wich I am not) you can buy the Diamonds $21 cheaper form Freital Base, Omega 11 or Ronnenburg Base, Omeg 5
if you are friendly to Hackers (also I am not) you can sell the Engine Components to a better price at Mactan Base, Magellan (+$149)
this route is not based on maximum/minimum prices, but on continuosly cargo run (no trip with ypur cargo hold empty).
it's also fun as you get to meet/team/fight almost every faction in the game on the way