Opening Strategy?

[bbhill]

Hello,

Just was curious as to what some of you guys did at the very beginning of your games. I've got the Llama and have been running the specialty wines from Atlantis to Serenity over and over again and have amassed about 300k credits. Is it best to upgrade your Llama and then earn more, or go directly for a new ship? From what i've read, the sooner you get rid of the Llama the better. Additionally, as far as a second ship goes, what are a few good ideas to look at if you wish to balance trade and combat but not go too far in either direction? Thanks for the advice!

[Accu-Accelerated]

What I do is that when I have enough money, I buy a Doestevesky (milspec) and equip it with heavy ion beams, and autotracking systems. The Doestevesky is my favorite small, cheap fighter because it can use heavy weapons and missiles!

Then, you can go on various bounty missions, and when you get enough money, get a cloaking device.

Then, if there are bounty missions for Mules, or Pirate Corvettes, sell all of your missiles and buy a torpedo.

Then, shoot off the ship's turrets (this will be a lot more risky if you don't have a cloaking device), and then torpedo the ship. The Doestevesky has the capacity for only one torpedo so you'll have to make the shot count!

But once you kill one of these capships, you'll make a very large amount of money. Repeat until you have enough money to buy bigger, better ships.

[energyman76b]

Hi,

hm, you may want to use your llama until you have enough for a goddard.

They have enough freight space, to make it a good trader, two deadly turrets, which will keep your enemies away, and if you do not want to fight, you are still one of the fastest ships in the game.
Get a cloaking device if you do not fight. Autotracking, to make fight easy, good shields.

[Kerrysl]

Another good tactic once you get to about 100K is to buy a Plowshare for 30K (keep your remaiing 70K for trading). The Plowshare has oodles of cargo space and works out cheaper than adding cargo upgrades to the Llama.

You can switch ships at the Ship Dealer by Buying the other ship in your MyFleet listing. Once you have the hardware in place then do this.
At Atlantis: Fill your Plowshare with Coffee/Seafood (Better ROI than Speciaty Wine).
Switch to the Llama.
Fly to Serenity.
Switch to the Plowshare
Sell your Cargo and fill up with Minerals/Industrial, Gems/ Radioactives etc. (You probably wont get more than 500 units)
Switch to the Llama
Fly back to Atlantis.
If you have less than 500 cargo units. Go and sell your cargo. If you have more than 500 units then Switch to the Plowshare and then sell cargo.

With this method you should be able to double your money with every return flight until you have somewhere near 300K. Then you should still be able to make about 100000 to 150000 per return flight.

Since you are only ever flying the Llama, you don't need to worry about upgrades for your Plowshare. Upgrades for the Llama are best done at Serenity, when you have bought all available profitable cargo and still have money left over. That way you always maximize your working capital and only by upgrades with the excess.

Note: Don't take missions because they tend to be lost when ship switching. Also I think the missions also tend to bring more unfriendlies into Cephid_17. Get your captial up first and then start upsetting the neighbours.

[malleus]

just a Noob question here, when you say :

At Atlantis: Fill your Plowshare with Coffee/Seafood (Better ROI than Speciaty Wine).
Switch to the Llama.
Fly to Serenity.
Switch to the Plowshare
Sell your Cargo and fill up with Minerals/Industrial, Gems/ Radioactives etc. (You probably wont get more than 500 units)
Switch to the Llama
Fly back to Atlantis.

does that mean that the Plowshare will follow you around automatically?

[Oblivion]

Great Strategy Kerrysl! Yes, (correct me if I'm wrong), other ships of your fleet will be transported to the current base you are in, free of charge if you are in the same system you left it in.

that was confusing.

If you left your plowshare in Atlantis in Cephid17 and take the Llama, you can switch to it in Serenity (cargo and all) without charge since Serenity is still in Cephid17. However once you jump to another system, retrieving the said ship will cost you some credits (1000, i think).

[loki1950]

6000 credits Oblivion.

Enjoy the Choice

[prestidigitator]

I just stayed really friendly with everyone (even pirates) until I had upgraded enough to be able to hold my own when they messed with me. The Llama's cargo hold was enough until I made it into the high hundereds of thousands, because with the more expensive cargo you are more money constrained than space constrained. Oh, and time compression is definitely your friend on trading runs.

Missions are okay if you take cargo missions only. The reward will steadily grow. If you stay away from contreband for a while you won't make enemies. Once you start with the illegal stuff (which is mighty tempting after a while), it becomes a little more difficult to stay on everyone's good side, but it is certainly possible. Oh, and what I did was stay with in-system missions until a trade route dried up; then find something with a nearby destination and use it as an excuse to explore.

BTW, if a system is running out of trade goods, you can't find another good route, and you are getting impatient, you can quit the game and restart (the amount of goods is reinitialized). I only do that occaisionally, because it feels only mildly better than just hacking my save game, but it's good when things get particularly dull or frustrating (just think of it as your character vacationing for a while planetside ).

[loki1950]

prestidigitator isn't that what we call sleep

Enjoy the Choice

[prestidigitator]

prestidigitator isn't that what we call sleep

Enjoy the Choice

Maybe for some of us. More coffee please!

[malleus]

sounds reasonable to me - your transporter(s) can follow you in the current system but if you jump then you have to pay the extra charge.

thanks for the tip