Avorion – Trading Strategies Guide

Trading is, in my opinion, the most reliable way to earn credits in Avorion in any stage of the game, and it’s also a great way to increase faction reputation. This guide will help you on trading strategies.

Trading Strategies Guide

Trading Strategy 1: Resource Shortage Spam

Advantages:

  • Only needs the minimum requirements listed above
  • Lucrative, as the mission rewards are well above the margins you’d get in normal trading
  • Low-risk (read on to see how to minimize risks)

Disadvantages:

  • Somewhat luck-dependent (but you’re very likely to find opportunities *eventually*)
  • Doesn’t scale well with your resources later in the game, when you have much more capital and cargo space (cause the amount of goods requested are always constant)
  • Can be stressful rushing back to the requesting station, but this can be managed by only buying the goods if you’re confident you have enough time to make it back

Other notes:

  • Though it is possible to make other kinds of trades with less than 100 cargo space, you really want at least 100 for this strategy, because goods in a resource shortage mission must be delivered all at once, and the number of goods requested is always either 150 or as many as can fit in 100 cargo space, whichever is smaller. Thus, it’s possible to get a mission that requires less than 100 cargo space, but 100 is the most common requirement.

Now for the strategy. Simply do the following:

  • Travel to any populated sector belonging to a faction that’s at least “mistrustful” or better. The more stations there, the better. You can even perform this strategy while exploring new territory.
  • Middle-click on all stations with exclamation points with them, “interact”, and accept all resource shortage missions.
  • Then use the trading system menu (should be a pile of coins on the top right), compare it with your missions, and see if anyone is selling a good that was requested. Sometimes you may be lucky enough to find a seller right in the same sector.

If you don’t find anyone selling a required good, simply move on to the next sector, and repeat.

If however, you do find someone selling a required good… don’t rush to buy it yet. Check to make sure:

  • The station is not a Turret Factory
  • Check the Avorion Trading Goods Table [en.avorion.philipp-guttmann.de] to make sure it’s not a “dangerous” good. If it is, you may have to consider buying a license for it at a Trading Post (check to make sure it belongs to the controlling faction) before shipping the good to avoid getting fined. Note that they cost 100,000 credits, and only apply to one faction’s territories, and are only available if you have enough reputation in that faction.
  • The station is stocking enough of the required good
  • You can afford to buy the required goods
  • You have enough time to return to the station requesting the good. If the time remaining is 15 minutes or over you’re probably safe (since, logically, it took you 15 minutes or less to travel to your current sector and discover the opportunity); if less, you may have to consider how many gates/jumps you have to go through to get back to the sector

Remember, the only real penalty of this mission comes if you spent all your money on a good that you failed to deliver in time and can’t get rid of! Fortunately, however, this should be rare; usually, the station requesting a good for a resource shortage mission is also able to buy the good normally. Occasionally, however, they may not have the stock space required, or you may be forced to take a slight loss.

I find that with this strategy you don’t really need to pay much attention to where you might be able to get the goods requested; as long as you accept enough missions you’ll find some of them eventually, and the rest can simply be left to expire without penalty. However, sometimes you can easily spot opportunities; for example, they ask for aluminum, and there is an aluminum mine just one gate over.Trading Strategy 2: Compare and ContrastAdvantages to this strategy:

  • Reliable; if there is a good trade route you will eventually find it
  • Scales well with your resources later in the game
  • Lowest risk

Disadvantages:

  • Can be tedious; requires the most “bookwork” of the listed methods, but a better trading system upgrade can alleviate this
  • Not quite as quick as the resource shortage spam strategy early on, as you don’t sell your goods for quite as high a price

In a populated sector, open the trading menu. Sort either by name (which helps you compare good-by-good with other sectors) or by price ratio (requires at least an advanced trading module; may be harder to compare good-by-good but may save time focusing only on the goods with most potential). and take note of as many good prices as you can manage to (taking screenshots and pasting into an image viewer is one way to do it). Travel to another sector (or several other sectors) and do the same. You want to find a station that sells a good cheap, that another station will buy for more, i.e. “buy low, sell high”.

Also, check that:

  • The good is not “dangerous” or “illegal”, or you have/can get the license for it
  • The destination station has enough stock space for you to sell the goods.

Rarer trading modules can help this strategy by cutting down on this bookkeeping significantly, essentially automatically finding opportunities for you. However, only prices are shown, not stock space.

Trading Strategy 3: Roving Merchant

Advantages:

  • Scales well with your resources later in the game
  • Less “bookwork” than the previous two methods

Disadvantages:

  • You really want at least the uncommon “Improved Trading System” to be able to easily judge if a good is cheap/expensive compared to the base value. You can use the common one and compare it with the Avorion Trading Goods Table [en.avorion.philipp-guttmann.de] (note that base price per unit is the first number in the brackets, not the number outside; that’s base price per volume), but that could end up being more bookwork than the second method, negating one of this method’s chief advantages
  • Moderate risk of getting stuck with a good that you can’t sell. It can be mitigated, but requires at least some familiarity with which goods are easy or hard to sell.

If you’ve ever played games like the Tradewinds series, you’d be familiar with this strategy. Basically, go to a sector, buy something that’s cheap compared to base price, then sell whenever you find a buyer offering a good price. Other than the price ratio, you should also consider:

  • “Bulkiness”, i.e. if a good has low value compared to the volume it takes up, it’s less desirable
  • Ease of finding a consumer station. If the Avorion Trading Goods Table [en.avorion.philipp-guttmann.de] lists only “Trading Post” as a consumer (which means you can only sell it if a trading post generates with that good in its sell list), or if it lists only one or two specialist factories e.g. “Targeting Systems Factory” and you don’t know for a fact that one is nearby, avoid that good.
  • As per usual, only ship dangerous or illegal goods if you’re willing to take the risk or buy the license.

by sphen


Similar Posts:


Share your love

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

จัดอันดับเว็บพนัน