[AP]CLS, and other things

[IronMask]

Hello. I'm finally getting into the swing of things on this playthrough now and I have a few questions.

For a start, money making didn't come from trading this time. I went with "Anonymous Argon" and shuttled space fuel until I could afford to kit out the Disco for missions and I was off. Had my first million by the time I'd mapped out the core Argon block, which was waaaaay faster than ever before (although slow in comparison to what I see posted here, but meh). Inspired by some of the things I've read on here, I began a campaign to learn how to use CLS.

It went well, there are currently only three energy cell traders. One based out of The Wall, one out of Power Circle and another out of Sector M148 (want to keep that SPP for the future). However, they are not making me much money, obviously since e-cells are the bottom rung. Will I need to add more guys to the areas, or could I make do with one shuttling a number of different goods?
One's a Logistician now, and it seems sort of wasted to have him running e-cells, but I'm not interested in trapping/anything like that. There's no issue if they get beaten to a few sales, my piracy/missions are keeping up.

Another thing is my rep. I've just got my Paranid rep back up to be able to pass through their sectors, but not dock, and the Boron really aren't too fond of me at the moment. Will this hinder me as I progress through the plots?
Likewise, it seems like a good idea to build my Terran/ATF rep now before I go nuts blowing them all up in my new Dragon for the plot...

Finally, what would you suggest as a loadout for the Dragon?
Currently using all around HEPT's, although when I find more PBE's I'll put a couple of them on the front too.

[Timsup2nothin]

I'll take the CLS question and leave the rest for other folk.

Making money with CLS is like anything else in the trading arena...profits are proportional to volume. The advantage CLS offers is it allows greater volume than anything else. Properly set up CLS ships make all the trades, hence maximum volume.

My CLS guys move energy, and make good income, but their main purpose is to keep factories running, because running factories need minerals and food, which my other CLS guys provide...making me a lot more income. I suggest taking your experienced pilots and putting them on ore or food routes and buying some new ships for apprentices to haul e-cells in.

Something like:

Generate waypoints, Herron's Neb, range 1, buy ore at 60
Generate waypoints, Herron's Neb, range 1, sell ore at 125

will run continuously as long as the fabs in Argon Prime are powered and fed and the mines in Herron's and PC are kept supplied with energy. It turns very good profits and will keep half a dozen apprentices busy and profitable on the e-cell side. Note it takes at least one more experienced pilot to handle keeping Argon Prime fed.

You don't have to set up traps to make a very profitable CLS network, you just need to apply enough ships. Without traps you can easily grab half of the trading volume, and if you get half of the trading volume you will be making way more than any other trading method. Traps are for getting the other half.

[IronMask]

You were quite correct. Added a few more traders to the area, supplying Argon Prime solely (and supporting factories) at the moment and sure enough they're turning a rather handy profit. With the side effect of training up enough pilots that I've been able to keep the Yaki topped up with what they need for future capital ship weaponry.

Thanks

Now to actually obtain a capital ship...