Credit making summary (spoiler warning)

[iXenon]

I just tested, 'Trade Distribution' actually works!! And is much better than CLS. The trick is to set 'wait' of both fill and unload to true. It will then wait until enough products are produced and sell the weapons to the dock one batch at a time, all automatic.

Hi, are you sure it will sell goods instead of just deliver them without being paid? For me it works exactly in that way - it moves the goods but earns no money for that!

UPD: I should have checked the station account - money are there!

UPD2: It works for me now, but the ship with TDR doesn't wait till enough product is produced. It takes some and goes to sell. Did you see such behavior?

[iXenon]

I'll just compare EBCs to this. 1 load of 110 5mj shields takes up 330 space. This takes an XXL factory 2 cycles to produce, that's 32 minutes. If an S factory produces 3 shields per cycle then the XXL produces 60, right? 110 shields is worth 2,570,920. There's only time for 2 cycles until the EBC forge completes one cycle, so 60x2x23,372=2,804,640.
What about the EBC? An XXL EBC forge produces 20 EBCs per cycle. That's worth 3,022,880.
The EBCs also only take up 20 space compared to the shields which take up 60x2x3=360 space. Want to know how much 360 EBCs are worth? 54,411,840. If you were carting 360 space of stuff to be sold at a Dock, would you prefer EBCs or Shields?

The matter with credits over time is that goods are not produced at a continuous rate but at discrete intervals at the completion of production cycle. So you either get all the money then or none in between.

Sorry for the late answer, was busy with my shield complex. No doubt that EBC if more effective if we talk about cargo, I'm fully agree with that. The only thing that's still not clear for me that why it matters.
If we compare fabrics with different cycle time then we shouldn't rely on that time. One fabric produces goods for 1m each 10 cycle of minutes, another 2m each cycle of 20 minutes and third one 6m each cycle of 1 hour. Which is more profitable? Simple calculation shows that each of them earns 6m per hour, so they are equivalent.

EBC cycle time is 50 minutes (let's don't count some seconds here) while 5MJ Sh cycle time is 20 minutes, so it's better to compare fabrics when they both finish their cycles at the same time. And this time interval is 100 minutes which means 2x cycle for EBC and 5 cycles for 5MJ Shields.
An EBC XXL will produce 151,144*20*2=6,045,760 (2 cycles with 20 pieces per cycle)
An 5MJ XXL will produce 23,372*60*5=7,011,600 (5 cycles with 60 pieces per cycle) for exactly same time interval that means it's ~16% more effective.

In result, it means one additional million per XXL fabric each 100 minutes or, if we have 5-plex XXL complex, it will be additional 50k every minute. That's why I decided to build 5 MJ Shield complex instead of EBC complex. But I like your idea in general and v_make's finding for that TDR solution will help to get a lot of money in the game.

And answering for that question:

If you were carting 360 space of stuff to be sold at a Dock, would you prefer EBCs or Shields?

Of course, I'd prefer EBC but it will take more time to get EBCs for the same money as it could be done for 5 MJ shields. That's the point.

[v_make]

UPD2: It works for me now, but the ship with TDR doesn't wait till enough product is produced. It takes some and goes to sell. Did you see such behavior?

What I can confirm is that TDR will wait until enough products are produced if you explicitly set 'true' to 'wait' on the load/fill command.

[Jimmy C]

What I can confirm is that TDR will wait until enough products are produced if you explicitly set 'true' to 'wait' on the load/fill command.

In my experience, if "wait" is "yes" then the Load command actually waits to get the full specified quantity. Fill takes one batch of items, then moves on to the next instruction, whether you set "wait" to "yes" or "no". I haven't gotten around to seeing if Unload and Stock behave the same way. However, those two commands have their own issues. Namely, the quantity limit setting on those commands are based on the cargo bay size of the ship running the command, not the destination, which is the more important number. This means, you cannot use those two commands to control the quantity of the item at the destination if the destination has a larger cargo bay than the ship running the TD.

[v_make]

In my experience, if "wait" is "yes" then the Load command actually waits to get the full specified quantity. Fill takes one batch of items, then moves on to the next instruction, whether you set "wait" to "yes" or "no". I haven't gotten around to seeing if Unload and Stock behave the same way. However, those two commands have their own issues. Namely, the quantity limit setting on those commands are based on the cargo bay size of the ship running the command, not the destination, which is the more important number. This means, you cannot use those two commands to control the quantity of the item at the destination if the destination has a larger cargo bay than the ship running the TD.

Yes, I did test load only... But if you can make sure the ship has 0 target ware before 'load/fill' then you can use 'load' as an alternative to 'fill'.
To control the destination quantity:
- I find that if it's your own station, then TDR will respect the min-max value set at the destination.
- Also, is the stock command not working?

[Jimmy C]

Yes, I did test load only... But if you can make sure the ship has 0 target ware before 'load/fill' then you can use 'load' as an alternative to 'fill'.

For the first loop, yes. But there are applications where the ship has run through all the instructions and is starting over again, but it still has leftover wares onboard. Depending on the application, 'load' can result in overloading.

- I find that if it's your own station, then TDR will respect the min-max value set at the destination.

The problem is when the station can hold 1000 of the ware, but the ship only 500. TD won't let you set "Unload 1000 of ware at station" You can only set 500. Most obvious case is ECells at the HQ. It can store in the millions, it's impossible to instruct a ship to maintain ECell quantities there above the tens of thousands with any accuracy.

- Also, is the stock command not working?

I don't know, I've been able to avoid it so far. Will have to test it.

[Sovereign01]

With the HQ I set it to "buy" in the trade settings for ecells at max price and let the NPC traders take care of the rest. Because I located it in the hub there's no shortage of traders willing to sell to me

[Jimmy C]

With the HQ I set it to "buy" in the trade settings for ecells at max price and let the NPC traders take care of the rest. Because I located it in the hub there's no shortage of traders willing to sell to me

Mine's located with my main complex and supplied from it. The problem with maintaining the ecell level left me to topping off resources there manually whenever I wanted to build stuff. It's not that hard. The main thing I build is 100 Boarding Pods. I can hold all the small components in one big TS. The Ore, Silicon and ECells are the ones that need a few more TS each, but it's manageable. I load those into TLs parked next to the complex to deliver to the HQ.

But I still have plenty of materials left from the last few ships I disassembled, so I don't need full loads for a while.

[v_make]

The problem is when the station can hold 1000 of the ware, but the ship only 500. TD won't let you set "Unload 1000 of ware at station" You can only set 500. Most obvious case is ECells at the HQ. It can store in the millions, it's impossible to instruct a ship to maintain ECell quantities there above the tens of thousands with any accuracy.

This one is reasonable because you won't be able to unload more than 500 if your ship can hold only 500.
To maintain ECells at the HQ, set a max number for ECells at HQ, have a ship TDR with 'unload' command (and enable wait if you want to, this one will work).
My HQ has been refueled with a maximum 300000 ECells for days without error.

For the first loop, yes. But there are applications where the ship has run through all the instructions and is starting over again, but it still has leftover wares onboard. Depending on the application, 'load' can result in overloading.

It all depends on the situation.
If your ship carries only one specific ware, then overloading may not be a problem since it won't use up capacity for other wares.
If your ship carries jump fuel too, it will not be a problem since jump fuel is transferred instantly after docking, before any TDR commands.

[Jimmy C]

This one is reasonable because you won't be able to unload more than 500 if your ship can hold only 500.

Unfortunately, Stock works the same way. You can't set a Stock number higher than the TD ship's capacity, even if being able to makes sense. And I would like something that could maintain ware quantity at a destination ship.

It all depends on the situation.
If your ship carries only one specific ware, then overloading may not be a problem since it won't use up capacity for other wares.

In the interest of not overloading the docking ports on my complex, I'd like to have each transfer ship carry more than one ware.

[radgoat]

I can't understand selling method but how to acquire jump beacon tip looks really cool.
Since I can't jump right into "Darkwater Beta" sector, this could be a thing.
I will try to catch that beacon sabre.
Thank you for the tip.

[Sovereign01]

I can't understand selling method but how to acquire jump beacon tip looks really cool.
Since I can't jump right into "Darkwater Beta" sector, this could be a thing.
I will try to catch that beacon sabre.
Thank you for the tip.

If you fly the Scorpion, use Mass Drivers to reduce the Sabre's hull (and slow it down) to <90% first before using PBEs, if using the one-ship method.

The two-ship method is very similar only the hull should be reduced to (almost) nothing, something like <2.5% and most easily done with only one or two MDs firing, before switching to an Ion Disruptor-equipped ship to drain the shields. The Mako is perfect, although because the Sabre will be flying very slowly at that point, any ID ship could keep up.

[v_make]

I can't understand selling method but how to acquire jump beacon tip looks really cool.
Since I can't jump right into "Darkwater Beta" sector, this could be a thing.
I will try to catch that beacon sabre.
Thank you for the tip.

The original ship delivery works like this:
- dock the required ship at the station
- choose to transfer the ownership of that ship and get paid for everything on board
- the required ship slowly undocks, but it's still your property
- the required ship jumps into oblivion

So you can 'sell' the beacon like this:
- have <=7 beacons on board the required ship
- dock the required ship at the station
- choose to transfer the ownership of that ship and get paid for everything on board
- the required ship slowly undocks, but it's still your property
- transfer the beacons back to your own ship
- the required ship jumps into oblivion

[Sovereign01]

Jump beacons. The gift that keeps on giving!

[BrigandPhantos77]

Jump beacons. The gift that keeps on giving!

You betta share those beacons or else Imma break out the Brigantine.

[Sovereign01]

Jump beacons. The gift that keeps on giving!

You betta share those beacons or else Imma break out the Brigantine.

As it happens, I've got 12 beacons squirrelled away in the Hub itself, 2 more in space and one at each of my 5 complexes minus one that was destroyed by the Xenon. That leaves one jump beacon unaccounted for- you wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?

[BrigandPhantos77]

Jump beacons. The gift that keeps on giving!

You betta share those beacons or else Imma break out the Brigantine.

As it happens, I've got 12 beacons squirrelled away in the Hub itself, 2 more in space and one at each of my 5 complexes minus one that was destroyed by the Xenon. That leaves one jump beacon unaccounted for- you wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?

I may or may not have reprogrammed a K or 2.

[Sovereign01]

You betta share those beacons or else Imma break out the Brigantine.

As it happens, I've got 12 beacons squirrelled away in the Hub itself, 2 more in space and one at each of my 5 complexes minus one that was destroyed by the Xenon. That leaves one jump beacon unaccounted for- you wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?

I may or may not have reprogrammed a K or 2.

One K was my limit- having boarded, RE'd and rebuilt an I by virtue of going after that first I grabbed the K purely for the sake of having the blueprints. Because I got that last it'll be a while I'm gonna have to use the All-seeing eye to find that beacon. I'm rapidly running out of mountains to climb in FL, one of the last ones being blueprints. Working on getting the ones from Atreus, found that I can acquire their transport without needing to buy it as I lack the notoriety.

I'll probably be switching to X4 before too long!

[Jimmy C]

Since there's been some activity here again, I'll post one more method of quick money we overlooked earlier. It's not much, but you are given the tools needed free of charge during the initial plot of the game.

Stealing and reselling via Cargo Bay Hacker max 2,246,016 per successful attempt

You are provided with one copy of the Cargo Bay Hacker equipment during the course of the initial plot of FL. This hacker can steal from stations as well as ships. If you steal items from a Dock, you can steal then sell the same item back to the Dock again indefinitely. So what's the best thing to steal with the CBH?

That would be the Single Use Jump Beacon at the Terracorp HQ in Home of Light alpha, at 2,246,016 credits per beacon. So the steps are:

• Get friendly with Terracorp. You need to be able to dock to resell the beacons and friendlier relations may improve the odds of stealing successfully.

• Steal a beacon from the Terracorp HQ. Just one will do, no need to risk failure by trying for more at one time. Beacons are automatically replenished, just like Pods at Military Outposts.

• Dock to the HQ and sell the Beacon.

• Repeat 2 and 3 for as much money as you want.

It will take 446 successful steal and resell cycles to get one billion credits. Each cycle takes between 30 and 60 seconds, including time taken for the autosave, which also gives you a convenient retry point in case you fail an attempt, so you shouldn't bypass it. That lets you reach your first billion within 4 to 7.5 hours at this. You can do this with nothing more than what you are given at the completion of the initial plot.

[Jimmy C]

As if the single ship delivery mission jump beacon fraud isn't lucrative enough already, I've found that there are situations where you can double your reward! If you are lucky enough to have two people on the same station asking for the same ship type, like they both want a Boron TP. You just deliver one Boron TP (with 7 beacons, of course) to the station and both missions will register as completed! You just got paid twice for the same ship!

I don't know if this will work the same if one asks for a Boron TP and the other asks for a Manta Hauler specifically. This was the first time I ever even saw two missions ask for the same thing. So keep an eye out.

In theory, triple or more rewards should be possible, but the odds of so many asking for the same thing on the same station are miniscule.