Epic trade route - epilogue
21 Sep 2015Bullet
So last Friday I embarked on an Epic Trade Route... After I came home from work I began a journey that I thought I could knock out in no time. Boy, was I wrong. After 5 hours of jumping, exploring, fighting and trading, I was barely 20% into this trade route and 400 or more light years from where I began and sleeping in a clean but unfamiliar Starport. The next morning, with coffee and bagel in hand I continued my journey. The local star wouldn't rise for about two more hours and I was ready to make some credits. I've come this far, I'm not turning back now... Well 15 hours later the local star has been below the horizon for at least an hour now and I'm still only about 75% of the way through this route. That should give you an idea of just how big this trade route is.
Sunday morning was very much like Saturday morning except it was toast instead of a bagel... My son ate the last bagel yesterday. Needless to say, 8 hours later I was finally pulling into Bode Vision with a full cargo hold of Imperial Slaves and bringing up the commodities market screen to off load the entire lot. The mission was finally finished and it only took me about 28 hours to complete. Along the way I killed a bunch of pirates and mapped about 10 small systems (all under 8 discovered objects). These two activities alone account for only a few of the 28 hours invested into this route not to mention heading into an unplanned route station stop here and there to collect the local bounty I had just earned. And while we're talking about earned bounty vouchers, this brings me to a bothersome time consuming activity that I was forced to undertake only due to my own absent mindedness. TIP: Always remember to turn in your bounty vouchers in the system you earned them in. No less than six different times during my trip I had to back track about 100 or so light years to collect a forgotten bounty.. (I hate unresolved transactions)
Now mind you, I could have slogged through the route faster and maybe even finished it on Saturday but to do that would have meant missing out on the enjoyment of some marvelous vistas and beautiful systems that I encountered along the way. Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the roses, not to mention kill the greedy pirates that are looking for some fast credits selling YOUR cargo. This route is meant to be enjoyed, not just grinding through quickly to make credits.
There are plenty of unexplored systems you must fly through along this epic trade route to reach your destinations and stopping to map them out can take a long, long time. The choice is yours. With about 50 systems to trade in and 62 trade route stops, this isn't your ordinary, everyday, run of the mill trade route. With an average of 2.5 system jumps between trade route stops there are well over 120 systems to fly through before this journey is complete. Not one of the trade route stops is at an outpost either so large trade ships are recommended for maximum profits.
I so enjoyed this epic trade route that I would like to do it again only this time it would be nice to have a few wingmen along so we can make even more credits off of trade dividends. Either that or I need a bigger ship with a lot more cargo space. Any commanders interested in taking this journey, let me know. We can discuss our schedules and plan a trip.
The route is well documented and actually could use a little refining as a couple of cargo manifests that may have been legal at one time in the past are now illegal and it sure would be nice to see to it that all transported cargo is legal to trade within the routes systems. This will eliminate those pesky 100,000 credit fines for trying to smuggle tobacco into a system that forbids the stuff.. Fortunately there are only two or three stops presently that require illegal cargo but the profits are good as you can imagine. The average cargo profit is about 1000 Cr/tonne throughout the entire trip. Some hauls are less, some are more but it all averages out.
One thing to think about before flying this route. You will need to devote your time, resources, and make a commitment to this trip. If you don't think you can complete this trip with the wing then maybe this trip isn't for you. Another thing that would be mandatory is voice comms. While In game texting is do-able, I prefer voice comms so the wing can perform better and fly smarter.
Sound interesting Commander?
CMDR Bullet