01043305
05 Jan 2019Tregonsee314
New year, need to remember to write that in the logs :-). I'm trying to earn enough to get a decent rig for mining Void Opals and Low Temperature Diamonds. So I fitted the Boise (python) out with 2x6e cabins 1x 5e cabin and headed off to Robigo. Bad news: I've been plying back and forth over the same 1/2 dozen jumps (3 out 3 back) with a ship full of snotty nosed poorly groomed whiny demanding passengers for the last 2 days. Good news: This has yielded over 80Mcr in a relatively short time (BT4Wall about 2.5 Hrs total). It is just worth it. I'm not sure what the attraction in the Sirius Atmospherics is but there's hordes of folks wanting to go. The demands are ludicrous. 3 tons of Appliances? Even the economy class rooms have all the creature comforts of a decent hotel if admittedly cramped. What the hell are you going to do with washers, dryers, refrigerators etc? And 2 tons of Consumer electronics? Admittedly the inflight movies get stale fast but precisely what are you going to do with a networked game system or news pad when the network link is at a painful 2 MB/s and costs 500Cr an hour? On top of that Robigo and Sothis are in the ass end of their respective coalitions. There is NOTHING within 50Ly that could fulfill either of those requests. Oddly no one asks for beer, wine, liquor, Lavian Brandy or onionhead. Not that a ton or two of any of those would be a good idea even with party of 16. The staterooms have automated cleaning but even automation con cover up stale barf only so well.The whole trip is less than a few hours ships frame of reference. Most customers take a nap or use their staterooms in other fashions which don't bear mentioning (Stateroom walls are a bit thin and some of the passengers are well, highly enthusiastic...). Its mostly boring brown dwarfs out and back nothing worth running the view screens for. Not sure why you'd drop 1.5-4.5MCr to do this, but its not my money (well actually now it is :-) )
And then there was the SOB who lied about being wanted in Sothis There were Galcops sniffing at us all the way to Sothis A5. If I hadn't had other paying customers I would have spaced the jerk and his whole entourage even if he did pay 1.5 times the going rate for the trip. I'm a legitimate businessman not some scruffy nerf herder in a 3rd rate space opera who doesn't even smuggle well.
In any case maybe 2-3 more runs and this will be done. Lessons learned
- Max out cabins, I kept a 5e cargo slot and its been riding empty the whole time, that 2-4Mcr a run I'm losing
- Keep all the cabins to 5e. None of the request are for more than 16 people so the 5e are sufficient. Might save some weight
- Get the jump range up to 30 LY (2 might help). I'm fully engineered for extended range 3 but thats NOt quite enough. It means I have 3 jumps out and back instead of 2 and one less jump would improve profit margins
- Oddly this counts towards exploration not trade. C'est La Vie, I'm closser to Elite in exploration anyhow
Hey if you must grind (and sometimes we must) this is probably one of the least offensive ways to do so...