Back to Earth

I had to report back to Earth after destroying the robot, so another quick jump and I'm back in Sol system. The promise of another good trade coaxed me toward Venus first, but the rock trail led me over to Dream instead.


Uhh, how did they get in there? Maybe they misheard me order the new laser I picked up from The Golden Calf?
Maybe ;)

On Dream there was an AWESOME new ship. It was a special order from the Minnaver Space Docks, complete with droid tunnels for increased droid repair. Don't quite have enough, but it looks like an excellent buy!

Nothing else was worth buying on my way to Venus, so I left the hold empty for more rock collecting. There seems to be quite a bit just floating around the solar system. Why isn't anyone else hoovering it up?

At Venus I may have found the answer. My gripper was almost broken from overuse and took 100cr to fix! Still, that's only ~10 tonne of rock. I must have shunted close to 150 tonne by now.

The Venetian traders also had a repair droid for sale that I had my eye on last time through. It's an early model, but it's been enhanced from the normal 5 units of repair to 13 units. The trader had indicated that they help fix minor damage from, say, running into asteroids, and can also be a godsend in a dogfight extending your lifespan. Well, technically the hull's lifespan, but once the hull goes, you go. So I think the important thing here is ensuring I don't .. err .. go.

Most of my equipment (including the shiny new droid) had to be left behind on Venus to make way for ~230 tonnes of medicine destined for Earth. Prices for Equipment had reversed too, so I made a double trip to keep the trader in me happy.

There was enough in the kitty to head back to Dream to see if that Gaalian hull was still there. It was, and now it's mine. A dream come true! (heh)


There was a slimline gripper on sale too. It was pretty busted up, but worth the 1200 credits to complete the set of lightweight components to go with the new hull. Now I'm flat broke, but grinning from ear to ear!

Time vs Money

Another potential gain is to sell the equipment quickly. If you can make 500cr profit in 5days rather than in 10 days it would be better because you could then have the potential to make more in the remaining 5 days. Eventually all trades come down to a rate of increase of your credits. The faster the better.

As it happens, Venus is passing very close to Earth in its orbit as well as Oldy, the Ranger Station. Dropping off the goods there would mean a sale in 2 days or 4 days respectively compared to an 8 day trek across the solar system to Dream. Earth being the closest is an obvious choice as long as it has around the same prices.

Turns out it's got better prices! 95cr per equipment means that I'll rake in an extra 700cr over what I was expecting. Quick! Turn around and sell some more while the prices are running hot!

Full Hull vs High Returns

The hull conundrum bred some interesting choices. Do I leave minerals in my hull due to the current poor price, or do I clear them out for more manufactured equipment that is offered at an unbelievable rate? Time for some math:

1) 38 tonnes @ 6cr now would give 228cr to bring my total to 2665. That would allow buying 42 tonnes of equipment @ 63cr each. Selling all 42 for potentially 77cr would eventually net 3234cr. Add the 19cr we'd have left after buying the equipment would mean we should have 3253cr.

2) Leave the rocks for now and get 11cr when I get back to Dream. 38 tonnes would give 418cr. The hull can only take another 29 tonne, so 29 equipment @ 63 would cost 1827 (which we have) and net 2233cr if selling at 77cr each in Dream. That would mean we should have 2437 - 1827 + 2233 + 418 = 3261cr

So it's (marginally) better to leave the rocks in the hull. The first solution suffers from having a partly empty hull. All our money has been invested in high return equipment, but the free areas of the hull could have been used to make additional profit off the rocks we sold at a lower price.

The opposite is true for solution 2; We have 610cr left over after filling our hull with equipment, but equipment would make more money (63->77=14cr) per unit of space than carrying the rocks (6->11=5cr). We'd be better off filling our hold with as much equipment that we could buy

So solution 3, try to maximize both hull space and money:
3) If we sell 10 units of rocks @ 6cr we bolster our initial money from 2437 to 2497, which will allow us to buy 39 units of equipment, the exact amount of space we have left. So we'd leave Venus with 0 tonnes of space and 40cr to our name. We'd then sell off the remaining 28 tonnes of rock @ 11cr for 308cr and sell off the 39 units of equipment for potentially 77cr to make 3003cr. That should leave us with 40 + 308 + 3003 = 3351cr! Almost 100cr better off by just leveraging the capacity of both hull and money.

Rocks for Medicine

On my way to Medical Centre Dream, an asteroid ploughed into my ship! Shook me up a little and bent the mining laser a little. Hmm, mining laser. Maybe I'm supposed to shoot the rocks? The explosion left a couple of lesser rocks that the ship's scanner picked up as valuable, so I let the gripper do its thing and dragged them aboard.

Turns out the scanner was right. Traders were happy to part with more meds when shown the rocks I'd collected. Might be a worthwhile venture; I give you rocks, you give me money. Win / Win.

Medicine to Venus

It's amazing how much a little ranger badge changes people's attitude toward you. I was able to head straight in to the chancellor's office to receive a mission rather than being a guard's punching bag.

Sounds like there's an outbreak on Venus again; Infoclemidia. I'm tasked to take them a hull full of stims from the medical base to 'ease the pressure'. Might turn a tidy profit too!