Elite: Dangerous Rare Trading Goods Routes

Shilka

Hardcore
In this topic I will post some rare trading goods routes. In general hauling rare trading goods is good for making (relatively) quick credits in the early/medium stages of the game. Once you have a large trading vessle at your disposal, rare trading goods become less interesting as you can make more credits by finding a good regular trading route.



What are rare trading goods?:

Rare trading goods are commodities that are specific to a certain station. They are only available to buy at that certain station, and can be sold anywhere else (unless they are a banned substance at the station where you want to sell them).

Rare goods are always sparcely available, so don't be surprised a station has only a stock of 2. The maximum of rare goods stock lies around 18, be happy if you can get 10-12. If you can only buy a stock of 2, it might be a plan to wait for a few minutes to see if more comes available. However, the game looks at a certain threshold for that rare trading good in your inventory, reach this threshold and no new goods will come available. This number, as well as the maximum stock is different per rare trading good, so usually if you manage to buy a stock of 5+ it's wise to move on immediately.

The selling price of rare goods increases with distance from the station where you bought them, in general they are best sold 130-160 lighyears from it's origin. Selling them at shorter distance will yield much less profit, selling them further away won't increase price much further anymore. Usually a profit per ton of 12,000 - 15,000 credits is what you're looking for as a selling point.

If a rare good is banned at the station where you try to sell it (it won't show up in the commodities market screen), you can still sell it at the black market (provided there is one). Entering a station with rare trading goods that are within a banned goods range for that station (for example drugs) will never get you a fine/wanted status.

Keep in mind that proceedings can vary wildly, especially on shorter routes. I you have 5 stations in a row that only have 2 goods in stock you'll abviously make much less money then when they all have 10+ stocks.



General recommendations for hauling rare goods:

You'll be hauling long distances, so make sure you have a maximum sized fuel tank. Also buy the best frameshift drive you can afford to minimize the amount of jumps you'll have to make inbetween stations, and make sure your electrical systems match to prevent overheating from making repeated FSD jumps. You can opt for (temporarily) stripping your ship of unnecesary weight, but I'd advise to keep your shields because hauling rare trade goods will make you an interesting target for pirates, both NPC and human.

When setting up a route to the next station in the galaxy map, make sure to set up the routefinder to use fastest route, not economical, or it will take you way too much time to travel. Only use economical routing if you can't make it on your fueltank, but even then it's better to use fastest route, and study the galaxy map to note a fuel stop en route.

Buying prices of rare trade goods vary from a few hundred to well over 8,000 credits per ton, so make sure to have enough money to initiate the trade run (and always leave enough spare to cover your insurance costs at all times of course)



General instructions for using the posted trade routes:

At a station listed, buy any rare trade goods available. They will be highlighted in a lighter orange/yellow color in the commodities market list. Check if any of the tradegoods you already have aboard have reached the advised selling point (profit per ton). I will post this advised selling point for each trade route. Sell when applicable. Then use the galaxy map to plot a route to the next station in the list.

At the end of each trade route you'll always have some rare trade commodities left that haven't reach the advised selling point yet. You then have 4 options:

  • Sell them at the end point at reduced profit
  • Travel to your 'homebase'/preferred system and sell them there, in particular at a station with a faction that you want to improve your standing with
  • Travel to a random system a couple hundred lightyears away to sell at maximum profit
  • Start doing the traderoute in reversed order and sell at adviced selling point

Note that for some income on the side, if you have a discovery scanner, you can easily do system scans on route inbetween stations on the fly to have some extra generated income from exploration, and if you have the time you can also check for valuable planets/stars to do a detailed scan. Though exploration doesn't pay as much per hour as trading, it can be a welcoming change of pace at times, and you'll be passing heaps of unknown systems on the way anyway.

Posted rare trading goods routes will always follow the following manner of listing:

System name (distance to this system from the previous system in lightyears) - Station name (distance from system entry point to station in lightseconds)

I won't bother with posting the names of all the rare goods, you'll always have to buy the only rare commodity listed that is on stock, usually, but not always, it will have the system name in it's name (like in the Vega system you can buy Vega Slimweed)


Any further recommendations I will post per route that I post :)
 
Last edited:

Shilka

Hardcore
Re: Rare Trading Goods Routes

Route type:
  • Relatively short rare trade goods route
  • Semi-linear, meaning every next station will be further away from all previous stations
  • Very suitable for back and forth travel, even advised
  • Suitable for low value ships

Advised selling point:
  • Sell when profit per ton is at least 12,000 credits
  • Note that short routes are not suitable for much higher profit margins

Ship advisory:
  • Hauler with maximum upgraded cargospace or better
  • 14 tonnes cargospace minimum, 18+ tonnes cargospace advised


Average profit:
  • 500,000 credits
  • Excluding fuel and repair costs
  • Assuming average stock of 6 at stations, and assuming any left over goods at the end of the trip will eventually be sold at at least advised profit margin
  • Warning, profit on short routes can vary wildly (between 170,000 and 1,008,000 on this specific route)
Route:
  • Vanayequi () - Clauss Hub (82 Ls)
  • V1688 Aquilae - Littlewood Terminal (282 Ls) - optional midway refuel point
  • Xihe (98 LY) - Zhen Dock (1970 Ls)
  • Eranin (80 LY) - Azeban City (295 Ls)
  • Ethgreze (43 LY) - Bloch Station (351 Ls)
  • Rusani (70 LY) - Fernandes Market (73 Ls)
  • Damna (72 LY) - Nemere Market (2521 Ls)
 
Last edited:

Shilka

Hardcore
Re: Rare Trading Goods Routes

Route type:

  • Long rare trade goods route
  • Non-linear, meaning it can take up to 6 additional stations before you're far away enough to sell a rare commodity again. However, jump distance between stations are shorter, so you pick up more goods per hour
  • Only suitable for medium ships upwards (all stations checked for having a large landing platform too)
  • With 23 stations this route can take 3-4 hours to complete (depending on how heavily you will be loaded, jump range, interdictions etc)


Advised selling point:

  • Sell when profit per ton is at least 13,500 - 16,000 credits

Ship advisory:

  • Lakon type 6 or better
  • 80 tonnes cargospace minimum (for 13,500 profit/ton selling point) or 100+ cargospace (for 16,000 profit/ton selling point)


Average profit:

  • 1,863,000 - 2,208,000 credits
  • Excluding fuel and repair costs
  • Assuming average stock of 6 at stations, and assuming any left over goods at the end of the trip will eventually be sold at at least advised profit margin
  • Warning, when hauling rare trade goods profit can vary due to limited stock (roughly between 621,000 and 4,416,000 credits on this specific route, end to end once)

Route:
  • Kongga () - Laplace Ring (254 Ls)
  • Esuseku (55 LY) - Savinykh Orbital (278 Ls)
  • Thrutis (65 LY) - Kingsbury Dock (291 Ls)
  • Rusani (56 LY) - Fernandes Market (73 Ls)
  • Bast (69 LY) - Hart Station (205 Ls)
  • Zeessze (33 LY) - Nicollier Hanger (489 Ls)
  • George Pantazis (15 LY) - Zamka Platform (46 Ls)
  • Epsilon Indi (27 LY) - Mansfield Orbiter (140 Ls)
  • Altair (17 LY) - Solo Orbiter (667 Ls)
  • Xihe (41 LY) - Zhen Dock (1970 Ls)
  • Coquim (62 LY) - Hirayama Installation (606 Ls)
  • Phiagre (30 LY) - Greeboski's Outpost (85 Ls)
  • HR 7221 (50 LY) - Veron City (1885 Ls)
  • CD-75 661 (54 LY) - Kirk Dock (339 Ls)
  • Baltah'Sine (41 LY) - Baltah'Sine Station (356 Ls)
  • Aerial (59 LY) - Andrade Legacy (179 Ls)
  • Jaroua (61 LY) - McCool City (143 Ls)
  • Goman (64 LY) - Gustav Sporer Port (273 Ls)
  • Wuthielo Ku (86 LY) - Tarter Dock (172 Ls)
  • Yaso Kondi (66 LY) - Wheeler Market (113 Ls)
  • Kamitra (65 LY) - Hammel Terminal (83 Ls)
  • LHS 1110 - Iben City (928 Ls) - Optional midway refuel point
  • Utgaroar (107 LY) - Fort Klarix (171 Ls)
  • Tarach Tor (30 LY) - Tranquility (359 Ls)
 
Last edited:

Shilka

Hardcore
Re: Rare Trading Goods Routes

Posted a short and long rare commodity route.

In case these are very far from where you are, let me know and I will see if I can taylor a route for you near your location (so starting point roughly within 80 LY from you)
 

little P

Super Mod
Re: Rare Trading Goods Routes

Very nice Shilka, the first rares run posted served me well at the beginning and lifted me out of space poverty when I was struggling for credits, thanks again :)

Now I'm almost within touching distance of the Clipper.... so.... close....
 

tmtm

Admin
Re: Rare Trading Goods Routes

I took a couple hundred thousand of my bounty hunting cash and sunk it into my Cobra last night. I made the long Eravate -> Lave trip (I've never been so far from home!) and am going to try hauling rares. I found this route that seems easy and I'm going to give it a try.

lkRWdtw.jpg
 
I tried that route a few times it came out less than my other route. Shinrarta dezhra is a permit system where you need one elite title to enter.

[video=youtube;kAiY213yKwA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAiY213yKwA[/video]

This is the run i have been doing netting around 500k to 800k a hour. I changed it up a little i start/finish in Geras system yurchikhin port do it taking 25 mins to get to. You are safe to leave the Pc after 150c speed no interdiction that far out. this my run.

Geras - yurchikhin port (start)

fujin - futen st.

39 tauri - porta

witchhaul - hornby Tr. ( only if i cannot fill up on the first 3)

zaonce - ridley scott ( sell here)

lave - lave station

leesti - George Lucas

diso - shifnalport

uszaa - guest inst.

orrere - sharon lee free market

Then back to geras to sell. Yurchikhin port has all the maxed outfitting for the cobra internals. So i was able to buy an A4 fitting almost every run.
 

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