🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3iro035f1po6dkustuu7hd2ntkgr4b5e58@4ax.com>, 
nospam_Holinski@shaw.ca says...
> 
> Any advice would be appreciated.  :^)
> 

Hi Jeff, you obviously have more experience than I do (I am just about to crack 
my first million cash) so ....

However, I have to say that I've turned my first mercury (vanilla, not tanker) 
loose in Empire's Edge as a system trader and he's made around 800,000 in about 
3 hours of realtime. Last time I looked he was level 10. Of course he's also 
hugely improved my standing with the Paranid. Had to manually trade energy 
there before they would even let me dock most stations.

I find there's a lot of advantage in speed. My two traders, the said Mercury (~
3200 cargo space) and the Tucan (?)(1000 cargo space)  I have, both have 
improved their performance out of sight after I got their speed cranked up to 
max. Have to beat those supertankers to the good bargains!

I have read that traders, especially universe traders, can get stuck in stupid 
unprofitable loops and supposedly you can fix it by re-initializing them. I 
don't _think_ the pilot will lose his experience level that way. 

Do you have some navigation satellites scattered about? I am not sure if the AI 
pilots look at that info --- come to think of it, I think they start using that 
info from a certain level onwards.

As for making money off combat:
Me, I've had absolutely no luck trying to capture ships. The only time I've 
been lucky and had a pirate eject, I was still a raw newb and didn't know that 
you can not reduce speed with a menu open, susequently I smacked into an 
obstacle and died while frantically pressing x and z keys trying to remember 
which one of the two slows you down. Heh. Only time anything ever ejected for 
me. It's a good way of quickly boosting your rep with a race though - that's 
how I got the Paranid to start opening their stations to me.

Trying to figure out what would be a better combat ship that my startup-Buster.
The moment I try to take on any group that has an M3+2@M5 or a couple of M4s in 
it I am toast. <sigh> Do you take other ships along as support craft?

Any insights you would like to share in return, will be appreciated ;-)

-P.

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