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Guilds Will Hate You For Using this One Simple Trick to Get Rich!!


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Enough people are having economic problems, and it took me a few days to get a leg up on it too, that I figured a small guide might be in order. This is not a complete guide but rather, an intro to the basic idea.

If you want fast (single login session) money (and ignoring PvP for the moment), you can:

* Kill enemy NPCs for basic PvE income.
* Open sea trading.

The first is a flat form of income. You can expect X gold per hour based on what you are doing and how fast you're doing it.

The second is a multiplier on your existing cash. This is important and this is what this (mini-)guide is about.

To this end, your first job is to establish "seed money". This is money you keep in reserve for trading. Let's say your seed money amount is 500,000 gold. If you want to buy something that costs 250,000, you need to build up to 750,000 gold before you buy it so that you do not dip into your seed money. Resist the temptation of spending your seed money. You'll see why:

Imagine there is a port that sells widgets for 1000. ("Widgets" is going to be some trade good. Violins. Pudding. Coffee. Etc.)
You open the trader tool (in the map, in the game) and look up widgets. You find another port that will buy them for 2000.

If you have 10,000 seed money you can buy 10 of them, make one trip and end up with 20,000.
If you have 500,000 seed money you can buy 500 of them, make one trip and end up with 1,000,000.

This is why it's important to keep a good amount of seed money on hand. Clawing your way up to a million starting with 10,000 is going to be slow and painful and you're better off just grinding NPCs. Clawing your way up to a million starting with 500,000 can potentially be done in one trading run. You want to go to that port that sells widgets and have the money to buy all of them.

 

Profits will still be capped by cargo space and how many widgets the port has for sale but you don't want to leave a port sadfaced with room in your cargo hold and widgets left behind in the port because you could not afford to buy them. So that's why you don't dip into your seed money, however tempting that may be.


Trade routes tend to be better the further away you get from populated areas. Everyone is doing this around your capital. They are buying trade goods up as fast as they appear and taking them away to sell, which hurts the value of the run and can mean you're scraping up the last 20 widgets when you had cargo space and money for 500 of them. What you want to find are the more out of the way areas where you can really load up. Try these steps:

1) Sail into some port.
2) Look at the trade goods for sale (trade goods, not resources)
3) Go to the trader tool in the map and search for them.
4) Does any nearby port have a "SELL [to NPC]" price that is higher than the "BUY [from NPC]" cost at this port? If so, there's your route.
5) Look some more. Is there ANY port ANYWHERE around here where you can buy this thing low and then anywhere else that you can sell to for high.

Like you see this port has coffee. They will sell it to you for 400. You look on the trade tool and the highest buy price is 350 so this is not a good trade. But looking closer, you see another port, not too far away, where your buy price is 200. Score! Go there, buy coffee, come back here and sell it.

Note that the trade tool is always out of date and the port may not have the item anymore but if the "A" column is marked then the port had the item at that price sometime in the near past and might have some now.

The more people who do this, the more it wrecks a particular trade run, which is why you want to spread out to do it.


But if you're wondering how everyone else is getting rich while you're still running missions in a Mercury trying to scrape your way back up to 50k gold, this is how they are doing it. With enough cargo space and enough money, you can potentially turn millions into many more millions, if you find the right stash of trade goods to scoop up.

 

Addendum:
Some ports consume crafted materials. Some of these items and ports are already tapped out but do look around for ports that may want to buy crafted materials from you. The price they pay may hugely exceed the click-cost to make the raws and assemble the item so make a bunch, load up and go sell em to the port. This is basically a way of converting labor hours to money, if you need the one more than the other.

P.S.
I wrote this guide knowing perfectly well that the more people who do it, the more they undermine my own profits, but I'm tired of people saying the economy is broken when it's not. Some people are filthy, mega-rich already and this sort of thing is how. Scraping coins together fighting NPCs is really only what you should do to get together basic seed money because you're broke (perhaps because some pirate sank your last trade run....)

P.P.S.
I write this guide so that you, dear reader, become rich and happy and totally not because I want to see a lot more fat traders on the high seas which I will absolutely demast, board and rob. And then keep the ship. And then maybe sell it on the market for even more money.

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Factually, I agree with you, but I regard this as indicative of a broken economy.

Also I don't happen to like playing that particular game, so after a few days of it, following pretty much to the letter the same steps you did, I invested all my money in outposts, buidlings, a workshop and my first coal and iron crop,  I made some cannons and listed them in my capital. They sold. With the profits I harvested more materials and made more cannons. They too sold. I could now upgrade the iron mine and build another. Before too long I was 2x level 2 iron, 1x level 2 coal and 1x level 1 coal and harvesting every last nugget (I knew I'd have to demolish the second coal mine in due course so wanted to stockpile). After about a week, I am now building ships. Only a level 1 shipyard so far but the level 2 will come and I'm burning through every LC I can get hold of (within reasonable cost - wrecks are my firend!).

I only charge a moderate mark up on my sales: 100 per LH which gives me 100k per day for what is now very little work, and I'm undercutting almost everyone else in the marketplace with plenty of choice of what to sell (I try not to compete with other sellers who price their goods reasonably, even if they are a little higher than what I would charge myself).

However, crafting is a money sink, not a money generator. I bring very little money into the server so my own rather smug approach only works because players like @Slamz go out and do the grinding for me. Thank you my friend :)

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This exactly. I was able to get around 800k in the first few days doing this combination with a few others. Invested that money into buildings, ground out a bit more seed money and repeat. I don't know why people are saying its so hard to make money. The trade tools practically give you all the information you need to make money, you just have to look and be willing to go get the stuff.

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4 minutes ago, Arthur Peckington said:

This exactly. I was able to get around 800k in the first few days doing this combination with a few others. Invested that money into buildings, ground out a bit more seed money and repeat. I don't know why people are saying its so hard to make money. The trade tools practically give you all the information you need to make money, you just have to look and be willing to go get the stuff.

The problem  is that folks shouldn't have to trade to get money.  They should be able to loot traders and kills ships to support there econ too.  The rewards for PvE and even PvP is a bit to low compared to how it use to be.  The way to get rich fast is to do trade goods and that honestly is boring as hell.  I spend most my day running around trading and not PvPing like I like.   

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14 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

The problem  is that folks shouldn't have to trade to get money.  They should be able to loot traders and kills ships to support there econ too.  The rewards for PvE and even PvP is a bit to low compared to how it use to be.  The way to get rich fast is to do trade goods and that honestly is boring as hell.  I spend most my day running around trading and not PvPing like I like.   

You CAN just loot traders to support your econ, nothing is stopping you, but trading is more profitable.  

The first night playing a few hours, after the patch came out, i was well over 300k and that was sailing between two ports and trading a single good.   Trading isn't that profitable anymore... its kinda picked over.  

Honestly, if you want to make money focus on what players need.  Build a oak farm and a iron mine, craft hull repairs and sell them under contract..... It will only take a few minutes out of PVE/PVP and if you keep selling them in the areas where people are playing you will make millions. 

If your nation is pushing into a area, help out your nation and keep them in repairs.... you profit and the hostility grind goes much faster.  With as light as repairs are, fill up your combat ship, put them up for sale and join in the fight.

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Just now, admin said:

why?

Because it means the amount of gold entering the server is skewed by a very few players.

Part of the reason for the wipe was a fresh start to control inflation. An ecxellent idea which has been widely accepted by the players. Many of us (not me personally, for reasons stated in my post) are now mired in povery, frightened to lose ships (I'll count myself in that category for now), unwilling to take risks, avoiding rather than embracing PvP, struggling to pay for ships and guns and finding even successful combat barely covers repair and crew costs.

Slamz has posted what all of us who make money do, but he has also highlighted its flaws. If I have 10k then I can make about 10k in a trade run; if I pick the goods and ports well it will take me half an hour in a basic cutter. All well and good. If I have 100k and am a little more careful in my choice of ports I can make 100k; perhaps not in half an hour, but my own preferred trade run takes about 45 minutes in a TBrig and whatever combat class 7 I happen to have. But if I have a million I can make another million; by now I may be restricted to trading between capitals just to be able to get the quantities and profits, but on Global Brits and Dutch have an informal alliance so you'll see Indiamen making the journey between KPR and Willemstad. I haven't tried to worlk out the value per trip but I expect for some players it's over a million, practically risk free since you won't get attacked at the 'enemy' port at the other end.

There is nothing wrong with this in itself. I have no objection to individual players making money; I like to make money myself. But you will - at least I hope you, the Game Labs team will - be looking at the bigger picture. To control inflation you need to balance money entering the server with money leaving. There has to be more money entering for reasons I won't go into here, but the difference should not be too great because that is what leads to inflation. From what I can see, the expenditure side isn't too bad. Sure it may need some tweaks here and there but I've no real complaints. But on the supply side ...

On the supply side you have lots of players making about 10k an hour doing combat missions or OW PvE and stuggling to reach that next ship - Even a Pcikle costs about 50k with guns. But you also have a few players making over a million in a couple of hours, a 50:1 difference. Huge quantities of gold are entering the server and, although the forums are screaming with people complaining they have no money I can easily see you deciding to cut combat rewards (you recently put up NPC ship prices - that went down well, didn't it?) in an attempt to curb inflation ,when it isn't the poor players valiantly fighting that are causing inflationary pressures in the first place.

You might say, well, the 10lk and hour midshipman mission players can just go and follow Slamz' advice and make their millions too. But where would that leave us? Isn't that just promoting the server wealth generation that this post-wipe austerity is supposed to avoid?

I don't have access to the game data and I could be wrong, but please look at how much money is entering and leaving the servers, how, and by how many people. Also look at how much OW combat, how much OW PvP there is compared with times of similar population before the wipe was announced. My guess is there is now less OW activity, except for uncontested RvR grinds for conquest marks (and how many of the playerbase engage in this?). I thought the idea was to encourage OW PvP, but to my eyes the post wipe economy does the opposite.

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44 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

The problem  is that folks shouldn't have to trade to get money.  They should be able to loot traders and kills ships to support there econ too.  The rewards for PvE and even PvP is a bit to low compared to how it use to be.  The way to get rich fast is to do trade goods and that honestly is boring as hell.  I spend most my day running around trading and not PvPing like I like.   

Hence why we need trade function in battle instance so we could get our ransoms :) 

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2 minutes ago, koltes said:

Hence why we need trade function in battle instance so we could get our ransoms :) 

I would honestly let a lot more low level and new players go with their goods and ship if there was such.   I mean I'm a pirate after all.  Just pay me to leave you alone.  Had a guy offer me 200K to night sink him last night, but am I to trust him to pay me at the closes freeport?  Hell no I don't even trust my own more (just joking mom and love you was just getting into char).  I still sunk him well him and his trader cause it was empty and I got more from the kill than the capture.   Poor guy prob back at KPR broke with nothing else...oh wait he had 200K to give me.....

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We need several more ways to make money, I think. One is transport contracts, so that it's easy to get material X from port Y to port Z, without having to go there yourself. The other is bounty contracts since that can make it worthwhile for people to chase down someone notorious (or so annoying that he's got a bounty on his head) despite the risks; risks that would make the "normal" payout of a PvP fight waaaaaay too small for the risk being worth taking.

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47 minutes ago, Remus said:

Because it means the amount of gold entering the server is skewed by a very few players.

Hence, this guide, actually.

It shouldn't be skewed by a very few players. Actually the reason those few players got so rich so fast is because there was no competition. Ports generate a certain amount of trade goods and if literally 5 people are using them then those 5 people will have money coming out of their ears within three days which is pretty much what happened.

But if, say, 100 people are online at any moment of the day all doing this then the money payout thins out. It's harder to load up 4 million in trade goods because not that much is sitting around in one spot. It's getting sniped by the 100s of competing traders who are all looking for the next hot thing.

 

So really I think this is an economic model that works best [for the game] if more people do it.

It also adds to OW traffic and the potential for piracy.

Personally I think it's great. Both people who like peaceful sailing to do buy and sell trades AND PvP pirates (of any nation) should like this system.

My real ideal is that eventually I will not need to do this to raise money because my money will come from ganking traders who are doing this. :-p It does give me hope when I go out hunting, though. Someone, somewhere, right now, is sailing around in 2-3 Trader Brigs loaded with Textile Machines that you could sell for 200,000 each.

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2 hours ago, admin said:
3 hours ago, Remus said:

Factually, I agree with you, but I regard this as indicative of a broken economy.

why?

@admin Today's "economy" is not an economy. Its a way of making money yes. But there is no player interaction, no player driven markets (simply over stocking or clearing shops is not player interactive market).
There should be means to trade globally. The economy that we have now between 2 nearby ports should make 10% profit at most.
In the proper player driven economy the biggest profits to be made from crafting where you craft and sell high quality ships and ship parts that are in demand. Merchant services where you deliver goods from one side of Caribbean to another that triples invested money. Trade hubs that allows all nations to engage in global trading (3-4 such ports that have shops linked would sort all global trading issues. Give PVEers means to enter economy by making exploration content that allows them to gather exploration only resources required for high ticked items/ships crafting, so they could make profits this way. Give them missions where they have to hunt AI ships and kill for a chance to get other types of resources like Black Pearls. Those pearls could be the currency to buy some amazing stuff from Free Nations like Nassau.
You got the idea guys. Economy needs to be PvP too. Not just deliver from La Tortue to Mortimer and back while watching uTube.

We had huge inflation in the past and it will happen again if I understand anything in commerce. The demands are temporary and supply is temporarily low. In just a few weeks we will start seeing some filthy rich clans that owns everything and you will get to square one again.
1 dura ships is awesome. We now need cannons that wear down. Crew that needs to be paid. Ship that needs to have maintenance. Docking berths that needs to be paid for weekly etc etc. You need money sink, not time sink. This will stop the inflation and require person to always be active. Always be out there doing staff.

The 1st step to fix the economy, which is absolutely crucial, is introduction of 3-4 Trade Hubs. This is so easy to do that it can be done in a hot fix. All that is that you could access shops of other trade hubs while being in one of them. Doesn't affect delivery. If I bought goods in TH #1 while being in TH#2 I still need to go there physically and pick them up. Linking 4 ports together should not be hard. This will allow your small nations to survive. This will allow players of all nations to interact in trading.
Who would sail to Talamanca just to check if some players sell anything there? No one. This area is dead. But people would sail and deliver trade goods and ships to those hubs because they are linked making it the largest market place.

These trade hubs also will sort issue of finding targets in the open world. There will be concentration of player activities

DiETXAu.jpg

 

Edited by koltes
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I like the idea [Koltes]. The Pearls like Sealed Bottle can be Dev controlled so low touch in appearance and less clunky than my 3x currencies.

The economy doesn’t push the delivery mission’s system enough. I would like to see the Dev’s push this more and maybe into the 4 trade hubs. Maybe with “$$$” on the UI warning of a high delivery contract available. The PB Blockade with the Delivery Mission is the Golden Goose…

An only Player Driven economy cannot happen. A very dynamic one yes, but at some point, you’ll need the NPC overlay to adjust flows of products services and coin. The Free market economy cannot work in real life, it needs a Government overlay at some point. This is the same with Naval Action…

 

Norfolk

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8 minutes ago, Norfolk nChance said:

I like the idea [Koltes]. The Pearls like Sealed Bottle can be Dev controlled so low touch in appearance and less clunky than my 3x currencies.

The economy doesn’t push the delivery mission’s system enough. I would like to see the Dev’s push this more and maybe into the 4 trade hubs. Maybe with “$$$” on the UI warning of a high delivery contract available. The PB Blockade with the Delivery Mission is the Golden Goose…

An only Player Driven economy cannot happen. A very dynamic one yes, but at some point, you’ll need the NPC overlay to adjust flows of products services and coin. The Free market economy cannot work in real life, it needs a Government overlay at some point. This is the same with Naval Action…

 

Norfolk

Thats why the missions and fights with AI fleet will remain to get you money influx as well as special rare currency that is gathered from drops. Money currencies market will inflate, but rare drops wont. This will keep your investments safe

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Where a port is saturated with material, selling to the shop makes 1 the buy price should be 2 simple as that.

Markup should be no more profit than 50% and sellers  should have the right to sell to anyone placing a contract  they like even at lower cost. 

 

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Great post OP.

It should also be noted that the vast incomes are to some extent given to the early worm, once a trade route becomes known it becomes harder to maximise as others eat the stock and deflate the target sell price. Profit margins in the first week were better than in the second.

Equally, effort/risk is rewarded, there are still some big profit runs, but you either need to setup the requisite outposts, sail a while or buy ships and risk em to benefit.

Overall it works. It is a little weak on the 'dynamic' side and I would really like to see Port Conquest and Raids EFFECT market prices (a bit like Elite...a stressed port will have a higher demand for some items over others and the opposite of course). In a time of war luxury items take a back seat to necessities.

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3 hours ago, Jeheil said:

Great post OP.

It should also be noted that the vast incomes are to some extent given to the early worm, once a trade route becomes known it becomes harder to maximise as others eat the stock and deflate the target sell price. Profit margins in the first week were better than in the second.

Equally, effort/risk is rewarded, there are still some big profit runs, but you either need to setup the requisite outposts, sail a while or buy ships and risk em to benefit.

Overall it works. It is a little weak on the 'dynamic' side and I would really like to see Port Conquest and Raids EFFECT market prices (a bit like Elite...a stressed port will have a higher demand for some items over others and the opposite of course). In a time of war luxury items take a back seat to necessities.

 

If you had an NPC overlay of local currency. Only 3 needed 1 for freeports and Sterling and Dabloons. You must use that local currency in whatever port you are in. The Capitals and Freeports offer the two opposite cross rates.

Here the tweaking can come from FX cross rate rather than the underlying products. This rather than seeing a 1 bid or no offer. The dev's can tweak behind the scenes so to speak without looking like odd supply shortages. FX storage becomes vital to a trade who will cross the map to sell goods but will want to lock in the fx rate...

Balance, with low tweaking

The Dev's can help along the smaller nations giving them better buying power, while the super nations will see their rates dilute with their region. The side effect also means you got to move out of your nations safety hubs...

 

Norfolk

Apologies [SLAMZ] a tad off topic

 

Edited by Norfolk nChance
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5 minutes ago, jodgi said:

Honest question:

Are you guys fine with fighting only players making pennies while traders live comfortably?

 

I run a broad strategy express in my earlier posts. Get all doing trades cash pile, roll out the buildings etc... And I have specialist traders or crafters or well Gankers... I need that broad mix to take the fight to much larger clans and keep in the game. You cant just gank, or trade you or I need a mix... iff that makes sense

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, jodgi said:

Honest question:

Are you guys fine with fighting only players making pennies while traders live comfortably?

Yes, at least on PvP servers, because traders are risking so much more than grinders.

Grinding is pretty safe, easy, guaranteed income that you can do in one spot that you have identified as being pretty secure. You often can do this in large groups, increasing security even further. The downside of grinding for cash, therefore, is that it's just not as good gold-per-hour as trading.

 

do think that NPC traders could stand to be bumped up on their average load, though. Right now I do not find them all that interesting. The work to reward ratio never seems worth it. Maybe I've just been unlucky but I feel like the income from this is worse today than it was a year ago.

 

On PvE servers I could see an argument that grinding should get a flat 5x gold income bonus that the PvP server does not have precisely because traders are taking zero risk. On the PvE server grinding must be a huge waste of time.

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4 hours ago, Slamz said:

Yes, at least on PvP servers, because traders are risking so much more than grinders

I completely agree.

I didn't make it abundantly clear, but I was thinking more of players who's main drive is OW PvP.

Where is OW going if anyone who wants to keep up with the equipment grind absolutely has to partake in the economy activities? Is that really so terrible? Well... no. The eco bit is a bitter pill I could swallow for OW PvP (context: timers and recharging repairs are way bigger problems for me but I don't want to discuss that here).

Do I wish to do the nickle and dime, waste time thing? Hell, no! I don't even want to get rich. I do want optimal or at the very least competitive gear for OW PvP and I'm finding that bot grinding is not only boring but also inadequate to keep up in the equipment race.

I'll have you know I've actually set up cannon shop as a funding experiment. I've chosen to sell guns at fair rates casual players can afford so I'm probably gimping my inner capitalist. I get a little from that but not enough to keep up. The tiny fun I get from that is I'm ruining the price gouging frenzy of EVERY other seller in CS.

I'm glad you're having fun and getting rich, though. I just can't...

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