Pioneer dev forum

Yesterday I tried actually playing the game for a bit,

In an hour or two, I managed to go from 100 to 5000 by doing deliveries.
Then I tried doing a trade run. After a long search I found a route that took Farm machinery from a major export system to a major import. A 26ly trip. So I filled up my cargo, all 7t that my starter ship can fit, and headed over there.

Grand total profit made: $33.42

Trading is not a viable profession in Pioneer currently. Far from it. Even the most expensive goods (precious metals), from major export to major import (good luck finding that), would only bring in about $800 (on 7t).

I think that's correct. If you could make big money with a starter ship carrying tons and tons of goods, you would keep making money by trading, and the game will become boring very soon.
It's correct to have a starter ship that could be used for small courier missions and, eventually equipped to do some combat mission. It's better to start with a small versatile ship that's easy to pilot (try some heavier cargo haulers) that would let you try to do almost everything like exploring, trading, fighting, delivering, scooping gas from gas giants... without becoming rich too fast.

are you serious? "too easy"?

spending ever day, morning to evening, for the next month, grinding trades back and forth in vanilla pioneer just to get enough cash to upgrade to the next ship. you call that easy?
yes, thats 12 hours a day for the next 22 days. doing pure trading, not missions, not smuggling.

@Tichy You're saying that it should require a large dedicated cargo ship to make a reasonable profit by trading. That makes sense, and that's a boring career path anyway.
@joonicks I'm giving another plug for Scout Plus here. Walterar has added a lot of stuff to make the starting grind more enjoyable, like mapping missions and intra-system cargo runs. I suggest you check it out for inspiration.

Oh, and I forgot to say, Welcome to Pioneer, fellow former C64 user!

He's not saying that trading would be too easy, well ok, he is in a way - but that trading isn't where you should start to play and make money.

To start with take courier roles and bulletin board jobs, get some cash so you can get a passenger cabin and take passengers, fill unused space with extra cargo.
Save up to buy a bigger ship that CAN be used for bulk trading.

For trading to be feasible you need huge volumes, and you're starter ship just isn't very big. On purpose.

and how do you plan on getting the money for that big bulky trading ship?

ex. deneb, cost 4,3 million.
@ 10,000 an hour grinding courier missions, it would only take 430 hours to collect enough cash to buy one. thats 12 hours a day for 36 days.

its odd that,in elite, the main way to make cash was trading
in frontier, the main way to make cash was trading
in FFE, the main way to make cash was trading
and people enjoyed that so much that they created an elite cult.

and now your best suggestion is to nerf trading into oblivion?

Not suggesting anything, I'm saying that's the way that it currently is rather than any way it should be.

Another aspect I just realized. Crew will take $10-126 per week.

Since 1 jump takes about a week, or might even take two weeks, it looks like my crew, if I had any, would earn more than me "the owner" made in total profit on a single trip.

Average per jump time from my test was 2.5 weeks.
Average crew salary is $66.