Elite Dangerous: How to maximize trading profit in Anaconda

What exactly is good profit?

MarketDockingStarportsSuper-CruiseTradingWings

There are many weird measurements and formulas but in the end we only care how much credits we have made in our gaming session so I always use profit per hour - just write down time and your credit balance or trading profit now and after an hour take same notes again and compare results.

For Anaconda starting profit per hour should be 6-8m (on proper trade routes you can make even more than 8m alone), in best case scenario wing trading 10-11m - it's when you are teleporting and nobody is forcing you to wait.

As for profit per tonne then it is highly depending on round trip time, 2700++ credits sounds nice but says nothing because time is most important and by knowing profit per hour you can calculate easily profit per minute and profit per tonne. I usually do 2100-2400 trade routes with round trip about 7-8 minutes, so 1-1,1 million every 7-8 minutes.

So let's take 6 million minimum, per minute it will be 100 000 credits and profit per tonne in a minute is around 200 credits. That means that if you have 2700 route for 10 minutes then 2100 credit round trip for 7 minutes will net you roughly the same.

Units available at market

If you are alone you should ignore profit per tonne and just go for speed - find stations that are very close to a star and supply/demand of commodities are huge (for one Anaconda should be 80 000-100 000 units available but best if there are available 400 000-500 000 units and same goes for demand) because then you will not be able to crash that route fast even in a wing. Only then you should pay attention to HIGH and MED supply/demand - the number of available/sold units is much more important for the long run.

Do not ignore multiple jumps

Do not ignore multiple jump trade routes if the profit is good and stations at destination systems are very close to the star. It is better to make extra jump than fly 800++Ls to Station in super-cruise.

Saving time alone

1. Stations as close to the star as possible (obviously less you need to fly faster you will be there).
2. Exit from super-cruise by proper aligning to stations entrance (stations usually orbit planets and are facing planet with their letterbox, can save 20-40sec).

3. Teleport out of a station if you trade alone (not pretty and feels little bit wrong but if you press LAUNCH and then escape->save to main menu->load the game you will be right outside station and ready to initiate your hyperjump, that will save 20-30sec).

4. Use maximum thrust forward, maximum vertical thrust, Flight Assist OFF and boost to keep your speed at maximum indefinitely (works better with analog input and might not give you that much of an advantage but you will not need to boost many times).
5. Learn to approach letterbox in a straight line, compensate your movement by counter thrusting - it feels a little like flying with Flight Assist OFF because Anaconda is a large ship and has big inertia, so if you slide right then start countering with left thrusters (Flight Assist will help you but by countering movement vector by yourself you can fine tune and have greater control over your ship, can save you a lot of time).
6. Use vertical and lateral thrusters more than on any other ship.
7. You can set throttle to zero and roll 360 degrees to stop all unnecessary sliding movements.
8. You can cancel docking request and request docking again if you are given far end landing pads, like 10, 25, 40 (flying through all station is a waste of time).
9. Learn how to slow down right after entering letterbox, find your landing pad right away by using compass (if you have hyperjump destination selected then compass will show it instead of landing pads location) and approach it at speed so you can "crash" land and be docked instantly without wasting your time and scratching landing pad.
10. When you exit letterbox do not align with hyperjump destination but instead just fly straight as long as you are mass locked, when you leave mass lock zone charge your frame shift drive right away, set throttle to middle and align with target. Even if it is behind the station you will jump and no need to fly around station (this can save you 20-30sec easily).

Saving time in a wing

Most of the tips above should be used in a wing trading as well, but here are some additional:

1. When you are waiting for someone to jump on your Wing beacon align with hyper destination, set throttle to zero and charge your drive and when your wingman enters your instance just press boost and you will see frame shift drive countdown right away. Unless you are at around around 70% speed you will not jump.
2. Always check if you are Nav locked to right wingman.
3. When enter or exit station always use green light side.
4. If you forgot to Nav lock or your wingman forget to set his Wing beacon and you are "stuck" at the star without being dragged to your wingmans location then exit Super-Cruise at safe speed, fix the problem (lock on your wingmen or wait for him to confirm that his wing beacon is set) and enter back super-cruise. You should be teleported to your wingman right away.
5. If dividents do not work or there are some problems with nav locks (sometimes it simply doesn't work, you do not see wingmans beacon, wingman is shown as unknown) then break the wing, save and exit to main menu, load the game and create a new wing - usually that helps.
6. If you send wing invite and do not see the blue arrow in front of your friends name then just send him a COMM message, usually after that wing invitation is sent as well and he/she can join your wing.
7. You can cancel this annoying CANNOT COMPLY voice message as well as any other voice message from your ship under Options->Controls->Audio, there is huge list of different voice messages that you can turn off.

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