Elite Dangerous: Best ship for trading
What stats are important
If you think that only cargo bay size is all that matters then you couldn't be more wrong. There are three stats that all are very important:
Cargo Bay: obviously bigger cargo means bigger profit.
Jump Range: bigger the jump range for fully loaded ship means easier to find trade routes, switch between dried out routes and find routes within one jump range.
Speed: 60-80% of trading is spent on docking and undocking, so speed is one of the most important factors (note: in power wing trading super-cruise is out of equation so speed is 100% important).
Cargo bay
Obviously Lakon Type 9 is a winner here, however, there will be Panther Clipper which will have much bigger cargo bay and more or less same jump range as Type 9. Also we know little about Imperial Cutter and Federal Corvette but they will have high class internal compartments (i.e. for shield) and we all know that we can fit there cargo racks thus making these ships potentially a very good trading ships - especially considering that they will be fast, very well armed and protected and already there are many pirates that can afford anacondas so type 9 in open play is not a good choice even if you ignore speed and jump range importance.
Runner up is Anaconda with just slightly smaller cargo bay size.
Jump Range
No doubt about winner here - Anaconda wins most ships in that category - only Asp Explorer has a small chance here, but if we speak about jump range with 452 tonnes of cargo then there is no ship that can do what Anaconda can even close. You can have jump range close to 21 LY while Lakon Type 9 can only do 14 LY jumps.
Speed
Anaconda wins again and by around 50 m/s which in numbers make around 28%, so almost by 1/3.
Conclusion
If we are talking about wing trading then type 9 must have 28% bigger cargo bay than Anaconda if the jump range between systems is below 14LY - so 600 tonnes (instead of current 532).
The difference is even bigger if we consider trade routes with 2 jumps.
Overall there might be some trade routes where Type 9 do not lose to Anaconda too much but the moment you need 16-20 LY jumps Anaconda will be much more profitable.
Average profit per hour
If you are trading alone then you should aim at 5-7m in Type 9 and 6-8 in Anaconda.
For wing trading profit should be within 8-11m in Anaconda.
My trading Anaconda
| Frame Shift Drive | A6 |
| Power Distributor | A5 |
| Life Support | D5 |
| Sensors | D8 |
| Power Plant | A5 |
| Thrusters | A6 |
| Shield Generator | A4 |
You should have only best Frame Shift Drive and cargo racks, all other modules as light as possible if you need 19-20LY jump. The price will be around 180m, but keep in mind that there are community goals with ship discounts and currently there is one nice 16% discount at Zaonce for all Faulcon Delacy ships, so you can buy there Anaconda for only 123m (instead of 146).
Also if you are Elite in trading, combat or exploration or founders level backer you have access to Founders World where you can buy all ships with 10% discount, so if you want to save some cash get elite ranking.
You can have shield boosters and weapons depending how big jump range you need, maybe even better thrusters.
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