3.8 Caterpillars Cargo Guide to One Million Credits

With new traders in the verse I wanted to provide a brief guide on how to get to a million credits.

I designed this guide for those players starting with zero credits and a Drake Caterpillar. If you don’t have a Caterpillar, send me a message and I’ll help you get one in game or you can team up with me or my haulers. The most effective tactic available is to team up with biggest haulers in the verse and make sure they keep hauling. 

Trading Resource: Gallog.co

0 UEC - Delivery Missions

7,800 to 44,625 profit/hour.

First, you’ll need to earn some credits to invest in cargo. There are many great ways to do this in the verse around missions, but as this is a cargo guide I’ll recommend delivery missions. These are simple box delivery missions where you’ll pick up a box from a location and deliver it to another location. You can pick missions that just are right around crusader or do longer range missions that go clear across the verse. This is a great way to get started hauling as it’s zero risk and most of the box delivery missions could also double as cargo routes.

75,000 UEC - Chlorine

122,256 to 244,512 profit/hour

Chlorine - Yela, ArcCorp Mining 157 to Deakins

Chlorine - Yela, Benson Mining to Deakins

Either of these routes are simple, a 5 minute round trip on Crusader’s moon Yela. You won’t make a ton of profit on this route per trip but it’s a great start. ArcCorp Mining 157 has nice landing pads, perfect for beginners to learn to land and get the feel of the ships. The atmosphere of the planet is also slightly forgiving, yet still thin enough to allow for quick runs. 75,000 credits will fill a Caterpillar.

If this route becomes extremely saturated, and you’re unable to buy or sell, check your route planner for alternate locations to buy Chlorine. You’ll also be able to sell Chlorine at any of the major landing zones but near crusader you can use Port Olisar, Grim Hex, or Delamar.

75,000 UEC - Scrap

111,108 to 166,662 profit/hour

Scrap is another decent haul and fairly simple, just pick an R&R and head back to Port Olisar. This takes a little more time than the Benson run but can also be a little more profitable. You can start with Scrap earlier too. 75,000 credits will fill a Caterpillar.

130,000 UEC - Fluorine

Fluorine - Yela, ArcCorp Mining 157 to Deakins

The same 5 minute run on Yela is now even more profitable. 130,000 credits will fill a Caterpillar.

350,000 UEC - Diamond

115,464 to 173,196 profit/hour

Diamond, Tram & Myers to Port Olisar

Tram & Myers is a small outpost on Cellin. Just one jump away from Port Olisar. It offers Diamond, Titanium and small amounts of laranite. Diamond requires 350,000 credits for a full caterpillar load.

450,000 UEC - Titanium

230,928 to 307,904 profit/hour

Titanium - Cellin, Tram & Myers to Olisar

Tram & Myers to Olisar remains the most profitable route in the verse simply because it’s so fast. The large landing zones can’t compete with Port Olisar. Even with more traders running this route there is still plenty of profit to be had.

Titanium - Arial, Bezdek or Lathan to Lorville

If you prefer avoiding commodity limits Lorville is a bottomless pit of demand but it will cost you 20 minutes just to say the word lorville. Elevators, trams, the atmosphere, and if you think it’s boring sprinting to the CBD, your crew will already be asleep.

Tips on Finding the Best Route:

When finding the right commodities to trade we first need to find the right supply and demand. What goods are being produced at what locations and in what quantities? What places are demanding the most quantities? Sites like Gallog list these values in terms of refresh rate, the amount the outpost produces of each commodity per minute, and max inventory the amount of commodities each outpost can store.

Look for the best commodities first, location second. Lots of times traders get stuck on a single location and don’t realize that there are more options out there. When you’re trying to find the right trade route focus on those commodities that make the most sense compared to the number of credits you’re investing. Profit margin, the amount you make based on how much it costs you, or contribution margin, the profit per unit are helpful, but the real focus here is what’s the end result, how much total profit will you make in one trip and how long did it take you to make it. In other words profit over time. I’ve expressed this in profit per hour in my routes above.

We’ll want to filter out Vices and avoid unmarked locations, like the drug labs or scrap yards. Vice routes typically take too much time, have supply and demand issues, offer less profit overall, and that’s if you avoid the law. They could be profitable in small amounts but we’re here to make millions.

After we’ve found the right commodity we can look at all the locations they are available to buy and all the locations they are available to sell. We’d want to find locations that have the highest refresh rates, in other words they are using lots of that commodity per minute. This will allow us to always sell and not be held up at a sell kiosk.

Daily Metrics:

• Report your daily cargo credit balance.
• Report any incidents or impediments.
• Report any confirmed caterpillar kills/deaths/loss of cargo
• Did you pay your crew?

At the end of Two weeks:

• Total number of Caterpillars (and other ships) Earned in Game
• Total number of daily cargo credit balance reports, and daily average.
• Number of confirmed caterpillar kills/deaths/loss of cargo
• How much was paid out to crew?

The Goal for multi crew operations is the following:

Self-Organizing, those doing the work choose how best to accomplish the work

Cross-functional, teams have all competencies needed to accomplish the work without depending on others not part of the team.

Teams consist of 3 to 7 people. (+/-2).