Traders Tales: Stories from X2: The Threat

[Calvin]

Personal Log Entry 1

My name is Tor Galnar. After spending ten years in the mines on Argon Prime, I have finally saved enough credits to buy myself a ship. All these long years I have dreamed of this day, when I can take to the stars and make my fortune. I may be starting off small, with just 1000 credits left in my pocket, but this galaxy is big enough for any man to make his own way.

My ship - she's a beauty. An M5 scout class Argon Discoverer. Sure, she may be old, and not that well equipped what with a 1 megawatt shield and just two Alpha Ray Emitters, but I have tuned her engines up a little and she maxes out at 285 m/s. She'll get me on the road to riches, and so I have named her - The Fortune.

Now, I just need to find some work. I'll try the Argon Equipment Dock to begin with, I've heard people always need a lift from there. It'll be a tight squeeze in this M5 class, but any money will be worth it.

Thats all for now, Tor out...

[Calvin]

Personal Log Entry 2

Boy, what a start. I did my very first manual docking today when I went on board the Argon Equipment Dock, and I was very nervous. Didn't crash though which is a good sign. After spending a while browsing the station, it became clear no-one was going to need my help getting anywhere, so I decided to leave. Next stop was the Free Argon Trading Station, and those stations are always busy! I decided to let the onboard computer dock the Fortune automatically that time - I think one manual is enough for now. It allowed me to enjoy the view.



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No luck there either! This isn't going as well as I had hoped. Making credits just doesn't seem to be that easy for a guy with a beat up old M5. Oh well, off to the Federal Argon Shipyard Alpha.

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Finally success! After being told I looked too 'jumpy' by a woman who was looking for a ride to Cloudbase South East sector, I got a contract to transport an Entertainment Chip to the Cahoona Bakery Beta in The Wall sector. I have 31 mizuras to get there. My first journey outside of Argon Prime. Life is getting exciting...

[Daimon]

I always like space-stories ^ ^

[Hookah Smoking Caterpiller]

X2 is a great game, GAME has X3 for a fiver, not sure whether or not to buy it...

[Freddie]

I don't wish to steal your thunder but I saw this thread I couldn't say no.

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My name is Freddie and I to own a M5 Argon Discoverer, I had dreams and ambitions to one day own my own business empire which would be self sufficient and I would want for nothing but that is all I had, dreams and very little chance of achieve my ambitions. Little did I know my luck was soon to change.

One day I was docked at and Argon spaceyard ‘reading’ Space Girl weekly, when I received a message from TerraCorp HQ, the message didn’t saying anything other then to fly to the TerraCorp in Home of Light which was only one sector away.

An hour latter I docked at TerraCorp head quarters when a TerraCorp representative told me they had a job for me which would pay 10,000 credits. Of course this was music to my eyes and I didn’t ask any questions, all I was told was that I had to pilot a transport ship carrying one passenger from one factory to another. This seemed almost too good to be true and I wondered what the representative didn’t tell me but I was desperate for the money so no questions were asked.

I was escorted to my ship, and what a mighty fine ship it was, fitted out with all the latest technology which was a world away from my little M5 scout ship. There was a bit of wait to get docking clearance so I took the time to read up on my flight plan. I had to fly to Atreus' Clouds which was five sectors away pick up someone called Mi Ton and fly them back to TerraCorp HQ. Then almost as soon as I finished reading the flight plan I got clearance so I started my checks. As soon as the transport was clear of the station I set the auto pilot to fly to the Royal Boron Trading station in Atreus' Clouds.

Upon arriving at the Trading station Mi Ton and her associates didn’t waste any time entering the craft and as quickly as I docked I found myself heading back to TerraCorp HQ. On the flight back I discovered that Mi Ton had to be the worst passenger in the galaxy and her constant snipping and verbal bile was only made palatable by the promise of 10K. Upon arriving back in Home of Light I set course for the TerraCorp HQ when I was attacked by a band of pirates. With only a mounted laser turret and to defend the ship I set the turret to automatic and it was soon blasting away for all it’s worth. Unfortunately for the Pirates the transport was equipped with the latest shield technology and their weapons proved useless against it. Their actions didn’t go unnoticed and pretty soon the local filth turned up and drove the pirates off much to my relief as the auto cannon couldn’t hit a cow’s back side with a banjo.

Just as I was setting the auto pilot to dock at the HQ I soon realised there was an opportunity here to make a lot of money and I mean a lot. The transport I was on carried had all the latest parts and every conceivable extra was fitted to it, I wasn’t sure how much it was all worth but I knew it would the 10K I was getting for this mission to shame. The local equipment dock was my not on my flight plan but I thought to myself what the hell; they would never pick up this quick detour.

Once the transport was docked at the equipment dock I was tugged by Mi Ton who demanded to know what I was doing. I told her we had sustained damage to the starboard intercooler nacelle which had overloaded and that the duotronic intermix chamber shaft had ruptured creating a vertaron bubble to form. Mi Ton pretended to understand what I was talking about and told me not to belong as we late as it was.

After connecting with the stations trading exchange I proceed to cannibalise the transport for all it’s worth. By the time I had finished there wasn’t so much as spare seat on board, and with all the credits safely deposited into my account I had to leave otherwise questions might be asked back at HQ as I knew my Star Trek mumbo jumbo might have washed with Mi Ton but it wouldn’t work with Terracorps people.

After finally docking at HQ I was contacted by TerraCorps CEO in person who was so pleased with my work she had given me my own Cargo ship an Argon Mercury on top of the 10K credits. I left the now baron transport and headed out to my own Argon M5 in double time as I didn’t want Terracorp to find out what I had done to their once lovely ship. Now I was back in my M5 I flew for the TerraCorps Shipyard where my Argon Mercury was located. I decided that I was going to call my newly equipped Mercury after me Freddie as now know one had used that name before and it had nice ring to it.

By the end of the day I was feeling on top of world, at the start I barely had enough money to keep my ship flying, I had know prospects and no breaks. Now I had nearly 400,000 credits to my name and my very own trade vessel, I would have to spend some money on the cargo ship to make it workable but I knew that from this day forward my dreams were going to become a reality.

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If you want me to F off just say and I'll clear this and post my own thread.

[Calvin]

Hey man, let this be the X2 Tales thread I'm guessing you're following the storyline? I've decided to start out just as a guy with really very little and no storyline, so I won't get that very easy 400k credit bonus Should be a fun challenge!

[Freddie]

Hey man, let this be the X2 Tales thread I'm guessing you're following the storyline? I've decided to start out just as a guy with really very little and no storyline, so I won't get that very easy 400k credit bonus Should be a fun challenge!

I tired to start out from nothing but I got know where fast so I took the storyline and learnt that little exploit which gave me the boost I need to get into the game. Next up is my ingenious trading strategy.

[Calvin]

Yeh, it's very useful indeed. I've played several games now where I became a multi millionaire with capital ships, scores of stations and hundreds of ships of all description.

So I guess starting out with nothing should be a major challenge for me. It has been so far, working for pittance in my little, barely upgraded M5...but at the same time, it's really very rewarding earning every single credit I'll get an update in soon.

[Freddie]

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Feeling pretty chuffed with myself I got drinking to a few friends a couple of whom where traders. I showed them my new toy but they weren’t impressed, even though it was free this Argon Mercury had seen better days. The engines were on there last legs, which limited the ships top speed to just 90 KPS (my Discovery could do 420 KPS) which was a good job in some ways because if it went any faster the hull looked like it would tear apart at the seems, it was clear it had it’s fair share of run ins with pirates.

After taking in some advice from other traders and reading up on long detailed reports and specification sheets on other cargo ships I sold my Mercury for 40,000 credits. I decided that if I wanted to make a success of trading I would need a decent ship and to get would involve flying out to Boron space to the Boron Home Sector Kingdoms End which was right at the edge of jump gate network. The Boron’s were an aquatic race and were friend with humans so doing business with them wouldn’t be a problem (not all races are friendly to humans).

After several hours flight I had arrived in Kingdoms End, I had no star chart of the area which meant finding the station I needed involved a bit of work. However before I left I installed a Triplex scanner in my Discovery which gave my three times the scanning range as I had before and pretty soon I found the Boron Shipyard. After docking I wasted no time in ordering a Boron Dolphin, this was the best cargo ship in its class although slower then other cargo vassals it had double the cargo space of a Argon Mercury. However to get maximum space traders had to buy cargo extenders which get progressively more expensive, even with all the funds I had I couldn’t max out it’s storage as space but I had more then enough capacity for the time being. After adding in a trading system, triplex scanner, engine upgrades and a SETA time device I had I spend best part over 300,000 credits, I had to stop otherwise I wouldn’t have enough left to buy stock.

The next stage of my business plan was to work out what to trade, after examining over 30 different commodities it became clear the most profitable commodity was Silicon Ore. If I could but it from a mine that was nearing full capacity and sell it to a station that was desperate I could make about 90,000 per trade run in pure profit. My cargo hold could easily take all the Silicon from a full mine but the trouble was trying to find a seller. I received a tip off that the silicon mine in Kingdoms end was nearly full and I could buy one unit of silicon for 197 credits, I was rushed over to the mine and fortunately no one had got there before me, I brought the silicon and headed out the adjacent sector, who had plenty of buyers. The trick was to find the station which was desperate for the silicon, again the triplex scanner provided it’s worth after find a missile factory that was willing to pay over 300 credits per unit of silicon. After arriving at the station I sold the silicon and checked my balance to my delight I had made over 80,000 credits! My future in trading seemed promising.

More to come.
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[Freddie]

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Talking to other traders they swear that trading in solar energy is the best way to make money. However I had worked out that if I could buy Silicon at it’s lowest price and sell it at it’s highest I stood to make a profit margin of a factor of 10. The advantages of Energy were that it was plentiful and every station needs it so buying and selling wasn’t an issue unlike Silicon.

As the first week went buy I had made several successful trade runs, however my actions had drained all local mines of Silicon and all my buyers had full inventories. There were still plenty of systems to explore but travelling between took longer and more often then not another trader would get there before me and the only way to find out the price of Silicon was to travel to a sector I could not get real time prices by just looking at my starmap. However, my frustrations were short lived, I had a cunning plan.

Although I was far from a millionaire my Credit balance was very healthy and it was time to invest in some cash. I travelled to Cloudbase Southwest to visit the Goner temple. The Gooners were a peaceful religious race who held no grudges towards any species, there ships were nothing special but they had some useful technologies, namely the jump drive. After some conservative negotiating I acquired a jump drive supplied and fitted for 100,000 credits, this was a lot of money but I knew it was a worthwhile investment. Next up was to buy some satellites.

During my trading I had covered over 30 sectors, I knew where all the sellers and buyers where of by heart however without real time information knowing where to go to find the best price of Silicon was at best an educated guess. I sent my little Discovery ahead to Red Light to Satellite factory, using my new jump drive I caught up arrived ahead of it. My plan was to buy as many satellites as possible and plant them in as many sectors as I could, the satellite would then feed back real time data from each sector including the prices buyers and sellers wanted. The only catch was that Satellites were few and far between.

I managed to acquire 15 satellites initially which I transferred to my Discovery, because of its speed it would take less time to deploy the Satellites. Between the jump drive and the satellites my bank balance was looking pretty dismal, it was time to get back to trading, however now I had real time information being fed to me via my starmap and a jump dirve for quick travel I would make more trades more often.

More to come.

[Freddie]

I had worked hard and invested a lot of time and money into my trading enterprise and now I had everything in place.

- Dolphin with fully expanded cargo bay. Check.
- Jump drive. Check
- Trading Software. Check.
- A detailed list of buyers and sellers of Silicon. Check.
- Satellites for real time information on inventory levels. Check.
- Credits. Check
- M5. Check.

Going through my galactic map I found a silicon mine that full to brim in Could Base North West, I quickly jumped over to sector and landed in mine buying up all the silicon for only 156 credits a unit. With a cargo bay full of valuable silicon I was prime target for any would be pirate but having satellites posted all over the half the galaxy meant I didn’t have to leave the safety of mine until I was ready to leave.

As I had been trading silicon for a while I knew where to look for buyers and it didn’t take me long to find a Crystal Refinery in Kingdoms End that was crying out for silicon. My jump drive barely had enough energy to get me there and the trek through the system was long but I knew the profit margin made it worth my while. Once I sold the silicon my account was looking a lot healthier, and I continued to trade for the next couple of weeks, with the only distraction of having to visit a solar farm to buy energy for my jumpdrive.

After a while I could remotely pilot my Dolphin via my M5 which freed up time for me to explorer the rest of the galaxy. However I hit a dead in when I run into sectors controlled by the Xenon, a race of machines controlled by computers, they were a threat in years gone by but they are restricted to only a handful of sectors. Also the amount of trading I was doing in silicon had depressed the market in my local area which meant I spent longer and longer looking for buyers and sellers, even with the satellites the scale and frequencies of my operations meat my cargo vessel had to travel greater distances to get the best price. A new plan was needed, one that would require an even bigger investment then the satellite scheme I had setup.

One night I got talking to a Teladi who owned a factory that produced Crystals used in the manufacture of solar energy batteries. He was droning on about how hard it had become to find resources especially silicon and that his cargo transports had to travel further and further to get the best price. He could not afford to fit jumpdrives and by the time his vessels had arrived some over vessel would have already brought commodity. Upon hearing the poor mans blight I could help but be inspired, a station doesn’t need satellites to locate real time pricing it can automatically track the prices up to 50 jumps.

To find the best price for silicon all I needed was a factory with needed silicon to produce it’s goods and a cargo drone with trading software to be linked to that station and it would find the nearest and cheapest silicon for me and it would literally taken seconds to do. The only draw back was that the cheapest factories that needed silicon cost 1.2 million credits and that would not include a cargo ship with the necessary software which would set me back another 100K. I had the credits but I knew it would be worth the investment, I could even repeat the same trick in reverse to find the best buyers for silicon as well.

to continue..........