How does a PoB make money?
If the PoB buys in a commodity/ore and sells it for the same price then the net profit is zero. So why have a PoB?
Example a Miner inloads 500 units of ore for say, 250sc each. The miner makes money.
The base has brought this for 250sc each but sells it for the same price, no profit.
In fact running costs of the PoBs in the shape of consumables and tax/rent means a loss per item sold.
As far as I can see a PoB can only fix one price for an item which governs the buy and sell price.
Have I got this right?
You can have days for filling - buying ore at 2500 credits. Then having days to sell the ore at 3000 credits. Also, if you keep mining or trading the ore, you can make a lot of money since it is profitable on its own.
Most people make money out of special equipment production though.
Yes. When it comes to ores, the POB makes money only if you are switching between buying and selling modes manually with setting different price. For example one day the base is buying ore, next day it´s selling. Or when you are filling your base yourself (so technically you are obtaining the ore for free, it just cost you your time).
But there are other ways how to make money, for example by selling codenames or special stuff (sci data, nomad reamains and such). And of course by selling equipment like cloaks or jumpdrives.
Construct ship modules and sell them for a price between their construction cost and the lowest price available on the market. Include a certain percent of the factory construction costs, and possibly the base construction costs too, if you can.
E.g. with a formula like the one below, you can have all of your costs back in 36 sales:
Price = Cost(Module) + 0,1*Cost(Factory) + 0,01*Cost(Base)
Apart from having buy/sell days all we are saying is that a PoB exists to create factories to produce modules. Not in a traders interest I fear.
Perhaps a mod to allow 2 prices in the commodity command line. A buy price and a sell price.
1) Core 1 with 3 cargo
2) Mine Ore
3) Sell Ore
4).............
5) PROFIT!
In really it allow you fast fill 100-120k of ore by 2 players teamwork (like one hour of play) then deliver it to any sellpoint. Also it still farm money when you play for another chars. Sell-buying just more about trick how make your PoB popular. When it popular you need only feel it without wasting time on trade.
You can always mission farm to make money. With the 45k/pilot for unlawful pilots in Penny, you can fill up your POB with them and make loadsamoney from two income streams (mission money and hauling)
Before Kemm died by Noms, it was pulling in billions in Nom Remains to Cambridge alone, not counting the Alien Organisms run to Yaren twice a week. We still got the BS Remains tucked away somewhere.