Discovery Gaming Community

Hello everybody,
So I'm recently back on Discovery and I was making money with my only character (Eagle VHF). However I quickly cap at difficulty 31 since after that gunboats start to spawn. So I decided to invest 60M of my hard earned credits into a transport (3.6k cargo, a start I thought).
I knew about FLCompanion and so I started trading thinking "1 Milion a minute doesn't sound too bad!".
However, not even a few hours into trading and I had not one, not two, but THREE terribly frustrating experiences.
First: moving artifacts to Manhattan through the unstable jump hole in Alaska... Apparently ships bigger than freighters are not allowed in unstable jump holes.. Makes sense even though I wasn't happy being stuck in the Omicrons with full cargo and no destination.
Second: trying to jump to Omicron Xi carrying ambassadors from Gallia to Freeport 9 (suggested by FL companion). Dock denied because it's too long of a jump and it would break the economy. Again, makes sense but I had to get off the game because I was again stuck with full cargo and no destination.
Third: I wash off the frustration and hop back on, go all the way back to Gallia, load up some Luxury Food and follow FLCompanion to the best route.. Which leads me to my third 20 minutes spent arriving at a crayer planet with atmosferic entry point and again I can't dock with it.

In summary: I lost 50 Million credits of my 60 million invested and I am very frustrated with the game now.
The FL Discovery Community is awesome I love you guys <3

Edit: If any game masters see this. I would be happy if you guys could delete my transport character Rollie.Winklar (still docked with full cargo and no destination). And send me my 60M credits back to my only other character Damascus.Nova as a refund. Thank you. nvm..

Thank you for the sensible tips guys!

To anonymous: I appreciate you man.
To Lemon: Oh my.. Intel + Credits?! Can't thank you enough I really appreciate it, hopefully I can give back to some other starter player one day.

Download the latest FLCompanion from http://tiny.cc/FLCompanion and do this: https://i.imgur.com/SKulz7f.png

Also keep in mind, that FLCompanion won't tell you if a route is smuggling (Artifacts), going through RP restricted area (Alaska) or if the commodity does not make sense RP wise (carrying a cargo hold full of people when flying a container ship).
The first two is not necessarily bad if you know what you're in for. Routes paying the most will usually involve some kind of risk.

Get informed about your commodity, route and destination first if you want to eliminate most surprises. Eventually you'll have a good sense about this stuff and won't need to do such time consuming researches.
You may also try and join a trading/mining faction where you'll get help and company on your journeys.

Another tip for times when your destination or route ends up unreachable. Get FLStat, which will allow you to see (among other things) every buying location of a commodity.
If you're lost like this again, pop it up and see what are the 2nd, 3rd, etc top options for selling and you'll still be able to turn profit.

I totally hear you man. Discovery is way different than vanilla and adds completely revamped elements to the game (some good, some bad, opinions vary). This will not be the last "wait, what?" moment you will have. It takes time to find a good groove in making money. And, of course, be prepared for patches and updates to change that so then you have to find a new way of making money. Don't get too frustrated. If you show that you are wanting to get things to work, we as a community will (should, fellas!) support you to get you in the right direction.

You were just unlucky buddy - I trade explored with companion and it all went just fine
Just scrolling through systems seeing what gives good money $hr
You managed to run into some of the most annoying things in the game, there aren't that many dead jump holes and undockable planets for large ships

Anyways I sent you 130 million so you can get yourself a larger transport


For a beginner I'd recommend "Kusari Tanker" bought at Planet Muira in Okinawa
- it has 4700 cargo and no guns, but is great in tradelanes and you won't get stuck often (and very cheap, not to mention just gorgeous)


If you want to make best money while trading you should check out Ores routes - they are a bit messed up now https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=155629

One always stocked is Player Own Based "Bristol" in bering
Where you buy military salvage

Take jump hole to Hamburg
and then set waypoint to "Sarcelles Shipping Facility" in Ile-de-France

Then move to a player own base "research facility" or something like that here

buy molybdenium ore
And set waypoints to New Berlin

And then you go back to bering and do the route again

You can also take Rheinbier to Planet hamburg on the way to Bristol Player owned base, it tends to be full but you can sell it on Planet Hamburg for a small profit, you are going next to it anyway.

Also
The simplest, hassle free way to make money these days for a beginner

is to run a transport save up for a heavy battleship and go on missions vs cruisers
I would recommend Ranseur, the Outcast Dreadnought and Omicron Tau genoa base. You will find many people to team up with there and give you tips
And there is a player owned base that will buy pilots and scientific data at nice prices from you


Just know that we value new players, join the discord and ask questions if you wish ~
and don't be afraid to just private message someone who knows what they are doing in-game with
// prefix that shows that you are out of roleplay asking
And most people will be willing to give you answers
You might even meet some friends.

I have never trusted nor relied on Freelancer companion, Instead of spending tireless hours like yourself i have personally scouted 70% of Sirius! I have a trade route i created out of my scouting that will aid you if you want to know what it is PM me and we can talk!

I spent about 14 hours making the trade route that'll take you all over sirius in one big loop!

Companion is perfectly trustworthy. What's needed is at least a slightly detailed tutorial. All of this could have been avoided by ticking the "avoid freighter-only routes" in the settings, though I don't believe there are any indications that's actually a setting if you just pop open the program and start finding routes.

I'm going to steal someone else's idea:

Delete the entire wiki. Just get rid of it. Unless we have an automated tool to port data straight from the inis to the Wiki, it's worthless for anything other than cringe RP stories and backgrounds.

Replace the entire wiki with tutorials. Piloting tutorials, external programs, basic trade routes. Things new players would actually care about, as opposed to [generic character with dead parents number 12]. It should be a resource for gameplay statistics and tools. Your character biographies can stay on the forums.

No please
I use wiki all the time
andt here's a group updating it now

it being web based is a huge advantage

As has been said here, while FLcompanion is good, don't rely on it.

Get a ship, it doesn't have to be a big trading ship, something small and zippy (as in fast) is good as well.

Use that to run all over the place, hit every station you see and build up your own personal database on that ship.

Trade as you go, never spending so much that you will be short on cash if you get killed and lose your cargo, even if it means traveling with a half empty cargo hold.

If all else fails and you are hard up for credits, head back to Pennsylvania and mine that gas cloud for free stuff.
If you reach that stage you *will* have a place to take it where you can get a *much* better deal, even if it is further away.

Eventually you will have a very large list of places you can go to AND a good map of the universe as well.

Also, if you need help, ASK! It's amazing how many people give up without asking.