Black Market Shipyard Exploit

[Cardinal]

Don't know whether this should be patched up or not, but I was able to make a large stack of credits in my last game by doing it.

1 Go to a Black Market Shipyard.
2 Upgrade cargo bay, getting the smugglers cargo hold.
3 Uninstall cargo bay.
4 Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you can't carry any more cargo holds.
5 Sell cargo holds in a Victorian club for a tidy profit.
6 Repeat process. You can maximise your yeild by jettisoning cargo bays outside the shipyard, only picking them up when you want to sell.

Was about as exciting to do as it sounds though... I didn't keep it up for terribly long, but the Victorian never seemed to run out of money - even after I sold them the entire contents of two tempus labs and two black market shipyards. Regretably, I never found a Black Market Station so I could install their stuff. First time I've been promoted above enforcer though...

Now every druggie, gun runner and lawyer in St Kathies has smugglers cargo hold or five secreted away. God knows what they will do with them. Perhaps they shouldn't buy smugglers cargo bays in the Victorian? Seems like an unlikely merchandise to sell there.

[Bokasha]

They have to store all the drugs you sell them somewhere

[(name here)]

They buy high explosives there, why not cargo holds?

[F50]

lol

[Cardinal]

Explosives provide all sorts of fun and entertainment.

Smugglers cargo holds might impress the girls or something. I don't know...

[Fossaman]

Maybe it's where the little smuggle kiddies hide the girls to get them past the robo-chaperones?

Good find, Cardinal. Although to be honest, if you're bored enough to do that instead of blowing stuff up, more power to you. Why wouldn't the black market have a large stock of smuggler's holds to sell you?

[Cardinal]

Good find, Cardinal. Although to be honest, if you're bored enough to do that instead of blowing stuff up, more power to you. Why wouldn't the black market have a large stock of smuggler's holds to sell you?

Beats me Fossaman. I guess having a smugglers hold is so critical to the game that even if you have some bizarre screw up, you always need to have another one on call. The BM won't care; they get to flog off a product and make some credits. The gormless youngsters of the Victorian won't care; they get a swanky illegal 2 ton wardrobe to put in their room.

I should have done the math to see how much you actually earn doing this. You install the hold for ~2000 and it costs ~300 to uninstall it. The customers pay about 3350 to satisfy there illegal smugglers cargo hold fix. So depending on how many smugglers cargo holds you have enough endurance to get, you make tens or hundreds of thousands of credits per pop. A bored freighter would rake it in. Wolfens are inconvenienced only by the expense of feul.

[FAD]

Wouldn't be surprised if we find in an up-coming version that only one smuggler's hold can be installed. Sell it and well, tough luck!

There's a more simpler method of making fast and hefty profits... Make rank of Colonel in the CW and buy out every item in the CW Fort's, sell all Mil items to the BM and everything else to Thor's. 8)

[Cardinal]

Nice trick, I might try it some time.

The advantage with the Black Market Shipyard exploit are that you can do it usually shortly after St Kaths - I normally find a shipyard within one or two systems after leaving that system.

Also, if you were desperate enough for the credits, you could do the exploit and pick any items you want that would otherwise have been unaffordable.

That said, its a tedious way to make credits. No fun at all, just key tapping really.