Pilots Trade Network Elite: Dangerous

Hauling Builds

Large-pad builds

These builds are suit­able for Fleet Car­ri­er Trades, WMMs and gen­er­al-pur­pose space truck­ing – any­where there’s a large land­ing pad wait­ing for you, you don’t have to trav­el far in hyper­space, and you’re not expect­ing to get into a fight!

TYPE‑9 HEAVY //

TYPE‑9 HEAVY

Basic Type 9

Overview: The Type‑9 Heavy is slow and pon­der­ous, both in super­cruise and nor­mal space, but its car­go capac­i­ty is matched only by the Impe­r­i­al Cut­ter and, unlike the Cut­ter, it’s avail­able to any pilot with the cash to buy one.
 
Rec­om­mend­ed use: haul­ing from Fleet Car­ri­ers to Sta­tions and back (see our Car­ri­er Trade Mis­sion guide) because of its low jump range and poor defences. It’s rec­om­mend­ed that new pilots equip shields until con­fi­dent with its han­dling and per­for­mance lim­its, but these can be swapped for more car­go space when appropriate.
 
Upgrade path: (Tuned Type 9), Basic Cut­ter, Boost­ed Cutter.
 
Once you have enough cred­its, upgrade the thrusters to 7A to give you a bit faster boost and turn speed.
EDSY
Cori­o­lis

TYPE‑9 HEAVY //

TYPE‑9 HEAVY

Tuned Type 9 

Overview: A mod­er­ate­ly engi­neered ver­sion of the Basic Type 9 with upgrad­ed thrusters (Dirty, Drag Dri­ves) and FSD (Increased Range, Mass Man­ag­er). This build uses no shields, giv­ing more car­go capac­i­ty. When you are first learn­ing to fly this ship con­sid­er adding a shield until you have learnt the han­dling char­ac­ter­is­tics. The boost speed of this build is 327 m/s and the unladen jump range is 32 ly.

Rec­om­mend­ed use: While this is a viable build for haul­ing between sys­tems, it is still rel­a­tive­ly slow and has a low laden jump range. For fre­quent longer dis­tance trad­ing, con­sid­er unlock­ing the Impe­r­i­al Cut­ter and engi­neer­ing that instead. 

Upgrade path: Impe­r­i­al Cutter

You can engi­neer the Pow­er Dis­trib­u­tor for more fre­quent boosts but at this stage it’s gen­er­al­ly prefer­able to start grind­ing for a Cutter.

EDSY
Cori­o­lis

Imperial Cutter //

Imperial Cutter

Basic Cutter

Overview: The Impe­r­i­al Cut­ter is the best haul­ing ship in the game… prob­a­bly. The Type 9 can match it for car­go space but the Cut­ter has bet­ter speed and defences, so long as you can han­dle the drift when chang­ing direction.

Rec­om­mend­ed use: There is noth­ing bet­ter for L‑pad in-sys­tem haul­ing than a Cut­ter, except an engi­neered Cutter.

Pur­chas­ing the Impe­r­i­al Cut­ter requires achiev­ing an Impe­r­i­al Navy rank of Duke!

Upgrade path: Boost­ed Cut­ter. Engi­neer the dri­ves and the FSD first.

EDSY
Cori­o­lis

Imperial Cutter //

Imperial Cutter

Boosted Cutter

Overview: This top 1% hauler com­bines speed, car­go space and com­fort. It is crazy fast for a car­go ship and comes with an accept­able jump range. When the rebuy cost isn’t a con­cern one could use the expen­sive reac­tive armour to increase stur­di­ness. For engi­neer­ing, focus on the thrusters first – the speed boost is life-chang­ing! (But beware of boost­ing towards mail slots, the Cut­ter does not stop as fast as it starts.)
 
Rec­om­mend­ed use: The best L‑pad in-sys­tem hauler there is. Not ter­ri­ble for short hops between sys­tems either. If you get inter­dict­ed; Just set your speed to 0 and wait for the drop and then press boost and wave good­bye. The thrusters and the FSD are the most impor­tant things to engineer. 
 
Pur­chas­ing the Impe­r­i­al Cut­ter requires achiev­ing an Impe­r­i­al Navy rank of Duke!
EDSY
Cori­o­lis

Medium-pad builds

Some­times PTN oper­ates from out­posts that don’t have large land­ing pads. These ship builds will allow you to haul as much as pos­si­ble from these medi­um-pad-only sta­tions. Suit­able for the Booze Cruise as well as M‑pad gold/silver rush­es. Keep an eye out for oppor­tu­ni­ties to fly a python. The expe­ri­ence of fly­ing an agile ship again is worth hav­ing it. Be it just for a com­mu­ni­ty goal.

PYTHON //

Python

Booze Python shielded

Overview: A low cost shield­ed car­go Python. The shields are there to give you time to get back into super­cruise if you’re inter­dict­ed as you won’t be able to out­run NPC pirates with­out engineering.
 
Rec­om­mend­ed use: Designed for wine haul­ing at Rack­ham’s Peak but works for all reg­u­lar M‑pad-to-car­ri­er trades. Not rec­om­mend­ed for sys­tem-to-sys­tem trad­ing! Upgrad­ing the FSD to a 5A is rec­om­mend­ed for trans­fers if you have spare funds for it, not for the booze cruise but for gen­er­al use.
 
Upgrade path: Booze Cruise Python – Tuned.
EDSY
Cori­o­lis

PYTHON //

Python

Booze Python tuned

Overview: A shield­less Python that relies on speed and armour to sur­vive NPC pirate encoun­ters. Much nicer to fly than a Type 9 or Cut­ter but obvi­ous­ly hauls a frac­tion of their total cargo.
 
Rec­om­mend­ed use: This is the best M‑Pad-to-car­ri­er trad­er. If you want to use it for sys­tem-to-sys­tem trades, engi­neer the FSD and use light­weight armour. An engi­neered FSD (Long Range Grade 5 + Mass Man­ag­er) for non Booze Cruise uses nev­er hurts. And the chaff launch­er is just there for the optics – A lit­tle glit­ter nev­er hurt anyone.
EDSY
Cori­o­lis
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