It took me a staggering amount of time to earn the 199,000 credits I needed to buy a Mercury freighter in X3: Reunion but it was well worth the effort and time taken.

The Mercury may not look like much and it can’t even boast of making the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs but like a certain smuggler’s freighter, the Mercury has got it where it counts.

And where it counts is on the inside. The Mercury has 30 times the cargo space of the Buster which potentially means 30 times the profit.

I was earning money hand over fist by trading in Soja beans and Soja Husks in the Paranid sector of Duke’s Domain and the Mercury paid for itself in a single session.

Before long, I had accumulated 800,000 credits and then set about preparing for the next phase of the trading game: automated trading.

After hours upon hours of playing X3, I finally have my Mercury trade freighter.

I didn’t obtain the funds for it through pirate-hunting, however. I tried many, many times to capture a Pirate Nova and failed abjectly each and every time. I tried every possible tactic I could think of but in the end, the Nova’s shields and weaponry were simply too strong for my Argon Buster. I clearly needed to upgrade the Buster’s weapons and shields in order to go toe to toe with the Nova but I could do neither as I lacked the funds.

To get funds, I needed to do major trades.

To do major trades, I needed a Mercury.

To get a Mercury, I needed major funds.

Sigh.
Continued…