Secrets of Lonetrek

Maybe it's not exactly a secret but it isn't common knowledge either. Lonetrek Region is one of the best trading regions in the game.

It was the region I started my first character in, it's been very good to me, without a doubt my most consistently reliable and probably my most profitable region. I still work it to this day and continue to make good profits there.

Lonetrek is where early in my trading career I purchased a titan book for 4.49 million and made over 4 billion profit flipping it to a Jita buy order. That one deal increased my net worth at the time by half (from 8 to 12 billion).

Similar to Jita you can buy and sell just about anything here with the big difference being the market is spread out all over the entire region rather than being concentrated mostly on a single station. There aren't anywhere near as many no-lifers and bots working Lonetrek as there are on Jita either which can make it easier to move items even though the overall market isn't nearly as large as Jita's.

Lonetrek doesn't have a main hub but shouldn't be overlooked because of that. It's a big region, a starter region and one of the most populous regions in the entire game, all of which make it a terrific place for trading.

Though Lonetrek doesn't have a main hub it does have more secondary and small hubs than any other region in the game (even including The Forge).

Sobaseki, the largest trade hub in the region, is only 1 jump from Jita. There are actually several stations traders use in Sobaseki, the big one is Sobaseki VII Caldari Navy Logistic Support. Sobaseki being only 1 jump from Jita catches most of the through traffic heading to and from Jita. Several of the other hubs tend to have more pilots docked and active, they can be good strategic locations for intercepting traffic and relieving travelers of loot before they get to Sobaseki (or ultimately Jita).

To name some of the other good trading systems in the region, Umokka, Funtanainen, Kakakela, Lidoken,Torrinos, Nonni, Tunttaris, Nourvukaiken. There are many other small hubs, the region is so populous you can buy and sell from practically any station successfully, you'll just be more successful in the systems where players congregate in greater numbers than in others... The travel chokepoints, regional gates, level 3/4 mission systems, systems containing deadspace complexes, starter systems, systems with plenty of asteroids and so on.

There's a bit of everything in Lonetrek for everyone from day 1 newbies to bitter vets flying expensive faction fit battleships, T2 and T3 ships. As such it's terrific for new players looking to get into trading. You can trade almost anything profitably in Lonetrek. Anything from dirt cheap starter items like Soil and Tourists all the way up to ships, mods and implants costing hundreds of millions or even billions.

Gatecamps and other dangerous places.

EC-P8R and Aunenen are the major gatecamps in the area. If you haven't already done so, add them to your avoidance list now. While you're at it you might as well add Amamake and Rancer too (2 of the most dangerous low sec camps in other areas).

Aunenen is a lowsec system in Lonetrek that's on the default route to a big chunk of low sec. Going around Aunenen usually means making the trip a lot longer.

EC-P8R (often referred to as easypater) isn't actually in Lonetrek (it's in null) but it's on the shortest path to a part of Lonetrek. The Torrinos to EC-P8R gate is a high to null gate. The EC side is the most notorious gate camp in the entire game. It's nearly always camped by large gangs.

Both camps often contain instalockers and smartbomb spamming battleships. If they're alert it can be very difficult to run the camp even in small, fast ships. Cloaked Covert Ops frigates aren't a get out of jail free card when there's smartbomb spam on the gate. In EC-P8R you have to worry about bubbles too, usually there are a bunch of bubbles there.

If you really must run one of these camps your best bet would be in a heavily tanked T3 cruiser with covert ops cloak and interdiction nullifier.

Litiura is an 0.5 system in Lonetrek on the route to the north and is often camped by gankers looking for easy targets worth getting concorded for. You don't really need to avoid Litiura, it's not all that dangerous, but just to be safe it's best not to autopilot through it if you're carrying anything worth very much. Litiura is a chokepoint on the route to both EC-P8R and Aunenen as well as their associated hi sec trade hubs on Torrinos and Nonni respectively (expect scouts for those camps in Litiura). Dotlan doesn't show it but IIRC Litiura has a deadspace complex too.