Chapter 137 Buying a Ship

The company was opened and funds were gradually received.

But Amber did not feel relaxed at the moment, because with the prerequisites met, there were more things waiting for him to arrange.

The more urgent ones were naturally the personnel, equipment and ships.

According to Amber's plan, at the current stage, both mining and hired operations should be as close to the empire's territory as possible.

So in the selection of weapons, equipment and ships, the empire's side would naturally be given priority.

The company's current funds, if converted into imperial gold dragons, are about 50 million.

This seems like a lot, but in fact it can only be said to be barely enough.

The first thing to consider is the most important ship.

Although Alanita has a private ship storage warehouse, most of them are actually elves' biological ships, which are not very suitable for humans to drive.

The few sealed human ships are basically used by people to pay off debts, and the ship conditions are uneven.

There are even fewer ships that can be used for combat. The Confessor-class frigate that Amber borrowed last time is already in the best condition among these combat ships.

Occasionally using it once or twice may not be a big problem, but if you want to use it for a long time, you must overhaul it, which is too cost-effective.

And the way of buying a brand new combat ship is not worth considering for the time being.

Although major shipyards do open light cruisers and below for private purchase.

But first of all, the price of private purchase is sky-high, more than double the purchase price of the Imperial Royal Navy.

Generally, only large enterprises and nobles who are not short of money and pay more attention to "brand new from the factory" will consider being a sucker to order a brand new warship.

Secondly, whether it is a combat ship or a civilian ship, there is a construction cycle. This thing is not a commodity on the shelf of a store that can be bought at any time.

According to the normal purchase process, customers need to pay a deposit to the shipyard first, and then start a long queue, and start construction when they are in line.

So the waiting period for this kind of new ship is in years.

Now it just happened that the war broke out, and all the major shipyards in the empire had to give priority to completing the orders of the Royal Navy, so the waiting time for private customized warships would only be longer.

So Amber could only choose to try her luck in the second-hand ship trading market in the Star Dragon Empire.

Try to get the most basic combat ships and mining ships before the escalation of the war caused the price of second-hand ships to skyrocket.

First of all, the most important combat ships.

Amber abandoned the idea of ​​purchasing multiple frigates to form a frigate formation, but decided to buy a higher-level destroyer first.

The combat effectiveness and comprehensive capabilities of destroyers are stronger than those of small-tonnage frigates, but this is not Amber's main consideration.

The reason why he gave priority to buying a destroyer is mainly because of the current shortage of manpower.

At least in a short period of time, he could not recruit enough crew members to control multiple frigates for combat, and even if he could start them, they would not reach the combat level.

And Lilith was about to prepare for the first optimization iteration after escaping from the dead, and Amber could not let her split into several ships at this time.

So the best way is to concentrate on big things.

A multi-purpose destroyer is enough for their newly established PMC.

In the current imperial second-hand ship market, the most cost-effective destroyer that can be bought is the Dragoon class that has just begun to be retired.

Of course, the Dragoon class is not the only choice for this class of destroyers.

Major shipyards also have destroyers specifically used for foreign trade, or "armed merchant ships that reach the level of destroyers" specifically for civilian private armed forces.

But these ships are not military-grade after all. Although they have added a lot of technical equipment that looks more advanced than military ships, in Amber's view, they are all fancy and used to cheat money.

Of course, Amber is not the only smart person. Many people know that the cost-effectiveness of military-grade destroyers is high, so the price of this kind of ship has been hyped up a bit.

Especially the Dragoon class, which has just been retired and maintained, and its performance is not backward, the price has reached 70% of the price of the Royal Navy's new ship.

And it will rise wildly to 80% to 90% of the price of new ships in the future.

In a fiscal year when a large number of Dragoons were deployed, the cost of a new Dragoon-class destroyer was 20 million Imperial Gold Dragons.

So now in the second-hand ship market, the price range of these Dragoons, which have just begun to be retired, is between 13 million and 14 million Imperial Gold Dragons.

Amber finally gritted her teeth and bought the best-maintained one, spending 14 million Imperial Gold Dragons at once.

The combat ship was settled, and the next step was to purchase a mining ship for the mining company.

This time, Amber chose a Gyro-class mining ship with the highest cargo capacity among ships of the same type and level.

There is no such thing as whether to retire or not for this type of mining ship. Currently, mainstream mining ships can be bought in the second-hand market, and the price is generally about 60% of the price of new ships.

As a long-lasting and high-selling ship type, the Gyro-class ship with a full set of mining equipment costs 40 million Imperial Gold Dragons.

Even if you buy a second-hand one, the lowest price is 24 million.

Just two ships consumed 38 million Imperial Gold Dragons in an instant. Amber felt as if she had lost all concept of money.

"It's okay, these imperial golden dragons have not disappeared, they just changed their way to continue to be with you."

Amber comforted herself like this.

After buying the boat, if the start-up capital was converted into the Imperial Golden Dragon, there would still be 13 million left.

Part of this money must first be saved for emergencies, and then part of it must be used to maintain the company's daily operations, including the repair and daily maintenance of weapons, equipment, ships, ammunition reserves, etc.

After this, a portion will be left for recruiting new employees and paying wages.

Amber plans to use all the remaining funds for mining.

He is quite familiar with this operation.

Although the current price of ore in the star system market on the border between the Thousand Star Empire and the Star Dragon Empire has increased to a certain extent compared with before the war, it is not an exaggeration.

Judging from the price curve in the past two years, it can be regarded as a normal growth rate.

But then, as the battle between the Federation and the Empire becomes more and more intense, the price of whether it is crude ore or refined ore will skyrocket at a heart-stopping rate.

If she didn't make this kind of money, Amber would feel that her conscience would hurt, and she would wake up and slap her mouth every night.

In addition to the ultra-large-capacity cargo warehouse, the Gyrator class also comes with a basic ore refining workshop.

Although it is not as efficient as those of serious industrial ships, it is better than nothing.

The price of refined ore is much higher than that of crude ore. Even if the amount of refined ore is not large, mosquitoes are still meat no matter how small they are.

After arranging for Lilith to surf the Internet and collect ore from multiple different ore trading markets.

Amber, who had no time to rest at all, started recruiting people.