Trade Rank

[micha_x3]

Can anybody please explain me the system behind the trade rank? Most time i sell things, i dont get any percent for my trade rank. no matter if im the pilot or not. but then sometimes i get percent for sells. For example: i sell drugs, slaves, weed on the black market. nothing. then i sell spacefuel (the alcohol) on the same black market i get rank. Try this again, fly to the next station for other black market, sell around same amount of spacefuel, but now nothing.....
From legal sells i cant remember that i got any percent for the rank overall. most time my stationmangers or uni-trader get the percents. so i need to level the rank with uni-trader and station manager or what is the secret behind the trade rank?
would be nice if anybody can explain me the system.

[DanKara]

The trade rank (just like the fight rank and faction reputationks) is defined by an absolute figure. I will call this number 'trade points'. Sadly this figure is not shown to us in vanilla game. A list of all trade ranks and their absolute trade points is found here (numbers in brackets).

You raise your trade rank ... (solely?) by trading. That increase in trade points is not a 'percentage progression' but again an absolute number. How high that number is depends on how much profit per unit you made. For example EnergyCells are sold vor 12cr (min), 16cr (av), 20cr (max). Buying or Selling at average price grants (next to) no trade rank increase. Buying at 12cr or selling at 20cr will give you the highest possible number. Another example: lets say, selling a load of eCells grants 300 trade points. Such a trade lets you jump from trade rank 0 (Oportunist) to trade rank 10 (Entrepreneur) but is a drop in the ocean at higher trade ranks (that may not even get represented in % per 'level progression').

Commodities, wares, weapons and such bought/sold to/from Tradestation, Equipementdocks, MilitaryOutpost and the likes are always traded for the average price, so (next to) no gain in trade rank. StationManager/UT's will sell stuff for the highest possible price to starving NPC-factories and buying resssources at lowest price availlable from well-stocked NPC-stations. Thats why you get your (noticeable) trade rank increase from these. Having multiple automated traders running while also trading manually makes it hard to track from what comes what (in my experience).

I don't know much about the Bartering and Black Market systems in FL. In my experience buying low and selling high in the Black Market gave me no trade points (I checked my trade points with the ScriptEditor) ... so if you have seen it different, we would need some clarification from a DEV (CYCROW can you help?).

[micha_x3]

thank u this will help me a lot.
Yeah i read about the point system but i dont found the points so the percent was my only indicator for increase trade rank. thanks to u i know now that i cant see the points sadly
i was high financier and got low economist with one sell. my uni and stations trades never gave me skip from rank and i got the message instant after sell. so i think it was the sell from spacefuel.

[micha_x3]

sry when i ask again, but i think i havent understood this right. i got now some spaceflies from my own production and flew to split factories there need the flies (all had stock from 0) min price (1853) ava(3088) max(4323). i sold 12x450 and 15x180 for a price from 3860. |3860-3088|>|3860-4323| so more near to max and it should be any change for my trade rank, but again, nothing.....(wasnt the pilot, no trade route or something, just told the ships to dock and then i sold with the station-trade menu) or secondary commodieties dont count? or what i do wrong?

[Cycrow]

Secondary resources have a less of an impact them primary resources and products.

however, as said previous, if you are pretty high in trade rank, you could be gaining points internally but it may take many points before the percentage changes.

for example, lets assume you gain 1 point per trade, and theres 1000 points to the next rank. This means that for every trade you gain 0.1%, but it only displays the whole percentage. So every 10th trade your percentage will increase. So 9 out of the 10 trades will show no change. But the value will be going up internally

[DanKara]

or what i do wrong?

You have done nothing wrong! The number of sold units may be too low and the price-sold-at may still be too low to make recognizable progression.
Have you ever tried to sell a maxed out cargo hold of an ATS Athena in ore, silicon or food like rasta oil for max price? At 'Economist' you should see a change in percentage then ... but the higher your rank the more such trades will be needed. Eventually you will need 'days' of constant trading to see a +1% there.

Trading in secondary resources is not very profitable (on its own). Take a look at the price-ranges for 'ore' or 'teladianium' as a primary resource (like at weapon forges) and as secondary resource at food-stations (Borons I think). You will see the max-price capped midway with secondary’s. The same should be true for spaceflys (though I never traded in those for real and don't remember any place buying them as primary resource). It has it place in speeding up production and thus (faster) creates a demand/supply.

If you want to know your current 'trade points' you have to start the ingame Script Editor (rename your player-name to "Thereshallbewings" and create/use a script that makes this number known to you). A very, very simple script would use only two lines like
$wert = get trade rank
write to player logbook $wert

[micha_x3]

This with the percent i know. But no matter what i do, no rank change from manually trades and when i look at my traders they only get 100k-200k profit all time, so a little bit weird in my opinion that i dont get visible rank up from my trade tours where i get much more profit (only sell on max price too, like my traders).
its make different when i sell 1000 cells for 20 (max), or 1000 weed for 4921 (max)? its same points because same max price or is weed better because i got a lot more profit?
and u know maybe if barter counts to rank or not?
and u know if u see sells from ships under stationmanager control in the account overview or not? dont see anyone at me, but possible that no station ships sold anything in last time.


@dankara i use mules for trade, but when i look the athena maybe better
i sold around 12k of crystals, no change (after first 1,5k sell i got one percent, but i dont watched instant before, so it was the trader again for sure, specially because the other sells gave me nothing). im Manufacturer a while, thanks to my trader
when i backup my savefile, can i get after the script back to unmodified? i mean just activate script and watch if i have progress with my own trades then switch back to old save file. its easy possible or i need to work with gamefiles then?

[DanKara]

Yes, (I think) it makes a difference if you sell eCells or Weed for max price. But I don't know any details...

Yes, you can stay vanilla by making a (backup) save before starting the ScriptEditor and reloading it after the use of any script .

Can't say anything about the Bartering system but supect its the same as with the BlackMarket (as said before I lack the knowledge/experience with both).

[micha_x3]

I tried the script editor, but i cant find where i can write by myself. just choose one of thousand command lines. searched for ur lines, but can just find "write to player logbook". "get trade rank" was not possible to find for me. maybe u can tell me where i can find this command or where i can write by myself?

[Cycrow]

To find commands you can select the All Commands section then use the search filter (shift+f) to type in part of the command

[micha_x3]

ok, thank u

[BrigandPhantos77]

ok, thank u

Hey, about raising Trade rank, one thing I've always noticed, mine doesn't go up unless I actually made a profit on my trades.

Example trade: Energy Cells

Average Credit Price is 16 credits.
If I bought let's say 5000 energy cells for 15 credits or less, I gained value / trade rank increases.
If I purchased at 16 credits per unit or more, then there was no trade rank increase.

Anyway, that's been my experience in FL, and in previous editions of the game.

[iXenon]

Hey, about raising Trade rank, one thing I've always noticed, mine doesn't go up unless I actually made a profit on my trades.
...

If I collect Ore or SW from space and then sell it, do I make profit in that sense? Of course, I'd get credits on my account, but would it help to increase the trade rank?

[BrigandPhantos77]

Hey, about raising Trade rank, one thing I've always noticed, mine doesn't go up unless I actually made a profit on my trades.
...

If I collect Ore or SW from space and then sell it, do I make profit in that sense? Of course, I'd get credits on my account, but would it help to increase the trade rank?

As long as you sell it for profit. I think it only counts during a transaction. So don't sell it below the average price. Ore is 128, so sell for higher. Think of it as you gained a profit while making the deal.

I haven't had a trade rep bump in a long time personally. I think I am 2nd from the top in the rep department. Those take a really long time. Plus I stopped caring about profit ages ago. The only thing it really affects is the payout for related missions. My typical personnel transport mission pays out from 5 to 18 million. (As long as they are hard or very hard rated).

If you wanna really level those fast, try the following factories. I know these are bottom rung, but I can't hardly keep these in stock. Mosquito missiles are used and stocked by almost every equipment dock. Plus all the capital ships need them for the missile defense systems. As for the shield factories, they never stay above 10% stock before being bought out. Bottom line, they always need to stock up on resources. You could probably raise the price and they'd still likely sell.

• Mosquito Missile
  1 MJ Shield
  5 MJ Shield

[iXenon]

As long as you sell it for profit. I think it only counts during a transaction. So don't sell it below the average price. Ore is 128, so sell for higher. Think of it as you gained a profit while making the deal.

Do you know if the profit matters or number of transactions? I'm thinking if it's better to use huge cargo bay or may be small would work better. Do ten transactions of 1000 ECs and one of 10k mean the same from rating prospective?

[BrigandPhantos77]

As long as you sell it for profit. I think it only counts during a transaction. So don't sell it below the average price. Ore is 128, so sell for higher. Think of it as you gained a profit while making the deal.

Do you know if the profit matters or number of transactions? I'm thinking if it's better to use huge cargo bay or may be small would work better. Do ten transactions of 1000 ECs and one of 10k mean the same from rating prospective?

I think it's a matter of total value or profit. But I am not 100% certain.

Buying 10K of EC holds a value of 10K times 16 credits. (Average)
So you spent (if bought at 12) 120,000 is worth 160,000 (40,000) profit. Same thing holding true for selling. Sell at 19 credits an additional 30,000 profit.
In truth, I've purchased many things at it's average and never seen my rank rise (at 99% of current rank), but suddenly bought a load of say Majaglit at the bottom amount and gotten a rank immediately after because I paid the lowest amount possible.