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There's an interesting thread here about how trades are currently (v3.61/v4.00b) worked out, & why your station may stop trading for a time, with Dev comments/clarifications
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Manual trading via
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owned ships
I'd prefer to leave this until v4 becomes live, but ATM (other than the obvious buy low, sell high - & get your trades in first), smalltalking small-talking multiple NPCs to gain stackable discounts can work effectively. , if a little tedioustediously.
Each successfull successful trade improve reputation with station owner faction. Gained reputation proportional to transaction value. You need to trade goods with cumulative worth about 6 000 000 000 Cr to gain 30 relation with faction.
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