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Generally speaking, a player will acquire harvestable resources via mining, although there are also a few unique stations dotted around the galaxy offering some of the harvestable resources (spoiler at the bottom of here). Other items may be manufactured by the player or NPC stations.
Whatever type of trading the player may get involved in, there a couple of core mechanics that provide helpful information:
- Baseline: We have to fly near trade ports (multiple per station) to learn about trades (time-limited and lost on zone change).
- Baseline: Scanning info points on station modules unlocks info, such as storage level and production times.
- A Trade Computer unlocks all trade info for a station when we are nearby, and prevents loss of info on zone change.
- Trade Agents provide real-time info on all the offers available at their station, stopping the time limit mentioned above.
- Trade Agents unlock all storage modules at their station (new in v4.00), which helps identify supply bottlenecks.
- Economy Analytics Software (new in v4.00) provides graph-based stats for stations or an entire zone/sector/system/galaxy.