Introduction
Stations make use of a variety of different wares as ingredients for producing new wares, and moving them all around is a potentially lucrative activity. Wares come in two basic varieties; harvestable resources and manufactured wares. The latter being make up of combinations of the harvested resources and/or simpler manufactured wares. Ultimately, wares feed into the production of ~100 ships, ~50 stations, weapon turrets, drones and missiles.
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 link). Other items may be manufactured by the player or NPC stations.
Types of wares
There are approximately 6 tiers of wares, with each generally made from the preceding tier:
- Harvestable wares and Energy Cells*.
- Food-related wares and water, used in combination to make Food Rations* or Bofu*.
- Refined materials predominantly made from havestable resources (e.g. Cut Crystals and Ion Cells).
- Advanced items, such as Quantum Tubes and Chemical Compounds.
- Ship Components, such as Fusion Reactors and Reinforced Metal Plating.
- Ships, stations, surface elements, drones and missiles**.
* Used in every subsequent tier above the tier in question.
** Using varying combinations of Tier 4 and 5 wares.
Discounts
The prices we need to pay for any given ware may be modified by a range of possible discounts:
- Supply and demand (modifies price by how much a station has/needs relative to storage capacity).
- Faction discounts (the more a faction likes you, the less their wares cost to buy).
- Discounts gained from NPC on a station (rewarded by successful smalltalk; stackable across multiple NPCs).
- Discounts gained while flying around stations occasionally.
Economy Analytics Software
Economy Analytics Software, graphically represents trade information that can be selected by location, type and ware.
Location:
- Object: Info is available for individual CVs and stations we have knowledge of trade offers for.
- Map: Alternatively, All info is available for all trade offers within entire zones, sectors, systems or the galaxy,
Type:
- Trade Offer Prices
- Trade Offer Amounts
- Storage Levels
- Management Accounts (player property only; Manager and/or Architect)
Ware:
- Trend lines for up to 4 wares can be displayed simultaneously.
- Wares are grouped into several sub-categories for easy of location and/or avoiding clutter.
Gaining information about trade offers
| Actions | Information gained | Benefit of a Trade Computer | Benefit of a Trade Agent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Player visting stations | Approach a station's Trade Port unlocks the offers available at that Trade Port (several per station):
|
(Trade offers remain time-limited and snapshots) |
(The Trade Offers Menu does not update in real-time so to refresh that, you need to close and reopen it) |
| Player scanning station Info Points | Can Unlock knowledge of modules, such as on ware storage and manufacturing processes. Capability to scan some hardened module to 100% is dependent on:
| n/a | All storage modules are automatically unlocked by Trade Agents. |
| Traders doing manual trades | When these ships initiate docking and trading, we gain a snapshot of all the station's trade offer. | None. (Trading Captains are the equivalent of a player with one). | Manual trades can only be ordered when we have knowledge of trade offers so the benefit above apply here. |
| Traders subordinate to Managers | Managers can be considered to have access to their own network of Trade Agents since subordinate Captains have full and automatic knowledge of all trades within their station's trading operation range.
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