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.
Gaining trade information
| Visits to NPC stations | Trade info gained | Benefit of a Trade Computer | Benefit of a Trade Agent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Player flying to it | 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) |
| 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. Player-related Mission Computers and Trade Agents have no bearing on stations. | ||
Whatever type of trading the player may get involved in, there a couple of core mechanics that provide helpful information:
- We have to fly near trade ports (multiple per station) to learn about trades (time-limited info, which is lost on zone change).
- Our ships undertaking manually-ordered trades will referesh trade info about the station they visit.
- A Trade Computer simplifies this by unlocking all trade info for a station when we are nearby and preventing loss of info on zone change.
- Placing a Trade Agent on a station provides real-time info on all the offers available there, stopping the time limit and the zone change issue.
- Captains of trade ships working as subordinates to stations and CVs operate independently.
- They have knowledge of all trade offers withing their Managers' Trading Operational Range.
- Their knowledge isn't shared with the player so when they visit stations while trading, the station's offers are not shared with the player.
- Scanning info points on station modules unlocks info, such as storage level and production times.
- Trade Agents unlock all storage modules at their station, which helps identify supply bottlenecks.
- Economy Analytics Software provides graph-based stats for individual stations or an entire map (zone, sector, system or galaxy).
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.