Trading
Introduction:Trading is the movement of goods from one trading post to another. The goal is to buy goods at low prices and sell them elsewhere at high prices. Of course, you also have to factor supply, demand, and a little common sense in the equation.
Examining the Menu:
When you enter a trading center, you can type MENU to display a list of commodities for sale and in demand. An example menu might look like this:
--- Empanda Station; Trading Center ---
Item Demand Buying For
----------------------------------------------------------
Electromagnets 90000.0 550.0
Radiation Capacitor 125000.0 350.0
Aluminum Wires 190000.0 200.0
Unobtanium Enclosures 110000.0 600.0
Unrefined Cardenium 105000.0 975.0
Nickle 1150000.0 60.0
Gold 375000.0 200.0
Copper 1250000.0 50.0
Diamonds 60000.0 400.0
Item Supply Selling For
----------------------------------------------------------
Relativity Drive -- --
Xenon 980001.0 50.0
Hydrogen 490001.0 55.0
Grain 500001.0 30.0
Carbon 600001.0 30.0
Droid Components 180000.0 200.0
The first section shows what the trading center is buying. Take Gold, for example. Empanda is in need of 375,000 units of gold and is willing to pay 200 credits per unit for it.
The second section shows what the trading center has for sale. We can see that they have 980,001 units of Xenon and are selling it for a mere 50 credits per unit.
When an item has a double dash (--) in a field, it means that the trading center has none of that item available. More information about this occurance can be found in the Tiers section below.
If an item has an asterisk (*) in front of it, that means that the commodity is constructed from a combination of other commodities. You can see which these are by typing INFO <commodity name>.
Tiers:
Trading commodities operate on a system of tiers. That is to say, the more complex an item is, the more parts it requires to construct that item. There are basic commodities used in the production of others, such as aluminum, bardenium, electronics, etc. But other things, such as droid components, require a combination of parts to construct.
When a trading center lacks the materials to construct more advanced goods, they sell out. When this happens, the demand for the goods necessary to build more advanced components will go up. When enough of the raw materials are available, the trading center will construct the more advanced component which, in turn, might go toward constructing an even more advanced component or be available for trade to other trading centers that may require it.
You can see what materials are required to build a certain component by typing INFO <commodity> in any trading center. Depending on your options, this will either present you with a tree or a list of every component required to build the commodity in question and every component required to build those components all the way down the line until there is nothing left to build.
Production of Goods:
One thing a player will want to keep in mind is that a space station cannot support itself. It will always require certain supplies to be delivered to it in order to function. Things such as water and oxygen must come through trading centers. Thus it is always wise to keep in mind that a space station will almost always be looking for these goods. It's also logical to assume that a desert planet would be looking for water and military planets are looking for materials necessary to construct weapons and military devices. Or they are looking for already constructed weapons and military devices.
Buying:
After you have located a suitable trading route, you simply type the command BUY into a trading center. You will then be prompted to choose what ship to load the cargo into and how many units of the cargo you wish to buy.
Selling:
To sell your cargo, simply type SELL into the trading center. It will prompt you for what you wish to sell.
Getting Rid of Cargo:
Should you decide that your cargo is worthless, you can type EXPEL from the control room of your ship to get rid of it. This is almost certainly not what you wish to do after purchasing the cargo, but nonetheless is an option available as a last resort.
Related Topics: Activities