Trade

Trade is one of core Vanguard Galaxy activities. It involves buying (or obtaining through "alternate" means) vast quantities of Bulk Goods (see below), which are then transported to a location where they can be sold at profit.

To get started on trade, the player needs nothing except access to a set of Intertrade Network stations.

How Trade Works - as Intended

Each Intertrade station has a Trade Terminal. This terminal shows the same set of Bulk goods, however their prices will differ. Each station has different minimum and maximum prices for each of the Bulk items, and the actual price will vary between two local extremes.

Important Note: The lowest and highest prices for each item displayed apply only for that station. Same goes for the price graph. Buying something "low" at Station A does not mean it will be considered low at Station B - in fact that price may well be over the maximum price at Station B, and any sale there will be made at a loss!

Example of Trade

Station A prices Liquid Alloys at 1068C, within its recorded 781-1565C price range:

Station B prices Liquid Alloys at 866C, within its recorded 630-1111C price range:

Whether Station A or Station B consider these prices low or high is besides the point - buying from A to sell to B would result in a loss, and doing the opposite would result in a gain.

Since the maximum amount available for purchase is 569 items at station B, at profit rate of 202C per item, this would net the trader 114.938 credits of profit.

Assuming this is acceptable, trader needs to cash out for the bulk goods, and load them up - ideally onto a Transport vessel as those have massive cargo bays.

Once loaded, the goods will be placed in the in cargo bay, and with the Economy skill Careful Bookkeeping hovering over the item will show the price goods were bought for - so no need to record prices manually onto paper.

Note: Sale price of these Liquid Alloy Bulks is only 350C per item. Never sell the directly to a shop, unless one cannot be bothered to fly to a Trade Terminal and sell them properly.

Finally, once the transporter arrives at the destination station B, and assuming prices haven't changed substantially (or at all), selling the Bulks will produce a profit.

Note: Profit displayed on the sale screen does not factor in the purchase price! Thus, it is not profit at all, that's just the sale value. Actual profit will be Total price of purchase - Total price of sale.

Alternate Methods of Turning in Profit

Local Trading

One does not need to transport goods anywhere - they can stick to the trade graph (which is limited to a number of past 20-minute ticks), and simply wait for the price of Bulks to rise before making a sale. In the strictest sense, it's the local variant of "Buy Low, Sell High", at the point where the graph of price ranges starts to be useful.

Corsair Lessons Learned

Alternatively, one can look for Bulk goods elsewhere. Purchasing Cargo Scanner Bot consumable from an Umbral Reach shop in the Conquest Zone allows the player to scan random ships for Bulk goods. Once goods are located, they can "confiscate" them overtly (right there and then), or, do so more discretely at an isolated location (using Tracking Tag Bot and Decoy Transponder consumables to track the ship and mask own IFF signature - and any reputation loss).

Once the ship carrying the goods has been destroyed, its a simple matter of looting the cargo (and may require a Locator Beacon consumable in case the entire cargo does not fit into the bays of a combat vessel).

All further sales of "found goods" will miraculously turn in 100% profit.

Trade and ECHO

ECHO cannot run trade for profit - it is primarily an active play activity. Instead the best ECHO can do is run missions that involve delivery of goods from A to B. Even missions "Buy X number of Y goods and bring them here" are outside ECHO scope.