Your First Trade

Trading is the easiest and quickest way to earn credits.

Trade is influenced by the laws of supply and demand. Some planets can produce a surplus of an item, and are willing to sell it at a price dependent upon their amount of surplus. Other planets are willing to buy items based upon the deficit of the item, to meet their populations needs.

Before we trade, we have to be orbiting a planet.

When you start the game, your ship is in proximity to a planet that is populated and has trade goods for sale and/or willing to purchase items.

Most mouse commands on the view area are started with a right click. Right click on the planet to pull up the menu.

Once you click the orbit button, your ship will move to the planet and will orbit around it.

When you click the Trade button, all the details of this planets trading information will appear.

After you have bought some cargo, close the window by pressing the red x on the top  right.

Now we have to find somewhere to sell this cargo.

From the main screen, left click on the "planet list" or press 'P'. A dialog like below will appear.

You are now on your way to another planet. Fair warning: your Deocron 50 is the slowest thing the galaxy. Enjoy the view, play with the camera, zoom in and zoom out, rotate around, and keep an eye out for hostile ships!

When you arrive at the new planet, right click on the planet and select "trade". You will see the menu you saw before, with one major difference: you have cargo to sell.

TIPS AND TRICKS:

The real key to successful trading is finding two planets the have opposite needs, and opposite items  for sale, and moving cargo back and forth between the two... and never traveling around empty.

To maximize your profits, you can keep your ship trading while you are off line by setting it's instructions to keep trading.  See the "Setting Ship Instructions" menu for how to do this.

Trading, after a time, can become quite tedious. Most successful players buy more ships, and set them to trading while you explore the galaxy, destroy your enemies, and conquer the universe.