Star Trades Help Manual

Commodity Pricing

Commodities are found in varying abundance in different Star Systems in the Kentaran Galaxy. Some Star Systems have certain commodities in abundance, while some only have a few at all, and in very limited quantities. This creates a wide range of prices available to the clever trader.

Each depot has a base price for any given commodity based on the local economy, and an ideal inventory value based on trading expectations. If the current inventory on hand of that commodity is equal to the ideal, the depot will buy or sell for their base price. If they have more of the commodity than ideal, they will sell cheaper, but will pay very little for more. If they are short of the ideal, they will buy and sell for a higher price than the base. Thus every depot is pricing the commodity toward reaching the ideal inventory value.

Of course, the base price (which is published by each depot in the STA records) and the ideal inventory quantity (which is kept highly secret by depots to avoid exploitation) for each commodity are different at each depot depending on the local demand for each commodity.

Many depots also have enough local demand to consume some of the commodities, and some Star Systems produce certain commodities, so the current inventory on hand varies hourly with both the purchase and sale to traders, and with the local consumption or production of each commodity.

Ships with Negotiation training may attempt to negotiate a better price on some one commodity. This can be for a higher price (if you hope to sell), or a lower price (if you plan to buy), but can only be done once per hour. The new negotiated price will be good for that hour only and for that ship only.

Certain commodities are illegal and can be traded only by smuggling them past Law Enforcement. This entails considerable risk but can lead to gigantic profits if successful. In addition to the base price and demand for the illegal commodities, the Law Level of the depot affects the price, primarily due to the difficulty of satisfying local buyers where law enforcement prevents easy access to it. The following table shows the approximate price increase factors for trading of illegal commodities at various Law Level depots. This is subject to the vagaries of dealing with smugglers and other shady characters, of course.

Price Factors
Base Price multiplier for different Law Level depots and commodity legalities

	Loose	Tolerant	Strict	Oppressive
Legal	1	1	1	1
Unlawful	1	2	3	4
Prohibited	1	3	5	7

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