Trade

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Colonies can trade with other factions by using caravans and orbital trade ships via a comms console. Tradeable commodities include slaves/prisoners, furniture, gear, resources, food, drugs, and works of art.

The trade interface shows what commodities are available to trade, the colony's stock, the trader's stock, and the prices to buy and sell.

BUY		QUANTITY	SELL
ALL	ONE	positive = buy negative = sell	ONE	ALL
<<	<	may type # here	>	>>

• Trade is influenced by your trader's ability to speak and hear. Damage to any such parts will ruin trade prices.
• Prices listed in green are cheap (does not appear with base-game traders), while prices listed in red are expensive.
• Items that the foreign trader has no interest in are shown grayed out at the bottom of the list; other traders may want them instead.
• Animals that have been downed are not listed for trade.
• All traders carry a limited amount of silver, so they may not be able to buy everything you wish to sell. You can still give them things over this value but everything they receive will be for free, as they cannot afford to pay. In this instance it is likely better to not sell the items or to take the excess in useful or resalable items rather than get nothing in return.
• Selling a prisoner is profitable, but has a negative impact on the happiness of all colonists (excludes psychopaths).

Game progression

Early game

Caravans consist of one or more faction members often with pack animals and/or tamed animals in tow. Players can either form their own caravan or wait for others to visit their own colony. To trade with a foreign passing caravan, direct a colonist (preferably with high social skill and thus Trade Price Improvement) to speak with the caravan member who has a yellow question mark above the head. Stored items will be eligible to sell and appear in the trade window. Purchased items will be dropped in the location where the trader was standing and will need to be hauled.

Sometimes, foreign caravan members may fight each other and accidentally drop items from their gear inventory.

Later game

After researching the Microelectronics project, a comms console and an orbital trade beacon can be built, which allow:

• Satellite calls to request caravans to allied factions at a cost of 15 goodwill (or 700/1100 silver prior to 1.0). You can only call for a caravan from a given friendly faction once every four days.

• Interaction with orbital trade ships which will stay around for a limited time. A blue notification will appear at the right of your screen to announce the trade ship and its type. After it's gone, a simple notice at the top of the screen will note when the same vessel leaves comms range and can no longer be traded with. Each trade ship varies in type, which determines its inventory.

To trade, order a colonist to interact with the comms console. Only items located within range of an orbital trade beacon can be traded. Purchases will be sent via drop pods to a beacon's open-air tiles, drop pods will phase through constructed roofs otherwise. If all beacon tiles are covered, drop pods will land at the nearest eligible tile. Colonists using the comms console use the same Trade Price Improvement stat as when making trades in person. Prisoners can be sold directly from their cell even if not in range of a beacon and tamed animals can be sold from anywhere on the map. The trade value of a prisoner or animal is based on their capabilities, injuries and skills.

Trade prices

Trade prices are based on the market value. In general the selling price is significantly lower than the buying price. This is however dependent on several modifiers that can be seen in the tooltip when hovering over an item's price in the trading dialog.

First of all goods from the colony are sold at 60% market value, and bought at 140% market value. These are further affected by the both the storyteller's economic and difficulty settings.

Some traders will charge 2x the price for the certain good, in addition to the multiplier on buying. Selling remains at normal price.

Trade Price Improvement

See also: Trade Price Improvement

This multiplier is affected by the stats of the chosen colonist. This is listed on the tooltip as "Your negotiator bonus: -x%". Additionally factions offer a 2% discount when trading at a base.

Sell Price Multiplier

See also: Sell Price Multiplier

The selling prices of the following item types are affected by this multiplier. Note that this doesn't affect the buying price.

Type	Factor
Furniture	x0.7
Sculptures	x1.1
Weapons	x0.2

The multipliers make it more difficult to farm raids for profit, because weapons dropped by dead enemies are not valuable in trade. It also means that crafting weapons in your colony only makes sense for personal use, and not for selling. The game encourages creating art for sale, as it is more profitable than all other items.

Types of traders

By technological level

• Neolithic traders are tribal in nature and will be limited to selling neolithic level items.
• Outlander traders come from other faction settlements and are not restricted to a specific technology level of items.
• Orbital traders are not affiliated with any faction, and only appear if you have a powered comms console. Orbital traders are always "high tech", although certain types (e.g. Farming, or Bulk goods) do not deal in items that are particularly distinguishable as such.

By physical presence

• Faction settlements that engage in trading. They buy/sell everything within their technology level, have the most extensive stocks and offer a 2% discount.
• Land convoys have a physical presence on the map. They will leave the area if the temperature is deemed too dangerous for them to continue trading. They and come in to types:
  • Visitors are small groups that carry all of their goods on their person. They may or may not have items for trade; even if they do, they often have few items and little silver to trade with.
  • Trade caravans are large groups that carry their goods on pack muffalo or dromedaries, depending on climate. They have a moderate amount of items and silver to buy trade with.
• Orbital traders have no physical presence. They have large amounts of items and silver to trade with, and have the same trader types as outlanders. While the game does not specify where orbital traders hail from, the technologically advanced nature of items that they carry generally indicates that they are from urbworlds or glitterworlds.

Visitors but not traders, no character with (?) sign overhead.

By inventory

Note that different merchants tend to only accept items of the general category that they offer - so don't necessarily expect to trade your wooden sculptures for firearms, nor your piles of smokeleaf for televisions, nor your herbal medicine for venison, nor your valuable chinchilla furs for slaves, depending who exactly is offering them. This is not true if you travel to a village site to trade, as then there is no "filter" as to what is offered or accepted beyond the general tech-level of that tribe.

Most* all traders do accept silver, components, and packaged survival meals*, and many will accept pack animals*.

(* Combat Suppliers and War Merchants are not interested in pack animals, and Mining Goods traders are not interested in pack animals or food. Note that any trader will not trade for an animal if the current temperature is outside that animal's Comfortable Temperature Range (which can be found in the article on that particular animal).)

All traders offer components.

Bulk goods trader

Bulk goods traders deal in food and basic materials, such as steel, wood, components, gold, textiles, as well as clothing, furniture and domestic animals.

Combat supplier

Combat suppliers deal in melee and modern weapons, modern armor, mortar shells, and (non-herbal) medicine.

Exotic goods trader

Exotic goods traders deal in rare and valuable items such as artifacts, televisions, telescopes, apparel, bionic body parts, advanced components, skilltrainers, some furniture, plasteel, gold, uranium, glitterworld medicine, and "psychic" weapons, among others. They may also carry animals of the wilder variety, or those not native to the local biome.

Farming trader

As the name implies, farming traders offer domestic animals and food, both various meats and vegetables.

Mining goods trader

This merchant offers raw metals and plasteel, stone blocks, jade, chemfuel, and high-explosive shells - that's about it.

Shaman merchant

The tribal variant of the exotic goods trader, the shaman merchant deals in lower tech versions of the same, including smokeleaf. He also may offer high-tech medicines and "psychic" weapons.

Slaver

Slavers deal in slaves/prisoners, weapons, body parts, medicine, and drugs. The chance of traders carrying prisoners should go down as colony population goes up. A healthy slave (yours or theirs) has a value of around 1,000 silver or maybe a little more, less if they are suffering from a permanent injury, and a lot less (down toward 100 silver) if they are currently badly injured, even if they are healing up. Damaged goods are damaged goods, apparently.

(The outlander variant of this trader was previously called a "pirate merchant" and they are still referred to as such in both discussion and the game code. Note that despite the name, outlander factions, not pirate factions, send "pirate merchants".)

War merchant

The tribal version of the Combat Supplier, this merchant offers simple melee weapons and neolithic ranged weapons, predatory-type animals, and tribal-level (non-complex clothing) apparel of all sorts.

Trader inventories

Faction base

Faction bases have an extensive inventory and deal with most things. They take 30 days to restock. The remaining time can be checked in "Show what will buy".

Outlander base

Name	Price	Min Stock	Max Stock
Silver	N/A	800	3000
Component	x1	20	70
Steel	x1	300	600
Wood	x1	200	400
Plasteel	x1	-50	200
Cloth	x1	100	300
Gold	x1	-50	200
Neutroamine	x1	50	200
Chemfuel	x1	300	500
Chocolate	x1	-30	70
Beer	x1	-40	100
Medicine	x1	25	50
Telescope	x1	0	1

Groups of items:

Group	Price	Variety	Min Stock	Max Stock	Items
Mortar shells	x1	1 - 2 kinds	20 each	40 each	All mortar shells except antigrain warhead
Textiles	x1	1 - 2 kinds	400	800	All Textiles
Resources	x1	2 - 4 kinds	400	800	All resources except silver
Raw food	x1	2 - 4 kinds	400	800	All except fertilized eggs
Meals	x1	1 - 2 kinds	12 each	50 each	All meals
Furniture	x1	3 - 4 kinds	1 each	2 each	All furniture
Animals	x1	2 - 4 kinds	3 each	8 each	Most animals
Clothing	x1	10 - 16 kinds	1 each	1 each	All clothing
Drugs	x1	3 - 4 kinds	750	1500	All drugs
Ranged weapons	x1	3 - 6 kinds	1 each	1 each	All ranged weapons
Melee weapons	x1	3 - 4 kinds	1 each	2 each	All melee weapons
Armor	x1	2 - 4 kinds	1 each	1 each	All armor
Body parts/ Implants	x1	2 - 4 kinds	1 each	1 each	All body parts or implants
Exotic items	x1	1 - 4 kinds	1 each	2 each	Rare items
Artifacts	x1	1 - 4 kinds	1 each	1 each	All artifacts
Apparel	x1	3 - 6 kinds	1 each	10 each	All apparel
Art	x1	5 - 10 kinds	1 each	1 each	Sculptures
Televisions	x1	1 - 2 kinds	1 each	2 each	Tube television, Flatscreen television, Megascreen television
Slaves	x1	-1 - 2	1 each	1 each	-

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Neolithic base

Name	Price	Min Stock	Max Stock
Silver	N/A	800	3000
Component	x2	3	10
Steel	x1	200	300
Wood	x1	500	600
Cloth	x1	200	300
Gold	x1	-40	120
Pemmican	x1	500	1000
Herbal medicine	x1	15	30

Groups of items:

Group	Price	Variety	Min Stock	Max Stock	Items
Textiles	x1	1 - 2 kinds	300	700	All Textiles
Resources	x1	3 kinds	200	600	All resources except silver
Raw food	x1	3 - 5 kinds	300	800	All except fertilized eggs
Clothing	x1	4 - 12 kinds	1 each	1 each	Neolithic clothing
Animals	x1	2 - 4 kinds	1 each	5 each	Wildness below 70%
Animals	x1	1 - 2 kinds	1 each	4 each	Powerful animals
Drugs	x1	1 - 2 kinds	400	1000	Beer, smokeleaf joint, psychite tea
Ranged weapons	x1	2 - 4 kinds	1 each	1 each	Neolithic ranged
Melee weapons	x1	2 - 4 kinds	1 each	2 each	Neolithic melee
Slaves	x1	-1 - 2	1 each	1 each	---
Artifacts	x1	0 - 3 kinds	1 each	1 each	All artifacts

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Caravan

Trade caravans have a moderate amount of items to buy and silver to trade with.

Outlander bulk goods trader caravan

Name	Price	Min Stock	Max Stock
Silver	N/A	750	1200
Component	x1	30	40
Advanced component	x1	-10	2
Steel	x1	250	400
Cloth	x1	240	400
Chemfuel	x1	240	400
Neutroamine	x1	70	160
Beer	x1	-100	100
Chocolate	x1	10	40

Groups of items:

Group	Price	Variety	Min Stock	Max Stock	Items
Raw food	x1	3 kinds	150	600	All except fertilized eggs
Textiles	x1	?	?	?	All Textiles
Food	x1	?	?	?	Chocolate, Kibble, Pemmican
Drugs	x1	?	?	?	All drugs
Clothing	x1	10 kinds	1 each	1 each	All clothing
Furniture	x1	3 kinds	1 each	1 each	All furniture
Animals	x1	1 kind	3 each	4 each	Farm and pet animals with wildness below 70%.

Outlander combat supplier caravan

Name	Price	Min Stock	Max Stock
Silver	N/A	750	1200
Medicine	x1	10	20
Techprint	x1	1	1

Groups of items:

Group	Price	Variety	Min Stock	Max Stock	Items
Ranged weapons	x1	? kinds	5 each	5 each	All ranged weapons
Melee weapons	x1	6 kinds	1 each	1 each	All melee weapons
Mortar shells	x1	1 - 2 kinds	3 each	15 each	All mortar shells except antigrain warhead
Armor	x1	? kinds	5 each	5 each	All clothing

Orbital

In order to trade with an Orbital trader, you first must be able to make contact with them. This requires 3 things:

1. a powered comms console
2. a powered orbital trade beacon
3. an Orbital Trader currently in the area - they are not always up there.

If you have the first two, you will be automatically notified when the third appears.

Orbital traders usually come with large stocks corresponding to their trader type. You cannot "request" a specific type of orbital trader the way you can when contacting allies.

Bulk goods trader

Name	Price	Min Stock	Max Stock
Silver	N/A	2000	4000
Component	x1	15	30
Steel	x1	500	800
Wood	x1	500	800
Plasteel	x1	100	400
Cloth	x1	200	600
Medicine	x2	20	30
Gold	x1	50	200
Neutroamine	x1	100	200
Chemfuel	x1	200	600
Chocolate	x1	-70	100
Beer	x1	-70	100

Groups of items:

Group	Price	Variety	Min Stock	Max Stock	Items
Textiles	x1	1 - 2 kinds	2200	4000	All Textiles
Resources	x1	2 - 4 kinds	800	1500	All resources except silver
Raw food	x1	2 - 4 kinds	800	1500	All except fertilized eggs
Meals	x1	1 - 2 kinds	15 each	30 each	All meals
Furniture	x1	0 - 3 kinds	1 each	2 each	All furniture
Clothing	x1	10 - 20 kinds	1 each	1 each	All clothing
Drugs	x1	2 - 4 kinds	1000	2000	All drugs
Animals	x1	2 - 4 kinds	10 each	20 each	Animals with wildness below 70%

Commonality: 2

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Combat supplier

Name	Price	Min Stock	Max Stock
Silver	N/A	2000	4000
Component	x2	5	10
Medicine	x1	30	50

Groups of items:

Group	Price	Variety	Min Stock	Max Stock	Items
Mortar shells	x1	1 - 2 kinds	20 each	40 each	All mortar shells except antigrain warhead
Ranged weapons	x1	5 - 6 kinds	1 each	1 each	All ranged weapons
Melee weapons	x1	5 - 6 kinds	2 each	3 each	All melee weapons
Armor	x1	8 - 10 kinds	1 each	1 each	All armor

Commonality: 1

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Exotic goods trader

Name	Price	Min Stock	Max Stock
Silver	N/A	2000	4000
Component	x2	5	30
Gold	x1	200	400
Plasteel	x1	100	400
Glitterworld medicine	x1	5	30
Neutroamine	x1	100	500
Telescope	x1	1	1

Groups of items:

Group	Price	Variety	Min Stock	Max Stock	Items
Drugs	x1	3 - 4 kinds	2000	3000	All drugs
Exotic items	x1	3 - 5 kinds	1 each	2 each	Rare items
Body parts/ Implants	x1	3 - 5 kinds	1 each	1 each	All body parts or implants
Artifacts	x1	2 - 4 kinds	1 each	1 each	All artifacts
Art	x1	4 - 8 kinds	1 each	1 each	Sculptures
Televisions	x1	1 - 3 kinds	1 each	1 each	Tube television, Flatscreen television, Megascreen television
Furniture	x1	1 - 4 kinds	1 each	2 each	All furniture
Animals	x1	1 - 2 kinds	2 each	3 each	Animals with wildness above 60%

Commonality: 1

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Pirate merchant

Name	Price	Min Stock	Max Stock
Silver	N/A	2000	4000
Component	x2	5	10
Beer	x1	-300	300
Medicine	x2	5	15
Neutroamine	x2	100	400
Chemfuel	x2	50	200

Groups of items:

Group	Price	Variety	Min Stock	Max Stock	Items
Slaves	x1	2 - 3	1 each	1 each	---
Ranged weapons	x1	-1 - 2 kinds	1 each	1 each	All ranged weapons
Armor	x1	-2 - 2 kinds	1 each	1 each	All armor
Body parts/ Implants	x1	-4 - 5 kinds	1 each	1 each	All body parts or implants
Artifacts	x1	-5 - 1 kinds	1 each	1 each	All artifacts
Drugs	x1	3 - 6 kinds	2000	3000	All drugs

Commonality: 1

Visitor

Outlander visitor

Name	Price	Min Stock	Max Stock
Silver	N/A	50	250
Component	x1	-2	5
Packaged survival meal	x1	3	6
Medicine	x1	1	6
Cloth	x1	?	?
Chocolate	x1	?	?

Groups of items:

Group	Price	Variety	Min Stock	Max Stock	Items
Drugs	x1	-1 - 1 kinds	100	300	All drugs
Techprint	x1	0.5 chance	1	1	-
Ranged weapons	x1	0 - 1 kinds	1 each	1 each	All ranged weapons
Clothing	x1	0 - 1 kinds	1 each	1 each	All clothing

Neolithic visitor

Name	Price	Min Stock	Max Stock
Silver	N/A	50	250
Pemmican	x1	40	80
herbal medicine	x1	1	4
Cloth	x1	?	?
Chocolate	x1	?	?

Groups of items:

Group	Price	Variety	Min Stock	Max Stock	Items
Drugs	x1	-1 - 1 kinds	200	400	Beer, smokeleaf joint, psychite tea
Techprint	x1	0.5 chance	1	1	Techprint
Ranged weapons	x1	0 - 1 kinds	1 each	1 each	Neolithic ranged
Melee weapons	x1	0 - 1 kinds	1 each	1 each	Neolithic melee
Clothing	x1	0 - 1 kinds	1 each	1 each	All clothing

Trader behavior

Trade caravans that come to your colony usually pick a random spot outdoors where they will simply wander around and wait for your colonists to send a negotiator for trade. This spot may be in a ridiculous place, such as the middle of a river. When hungry visitors may use the colony's tables and chairs for dining.

Leaving the map

A trade caravan will usually leave as soon as the merchant pawn becomes tired (the first notch on their sleep need), though they can still be traded with while walking towards the edge of the map. If the merchant has a different sleep need than other members of the caravan for some reason, caravan members may end up sleeping on the floor when exhausted.

Sometimes, foreigners will leave your map before you have the chance to interact with them. They may start social fights amongst themselves, fight rival factions, or get attacked by wild animals. The caravan may also leave the map on their own if the temperature becomes too high or too low for them or their animals, similar to raiders. Foreigners who get downed can be rescued, either by their own members or by yourself for a goodwill bonus. Any items dropped can be unforbidden without damaging relations, however stripping clothes from anyone unconscious causes a loss of goodwill.

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  Foreign traders taking a wounded guest (wild animal attack) back to their base.

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  Foreign trader downed due to overdose.

Notes

• There is no trade bar for "silver"; that's just listed at the top of the trades column, and gets adjusted as items are selected to buy/sell. Once a trade is accepted, the difference in silver (positive or negative) automatically goes from one party to the other, up to the limit of that party's silver in stock. (Trader's silver can be seen under their "Gear" tab, your silver can be seen under Inventory/Raw Resources.)
• You cannot buy back prisoners you just sold as a way to insta-recruit anyone (exploit prevention).
• You can trade your expensive items (weapons, sculptures) for other desirable items if the trade ship doesn't have enough silver to complete the transaction. Of course, the amount of silver you can gain is lower, but it is usually better to have a lot of cheap items than an expensive one in your store. Sometimes you have items so expensive that no trader can buy them.
• When selling pack animals, they will bring any items that they are carrying along with them.

Version history

• 0.0.245 - Traders are now rarer but carry more goods.
• 0.7.581 - New trade system and interface. Traders carry and buy any item, including prosthetics, neurotrainers, organs, slaves, weapons, apparel, commodities.
• 0.11.877 - Slave trader changed to pirate merchant, can still show up to buy slaves even when your population is high (though they may not carry any). A11B Fixed pirate merchants only bringing slaves when population is high. Reworked how slave prices are calculated so they take injuries, capacities, and skills into account better.
• 0.13.1135 - Ground-traveling trade caravans from other factions added.
• 1.1.2563 - Fixed bug that would cause traders to restock daily.