Advice To Traders

The Cobra trade ship can be fitted with four lasers, four missiles and one energy bomb. This should be sufficient to make trade possible within the System Space of even heavily piratised worlds. But it is strongly recommended that pilots achieve a combat rating of at least 'Deadly' before any worlds designated 'Anarchy' or 'Feudal' are approached, especially if the cargo is high tech machinery or luxury goods.

To make money as a trader is no easy task. Unless you have backing capital you would be well advised to start with foodstuffs, textiles, minerals and luxuries.

An artists impression of a section of the cargo bay of an Anaconda Class Interstellar Freighter. It is the largest known freighter with a 750-tonne capacity cargo bay and is used mainly on the safer trade routes.

Demand for goods varies widely and prices within planets fluctuate, but the GalCop regulations prohibit planets from advertising their requirements or announcing their market prices beyond their own System Space. Any trader, therefore, approaches all transactions with a certain financial risk.

Trade depends upon demand, and selling prices depend upon the level of demand on the planet, and its available money. None of these factors can be assessed before docking. Agricultural planets invariably have excess produce at reasonable prices, and such food sells well at industrialized, middle-to-high-technology worlds. Raw materials, and ores, will sell well to middle-tech worlds, which are usually able to refine them, and the refined product can fetch excellent prices at worlds of very high tech status.

The rules are complex and anarchy and piracy has its effect on causing the rules to change.

In trading with a planet, consider its economic profile:

Agricultural worlds need specialist food and raw materials, but mostly basic machinery and spare parts. If they are rich, they need luxuries and high tech industrial machines. They produce food in quantity, raw materials and specialized 'organic' items, like some textiles.

Industrial worlds need agricultural produce: raw materials (for refining); resource exploitation machinery; (if rich) high tech goods. They produce basic items of need for civilized worlds: beds, seals and gaskets, power storage units, basic weapons, mass produced fertilizer, mass produced medicines etc. Think about a planet's needs. Think what might make the society function. Don't trade expensive trivia to a hungry world.

IF THE PROFIT ISN'T WORTH IT, TRADE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE.

Alternatives To Trading

Bounty Hunting
Galactic banks, which insure the larger trading convoys' will pay a large bounty for each pirate ship destroyed. A ship's computer will transmit photographic evidence of any kill to the GalCop Bank Federation Monitoring Authority. The IR signature of the destroyed ship is then tallied with all known pirate vessels, and the bounty hunter pilot credited accordingly.

Bounty hunters commonly have Cobra Class ships in order to masquerade as traders. They simply hyperspace into a system (anarchic and feudal worlds especially) and wait to be attacked, ensuring that they have sufficient hyperspace fuel (Quirium) for a quick escape.

Piracy
Piracy is widespread throughout the 8 galaxies, and many pirates are not hardened criminals at all, but failed traders, who have turned to this way of life in desperation. To survive as a pirate, looting freighter convoys and small ships, requires a high degree of combat experience, since not just Police Vipers will pursue them, but other pirate ships and Bounty Hunters, too, will prey upon them.

But the rewards are high. Provided the pirate ship is equipped with a fuel scoop, the jettisoned tonne canisters of attacked cargo ships can be scooped up and traded.

Asteroid Mining
There is money in rock, but to make the most of it a Cobra ship must be fitted with a fuel scoop and a MinReduc 15 Mining Laser (or some equivalent type). The mining laser will blast very large asteroids into very small fragments and the scoop can rapidly swallow this tradable ore.

Asteroids are large chunks of rock which are mined (for the valuable trace elements that they contain) with the air of a mining laser designed to fragment the rock into splinters small enough to be taken into a cargo bay by a fuel scoop. As they are a navigational hazard, a small bounty is paid for destroying an asteroid, and a kill awarded (which will help improve your rating).

Chromalloy canisters are used to store cargo during space flights. They are extremely resilient and may survive the demise of their holding vessel. Such canisters can be picked up in space with a fuel scoop fitted to the bottom of a ship, but pilots beware of picking up contraband by mistake since it may harm status and invite attack.

Free Space Cargo
Trade ships are often destroyed (by natural catastrophe or enemy action) and their cargo left ungathered. Using a fuel scoop such 'free bounty' can be collected. The contents of the canisters will be unknown until they are taken aboard and examined, and may be worthless or worth a fortune. If their contents are illegal goods, they cannot be traded or sold without legal risk. (N.B. pressurized cargo canisters are the Universal means of storing cargo for Interplanetary Space Voyaging. Made of HiFlux Chromon-alloy, they hold one Gal Tonne of goods, under variable pressure and temperature conditions. Tales have been told of such barrels being discovered after over five hundred years on barren moons, and such 'Moon salvage' is a remarkable source of historical artifact material.)

Illegal Trading
it is surprising how many planetary systems will allow the purchasing of illegal trade items, notably firearms, narcotics (especially Arcuran Megaweed) and slaves. Slaves are supplied in cryosuspension in transporter coffins, and often turn out to be old and sick specimens of vaguely humanoid life forms. Nonetheless, few systems will allow the selling of these items without taking recriminatory action.