Know-how: Being a Trader.

Trading can be a very rewarding way of obtaining credits and has the potential to provide enormous profit if done correctly. While the basics of trading - buy low, sell high - are nobrainers, the following guide will introduce any interested player to the other basics of the trading profession in Avorion.

## What you need

### The ship

**A ship for trading does obviously need cargo space to transport any commodities**. The material for the cargo space does not matter and the player may choose it by the different properties of the available materials (Iron for its very low cost or other ones for their weight). **Note that one or a few large blocks will provide more cargo space than the same volume of smaller ones**. It is recommended to design some kind of **modular cargo spaces to create a ship that can be extended at any time by the simple addition of more cargo modules**. To allow for this, each module needs an energy source as well as thruster and engine blocks in addition to the mandatory cargo bay in most cases. With a design like that, **the ship will be enabled to grow just as the players capabilities do**.

### The Trading Upgrade

It is **extremly important to have a trading upgrade of the level of at least rare (blue color) to set up trading routes** and so it is highly recommended to have one of these either by coincidence or from buying it of an equipment dock before starting to trade. The upgrade will enable a new menu at the top right of the screen that allows to view not only the prices for any good at any station in the current sector, but will also show the deviation from the average prices.

### Start capital

Trading can offer large amounts of credits in short time, but it is important to point out, that **there is a basic amount of credits needed to make it worth the effort. It is recommended to have a start capital of at least 2,000,000 to 5,000,000 credits to benefit from trading**, as the progression from a capital of 100,000 credits to 100,000,000 credits will take dozens of trades while the progression from a capital of 10,000,000 credits to 100,000,000 credits is achievable in only a few trades.

A basic start capital is obtainable (for example) by claiming and selling asteroids or by piracy.

## Trading and developing trading routes

Once there is a proper ship with a suitable trading upgrade equipped, the player may choose any area of the galaxy as his field of interest. **This area should be fully explored** to gain all information about the stations available.

During (or after) the exploration, a player should **collect all information on remarkable prices in the explored sectors** (e. g. by taking notes, screenshots or photos of the screen). This means those, that are especially low or especially high in comparison to the average prices. By comparison of the collected data the player will be enabled to **spot sectors where specific goods can be bought for a very cheap price while there are other ones where the same commodities can be sold for a large amount of credits** (Note that these values will change after each trade). With this information the player can **set up a travel route that leads through all the different sectors of interest**. The logistic challenge with this is to ensure that the player will buy and sell different goods on his way, guaranteeing that his cargo is never empty, but also never too full to get everything in.

Trading upgrades of higher rarity will propose their own trading routes, which are often very, but not the most profitable ones to use. The information provided by these upgrades may still be of great help to the trading player, but it is recommended to not entirely rely on it.

**A good trade route in combination with a large trading ship may allow for hundreds of millions of profit per rotation.**