Trade

**Trade** with aliens is an integral part of The Long Journey Home.

The trade system is based on a base price for each item, module and resource in the game. The base price is the standard price, that most merchants will pay after bargaining in the best possible way. It also determines the shop prices and the first offers of all merchants.

The base prices can be found on the items, the modules, and the resources pages.

This page wants to give an overview on how to calculate the best prices, when selling items to a merchant and how to estimate, whether an offer at shop or shipyard is cheap or expensive.

## Item prices

```
Price = base price • alien item category 1 (• alien item category 2) • difficulty • location

```

The base prices of all items can be found on the Items page.

Most alien races have preferred item categories. An item can be part of two categories. K'schar and Entrope pay 100% of the base price for all items. The Vine Consensus only buys The Berry/Flower/Fruit of the Vine.

### Difficulty

The prices payed for items and resources are lower in rogue mode. Shop and shipyard prices are not affected.

 Adventure Mode
 Rogue Mode

### Location

The location affects both merchant and shop prices.

 Gate
 Hospital (medicine)
 Garden (plants)

## First offers

```
Price = first offer • bargaining factor

```

There is a way to avoid remembering all the numbers and formulas by estimating the price of an item or a resource using the first offer that merchants make.

The amount of credits offered by merchants is proportional to the maximum price they are willing to pay.

 All other races

## Resource prices

```
Price = base price • difficulty • alien resource category • location

```

The base prices for all resources can be found on the resource page.
Each race has different favorite resource categories. Entrope pay 75% and K'schar pay 100% for all resources.

The resource prices for the Vine Consensus work in a different way and can be found on the Vine Consensus page.

## Shop prices

```
Price = base price • alien item category • location • shop multiplier

```

All shops sell their items more expensive than the amount their merchants pay at the same location. The shop prices are also influenced by the location multipliers, but independent of the difficulty.

 Glukkt Trader
 All other races

## Module prices

```
Price = base price • shop multiplier

```

The base prices for modules can be found on the modules page.

## Trading user interface

When dealing with merchants, negotiate. Don't just take the price they give you; increase it by 50% and see if they take it. If not, decrease it by 10-20 credits. Some merchants will be annoyed, but since you're encountering starports quite frequently, there should be plenty of Glukkt traders (if you have them), starports, and jump gates for you to sell to. Jump gates have two ends; if the first end won't deal with you, try the other side after you jump through.

### Step by step

The merchants dialogue can look pretty confusing at first, but its fairly easy once you know what you have to do.

you´ll get an offer you shouldn´t take because negotiation is key.
In this case you are offered 35 Credits for your Basic plating,
 2
noticed it contains your collected resources and items from the lab.
To add objects to the deal, you just pick it from that bar
To exclude an object simply highlight and click it
 3
You do so by clicking the here marked button with the Credit symbol and "+" to increase the price
to decrease your offer, simply click the button, the price is displayed in with the "-" on its right side
 4
and the updated deal.
At this point it is advised to increase the price by 50%, because the trader (of course) wants the best deal.
 5
Keep in mind that not all alien races are in for long negotiating sessions, so depending on your dire need for Credits and alien you are dealing with, you might want to take an proposed offer at some point.