Port Classes
Every trading port buys some of the three legal commodities and sells others, in one of eight fixed permutations. A port's class tells you which side of the counter you're on for each good — nothing more.
- Classes 1-8 — commodity ports. Each trades Fuel Ore, Organics, and Equipment in a different buy/sell mix (Class 1 buys Ore and Organics, sells Equipment; Class 7 sells all three; Class 8 buys all three; and so on).
- Class 0 — an outfitter, not a commodity trader: sells cargo holds, fighters, and shields outright, no commodities at all.
- Class 9 — isn't really a "port" — it's the StarDock itself, the plane's one hub city (see the StarDock section on this page).
- Class 10 — the black market, the only place Slaves, Weapons, and Drugs are physically bought and sold. Alignment-gated — see below.
Every commodity port starts with a random maximum stock (1,000-5,000 units per good), roughly half-full, and its own base price and volatility. A port also keeps its own petty cash on hand — it can only buy from you up to however much cash it's actually holding, and selling to it refills that cash. A cash-poor port genuinely can't take your whole hold off your hands in one visit.
How Prices Actually Move
A port's displayed price is calculated fresh from its current stock every time you look — it's never a static number sitting in a database. The formula centers on how full the port is: sitting above half-full pushes the price down (there's plenty, why pay more), sitting below half pushes it up (it's scarce). How sharply it reacts depends on that commodity's own volatility and the port's tech level.
What this means at the trade window: selling into a port that's already near full crashes the price fast; buying from one that's nearly empty gets expensive fast. The market has a real, if short, memory — the next commander to visit sees whatever state you left it in, not a reset board.
Haggling
You don't have to accept the board price — you can open negotiations and try to talk it down (buying) or up (selling). The port has its own tolerance:
| You're | Offer at or better than | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Buying | 92% of the quoted price | Accepted as offered |
| Buying | Below 78% of quote | Instant breach — the port refuses outright |
| Buying | Between 78-92% | Port counters at exactly 92% |
| Selling | 108% of the quoted price or less | Accepted as offered |
| Selling | Above 122% of quote | Instant breach |
| Selling | Between 108-122% | Port counters at exactly 108% |
You only earn experience from a negotiation that actually landed you a better price than the standing quote — just accepting the board price, or a port's own counter-offer, pays no XP. Push too hard too often, though: three breaches at the same port locks you out of it for 24 hours. There's no way to clear that early — you just wait it out, or trade somewhere else.
Restocking
Every ten minutes, every port in every universe drifts a little closer to half-full on every commodity it trades, re-pricing as it moves — not an instant snap back, a gradual walk. A port you just emptied doesn't reset by your next visit; it needs several ticks to recover, same as one you just flooded needs time to drain back down.
The Black Market
Slaves, Weapons, and Drugs are illegal goods — no ordinary port will touch them. Only a Class 10 port trades them physically, and only certain commanders are welcome there: any alignment except Good or Very Good is admitted (see Rank, Alignment & Corps for the exact bands) — Neutral is enough, you don't have to be a monster to get in the door, just not a paragon.
StarDock: Bank & Stock Exchange
The Commodities
- Fuel Ore, Organics, Equipment — the three legal goods, tradeable at any commodity port.
- Slaves, Weapons, Drugs — illegal, physically tradeable only at a Class 10 black market, but freely tradeable as paper positions on the Stock Exchange.
- Colonists — not a market good at all. This is cargo-hold space you load with a planet's own unassigned population to move them somewhere else — see Planets & Colonization.