Trade represent the flow of goods between different systems. Since not everyone can be the best at producing everything, trade is a good way to get rid of your excess goods, earn more tax and find what you need. Trade is done through the Trade Fleets, the Holonet Relay Stations and the Open Market.

The normal way of trading is by assigning a trade fleet to fly from your system to your trading partner.

To establish a trade, a the following steps are taken:

First a route must be determined along which the trade will be conducted. This is a path of one or more sectors going from the start sector to the end sector, through which a Trade Fleet will travel. If the path goes through the territory of other factions, you might have to negotiate with them for right of passage.

A trade route with trade fleets is one-way, you can only ship goods from the origin to the destination. Next to that, you can only have trade routes coming from things that you own; for example a System, or an Outpost.

Any combinations of Goods may now be transferred, as long as you can provide sufficient capacity.

The trade capacity required is determined by the amount of goods transferred, the length of the route in sectors and the quality of any Hyperspace Lanes in those sectors. The necessary capacity can be calculated as follows:

1. For each sector in the route you add 1 or (1 / hyperspace lane quality) to the route factor
2. The route factor can then be multiplied by the total number of goods to be transferred, which will give the total amount of capacity required to establish this trade route.

It is possible to trade some goods through the holonet. Only Information and its products ( Research, Entertainment and ICT Technology) can be traded through the Holonet

Holonet trade is done by building a path through Holonet Relay Stations. Unlike trade fleets, Holonet Relay Stations are not limited in trading only with one partner. As long as both locations are connected through open Holonet Relay Stations, they are able to trade without a need for fleets.

To establish a trade, a process of the following steps must be taken:

First a route must be determined along which the trade will be conducted. This is a path through one or more sectors from the start sector to the end sector. Each sector in the path must have a holonet relay station, if another faction controls a holonet relay station you want to use, they may block access or ask for toll.

Any combinations of -based goods (i.e. Information, Research, Entertainment and ICT Technology) may be transferred, as long as the relay stations can provide sufficient capacity.

Every good that is transfered uses up 1 holonet trade capacity at each holonet relay station it passes through.

A third option to trade is with the Open Market, and this follows a slightly different mechanic then trading with factions.

It is possible to buy from and sell to the open market. Doing so requires Open Market Capacity, produced by an Open Market Zone. For every 1 Open Market Capacity produced, one product can be purchased or sold. Note that this is different from regular trade: you pay capacity both for incoming and outgoing goods.