Trading Basics in DarkStar One

Learn the basics on how to become a space merchant.

Among doing missions or bounty hunting, trading commodities is an honest way of making a living in the galaxy. This article will teach you the bare basics of how to trade.

When you are docked at a trading station, you can view its tradables (known as commodities). There will be four bars on the left of each commodity. These bars will either be red or green.

Dark Star One runs on a supply and demand economical system. When a trade station has an anundancy of items, they try to sell it off for a cheap price. At a distant system, another trading station might be very low or have none of a certain commodity. Desperate for a supply, trade stations will offer very high prices for a surplus of this commodity.

Your job is to buy cheap at one place, and sell high at another. That's all there is to it!

Of course, knowing Dark Star One, it might be difficult for beginners to understand what all the graphics and menues mean. When you check the star map, each location will be presented with several little images of commodities. The commodities shown in green are commodities that the trade station has a large supply of. Any other location that does not have that commodity listed will be in demand for that item. Make sure that the commodity is bordered in red. Those commodities are illegal, and smuggling illegal commodities will be explained in a different article.

This is the concept of trading. The act of trading will be explained in this section of the article.

In the trade menu of a trading station, slide the meter to the right to purchase a commodity. Make sure that the four bars are green, purchase as much of that commodity as you can. Go to the star map, and find a location that does not have this commodity in an abundance or have it listed as illegal. Set your waypoint there. Takeoff the trade station and go into hyperdrive when you can.

After arriving at the location, pirates might be waiting to ambush you. If this is the case, drop your container. Don't worry, you will get it back later. Dispatch all the pirates. Return to your cargo, and dock it to your ship.

Make your way to the trade station. Enter the trading screen. The commodity that you recently purchased should have some of those bars filled in red. If so, move the meter to the left to sell your commodities.

This is all you need to know how to make an honest profit in space.