All trade with the local population on a planet is done through starbases. There are 3 categories of trade: trade goods, drugs and lifeforms. The major source of income is from trade goods, and a planet will have a demand for a certain amount fo external trade per week.

The income from trade in all these types of goods is split equally into 4 categories
- Low Value items (L): 0->T_L stellars per mu
- Medium Value items (M): T_L->T_H) stellars per mu
- High Value items (H): T_H+ stellars per mu
- Generic Items (G): Will buy from any lvl (equally divided between the 3 above groups)

The amount of trade will vary from planet to to planet and it is described by values:
- Disposable Income (I): Which determines how much money the locals are willing to spend every week.
- Trade Value (V): Determines how local income transfers into galactic trade. So planets will be able to offer more of certain products and this makes a higher local value desirable
- Lower Trade Threshold (T_L) - Which describes the transition point between low and medium value goods
- High Trade Threshold (T_L)- Which describes the transition point between medium and high value goods

Starbases will have a 'Planetary market' which is a list of items that they are currently selling to the population. This can be added to by the 'Sell to local population' order. (Currently V2 of the order)
- Each week every starbase's 'Planetary market' are bought from by the local population.
- Selling to local population becomes a case of dumping items on your 'Planetary market' and seeing what sells each week. There will be no need to micro manage this, just dumping all your trade goods on the planetary market will be enough.
- The share of local sales for each starbase on a planet will be the same, but money not spent in 1 market (due to insufficient goods or merchandising complexes) will be distributed equally to other markets present .
- Each merchandising complex at the starbase allows 300 stellars of goods to be sold to each category (L/M/H/G) in any type of trade.

Order of sales
The generic category is dealt with first, then Low, Medium and finally High. This can mean that where there are only a few items that fall into say the High value category, they are likely to be sold as part of the Generic category. Similarly, as Guilders (3000) are only sold in Generic category, they are in competition with all other items being sold. As a consequence it can mean that a starbase with excess of items in some categories and a dearth in others may not sell all the items on their market sales despite also not tapping out their share of potential sales.

Generic cash that is not spent will transfer over to the next week but can not exceed 4 weeks of Disposable Income.

Unique trade goods have a planet and system of origin in the galaxy. This makes them more valuable as they are moved away from their origin (and hence are considered more exotic). The actual modifier between 2 systems is set directly but will follow the general rules:

Same systems (different planet) x3
Different System x8
Different Periphery x10-16
Note that this is governed by a trade matrix which allows for individual systems to have anomalous modifiers with respect to other systems. For example, goods from one system claimed by the Felini may automatically be worth less in all Flagritz claimed systems. Further, people may be less willing to pay 'inflated' mark-ups when it is clear that the goods they are purchasing from the other end of the Peripheries are those being produced by the same system claimants or their close allies (sentients the universe over hate feeling ripped off).

These trade goods may also have a race associated with them which can make them be worth more to a certain race on a planet. This bonus will be x1-2 depedning on the proportion of the race on the planet (100% of the race = x2)
NB. Most items are flagged as racial type 'Sentient', this means that they do not have a specific race and will never generate a bonus, even if sold to a world with a 'Sentient' population.

To give an example (the numbers are not correct);

Eridanian Tree Frogs
Value: 1.6
Race: Human
Origin: Eridani, Solo

If they sold on Capella which is in a different periphery (x12) and has a ~100% human population (x2) and has a local value (v) of 1.2

Then locals would pay 1.6 x 12 x 2 x 1.2=46.08 stellars / mu for tree frogs.

Capella's Higher Threshold is ~5 so they are sold into the higher trade good category. Capella has 40000 trade income per week, which is 10000 stellars per category. So only 10000/46.08=217 tree frogs could sell into the higher category and 10000/46.08=217 into the generic category per week (if nothing else was selling).

A text file can be downloaded containing the latest market report.
Market Report

Planet DILLIGAF (OU812)

HIGH VAL

NEW TRADE VALUES	MAX INCOME	VALUE/MU	LOW VAL
Trade Goods	60000	1.25	1.5	4.5
Drugs	4000	.9	1.1	3.2
Lifeforms	16000	.5	.9	2.5

So the potential TOTAL income of this world is 80k stellars per week. Trade goods + drugs + Life.

In an effort to simplify things I'm going to assume 1 base is on this planet and just deal with trage goods

60k potential divided between the 4 groups (low/med/high/gen). So each group has 15k stellars assigned to it. In the example above: Lowvalue = 0-1.4 Medvalue = 1.5-4.4 Highvalue = 4.5+

Let just say you have these items to work with:
Widget (9991) Local value 1
Whatchit (9992) Local value 3
Thingy (9993) Local value 5

To max out each group you would need:
15000 widgets (15000*1=15000) to max out low value
5000 Whatchits (5000*3=15000) to max out med value
3000 Thingy's (3000*5=15000) to max out high value

General can be any value lvl so you can do anything from 15k more widgets to 3k more thingy's (or any combo that adds upto 15k stellars) to get the last 15k.

Now lets say there are 3 bases on the planet. Your base would only have access to 1/3 of the planets market. If you don't sell to your max though other bases on the planet will get access to your share that week. Example: Your base runs out of Widget's (9991) and sells none for the week the other bases on the planet will each sell 2500 more this week.

Merch complexes limit sales at 300 stellars / catagory / complex.
So 100 merch complexes allow for 30000 sales per category ~ 120k income overall."

In the example above you would need 50 Merch plexes for just the trade goods or 67 to cover trade goods, drugs and life if you are the only base. In the 1 of 3 base situation, you would only need 17 plexes to cover trade goods or 23 for all classes. If you don't have more for standard merch plex income i would suggest more to cover shortages at other bases.

A key reason to build a starbase is merchandising. This is taking a cut from all sales between civilian organisations on the world that have been handled by the base.

Merchandising	Maximum	Drop/X Comples
Global	150	3
Local	450	25

Where x is a number usually 10, though may be more depending on the development stage of the planet's infrastructure.

The two levels, global and local represent different types of transactions. Global tend to be virtual transaction while local are associated with physical goods. Local merchandising is available to each starbase on the world without interference from other starbases. Global merchandising is split over all your starbases with a weighting based on their respective proportion of the total number of active merchandising complexes on the world. Adding a new starbase controlled by a different player has no impact on what your starbases are earning.

Determining Stellar Income
Income from local merchandising is equal to the number of active merchandising complexes being run by the base split into groups equal to the drop step, i.e. having a drop step of 10 and 25 merch means two groups of 10 and a third of 5. The first group is paid equal to the local maximum per complex, in the second group, the maximum minus the drop and the third group, equal to the second group again minus the drop.
In the above example:
10@$450
10@$425
5@$400

Global income is determined in the same way, though all the complexes on the world that are in your control, are taken into account.

Note that the efficiency of the starbase will be used to determine the income, i.e. having less than 100% efficiency will reduce income.

The utility below can be used to determine merchandising revenue. It can also take into account reduction where other starbases are also merchandising on the world.

Trade Type - Trade Goods/Life Goods/Drugs
Percentage - default 0
Limits:
Low End - default 0
Mid End - default 0
High End - default 0

Example of how it looks like once set:

Market Trade Offers: Offer Low end Mid High End
Trade: 50% 15000 15000 15000
Drugs: 50% 5000 5000 5000
Life: 50% 30000 30000 30000

The order basically allows you to automate the purchasing of foreign goods at a station. It will only work for goods with a origin different from the current station's position, but it will work for any goods in the peripheries, even those you don't have knowledge of.

Trade type - each order will be to a specific category of trade goods, you can select trade, life or drugs, if you want to purchase automatically across all 3 categories then you will have to issue 3 separate orders, 1 for each category. This also allows you to set the mark up and total capital to invest separately on each category. In the example above all 3 categories have the mark up at 50%, but they all have different capital limits on how much to spend on stock per week.

Percentage - this sets how much you are willing to pay per MU of good and ultimately how much of your profit you are willing to give up in order to get those goods hauled and sold at the station by a 3rd party. it is based on the value of the resource at the location of the purchasing station not on its system of origin value. I.E.: a resource that is worth 1 stellar in its system of origin, but is worth 16 stellar at the location of the purchasing station, and with offer set at 50%, will be bought at 50% of 16 stellars, which is 8 stellars. If the offer was at 75% then the purchase price would be 12 stellars per MU and the owner of the station would only make 4 stellars of profit once it sold it to the local market. Keep in mind that in order for someone to haul stuff over, it has to be worth it to them as well, this will be a combination of how much you are paying at the end but also of how much the origin system is selling it for or if its being produced by the person doing the hauling themselves.

Limits (low, mid, high) - this sets how much you are willing to spend on each category per week. Using the example above, this station would buy up to 90k stellars worth of products in the life category, but only 30k of those for high end goods, 30k for mid, and 30k for low. So if you are selling to the station you need to keep that in mind so as to maximize your profits. You will likely want to bring a spread of goods across all 3 value categories whose value equals as close to 30k as you can within their respective categories. Since the limits are specific to both goods category and value category, you can technically set up different limits across each, for example you could have 60k limit in the high end trade goods category, but only 10k each on mid and low, or any combination thereof based on your personal purchasing power or needs of that station. Note that the total amount listed that the station is buying (that has a little * marking it as shared) is the total based on the respective limit and as you sell goods to the station, all the goods in that category will have their amount available to be purchased reduced to match the reduced limit.

As an example, lets look at the above station, it has 15k limit on trade goods across all 3 values (high, mid, low), opening its market page you see that its buying Akira Cats (High Trade Good) at 28 and lists that it will buy up to 535 MUs of it (535 x 28 = 14980 stellars), it also lists that its buying Blood Syrup (High Trade Good) at 35 stellars per MU for a total of 428 (428 x 35 = 14980 stellars) . If you were to sell all 535 MUs of Akira cats to the station, you would then only be able to sell an extra 20stellars worth of goods in that good and value category, and since Blood Syrup is selling for 35 stellars and is both in the same goods and value category as akira cats, it means you wouldn't be able to sell a single MU of blood syrup. But, you would still be able to sell 2678 MUs of Airburst Pine Nuts at 5.6 stellars (2678 x 5.6 = 14996.8 stellars) a piece as it would be a Medium trade good and in a different value category with its own 15k stellars limit.