IDIOT'S GUIDE TO FED2
TRADING FOR FUN AND PROFIT
EXCHANGES
Once you have promoted to Merchant you can stop being a wage slave and start working for yourself, buying your own goods to cart from planet to planet.
You should have discovered that there is a Trading Exchange on most planets. If you haven't - go and find them at once. Exchanges are pretty easy to spot because you will notice the prices streaming across the display screens the moment you set foot inside one, something like this:
+++ The exchange display shows the prices for Livestock +++
+++ Exchange has 700 tons for sale +++
+++ Offer price is 162ig/ton for first 75 tons +++
An Exchange's sole purpose in life is to sell those goods produced by the planet and to buy those needed to support its economy.
There are 67 different tradable commodities which are divided into six categories - Agricultural, Resource, Industrial, Technological, Biological and Leisure. You can find a complete list of commodities at the end of this section. The exchange displays prices for the commodities in alphabetical order.
'BUY commodity' will buy a 75-ton container of the specified commodity from the exchange. The container is delivered to your ship and loaded into your cargo bay by the spaceport's stevedores.
You can buy another container of the same commodity, provided you have room in your ship, but it pays to check the price first, because the exchange recalculates the selling price whenever its stock changes. Fortunately, the exchange very helpfully displays the new price immediately following your purchase.
If you buy more containers than will fit into your cargo hold, you will lose the goods. Your cargo hold is also emptied out at reset, so you need to sell whatever you've bought before that happens.
Having filled up your ship with goods and hauled them across the Solar System or beyond to a planet where you hope there is a demand for them, you will want to get rid of them. 'SELL commodity' does just that. Once again, the price will change as a result of your sale, and the Exchange will display the new price. You can't sell goods back to the planet from which you bought them - you have to take them elsewhere for disposal.
If you forget what you are carrying in your ship, the details are shown on your ship's status:
Cargo carried (75 ton containers):
Cereals - Cost: 216ig/ton - Planet of origin: Earth, Sol system
The price you paid for goods is particularly important, since checking this against the price in the exchange where you wish to sell the cargo will ensure you don't make any embarrassing mistakes, such as flogging something for less than you paid for it. Not only would that be a fine way to lose money, it will also hold up your advance, since you are required to carry out a certain number of successful trading transactions in order to promote. A successful trade is one where you make a profit of at least 15% when you sell the goods. When you complete a successful trade you gain 2 Merchant Points, which are shown on your score display; an unsuccessful trade will lose you 1 point.
