Trading

Trading in SFC2 means one of two things, and neither of them is the trade screen the old game had. There is no player to player resource trade. Nobody sends you a trade proposal, there is nothing to accept or decline, and there are no trade ratios the game makes you follow.

What you can actually do:

• Swap one of your own resources for another with the Trade Merchant.
• Move resources between your own planets and moons with a Transport fleet.
• Send credits to another player.

The Trade Merchant

The Trade Merchant swaps one resource for another on the planet you have selected. It is the only way to turn ore into hydrogen without moving a fleet anywhere. Each trade costs 5,000 credits.

Open it from the green Trade link under your resource totals in the top right corner. That link is on every page in the game. Hire Merchant on the Store page opens the same window.

The rates never move. Ore is the cheap resource and hydrogen is the dear one, at fixed values of 1 for ore, 1.5 for crystal and 2.5 for hydrogen. So 2,500 ore buys 1,000 hydrogen, 1,500 ore buys 1,000 crystal, and 1,000 crystal buys 600 hydrogen. The rate is the same in both directions, so there is no profit in swapping back and forth, only the 5,000 credit fee each way.

Two things to watch:

• One trade can give you at most your full storage capacity for that resource. What is already in storage does not count, so a trade works even when that storage is full. Ask for more and the trade is cut down to that amount, and you still pay the full 5,000 credits. The message after a trade has a Repeat this trade button that runs it again.
• Under 5,000 credits you get "Not enough credits to trade resources".

Moons can trade the same as planets. The trade only touches the planet or moon you have selected at the top of the screen, so pick it before you open the window. The Merchant page has the full rate table and the rest of the detail.

Moving resources between your own planets

A Transport fleet carries ore, crystal and hydrogen from one of your planets or moons to another. Send it from the Galaxy screen with the Transport arrows on your own planet's row, or from the Fleets screen.

Points worth knowing:

• The destination has to be yours. Pick anyone else and the game answers "Destination must be one of your own planets".
• Every ship has some cargo room, but the cargo ships are the ones built for it: Atlas Class holds 5,000, Hercules Class holds 25,000 and Carmanor Class holds 125,000. The Transport arrows in the Galaxy screen only light up if you own one of those three on the planet you are sending from.
• The duration shown is one way. The fleet flies out, drops the cargo and flies home, so it is away for about twice that. Hydrogen for the trip comes off the sending planet before you launch.
• You can recall an outgoing transport from the Fleets screen. It takes as long to come back as it has been flying, and the cargo comes back with it. Once it has delivered you cannot stop the empty ships returning.
• A Deploy mission does the same trip but leaves the ships at the far end instead of bringing them home. It carries cargo too.
• Two of your own moons with a Warp Gate can jump ships instantly, but that jump only carries resources if your alliance has the perk for it.

Sending resources to another player

You cannot. There is no mission that hands resources to somebody else. On another player's row in the Galaxy screen the only fleet actions are Spy, Attack, Defend and Missile Strike, and a Transport aimed at their planet is refused.

Resources change hands between players in two ways only, and both of them go through a fight: plunder taken from a planet that loses a battle, and debris left by destroyed ships for whoever recycles it first.

Because there is no trade feature there are no official trade ratios to follow. What governs an arrangement between two players is the pushing rule on the Rules page. If you are not sure a plan is clean, open a support ticket and ask before you do it.

Sending credits to another player

Credits are the one thing you can hand to somebody else. Click Credits in the top right corner, then Transfer credits on that page. Type at least two letters of the player's name and pick them from the dropdown. Players in any active SFC2 universe are eligible, not just your own.

Only credits you paid for, or credits an admin gave you, can be sent. The credits you got at signup and any credits another player sent you are not transferable, so they cannot be bounced on again. The page shows your transferable balance and the most you can send. The recipient gets an in game message telling them who sent it, plus your note if you wrote one. Transfers are one way and cannot be reversed. Credits also stay inside SFC2: you cannot move them to or from an SFC1 game.

What the old game had that SFC2 does not

• A Trade button on another player's planet row.
• Trade proposals that the other player accepts or declines, and that time out on their own.
• Minimum and maximum trade ratios enforced by the game.
• Resources and ships locked up in a "Trade Pending" state while an offer sits there.
• Pending trades showing on espionage reports. Nothing pending exists, so nothing shows.

See also

• Merchant
• Transport
• Credits
• Store
• Cargo
• Plunder
• Debris
• Rules