Hi everyone, I just wanted to give a quick explanation on how trade works and what determines the value of a trade route, etc. since it's not really documented in the game anywhere just yet.

- First of all to trade with someone you need to move a mini-harv, harvester, cargoship, or freighter to someone else's planet and then select the trade skill to setup up the route. This person also needs to approve you for trading but at the moment that's enabled by default. Once that's done the trade route will go on infinitely until it's cancelled.

- The value of the trade is determined by the cargo capacity of the ship and the distance between the two planets trading. The farther the planets are apart the greater the value of the trade. Of course the farther apart they are the longer it takes to complete the route as well so you'll need to figure out what the sweet spot is for optimal returns based on the vessels you're using and if you've upgraded their speed, etc.

- While no resources are actually taken from planets when they're trading it does take the amount of resources present into consideration so a planet with a lot of CO and a little RO will give yields in the same proportion. It's also important to note that the base value of the trade (before modified by the skills below can't exceed the value of the combined resources present at the two planets trading.)

- Lastly the value of the trade is then modified by the Counterfeiting(CF) and Contracts Management(CM) skills. If both players lack either skill then the trade is a straight 50/50 split. Otherwise the percentage is modified by the player's rank in those two competing skills so if a player A has rank 5 Counterfeiting and Player B has rank 3 Contracts Management then the final split of the trade will be 70% for player A and 30% for player B. If player A had a CF rank greater than 0 and player B has no CM ability then it means that Player B will actually lose resources by trading with Player A. Conversely if Player A has a CM rank of greater than 0 and player B has no CF ability then Player A will get a greater trade bonus without hurting player B's share of the trade.

Anyhow, there it is in a nutshell. Let us know if it seems like this isn't how the system is working.