Starcom: Nexus Advanced Trading Guide

Introduction & Methodology

Note that each species/race that you can trade with in Starcom Nexus has its own reserve currency. When you are in a trading window, these are listed in the same order every time, with the one reserve currency removed from the list and instead stated at the top of the window. Any trading overflow is drawn from your reserve of that currency (up to the limit of what you have available) or, if you’re selling, from their reserve, which is unlimited.

No species uses either Adamantine or Yttrium as a reserve currency.

Note that if you press Q or view your ship status, the resources are NOT listed in the same order as the trade window. (They are listed in alphabetical order there, but not in the trading windows.) This guide will stick to the un-alphabetical order that appears in trading windows.

Due to the complex network of ratios involved in calculation of true trade values, there are a couple complex ways to figure out what an effective trade is or what is wasteful. This is complicated ever so slightly by the fact that whenever you do a trade, you get slightly different values from the same trading partners.

In order to get meaningful values I collected data from about a dozen different trading values for each of the possible species, although the variation here is not terribly large. The trading values seem to fluctuate depending on the amount available with your trading partner – the smallest amount for a scout ship and the largest amount for a planet. Also of interest is that they tend to be somewhat consistent in the price spread between the selling price and the buying price:

For example, the Citadel will have buying prices from 27%-31% higher than their selling prices, but the Saurid have buying prices only 10-12% higher than their selling prices.

At that point I started putting a lot of numbers in a spreadsheet and doing calculations which would be arduous to explain with text. I end up with something like the following tables for universal conversions:

Races and Reserve Currencies

Trading Guidelines for Profit

Here are some general guidelines for trading for quick reference. You should be able to approach each trade using these blocks to guide you to always turn a profit without having to plan a subsequent trade with another species. Generally speaking each species will have 1 commodity in addition to their reserve that is good for you to sell off and exchange for other resources – they will pay a premium for that resources. Most resources you can buy at fair market value or at a decent discount. The only time you’d run into trouble is where you attempt to sell off the discounted resources and use them to buy anything else.

For each species, I’ll break down the 8 resources into which ones can be sold exorbitantly (dump it) or sold for fair market value. Using the following blocks to guide your trade with each species should make you quite rich quite quickly.

Ulooquo:Dump:Yttrium

Sell at Fair Value:Platinum

What % of its normal market price you have to pay:

Vanderi:Dump:Chiralite

Sell at Fair Value:Titanium (10% bonus), Cobalt-60

What % of its normal market price you have to pay:

Saurid:Dump:Neutronium

Sell at Fair Value:Chiralite (6% bonus), Gold

What % of its normal market price you have to pay:

Citadel:Dump:Cobalt-60

Sell at Fair Value:Adamantine, Titanium

What % of its normal market price you have to pay:

Tyncoeden:Dump:Cobalt-60, Platinum

Sell at Fair Value:Neutronium

What % of its normal market price you have to pay:

Araona Nest:Dump:Adamantine, Gold, Titanium

Sell at Fair Value:Chiralite

What % of its normal market price you have to pay:

Summary Table

If you’re looking to dump/sell/buy something quickly, this reference table should help: