True Blue's Presidential Information Mirror

Welcome to my player page!

If you visited my old version, you saw a short, incomplete journal that hadn't been maintained for over one hundred and eighty turns. I was looking for something with which to replace it, but couldn't quite find the right 'gimmick.' Thanks to former President Knjaz' Igor' and his posting of the Presidential information, I was finally inspired. And thanks to current President Annushka Moya for now sharing the contraband info with everyone!

I know Mr President is quite busy governing the galaxy and such, so I didn't want to pester him with my complaints about the format of the information page. So, with his permission, I created a different view of the same data, which I think is much easier to digest. I hope you like it -- but, if not, feel free to drop me an e-mail and tell me what you think. Feedback is always welcome, and flames can be interesting, too.

Trading Information

See below for copious amounts of information about this data and trading in general. Use the links below to jump to the cargo you're interested in, or just scroll down. Enjoy!

Cheap ($25-$75): Scrap | Chocolate | Fudge | Hankies | Hats | Jumpers | Marzipan | Mittens

Moderate ($100-$150): Beards | Elvis Memorabilia | Ninja Beer | Puddings | Snowmen | Tea | Winegums | Lists | Surprises | Videos | Web Pages | Xylophones

Expensive ($200-$250): Boardgames | Emperors' New Clothes | Eye Robots | Dilithium | New Tricks | Old Songs | Quad Trees

Contraband ($400-$500): Ray-guns (!) | Sharp Sticks (!) | Steely Knives (!) | Euphoria (!) | Windows (!)

Notes on Trading

First, about this information. As a perk of being President, each alien ship reports data from its current system every turn. The President can use this data as he sees fit, and President Annushka Moya has chosen to share the colony market prices (even contraband!) with the general public. This page simply reformats that data for easier comprehension. If you end up using this table frequently, please thank him personally!

I have chosen to use only the last three turns of trading data to create this page. (I plan on keeping a full historical record, so this can change.) There are, unfortunately, several missing prices, simply because some colonies (at non-homeworlds, usually) only get reported when an alien happens to show up. But a price that's only a few turns old could still be good (or better).

Second, about trading. There are a few tricks that some players may not know. Most of these are in the rules, but might be... 'hidden,' shall we say. Hopefully, none of these points will be too obvious.

When you sell cargo to a colony, the price there will go down by 35%, and up 5% at the other seven colonies. But power sorting (that is, the order in which ships appear in the system) also plays a part, because selling will proceed by the galaxy-wide sort order. For example, you send an order to sell your cargo for 200% of its base price. But, so do five other ships around the galaxy, all of whom would sort higher than you in the same system. When you get your turn results, you've just sold your cargo for (200% + 5% * 5) = 225%! This can come in handy at times...

You might need to pay attention to the order of buying and selling for other reasons, too. For instance, buying cargo comes before buying modules, so you have to wait a turn before filling up that pod you just bought... but, if you know an adventure will net you a pod, you can buy cargo for it that same turn (assuming you're successful). The same applies to combat, although you won't be able to sell any new cargo the turn you get it, unfortunately.

Each colony will only buy one unit of cargo, per ship, per turn. But, once you find a good price, you might not want to buy too many units. It will take ten turns to sell off ten units, which means not only ten actions each to keep your officers busy, but, depending on how thinly traded the cargo is, you could be making 300% the first turn and 125% the fifth turn! (That's why Windows (!) are so popular -- the price stays fairly constant everywhere because so many people sell it.)

One fact that may help you fill in the holes in this data -- the rules say that 'the initial price at all colonies is double the basic value,' or, more plainly, every colony started out buying at 200%. Once one unit is sold, one colony's price goes down to 165%, while the rest raise to 205%. But, if you do the math, the average price is still 200%! So, if you have seven current prices and one missing, you just need to solve for that average to figure out what it is.

Finally (for now), here's one last thing that stumped me at first. You won't be able to sell any cargo to a colony whose asking price is less than 100%, even if you didn't pay a cent for it (like Chocolate, Scrap, or combat loot). But factories will always buy up to fifteen Scrap units per turn, and at least you know that some colony somewhere will have a good price!

Well, that's about it. Last, but not least, if you'd like to contribute your own trading information here, for the good of your fellow players, send them to me. Even data from a few turns ago can help flesh out the total picture. Thanks for reading, and Happy Sailing!

Captain H'roo'roo of the True Blue

Page last updated on 6 April, 2004, during turn 1089. Contact me if you have suggestions or corrections.

(or it would be if Angelfire didn't screw it up...)