Trade System
This article contains information relevant to both the C# and VB6 versions of Aurora. Where differences exist, they are noted in the appropriate sections.
Each colony with a population has a civilian economy that produces trade goods. These goods can be seen in the "Wealth / Trade" tab of the F2 Economics window. Each colony will have a surplus of some goods and a shortage of others, but you cannot move them around yourself. Instead, NPC Commercial Shipping lines move it for you, and pay you taxes when they do. Their ships will be visible on the map, and you can support them by building jump gates and dealing with NPR pirates, but you have minimal control over how they operate.
List of trade goods
[edit]
Each Colony produces trade goods. Different trade good appear at different pop sizes. Everything is available by 20m pop.
There are seventeen Trade Goods types. Each populated colony produces trade goods. Different trade goods appear at different pop sizes, though everything is available by 10m pop.
There are seventeen Trade Goods. All colonies with colony cost demand infrastructure. When a colony reaches population milestones, it will open up goods per the table below.
| Trade good | Population Required |
|---|---|
| Infrastructure * | 0.01 million |
| Construction Materials | 3 million |
| Machinery | 3 million |
| Textiles | 3 million |
| Civilian Transport | 5 million |
| Chemicals | 5 million |
| Pharmaceuticals | 5 million |
| Plastics | 5 million |
| Ancient Artifacts * | 10 million |
| Consumer Electronics | 10 million |
| Precious Metals | 10 million |
| Recreational Drugs | 10 million |
| Entertainment Products | 10 million |
| Furs | 10 million |
| Luxury Food | 10 million |
| Spices | 10 million |
| Wines | 10 million |
Two goods have special rules:
- Infrastructure turns into normal Infrastructure installations once it's shipped to its destination. (See the detailed explanation below.)
- Ancient Artifacts ignore the usual production rules. Instead, they are only produced by colonies with ancient ruins. In C#, they can be recovered by salvaging ruins with xenoarchaeology units - there are no permanent sources, only occasional random bursts of them. In VB6, the amount produced is equal to the level of the ruin multiplied by the pop in millions.
Civilian Infrastructure
[edit]Populated colonies always produce infrastructure as a trade good (unless they're low-gravity colonies in C#, in which case they produce Low Gravity Infrastructure instead). This acts as a trade good like normal, but if it is shipped to (or produced at) a planet that needs infrastructure, it turns into the corresponding installation. This can be a significant source of infrastructure after the early game.
A colony's need for infrastructure is equal to 125% of the infrastructure required for the existing population, with a minimum of 100 (unless it has a colony cost of zero, in which case the need is always zero). If that need is greater than the number of infrastructure installations on the planet, there will be a shortfall, which can be filled by production and trade.
Unlike other trade goods, infrastructure production is not random - it always uses a random factor of x1
Supply and Demand
[edit]The basic demand for each good will be the size of the population. Some populations will produce more than they need of each good and some will produce less. Pops will tend to specialise so they will produce anything from 0-100% of about three-quarters of the goods and produce anything up to 300% of the others. This will vary from pop to pop and some will be net importers overall, as well as for individual goods, and some will be net exporters. This has nothing to do with Trans-Newtonian minerals, which are mainly for military applications, so some pops with little TN mineral resources could actually be major exporters of civilian goods. Given an equal spread of probability there will be about the same amount of supply and demand across the galaxy, although within a sample of a few pops there may be considerable excesses and shortages.
Civilian freighters will look for opportunities to move different types of goods from planets with a surplus of a particular trade good to those with a shortage. When the freighter arrives, it will generate wealth for the shipping line and wealth for the parent government in the form of tax on both the shipping company and on the original (invisible) company that produced the goods. With a trade treaty in place, goods can be shipped between pops of different races, which will create more opportunities for trade. A trade treaty will also allow foreign shipping lines to move goods within your own Empire or between your Empire and another. In this case the foreign government will get the tax revenue from the shipping company.
You can increase trade good production with the "Wealth Generation" (C#) / "Expand Civilian Economy" (VB6) techs. These will boost trade good production by the same proportion that they boost wealth production. This will increase the amount of trading opportunities and generate more revenue for the shipping companies and the government. Note that this only increases supply, not demand.
Detailed Mechanics
[edit]Each trade good takes up 2,500 tons of cargo space, or 1/10th of a standard Cargo Hold. Civilians will always pick up a single type of trade good and deliver it to a single planet, without mixing and matching. Civilian ships never use Jump Engines. You need to build two-way Jump Gates to allow them to leave your home system.
The supply and demand formulas are:
Supply per year = Population in millions * 2 * (Wealth Creation tech/100) * Governor Wealth bonus * Random factor Demand per year = Population in millions * 3 * Governor Wealth bonus
The random factor can range from 10% to 300%. Infrastructure always uses a random factor of 100% (i.e., not modified). The governor wealth bonus includes sector governor bonuses, at the usual 25% effectiveness.
Tax revenue is received from trade, and it's split between sales taxes and shipping taxes. The reason this is split is because while a trade conducted entirely within an Empire will yield 1 wealth per trade good, the goods might be carried by a foreign-flagged vessel, in which case you only get the export taxes, or it might be a consignment carried by one of your shipping lines from one foreign pop to another, in which case you only get the shipping taxes. Shipping from your Empire to another will provide export taxes but imports from a foreign power will yield nothing, unless they are carried in a freighter owned by a Shipping Line of your race, in which case you get the shipping taxes. This is worked out automatically and you see the different tax types in the Empire income breakdown.
Sales taxes (both versions) = 0.5 per good C# shipping taxes = 0.5 per good per jump travelled (or 0.25 per good if it was transported within the same system) VB6 shipping taxes = 0.5 per good, regardless of distance
Note that you only receive these taxes if the line is moving trade goods. If it's moving installations for you, you will be paying them for their services instead. (This is true even if they're moving infrastructure - if it's not generated in the trade window, it's not considered a trade good.)
The Shipping Line itself receives a fixed amount of wealth for each successfully delivered trade good, regardless of the nationality of the start and destination pops. The shipping line will use this income to eventually buy additional ships.
C# payment = 1 per good per jump travelled (or 0.5 per good if it was transported within the same system) VB6 payment = 2 per good, regardless of distance
VB6 Considerations
[edit]As Shipping Lines make money, they will keep some for their owners and shareholders and spend the rest on building new civilian ships. Therefore, all new civilian shipping will be paid for by the wealth generated by the existing civilian shipping (plus one or two by the Shipping Lines' startup capital), or with money you grant them by Subsidising. You can monitor a shipping lines wealth, shares, number of ships, total tonnage etc. from the Shipping Line panel, which is where you may also grant them 1000 wealth (Subsidise). It is not necessary to monitor your shipping lines, but may be of interest to some players and can provide an insight into how the Trade System of your Empire is working.
In VB6, there is a Shipping Line window that allows you to see the Shipping Lines, along with the number of ships they own, their total tonnage, their income over the last twelve months, their current wealth and their total assets. A list of their ships is provided, along with tonnage, current location, destination and cargo. Also, a list of recent deliveries is shown to demonstrate where they are operating.