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Orbital Trade & Economics

The transition from early-game poverty to late-game self-sufficiency is gated by macro-economics and trade. You cannot produce everything you need yourself; you must engage with the wider planetary economy.

Orbital Trade Beacons​

Trading with passing deep-space ships requires specialized infrastructure. Ground caravans will visit you early on, but the best gear and raw materials come from orbit.

To trade with ships in orbit:

  1. Build a Comms Console and make sure it has power.
  2. Build an Orbital Trade Beacon.

The beacon has a specific radius mechanic. When you contact a trade ship via the Comms Console, they will only buy goods that are placed within the glowing perimeter of your trade beacon. Also, any silver or items they drop to you must land in an unroofed area or directly adjacent to the beacon. Build a dedicated, unroofed stockpile zone specifically for your beacon to simplify trading.

Faction Goodwill Manipulation​

You do not have to fight every faction on the planet. Hostile tribal or outlander factions can be turned into valuable allies through economic manipulation.

By constructing transport pods, you can load excess wealth (like thousands of units of cloth, surplus weapons, or raw silver) and launch them directly into hostile faction bases as a gift. Strategically gifting excessive wealth increases their goodwill toward you.

This effectively turns heavily armed enemies into allied trading partners. Once allied, you can use the Comms Console to call them for military aid during crisis events, turning your excess economic output directly into defensive power.

Wealth Management​

Raid severity does not scale linearly with time; it scales dynamically with absolute Colony Wealth. This includes the combined value of all constructed buildings, stockpiled items, and biological pawns.

Hoarding massive amounts of silver or plasteel without simultaneously investing in equivalent defensive capabilities (like marine armor or uranium slug turrets) will spike your "Raid Points" and unleash overwhelming enemy forces. Active wealth management is critical. Routinely trade excess raw resources for immediate defensive power, or gift the excess wealth to neighboring factions to forge alliances and deliberately suppress your total wealth graph below critical threat thresholds.