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How to start trading and hauling cargo

Learn how to buy and sell commodities, load cargo with freight elevators and tractor beams, run hauling contracts, and avoid the risks that eat your profit.

Cargo work comes in two flavors. Trading means buying goods where they are cheap and selling them where they are worth more. Hauling contracts pay you a fixed fee to move someone else's cargo. Both use the same loading tools, so it is worth learning them together.

Trading or hauling?

  • Trading needs no reputation, but you pay for the cargo up front. Profit grows with your cargo space, and so does the risk.
  • Hauling contracts cost you nothing up front. Better paid contracts are unlocked by reputation with companies such as Covalex and Ling Family Hauling.
  • One SCU holds 100 units of a commodity, so a bigger ship means bigger trades.

Where to buy and sell

Commodities are bought and sold at kiosks. You find them in Trade & Development Division (TDD) buildings at the major landing zones, in the admin offices of space stations, and in storage buildings at some surface outposts. Prices change over time, and selling a full hold at one terminal can push its price down.

  1. Look at a kiosk and press F to use it.
  2. Choose where the goods should go: your current location or one of your ships. At a landing zone, your ship has to be stored to show up in this list.
  3. Open the Buy tab, pick a commodity, set the amount with the slider and confirm.
  4. Fly to your destination, land legally, and sell the goods at a kiosk there.

Loading your cargo

How your cargo gets onto your ship depends on the delivery option you picked:

  • Deliver to ship: the cargo is loaded for you, for a cost in time and aUEC. Your ship is unavailable for a short time and then comes back loaded. This only works at locations with hangars.
  • Deliver to current location: the cargo goes into that location's warehouse. Retrieve your ship at the ship terminal, then use the freight elevator in your hangar and a tractor beam to load the boxes yourself.

For manual loading you need the Pyro RYT multi-tool with the TruHold tractor beam attachment. For heavier, bulkier boxes there is the MaxLift tractor beam, sold at selected refinery supply shops. Boxes go onto your ship's cargo grid.

Patch 4.10.2 fixed several freight elevator problems, including platform state issues, sending more than one order at a time, and carry prompts.

Hauling contracts

  1. Open the Contract Manager in your mobiGlas (F1).
  2. Start your hauling career with Opportunity for Independent Cargo Hauler from Covalex Independent Contractors.
  3. Accept a hauling contract. It tells you the goods, the amount and the destination.
  4. Pick up the cargo at the freight elevator, load it, fly it to the drop-off and unload it there.
  5. Each delivery pays out and raises your hauling reputation, which unlocks better contracts.
  • Contracts can be shared with your party and may have several pickups or drop-offs.
  • Interstellar hauling contracts cross between the Stanton, Pyro and Nyx systems.
  • If some cargo is lost on the way, a contract can still be partly completed.
  • You need enough cargo space for the job and a low enough crime rating to enter the stations involved.

Risks to plan for

  • Pirates: a full cargo hold makes you a target. Use escorts or quieter routes for valuable loads.
  • Crashes: one crash or interdiction can wipe out a whole run's profit.
  • Price changes: prices move over time, so check them before you buy.
  • Fuel costs: patch 4.10 raised hydrogen and quantum fuel prices, so count refuelling on longer routes.
  • Contraband: illegal goods can be scanned in monitored areas, and getting caught can mean fines, bounties and losing the cargo. Sensitive goods can only be sold at No Questions Asked terminals, usually at salvage or scrap yards.

Insurance replaces your ship, not your cargo. Never buy more cargo than you can afford to lose.

Cargo and persistence in 4.10

Since patch 4.10, commodity and ore containers are part of Long Term Persistence. Cargo you get from 4.10 onwards carries over into future patches, and patch 4.10.2 kept everyone's progress. aUEC itself is still test currency that can be wiped in a future patch.

Tips for your first trade runs

  • Start with legal goods that are easy to find, such as medical supplies or agricultural goods.
  • Spread a big load across a few nearby markets instead of dumping it all at one terminal.
  • Work out fuel costs before you commit to a long route.
  • Hauling contracts are the safer choice while you build up money for trading.