Trading is an important part of progression in Quasimorph 1.0, but it works very differently from the buying and selling systems found in most games. Instead of spending currency at merchants, your PMC exchanges goods through a barter system with the corporations that control stations across the Solar System.
Understanding how this mechanic works is crucial since trading is one of the main ways to obtain useful items, ship upgrades, and equipment throughout the campaign.
How Trading Works in Quasimorph
Since your PMC is considered to be illegal, it is not eligible to access the standard market. Instead, all transactions are handled through bartering with factions. Every faction in Quasimorph has its own economy, inventory, and reputation level. Stations do not sell the same items, and the goods available depend on what that faction produces. Before going somewhere to trade, it is worth checking the Stock Exchange to see which stations have the items you need.
The Stock Exchange is one of the best tools for finding specific resources. If you need a certain upgrade material, you can search for that item and see which stations produce it However, simply going to a station does not guarantee a good deal. Your reputation with that faction is directly proportional to the prices it offers you. A faction with good reputation provides discounts, while neutral or hostile factions charge much higher prices. So, you better not make any serious enemies before you wander into their territory for goods.
You should also keep an eye on market conditions in the Stock Exchange. If a station is facing shortage of an item, they will grant a 130% bonus for delivering it. Similarly, over-supplied goods suffer a price penalty, slashing your returns down to 75%.
Trade Credit
When you complete a contract for a faction, the reward is usually paid through items first. If your reward value surpasses what the faction can currently offer you, the remaining value becomes “faction credit”, that can later be spent at that faction’s stations.
It is important to note that each faction has its own separate credit pool. This means credit earned with Ancom cannot be used with RealWare (or any other corporation for that matter). It doesn’t matter even if they fall into the same faction category like Hexarchy or Minor Corporations. This makes corporation choice an important decision because the factions you work with will determine which equipment and resources become easier to obtain.
Also, you must be careful when damaging your relationship with a faction. If your reputation falls below zero, you trigger a “Trade Break”, and lose all the unspent credit you had with that faction. In addition to that, if you decide to work with that faction again, its starts back from zero credits – a little penalty for being annoying.
Faction Choice
Stations don’t just produce goods at random. Instead, it is based on the corporation’s specialty. For example, SBN won’t suddenly start stocking on cold damage weapons. If you wish to build around cold damage, you must specifically favor DayDreams Chems, who specialize in cold weapons. This means the missions you choose can affect what items you find.
Note: A reputation of 25-30 or higher is required to unlock the trade tab for specific purchases, while lower reputation gives you randomized “care packages”
Trade Shuttle
The Trade Shuttle is one of the most important upgrades for your ship. It allows you to send items for trading without personally traveling to every station. It becomes especially useful when combined with other upgrades that improve inventory space, and trading efficiency like the Navigation AI. Instead of carrying all the items back from every mission, you can send it directly through the trading system. In version 1.0, the Trade Shuttle can be set to three distinct operational modes depending on your current needs:
Proxy Mode: Creates a safe route to acquire high-end materials generated by stations that your proxy corporate allies control.
Barter Mode: Automatically sends the shuttle to a planet’s local orbit to bulk-sell your unwanted junk in exchange for random tech pool rewards.
Reputation Mode: Converts 100% of the loaded cargo’s value directly into raw reputation points, allowing you to quickly fix broken relationships with hostile factions.
However, the shuttle does not replace normal planning. Sending random items will usually give worse results than checking what a faction actually wants. Trade goods and items requested by a faction provide better returns than just removing random junk from your storage.
