Skip to content
SpringFall Wiki

Trading

Overview

You don’t have to make or gather everything yourself — merchants pass through with their own stock, and a trading post gives you somewhere to buy from them and sell off what your colony doesn’t need.

How it works

A trading post is a physical location where a travelling merchant sets up shop. Open trade with a merchant to see what they’re carrying and what they’ll pay for your own goods. Prices aren’t fixed:

  • Every merchant sells dearer than they buy. A merchant pays around 70% of what they’d charge you for the same thing, so buying and re-selling the same goods steadily loses money. Trade to cover a gap, not to churn.
  • Faction standing changes the price — a merchant from a faction that likes you offers better rates than one from a faction that’s hostile or wary of you, worth up to about a fifth of the price either way.
  • What a faction wants, it pays more for. Each faction has goods it particularly values, and your sale price rises for those — so the same crate is worth more to one caravan than another.
  • Prices wobble between merchants. Each one rolls their own spread of up to a fifth around the base price when they set out their stock, so it’s worth seeing what a second trader offers before committing to a big sale.

Merchants restock their inventory periodically rather than carrying the same fixed goods forever, so it’s worth checking back on a trading post rather than writing it off after one visit.

Playing with it

  • Sell to the faction that wants what you have. The same surplus fetches noticeably more from a caravan whose people actually value it.
  • Sell off surplus you’re not using rather than letting it pile up — a full stockpile of something you don’t need is money sitting on the ground.
  • Keep an eye on faction relationships if trade matters to you — a faction you’ve antagonised will trade with you at a real disadvantage, if at all.

Good to know

  • Not everything is sellable everywhere — a merchant’s stock and interest reflect their own faction and route, not a universal shop.
  • Trading is a two-way relationship — a good trade can also nudge your standing with that merchant’s faction in a friendlier direction.
  • Items — what you’re buying and selling