Traveling Merchant
The Traveling Merchant 🛸 is a periodically-visiting NPC vendor. It is, by design, a notorious rip-off — buying from it costs far more than the Market and selling to it pays far less. You still need it: the Merchant is the only source of the two conduit materials that open the route from the Alpha sector to the Beta sector.
When the Merchant appears
Presence is computed from wall-clock time, so it carries across reloads and offline gaps with no per-tick bookkeeping. The cadence is anchored on your first run (stored per save).
| Property | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Arrival interval | 1 hour (intervalMs 3,600,000) |
Time between arrivals |
| Stay duration | 10 minutes (stayMs 600,000) |
How long it lingers each visit |
So the Merchant is present for ~10 minutes out of every hour. You get a toast when it arrives and when it departs; the Merchant panel shows a live countdown to the next arrival/departure. Stock is re-seeded fresh each visit and is consumed (and persisted) as you buy, so you can’t reload to refill it mid-visit.
Pricing — a deliberate rip-off
| Direction | Formula | Multiplier |
|---|---|---|
| Buying general goods | round(marketValue × markup) |
×8 markup |
| Selling to the Merchant | max(1, round(marketValue × penalty)) |
×0.15 penalty |
Selling to the Merchant is a last resort — you net just 15% of market value. Conduits are priced explicitly per unit (they have no base market value, so the markup doesn’t apply to them).
Inventory
What the Merchant carries each visit (stock is per-visit and does not roll over):
| Item | Kind | Unit price | Stock / visit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Polymer Conduit | Conduit | 4,000 cr | 5 | Merchant-only. Gates Alpha → Beta. |
| Clay Conduit | Conduit | 4,000 cr | 5 | Merchant-only. Gates Alpha → Beta. |
| Polymer Feedstock | Material | 80 cr | 100 | Raw feedstock for the Plastics chain — its deposit is Beta-primary, so Alpha players can’t mine it. ~20× its market value. |
| Clay | Material | 40 cr | 100 | Bulk input for the Ceramics chain — effectively unreachable for an Alpha player. ~40× its market value. |
| Fuel | General | 64 cr | 20 | Overpriced convenience (market value 8 × 8 markup). |
| Meals | General | derived | 50 | Emergency convenience; derived from market value × markup. |
The two materials (Polymer Feedstock, Clay) and the two conduits are distinct. Conduits are sealed, ready-to-install relay components that cannot be mined or crafted; the materials are ordinary bulk inputs the Merchant simply stocks because they are hard to reach early. See Resource Catalog.
First-pass note: the Meals entry derives its price from market value × markup, but Meals has no base market value — treat its merchant price as a balance-TBD anomaly.
Conduits & the Beta sector gate
The conduits exist for one purpose: assembling the void-navigation relay that opens the Alpha → Beta route. The relay consumes a stack of both conduit types (on the order of ~20 of each, per the Beta unlock gate). Because the Merchant only carries 5 of each per visit, you must catch several visits — and spend heavily (4,000 cr each) — to accumulate enough. Plan ahead: start buying conduits well before you intend to expand.
For the exact Beta unlock requirements (research, Steel, conduit counts and the Sector Station prerequisite), see Sectors.
How to trade with the Merchant
- Buying requires the Merchant to be present, the item in stock, and enough Credits. The purchase deducts Credits and deposits the item on your home asteroid.
- Selling requires the Merchant present and a resource that has a market value (currency and value-less goods can’t be sold). You receive 15% of market value per unit.
Tips
- Stockpile Credits before a conduit run. A full Beta gate of conduits is a large Credit sink at 4,000 each.
- Don’t sell to the Merchant unless you’re desperate — use the Market (and a Trade Hub) for real income.
- Grab Polymer Feedstock and Clay here if you’re still in Alpha and want to pre-build the Plastics and Ceramics chains before reaching Beta.
All merchant numbers are flagged first-pass / balance-TBD. See Data Tables for raw exports.