Trading

buy low, sell high, and never let a captain drain a route dry

Before the player market opens, gold still moves — through the ports themselves. Three systems carry the early economy: NPC trading between the four ports of the Shallows, the vendor who'll always buy your catch and salvage at a flat floor price, and ration top-ups for the captain who cut it too close on a long voyage.

NPC port trading

Every port has a Trader who buys and sells goods at fixed prices — cheap where a good is produced, dear where it's wanted. Haul a hold full of Rum Casks from Gullport to The Meridian, sell, and buy something Gullport wants for the trip back: the same buy-low-sell-high loop as any trading game, just running between four familiar docks instead of a stock exchange.

Inhabited islands out in the Thousand Isles carry their own exotic goods — silks, spices, and the like — that no Shallows port produces. They're worth a special trip to haul back, and they price accordingly.

Each port only restocks a modest quantity of each good per day (current design value), on both the buying and selling side, reset at the next server day. That's not a limitation to work around — it's the fairness mechanic that keeps a trade route a real, repeatable activity instead of a bottomless money pump one captain (or one bot) could drain and leave empty for everyone behind them.

Selling to the vendor

Any fish, salvage, or crafted good can be sold straight to the vendor at any port, any time, for a flat price — no stock limit, no waiting for a buyer. It's deliberately the worst price in the game: a guaranteed floor for whatever you don't want to haul or trade away, never the plan for anything worth real gold.

Rations: cook your own, or pay the "I-ran-out" tax

Rations fuel combat voyages and expeditions, and the cheapest way to stock up is always cooking them yourself at the Shipwright bench from your own catch. But if you're standing at the dock with an empty hold and a voyage you don't want to postpone, Gullport and Saltmarsh will sell you rations directly for 8 gold each — no cooking required. Call it the I-ran-out tax: it's there so a bad supply run never strands you, but cooking your own is always the cheaper habit.

The player market — coming in a later update

A proper player market — captains listing goods and charts for other captains to buy directly, per port — is the long-term center of IdlePiracy's economy, but it isn't open yet. With a small early population, the NPC trade routes above carry the economy on their own; the order book opens once there are enough captains trading to give it real liquidity. When it does, expect a small listing fee and sale tax, both pure gold sinks rather than a house cut on your profit.

The vendor is a floor, never the plan — trading, when it opens, will always beat it. See World for how charts move between explorers and crafters, and Fairness for the rulebook that keeps all of this honest.