Trading

Orbitarion has a player-driven market. Any planet can post an offer — a bundle of resources it gives, against a bundle it wants — and any planet within trade reach can accept it. Trading is how you convert a surplus into what you actually need, and in the late game it is a supply line in its own right.

Since v4.5 there are two more ways to turn a surplus into something useful: the Void Exchange, where the Void posts its own offers, and Refineries, which convert one resource into another on your own planet.

How the market works

Post an offer on the Trade screen: what you give (Ti/Si/Ur, and antimatter) and what you want in return. The offered resources are escrowed — deducted from your stockpile the moment the offer goes live.
Browse offers from planets within your trade reach. Offers you can't afford (you lack the requested resources) are dimmed and marked.
Accept an offer. The requested resources — antimatter included — are deducted from you immediately, and both shipments are delivered on the next tick.
Transport loss depends on distance and applies to Ti/Si/Ur on both shipments. Antimatter is never lost in transit.

Distance between the two planets	Transport loss
Same galaxy	None
Same cluster	1–5%
Different clusters	4–10%

Both planets need enough trade reach for the distance — an offer from another cluster can only be accepted if you and the poster both have Intergalactic Exchange.

The market is anonymous

Since v4.6.0 market offers don't show who posted them. Each offer shows how far away it is (your galaxy, your cluster or distant) and the transport loss for that distance — the two things that change what the offer is worth to you. When a market trade completes, neither side is told who the other was, and your trade history shows market trades without a name.

Gifts and trades proposed directly to another planet are not anonymous: you choose who you send them to, and both sides see the name.

Finding offers

The Browse tab has two filter rows — You get and You give — and a sort:

Newest first (default), Closest (nearest distance, then lowest transport loss), or Best rate. Best rate appears once both filters name a single resource, because rates between different pairs can't be compared.
Offers you can afford are listed first unless you turn on Affordable, which hides the rest.
Every offer with one resource on each side shows its rate — what you give per unit you get, for example 1 Ur = 2.4 Si.

Market rates

The top of the Browse tab shows the market per resource pair:

Average rate of player trades completed in the last 48 ticks. It only appears once a pair has 3 trades in that window, so no single trade can be singled out.
Buy from / Sell up to: the best open price each way within your reach.

Partial buys

When you post an offer with one resource on each side you can turn on Allow partial buys and choose the smallest part (10, 25 or 50% of the offer).

Buyers then see Take part and choose how much to take. They pay the offer's own rate, rounded up in the seller's favour.
The rest of the offer stays open at the same rate. Taking everything that is left is always allowed, even if it is below the smallest part.
Offers that don't allow it show No partial buys instead.

Buy orders

A buy order is the other way round: you say what you want to buy, how much, and the most you will pay per unit.

The full payment is escrowed when you place the order.
The order fills by itself, in parts too, against offers at your price or better within your reach — both offers already on the market and offers posted later.
You always pay the offer's price. If that is better than your limit, the difference is refunded straight away, and the rest of the order stays at your own limit.
Other players can also sell into your order from the Browse tab.
A buy order counts toward your open-offer limit, expires after 48 ticks like any offer, and can be cancelled; whatever is unused is refunded.

Counter-offers

On any offer with one resource on each side you can send a counter-offer: your own amounts for what you get and what you pay.

Your payment is escrowed until the seller answers. One counter-offer per offer, and at most 5 open at a time.
If the offer can only be taken whole, the counter-offer is for the whole offer — only the price differs.
The seller sees it under My Trades with the distance and transport loss, never your name, and accepts or declines.
It is refunded if the seller declines, after 12 ticks without an answer, or as soon as the offer can no longer hold it (sold, cancelled or expired). You can withdraw it yourself while it is open.

If nobody accepts your offer within 48 ticks (24 hours in a normal season), it expires and your escrowed resources — antimatter included — are refunded in full. Cancelling an open offer refunds it the same way. A trade proposed directly to another planet expires after 24 ticks if they don't answer, and is refunded too.

Open-offer limit

How many market offers you can have open at once depends on your trade tier:

Highest Trading research	Open offers
Local Exchange	2
Trade Routes	5
Void Commerce	10
Intergalactic Exchange	15

Trade reach — the Trading research branch

Trade range is gated by a dedicated research branch (four technologies):

Research	Cost in a normal season (Ti / Si / Ur)	Unlocks
Local Exchange	1 500 / 1 500 / 0	Trade with planets in your galaxy
Trade Routes	5 000 / 5 000 / 0	Trade across your cluster
Void Commerce	9 000 / 9 000 / 2 000	Trade with The Void (Void Exchange)
Intergalactic Exchange	16 000 / 16 000 / 4 000	Trade across all clusters

Speed rounds use cheaper and faster versions of the branch — check the Research screen in-game for the current round's values. Until you research Local Exchange, you cannot post or accept any offers.

Void Exchange

With Void Commerce researched, the Void tab on the Trade screen opens the Void Exchange: the Void posts its own trade offers, and you take the ones you want. The Void no longer buys offers on the player market — you trade with it only here.

Trading posts and offers

There are 6 Void trading posts, each a Void planet, spread over different galaxies where possible. Any player with Void Commerce can trade with any post.
Each post shows 3 offers. Offers last 12 ticks, then the post puts up 3 new ones.
An offer is one resource for another: titanium, silicon or uranium, and some offers (about one in four) involve 1–3 antimatter — usually the Void selling it.
Rates favour the Void. You pay 1.4–2.0× the value of what you get. The Void values uranium at twice titanium and silicon, and one antimatter at 2 500.
Offer sizes follow the economy: they are worth roughly 4–16 ticks of a typical player's income (at least 10 000 in value).
An offer you take is gone for everyone else.

Taking an offer

You pay immediately; what you get arrives on the next tick.
Courier loss: you receive 15% less titanium, silicon or uranium than the offer shows. Offers marked Unreliable courier (about one in five) lose 30% instead. Antimatter is never lost.
You can take one offer per trading post per day (48 ticks). A post you've used shows "Back in N ticks" until it opens for you again. Other posts stay open — with 6 posts you can make up to 6 Void trades a day.

When the Exchange is closed

The Void is awake: the Void does not trade while it hunts. The Exchange closes during the Void's Awakening and reopens when it sleeps again.
No Void Commerce: the tab stays locked until you research it.

Refineries

Refineries convert a surplus resource into another on your own planet — no trade partner, no trade reach and no transport loss. They are a last resort: the rates are steep and each refinery has a daily limit. Refineries work during Void events too.

Unlocking

Research	Branch	Cost (Ti / Si / Ur)	Requires
Titanium Refinery	Resources, tier 4	14 000 / 14 000 / 2 000	Titanium Processing III
Silicon Refinery	Resources, tier 4	14 000 / 14 000 / 2 000	Silicon Refinement III
Uranium Refinery	Resources, tier 4	16 000 / 16 000 / 0	Uranium Enrichment III
Antimatter Refinery	Industry, tier 5	22 000 / 22 000 / 8 000	Uranium Refinery

Costs are the v4.5 launch values — check the Research screen in-game for the current round.

Conversion rates

Refinery	Converts	Rate (in : out)
Titanium Refinery	Titanium → Silicon	3 : 1
Titanium Refinery	Titanium → Uranium	6 : 1
Silicon Refinery	Silicon → Titanium	3 : 1
Silicon Refinery	Silicon → Uranium	6 : 1
Uranium Refinery	Uranium → Titanium or Silicon	3 : 2
Antimatter Refinery	Uranium → Antimatter	10 000 : 1

How a refinery job works

A job takes 4 ticks. The input is deducted when the job starts and the output is credited when it finishes. Resources in a running job are safe from raids.
Each refinery runs one job at a time. Antimatter refining uses the Uranium Refinery, so it can't run alongside a uranium → titanium/silicon job.
The smallest job is 1 000 of the input resource (10 000 uranium for antimatter).

Daily limit

Each refinery has a cap on how much it can take in per day (48 ticks, a rolling window):

Refinery	Daily cap
Titanium / Silicon / Uranium	12 ticks of your income of that resource, and never less than 20 000
Antimatter	3 antimatter produced

Jobs started in the last 48 ticks count toward the cap. When a job would go over, the refinery tells you how much room is left.

Trading and Daily Missions

Several Daily Missions reward posting and completing trades — an easy way to keep your streak alive on quiet days once the branch is unlocked. An offer bought in several parts counts as one completed trade, and the parts don't count as new offers.

Documentation reflects Orbitarion v4.6.0. Last updated: 2026-10-13.