Trading Outposts

The Unyielding Inventors faction’s orbital trading station

Trading Outposts were introduced in the Economy Update 1.192. They spawn automatically if the "Enable Economy" option is selected in the Advanced World Settings.

How Do I Find Trading Outposts

Assuming that Economy is enabled in your world settings, you should come across Outposts by exploration. Outposts appear in various zones of the world, with several on each planetary body, several in orbit of each planetary body, and some more in deep space.

Tip: Check the seat inventory of your first droppod. If Economy is enabled from the start, it will contain a Datapad with coordinates of an Outpost. In the outpost, you can buy more such Datapads with coordinates of other allied factions' outposts.

Which Services Are Available?

All outposts contain at least a Store block and a Contracts Block.

Contract Blocks - Here you can accept contracts to earn credits and gain faction reputation — or lose it, if you fail to complete the contract. NPCs offer randomly generated contracts, but on a multiplayer server, you can also do contracts for players.
Store Blocks - Use the Store to buy or sell ores, materials, and components. Depending on the NPC faction’s specialisation, some Trading Outposts sell pre-built ships and rovers to the player (one of each). NPC-owned Store blocks sell everything from valuable Zone Chips to cheap Data Pads advertising the coordinates of other Trading Outposts.
ATM Blocks - Some Outposts offer an ATM where you can quickly withdraw and deposit space cash.
Vending Machine - Some Outposts offer a vending machine that sells a small subset of the Store goods.
Dispenser - Some Outposts offer a dispenser that sells drinks that restore a little bit of health.

You will be able to interact with DLC blocks regardless of whether or not you own the Economy Deluxe DLC.

Connectors on Trading Outposts are in Trading Mode which disables inventory/control panel access and power/gas transfer between the trader's connector and your docked ship. Only Store transactions are allowed. After undocking, there is an interval when players cannot immediately connect to the same Trading Station again.

Which NPC Factions Own Outposts?

When a world with Economy enabled is generated, a dozen random NPC Factions are also generated. These factions own the Trading Outposts that the player will come across. After an NPC ship or Trading Outpost appears on your radar (HUD), you have "discovered" this faction and their name is revealed in the list in your faction screen. By their names, you can distinguish three types of NPCs, miners, traders, and builders.

What's that force field?

Every trading outpost is protected by an Admin Safe Zone which prevents damage and stops players from using tools and weapons inside.

Players whose faction reputation with the outpost's NPC faction is too low (due to piracy) are denied access into the safe zone and cannot trade or accept contracts at the outpost.
Neutral players can enter the safe zone, trade, and accept contracts.
Players whose faction reputation is high (due to completing contracts) can enter, accept contracts, and trade prices improve by ~10% for them!

NPC stations contain no actual Safe Zone block that could be deactivated as part of pirate gameplay!

Can I Loot Outposts?

It is not officially intended to loot a trading outpost in Survival Mode. You can cheat using admin controls such as 'Ignore safe zones' and 'access all terminals' or exploits, but overall, it’s not really worth it.

To loot them in survival mode as admin, first access a control panel and turn the station into a ship. Next, smash them out of the safe zone with your ship (don’t worry about damage to your ship or to the station given that damage is disabled in safe zones). When the station is out of the safe zone, you are free to loot it.

Many of them are not really worth it:

The trade goods are not actually in the station cargo. The only noteworthy loot found on the outposts is a little Space credits cash, anywhere between 200 and 1000 and sometimes 200 uranium ingots depending on which outpost model it is, even if they are exempt of using fuel.
There are multiple Decorative DLC blocks in trading outposts which will only yield components when grinded down by a player who also has the DLC installed.