How trade works

IGN and TheGamer describe two different tools that share the trading post. Passive trade sets a minimum stock and a buy or sell flag, and NPC ships fill it when they dock. Active trade is a route you draw yourself.

Routes

Press T, or select a ship and choose Create a Trade Route. A ship loads by slot. One slot cannot hold two goods at once, but the same slot can unload good X at the second stop and load good Y there. A route may have as many stops as you add. Assign a captain or the ship sits.

What to sell

Raw goods sell for less than finished goods in both write-ups. The practical setting is a minimum stock, with anything above it marked for sale, so a surplus becomes income without emptying the island. Passive trade is the German search “passiver Handel”: you are not sailing, the visitors are.

Contracts

“Trader contracts” does not have its own official paragraph in the two trade guides. anno117.tools’ quest data is the one place that frames them as errands from other characters’ lighthouses. One source. I am not writing a contract walkthrough from that alone.