Elite: Dangerous/Material Trader
Material Traders allow you to exchange materials in order to acquire materials that you lack, such as exchanging Iron for Zinc.
Material traders are one of three types: Raw, Manufactured, and Data.
Material Trade Costs
Materials can be traded to go up grades, down grades, and across categories:
- Going up one grade costs 6 for each grade, multiplicatively
- Doing down one grade gives 3 for each grade, multiplicatively
- Changing category costs 6, no matter how many categories you jump
Shown below is a table of trade costs and results.
| In:Out | Down 4 | Down 3 | Down 2 | Down 1 | Same Grade | Up 1 | Up 2 | Up 3 | Up 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Same Category | 1:81 | 1:27 | 1:9 | 1:3 | 1:1 | 6:1 | 36:1 | 216:1 | 1296:1* |
| Different Category | 2:27 | 2:9 | 2:3 | 2:1 | 6:1 | 36:1 | 216:1 | 1291:1* | 7776:1* |
Trades marked with an asterisk are normally not possible directly, since materials have a storage cap. You will need to use an intermediate material in order to do these trades.
In some cases, it may be possible to trade materials up grades despite this, since 2.4 has an overall material cap of 1000 for raw + manufactured and 500 for data.
Material Trader Types
Different material trader types offer different trading possibilities.
The tables below show what materials each type of trader works with.
Raw
| Category 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Carbon
|
 Vanadium
|
 Niobium
|
Yttrium | |
| Category 2 | ||||
| Phosphorus
|
Chromium
|
Molybdenum |  Technetium
| |
| Category 3 | ||||
| Sulphur
|
Manganese
|
 Cadmium
|
Ruthenium | |
| Category 4 | ||||
| Iron
|
Zinc
|
Tin
|
Selenium
|
Antimony |
| Category 5 | ||||
| Nickel
|
Germanium
|
Tungsten
|
Tellurium
|
Polonium
|
| Category 6 | ||||
| Rhenium
|
Arsenic
|
Mercury | Zirconium
| |
