Elite: Dangerous/Material Trader

Material Traders allow you to exchange materials and data to other types of materials and data, such as exchanging Iron to Zinc.

They have 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	1296:1*	216:1*	36:1	6:1	1:1	1:3	1:9	1:27	1:81
Different Category	7776:1*	1291:1*	216:1*	36:1	6:1	2:1	2:3	2:9	2:27

Trades marked with an asterisk are normally not possible, since materials have a storage cap of 100 per material.

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

Manufactured

Chemical
Chemical Storage Units	Chemical Processors	Chemical Distillery	Chemical Manipulators	Pharmaceutical Isolators
Thermic
Tempered Alloys	Heat Resistant Ceramics	Precipitated Alloys	Thermic Alloys	Military Grade Alloys
Heat
Heat Conduction Wiring	Heat Dispersion Plate	Heat Exchangers	Heat Vanes	Proto Heat Radiators
Conductive
Basic Conductors	Conductive Components	Conductive Ceramics	Conductive Polymers	Biotech Conductors
Mechanical Components
Mechanical Scrap	Mechanical Equipment	Mechanical Components	Configurable Components	Improvised Components
Capacitors
Grid Resistors	Hybrid Capacitors	Electrochemical Arrays	Polymer Capacitors	Military Supercapacitors
Shielding
Worn Shield Emitters	Shield Emitters	Shielding Sensors	Compound Shielding	Imperial Shielding
Composite
Compact Composites	Filament Composites	High Density Composites	Proprietary Composites	Core Dynamics Composites
Crystals
Crystal Shards	Flawed Focus Crystals	Focus Crystals	Refined Focus Crystals	Exquisite Focus Crystals
Alloys
Salvaged Alloys	Galvanising Alloys	Phase Alloys	Proto Light Alloys	Proto Radiolic Alloys

Data

Emission Data
Exceptional Scrambled Emission Data	Irregular Emission Data	Unexpected Emission Data	Decoded Emission Data	Abnormal Compact Emission Data
Wake Scans
Atypical Disrupted Wake Echoes	Anomalous FSD Telemetry	Strange Wake Solutions	Eccentric Hyperspace Trajectories	Datamined Wake Exceptions
Shield Data
Distorted Shield Cycle Recordings	Inconsistent Shield Soak Analysis	Untypical Shield Scans	Aberrant Shield Pattern Analysis	Peculiar Shield Frequency Data
Encryption Files
Unusual Encrypted Files	Tagged Encryption Codes	Open Symmetric Keys	Atypical Encryption Keys	Adaptive Encryptors Capture
Data Archives
Anomalous Bulk Data Scan	Unidentified Scan Archives	Classified Scan Databanks	Divergent Scan Data	Classified Scan Fragment
Encoded Firmware
Specialised Legacy Firmware	Modified Consumer Firmware	Cracked Industrial Firmware	Security Firmware Patch	Modified Embedded Firmware