Trading Guide

How prices work

Portlight’s economy is scarcity-driven across 20 ports and 18 goods. Every port has goods it produces (high stock, cheap buy price) and goods it consumes (low stock, high sell price).

Your profit comes from buying where stock is high and selling where stock is low. The price difference minus port fees and travel costs is your real margin.

Reading the market

portlight market

Key columns:

• Buy price — what it costs to purchase
• Sell price — what you’d get selling here (always lower than buy due to spread)
• Stock — current supply at this port

Five regions, five economies

Region	Produces	Consumes	Character
Mediterranean	Grain, timber, spice	Cotton, porcelain, dyes	Safe early routes, moderate margins
North Atlantic	Iron, weapons, tea	Silk, spice, medicines	Strict inspections, military trade
West Africa	Cotton, rum, iron, pearls	Grain, weapons, silk	Cheapest provisions, good export margins
East Indies	Silk, spice, porcelain, tea	Grain, iron, weapons	Highest luxury margins, monsoon risk
South Seas	Pearls, medicines, dyes	Most goods	Remote, endgame waters, premium prices

Flood penalty

If you sell the same good repeatedly at the same port, a flood penalty reduces your sell price.

How to manage it:

• Diversify destinations — sell at different ports
• Diversify goods — don’t carry only grain
• Wait — flood penalty decays over time

Key trade routes

Prices are structural, not random:

• Grain — cheap at Porto Novo, expensive at Al-Manar and East Indies ports
• Timber — cheap at Silva Bay, valuable at shipyard-hungry ports
• Silk — buy at Silk Haven (East Indies), sell anywhere in Mediterranean for high margins
• Spice — Al-Manar and Spice Narrows export cheaply, sells well in North Atlantic
• Cotton — flows cheaply from West Africa, sells well in Mediterranean
• Iron — Iron Point and Ironhaven produce, East Indies consumes
• Pearls — Pearl Shallows and Typhoon Anchorage export, highest per-unit value in the game
• Contraband — opium, black powder, stolen cargo. Black Market ports only. Massive margins, massive heat.

Provenance

Every cargo item tracks where and when it was acquired. This matters for:

• Contracts — delivery must use cargo with tracked provenance
• Inspections — contraband from suspicious regions draws more attention
• Warehouses — stored cargo preserves its provenance

Ship progression

Five ship classes with increasing capability:

Ship	Cargo	Speed	Hull	Crew Cost	Price
Sloop	30	8	60	1/day	Free (start)
Cutter	50	9 (fastest)	70	1/day	450
Brigantine	80	6	100	2/day	800
Galleon	150	4	160	3/day	2200
Man-of-War	200	3	220	4/day	5000

Check availability: portlight shipyard

Upgrade when you can afford both the ship and the larger crew’s daily wages. The Brigantine is the workhorse — it opens cross-region routes where real money lives.

Seasons

Four seasons rotate on a 360-day cycle. Each shifts danger and demand:

• Spring — calm seas, Mediterranean awakens
• Summer — peak activity, East Indies monsoon (1.7x danger)
• Autumn — harvest, grain floods Mediterranean
• Winter — harsh North Atlantic (1.8x danger), medicine demand peaks