What Do I Do With Contraband?

You sell it.

Contraband items are goods that are mostly useless and illegal. You will find them laying around on planets. Your colonists will gather it up for you. The higher the psi rating of your race the quicker they will be able to gather it up. Some buildings, like the smuggler`s cantina produce contraband. You can also buy contraband at a base`s black market .

Most races have a special affinity for some types of contraband. When a race prospers and grows in numbers of colonists the demand for all the types of contraband that they have an affinity for will increase causing the price of the contraband item to increase.

Buying contraband causes the price of contraband to increase. Selling contraband will cause the price to fall.

For example: The Solar Federation has an affinity for VR6 holochips, if you buy a massive amount of VR6 holochips when the price is still low you are betting that the Solar Federation empires in the game are going to do well and cause the price of VR6 holochips to increase.

Selling and buying contraband from your base`s contraband screen does not effect the crime rate or happiness levels of your colonists. Buying and selling from the base`s contraband screen is always completely safe. Both to you and empires around you.

Contraband can be used as a weapon to cause chaos and unhappiness on enemy bases using gold pods . Load a gold pod up with contraband fly it to within 60 ly of an enemy base and set the gold pod to sell the contraband to a target enemy base. The megacredits will end up on the gold pod next turn and the contraband will end up in the hands of enemy rouge colonists that will incite disorder and chaos on the enemy base.