What changed

Port economy now regenerates

• Sell-mode commodities restock every 15 minutes — Ports selling ore, organics, or equipment now refill toward their capacity over time. If a port gets bought out by a veteran trader, it recovers instead of staying empty forever. Rates: Class 1 +50/tick, Class 2 +30/tick, Class 3 +15/tick.

• Buy-mode commodities now deplete — Ports buying goods from players gradually sell off their accumulated inventory, making room for new player sales. Previously they only filled up and stayed full, blocking all selling. Same rates as restock, just in reverse.

• Melange also respects buy/sell mode — Melange restocks (+3/tick) at selling ports and depletes (-3/tick) at buying ports.

Dry-run estimates no longer show false negatives

• The Auto-Pilot route preview was reusing a fixed trade quantity across all simulated loops, ignoring that supply dries up and ports fill up. This caused the estimate to flip negative as loops stacked up. The estimator now correctly caps each simulated trade against the current state — what you see in the preview matches what happens when you engage.

Planet fuel ore is now tradeable

• Fuel ore withdrawn from planets now uses the ore cargo slot — Previously it was stored under a separate “fuel” key that ports couldn’t see. Your planet-mined ore now shows up correctly at ports that buy ore. If you had stranded fuel ore from before, deposit it back to your planet and withdraw again — it’ll land in the right spot.

Documentation updates

• Planet production interval corrected to daily at 8 AM UTC (was incorrectly stated as every 5 minutes).
• NPC cron interval corrected to every 15 minutes (was stated as every 5 minutes).
• New “How Port Supply Works” section added to the Trading guide, explaining buy vs. sell mode, the 15-minute economy tick, and price effects.

What this means for play

• Empty ports are a thing of the past — they’ll refill within hours instead of staying permanently drained.
• You can sell to ports again — buy-mode inventories cycle naturally as the port sells off stockpiles.
• Planet mining is actually useful — your fuel ore can be sold at any port buying ore.
• Auto-Pilot previews are trustworthy — the dry-run profit matches what you’ll actually earn.