Grade moves
Same sub-category- Down one grade. Pay 1, receive 3 — a 1:3 payout.
- Same grade. Straight 1:1 swap to another material in the same group.
- Up one grade. Pay 6, receive 1 — a 6:1 cost.
There are three material types — Raw, Manufactured, and Encoded — each farmed differently and each served by its own trader. Within a type you can trade across grades and sub-categories, but you can never trade one type for another. The headline number to memorise: trading up one grade costs 6:1; trading down pays out 1:3. Hoard the high grades, downgrade on demand.
Every material in your inventory belongs to exactly one of three types. Each has its own farming method, its own storage pool, and its own dedicated trader. Types do not mix.
Naturally occurring chemical elements — iron, sulphur, polonium and the rest of the periodic table. Used in synthesis (ammo, AFMU refills, jumponium) and many blueprints. Found by SRV prospecting on planet surfaces, in surface signal sources, on crystalline shards, and via asteroid mining.
Artificial components salvaged from ships and structures — alloys, capacitors, focus crystals, shielding. The backbone of weapon and module engineering. Earned from combat salvage, ship-debris signal sources, surface settlements, and High-Grade Emissions.
Pieces of data — scans, intercepted files, decoded emissions. Heavy in sensor, FSD, and shield blueprints. Gathered by scanning ships, wakes, data points, and signal sources; stored in a dedicated data bank.
You can trade across grades and sub-categories inside a type, but there is no exchange between types. Raw never becomes Manufactured; data never becomes a component. Each type is also collected and stored entirely separately.
Materials only matter for what they buy. See Blueprints for what each roll costs, and Engineers for who unlocks which modifications.
Materials are rated by rarity grade, from common (low grade) to rare (high grade). Higher-grade blueprint rolls demand higher-grade materials — and high grades are far scarcer, which is the whole reason the trader exists.
| Grade | Rarity | Manufactured / Encoded | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| G1 | Very Common | Yes | Yes |
| G2 | Common | Yes | Yes |
| G3 | Standard | Yes | Yes |
| G4 | Rare | Yes | Yes |
| G5 | Very Rare | Yes | — |
Manufactured and Encoded run a full G1–G5 ladder. Raw materials top out at G4 — there is no G5 raw material.
Because upgrading is expensive (6:1) and downgrading is cheap (1:3), the efficient play is to collect at the highest grade you can and trade down to fill the lower grades on demand — never the reverse.
Raw materials are organised into 7 element groups, each spanning the four grades G1–G4. The trader treats one group as a sub-category: trading within a group (e.g. Iron → Zinc) is the cheapest sideways move.
| Group | G1 | G2 | G3 | G4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group 1 | Carbon | Vanadium | Niobium | Yttrium | |
| Group 2 | Phosphorus | Chromium | Molybdenum | Technetium | |
| Group 3 | Sulphur | Manganese | Cadmium | Ruthenium | |
| Group 4 | Iron | Zinc | Tin | Selenium | |
| Group 5 | Nickel | Germanium | Tungsten | Tellurium | |
| Group 6 | Rhenium | Arsenic | Mercury | Polonium | |
| Group 7 | Lead | Zirconium | Boron | Antimony |
7 groups × 4 grades = 28 raw materials, served by 7 trade lines at the Raw trader. The G5 column is intentionally empty — there is no G5 raw material; the column is kept only so all three catalogs line up.
SRV surface prospecting always yields a fixed spread per body — 1 × G4, 2 × G3, 3 × G2, 5 × G1 from its possible pool. The G1 surface five are always Carbon, Iron, Nickel, Phosphorus and Sulphur; Lead and Rhenium come only from asteroid mining. For specific high-grade raws the fastest route is Crystalline Shards — drive an SRV and shoot the shard clusters. Crystalline Shards farm →
Manufactured materials split into 10 category chains, each climbing G1 → G5. Each chain is a trader sub-category. The named ladders below are representative — and note how the names track the grade.
| Chain | G1 | G2 | G3 | G4 | G5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 |
10 chains served by 10 trade lines at the Manufactured trader. G5s for 8 of the 10 chains drop in High-Grade Emissions.
Dav's Hope bulk-fills G1–G3 components on a fast SRV salvage loop; High-Grade Emissions drop the G4/G5 chains.
Encoded data sorts into 6 categories, each running G1 → G5. As with the others, each category is a trader sub-category. Representative ladders below.
| Category | G1 | G2 | G3 | G4 | G5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emission Data | Exceptional Scrambled Emission Data | Irregular Emission Data | Unexpected Emission Data | Decoded Emission Data | Abnormal Compact Emissions 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 Archives | Adaptive Encryptors Capture |
| Data Archives | Anomalous Bulk Scan Data | 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 |
6 categories served by 6 trade lines at the Encoded trader. The category names and exact G-bands above are approximate where the in-game grouping overlaps; verify the specific material before a trade.
High-Grade Emissions drop high-grade data by system state; the Jameson Crash Site is a fixed data-point loop via the SRV Data Link Scanner.
A Material Trader converts materials you have into materials you want — at a deliberately punishing rate that rewards upgrading reluctantly and downgrading freely. Read the matrix as have ↓ against want →: x:1 means you spend x to gain 1; 1:y means you spend 1 to gain y.
| have ↓ · want → | G1 | G2 | G3 | G4 | G5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G1 | – | 6:1 | 36:1 | 216:1 | 1,296:1 |
| G2 | 1:3 | – | 6:1 | 36:1 | 216:1 |
| G3 | 1:9 | 1:3 | – | 6:1 | 36:1 |
| G4 | 1:27 | 1:9 | 1:3 | – | 6:1 |
| G5 | 1:81 | 1:27 | 1:9 | 1:3 | – |
| have ↓ · want → | G1 | G2 | G3 | G4 | G5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G1 | 6:1 | 36:1 | 216:1 | 1,296:1 | 7,776:1 |
| G2 | 2:1 | 6:1 | 36:1 | 216:1 | 1,296:1 |
| G3 | 2:3 | 2:1 | 6:1 | 36:1 | 216:1 |
| G4 | 2:9 | 2:3 | 2:1 | 6:1 | 36:1 |
| G5 | 2:27 | 2:9 | 2:3 | 2:1 | 6:1 |
Each grade step multiplies by ×6 going up or ×⅓ going down. Crossing into a different sub-category adds a flat ×6 on top — applied once, regardless of how many groups you jump. The two effects stack, which is how the corners reach 7,776:1.
Trade a G3 component down to G2 in a different sub-category: apply the cross-group ×6 (6 G3 → 1 G3 elsewhere), then the down step ×3 (1 G3 → 3 G2). Net: 6 G3 yields 3 G2 of the other group — an effective 2:1, exactly the across-category G3→G2 cell.
Traders sit in stations by economy: Raw at Refinery/Extraction, Manufactured at Extraction/Industrial, Encoded at High-Tech/Military — in medium/high-security systems of roughly 1–22 million population. Filter the galaxy map by the Material Trader service, or use INARA's nearest-trader search.
Because the trader stays within a type, you can only convert raw-into-raw, manufactured-into-manufactured, encoded-into-encoded. Plan your farming around the type a blueprint needs — the trader fixes grade and group mismatches, never type ones.
Each material has a per-slot cap that scales with grade — lower grades hold more, higher grades hold less. Caps are per individual material, so the trader's true value is also as overflow management.
| Grade | Per-material cap |
|---|---|
| G1 | 300 |
| G2 | 250 |
| G3 | 200 |
| G4 | 150 |
| G5 | 100 |
Caps drop by 50 per grade. Raw G4 caps at 150 (no raw G5 exists). Manufactured and Encoded G5 cap at 100 each.
When a slot is full, the excess is wasted on pickup. Convert near-full high grades down the cheap direction to free space and bank the value as plentiful low grades.
You can't manage 100+ materials from the in-game panel alone. Commanders track stock, set wishlists from blueprints, and find the nearest trader using community apps that read your game journal. Three are worth installing.
Grab the latest release from the GitHub link above and launch it alongside the game.
It auto-detects the Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous journal folder; your stock populates from play history.
Add the blueprints and grades you're chasing — the app tallies what you're short and flags the nearest trader to top up.
EDMC is the companion uploader that reads your journal and pushes data to web services.
In EDMC settings, paste the API key from your INARA profile to connect the two.
EDMC uploads as you play; INARA's materials page then shows current stock and keep/sell guidance from any browser.
Desktop trackers (EDOMH, ED Engineer) are best while flying; INARA is best for planning away from the game. Most commanders run EDMC plus one desktop tracker.
Material types, grade ladders, trader ratios, and storage caps on this page are verified against the sources below.