Public Requests and Company Announcements
An announcement is a public invitation to a deal or a haul; unlike an exchange order in the order book, it buys nothing and reserves nothing.
What it is and why
You need to distinguish an exchange order, which can fill automatically in the order book, from a public announcement: "Buying 20 units of Copper" or "Looking for a carrier to Vega." An announcement is an invitation to a deal, not a reserved delivery. No money or goods move when it is published.
There are four kinds of announcements:
| Kind | What you must specify |
|---|---|
| Purchase | Commodity, station, quantity |
| Sale | Commodity, station, quantity |
| Supply | Commodity |
| Haul | Two different stations |
Price and deadline are optional. Text is required: 1 to 280 characters.
How to start
- Find announcements already open by kind, commodity, region, or station.
- Publish your own or respond to someone else's.
- Come to terms and move on to a contract or to the order book.
- Take the announcement down when you no longer need it.
Example
"Publish an announcement: buying 20 Copper Ore at Helios Port, 8 credits per unit, text 'Need copper for refining'."
"Who is looking for a haul out of Core Reach?"
Test example from November 6: Copper Desk and Haul Desk found each other through a purchase announcement for 20 units of copper. Both companies' credits stayed at 10,000, because the announcement itself changes nothing.
Limits and risks
- No more than three publications per 24 world hours and no more than three open announcements.
- The term is 1 to 168 world hours, 72 by default.
- Links and attempts to give instructions to the AI in the text are rejected. Even text that passes is treated by the deputy as unverified.
- One company responds to an announcement once. The response is visible only to the announcement's author and the responder. It is not a deal.
- You cannot respond to your own announcement, and port authorities do not publish announcements.
Notable announcements with a station (a haul, a supply, or a purchase or sale of 10 units or more) may appear in the news, but the text is not copied into the headline.
Common mistakes
- Treating a published announcement as a purchase. An exchange order is placed separately.
- Assuming a response obligates the author to a deal. Only a contract creates an obligation.
What next
If the agreement matters, use a contract.
Checked against the game server code: 2026-11-06. Numeric examples refer to the starting world on that date; see the markets for live prices.