After the large support from my original trading guide, I have returned to the game to make a new, updated guide on how to trade in No Mans Sky and how to make as much money as possible within just a short period of time.
A link to the original guide can be found here:
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1481434006

Before you start trading, you must have these items installed on your ship.

• Economy Scanner
  
• A ship that contains a working hyperdrive

• Upgrade modules for your hyperdrive
  
• Enough warp cells to get you at least two jumps
  
• A few free exosuit slots.

To get the maximum amount of profit, you want to have as many inventory slots as possible and be able to jump between systems without any effort.

Every star system has their own type of economy. The economy is the most important aspect to trading effectively and making the most amount of profit as possible. You MUST have an economy scanner to be able to tell the type of economy that each star system is.

There are seven economies each with their own icon. The icons are important for later.
Later when we are looking at the economies of each star and the trading items, you will be able to refer to these to determine where you need to go.

• Mercantile
  
• Trading
  
• Shipping
  
• Commercial

• Material Fusion
  
• Alchemical
  
• Metal Processing
  
• Ore Processing

• Research
  
• Scientific
  
• Experimental
  
• Mathematical

• Mining
  
• Minerals
  
• Ore Extraction
  
• Prospecting

• Manufacturing
  
• Industrial
  
• Construction
  
• Mass Production

• High Tech
  
• Technology
  
• Nano-construction
  
• Engineering

• Power Generation
  
• Energy Supply
  
• Fuel Generation
  
• High Voltage

To start your trading adventure, you will begin by opening your Galaxy Map whilst in your starship. You are going to look at a star and press R to get all of the economy information about that star. To find a good starting star, you will want to be looking at its system wealth. You will be looking for a 3-star wealth system to begin this journey. The image below shows what to look for in the star economy information.


The number 1 in red shows two boxes. The one of the left shows three stars which indicates a high wealth system. The one on the right says the wealth of the system but in words. A high wealth system is called any of the following:

• Advanced
  
• Affluent
  
• Booming
  
• Flourishing
  
• High Supply
  
• Opulent
  
• Prosperous
  
• Wealthy

We will come back to what the pink number 2 means shortly. But for now, you want to warp to a high wealth system, as shown above, either look for the three stars OR look for the name of the wealth. They both indicate the same thing.

Note: 1 star means low wealth and 2 stars means medium wealth.

Now you want to head to somewhere that has a Galactic Trade Terminal, this being either the space station or a trade outpost. The fastest way is to go to the space station.
When you open the Galactic Trade Terminal, the first items with the white backgrounds are what you want to buy! You want to buy as many of these items as you can possibly hold. Always buy the most expensive ones first!!!! That is why having extra exosuit slots is very helpful!



Now that you have these items purchased, you want to hover over the items in your inventory or in the Galactic Trade Terminal. This will tell you what type of economy to sell the items to. In the image above, the items want to be sold to a mining economy. It is shown in the purple text. Now you can refer back to the start of the guide where I listed each trading economy name and their respective images.

Now you will get back into your starship and fly into space and open your Galaxy Map. You will need to press the up or down arrows to change the filter to economy. This will change the colour of each star in respect to their trading economy.

Here is a list of the economies and their respective colours:
Trading Systems are given the colour green.
Advanced Materials Systems are given the colour purple.
Scientific Systems are given the dark blue colour.
Mining Systems are given the colour orange.
Manufacturing Systems are given the colour yellow.
Technology Systems are given the light blue colour.
Power Generation Systems are given the red colour.

Since the items are telling us they are best sold to a mining system, we will look for an orange star system while the economy filter is active. Once found we want to examine the economy before going there. Look at the image in step 1 with the pink box which shows the name of the economy which lets you confirm that you are looking at the right place. Once you find an orange star, you want to look at the sell percentage of the system. The image below shows that we are looking at an orange star which is a mining system, which can be confirmed by the image of the pickaxe. Looking at the sell percentage, we can see that it is at 78.3% which is what we want! You only want to sell to star systems which have a sell percentage of 70% or above as this will help maximise your profits!
Now it is time to jump to the system!

Now that you have arrived in the correct system, you will want to sell the items. Selling to a trading outpost on a planet is usually the most profitable BUT it takes time to find a trading outpost and fly there. I personally turn around and fly right into the space station to sell the items at the Galactic Trade Terminal.
Now that you have sold the items, you have made a profit! Now you will repeat these steps but finding another high wealth system and jumping to it and buying the items from there and so forth!

Firstly, if you do not have much storage, you will become limited on the number of items you can buy. Every time you jump to a new system, you will want to visit the space station and purchase an exosuit upgrade. If you do this in every system you go to, you will have max inventory slots in no time!



Now if you happen to own a freighter and have a Galactic Trade Terminal on it, you can make even more money! If you have extra inventory slots after purchasing all of the items from the space station, you can summon your freighter whilst still in the high wealth system and purchase the items again from the Galactic Trade Terminal that is on your freighter. So, you can buy the most expensive items once again! By jumping to a high wealth system and buying items from your freighter and the space station you will make the most profit possible!!!

Selling to the same star system over and over again will decrease the value of the items so make sure you are looking at the sell percentage of each system!

If you really want, you can also look at the buy percentage. The lower the buy percentage (E.g -20% is better than -10%) the better value the purchasing items will be. But usually this takes longer and the time it takes to find this may not be worthwhile.

Just follow the 4 easy steps and repeat as needed and you will start to make more and more money! The more items you can hold and the more items you can buy will let you become a galactic millionaire in no time!

Hopefully this guide was helpful and has allowed you make money!

If you found this guide helpful, please leave a rating and a comment.

If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment or add me so I can change the guide.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.