Want to get your fleet running without micromanagement? Starminer automated trading explained simply: you need to use the Logistics UI to set up conditional orders like "cargo > 90%" to auto-sell silicates to allied bases, or "water < 25%" to keep your mining ships supplied. The game's interface is notoriously cluttered in Early Access, but mastering the "greater than/less than" rule system transforms the experience from a tedious manual hauling chore into a seamless, hands-off logistics empire.
If you are still flying your starting mining ship back to the refinery every time its cargo bay is full, you are playing Starminer on hard mode. The game bills itself as a sandbox interstellar fleet builder, but until you master the automation mechanics, it feels more like a space-trucking simulator. The problem isn't that the game lacks AI—it's that the tools to command that AI are buried behind overlapping displays, tiny tabs, and a logistics menu that assumes you already know how it works.
This guide breaks down the exact steps required to automate your resource economy, keep your colonists alive, and stop your ships from violently crashing into asteroids due to bad autopilot pathing.
Starminer Automated Trading Explained: Decoding the Logistics UI
Players coming from management heavyweights like X4: Foundations or Factorio expect clean, spreadsheet-like logistics menus. Starminer takes a different approach, burying its fleet automation behind a series of right-click sub-menus and a hidden Logistics UI tab.
The core of all fleet management in the game relies on two primary command triggers: "When condition is met" and "Repeat at interval." Understanding the difference between these two settings is the single most important hurdle to clear.
If you set a tradeship to "Repeat at interval" with a 20-second timer, the ship will undock and attempt to execute its route every 20 seconds, regardless of whether its cargo bay is full or empty. This results in horrific inefficiency, with ships burning precious fuel to transport a handful of raw iron chunks across the sector.
Conversely, "When condition is met" allows you to set specific parameter thresholds. By telling a ship to wait until "cargo > 90%" before undocking, you ensure it only makes the trip when it is economically viable. The UI allows you to stack these conditions, using a "greater than" and "less than" system to balance your entire fleet's resource needs without ever taking direct control of the helm.
Setting Up Routes: Starminer Automated Trading Explained
To build a self-sustaining economy, you need to establish a few foundational trade routes. The most critical early-game setup is the Silicate Auto-Sell route. As your mining ships chew through asteroids, your refinery will quickly become choked with silicates—a low-value byproduct that will halt your production of valuable metals if the storage fills up.
To fix this, you must dedicate a tradeship or a hauler with a large cargo bay specifically to waste management. Open the Logistics UI for your chosen ship and set the trigger to "When condition is met." Set the parameter to "Silicates > 80%." Next, select the nearest Allied Base as your target destination, and set the action to "Sell."
Once activated, this ship will sit dormant at your refinery until the silicate storage hits critical mass. It will then automatically undock, fly to the Allied Base, sell the excess for a modest credit profit, and return to its post. You never have to babysit your refinery's waste output again.
Another mandatory route involves life support. Your colonists require a constant supply of water. If you leave your sector to explore and forget to top up your mining outposts, the colonists will die, and you will be forced to wait for them to slowly regenerate—crippling your operations. To prevent this, set up a "less-than" condition on a fast transport ship: "When Water < 25%, request from Refinery." This ensures your forward operating bases automatically pull life-support resources from your main hub before a crisis occurs.
Advanced Starminer Automated Trading Explained: Scaling Your Fleet
As you expand from a single mining vessel to a multi-ship logistics network, the complexity of your trade routes scales exponentially. You will need to start managing Thorium for your nuclear power plants and balancing the energy grid across multiple docked stations.
One of the biggest mistakes new players make when scaling up is attempting to build a "do-everything" multi-purpose ship. Combining a refinery, mining lasers, and massive cargo bays into a single hull seems efficient on paper, but it destroys your ability to automate effectively.
Never put mining lasers on your main refinery station. The Starminer autopilot AI governs pathing based on the modules attached to the grid. If a refinery has mining lasers, the AI may attempt to treat it as a mining ship, initiating an automated mining path toward the nearest resource node. Because a massive refinery lacks the maneuverability of a dedicated miner, it will likely fail to calculate the correct braking distance.
This brings us to the physics of fleet scaling. Starminer utilizes a Newtonian-style physics model where inertia matters. Heavy cargo ships require significantly more retro-thrusters than scout ships. The autopilot does not magically improve your ship's braking thrust. If you load a massive hauler with 10,000 units of ore but only install a single retro-thruster, the autopilot will engage, fail to stop in time, and smash your multi-million credit investment directly into a jump gate. Always check your Nav Gimbal alignment and over-engineer your braking thrusters on any ship assigned to an automated trade route.
Avoiding the Autopilot Death Spiral
Even with perfect conditions and plenty of thrusters, your automated routes can stall due to economic bottlenecks. The most common issue players encounter is the dreaded "waiting for full delivery" status.
When you issue an auto-trade order, the game attempts to fulfill the exact volume specified. If your tradeship arrives at an Allied Base to sell 500 units of metal, but the base's local storage only has room for 200 units, your ship will not sell a partial load and return home. Instead, it will dock and sit there indefinitely, locked in a "waiting for full delivery" state until the station's inventory clears out enough space to accept the rest of the cargo.
To avoid this death spiral, you must size your tradeships appropriately. Do not use massive, late-game bulk freighters to sell basic resources to small starter stations. Use smaller frigates or light tradeships for routine auto-sell routes so they can completely empty their holds in a single transaction. Reserve your massive haulers for internal logistics—moving raw ore from your deep-space mining rigs to your central mega-refinery.
Finally, be aware of the "jettisoned resources" mechanic. Currently, many players look for a way to auto-dump excess resources directly into space to clear cargo space quickly. While you can manually jettison cargo, setting up an automated rule to dump resources into the void is not natively supported in the current Early Access build. You must route excess materials to a station or a dedicated storage barge.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How do I fix autopilot crashing in Starminer? Autopilot crashes are almost always caused by insufficient retro-thrusters or conflicting modules. Ensure your automated ships have enough reverse thrust to counteract their fully loaded inertia. Furthermore, never attach mining lasers to a station or ship that you do not intend to use exclusively for mining, as it confuses the AI pathing.
Can you auto-dump excess resources into space? No. While you can manually jettison resources if your cargo bay is full, you cannot currently set up an automated Logistics UI rule to dump excess materials into space. You must use an auto-sell route to an Allied Base to clear out unwanted byproducts like silicates.
Why is my auto-trade order stuck on "waiting for full delivery"? This happens when the target station does not have enough available storage space to accept your ship's entire cargo load. The ship will wait docked until space frees up. To fix this, use smaller tradeships for selling to NPC bases, or manually cancel the order and send the ship to a larger hub.
What is the difference between "Repeat at interval" and "When condition is met"? "Repeat at interval" forces the ship to run its route based on a strict timer (e.g., every 60 seconds), regardless of how full its cargo bay is. "When condition is met" only triggers the route when a specific threshold is reached (e.g., when cargo is over 90% full), making it vastly more efficient for long-term automation.
Sources
- Steam Community Discussions: Starminer player guides on logistics, inertia, and "waiting for full delivery" errors.
- Reddit (r/Space4X and r/spacesimgames): Community testing on autopilot pathing and UI navigation.
- YouTube Starminer Tutorials: Auto-trade route setups, silicate management, and ship modularity breakdowns.