Market Database

Market Database

Elite Trader's trading tools run on a local SQLite database of every station market in the galaxy — the same open data Inara and Spansh use, living on your disk, updated in real time.

Building it

Database tab → Build Database (once):

1. Downloads Spansh's daily galaxy dump (~4 GB, deleted after import).
2. Imports every station market into data/market.db — about 15 minutes, ~1.5 GB: 474k station markets, 36M prices.
3. Done. Rebuild any time from the same button.

Until you build it, trade routes fall back to the Spansh API (slower, still works).

Staying fresh: EDDN live updates

While the app runs, it listens to EDDN — the community's live market relay. When any player anywhere docks at a station, your local prices update within seconds. This is what makes WATCH route alerts and the ▲/▼ price-trend arrows possible.

Contributing back

Markets you dock at are published to EDDN (the same way EDMC does), anonymously, keeping the network alive for everyone — including the players this app learns from. Opt out in Settings → Contribute market data.

Data location

Everything lives in one folder: data/ next to the app (or ET_DATA_DIR). Delete market.db and rebuild if you ever want a clean slate. Your journal history import (for analytics) is tracked in the same database and reimports automatically when needed.