Am I Missing Something

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

I want to get started building a station.

So how do I quickly and easily find those stations that are selling what I require?

I want to get into trading with my free large vessel.

When entering a zone, there are these lovely stations. How do I quickly find out what they produce and consume?

What if anything is the point of station scanning. I go into this mode and spend a rather boring time getting the station components to change colour. This appears to give some kind of advantage, but I am not sure how to exploit this. Can anybody help?

I have also tried scanning in a drone, to see what effect this has. Which to date seems to be exactly zero. If flying drones and using them is an integral part of the game. Can someone tell me what I should be doing with them?

[SyberSmoke]

I want to get started building a station.

So how do I quickly and easily find those stations that are selling what I require?

I want to get into trading with my free large vessel.

When entering a zone, there are these lovely stations. How do I quickly find out what they produce and consume?

What if anything is the point of station scanning. I go into this mode and spend a rather boring time getting the station components to change colour. This appears to give some kind of advantage, but I am not sure how to exploit this. Can anybody help?

I have also tried scanning in a drone, to see what effect his has. Which to date seems to be exactly zero. If flying drones and using them is an integral part of the game. Can someone tell me what I should be doing with them?

If you go to a mechanic, they will have a piece of software you can buy. If you buy it, when you enter a sector all of the buy and sell orders for that sectors stations will be downloaded and you can see them.

IF you want a more permanent view, dock at the station and wait for some one to do a conversation that you can "Sweet Talk". Then when your done, use option 4 if you can. This will give you a permanent view of the buy and sell orders for that station any where you are.

As for station scanning...for the most part it is just to unlock deals. Percentage bonuses that give you better prices for a short (30 minutes) time.

The Beholder Drone is used to get more info from station parts that are restricted or shielded. Some parts, like storage modules, will not show everything. Instead you will be at 10% of the scan for them. Using the Beholder lets you get 100% and see the contents of the module.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

After visiting a zone, I would like to view the Inputs and outputs from stations in the zone details.

I do not need to see the trading details, just a list of items bought and sold.

In older versions of X just viewing a sector would supply this information as it was easy to work out from the station list.

With the more complicated stations in Rebirth I am having difficulty knowing what is being bought and sold.

[Sprondar]

if you turn on station scanning mode, the production modules will be orange, and the storage green. you can show details on the station from the map view once you've scanned the correct modules and you will get the readout you are looking for.

Sometimes the station won't have a trade offer posted for one of it's products, usually means they are sold already.

A fast way to get station materials is to hack the container storage units at a shipyard a few times and have a freighter pick them up. (bring lots of cargo drones)