Malloy_at wrote: ↑Wed, 4. Sep 24, 11:32
[…] lately I actually noticed that im not getting ANY sparkles or data leaks on stations atm.
Be aware also that if you have low rep with a faction then their stations won’t have many leaks at all. Most leaks are only useful if you can dock, so below −10 they mostly disappear.
That said, finding them is a skill that you need to practice. As others have mentioned, the local scanner mode gives you a HUD indicator that helps guide you towards leaks. Sound is also a useful guide, especially if you have a good surround–sound setup. If you use headphones then you might consider turning on OpenAL’s HRTF support for better spatialization. The bright flashes can be seen and heard from much further away than the other effects, so using those to find the leaks is useful. Visually the leaks are also quite distinctive, and can often be seen from quite far away. Of course your view of them can also be obstructed by the station itself, so sound is often your best guide. Just don’t ask where the sound is actually coming from. It should also go without saying that finding them is easier in a small, nimble scout than in a large lumbering freighter.
There are never more than eight leaks on any station, four yellow and four red. Red leaks only give discounts and/or commissions, so when looking for black marketeers they are a distraction. Go ahead and scan them, however, as it will eliminate the sound from the leak and help you track down the others. Plus, who doesn’t like a nice discount?
The yellow leaks always give missions. These are almost always from criminals or from a faction that is at war with the owner of the station. If the station has a black marketeer, then one of these yellow leaks will always give you the Lucrative Offer mission that introduces you to them. If you find all the leaks on a station and none of them were for the Lucrative offer mission, then the station simply doesn’t have a black marketeer. Something like 70−90% of all normal stations should have a black marketeer, but stations that sell illegal goods (spaceweed, spacefuel, maja dust, or stimulants) will never have one. And it goes without saying that Xenon stations never have one.
The bug others have mentioned is very real. Any save that is affected will have black marketeers only in sectors added by a DLC; the core sectors will have none, or very few. So if you can't find any in a core sector, and your rep is not too low, and the sector isn’t neutral, then go to a DLC sector and try again.
) when you get that far into the plot - including many of the shady mission ones that unlock the bar for black market traders. Most of the Boron stations in my game now have that shady symbol on their icons (vanilla). 
