How do I use the orbital trade beacon?

[BCS]

Does this thing come with a manual?

[cstoneburner]

Per the wiki[rimworldwiki.com]:

Interaction with orbital trade ships which will stay around for a limited time. A blue notification will appear at the right of your screen to announce the trade ship and its type. After it's gone, a simple notice at the top of the screen will note when the same vessel leaves comms range and can no longer be traded with. Each trade ship varies in type, which determines its inventory.

To trade, order a colonist to interact with the comms console. Only items located within range of an orbital trade beacon can be traded. Purchases will be sent via drop pods to a beacon's open-air tiles, drop pods will phase through constructed roofs otherwise. If all beacon tiles are covered, drop pods will land at the nearest eligible tile. Colonists with a higher social skill using the comms console will negotiate lower buying prices for everything but the commodities (1.5% per social skill point). Likewise, colonists with a higher social skill will negotiate for higher selling prices for everything but the commodities (1.5% per social skill point). Prisoners can be sold directly from their cell even if not in range of a beacon and tamed animals can be sold from anywhere on the map. The trade value of a prisoner or animal is based on their capabilities, injuries and skills.

[Toasty_Tacos]

TL;DR
Place that shi* in a place were you put shi*
Power that bugger
As long as a your stuff is in the roundi boi that appears when you placed it traders know it exists
If the orbital trader wants your junk
Then you can sell them your junk
Make sure you got a comms console
Or else you aint even gonna get spacey boi events

[Ze Zombie Chicken]

As Toasty_Tacos says:

Place the trade beacons down somewhere you have items you want to trade. (Like on your Stockpile Zones and Dumping stockpile zone)

You will allso need a comms console, so that you can communicate with the other tribes and passing trade ships.

When a notification pops up on your right side about a passing trader, you can take your "best" social character and right click the comms console and select Trade with "name".

Any item inside the cicle area of the "trade beacons" can be traded if the traders are interested.

[Neo Blitz]

you can have inside a roofed area and drop pods will land nearest to it outside the roofed area.