How do I find a black market I've been given access to?

[deuxhero]

I did a quest to be rewarded with access to black market trader, but after I did the quest I went to grab a bunch of items I had stashed but now I can't find him (I know the sector at least). How do I know where it was?

[DanKara]

The station with the Black Marketeer should have an blue 'shady man'-icon (think hat+coat) on the map and in flight-view.
He should be in the bar of the station.

[db48x]

I have a worse problem: I have access to several black marketers, but I cannot recall what sectors they were in. (it was two whole days ago.) Is there any way to search for them other than to look at every station icon in the entire known universe?

[Tin Pony]

Originally posted by db48x:

Is there any way to search for them other than to look at every station icon in the entire known universe?

A good reason to leave a beacon, renamed to BM Trader.

[Mythos]

pfff. I can't even find a black market on my playthrough. I've scanned like 100+ station datalinks. Honestly the rate at which you can find black markets could be adjusted a bit. Anyone have any tips?

[db48x]

Originally posted by Tin Pony:

Originally posted by db48x:

Is there any way to search for them other than to look at every station icon in the entire known universe?

A good reason to leave a beacon, renamed to BM Trader.

In hindsight that sounds like a really excellent idea.

Originally posted by Mythos:

pfff. I can't even find a black market on my playthrough. I've scanned like 100+ station datalinks. Honestly the rate at which you can find black markets could be adjusted a bit. Anyone have any tips?

As I understand it, they are guaranteed to exist, but not at every single station. On stations that have a black marketeer, there will be an extra signal leak that gives you their mission, over and above any other signal leaks that already exist.

I managed to find another with less than a dozen minutes of searching. (Still no idea where the first ones I found were. Oh well.)

[kolinramz]

Originally posted by Tin Pony:

Originally posted by db48x:

Is there any way to search for them other than to look at every station icon in the entire known universe?

A good reason to leave a beacon, renamed to BM Trader.

This seems so obvious in hindsight.

Thank you.

[eMYNOCK]

just add any of the usual contraband wares (space fuel, spaceweed, maja dust, stimulants) into the trade filter.

if its not a trade station or a factory actually producing that stuff.. and if it buys relatively low quantities of all of them you found your black market station.

for example when a faction HQ (except Teladi) would buy all those 4, you have a Black Market there.

or if a Defence Station would buy those goods... or a Hull Plate Factory.. etc.

[Middleclaw]

*aggressively writes down notes and wonders why he did not think of that"

[delentis]

Originally posted by Mythos:

pfff. I can't even find a black market on my playthrough. I've scanned like 100+ station datalinks. Honestly the rate at which you can find black markets could be adjusted a bit. Anyone have any tips?

The first one can take a while, but after that the mission will pop up more and more often. To me it seems like the mission algorithm will give you more of the missions you previously chose/completed, I'm not sure that's how it works, but when I'm hunting for black markets I try to not accept any other of the missions from scanning stations. And if a station is not giving any black market missions after scanning a few(or there are almost no dataleaks+missions spawning on that partiucular station), just move on to another, maybe move on to a different sector or faction. Some sectors just seem unlucky with getting black markets, while in others I get to unlock one on every station quickly. Like after many tries I have still only unlocked 1 black market on a hat station in hatikvah's choice, meanwhile the argon stations in the same sector almost all have an unlocked black market. In pious mists II I also have still failed to unlock any black market on a tem station since they took over the sector, meanwhile in pious mists XI I easily unlocked one on every station tem build so far.

Another thing I tried in my game from intuition, which I'm not really sure if it was just a coincidence that it worked, is to follow the fast transport missions. As in, look for a fast transport mission that seems like it might lead to a black market, for example a criminal wants to go somewhere, well, maybe there's a reason he wants to be dropped off there, he might have friends there. Or if you unlocked the first black market, follow a fast transport mission from that station to pick which station to scan next for a black market. Or if a hacking missions asks you to disable security so they can get some illegal wares off a station, that station might be hiding a black market.

The thing though is that I'm still wondering if a black market exists on a station before you find it, or whether the mission popping up is pure randomness and the act of you completing the mission spawns the black market there. I have seen ai ships transporting drugs to a black market I already unlocked, so I do know they exist for the ai too, so if they do exist before you find them you could try camping out at a spacefuel factory and following a drug trader from there to it's destination.

[db48x]

Originally posted by delentis:

The thing though is that I'm still wondering if a black market exists on a station before you find it, or whether the mission popping up is pure randomness and the act of you completing the mission spawns the black market there. I have seen ai ships transporting drugs to a black market I already unlocked, so I do know they exist for the ai too, so if they do exist before you find them you could try camping out at a spacefuel factory and following a drug trader from there to it's destination.

The devs have commented on this in the past:

https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=146&t=447260&sid=921af4cedda077639957fa8b48c8f1b8&start=20#p5133697

Shady guys ( black marketeers) will only spawn on stations not producing majadust, spacefuel or spaceweed. When starting "stranded", for me there were 348 shady guys total.
Glancing over the script which spawns the shady missions, it looks like if there is a shady guy in the station, then one leak is guaranteed to be for the shady guy mission. Note there are usually multiple leaks, so it's not guaranteed to be the first on a station which you scan.

This means that once you find all the leaks on a station, you know whether there is a black marketeer there or not. Either one of them will be for the black marketeer or none of them well.

Furthermore, you can use the exploit that eMYNOCK mentioned to find their stations even before you find the signal leak.