I have a small legion that is made of two family member(that play because I asked) and a friend that found the game interesting enough to join me. I am not a complete noob but I am a lone wolf. My only knowledge resource pool is this forum and the wiki. Just wanted to get that out of the way so you can answer the question at a bit of a higher level than starting the absolute beginning because I have looked for this answer. My question is: what is a trade pact? What are the advantages, disadvantages, are there any pitfalls or pluses? I had a battle pact that I jumped into and it was a pain at first because of all the battle alerts. Worse of all when I got into it I was dropped. What annoyed me about that was when I did finally got into it I was always the first to the scene and did a good chunk of the damage. I though I was being polite by leaving some damage behind for other members/legions. Any insight would be a help. sorry if this was too long and rambling just wanted to give you insight on what my sit is. thanks

The primary benefit is that using base ability points you can up your production of artifact points form the base shipment.

Secondary benefit: you can send/receive artifacts across allied legions without having to friend the other person.

I'm not totally familiar with pacts, but since no one else has answered...

A trade pact allows you to send/receive artifacts, minerals, complex tech parts, exotic matter - anything that's sendable, really - to and from the legion you're pacted with. It's also a percentage booster for the trade route ability from the base, which increases the amount of artifact points that the base shipment pays out everyday.

The disadvantage with any pact is that it takes up a diplomacy slot that could maybe be used to set up base battles or reduce aggression, but it's easy enough to break a pact temporarily and reform it at another time, so I don't know of any major disadvantage.

edit: ninja'd, yay.