How do I trade?

[KarmanMonkey]

I'm obviously missing something; how do I trade tech with another player? I can't seem to see the option, and I'm missing out because I'm playing the race that's all about trading.

[Mageant]

You can only trade with player whom you are in contact and at peace with. So that is the first condition you must fulfil. If you do, then in the Trading Phase colored windows will pop up allowing you to select technologies of other players to trade with. Click on the icons of the technologies you want to gain.

[KarmanMonkey]

So if they have ships at my planet and we're at peace, the option should pop up? In that case it must be a bug.

[Lunalol]

Checked on a copy of your table (and answered on bug #248709): at the time of the report, no two factions had ships or populated stars on a shared hex, and all three players are at Spirituality 1 - so the Trading Phase never found an eligible pair and was skipped. That is the rule Mageant quoted, not a bug.

To be precise about "contact": both your ships and your populated stars count - so yes, their ships sitting at your planet while you are at peace would be contact. The one remaining condition is that each side must have a technology level to teach the other (something to teach AND something to learn, in both directions). Your three tech profiles are nicely complementary (Robotics 4 / Propulsion 4 / Military 3), so the first time two of you share a hex, the trade windows will pop up.

And you are right that the silent skip is confusing: the next release will print a message in the game log explaining why nobody may trade whenever the Trading Phase finds no eligible pair.