The ever fertile mind of Hammer posted this interesting observation about Pods on the bulletin board:

Here's one to think about: I mentioned earlier that you can load a pod full of goodies and then remove the pod. The goodies stay in the pod. When you put the pod back on, the goodies are still in there. So you can sell a loaded pod to a friend with the price of the pod the lowest you can get, and he get's all the goodies.

But can you load a pod full, remove it. Install an empty pod, then load the full pod into the empty pod, etc? I haven't had time to try this. What do you think? How many can you stack this way?

--Hammer

Well, of course, I just had to try this to see what happens. If it worked, if you could load a full Largest Pod and load it in a Small Pod, trading would be revolutionized. It didn't work.

I started a test game by getting two large and a small pod. I was already fitted with a small pod. I went to my hangar, removed the small pod, and fitted the large one. Next, I filled the Large Pod to the brim and removed it. Finally, I refitted my Small Pod and tried to load the fully laden Large Pod.

I got the warning saying that the Large Pod couldn't be loaded in the Small Pod (the one fitted) because there was too much cargo. So I couldn't do that.

Then I decided to load up the Small Pod I was fitted with to see if it could be carried by the Large Pod. I removed the Small Pod and found I couldn't fit any Pod at all. Below is the warning I got:

Click to see a full sized screenshot

The text says, "We can't fit this smaller Pod. You are carrying more cargo than will fit into it." Gadzooks! I didn't even have a Pod fitted. I found that I couldn't get a Pod fitted anywhere. That sucked.

I started another game with better results. In this game, I filled a Small Pod with goods and removed it. Then I fitted a Large Pod and loaded the full Small Pod with good resutls.

I was able to access and sell the individual items I had loaded in the Small Pod and the Small Pod itself was available for sale.

I also discovered that when loading up in your hangar, you can load three normally full Small Pods. You can't however get around the usual load limits.

Like Hammer, I think there is a good use for "Pod Stacking" and that's to help out a friend or pay off an ally. You can stock a Pod with goods and sell it for the price of the Pod alone. Only one price to change.

Pod stacking doesn't do too much for the offline game or general trading. And, you could screw up and get in the mess I was in where I couldn't get a Pod fitted at all.