The most important thing about contraband you need to know, is that they are worth money once sold. Sell contraband once found for quick cash. There is the supply and demand part of it you can use to make money like one would from the stock market.

Contraband can be used as a weapon to cause chaos and unhappiness on enemy bases using gold pods. Load a gold pod up with contraband fly it to within 60 ly of an enemy base and set the gold pod to sell the contraband to a target enemy base. The megacredits will end up on the gold pod next turn and the contraband will end up in the hands of enemy rouge colonists that will incite disorder and chaos on the enemy base.

Selling and buying contraband from your base`s contraband screen does not effect the crime rate or happiness levels of your colonists. Buying and selling from the base`s contraband screen is always completely safe. Both to you and empires around you.

There are Exotic Techs which can crash the price of Contraband.

Some natives like contraband, and you can buy some to have in your base to help incite them to join. Ghipsoldal likes Kerria Crystal Artifacts and will eat them upon joining the base. Amorphous like Lerchin Spices, and once in the base they will produce Lerchin Spices for you.

Price of contraband is based on the demand vs supply(amount sold). Demand is based on number of Colonist in the game and how much they like the contraband. Each Empire has different likes when it comes to contraband. So the more Crystal colonist there are in the game, the more the asking price for Kerria Crystal Artifacts will be. If a race sells a large number of items the price of the item will fall in price, but if a race buys a large number of an item the price of it will increase.

When selling contraband to enemies bases, you want to sell contraband they like. Cyborg can not be attack in this way, and can not sell or buy contraband in bases. Also you get about double the money from selling contraband to an enimy base.