[JMason]

Yeah, in my TIW game (currently on hiatus), the actual play was mostly about making contacts, winning over authorities or (lesser) nobles, and getting into trouble when things don't go well.

The party had to do some "favors" for underworld types, found a pirate base when looking for a lost ship (and it's cargo), took on a job that turned out to be a bunch of terrorists and guns, help out another group of traders in distress only to have some unknown life-form released on their ship.

...good times all around. :-D

As far as the trading aspect of things, well, my players aren't that interested in that sort of thing (but I totally am!!!). So they had an NPC that managed the numbers and told the crew what was going on. I had a spreadsheet that factored in ship costs and what they needed to be making to turn a profit. The first run was great, but then they had a harder and harder time to find a good run (and they had a secondary motivation to find some clues about a missing planet... so they didn't take long runs that would have been more profitable)... and as things got worse, the jobs did too }:-)