[jason taylor]

You also have to allow for whether a given world has indeed rigged an information infrastructure. If you are going to trade for googly tusks with the nomads of planet x you might find that they have a working internet(miniaturization has reached the point where nomadism is not incompatible with taking advantage of that), but you might not depending on how much trouble was gone to by the planetary bigwigs. If all there is is a Scout Base and some natives, it may be that you still have to scramble for information.