Selling on the black market works...how?

Come on guys someone must know this...If not maybe one of the devs could shed some light?

I assumed (having not yet read the manual that there is an infinite amount on the market, but the price changes...and you can have the odd boom/bust period (ie massive price change up/down)?

This is a good point. Maybe a resource trading system between individual players (a la Settlers of Catan) would add something to the diplomacy system in 1.1?

If you sell directly to the black market - you get less money, but instantly, and nobody else actually paid.

If you place resources on the market to be sold, then whenever someone else buys that resource from the market, they'll buy from you (or from whomever might be undercutting you - you can lower the price to make sure yours sells first).

currently you set the sell rate of the resource. So if metal is currently being sold at 100 creds on the market you are able to compete with that by selling for cheaper

so if you set it to .75 than your setting your resource to be selling at 75% of what the market is.

now how it works with other players is, whoever has the resource sale rate at cheaper will be bought first from other players using the standard buy and sell.

its usually better to sell this way since you get a better rate for what your selling, the only down side is waiting for someone to actually buy it

There seems to be two ways to use the market. The simplest one is the big buy/sell buttons at the top. You use those to immediately buy/sell at the current market price. The market seems to be infinite in supply, but what you buy/sell influences the price.

There's smaller buttons at the bottom that are another way of buying and selling, but I don't understand how they work.

I saturated the metal market and watched the value decrease rapidly, so my guess is they use a stock market model based on Derivatives. I'll be experimenting with it over the next few days so I'll know more then.. but you might try a test game by setting up a strong economy and experimenting with the market to see what repeatedly starts up and downtrends.

I was hitting my head the other day, out of the game, trying to figure out how the lower part of the Black Market buttons work, and why on earth anyone would want to sell items directly to other players.



So a few trips in game gave me the skinny, so here is what I can gather :


Below the "Sell 100" and "Buy 100" buttons on both the Metal and Crystal side, are two other buttons that have to do with selling to players.

For the Metal side, there is a button on the left that shows your percentage of market value at the time for other players to purchase, and to the right of that is how many of that object (in this case Metal) you have up for grabs to other players. (reverse these instructions for the Crystal side)


The percentage at 100% is the current market "Purchase" value, meaning that anyone who buys from the Black Market will buy from you insted. The percentage at 0% means that is the current market "Sell" value, so if you are using that number (which you shouldnt), you will earn exactly as much money as if you had just quick-sold that item yourself.

So for almost all cases, (except when the market value can go very high and very low, and if your percentage is below 50%), you can sell Metal & Crystal to other players for a larger profit value than you would just quick selling the items to the Market. If you are paitent, you can make their purchase your gain, and if you are TEC you have additional bonuses later in the tech tree as well.



But hold on, thats not all - other players in a game can change the percentage they wish to value their goods for sale at. The player with the lowest percentage value will be bought from first, keep that in mind in large games with many players. (I am not sure if that actually effects market value. I dont think that it does, and that the Black Market just "takes" the rest as a finders fee or some such). So by changing the percentages compared to other players, you can up your chances of having your goods purchased first or more quickly than others.


Also, if you mouse over the percentage buttons, you can see if you hold the lowest percentage in the galaxy at that time, to ensure that your goods will be sold sooner.

You may also remove metal/crystal from "storage" on the Black Market at any time, as long as you have some amount in the "sales" category. This is at no cost at all, so if you are hoping for a big return on other players purchases, and dont get it, you can take back your items at no loss!


So if I put up 200 Metal to sell to other players, and 15min later im in dire need of Metal, I can pull up the Market to see if any of my Metal has sold to other players. If there is still some left, I can remove it and place into my reserves again (using the right click).


Also remember that you may place larger denominations or percentage changes on the market, by holding down the SHIFT key while right/left clicking.


Hope that helps anyone!