[The Black Market Guide + Serious Exploits Discovered]

Hi,

I've tested the Black Market system in a LAN game today. I'm here to write a pretty detailed guide on the Black Market System. Please reconfirm with me if u find any mistake.

*I'm gonna use crystal in this post, it's the same as metal so yeah..


Crystal market price goes up when:

1.Nobody is selling crystal and somebody is buying it.
[Market price goes up at the high rate in this case -> 0.5 each purchase]

2.Somebody Is selling crystal at a higher price than the market price
[Sell Price & Amount offered by the player have a minor impact on the market price calculated by math algorithm]

e.g. Regular market price (nobody selling) is 6.8 and player A offers 1000 crystal at a price of 8.8 this will increase the market price of crystal to 7.0 (NOT 8.8) , the more the amount of the crytal offered, the more the impact on the market price becomes. (If the crystal is being bought away, the impact will decrease)

In the case above, If player B buys 100 crystal, he would be spending $700 and player A would earn $880 (wired but true), Also, this seems like a game bug even more, I've just found out that player A wouldn not only earn his "extra" money, he accully got his crystal back as well. 100 crystal poped out of no where!


[ Please realize that other player selling crystal at high price is NOT bad IF he's selling his own mined crystal instead of raising up the market price by buying crystal with his extra credits*. If he put around 500 crystal on the market at higest price possible, it's only going to raise the market price by amount around 0.2, however if no one is selling crystal, for every 100 crsytal u buy, you're going to spend an extra 0.5 on your next purcase (assuming you're going to buy more than 100 units), pretty good deal if u buy 300 units of crystal at 6.2 instead of buying them at 6.0->6.5->7.0. Well still it depends, whoever that sells crystal WILL earn good profit, and u might not want that guy to be your enemy. ]


*Tip: If u have a huge amount of credit and you believe that crystal is in demand by other players (from market observation and gaming experience), buy alot of them, raise the market price, and sell them at a even higher price, this is a RISK you take, however if done right, it can effectively force the other players to spend massive amount of credits.

Tip: If you have a huge crystal mining going on, by selling your self-mined crystal, it benefits other players and yourself.

Tip: Raising price of your crystal requires alot of clicks, try hold down "shift" while u click.


Crystal selling order:

As long as there is player selling crystal, his crystal WILL be sold first whenever someone buys crystal.

What if there are 2 or more player selling crystal? This is when the offered price kicks in.

Let's say player A offers 200 crystal at 8.4 player B offers 200 crystal at 8.5 Player C is buying 300 crystal.
The Cheaper crystal will always be sold first. (In this case, player A will sell all his 200 crystal earning 8.4x200=$1680 and player one will sell only 100 of his crystals earning $850.)

When all the crystals are sold out from the players, Crystal will once again be sold by the general market.
So the order goes like this: Cheap crystal sold -> Expensive crystal sold -> Market

Tip: If your opponent is trying to sell him crystal for more $, offer your crystal at a lower price decreasing his sales.

And yes, the offered price could go lower than the market price, slighty decreasing the market price and ensureing your crystal sale.


Exploits! Plz Fix ASAP!   [Very true and Broken, plz FIX asap!]


gygelly

when player 2 supposedly "buys" the crystal, player 1 GETS HIS CRYSTAL BACK. Note that player 2 also recieves crystal. Basically, 100 crystal just appears out of nowhere.
End of quote





Durikkan

I posted this earlier, but apparently no one seems to mind that with a little micromanagement, a single player can earn 33% of the value of every resource ever bought by any player at the market, for the entire game, at absolutely no risk to themselves, and no real start up cost.

As it is now, the system rewards heavy micromanagement, either they should automate the process or fix the problem (I can't see how the current system could not be a bug, though)


A quick test reveals that yes, the other empire pays the 300 for the load of metal, but you get 400 credits, this really sounds like a bug.

It seems like it would be a really effective team strategy for two players to just continually buy resources from the other player, seeing as how 33% of everything they spend is generated as revenue for their team, so by shift clicking as fast as they can, they have an infinite source of revenue.
End of quote



21,047 views 30 replies
Reply #1 Top
I'm pretty sure you are incorrect about this. Why would credits appear out of nowhere (as in the case of a seller getting more than the buyer pays you mentioned). Also, why would a player be forced to pay above-market prices simply because another player has stuff for sale? In realy life, someone selling a product for more than the competition doesn't get far...

And if this IS how it currently works, it desperately needs to be fixed. Someone could offer crystal for an arbitrarily high price - say 10,000,000 creds - and thus prevent anyone from ever buying it again!
Reply #2 Top
I have another BM Guide.

Buy low sell high.
Reply #3 Top
I'm pretty sure you are incorrect about this. Why would credits appear out of nowhere (as in the case of a seller getting more than the buyer pays you mentioned). Also, why would a player be forced to pay above-market prices simply because another player has stuff for sale? In realy life, someone selling a product for more than the competition doesn't get far...And if this IS how it currently works, it desperately needs to be fixed. Someone could offer crystal for an arbitrarily high price - say 10,000,000 creds - and thus prevent anyone from ever buying it again!
End of quote


First of all, this really IS how it works and u should confirm it with a friend, i know it sounds wired as well. Plz don't put real life into this, did u even use the BM that much btw? Secondly, there's a very strict cap of sell price u offer...thought u should know....
plz reconfirm before u get "pretty sure" , tks
Reply #4 Top
Thanks for this m8chor, I've been wondering how this works for ages!
Reply #5 Top
Wow, I actually didn't think it worked that way.
Interesting... *evil grin*
Reply #6 Top
"And if this IS how it currently works, it desperately needs to be fixed. Someone could offer crystal for an arbitrarily high price - say 10,000,000 creds - and thus prevent anyone from ever buying it again!
End of quote


Yeah, if that's the way the market operates, it seems very exploitable. I'll have to try that out later to confirm.
Reply #7 Top
Someone could offer crystal for an arbitrarily high price - say 10,000,000 creds - and thus prevent anyone from ever buying it again!
End of quote


Its capped at 200% -- you can't just set a buy price, what you set is a ratio relative to the "normal" buy price.
Reply #8 Top
Still, IC promised market control, and this is as good as it gets I think.

Now we need a stock market, and interest rates, and trade taxes, and sabotage :D
Reply #9 Top
Let's take for example, I have 5000 credits to purchase crystal with. I purchase the maximum of 5-6 hundred units of crystal right away while its cheap. I then take 66%, or 4 hundred crystal and sell it for the maximum. If the market is at 7.0, my ratio is set to 14.0, the maximum (200%). The market price would now be 10.5?

If I have 3 ice planets, I likely have a stranglehold on the crystal production. I could constantly flood the market with outrageous priced crystal and effectively raise the market price above what people are willing to spend. Is this an intended mechanic?
Reply #10 Top
Thats kinda the point, people who have an advantage should try to exploit it. I mean I haven't seen that extreme of a situtaion(cause people usually spend the crystal, not sell it). But the fact that an economic player has great influence in a game is a good thing in my opinion.
Reply #11 Top
If I have 3 ice planets, I likely have a stranglehold on the crystal production. I could constantly flood the market with outrageous priced crystal and effectively raise the market price above what people are willing to spend. Is this an intended mechanic?
End of quote



[ Please realize that other player selling crystal at high price is NOT bad IF he's selling his own mined crystals instead of raising up the market price by buying crysal with his extra credits. If he put around 500 crystals on the market at higest price possible, it's only going to raise the market price by amount around 0.2, however if no one is selling crystal, for every 100 crsytal u buy, you're going to spend an extra 0.5 on your next purcase (assuming you're going to buy more than 100 units), pretty good deal if u buy 300 units of crystal at 6.2 instead of buying them at 6.0->6.5->7.0. Well still it depends, whoever that sells crystal WILL earn good profit, and u might not want that guy to be your enemy. ]

If you buy crystal with credits to put pressure on your opponent when he's in desperate crystal demand, you pwned him.
If you sell your extra crystal from you mining, he benefits, you benefit as well.
Reply #12 Top
i think the mechanic is working exactly as intended. you really can "corner the market" on a commodity if you have a very large credit income or control most of the extractors for that commodity. in my view thats an extremely well designed mechanic and makes economic competition an important vector of gameplay, one of the many reasons why this game is such a masterful fusion of RTS and 4x Stategy.
Reply #13 Top
Having extra crystal is an economic advantage. You can sell it or use it in times when the market price is very high and everyone else is paying a ton. You should not, however, be able to raise the minimum price of a good by flooding the market with an overpriced supply. That makes no sense. If I am offering crystal for 1400 and the black market is offering it for 700, why would anyone buy my crystal? Obviously, no one would realistically buy mine until the black market's price is OVER the price I set.

Forcing players to buy other player's goods at a ridiculous price is broken, sense a player can just buy a ton of a commodity, and then force everyone else to pay even more than the current BM price for it, netting a HUGE profit - just for rapidly clicking on the commodity first. That's not only silly and unrealistic, it doesn't even make sense as a game mechanic.

Your goal should be to gain a production advantage on a commodity and then UNDERCUT the market's prices, making your profit because you are a more competitive seller than the BM. If it really does work in the way you described, it is broken, and, I would sincerely hope, unintended.
Reply #14 Top
To make it work it should be like a real market, you put your price to sell and buy and quantities, once a buyer and seller matches, deal is done.

Actually the price to sell or to buy shown on the screen should be the highest price to buy and the lowest price to sell.
Reply #15 Top
Forcing players to buy other player's goods at a ridiculous price is broken
End of quote


And again, if no one put stuff up for sale, others would be paying WAY more (remember the +0.5 each purchase?). regardless how high the seller puts up his sale price, as long as there's stuff to be sold, whoever buys it, WILL benefit (unless you only buy 100 crystal), as sale price impacts the market price way less compared the the +0.5 each purchase when no one's selling. [This only applys when the seller ISN'T the guy who bought alot of crystal while no one's selling, raising up the price of crystal, and re-sell them back to the market again, however anyone that accually Does this, is taking his risk as well, since he can't be 100% that he's going to sell all his crystal that he just bought]

Market - risk - benefit.... think deeply.
Reply #16 Top
I posted this earlier, but apparently no one seems to mind that with a little micromanagement, a single player can earn 33% of the value of every resource ever bought by any player at the market, for the entire game, at absolutely no risk to themselves, and no real start up cost.

As it is now, the system rewards heavy micromanagement, either they should automate the process or fix the problem (I can't see how the current system could not be a bug, though)


A quick test reveals that yes, the other empire pays the 300 for the load of metal, but you get 400 credits, this really sounds like a bug.

It seems like it would be a really effective team strategy for two players to just continually buy resources from the other player, seeing as how 33% of everything they spend is generated as revenue for their team, so by shift clicking as fast as they can, they have an infinite source of revenue.
Reply #17 Top
It seems like it would be a really effective team strategy for two players to just continually buy resources from the other player, seeing as how 33% of everything they spend is generated as revenue for their team, so by shift clicking as fast as they can, they have an infinite source of revenue.
End of quote


Good that you brought this up... this might be a serious issue and I suspect that some might be already exploiting this.
Reply #18 Top
if anything the "unrealistic" thing is the general market... who the hell is selling all the metal or crystal if not space empires? I mean, we are at war and everything is under control... is it stolen or what?

Anyways forcing a person to buy above value still means he pays less, because the price increases as purchases are made from the general market.

I had no idea it worked this way, this is delicious. I got another weapon in my already impressive arsenal.
Reply #19 Top
actually guys, this is MUCH more broken than you think. I'm new here, what's the best way to contact the devs about a VERY serious, game breaking bug?
Reply #20 Top

The exploit is fixed for v1.03 and there are some new market dynamics as well.

Reply #21 Top
Thanks gygelly - this IS broken in a MAJOR way. We are talking about a means of generating an unlimited supply of credits here! As Durikkan said, you can generate 33% of every sale as "magical" profit. Doesn't this concern anyone?

EDIT Oops got beat to the punch! Glad to hear it's fixed though.  :CONGRAT: 
Reply #22 Top
well...according to my testing (just loaded up the game on 2 comps and did a lan game) there is something alot more obvious and broken with this:

1. player 1 puts up 100 ore or crystal for 400 credits.
2. player 2 buys ore or crystal from the black market.
3. As discussed above, player 2 spends 300, player 1 gets 400, and the price of ore or crystal does NOT fluctuate, basically, 100 credits just magically entered the economy.

And again, as discussed above, 2 players could simply do this back and forth making as much money as they could click.

But there's something else I can't believe noone else has noticed yet.....

4. when player 2 supposedly "buys" the crystal, player 1 GETS HIS CRYSTAL BACK. Note that player 2 also recieves crystal. Basically, 100 crystal just appears out of nowhere.

So with each transaction, 100 credits AND 100 crystal (or ore) are "magically" created between the 2 players.

I can't find the patch notes for 1.03, link please?
Reply #23 Top
4. when player 2 supposedly "buys" the crystal, player 1 GETS HIS CRYSTAL BACK. Note that player 2 also recieves crystal. Basically, 100 crystal just appears out of nowhere.
End of quote


Wtf? No way....give me a sec, testing it out

Added: OMFG you're right! omg, this MUST be fixed A S A P!
Reply #24 Top


4. when player 2 supposedly "buys" the crystal, player 1 GETS HIS CRYSTAL BACK. Note that player 2 also recieves crystal. Basically, 100 crystal just appears out of nowhere.
End of quote


WTF?!

I've been selling crystal / metal in my games before this, and never noticed that! (Not that I was paying that much attention to check for this, but...)
Reply #25 Top
So now online multiplayer games are a waste until the next update?