Galactic Market exploits

[Relwin]

Hello everyone!

So with megacorp release and after couple games turns out galactic market itself provides cheap cheat mechanics players can use and i think it needs regulations. I play with friend who plays the market in every possible way to milk credits from it, and turns out market have oddities he uses for his own advantage. So there it is:

Firstly verified this exploit described there:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/a43l70/easy_exploit_the_market_needs_fixing/

It's very game breaking but it does not actually need pausing. It can be achieved on faster speed as my friend has proven already in games we played.

Another thing is mass purchase on market by using monthly transaction. And there is a thing about it - it basically avoids additional costs.

There is button for purchase per 10k minerals. Minerals are for 0.2 energy credits / unit for example. If u press button, price rises alright? But what my friend did there, was to set up a monthly purchase for like 60k+ minerals in one go to avoid price raises and buy all that 60k for just 0.2 energy credit price. That way when everyone else would buy with buttons he can instantly skyrocket a price of minerals without putting much energy credits into it. And getting tons of cheap resources in one huge stockpile without having to deal with price variation.

I'm pretty sure there might be more broken ways to abuse galactic market, so if anyone have any post here in topic, so it could be eventually fixed in some patch.

 

[Ariphaos]

They 'fixed' this in the beta by reducing the swing (but not quite enough to cover 10k), and allowing the AI to make purchases from the market for free.

So now the AI are the ones with access to infinite resources.

They really should make and calculate large purchases as iterations of smaller ones. At least for the three biggest ones.

Also find it annoying that the UI has space for six buttons and they only use five.

 

[Relwin]

They 'fixed' this in the beta by reducing the swing (but not quite enough to cover 10k), and allowing the AI to make purchases from the market for free.

So now the AI are the ones with access to infinite resources.

They really should make and calculate large purchases as iterations of smaller ones. At least for the three biggest ones.

Also find it annoying that the UI has space for six buttons and they only use five.

I think by 'fixed' you mean exploit described on reddit, but...

What about the monthly transaction purchase method? This makes it possible to transfer planets into ecumanopolis for almost no huge cost and snowball the game.

 

[bobucles]

They could simply have the +1000 trade performed as a sequence of 1000 individual trades and it would not affect performance because Ghz processors literally don't care about 1000 calculations.

 

[The Boz]

I think by 'fixed' you mean exploit described on reddit, but...

What about the monthly transaction purchase method? This makes it possible to transfer planets into ecumanopolis for almost no huge cost and snowball the game.

...I wonder if I could set up an ecumenopolis that creates alloys and consumer goods, sells them for minerals, and just works ad infinitum with no mining at all...

 

[Person012345]

...I wonder if I could set up an ecumenopolis that creates alloys and consumer goods, sells them for minerals, and just works ad infinitum with no mining at all...

Frankly this SHOULD be possible and shouldn't in any way be considered an exploit. If it's not possible I would consider that flawed, unless it's just a natural market swing to expensive minerals and cheap alloys.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

They 'fixed' this in the beta by reducing the swing (but not quite enough to cover 10k), and allowing the AI to make purchases from the market for free.

So now the AI are the ones with access to infinite resources.

They really should make and calculate large purchases as iterations of smaller ones. At least for the three biggest ones.

Also find it annoying that the UI has space for six buttons and they only use five.

They never actually fixed anything... just forced you to sell a bit more and the price still tank. The whole system is flawed and will keep being flawed until the make proper market and economy system of flowing goods to make it work.

Market should not have infinite resources and you should need to set up only monthly trade and they should be timed as well or some mechanic so you can't cheat the system with a one time large monthly sum or something.

Prices should be a direct reflection on the supply of said resource... so both selling and buying of goods need to be a monthly affair to make price changes become realistic based on supply and demand. Your fees should be lower the longer you keep a buy or sell order on the market. The fees should go somewhere and do something, not just disappear.

There should be some logistical cost to transporting resources.

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Frankly this SHOULD be possible and shouldn't in any way be considered an exploit. If it's not possible I would consider that flawed, unless it's just a natural market swing to expensive minerals and cheap alloys.

In a real market economy then expensive minerals would also make alloys expensive as well since the Alloys are a refinement of minerals in the first place. You could have fluctuating prices in the short run with over production of say Alloys with little to no demand for it. But over time prices should move with each other.

So.... yes it should be possible to be importing raw material to sell refined goods as long as there is a demand for it elsewhere.

 

[Person012345]

In a real market economy then expensive minerals would also make alloys expensive as well since the Alloys are a refinement of minerals in the first place. You could have fluctuating prices in the short run with over production of say Alloys with little to no demand for it. But over time prices should move with each other.

So.... yes it should be possible to be importing raw material to sell refined goods as long as there is a demand for it elsewhere.

That's not quite how the market in the game works though, I'd be fine with the idea that alloys COULD be unprofitable to manufacture in some circumstances but that normally importing minerals and exporting alloys would be profitable. Just building your economy around that might make it a bit of a glass cannon. That would be ideal for me unless the entire market concept is overhauled (which I doubt we'll see happening in the immediate future).

 

[Jorgen_CAB]

That's not quite how the market in the game works though, I'd be fine with the idea that alloys COULD be unprofitable to manufacture in some circumstances but that normally importing minerals and exporting alloys would be profitable. Just building your economy around that might make it a bit of a glass cannon. That would be ideal for me unless the entire market concept is overhauled (which I doubt we'll see happening in the immediate future).

Sure.. I agree that is not how it works. It does not work from a real supply and demand structure which make prices highly artificial and distorted.

 

[SpectralShade]

they should remove the market entirely.

We can still use diplomacy to trade resources if we need them.

 

[Ariphaos]

They never actually fixed anything... just forced you to sell a bit more and the price still tank. The whole system is flawed and will keep being flawed until the make proper market and economy system of flowing goods to make it work.

Market should not have infinite resources and you should need to set up only monthly trade and they should be timed as well or some mechanic so you can't cheat the system with a one time large monthly sum or something.

Prices should be a direct reflection on the supply of said resource... so both selling and buying of goods need to be a monthly affair to make price changes become realistic based on supply and demand. Your fees should be lower the longer you keep a buy or sell order on the market. The fees should go somewhere and do something, not just disappear.

There should be some logistical cost to transporting resources.

I put fixed in quotes for a reason.

I believe the reason for infinite resources is to make sure the bottom can't actually fall out of anyone's economy without recourse. It's also supposed to symbolize resource reallocation - but the market fee should be a lot higher to describe that.

 

[Flame13223]

They could simply have the +1000 trade performed as a sequence of 1000 individual trades and it would not affect performance because Ghz processors literally don't care about 1000 calculations.

And yet my game literally freezes into oblivion whenever I open the resettling tab...I get friggin 7 FPS while paused just bc I am on the resettling tab for no friggin reason...

2.2 is not very optimized.

 

[Relwin]

I think better restriction would be to put max monthly transaction on 10k / month. This way market can be stabilized easier and for example minerals wont skyrocket from 0.2 to 10 per unit because someone bought insanely big bulk via monthly trade. Also thing that you can sustain eco without having to actually extract resources is good, as long as it's not being done in exploitive way which is reason why i made this topic - exploit market and win game. Don't exploit and lose it.

 

[Bobylein]

I didn't check it extensively but seriously, this exploit still exists in the current beta that supposedly "fixed" it >.>

At least I could reproduce it with 10% market fee and the 10k button.

 

[Jman5]

they should remove the market entirely.

We can still use diplomacy to trade resources if we need them.

I believe the opposite. They should remove diplomacy resource trading and just make it all market-based and Enclaves. Right now there is too much room for player exploitation using one system buy them up cheap and then flood them through the other for more money.

 

[Dinkelman]

Let me preface this with that I barely understand how large economies work in the real world. But say if someone tried using this game exploit on a real life market. There is a constant flow of iron, and if some very rich entity, say monopoly guy, buys up much of that flow for the normal market price, the supply would decrease thus demand goes up and also the price. Would monopoly guy not be able to sell the iron back to the market for that raised price? What stops this in the real world? There must be some either natural behavior of the economy or some law or regulation that makes this "infinite profit" impossible. I am not rhetorical, I am legitimately asking, because this information seems useful when trying to find a solution to this problem in Stellaris. Is it impossible because the irl market is more fast-reactive but less drastic in the changes of prices because the system is so much larger with many more global sources and stockpiles?

Is it that someone has to consent to buying/selling from/to you? In stellaris the market has no say, it's just press a button to force a buy/sell.

is it that in stellaris, the differences between the highs and lows actually increase when selling the same quantities back and forth? I think it might be this. If I sell 10k M the price goes low. Then I buy and sell it again, and this time the price is even lower than the last low, when the net market change of resources is the same. This must be a fundamental flaw in the market price algorithm or something.

 

[Jman5]

Let me preface this with that I barely understand how large economies work in the real world. But say if someone tried using this game exploit on a real life market. There is a constant flow of iron, and if some very rich entity, say monopoly guy, buys up much of that flow for the normal market price, the supply would decrease thus demand goes up and also the price. Would monopoly guy not be able to sell the iron back to the market for that raised price? What stops this in the real world? There must be some either natural behavior of the economy or some law or regulation that makes this "infinite profit" impossible. I am not rhetorical, I am legitimately asking, because this information seems useful when trying to find a solution to this problem in Stellaris. Is it impossible because the irl market is more fast-reactive but less drastic in the changes of prices because the system is so much larger with many more global sources and stockpiles?

Is it that someone has to consent to buying/selling from/to you? In stellaris the market has no say, it's just press a button to force a buy/sell.

First of all this does happen in the real world to some extent. This is what a cartel does and they're illegal in the US. Diamonds and oil are good examples.

I guess the primary problem is that the world is a big place. It would be very difficult to come up with the money to buy all the iron supply in the world. Secondly, if it's non-perishable you're not required to put your supply on the market. If you see the price going up and up and up, you could sit on your own supply for a while and then just undercut the mystery buyer down the road when he makes it his move. Third, high prices lead to move investment in production/extraction of the resource in question. If people are snapping up silicon like hotcakes, then enterprising individuals will start looking for ways to increase supply.

This also can make it quite risky if you're unable to get your hands around the entire supply. If you fail to corner the market and suppliers just keep selling and selling to you for more and more, you could very easily run out of money and then have to dump your resources for much less than you paid for trying to corner the market.

 

[Blurb]

Let me preface this with that I barely understand how large economies work in the real world. But say if someone tried using this game exploit on a real life market. There is a constant flow of iron, and if some very rich entity, say monopoly guy, buys up much of that flow for the normal market price, the supply would decrease thus demand goes up and also the price. Would monopoly guy not be able to sell the iron back to the market for that raised price? What stops this in the real world?

If you're trading an amount of resources large enough to cause serious fluctuations in a market, then the price you're trading at would also be affected by this - as your transaction increases in size, the average price per good would be increasingly affected.
Say the price of iron is $10/kg and you're buying 10 ton, which will cause the final price to jump to $100/kg. The total cost of the transaction will then be *more* than $100k, even if that is the initial price.
This doesn't happen in Stellaris (due to a bug), and instead the entirety of your trade is performed at the initial price, which results in this infinite money nonsense.

is it that in stellaris, the difference between the highs and lows actually increases when selling the same quantities back and forth?

No, it's that the current calculations for large transactions is way off. Fixing this would get rid of both market exploits described in the OP.
Fixing this can be done by treating large transactions as multiple smaller transactions, or doing some math and calculating the price of the single transaction properly.
It's not that the fundamental market price algorithm is wrong, it's just incorrectly applied to large transactions.

 

[dostillevi]

Stellaris could really benefit from the concept of a civilian economy. The market shouldn't be some nebulous thing, but rather a reflection of all the non-governmental trading going on. Ideally this would be a regular market and a black market. The regular market would reflect trading among your own population and the populations of empires that you have open boarders (or perhaps some sort of trade agreement) with, and the amounts and prices of commodities available would depend on overall population counts and possibly empire types, policies, and edicts. Over time, ongoing trade among empires should increase their opinion of each other. The black market would reflect trading across closed borders. Buying on the black market should upset just about everyone, including allies and enemies. The overall volume of black market trading done by your enemies would cause a drain on your trade goods income, as goods are siphoned off for illegal sale. This is currently reflected in the amount stolen from Piracy, but it should have an impact on the market, and be impacted by black market demand as well. If you wanted to drive up piracy in an empire, buy illegal goods from their pirates on the black market.

The assumption above is that each empire has a currently hidden civilian economy that produces and consumes several orders of magnitude (typically) more goods than the "state" does.

Diplomacy based trading should continue to exist, but should take into account market prices. Trading via diplomacy is one government giving resources to another in exchange for something else. It's very different than buying goods on the open market, which is a currency based exchange.

The overall concept of a galactic market hub needs to go away though, it's poor in concept and terrible in execution currently. Certainly trading blocks can and should exist, but a galactic hub is a gamey idea that doesn't translate well into the complexities of Stellaris.