Market & Trading
Your planets don't produce everything equally. An Asteroid world drowns in Metal; a Crystal world generates research-grade yields but barely mines ore. The Galactic Market is how you turn your surplus into what you actually need - and how you profit when others are desperate for what you have in abundance.
Post buy and sell orders for the three core resources - Metal, Crystal, and Deuterium - and the market matches them automatically when a compatible counterpart appears.
Resource Pairs
The market supports trading between all three resources in any direction:
| Pair | Example Use |
|---|---|
| Metal → Crystal | Sell surplus metal from Asteroid worlds; buy crystal for research |
| Crystal → Metal | Sell crystal from Crystal worlds; buy metal for ship production |
| Deuterium → Metal | Convert excess fuel into construction resources |
| Metal → Deuterium | Fund long-range fleet operations |
| Crystal → Deuterium | Research-heavy empires trading for fuel |
| Deuterium → Crystal | Fuel-rich empires funding research |
Posting an Order
To post an order, open the Market overlay from the game dashboard:
- Select Buy or Sell.
- Choose the resource you are offering and the resource you want in return.
- Enter the quantity to offer.
- Set your exchange rate (units of the wanted resource per unit offered).
- Confirm - the offered resources are escrowed immediately from your reserves.
Posted orders appear in the public order book, visible to all players.
Order Matching
When you post an order, the market engine scans existing orders for compatible matches:
- A sell order for Metal at rate R is matched against buy orders offering at rate ≥ R.
- Matches execute at the posted sell price (seller's rate is honored).
- Partial fills are supported - a large buy order may be filled by multiple smaller sell orders.
- Unmatched remainder stays in the book until manually cancelled or expired.
Matched resources are transferred to both parties' reserves immediately, minus the seller fee.
Market Fee
A 5% fee is deducted from the seller's received amount at the time of each match. The fee is not charged until the order executes - cancelled or expired unfilled orders return the full escrowed amount with no fee penalty.
sellerReceives = matchedAmount × 0.95
There is no buyer fee. The 5% fee is purely on the seller side.
Federal Reserve Price Stability Orders
The Galactic Federal Reserve (a server-controlled NPC entity) maintains price stability by placing automatic floor and ceiling orders:
| Order Type | Effect |
|---|---|
| Floor orders | Buy orders at a minimum price - prevents any resource from collapsing to zero |
| Ceiling orders | Sell orders at a maximum price - prevents extreme price inflation |
Federal Reserve orders appear in the order book labeled [Federal Reserve]. They match at the same priority as player orders (oldest first at equal rates). Floor and ceiling prices adjust weekly based on server-wide supply and demand signals.
These orders ensure that even in thin markets with few active players, reasonable exchange rates remain available.
Order Expiry
All orders have a maximum lifetime of 72 hours from posting. After expiry:
- Unexecuted orders are automatically cancelled.
- Escrowed resources are returned to the poster's reserves in full (no fee).
You may cancel an order manually at any time before expiry to retrieve the escrowed resources.
Tips
- Post sell orders slightly above the Federal Reserve floor to undercut other players while still outpacing the minimum guarantee.
- Crystal is typically the scarcest resource in early game - posting Crystal sell orders at moderate rates often fills quickly.
- The Industrialist commander archetype's production bonuses make them the most effective market participants, able to generate surplus at scale for consistent profit.
- Warlord-tier Menace players face a 30% trade premium on all market purchases - account for this when budgeting for large fleet builds.