Black Market or the buy/sell tab on main screen

Sort of. The actual black market screen does have a few extras. The buy/sell on the main UI doesn't allow you to list resources for sale while the black market screen does, and you get more money this way (trade instant gratification of quick-sell for more money when AIs/players buy their resources off the market). The pirate screen on the main UI also only allows you to put bounty on the currently-highest, while the main black market screen allows you to choose who the bounty goes on.

So, the old black market screen still has its uses.

And it will likely get more stuff added on when IC pushes out the diplomacy expansion.

The black market screen was originally the only way to buy/sell. The buttins on the main UI came later.

BTW, anybody else find that you can't select ships, planets, etc. when they are in the top right corner, near the black market buttons? Its kind of like a dead space around it. I usually have to move the screen over a bit to be able to select items that are a little too close to those buttons.

As Anny said, one of its main uses is the ability to set your own prices for trying to manipulate the black market.  There are definite uses here and it will allow you to receive more credits for when you are selling extra resources.

I am not lazy or completly dumb, but can someone explain to me how to operate the black market screen? I mean the setting price thingie.

In a nutshell? Click the other sell button. It automatically adjusts the price based on how the market is going so you don't need to worry about it (but you can change the price where it shows it :P) and whenever an AI or player buys resources on the market, yours will be bought provided they're at or below the current market price (which is why you should just leave it on auto so it adjusts the price by itself).

you put how many of the specific resource that you want to sell (in increments of 100).  Then next to that number you can increment or decrement the % that you are offering that said resource for on the market.  As you hover over those increment/decrement buttons, you'll notice that it tells you what % it is currently set at and if you are the lowest set rate or not.  If you are the lowest set rate, then your resources will be bought first and if you're not the lowest then yours won't be bought until you are the lowest.

If you are not the lowest, then you can keep decrementing the % value (decrements by 2) until you are the lowest.  If you are already the lowest, then you can increment the % value (increments by 2) until you get to the point where you are the still the lowest by 2% points.  If you get all the way to 100% and are still the lowest, then no one else has this resource for sale on the market and you cant ake full advatnage of selling your resources.

In this manner, you can impact what is happening on the black market.  Hope this makes sense to you.  The easiest way to learn from here is too just play around with it.

Spydyr

That's very clear!  Thank you for explaining all of this.  I dont know where I'll find the time to manipulate the market (in my current game I'm playing vs 8 AIs, and they are all attacking me....seems like I barely have enough time to upgrade the planets and do other important things before another set of attacks hits.

RM

Thanks!

RandallFagg said

I have this problem all the time and it does get anoying.  Is there a quick way to toggle these tabs open and closed?  They are helpful from time to time but haveing them constantly open gets in the way.