I don't think the Galactic Trade Centre works very well as is.

From my observations very few items get bid on until the last minute. This has 2 effects:

1. The seller has very little chance of an item being bid on by multiple buyers in that last minute and therefore has to pretty much decide on the price he/she wants before the auction starts, resulting in some silly overpricing. 90% of items I've sold go at or just over asking price. This almost makes the whole idea of the timed auction obsolete and it might as well be a for sale/wanted list.

2. The buyer has a pretty random chance of clicking at the right second and snagging the item they really want/need in that last minute. I know I would have paid 10x the final selling price for certain items at a specific time given the chance. It is possible to pick up bargains but again it's down to a random lucky click.

I think instead of the Ebay style auction where the timer runs out, you didn't get the last click in, unlucky, it should operate like the penny auctions where if someone bids in the last minute the timer resets to a minute, next bid and so on. Would make the GTC feature much more exciting and more like a real auction.


Anyway, it's just an idea not sure how practical it is.

Too much coding, remove the energy cost for the buyer and impose an energy cost on the seller... if the seller starts the price too high he loses energy (and maybe even a posting price).. people will bid earlier if they don't think its a waste of energy.

I haven't even looked at the center in over a month. -1 for the center until it get's fixed

Not throughly true on the bidding earlier. They would stil get lower prices if they waited.

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Stuff the too much coding I think the timer should have time added on every bid. As for charging sellers energy, I doubt that anyone who still uses it would be making too many new auctions if that was the case.

then take all energy requirements out .. putting energy requirement on the bidder forces bidding not to happen till the last minute.. As a seller KNOWING no one is going to bid on my product till the end I HAVE to price high to get close to what I want.. you remove the energy requirement bidding will start alot sooner and you will have a more active gtc..

Stuff the too much coding I think the timer should have time added on every bid. As for charging sellers energy, I doubt that anyone who still uses it would be making too many new auctions if that was the case.[/quote]


i agree, there should be a little time added on after each bid, so auctions will go as long as they have to. it would definitely give us a better judge of average prices for artifacts and materials

This is a fix...

A patch up let's say, but so far the GTC has done more harm than good I'd say.

The only thing I actually use the GTC for is putting 100 KVT'S on it for 999,999,999,999Cr to get rid of some cargo for a bit. Other than that it's pointless to use, wastes too much energy to buy and sell all of the time on it, we can do it for no cost on the trading post.

Get rid of cargo for a bit?

When I get a little bit too much cargo in my hold, I put some on The GTC for a price that nobody would pay. Meaning I can lose some cargo for 24 hours while I do other things.