How universal auctions work

I bought a few items off caly today to see how the fees work. Here's what I learned:

• you can buy any item from another planet
  • a special warning pops up asking if you really want to buy an item on another planet (with "don't show again" option)
• when you purchase the item, a dialog is shown to you containing the three delivery options:
  • self-pickup
    • free
    • the item is delivered instantly to the other planet storage (I'm assuming, since it's not in "won" section)
  • regular delivery
    • in 12 hours the item will be delivered to your PLANET STORAGE, so you don't have to worry about it getting sent to your inventory at a bad time (PVP etc)
      
    • minimum fee is 2 ped, max depends on weight: for large amount of lyst ingot it's ~ 1% of cost)
  • express delivery
    • the item will be instantly delivered to your INVENTORY
    • minimum fee is 6 ped, max depends on weight... for lyst above it's ~ 3% of cost

I think the fees are reasonable for most items. This will definitely get used a lot by crafters looking for ores from other planets, people doing shopping for custom items, and hard to find items, as well as hunters who need to resupply their favorite L weapons on small planets.

 

Neil,

When I look at it last not I got different results. I check purchase of residue from caly auction for delivery to Ark.

• 1000 kg metal res
  • Cost 1kTT
  • std deliver = 33pd
  • express = 100 ped
• 1300 kg metal res
  • Cost 1.3kTT
  • Std = 42.9 ped
  • Express = 130 ped.

That looks like (3.3% of weight) peds for std, 10% for express. But of course weight(kg) and TT for res are very similar and I didnt check for other locations or other resources. I only spent a little time on it so I may have got it wrong.

 

Yeah, not everything is economical to transport this way, heavy items are pretty much out unless it's something really rare or super urgent. Express transport is 13 ped for 100 ped of refined oil, so oil's not going to get transported much either.

 

Well, personally I was wondering what sort of window a pilot in the proposed successor system would have to actually transport the goods if they were already being delivered in 4 hours... Given the flight time between some planets, if we assume a non-warp transport of any sort, suddenly 4 hours is a small window.

Maybe they re-thought that and opened the window to 12 to
a) build scope and anticipation for the faster courier system
b) build frustration with 12 to get more into the stored fees bin to kick-start the courier system etc...

As you say though: bit of a hike.

 

If these new delivery fees really will be put 100% in the pool of the future transport missions: it will be a huge pile by the time those missions start.
I'm hearing there are many who will stop to travel to other planets to buy things.
And will just use the Universal Auction from now on.
It's a very practical and convenient solution for many.
Though somehow I still fail to grasp how this is helping to build strong separate economies.


And there also have been some changes made to the Auction Orders:

So even if you put a too high BO, or no BO at all; it's still possible that it will get sold to fill an order.
Did anybody receive any automated bids from an order yet?
If so, what does it say for the name of the bidder? Anonymous order?
Or does it give the name of the person who created the order?

Btw, I assume the order part of the auction didn't became universal?
And still limits itself to buying from the local planet?

 

looks like minimum may be 2 ped nomal? Guessing that as that is transport cost on blueprints... unless bps weigh 1.5151515 kg each?

 

I wish they'd add an option to ship your items in other planets storage to you with transport cost too...