So this player is making some strange bids. At least two that I have seen. I don't know his business practices so I don't want to suggest that anything sketchy is going on. The following are a list of reasons why I think a player would choose to bid (at least twice) 170 PED for a space thruster: 1 - he really likes space thrusters 2- he is good friends with the auction lister and wants to support him 3- he is in cahoots with the person who listed this item for auction and is hoping some poor sap will bid 1 PED more, but that would be shady and might even suggest a second avatar. 4- he manufactures these items and does not want to see them listed for a fair market value, so he manipulates the market value by throwing high bids at thrusters to keep the market rate for his items ridiculously high. That's not only shady, it's downright evil 5- he doesn't want to wait all day for the action bidding to eventually reach 170 PED, so he just bumps it there in one easy go. 6- he likes to make me look like a complete idiot by misunderstanding his honest intentions View attachment 1486
And then you go on to suggest just that in your list of possible reasons. Sheesh! Personally, option 5 seems like a reasonable choice to me. I haven't checked MU in the last day but 2 days ago, 170 ped was def under expected MU. Why waste time on 1 ped increments if you believe the final price is going to end up far higher?
Don't feel bad there are, from time to time, odd things going on, on the auction,there always has been. Like when something as small as fruit that used to sell for 2 pec each years ago, are suddenly dropped on the auction for .5 and the price never goes back up, because every time they get low..some person I never saw on the auction before drops 50,000 units at once. I used to hunt fruit when things got tough, I walked completely around treasure Island one Saturday, took 6 hours real time and I got 93 ped worth, at 1pec each. Then there's some guy who jumps in and sells 1 million units of something when no one had gotten any million unit hits, or the game would have announced it and it would have been advertised. Or something that gets a little low, no matter what it is, and as the price just starts to fluctuate, someone drops several auctions on at once for 50k each, a really nice hit that again never made the announcements, unless they always happen at night or never make it to the Hall of Fame, so get used to it. MA has done this on the auction to control prices for years, they have their own way to make sure there aren't any shortages, and to make sure prices stay where they want.
This is actually a very normal thing to do. Someone thinks 170 is a good price, so he bids 170 on multiple auctions, hoping that he will score on an auction that ends when no one is watching it. And he doesn't want to sit around all day entering 1 ped higher increments. Really... if it's going to get there anyway, why not just get the price up and reduce the effort for all?
This explanation would make sense if on those auctions other bidders were bidding 171 PED to out bid the higher bid. This isn't happening. So high bidder could have tried 169 PED, or 150 PED, or hey 25 PED. Obviously, I am suggesting that this is sketchy. If it isn't and our bidder just likes to pay the most he can for something. So be it.
I regularly bid up to close to but less than what I think an item will go for. It saves me time and shows that there is a serious bidder, encouraging people who are just hunting for a bargain (any bargain will do) to drop out.Auctions that are ridiculously low, attract speculative buyers. I like to save peds as much as the next guy but given the ped/dollar exchange rate I value my time higher than the few peds potentially saved through doing 50 or so 1 ped increment bids. KikkiJikki
blame MA for the fruit price drop they took away the use of it (taming), but 170 is/was a normal price for a thruster nothing fishy there exept that it all is stil overinflated.
The bidder you are talking about has been around for many years, and while I do not know him personally I have never seen or heard anything about him that would suggest there is anything sinister happening here and actually have respect for the man He has probably just decided that is what he is willing to pay for the item and getting rid of any other 1 PED increment buyers, and why not bid more than once? The MU of thrusters has been dropping considerably last few days, so while the price is good and considering it is a L item, bid for multiple items is not uncommon. Or, the players has a 2 x VTOL's he wants equipped, maybe 1 x VTOL and 1 x Quad. If you want to manipulate the mu of items, you would not bid below current MU of an item, you could pickup thrusters for about 200 PED few days ago at twins on calypso, not sure what has happened since I landed on Arkadia though but price has maybe dropped again. So in relation to market, a 170 PED bid seems reasonable and if I still needed one I would of bid that. Plus, BO is in 8 Hrs, I might be sleeping at work so placing a higher bid, still under MU gives me good chance I will be successful. I recently bought a quad where the seller had a SB of TT value, so do you think it was sketchy the way I bought it: 1.When I placed a bid, was it immediately outbid by another player, no (This will happen closer to the end of a auction or when the outbid player comes online again and feels they want to pay more). 2. Did I do the 1 PED increment bid, yes,. 3. Did I do a 100 PED increment bid, yes. 4. Did I bid on more than 1 quad, yes.
170ped = 3.5ped per use I honestly never expected them to drop below 5pedper use, It could very well be as low as it gets. I bought 2 'spare' thrusters yesterday in the 175ish range, just because the extra 1ped per use i might loose per use if they drop lower is much better than the couple of ped i would loose per use if it went back up to 7ped per use. <15ped planet to planet is dirt cheap, and even cheaper if you take a friend or passenger. narfi
I bought a thruster for 154 ped yesterday off auc on calypso.. thats 3.14 ped pr use.. making a trip home to Ark from Calypso costing me just about 10 peds.. from planetside to planetside.. thats 2 uses of thruster, one 2 ped fee and the oil spent to travel.. i doubt we'll see them lower than 150 ped for a full TT thruster.. but tbh i think its a fair price.. still WAY cheaper than when we could only TP..
