Hypos are cheap because you can buy them from the NPC vendors. You can replicate the small/medium ones, so those prices are "fixed".

"We" cannot correct the inflation on the exchange. People aren't "afraid" to lower their prices. I sell a lot of items on the exchange. I still have a bank full of blue/purple gear that I crafted before F2P that I have to sell. I have also been doffing, and buy/sell doffs and gamma quadrant commodities frequently. I check the exchange fairly regularly. I will always check the going rate of something before I sell it. If it is below what I think it is worth, I will not list it. If the prices do not change over time, I am forced to realign my perceived value of the item to what the market says it's worth (or, hold on to it indefinitely and have it take up bank space).

So, the exchange economy 'works'. So long as there are people willing to pay a certain price, then that is, by definition, the 'going rate'. The amount people are willing to pay depends on the amount of EC in the system, and right now, there are no sinks to bring this down. When I leveled my Klink before F2P, I didn't sell anything on the exchange. All my unusable loot got vendored (and actually most of it got placed into the replicator at a 40% return as I was too lazy to actually go to an NPC to sell). I had over 2 million EC from that alone, created out of thin air just from playing. Assuming a lot of the new players are doing the same thing, the total EC in the game is growing rapidly. There is no place for all these EC to go, so prices go up on the exchange. When I had 2 mill, I didn't mind spending 100K on a green quantum torpedo. Now that I have more, I don't mind dropping even more EC than that. Spent 200K the other day on a single white doff just because the one I needed for a particular assignment was already on another assignment, and I didn't want to abort it.

So you propose we need an EC sink. I guess overpriced DOffs and Starships running into the 8 and 9 figures sort of serves that purpose.

Yes, this game needs an EC sink (at least if you want exchange prices to come down). BUT, Doffs aren't a sink because buying a doff merely transfers the EC to another player. You cannot buy doffs with EC from a vendor. The EC remains in the system. "Someone" still has the EC to spend. Nor are starships since the EC is merely transferred to another player. A 'sink' is one that actually takes EC out of the system. Dabo is one example of a sink, but at only a 100 EC bet limit, it is hardly significant.

Which is impossible to implement now because potential EC sinks end up being turned into Dilithium sinks instead... nuts!

Well, the next best thing is to increase supply.




TF-Omega, if you're serious about doing something about the sky high prices on the exchange, the best thing you can do is to form yourself a cartel and set prices yourself.

First, you're gonna need friends. Preferably friends with EC to burn. The more the merrier. Fleets... even better!

Second, you're gonna have to figure out who specializes in what. Maybe you know a Ker'rat farmer who's got lots of Mk XII purple stuff. Perhaps you got a guy who's a DOff specialist. Figure out who can do what, and have them assigned to their specialized markets.

I cannot stress the second point enough. One of the things that would discourage people from doing this is the size and scope of the exchange. You can't do it all alone. You need help. And you need people who know what their doing in their respective fields.

Third, Identify which markets you feel need to be adjusted.

Fourth... you gotta dedicate your people to production in their fields. Get your DOff people to churn out more DOffs than ever before. Get your Ker'rat farmers to work at grinding out Mk XII consoles. Production is key!

Then... manipulate the exchange.

The trick is not just to flood the exchange with cheap items and call it a day. Undercut too much and your stuff will not only sell too fast... it'll be resold at market price too! The trick to undercutting is just to put up your item just a little bit cheaper than anyone else. With this method, you can gradually lower prices to something a little more equitable.

For those who sell on the exchange. Thank you very much for putting a beam overload 3 up for the low low price of 1,000 credits.

And thanks to those who buy my doffs for 2 -5 million.

Two words

Sales Tax

Impossible? Hardly. How about increasing the bet limit at dabo to a million? And they can certainly make fleet starbases cost quite a bit of EC. And speaking of dilithium sinks, there is nothing wrong with having some dilithium sinks. Sinks are good in that it gives value to the currency that is used. That's the problem with inflation - it devalues the purchasing power of your EC, diltihium, or whatever currency you are using.

LOL. Good luck. As they say, altruism has no place in the market. I wonder how long these 'friends' of yours are going to spend gobs of time farming, and settle for a pittance of EC in return for their time (assuming that the goal is truly to LOWER prices on the exchange). They are going to sell for less? If anything, they could 'corner' the market and sell for MORE.

Won't help. The tax just gets passed along to the buyer. You think store prices are lower because they raise the sales tax? Nope. The consumer (ie the buyer) pays the tax.

So essentially... we're F'ing stuck.

Increasing the Dabo limit is pretty pointless though since GPL have even less value than EC. And it has been made abundantly clear that GPL will stay worthless for all eternity since anything appropriate and worthwhile has been conveniently put into the Lobi crystal store instead.

Fleet starbases could become a good EC sink, although ultimately it will have little effect because in order for it to remain "affordable" to the average player, the price has to be low- so low that for the very rich, it will be insignificant. 500k EC/month upkeep. People were already creating threads and complaining on the forums about that when that number was first floated. However, to make a real dent in the economy you will have to be charging at least 10-20x that. Even 10,000,000 EC/month is small beans for most serious fleets. 500k EC/month is less than the pixie dust on the pocket lint in your pocket for many "rich" STO players, who are sitting on multiple alts worth of billion EC accounts, and banks full of items worth untold billions more at market rates.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if starbase upkeep was paid with dilithium. Highly profitable for Cryptic. And conveniently sidesteps the EC mess. Basically they have created ways for players to buy their way into game wealth with RL money, so they don't give a damn about the EC economy.

I wouldn't be surprised if starbases came in various 'flavors'. They have mentioned they want to be able to give access to both small and large fleets. Yet there needs to be a way for large fleets to differentiate themselves from the smaller ones. One way around this is to make starbases of various sizes, and give ability to upgrade them with certain features. Small fleets may be able to afford the base model, but only larger ones can afford one with all the bellls and whistles. Nothing personal, but I certainly hope you are wrong about using dilithium for SB upkeep.