Trading (Buying and Selling)

Currency in the MSD

Everything in the MSD costs and awards “Credits”. These are a made up currency that is created and destroyed upon demand by the Trading service. Every item costs Credits. Credits are a made up currency that is created and destroyed upon demand, so every time you buy something, the money just disappears and if you receive money it is created just for you. There is no such thing as negative credits.

There are several items in the game, which cost Credits e.g. a Robot could cost 200 credits, and an upgrade could cost 50 credits. The prices can be modified by game admins and operators. Trading publishes prices once a game is created and keeps them up-to-date afterwards. For each player that joins the game, a bank account will be opened, containing a small starting balance of credits. Bank accounts are separate per game, so you will get a new bank account for each game.

Debt: Player cannot go into debt. If they do not have enough money to make a purchase, the transaction will be declined and an error message will be published.

Buying Items

As described above, you can buy items in the MSD. Generally, Items are purchased via vouchers, unless stated otherwise. A voucher always states exactly what it permits the player to have and is usually tied to a specific game. Currently, there are only two items available. Robots and Upgrades. Both can be purchased by issuing an intent to the voucher topic.

Warning: You are responsible for providing correct information upon voucher purchase - e.g. Valid robotIds, coordinates etc. If you make a mistake your money might be gone, depending on what you bought.

Buying Robots

Players can purchase additional robots at any time during the game. To do so, they must have sufficient funds in their account. New robots are delivered to a space station. If the player does not specify a station, a random one will be chosen. The given coordinate is not checked by trading and therefore might lead to you wasting Credits. For the current schema, visit the async-api

Upgrading Robots

Upgrades are purchased in the form of vouchers, which are tied to a specific robot. The application of the voucher is tied to some conditions, like the robot existing and being at a space station.

Currently you can buy vouchers for four different upgrade packages:

1. Movement
2. Mining
3. Energy
4. Combat

None of these will be applied, but you can buy them.

Selling Resources

Resources collected by robots can be sold at any space station. To initiate a sale, a robot carrying resources must be present at a space station. Once the sale is started, all resources on that robot are sold to the market, and the player receives the corresponding amount of money in their account.

The value of each resource depends on its rarity. Currently, prices are hardcoded and fix, but may fluctuate (based on market demand) in the future. In that case, if a large volume of a specific resource is sold in a short time frame, its market price will drop. Players should consider these fluctuations when planning their mining and trading strategies.