Often mentioned as the AH in chat (or Auction House, incorrectly as it's called the Trading Center in the game), is used to trade Items (ships, blueprints, gems, boosts and commander cards) between players, at a price set by the seller.
Contents
Purchasing
Allows any player to buy something using either MP (Mall Points) or Gold (From taxes). MP purchases tend to be very cheap compared with Gold purchases because gold is easier to obtain in-game than MP (MP has to be purchased with a real credit card).
Selling
Allows players who can afford it to sell items with a tax. this tax is variant of your Trading Center's level. Only non-sealed items can be sold. Item prices vary a great deal due to market effects of supply and demand, this micro-ecconimic model also means that prices may vary greatly from server to server.
The Trading Center is a facility which enables players to access the trading screen, to buy and sell goods. It charges an administrative fee for these transactions (commission), begining with a fee of 10% of the offered price and declining by 1% with each upgrade, this also scales depending on whether you choose 12, 24 or 48 hours duration for your items listing and the upgrade level of your Trading Center, the percentage when selling for either gold or mall points for a level 7 Trading center is 5%, 6%, 6.5% for 12, 24 and 48 hours respectively.
Direct Trading
Direct trading isn't possible in the game but the Trading Center is used for this purpose, generally via very low price trades made with another player. This can be done by buying the item very quickly using search, another method is the sell high and recoup technique, this is very much safer but requires more trust between the players and also requires the MP or Gold to buy the item for a high price in first place, then the remainder is traded back for 1 low value item sold for high price.
Black Market
The Trading Center also includes a Black Market where the player can transfer Metal into He3 or convert He3 into metal. There is an exchange rate for this transaction and improves as the level of your trading center increases.
Trading Center in use
Trading Center Stats by Level
| Lv. | Civic Center Needed | Weapons Research Center Needed | Technology Center Needed | Trading Tax | Max # of Simultaneous Transactions | Black Market Exchange Rate | Upgrade Time in HH:MM:SS | Upgrade Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 10% | 1 | 1:0.50 | 00:06:40 |  1,200 1,100 1,500
|
| 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 10% | 2 | 1:0.55 | 00:20:08 | 4,224 3,872 5,280
|
| 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 9% | 3 | 1:0.60 | 01:01:00 | 14,911 13,668 18,638
|
| 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 8% | 4 | 1:0.65 | 03:05:27 | 52,784 48,385 65,980
|
| 5 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 7% | 5 | 1:0.70 | 09:25:38 | 187,383 171,768 234,229
|
| 6 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 6% | 5 | 1:0.75 | 28:50:50 | 667,084 611,493 833,854
|
| 7 | 8 | 7 | 7 | 5% | 5 | 1:0.80 | 88:33:38 | 2,381,488 2,183,031 2,976,860
|
| 8 | 9 | 8 | 8 | 4% | 5 | 1:0.85 | 272:45:59 | 8,525,728 7,815,251 10,657,160
|
| 9 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 3% | 5 | 1:0.90 | 842:50:54 | 30,607,363 28,056,750 38,259,204
|
Note: Build times and construction costs may vary depending on your Construction Boost and Quality Materials research.
