I used to play earth 2025 and recently discovered this game. Can anyone tell me why the market standing orders feature has been added?

I've already seen some weird stuff going on in the tournament market and it appears that some people are using this feature to cheat. Here's what I think they're doing:

Player 1 is a commie indy and can easily sell turrets for $97-110.
Player 2 is a casher and places a standing order for turrets for $75.

Player 2 asks his friend, Player 1 to put X amount of turrets on the market for $75. The amount placed on the market will match Player 2's standing order. Several hours later, the cheap turrets are scooped up right away.

This is a horrible feature that can easily be exploited by an organized group of cheaters. Even a single cheater can exploit this feature if he uses proxies to avoid being deleted.

It's an interesting feature but I think it's being abused so it should be removed.

standing orders were put into the game to combat cheating. before standing orders were in place some people cheated for the same effect.


now its a level playing field where everyone can do it instead of only a handfull. one of the best features added to the game imo.

Exactly what mazooka said. Before, you could set a time and have a person online ready to buy up those orders before anyone else. Now everyone can put SOs out at a cheap price, and there is no guarantee that the intended recipient will get them. Of course in a small market like tourny, this requires that multiple people have SOs out to prevent such things (as well as allow them to get cheaper goods without market camping).

In the first example, i can defeat it by having a standing order at $76.

I steal the turrets and the cheaters can't pull it off.

if someone had an SO at 75 already, and you placed an SO at 76... then someone sold turrets at 75 you wouldn't defeat it. the first order placed always wins, provided the price of the SO equals the sale price.

It could work if one person put the goods on the market @ $1 more than the current standing order and the other puts in a new SO for that price before anyone else.
So ... if everyone is setting their SOs at a realistic price it wont happen, at least not anything drastic. But sometimes I see ridiculously low SOs up so, it is still possible.

You're right, mazooka. It didn't occur to me that cheating could be prevented my doing this because I overlooked the fact that standing orders went into effect almost instantly. I thought there would be a few hours wait until the order went into effect.

I was wrong, this is a good change.

EDIT - Wait if afaik is correct then standing orders can still be used to cheat. If afaik and I are cheating and he wants me to transfer some cheap turrets to him then he can place a standing order for 100K turrets for $70 and I can sell them for the same price.

If afaik is correct then as long as no one else had a standing order of $70 for turrets, then there's no stopping him from obtaining my cheap goods. I like the idea of a standing order for a higher amount trumping the standing order for a lower amount. This WOULD stop cheating.

I don't think afaik is correct on this one.

I set up 2 standing orders for food. One at 33 and then one at 32.

Someone sold bushels at 32, I purchased them and the standing order at 33 was reduced. The standing order at 32 remained the same.

that means whoever had standing orders at $33 got enough of that $32 food to fill their order

afaik is correct

afaik is incorrect

matching the price exactly with your standing order provides no bonus towards getting the goods ahead of someone who placed their standing order before yours, unless the person whose order was placed ahead of yours has already purchased some goods with their standing order and you have not purchased any goods with your order

anytime an order purchases goods, it gets sent to the back of the queue

but as long as no one sold turrets at $76 or less, and someone placed their order for $76 turrets before you placed your order for $75 turrets, they would get the turrets first. And if a third person placed an order for $100 turrets before either of the other two orders, and their order had not yet purchased any military units, then their order would get the $75 turrets, rather than anyone else's.

If you can manage to convince the rest of the server to not place standing orders at extra low prices, then you can use standing orders to transfer goods. But if other people place low valued standing orders, even if they place them at much higher prices than yours, as long as they've placed them at prices that don't get filled quickly, then they can defeat your attempt to transfer goods.

just because he didn't mention the part about an order purchasing goods gets sent to the back of the line doesn't mean he's incorrect :P

Ah, my bad. I read incorrectly what afaik posted.

He is indeed correct. It is the order which is placed first which gets the goods first. The price of the orders is irrelevant.

Given my new understanding of how SO work, I absolutely see how it could be abused.

It doesn't work in the logical way to deter that possibility.

So then I was right after all. Based on what you have all agreed on, it no longer takes a determined cheater to win. I'm posting this so that the developers can make changes, not to encourage cheating.

Let's look at the tournament market.

- Under 200 players
- The easiest commodities to manipulate are oil and tech.

Let's use oil as an example.

I run 1 oiler and 3 cashers. The 3 cashers can either be mine or my friends who will help me benefit from standing order transfers.

The current market price for oil is around 100-150/barrel. Market manipulation will begin during the second week of the game because by that time, the 3 cashers will be in good position to spend a significant percentage on their cash on market manipulation.

I place 1 million barrels on the market for $160. I then use my 3 cashers to buy as much oil as possible, thereby driving the price up.

Once my oil @ $160 sells. I then place a standing order for oil at $50. The cashers then immediately dump all the oil they purchased on the public market for $50.

Before I placed my standing order for $50, there was already a standing order for $80. However, according to the info posted above and in another thread about standing orders, my standing order for $50 takes precedence over the standing order for $80 IF oil is placed on the market for exactly $50.

Once I acquire all of this oil for $50, I place it on the market for $160. The 3 cashers will then once again continue to purchase oil, driving the price up... and it continues.

One small change can stop this cheating. The first standing over placed that is above $50 should scoop up the oil, not the order that is placed for exactly $50.

This is a small, logical change that should be implemented.

That is how it works klopek. The SO which is active and placed first buys goods first. If it buys all of the available goods and has not fulfilled the order, it is placed in the back of the queue so that other SOs have a chance.

Maybe I'm the one who is confused then because after reading all of the posts, I thought that it works the other way. If someone places a standing order for $50 and then 3-6 hours later, goods come on the market for exactly $50, then the standing order for $50 will be filled before a standing order of $80, even though the $80 order was placed first.

orders are placed in a queue so that the first order entered will buy the goods (assuming his price is higher than the goods on sale). Once he buys goods with his SO (no matter the quantity) his SO will move to the back of the queue.

Example:

Player A puts a SO for 1mil turrets @ $140
Player B puts a SO for 1mil turrets @ $120 5min later
Player C puts a SO for 1mil turrets $150 10mil later

Player D puts 500k turrets for sale at $115
Player A would buy all 500k turrets then the rest of his SO (500k) would be moved to the back of the queue.

Player E puts 1.5mil turrets at $110
Player B would buy 1mil then Player C would buy 500k

Player A would now be the first in line with a 500k SO and Player C would be next with his remaining 500k.

Thanks for posting that example, synoder. I misunderstood the examples posted by the others. This clears it up for me once and for all.