Trade Secrets of CHOAM revealed by unknown agent

[SirEmi]

Well, I found myself in the mothership, all alone in the lower ranks, left with 15 million credits and 100 segments...
But wait, I notice I have 5000 turns left. Wow, a plan strikes my mind. I will become a successful merchant, but how can I do this? I need credits to bid on the market, after I browse a little I notice a lot of Synthetic Coffee. This stuff, because it takes so much space, is very profitable. Now I would need around 277513 space in my cargo bay, that is like 2775 segments, so it's time to build.
I notice I only have 8 workshops, so I would need more, not to waste my hard earned turns.
I build around 50, 10 at a time, then I make some farms, to gain credits, while I give the order to search for scraps and small asteroids to my automated drones to extend my mothership...
I extend 500 turns at a time, then go and build 150 farms at a time, to make more profit....

Well, my efforts paid off, I have 4527 segments in my mothership, but wait, I've build to much farms, 4000 of them, and I need 2775 warehouses, ahhhh I need to destroy 2775 farms.... Lucky I used all those turns by now, and made 120 million credits to start my trade runs...
So I proceed, ordering my drones to destroy all those farms... I watch from the monitors as they rip the biofarms to tiny pieces, and wonder... wouldn't it been better if I had kept them... probably not.
Well, now I need to construct those warehouses.... but ahhhh... the screen tells me, I need more turns, I only have 50, and I need 144 to build that many warehouses with the 51 workshops I have...
Hm, a dilema indeed, I don't want to wait 2 hours for this. Drones, destory 200 farms at once.
I build quickly 200 workshops with 17 turns, and notice, now I only need 30 turns to build the 2775 warehouses I need... Yaaaaaaay

Great, a nice looking mothership, big cargo bay, what else does a merchant need?

All this took me only 10 minutes, so the offer I saw should be at 35 min left by now.
That Synthetic Coffee is just waiting for my offer, as I know noone else in the whole galaxy has that kind of a cargo bay, and hehehe, they can't outbid me, and that feels really good.
This stuff starts at 12.9 mil credits, and will certainly sell for at least 50 mil credits, judging by the maximum bid that is set at 64 mil. So all I would need to do is buy and check for buy offers, while I wait for my turns to recover. This is so easy money lol.

[Passage from the stolen book "Trade Secrets of Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles", page 69 paragraph 7, "Chronicles of a successful merchant", 75793 A.D.]

[Seither]

Remember: A) CHOAM rarely buys or sells at great prices, B) Mastering the market will take a LONG time, C) The market is good for a quick buck though.

[passage donated from the book "Luffy's Commander's Logs" page 44, paragraph 8, sentence 24 "CHOAM and things to look out for with the merchant" 75796 A.D.]

[ronald]

I think the market is the most secure place for getting your extra credits. In missions you never know what will happen, one bad mission and all is gone, while on the market it is almost impossible to loose. The choam sell offer prices are ALLWAYS lower than the buy prices. So It's a zero risk operation. Roughly, I'd say that on everything you buy and later on sell, you will get 10% profit. And the advantage is, that you can do it all day since it doesn't require any turns to be used.
My strategy is, do missions for extra experience and segments and play the market for the big bucks.

[Charlemagne]

You are right, Ronald, but it takes a long time to make profit on the market because the margin between buy and sell prices is so thin.

[charmuska]

Not to mention, at the lower levels, having enough space to truly profit from the market means you get attacked (and quickly!   Oh look, someone with low fleet power, but a huge ship...) and lose the segments holding your cargo...and now you have 99983 of the 100000 you need >.<

[Charlemagne]

Exactly charmuska.... it really does get annoying when you get attacked and try to sell your cargo at the same time... "You do not have enough of that to sell"

[Borg!]

REMINDER

dont get scammed by people trying to buy products for minimum amount its cheap and sleezy so dont do it or fall for it whatch what you sell and dont get scammed

[Seither]

yes, as I have said, CHOAM will rip you off in a second.

[ronald]

Luffy, The choam never rips you off.
I think by now everyone knows so I can just as well say it (for those who didn't notice it yet).
The only reason I made it to number 1 position is the market.
Everyone in space balls is playing the market now (I stopped playing the market several weeks ago) and as you can see it's working very well for my teammates, they also reached the top rankings.
Also others are starting to do it, lammalord for example.
And for those who thought that a bidding war was never gonna happen, I got to tell you, it's happening now.
For about a week now Lammalord, gunfighter frank and my alliance (tamtam, sirduction, chicpea,...) have been fighting to get a piece off the market. Guess what, even while having to fight for every item you can still make huge profits.

When other people start putting up their own sell and buy offers then you got to watch out what you do. But then it is not the choam ripping you off, it's the other players trying to screw your market profit.

200 billion credits profit from the market every day can easyly be done. 

Now where is the choam ripping off part?

[Seither]

Sure, everytime I post an offer, CHOAM refuse to bid on it unless it is equal to or less then what i bought it for, which is near lowest price possible. I've actually tried this. I put it so my minimum was about 1000 credits over what I got it for, and nothing,but the minute I dropped it to 1000 below, he bid on it. CHOAM never seems tobuy for me like he does everyone else (and yes, I have about 3%-4% in the CHOAM bonus stuff.

[ronald]

Luffy, you must be doing something wrong because I know at least 10 people playing the market who never had any such problems. You seem to be the only person that can't get a descent profit from the market.

[Seither]

Well, I'm doing exactly what everyone else said they are doing, so no clue man.

[Chronos]

Hmm, just a question, but is there any reason why an auction would immediatly jump from twenty minutes left to two-hundred 'n twenty minutes left?

I'm away for ten minutes and I come back to see that instead of the twenty minutes I had guestimated, I have this:

CHOAM Miniature Electronics (your bid) 1000000 13.395 8.122.393.125 13.395.000.000 217 m 
CHOAM Super Conductors (your bid) 1000000 50.219 30.451.546.125 50.219.000.000 216 m

[lordmoore]

Yeah, I noticed that too. 

[Chronos]

Does it have something to do with the server synchronizations? 'Cause that change lossed me billions upon billions. :-\