Auctions

Almost anything can be bought or sold in the game, and the principal way assets change hands are through CHOAM Auctions. In all the chaos and confusion of the occurring Crisis many people sell assets off, and the players get a chance to acquire them. Every item that goes up for auction will have listed its Item Name and Number and a brief description. Most assets are standardized enough that they require only name, item#, and minimum bid, and will appear as:

1A – Agricultural Fief, Loc: RTP, MB: 2000 MS

This reads as Item #1A – meaning it is the first round, first item, 1B would indicate first round, second item, 2A would indicate it was the first item in the second round, etc. It is an Agricultural Fief, which is one of the Standard Assets in the game with a standard income and description that can be looked up in the Asset Appendix (link). Loc: RTP means its Location is ‘Revealed to Purchaser’, and MB: 2000 MS means the minimum bid a player can enter is 2000 MS. During the first round of play items will appear expanded with their details as player wouldn’t be used to the shorthand yet, such an entry would appear:

Item 1A - Agricultural Fief
Location: RTP
Income: 600 MS
Liquid Value: 2000 MS
Minimum Bid: 2000 MS
Special: None

Example CHOAM Auction :

CHOAM Auction Round 3
Early Phase Items
Deadline: 8 PM EST, 12 January
3A – Agricultural Fief, Loc: RTP, MB: 2000 MS
3B – Weapons Factory, Loc: RTP, MB: 4000 MS
3C – Manufacturing Facility, Loc: RTP, MB: 2000 MS
3D – Space Port, Loc: RTP, MB: 3000 MS
3E – 8 Shares CHOAM Stock, Loc: None, MB: 3200 MS
3F – 6 Shares CHOAM Stock, Loc: None, MB: 2400 MS
3G – Hero, Bashar Farok, Strong Attacker, MB: 500 MS

Full Phase Items
Deadline: 10 PM EST, 14 January
3H – Elector, Count Tepes, Loc: RTP, 5 Votes, MB: 2000 MS
3I – Elector, Baron Krayn, Loc: RTP, 4 Votes, MB: 2000 MS
3J – Planet, Poor, Loc: RTP, MB: 4000 MS
3K – Legion Upgrade Token, Loc: None, MB: 500 MS


Deadlines announced for the Full Auction Phase are usually TBD, they have the same deadline as the Late Phase which gets announced when those items go up after the Early Phase ends.

All auctions are Silent Auctions unless otherwise mentioned, meaning players submit a bid on the item without knowing what anyone else has bid. Players can bid on a single item by just sending a NB to the mod titled “Bid: 1A, Agri Fief, 3000 MS” but normally they’d simply title a NB ‘Bid, Round 1’ then list all the items and bids they are making, the item # is most important but to avoid accidentally bidding some huge amount of money on a minor item when you meant to buy a major planet, some abbreviation of the item should be included, clear intent is sufficient.

Bid Types
Bids come in three types, Silent, Outcry, and Private… Silent is the most common, players NB their bids and the highest one at the time of the deadline wins. In Outcry, it is a standard auction, the CHOAM Auction post gets followed with a reply for each Outcry item and players simple reply to that post with their bid, placing their bid in the title of the reply, these Outcry Auctions will generally list not only description of the item and a minimum bid but a minimum increment a player must add onto the last bid if they wish to bid. For example, if an Agri Fief was up and had a bid increment of 100 MS, and the last bid had been 3000 MS, the next bid would have to be at least 3100 MS or not count. The final type, Private, is a special case where an item comes up secretly, say black market contraband, and a random number of randomly selected players get contacted via NB with the details and may reply with their bid, players wouldn’t know who else if anyone had received the offer. Most items come up for silent public bids though.

Placing something up for Auction: Any player can simply post informing players they have something they want to sell and letting it run as an Outcry Auction, then transferring the item to that player. However, a player can have CHOAM auction the item instead. If they do not specify otherwise the item is placed in the next Auction Phase which has not yet started as a Silent Bid with its Liquid Value as the Min Bid and RTP for Location, the player may stipulate different Min Bid or Outcry or its actual Location be public. CHOAM guarantees property and will not lie about its current worth or description or Location, they handle acquiring payment and transferring property control, but they take 10% of the winning bid, or 10% of its liquid value if the item is not bought, or 100 MS if the item has no Liquid Value and is not bought.

Accidents, new bids, and mistakes: It may be that the player will accidentally enter some absurd number for a bid, like 40,000 MS when they meant 4,000 MS, the Mod reserves the right, but not the obligation, to get clarification on such bids or simply ignore them, same for any bid which is simply incorrect and intent is not clear, if a player is planning to submit a bid far in excess of an items apparent value they should note that it is their actual bid, e.g. “Yes, really 40,000 MS”

Players can always submit an adjusted bid or new bid, unless the deadline has passed, but should place ‘New Bid’ instead of just ‘bid’ in their NB title. Winning bids for Silent Auction items are always posted at the end of the auction, but not the winner. In event a player actually won a bid, but the Mod messed up, say they had bid 12,000 MS for an item and it is listed as being won at 10,000, the player does not gain the item, but rather gains 25% of the listed winning bid as an apology from CHOAM (the accidental winner will have already received the location and any other secret details after all) but is not eligible for that 25% if there bid was illegible and rejected for that reason.

Maximum Bids: A Player can never bid more for a single Item than their current Wealth, they can however have more bids out than their Wealth, players typically won’t win most bids. If by chance they win more bids than their Wealth can cover they will have to liquidate assets to cover the difference, and may even have to liquidate something they just bought to pay for something they still owe money on. While unlikely, a player can go bankrupt this way, and be left with only their Homeworld and base votes, and their income for that round seized by CHOAM, after that they are free of debt. This would probably only happen if someone bid fairly high on virtually everything and won most of the bids.

Items are selected for Auction in a number of ways covered in Appendix G: Auction Tables