"Unable to Make Purchase; Try Again Later..." What the...??

clannmac

OK, so we have a base, minimum time frame of 7 months to go from Tier 1 to Tier 5 with our Fleet Starbases. Check; no problem. We have to expend an extraordinary amount of time, effort, and resources to do so, just like any other game worth playing (although the resource end of things is a little extreme, chaps - just sayin'); OK, check.

HOWEVER, what is the deal with players trying to acquire those resources (e.g. shield batteries and heavy phaser satellite plats) through usual means but being barred from purchasing them - specifically through the Exchange?

Yep, picked up batteries from the consumables vendor, but when I tried to get any - even one - from the Exchange, the message in the title line of the thread appeared. Happened the same way trying to buy satellite plats. I could buy other items without problems, just not ANY that can be used in the starbase development missions!

Why is that? You don't get enough to do anything with from Doff missions - when the right ones even appear - so we'll be trying to stockpile items the rest of our lives at this rate.

Moreover, what the hell do I do if I need batteries for my ship or I want phaser plats in a device slot, and all I have at my disposal is the Exchange via the trader ships (e.g. the Azura) I can access only once every two hours? Do I really have to return to another Starbase for vendor sales every time or rely solely on the off chance I'll get a Doff mission that will give me plats?

I hope this is a glitch and, if it is, you are working to get rid of it - you'll have some pissed off folks otherwise: buyers, and a large number of sellers who can't move their goods.

If this is an intentional set-up, you clearly went from 'A' to 'Z' without any letters in between again. A bit of advice: forethought might prevent a lot of these "bugs."

quiverbox

I couldn't even buy things from the exchange that aren't required for starbases (contraband, tachyon wave particles, and boffs). Give it a day or two, it's probably just a glitch.

denizenvi

I'd be willing to bet it's just a result of the massive server traffic.

johnynormus

What's happening is there are massive amounts of players all on the exact same time buying the exact item you want to buy at the exact same time.

When you hit search you get a list of items on the exchange. In the time it took your search to come up, another player, who hit search exactly 1 second before you already has the search list. He buys the item at the same time your search finishes. When you try to buy that exact same item, you get this error message because the other player already bought it.

Try searching again to refresh the list or don't buy the cheapest item on the list that the other 200 people are trying to buy at the exact same time but someone else already bought half a micro second earlier.

Its not a glitch. its just a very active player base at a peak time.

quiverbox

johnynormus wrote: »

What's happening is there are massive amounts of players all on the exact same time buying the exact item you want to buy at the exact same time.

When you hit search you get a list of items on the exchange. In the time it took your search to come up, another player, who hit search exactly 1 second before you already has the search list. He buys the item at the same time your search finishes. When you try to buy that exact same item, you get this error message because the other player already bought it.

Try searching again to refresh the list or don't buy the cheapest item on the list that the other 200 people are trying to buy at the exact same time but someone else already bought half a micro second earlier.

Its not a glitch. its just a very active player base at a peak time.

This is the normal reason to get this message (in this case "normal" means "not right after a major update"). For me at least, refreshing the list brings up the exact same prices, which is a sign that this is not the normal behavior of the exchange. For example: Suppose I search for contraband, and there is exactly one item in the list marked at, say, 59999 and perhaps five at 60000; each of my next 10 searches also return one at 59999 and five at 60000. Statistically, this is improbable if the exchange were working normally, especially considering that contraband should be marked up now that the turn-in mission requires five.

moardread1

Yeah, the exchange seems to be broken, I can't buy anything either and it's not because someone else buys it before me, as quiverbox explained. It doesn't seem to affect all players / items though; Contraband is cheaper than it should be, but Shield Batteries inflated to around 4000 EC, which means people are buying them successfully. Please fix soon, I would like to make a lot of EC until the market settles down and prices stabilize.

thomas12255

This is purely just because the servers are overloaded right now, everyone is trying to do the same thing as you and the exchange is being killed because of it. This happened with the Cardy lockboxes when we were all stupid enough to think they would be rare so we were all selling them for millions of EC for the first few hours, the exchange died that day as well.

mikewendell

denizenvi wrote: »

I'd be willing to bet it's just a result of the massive server traffic.

I didn't really look at the exchange while I was on Tribble but the few items that I saw listed there seem to be the same items listed on the holodeck exchange. I wonder if it got transferred over somehow....