Market Discussions

Choose a different item.

How does one achive that exactly?

Dunno. Does it extend the length of the sale though, similar to when you adjust the price? Easier than paying another broker fee I guess.

Thats why i asked, modifying the order wont reset the duration timer.

I too get the feeling im facing bots sometime, but not stuff like you described, they sond like a fail bot.
i try to look for consistency in the time the orders above me got changed. If they all fall on the same pattern, i start to be suspicious.
Need to try these bots sometime befire i can understand how they work...

Bots or no bots the only way to outperform is to use some things that reduce the pattycake benefits.

Obvious solution move out of HUBs and shift buy and sell orders to a better location.

Most players would prefer fair priced items where they actually are. They will even pay more if they dont have to go to a HUB.

Consider using spreads. More than one order scattered around your target price.

Get as many orders as you can, consider using corp orders and having all alts in the corp.

Make piles you sell smaller, but more of them. Move big piles to bulk contracts instead, and advertise in appropriate channels.

make sure you realize HUB are exchanges and bulk location trades primarily.

For retail think about building up as an actual service.

Use Jita (hub) to supply your actual business. Using freight services.

If your intention is daytrading and working the New Eden equivalent of the trading floor make sure you are well informed and understand that its speculative and very competitive. It needs a little finesse and reading to make it successful.

Drop by some of the dedicated trade channels, the scc-lounge for the more social side and the handful of others for specifics.

Thank you for the replies, everyone. It's greatly appreciated.

I'll supply a few more details.
First, I do only buy orders, I have about 70 that I monitor, I have a pretty large sum invested, and about 5 months practice on my methods. The buys are region-wide. I operate out of one of the region's trade hubs, which is null-sec, and is the only place I intend on doing any business.

I've noticed these patterns over the course of a month when I expanded my purview into another category of items. The suspicious competitor buyer is omni-present across this category and more, with probably as many, or more orders than me. All the orders are based out of the same system, and it's a name I'd seen pop up many times over the past months. We're basically using the same market strategy.

Sometimes I'm watching in near-real-time as it updates the price. Multiple times, I've seen refreshed expiration-dates while displaying the same price(if my memory isn't shot), down to the cent. I'll be watching to confirm if it's what I think I'm seeing, since it's been claimed that such a move is impossible.

The competitor seems on one hand diligent, and fast. Sometimes it pulls out of an item if I'm enough of a bastard(this threshold has been hard to nail down, though).

Then on the other hand, it doesn't update all of them - Sometimes it looks like a random selection. Sometimes the price adjustments don't fit to a logic I'm used to seeing. Sometimes the price adjustments seem like it's not from a human sensibility, which I theorize are percentage increases. The patterns don't feel like human mistakes nor fat-fingers, to me. But then, there's no way to be certain of something like that.

Now, I currently monitor and update my orders manually. I tried using programs in the past to help keep track, but didn't stick with it. So I'm uncertain what the common/best use patterns are with these programs. I don't know what a human-using-Mentat would look like. This is part of why I'm hesitant to feel sure that it's a bot.

One way or the other, I wont be changing my products or moving locations. My heels are dug in. So I have to figure out how to respond either way, and hope that if it's software, then I can reach the threshold where it's programmed to let go.

Conversely, if there's a way to find out how to gain greater confidence on Bot-Vs-Not, I'm hoping that I can get a bot kicked out. Cuz screw those guys.

If you do not have his exact name CCP is a bit powerless because they wont have the manpower to investigate the issue.

As for convoing the suspect... I'm not sure what I could accomplish, there. the likely end I imagine is him laughing, and me coming away empty.

An easy response is just to damage his profit margins by making large changes to your orders.

Define "weird numbers" which "seem to be set by a ratio".