Razor Trail Survivors is a resource and loot-based game. Even though you may want to take the lone-wolf path of doing everything yourself, the player market where you can buy or sell resources and equipment will likely be a fundamental part of the game. Since our developers are currently working on this feature, I thought it would be a good time to explain how it works.
There are two main segments of the player market that have considerably different ways of operating: resources and equipment/gear.
Resources are similar to commodities - a unit of steel, acid or graphene is indistinguishable from another, which means they can be grouped together and sold in bulk. It doesn't matter who you're buying from - only the price and quantity is relevant.
Because of this, the resource market will behave much like the stock market: when you want to buy something, you simply need to select the resource and the amount you want to buy. You'll then be shown how much you need to pay to get what you want (based on the sell orders other players have placed for this resource). If there isn't enough quantity of the resource you want - or if you don't want to buy at the given price - you can place a buy order and wait for someone to accept selling those resources to you at the price you set.
The same holds true for selling: Say you have 500 rounds of 7.62 SVT ammo to sell. If there are buying orders for that resource, you'll be informed of the price at which you can sell them immediately (because there are players willing to buy at that price). If there are no players buying that resource or if you want to sell them at a higher price, you can place a sell order and wait for another player to accept your price.
Equipment/gear is a different beast. As we discussed before, each weapon, armor piece and tool that is crafted or looted is unique - even though it belongs to a certain base-type and has its intrinsic characteristics, its level, quality and modifiers are different.
This means that each equipment piece will have its own price in the market, set by the selling player. A buyer can browse all the gear in the market, select the one he's interested in based on its stats and modifiers and pay the price set by the seller. It works much like a store - you can go in, choose an item and decide whether to buy it or not.
This also means that there are no buying orders for gear - either it exists or it doesn't. Of course you can always go into trade chat and ask someone to sell you their high damage shotgun with rare accuracy and stunning bonuses and hope you don't need to sell your house in order to buy it!
Questions? Ideas? Got 'em? Be sure to discuss them with us here, on our Discord server or e-mail - thanks!