Economy

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An economy is a group of people who trade resources. Because buying, selling and other kinds trading are so important to every day life, probably everyone is part of an economy. Spiral Knights has an economy too; players buy, sell and trade. This article is dedicated to helping you to understand Spiral Knight's economy and use it to help you be a stronger, smarter and more capable Knight.

Elements of an Economy

In order to have an economy you need to at least have People that Trade (Economic Actors), Stuff to Trade (Economic Resources) and a Way to Trade (Method of Exchange).

The Things Who Trade

Today, the word 'actor' usually means a person who is paid to pretend to be someone else for entertainment. But the word 'actor' can also mean someone or something that does actions or makes decisions. An Economic Actor (a person or thing that can trade) is someone or something that decides to act in the economy.

The Stuff to Trade

A resource is anything that is valuable or useful. An economic resource is any resource you can give, receive or use to help someone else. In Spiral Knights there are many different kinds of resources, but they mainly fall into three categories; Natural Resources, Products and Services.

Natural Resources are useful objects or situations that already exist; they cannot be made, but they can used or collected.

Products are useful objects created from natural resources that can be given or received.

Services are actions someone can do for someone else to get a reward.

The Ways to Trade

If a group of people does not contain at least two traders, two different resources and a method of exchange, that group is not an economy.

Most economies also have Money and Methods of Production.

Markets and Sectors

An economy is like a department store. Inside the building of a department store the products they sell are organized into sections called departments, and each department sells products that have something in common. For example, a department store might have a clothing department, a furniture department and a department for yard tools.

An economy has sections too, these are called 'markets'.

Some very large economies (the ones that have many different markets with a lot of people buying and selling) group these markets into larger parts of the economy called 'sectors'. You can group any number of different markets together to make a sector so long as all the markets have something in common.

The Economy In Spiral Knights

The Economy in Spiral Knights works by the same rules described above.

Economic Actors

Player Knights

Non-Player Vendors

Meta Vendors

Resources

Naturals - Materials - Minerals - Rarities - Tokens - Heat - Drops

- And... Crowns?

Products -

Services - Missions - Coliseum

Primary Sector: Mining Crowns & Materials

Secondary Sector: Token Redemption & Alchemy

Tertiary Sector: Missions

There are many things that go around the economy in this game. There are Crown sinks, Energy sinks and all of that, and the opposite of that are Crown and Energy Fountains. The information below give the functions of this terms.

Crown sinks and Fountains

Crown sinks are the ways that the Crowns are eradicated like...

1. Buying items from vendors 2. crown requirement from recipes 3. Listing fee in the AH 4. Buying items from Haven Treasury in AH.

On the other hand, Crown fountains are the ways you get crowns out of nowhere(can't find the right term) like..

1. Slaying Monsters. 2. Selling Items from vendors(not sure of this) 3. Slaying Monsters. 4. Slaying Monsters... I can't find anything else

Energy sinks and fountains

Like Crown sinks, these are the ways that Energy are eradicated like...

1. Using Energy for Energy gates 2. Using Energy for Elevators 3. Using Energy for Binding smith 4. Using Energy for elevators

And Energy fountains are the same as Crowns, but gets energy for free without return(except buying it for REAL money.)

1. Getting Mist energy over time. 2. Buying Money through credit cards or whatever.

Commodity sinks and fountains

Commodity(materials and items) sinks and fountains function the same as the 2 above.

Commodity fountain: 1. Expedition in the clockworks -Treasure boxes -Enemies

Commodity Sinks: 1. Using a recipe requiring that item to be used.

The Market & Market Manipulation

Now I will introduce to you how Spiral Knight's Economy Works and more Info about it. And how the Admins and Over-the-top rich players can manipulate the market. Materials can be similar except they're NOT a currency.

This is the where Energy can be exchanged for Crowns and vice versa. A huge decrease/increase of exchange price here can affect the prices of all, that's why manipulating the market can be very devastating.

Market Manipulation for the Insane rich people

How to reduce the sell price of the Energy/Crown(maybe) price (You need TONS of CE here.) Make a sell offer that has a gap of 300 or more crowns in the lowest sell offer currently. Eg. If the lowest sell offer price currently is 6,500 crowns per 100 energy (x quantity willing to sell) then you do a sell offer of 6,200 crowns per energy (x1 hundred thousand... or more or less, the lower the faster it is will vanish so add more!!) Then try to remove that over and lower it gradually, and sometimes the offers will compete and make lower offers tadaa! you made it, the buy offers, will eventually lower since the crown price for them is rather high yet before they notice.

How to INCREASE the price(sell) of Energy/Crown price (you need TONS of crowns here)

Put the sell offer you desire that is higher than the other sell prices then Buy all of it till you reach your price.. simple right?

If you know how to get profit in trade currency(which I knew) you need to be moderately rich here to have a higher profit.

Don't Be That Noob

(Credits to CorruptionEX on Steam) Here comes the noob, going to get his long-awaited T2 Set. He needs some energy and crowns to craft his last item. Here's what can go wrong.

Selling Energy Our noob in question needs crowns, and on the market tab, where you can sell energy, the lowest but also most popular offer is around 6500 crowns, with some 50 knights backing it. Other offers go a few crowns lower or higher, but our noob in question decides to be a noob and get crowns quickly. He posts his offer to sell 100 Energy at around 6300 crowns, thus totally changing the market. He will get his crowns fast for sure, but before that, other noobs will follow him and post offers around his offer OR even lower. This prevents us, the good economists/knights, from getting our crowns as more and more noobs pile on and drive the market down. If the noob had considered the trade tab, things would have gone on much more smoothly.

Buying Energy Our noob, this time, needs energy, and on the market tab where you can buy energy, the highest but also most popular offer is around 7600 crowms, with some 50 knights backing it. Other offers, once again, go around that price, but our noob hasnt learned his lesson and wants to get energy quickly. So he posts an offer of 7800 crowns. Once again, he gets his energy quickly but more noobs pile on, and we cant get our energy. The trade tab would have helped again.

Lessons to Be Learned

(Personal Opinion) I DO NOT recommend using the market tab if all you want is some crowns or energy. Use the trade tab ONLY for that reason. Only if you feel you are a true Spiral Knight Economist and Economist ONLY. The trade tab actually helps clear up offers on the market, and allows the economy to run in a more stable and smooth fashion. Have fun buying and selling energy, and DONT BE THE NOOB!

Getting Rich off the Market

I dont know how exactly to do this, I'm still studying up. In the mean time, can someone else post data about this? Thanks!