I love the market idea, and it's implementation. However I think that a small improvement should be made, at least at lower difficulties.

My first problem

This was a few days ago (30 hours of gameplay in between) I've learned that I should very carefully chose my System Upgrade luxury resources. What had happened is that I explored an endgame planet (lava, I think) and got a luxury resource that just so happened to be unique to that planet within my sphere of influence. 

I made the mistake of making my lvl 2 system upgrade with a resource I could not harvest, I even think the system got picked up by one of my allies (or who became an ally later). What this meant was I could not upgrade my systems, despite me having the technology for rank 3.

Now this would be where I would search the market and buy the resource at any price, right? Well no, I guess no other empire had it, but no one was selling, at all. Maybe once in a fool moon I got a message about "Rouge Trader" who would sell like 5 (I needed 25).

My thoughts on a solution

I think the rouge trader should either sell more often, way more stock, or ideally, you could make a function that once every, idk, 20 turns, checks if you are a moron and are in my situation (need resource, don't have it, no one selling) and THEN sell a lot of them at a high price.

I hope this gets some attention. I now know not to do this, but this does not change the fact that this small mistake can be crippling

Other Solution  

Let me change the resource, for a price. If you want to consider balance, make price scale with systems already upgraded.

For first-time "morons" like you, I would implement a warning, if you choose a luxury you don't have as much (Like: "You are sure to choose these rare luxuries for system upgrades my young Padawan ? "). But you, you now know about and won't do it again. I guess anyone will do it a second time, right ? So why to change basic game mechanics ? Nope, no good idea.

Well, I only wanted to stick with the "moron" approach. But it's 10000% possible you lose your only system with that thing and are in exactly the same position.

pheipl wrote:

Well, I only wanted to stick with the "moron" approach. But it's 10000% possible you lose your only system with that thing and are in exactly the same position.

I wanted to stick, too

Still I don't think it should be changed. It's a decision you make, if you like to risk and perhaps loose all, or if you minimize the risk and choose another one.

But your offered solution would lead to: "I take what I need, I get it anyway - perhaps a little bit later - by now implemenented "moron-patch". 

Where is the fun and the tension, if this game mechanic is neutralized ? Decide to take it and prepare to defend your ressources. Or have a close look to the market, if this ressource is available in big numbers, before you decide to equip it for system leveling. Come on, it won't happen a second time (to you)  

Where is the fun and the tension, if this game mechanic is neutralized ?  

While I didn't go into detail, I did mention this could be a lower difficulty thing, I think I did, I thought about it at least :P

I'd also like to see a 'change it for a price' as well, although maybe for slightly different reasons.

At the moment missing out on the bonuses of system levelling is super prohibitive, but this has the side effect of never using later tier luxury resources. By system level 3, I often might be using some T2 luxuries, but rarely any T3 either because I haven't reached the right curiosity level to find them yet, or because they are not in enough abundance to justify the delay. There is an argument for the trade off between holding off on system upgrades for better luxury use vs using T1 resources early but getting less of a bonus, but as with all 4X games, the early game is so important that the trade off leans so heavily towards upgrading early that the option is somewhat moot. This could be solved by having a replacement mechanic. This isn't just to do with resources directly from the system level. Lots of buildings are tied to system level as well.

Other advantages it confers is allowing for more empire specialisation in the later game. Want a trade empire but the first abundant resource you find is Redsang? No problem. You can change it later.

It also makes for luxury resource use. I don't know about others, but I often have 999 of some resources just sitting there. Nice to sell and trade, but it would be good to have other options.

Where is the fun and the tension, if this game mechanic is neutralized ? Decide to take it and prepare to defend your ressources. Or have a close look to the market, if this ressource is available in big numbers, before you decide to equip it for system leveling. Come on, it won't happen a second time (to you)  

I get this, so how about tying it to a later game economy tech? That still makes the decision meaningful, but not quite the permanent 'dang I could be using that Void Stone right now that I found on turn 100 instead of this Redsang I found on turn 0'.

Absolutely NOT ?

I think you get an extreme unlucky run. this happen.

I like the way it is because it forces you to makes choices, allys, and specific conquests.