At the moment, Planet Brokers allows you to offer an outpost you created for exchange to any empire with which you have established diplomatic relations. In my experience, there are a couple of issues with it which my idea will hopefully address:


Problem 1: the exchange element of the affinity is useless until you have established diplomatic relations with the major empires. 

Problem 2: the value placed on the outposts seems very low. In my game I bought the outpost for 299 Dust on Turn 92 and the maximum any empire was prepared to give me was double that amount, even after I've committed further 750 Dust for food production boost. 


My solution is to enable Lumeris to advertise their purchased outposts on the marketplace for all other empires to see and bid for. 


Because all empires can use the marketplace from the beginning of the game, we solve problem 1. Problem 2 should be addressed by making sure empires have a more nuanced evaluation of the outpost's value, in terms of FIDSI, but also crucially in terms of strategic planning. If I settle an outpost close to an empire's border it should value it more highly then an empire that is far away; however, if there are two empires that are at war, the attacking empire will have a greater interest in a border-region outpost that it can turn into a re-supply base. Because the bidding is blind, an empire might want to buy an outpost defensively to protect itself from a potential encroachment.