The guide is very old (see the posted date?). If your reading this, please note that this has not been updated since, and unless I start playing it again, I have no intention (or updated knowledge) to update this guide. Thank you to those who commented and rated this guide, and even more thanks go out to anyone who is polite on the market! Still, you can read this guide anyways, and maybe get something out of it. (Alot of it is me just rambeling about how insane prices can get, but hey, I can try can't I?)

Hello and welcome to my guide. This guide tries to explain the Energy Market located in the Energy Depot. Let me just say that I am no top-tier player at this game, but I thought that since there are no guides discussing the use of the Energy Market, I would like to have some things said about the topic so common mistakes can be prevented. Also, you may find that some parts of this guide reflect my own opinon. I try to keep that to a minimum, but it happens. That being said, this guide is aimed for new players, or those who have not used the Energy Market as much as they should :)

And just as a sidenote, this is my first steam guide. I support constructive criticism, but if you're just here to flame, expect to be ignored.

On with the guide!

The Energy Market is located in the Energy Depot window. You can access the Energy Depot from either the options tab at the lower-left corner of your screen, or by talking to an Energy Stranger (any Stranger with the energy symbol on their mask). Navigate to the third tab up top, and say hello to the market.

The Energy Market, as the name suggests, is a place where players can buy and sell energy to other players. Rather than buying energy with real money, you can spend crowns to slowly amass energy for use throughout the game. You can buy energy in amounts of 100, and the price of the energy is set buy the user who is selling. It's a very important tool for you to use, because you need energy for buying items from the Supply Depot, reviving yourself, and several things while down in the clockworks such as Mecha Knights, Turrets, and Energy Gates. Since you, as the average new user, don't have the money to be buying from the Purchase Tab, it's the perfect opportunity to get energy to spend on items like Weapon and Trinket Upgrades, and higher tier equipment.

Let me try to make this easy to understand:

You got some extra energy lying around, and you wanna sell it for some crowns. You go to the Energy Market tab, and you look at the right side. A green box says, "Post an offer to Sell:". In the box that says "Crowns", you type how much you would like to sell your energy for. Keep in mind that this is the price for each 100E you sell. Next to the price input, it reads "per 100E x#", where '#' is how many bundles of 100E you want to sell. After both boxes are filled out, click "Post" to submit your offer. When you submit your offer, it will subtract the energy from your inventory. Below the inputs is where all your current offers are shown, so you can keep track of what you have not sold yet. You can also cancel your offers from here if you ever want the energy back. After the offer is submitted, you just have to wait until your offer is fuilfilled. You will be notifyed if your energy sells so long as your online when someone buys it and recieve the crowns. If you are offline, the crowns will simply be in your pocket when you log on next time. And thats it for selling energy!

This is very similar to selling energy, but using crowns instead. You could think of it as selling crowns, rather than buying energy. Ok, so you just earned alot of crowns, and wanna spend it on some energy. On the left side of the Market Tab, there is a purple box that reads, "Post an offer to Buy:". Below that, a box reads "Crowns". Input how much you are willing to pay for each bundle of 100E. Next to that box, enter how many bundles of 100E you want to buy. After you click "Post", the crowns will be subtracted from you inventory. Below the inputs, all your current, unfulfilled offers are shown to you. You can cancel any of your offers if you need the crowns back. When your offer is fulfilled, you will be notifyed and your energy counter will blink to show you your new energy balance. If you are offline when someone fulfils your offer, you will simply have the energy when you play next time. And that's it! Not too bad right?

Trust me, its way simpler than what you just read, I just make it seem alot more complicated.

Keep in mind that this is only one of two ways to buy and sell energy. A much simpler way is to use the Trade Tab.

"Ok wait, the Trade Tab? What?"
Yes, well, Energy just doesn't sell itself. Someone has to buy it. You notice the Energy Depot has 3 tabs. Purchase, Trade, and Market. Purchase is for those who are willing to buy large quantities of energy with real money, aka, not us. Trade is where people actually fulfil our offers, and how we get paid! And if you're asking what the Market Tab is, you need to stop scrolling so fast, and re-read the previous section...

Ok so, that was the simple part of the Energy Market. Down to the stuff I really wanted to explain to you guys...

When you list an offer, depending on your asking price, it gets put higher or lower on the list. The closer you are to the top of the list, the sooner your offer will be fulfilled, and the sooner you get your energy.

So it makes sense to put your offer above everyone else's, right? So you can get your energy quicker, right? NO, BAD NOOB, BAD. I see a lot of offers posted over/under the current market price by 50-100 crowns. This can sometimes make the market price change. It makes others post at your price, or even more/less than yours, and ruins the market even more.

The point of this guide is to prevent you, the readers, from posting crazy offers, and to help stabilize the energy price. If any of you have played TF2, you know its market is fierce. The prices of items have several websites dedicated to keeping tab on the prices, and they shame the people who try to sell things for more than what they're worth.

Now, I don't think Spiral Knights needs something like that, although a list of current established market prices for accessories and such would be nice. I just want to let you people know what goes on in my mind when you people post irrational prices, and it clogs the whole market up. I got so irritated one day, I wrote a whole guide about it. You should really go check that out....oh wait...

Anyways, I would like to make a scenario to demonstrate these rules. Look at closely at the next section, and refer back to it if needed.

The Energy Market looks like this:

Ok so this is the market, and you look at this when you log on, and say, "What happened while I was gone?!".

There are 2 major things wrong with this market. Take a look if you don't already know what they are.

First off, on the selling side (right), look at the top-most offer. Now look at the other offers below it. Can you tell what happened?
From the bottom up, people listed their offers, only decreasing their prices by a crown or two, which is normal.
Now here comes the noob. He needs to get some crowns to craft his long awaited T2 set, and he is missing his sword because he ran out of crowns. So he goes to the Market to sell his 100 energy. He has 3 options really: He could list it at 6900 crowns, like everyone else (Best choice), he could list it at 6899 so that his offer is on top (Fast, and somewhat acceptable), or he can list it at a price way lower than the current market price (Fastest, and worst choice), which is what he did. He listed his 1 and only offer at 6750 crowns, which is 150 crowns from the market price.
Now, in my opinion, the third choice shouldn't even be an option, but I could see how it is a faster way of selling your energy. When buyers see your offer cheaper than the others by 150 crowns, they will want to try and snag it. However, this is very rare, and is very unreliable.

There are a few problems with this:

• He didn't need the energy right away. He could have listed it at 6900 and waited. Or even 6901 wouldn't be out of the question.
  
• He listed it far from the current market price.
  
• He could have used the Trade Tab to get crowns, and it would have been faster, and actually would help the market.

If he wanted crowns quickly, then he should have gone to the Trade Tab, and purchased it there. By listing it at 6750, he could cause the market price to drop drastically. If another noob comes along after him, and also wants to get crowns quickly, he'll post his offer even cheaper! When this happens, it starts to push the good offers off the list, and eventually, the noob's price will become the new market price.

Now thats just one of the two issues here. Did you see the second one? I didn't mention this yet, but this is also a common mistake when posting offers: Massive amounts

See the third guy on the buying side (left)? He made a good choice on the price, but 5,467 offers?! This is unfavorable for new offers, because if you were to post your offer in his pool, then you would have to wait along time for his to sell before yours gets fulfilled. So naturally, people post a crown or two higher than his pool, so that they don't disturb the price, and they get to be next in line. The problem is, everyone will do this. His massive pool creates a roadblock. The price will have a hard time passing 6997. Like before, it would be best to put your offers in his pool, but this means you have to wait a while. If you're ok with that, then its recommended you post in his pool to keep the market price. However, all it takes is a few offers higher than his, and then new offers will be more likely to go with the price without a huge pool. I hope that makes sense. The point is, don't post all of your offers at once, and if you can wait, then wait, otherwise, you can consider posting a crown higher/lower than the market price.

Ok, so how can we try and prevent these crazy market prices?

Well, lets all try to be respectful people on the market. No, i'm serious. Try to follow these rules, and we can make the market a nice place rather than a brutal mess of greedy prices.

• If you can wait, then wait. Don't be a butt and post your offer over/under the price of others just so you can get your energy quickly.
  
• If you want a quick trade, go to the Trade Tab rather than the market. Not only do you get your stuff quicker than the market, you actually help clear offers and change the market price for the better. It's actually the only way to clear offers, so start hitting that button more often.
  
• Use, but don't over-use. Don't post offers in massive quantities. Yes, we know, when you have cash just pouring out of your pockets, you can block the market price with all of it. So don't. I would recommend posting, at most, 75 offers at a time on one price. If you want, spread your offers over several prices.
  
• Don't jump on the bandwagon! If you see a crazy price, leave it to die. Just post under it so that the next person to use the Trade Tab will take that offer, and it will be off the market. Posting at, or over the offer will only encourage change of the market price.
  
• If your friend does something stupid on the market, slap him.

We all want energy, and so we all need to use the market. Don't ruin it for others. Be patient and wait your turn, and really think if you need it quicker than others. I can't stress it enough. Tell others about this guide so everyone is on the same page about the market. If you think some parts of this guide could be improved, or if I got something wrong, let me know, and I will edit it. Thanks for reading my guide, and I hope you found it helpful.

As I relize and learn little things about the Energy Market, I will post them here. Feel free to let me know any other interesting things or ideas you have thought up...

• If you have the money, and like numbers, you can try to make some profit by trading energy back and forth. When you sell energy, you pay a fee of 2% of the crowns you got. So when you input a price, multiplying it by 0.98 will tell you how many crowns you actually get. If this number is greater than what energy costs at the moment, you can buy energy with your profit, and sell it back for even more profit. I found that a difference of 200cr from the buy and sell markets results in a decent profit. Don't expect thousands; a good trade is considered 70-160, where as a normal trade is anywhere from 20-69. Sometimes the markets are too close to each other, and you may only end up with 1-19 crowns per trade, in which case, its better to keep your crowns. If a noob happens to throw a wrench into the market while your trading, you may be suck with negative profit. It's similar to the stock market, as there is always a chance it could turn out good or bad. Invest wisely.
  
  
• More to be added. That's it for now :l

As I come across them, I will take screenshots of the energy market and related discussions, and post them here to show you all. (Any names other than my own will be blacked out.) Some may be interesting, a good example of something, or a good example of failure. Just take a look...


This is a minor example, but still, 100cr higher? Come on man.... And the guy who posted at 8300 is kinda bad too; he posted 50cr higher...

More to be added!

Guide Written by me, CorruptionEX on Steam, and Wistful-Shadow on Spiral Knights.

Guide Image taken from the Spiral Knights Wiki while under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.

Screenshots all taken by me.

And thank you to all these people for helping me improve this guide:
Cobalthail: General Improvement
BinaryCandy: Price Typo
Tarkus \TG/: Price Margin Trick, and inspiration to start the Tips section. Gimme more!
(S.T.S): Revised some confusing parts of the guide.

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