Black Market

The Black Market is an underground, illegal, and illicit center of trading in Offworld Trading Company.

Overview
The Black Market allows for more direct interactions with the other competing companies. The Black Market offers many abilities (see below) to attack other companies, defend yourself, or expand. The Black Market prices are directly related to Black Market usage, with the purchase of a Black Market ability increasing the price of the next ability of the same type for all players. The Black Market has a cooldown specific to each player and a player cannot buy Black Market abilities that she currently owns any uses of.

The Black Market will typically contain 7 items, though the presence of Holograms or Spies can increase the Black Market's size to 9 items. The contents of the Black Market are randomized between games, but in skirmishes, the Black Market must follow certain rules: there must always be either Filthy Pirates or Magnetic Storms; there must always be either EMPs or Power Surges; if there are Holograms and more than two players in the game, then there must always be either Spies or Network Viruses; and there must always be Goon Squads if at least two offensive Black Market items that affect tiles are available. Once those conditions are met, the rest of the Black Market can contain any item.

Every time a tile is targeted by any area-of-effect sabotage (including Adrenaline Boosts), the effects of subsequent sabotage on that tile will be diminished. The duration of sabotage can be expressed as 1/(1+0.1n) times its normal duration, where n is the number of sabotage effects that have already hit a tile.

Black Market Composition
By default, the black market will have 6 slots for items, filled in the following order:

1) One slot will be filled by either an EMP or Power Surge, one spot will be filled by either a Dynamite or Mutiny, and one spot will be filled by either Pirates or Magnetic Storms. Each of these has an equal chance of filling their designated slot.

2) The remaining three slots will be randomly filled by any remaining unused black market effect.

3) If the Advanced Sabotage option is enabled, one additional unused Advanced Sabotage item will be added (Hologram, Spy, or Auction), with equal probability.

4) If Holograms are available and there are at least four players in the game, either Spies or Network Viruses will be added if they are not already available.

5) If Goon Squads are not already available and there are at least two black market effects that would trigger a Goon Squad, Goon Squads are added.

In other words, a standard game with the Advanced Sabotage option enabled will have anywhere from 6-9 black market effects available.

Black Market Costs
Black Market item costs are individual. Purchasing a black market item increases the cost of that item without affecting the price of other black market items. All players share the same costs when there are 4 or more players. In 2-3 player games, every time you make a black market purchase, the price you would pay for the next purchase will increase by more than the price your opponent would pay. The difference is the same as if your opponent had made two purchases instead of one.

Black Market Cooldowns
The base cooldown for all black market items is 60 seconds. A few items such as Bribe a Claim and the Spy have longer and shorter cooldowns respectively. A full table can be seen below.

Cooldowns are the same between all maps. Scavengers have a shorter cooldown (40 seconds) for offensive black market items.