Vehicle Auction

Used vehicle auctions · Economy

Early developmentFS25_VehicleAuction

The game's used market is a fixed-price list: whoever sees it first buys it, and there is no haggling. Vehicle Auction turns it into timed bidding. A limited number of used vehicles arrives in scheduled windows and goes to the highest bidder. What you bid is held from the farm balance and refunded the moment you are outbid, and a last-minute bid extends the closing, so nothing is sniped in the final second. You can put your own vehicle up as well, or press Sell now to skip the wait without a trip to the workshop. Everything happens on the game's own hangar screen; there is no separate interface. Auctions can run on the game clock or on real time, and a vehicle bought cheaply cannot be flipped for profit. The server is authoritative, and optional NPC bidders keep the auctions alive, in single player too.

Status: Early development. The mod is being tested on our own server; the feature list describes the goal and the released version may differ.

Features

What it does

A limited number of used vehicles arrives in scheduled windows and the highest bid wins.
The bid amount is held from the farm balance and refunded the moment you are outbid.
A last-minute bid extends the closing, so a vehicle is not sniped in the last second.
Bid withdrawal: the highest bidder can withdraw with a confirmation until 30 minutes before closing. A 3 percent fee applies and the price falls back to the previous bid; fee, time limit and the switch itself are settings.
An automatic maximum: leave your limit and walk away, and the auction raises up to it for you.
You can put your own vehicle up for auction, and the panel shows in advance what the sale would bring you.
Custom paint is kept: the colours and paint finish (metallic, matt ...) of a vehicle put up for auction go to the buyer unchanged, and an unsold vehicle comes back as it was.
Sell now: sells the vehicle instantly with a confirmation, without a trip to the workshop.
A vehicle bought cheaply at auction cannot be flipped for profit: the discount won at purchase is deducted on every sale route, whether the game's own sale, Sell now or a new auction. Repairs still add value and wear still takes it away, but the discount never turns into profit.
An optional sale lock: a vehicle bought at auction cannot be sold with Sell now for a set number of days. The status box shows the purchase ceiling or the lock days left.
An auction clock setting: game time or real time. On real time the sessions follow the real-world clock (for example 18:00 to 06:00), unaffected by sleep and time scale; windows may cross midnight and lots are spread evenly across the window.
On real time the downtime of a closed server is not played out; lots that should have ended get 15 minutes once the server is back.
An optional dealer offer (off by default): Sell now pays a share of the sale value that varies with the vehicle and the day, which makes waiting for the auction worthwhile.
One interface: everything on the game's own 3D hangar screen. A summary row in the left panel, a hint under each selector and only the selectors that do something.
The settings page is simpler: only the settings that matter for the current choices are shown. Expert settings (bid increments, extensions, opening ratio, NPC limits, vehicle condition, delivery retry, debug) sit behind "Show advanced settings", which only affects your own screen and is not saved; hidden settings keep their values.
Every action that cannot be undone asks for confirmation: bidding, saving or removing the automatic maximum, withdrawing a listing and putting a vehicle up.
The status box compares what the auction is expected to bring against a direct sale.
Server authoritative: the same vehicle cannot be listed twice, requests are rate limited, withdrawing a listing needs the permission to sell vehicles and notifications go only to the farm concerned.
Performance: a bid no longer rebuilds the shop's auction list, only the visible cells (price, leader, time left) are refreshed; the server prepares the vehicle pool in the background, so opening lots at the start of a session no longer stalls.
Errors are no longer silently ignored: an error at the points where the game calls the mod (saving, the frame update, the shop, hangar and settings screens, vehicle loading) is written to the log.
Console commands are only added while the "Verbose log + console commands" setting is on; otherwise they are not in the console at all.
With the optional NPC bidders on, every lot gets at least one NPC rival, so vehicles do not go far below their value: NPC limits are 85-115 percent of the appraisal and lots open at 70 percent. They keep the auctions alive in single player too.

Setup

How to use it

Not released yet. It runs on our main server; the dedicated network test and the ModHub preparation are under way.
On release the zip goes into the mods folder of the server and of every connecting player.
The auction is reached from the game's hangar screen and needs no key binding.