XCOM EU XCOM Economics: Gray Market

[morro123]

Just a part -although an important one- in XCOM Economics, I believe that the Gray Market is an interesting premise. Being able to make transactions with shadow customers over alien objects you recover from the battlefield seems like a nice touch for an international organization that is desperate to increase its funding to fight the alien threat...or to make profit.
Unfortunately, the full potential of this narrative and strategic element of the game is eclipsed by a crude implementation in the game.
I propose the following concepts to improve realism or inmersion.

1. Using current market mechanics.

 

1.1. Market artifacts/bodies pricing may change over time given one or more of the following variables. This rule can be applied to all alien objects or just some of them. Many variables could be more intense than others depending on the product, some may not apply to certain items.
1.1.1. Research. Researching artifacts/corpses increases their price.
1.1.2. Time/novelty. After its first time in the market, price slowly begin to drop.
1.1.3. Demand. Timed or random events (could be announced in the council screen or in the gray market ui) may increase/decrease the potential uses/demand of alien objects, thus increasing/decreasing price.

1.2. Storage.
1.2.1. Decay. E-115 currently degrades with a second wave option. You could make that happen to other alien materials, as well as corpses or weapons.
1.2.2. Store room. You may have limits to the amount of each object you may stock.
1.2.3. Offer. Too many objects of the same kind may lower their price.

1.3. Country Requests.
1.3.1. Money. Cuasi-randomize monetary rewards instead of just duplicate their production cost.
1.3.2. Consequences. Delivering/Not delivering a request may affect your relationship with the country (e.g.: increasing/reducing funding).
1.3.3. Competition. When a country requests an item, other countries will request it too, and you may need to choose which demand you satisfy. Consequences apply.
1.3.4. War strain. After a long time fighting the aliens, buyers will deplet their budgets for casual shopping.

2. Using new market mechanics.
2.1. XCOM auctions.
2.2. Council 'donations'.
2.3. Council deductions or 'taxation' on items you sell.
2.4. Sometimes you get a 'No buyers' notice and you are not able to sell an object.
2.5. Country 'offers' of strange alien devices.
2.6. Inmersive/proper UI for shadow transactions.
2.7. Buyers pay upon item delivery, which can take some time.
2.8. Marketing info/graphs.
2.9. SHIV production/aircraft weaponry available for trade.