Does that mean that working on the tech tree in challenges and battles without manual involvement (in case of battles) pretty much isn't possible anymore? Because the old version would at least allow to unlock those techs that ask for stuff that is available in markets. Sure, there are techs in most levels that require stuff that you have to smelt/craft yourself, but a good chunk of techs can be bought from markets (and caches). With the new Auto-Market you would have to be lucky with Auto-Smelt that it switches to the correct recipes in order to unlock techs. This seems almost impossible to happen. With this change the tech tree in challenges and battles is pretty much dead except for the techs that you "earn" by conquering resource caches. As a consequence, this reduces the usefulness of Auto-Purchase Techs.

PS: To clarify: I say that techs in battles are affected because there are more important things to care for in battles than adjusting the smelters/crafters. If you wanted you could totally unlock techs, but would you really?

Edited 10/12/2021 16:58:59

@Mathematician

I just saw your comment on the raw/base resource price, somehow I missed this post.

That indeed does explain why auto-market stops buying way too early, i.e. even if (boosted) prices are higher than costs.

It's a shame, like this, the advancement is not very useful like most auto-advancements...
(but the auto-draft which is really nice)