Akami

Theres a difference between a large  base and a large base plastered with 600 christmas lights and flashing siren lights as well. Some people build laggy bases on purpose. US Survival last wipe, the 12 story militia something build with christmas lights and 30+ vending machines always too my FPS from 80 to 20 instantly.

Wood is bought up because trading stone for wood increases your net worth gain over what you would get just selling the stone.  The simple fix would be to increase stone to 6 cents and reduce Charcoal to 2 cents on black market, thus nullifying the gains of wood hoarding.

My suggestion would be instanced NPC vendors. Everyone gets their own daily reset. Any raise in the current system would still be taken by a very small number of people doing the conversion/net worth exploit. That or raise stone to 6 cents and lower Char to 2 cents in black market to remove the conversion profits.