A few examples of what people do here
You do not pick a role from a character creation menu. You make one yourself, and you can change it at any moment — if you have the money, the connections and the nerve.
You dig ore, grow crops or craft goods. Clear income, savings you can see, and a trade you can become the best in the world at — literally: because quality is a mechanic, your skill has a price on the market. Make items of the rarest tier and sell them for many times what your colleagues get. Discover the recipe for a tier III starship engine and the whole universe hears about you — your name is not forgotten.
The priceCrafting needs you present. In return, what a hand makes is worth more on the market than what a machine does.
You buy cheap in one town and sell dear in another. The next step up is trade in space: board a ship and move goods between planets. Prices differ between two towns, and far more between two planets, because the road between them can be several real days long — and that difference is where fortunes are made.
The priceYou can buy something nobody wants, or lose the cargo on the way. And you will spend long stretches travelling.
You buy cheap, set up production, hire people, scale the business. Fill the market with your goods and take the margin. Corner it and squeeze the competition out — or join a cartel and maximise the take. Get close to those in power and win concessions. The only ceiling here is how well you can strike a deal.
The priceWorkstations never reach high quality. And going bankrupt here is easy.
Be the one who gets a state back on its feet. Build a democracy players from
across the universe want to move to. Write your name into history — what
you did will not be forgotten.
Or else…
Found your own
monarchy: go from a small village to a state with a vast treasury and borders
to match. Use the position, but know this: the people will leave if you push it too far.
Or you can try to have it both ways :)
The priceWinning office and holding on to power is hard, and founding a town of your own is harder still.
Want to test what you know about economics in a game where it all works the way it does in life? This is the one. Read the market, find the signals of a rise and a fall — and sell them to other players. Or you may be appointed minister of the economy, and then you move the key rate and the rest of the levers yourself. Set duties wisely, hold back imports or exports, and lift the economy. Every mistake of yours can bring on a crisis that breaks the state.
The priceIt takes real knowledge of economics.
Walk the routes nobody has walked before and find the places with something worth carrying home: ancient artefacts, rare recipes and pieces of the universe's story. Find blueprints nobody else has and sell them for an obscene amount of money — or take them to the library. Collect the fragments and be the first to learn why the Precursors disappeared. And when you are ready, set out for Aurora, the cradle of that ancient civilisation. There are secrets there that exist on no other planet.
The priceEvery expedition can cost you your life. High risk, high reward.
Everything above is not a set of hard-coded roles but examples of what the engine allows. It is simply what comes to mind first. Think of something of your own and take a niche nobody else has thought of.
The limitYour imagination.
What works differently here from what you are used to
- 01
Veins run out for good
A worked-out vein disappears and does not come back. Mining towns grow rich and die, and a rich ore node is what the first wars are about.
- 02
Distance costs money
There is no global auction house: every town has an order book of its own. A single price would kill geography, and with it the hauler's trade and the point of fighting over routes. Communication between planets is near-instant — but to know the price on Pyroxis you need someone of your own on Pyroxis.
- 03
You can be cheated
The engine guarantees physics and nothing else. A partner can walk off with your money, and that is legal. Against it there is reputation, deposits, surety and a court — all of it built by the players.
- 04
Skill is calculated, not dropped
No loot: the quality forecast is visible before the batch, and the weakest link sets the ceiling. A good smith's mark is a reputation people pay for.
- 05
Credit is given against work, not collateral
The limit is worked out from turnover, debts repaid and trust. A formula recommends the key rate; the council of towns decides it. Inflation here is somebody's miscalculation, not a number in a patch note.
- 06
The world lives while you sleep
Caravans roll, fields grow, the town votes without you. Forty minutes a day is a working pace; mining, bargaining and danger are what need you present.
- 07
Death costs metal and energy
The body is printed again — on the town's account, on credit or on yours. Things are lost, knowledge is not.
The list of refusals matters more than the list of features
Every line is a temptation that one small concession would break. We refuse.
| No | Because |
|---|---|
| NPC traders | An NPC's price is the floor and the ceiling of the market. A living economy has no use for them. |
| Quests | A quest is an instruction on what to do. The moment the game says what to do, the sandbox is over. |
| Character levels | Progress is property, connections and power, not a figure next to a name. |
| A global auction house | A single price kills geography, and with it the hauler's trade. |
| Lootboxes and drops | Not one item appears in the world by itself. |
| Automatic mining | Mining is the only way matter enters the world. Automate it and you devalue everything. |
| Admins judging players | Justice inside the game is content. We answer only for the rules of the platform. |
| Wipes and seasons | One world, and it is permanent. The single exception is the alpha: it burns at launch so that nobody enters the world with a head start. |
Screenshot it.
It looks like an operator's workstation. Because that is what it is
In hand
Money
Here
you, Jorunn, Vesta and Halvard
Market
| buying | price ₭ | selling |
|---|---|---|
| 3.40 | 12 | |
| 3.25 | 40 | |
| 3.20 | 6 | |
| 25 | 3.05 | |
| 100 | 2.90 | |
| 8 | 2.60 |
last trade: 3.20 ₭
A quick trade takes the best price; the remainder stands as an order.
An order book, a dozen deadlines, a map and a conversation all live on the screen at once — which is why the game looks like an instrument and not a stage. No cards, no glow: a line instead of a box, monospaced figures so a column of prices lines up digit by digit.
The one coloured element in the interface means a living person. Buttons and links never use the accent colour. If there is colour on the screen, somebody is nearby.
One deadline bar covers everything that has a deadline: a batch, a caravan, a building site, a vote, the window to answer in court. It is the only thing allowed to move continuously. Everything else is instant, because everything else sits on somebody's critical path.
The fragment is built from the real client: the same typefaces, lines and deadline bar. The names and figures are illustrative. The game is in development.
Not for you if
- you expect the game to come up with a purpose for you
- you always play the tutorial
- you would rather not deal with other people
- you are here for great graphics and 3D
- spreadsheets frighten you (EVE Online, for instance)
- you want to buy an advantage with money
No hard feelings. The game is niche, and this page has to filter people out as much as it draws them in.
The universe starts only once
Leave your email — we send one letter when the world opens, and nothing else. Questions and answers are on the front page.