Ever wanted to own a rock in space? Well now is your chance! Influence is bringing the space MMO genre to the blockchain. On September 12th at 7am PT, their second open sale begins. Over 9,000 asteroids are available for this sale, and each one comes with a specialist crewmember! Prices are in ETH and start at 0.0237 (~$85 USD at the time this was written).
Asteroids are priced based on size. And for those with really deep pockets, the largest asteroid sizes, Huge, can be purchased for 55k+ USD! Huge asteroids are very limited in number and sales are done directly with the team. Contact them in you are interested. This window of opportunity for acquiring the biggest and most valuable asteroids closes once the public sale starts.
What is Influence?
Influence is a space-based MMO set in a distant solar system, called Adalia, where a colony ship from Earth has just arrived. Unfortunately, there are no habitable planets to colonize! Instead, the colonists must cannibalize their colony ship and work together to create a new society in a large asteroid belt. Among the tangle of rocks and chunks of ice, fortunes will be won or lost.
Though there will be a free to play option, anyone who is serious about the game will want a piece of valuable real estate. The first step involves purchasing development rights to an asteroid. Selecting an asteroid to purchase is almost a game in of itself! First of all, the asteroids vary in size by quite a bit. If you want to build any sort of base or port or major manufacturing facility, you’ll probably need a larger asteroid. After size comes spectral type. There are four basic types, carbonaceous, stony, icy, and metallic. And then there are many that are some combination of the above. Each type will have important resources that will be needed in the game.
Once you’ve decided on a size and spectral type that interests you, the next decision is location, location, location! Do you want to be in the midst of the belt? Or perhaps an isolated locale would be preferable? Take a look at the chart below (x-axis represents distance from the sun) and you’ll see that some asteroid types, such as icy, are much less common the closer in you get. To find the best icy asteroids, players will have to venture to the outskirts of the belt system. But out there, finding stone and metals becomes a more difficult task!
You can read more about spectral types on the wiki — https://wiki.influenceth.io/en/gameplay/spectral-types
In addition to location, each asteroid also has a unique orbit that it follows. They each have an orbital period (time it takes to make one loop around the sun), and an inclination (how far off from ‘flat’ the orbit is). An asteroid with a high degree of inclination might be in a middle orbit range, but still find itself far away from the rest of the belt most of the time.
And that will have a gameplay impact. Since the asteroids don’t just sit in static positions, the fuel costs to move from one to another are constantly changing. Players might find that timing their travels is one of the most important aspects of Influence. Just the act of moving resources around the game will require calculation and planning to be cost-effective. This realistic simulation of logistics playing a significant role in the economy is one of the features that makes me excited for Influence!
Crew
In addition to acquiring a valuable piece of real estate, everyone who purchases an asteroid during this sale will also receive a crew member! These crew members are citizens from the Arvad (the colony ship). Only 11,000 Arvad crewmembers will ever be minted. 1,859 are flagged as ‘Specialists’ and are minted from the asteroids purchased during the first sale. The remaining crew, minted from this upcoming sale, will be flagged as ‘Citizens’. Each crew member will have a special skill that gives them some sort of in-game bonus.
Once the game launches, players will be able to use up to 5 crewmembers. Crew members level up , gain experience, and are represented as NFTs that can be bought, sold, and traded.
Plan your purchases
There is already a 3D game map available. And though the interface can feel a little clunky at times, it has a wide selection of filters to help you find just the right asteroid. You can highlight asteroids in different colors, and add ones of interest to a watchlist.
Since this sale is on the ETH network (devs are working on migrating to Polygon, but that functionality isn't ready yet), each purchase will require a gas fee, so be prepared! As far as I know, there is no way to bundle multiple asteroids into one purchase.
Once you own an asteroid, there are two other function calls you can make (each costing gas unfortunately). The first is a scan. This will reveal details about your asteroid, including any bonuses that it may have. Bonuses increase mining yield. The second transaction will be to mint your crew member. Once minted, the crew member can be sold separately from the asteroid.
But if you want to save on gas fees and don’t plan on selling anytime soon, you can wait on both of those secondary transactions until after the migration to Polygon, where fees will be much, much lower!
If this is your first time hearing of Influence, or this article has piqued your interest in owning a piece of the game, consider visiting with my referral link. I’ll let you spend the night on one of my asteroids with the best views!
