The Economy
The economy is the foundation of AT1AS: a spatial, Δv-driven market where goods exist at a physical place and moving them costs fuel, time, and risk. The whole system runs on one idea — Δv and time are the true currency; Credits are a proxy for how hard it is to move mass to where it's wanted.
Philosophy: player-driven with guardrails. Real money buys time, cosmetics, and liquidity — never exclusive power. All prices below are anchor values in Credits at an Earth reference market; real prices float per station and over time.
Vision & pillars
AT1AS simulates real orbital mechanics with fuel/Δv accounting (Hohmann launch windows, ballistic vs torch transfers). That orbital engine is what the economy is built on.
- Spatial / physical — goods exist at a place (a coordinate). Moving them costs fuel + time + risk. Price gradients between Earth, Mars, the Belt and the outer system are transport cost. This makes hauling, trading, and piracy real.
- Player-driven, faucet/sink-balanced — most value circulates player→player; controlled faucets add value, sinks remove it, so the money supply stays sane.
- Every archetype earns a living — the 30 archetypes map 1:1 onto economic roles.
- Guardrails — full loss exists but is softened (insurance, partial drops, safe hangars, security zones). Solo and new players are never hard-walled.
- Fair monetization — a dual-currency model (Credits earned, Tokens bought with real money) where cash converts to in-game wealth only through the player market, so paying funds the economy without buying power.
Currencies & the real-money model
Credits (₡) — the working currency
Earned in-game (mining, trade, bounties, manufacturing). Used for everything: goods, fuel, fees, ships. Player→player by default. Created by faucets, destroyed by sinks.
Tokens (⬡) — premium currency
Bought with real money. Modeled on EVE's PLEX so it stays fair:
Real $ ──buy──► ⬡ Token ──sell on market──► ₡ Credits (time-rich player gets ₡)
│
└──redeem──► premium time / cosmetics / convenience (token destroyed)
- A paying player converts cash → Tokens → Credits (or redeems perks).
- A non-paying but active player earns Credits → buys Tokens off the market → redeems perks. Real money flows to time-rich players; the studio sells Tokens. Everyone benefits from the Credit liquidity that whales inject.
- Tokens are company-created, player-destroyed on redemption — that redemption is the premium-currency sink that controls supply.
- The Token↔Credit price floats on a player order book, with an optional soft anchor.
What Tokens may buy (the anti-pay-to-win line)
Allowed (time / cosmetic / convenience / liquidity):
- Premium account time / "captain's club" status.
- Cosmetic ship skins and emblems.
- Extra character slots, hangar space, market-order slots, contract slots.
- Name / call-sign changes, faster skill-training unlock (not stat boosts).
- Selling Tokens for Credits (the liquidity bridge).
Forbidden (would be pay-to-win):
- Buying raw combat power, exclusive hulls/modules, better stats, or resources that can't be earned in-game. If money can win a fight you didn't out-play, it's out.
Resources & pricing
Tracked per tonne (t) of cargo; mass matters because fuel cost is proportional to mass. Vol = price volatility band.
T0 — Raw (mined)
| Resource | Source region | ₡/t (Earth) | Vol | Refines into |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iron Ore | Belt (S/M-type) | 40 | ±20% | Structural Steel |
| Nickel Ore | Belt (M-type) | 70 | ±20% | Structural Steel |
| Silicate Ore | Belt (S-type) | 30 | ±15% | Electronics Silicon |
| Carbonaceous Ore | Belt (C-type) | 25 | ±25% | Polymers, volatiles |
| Platinum-group Ore | Belt (rare M-type) | 1,200 | ±40% | PGM |
| Rare/Heavy Metal Ore | Mercury, inner | 900 | ±35% | Refined Rare Metals |
| Water Ice | Kuiper, comets, C-type | 20 | ±30% | Water, Remass |
| Volatile Ices (CH₄/NH₃/N₂) | Outer system | 35 | ±30% | Life support, Remass |
| Helium-3 gas | Gas-giant atmospheres | ₡9,000 / kg | ±50% | Fusion Fuel |
| Hydrogen | Gas giants, water-split | 50 | ±25% | Remass, process gas |
He-3 is priced per kilogram — it is energy-dense and scarce. Everything else is bulk tonnage.
T1 — Refined
| Good | From | ₡/t (Earth) | Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Structural Steel | Iron + Nickel | 180 | hull plating, stations |
| Electronics Silicon | Silicate | 260 | avionics, electronics |
| Platinum-group Metals (PGM) | PGM ore | 4,500 | reactors, electronics |
| Refined Rare Metals | rare ore | 3,200 | reactor cores, drives |
| Polymers / Composites | carbonaceous | 240 | structure, life support |
| Water (potable/process) | ice | 60 | life support, remass feed |
| Reaction Mass (Remass) | water/volatiles | 90 | propellant |
| Fusion Fuel (He-3/D) | He-3 | ₡8,000 / kg | torchship energy |
| Life-Support Consumables | water + volatiles | 120 | crew upkeep (a soft sink) |
T2 — Components (per unit)
| Component | Built from | ₡/unit |
|---|---|---|
| Hull Plating | Steel | 800 |
| Thruster Assembly | Steel + Rare Metals | 6,000 |
| Reactor Core | PGM + Rare Metals | 45,000 |
| Avionics / Electronics | Silicon + PGM | 9,000 |
| Life-Support Unit | Polymers + Steel | 5,500 |
| Fuel Tankage | Steel + Composites | 3,000 |
T3 — Ships, modules, stations
Assembled from T2 components plus blueprints. Indicative hulls: shuttle ~₡250k · light hauler ~₡2–5M · gunship ~₡8–15M · capital freighter / warship far higher. Modules (turrets, drives, scanners) and player stations are the top of the pyramid and the biggest credit sinks.
Fuel & Δv economics (the heartbeat)
Two drive regimes exist in the sim:
- Ballistic / chemical-ish (Hohmann) — low Δv, burns mostly Remass. Cheap, slow, window-locked. The freighter's life.
- Fusion torch (brachistochrone) — high Δv, burns Fusion Fuel for energy plus Remass as propellant. Fast, window-free, expensive. The premium-freight and warship life.
Propellant follows the rocket equation: to change velocity by Δv a ship of dry mass m_dry and exhaust velocity v_e throws away
m_prop = m_dry · ( e^(Δv / v_e) − 1 )
Worked example — a 1,000 t hauler, Mars→Earth, Δv ≈ 5 km/s, remass drive v_e ≈ 30 km/s: m_prop = 1000·(e^(5/30) − 1) ≈ 181 t of Remass → ~₡16,300 in fuel for the trip. A torchship doing a fast brachistochrone might need hundreds of km/s of Δv, making Fusion Fuel the gating cost — that's why torch freight charges a premium.
Fuel is cheap at the source (outer-system ice, gas-giant He-3) and dear at inner markets after transport — creating the fuel-depot economy: control the depots near transfer nodes and you tax all trade.
Activities — how you make money
| Activity | Loop | Faucet/flow |
|---|---|---|
| Mine | extract ore/ice/gas → sell raw or refine | material faucet (labor) |
| Refine / Manufacture | raw → refined → components → ships | value-add, P2P |
| Haul / Trade | buy low @ A → move → sell high @ B; courier contracts | arbitrage, P2P |
| Pirate | hunt ships → destroy → scoop dropped cargo / ransom | redistribution + loss-sink |
| Steal | cargo-scoop from wrecks/jettisoned cans; boarding | redistribution |
| Bounty hunt / Kill | kill flagged criminals or NPC pirates for bounties | credit faucet (controlled) |
| Salvage | wreck-dive destroyed hulls for components | material faucet |
| Services | refuel/repair depots, escort, medical, info-brokering, market-making | P2P fees |
Piracy, theft, and killing move wealth and destroy ships (the big sink) rather than minting it.
Markets & price formation
- Per-station order books (buy/sell orders) — prices are local because goods are physically located.
- Spatial arbitrage — the gradient between two stations ≈
Δv·mass + time + risk. Traders and haulers profit on the spread; that spread is the transport market. - Launch-window cyclicity — cheap Hohmann routes open periodically → predictable boom/bust → speculation; torchships sell "beat-the-window" freight.
- Contracts — courier (haul X A→B, fee + collateral), supply, escort, bounty. Turns logistics into jobs and creates interdependence (miner hires hauler hires escort).
- Dynamic pricing — station prices drift toward local supply/demand; NPC market-makers anchor them early and fade as players take over.
Faucets & sinks (the balance ledger)
The economy is controlled inflation: keep the faucet rate ≈ the sink rate.
| Faucets (value in) | Sinks (value out) |
|---|---|
| Mining / refining / salvage (materials) | Fuel burn (Remass/Fusion) — recurring |
| NPC pirate bounties (credits) | Ship & module loss on destruction — the big one |
| Mission / contract rewards | Station fees: docking, broker, sales tax, job fees, rent |
| Modest NPC buy-orders for raw goods | Insurance (premiums > payouts, net) |
| Insurance hull payout (partial) | Life-support consumables, module decay |
| Studio-minted Tokens (premium) | Token redemption (premium-currency sink) |
Bias: lean on material faucets (mining = labor) plus small credit faucets; let fuel, fees, and losses drain credits. Every faucet has a rate cap and every sink a floor so neither runs away.
Loss, risk & security
- On destruction: the hull plus fitted modules roll a drop chance (~50% of cargo drops as a lootable container; modules partial). The killer scoops what drops; the rest is destroyed (sink).
- Insurance: pay premiums (sink) → on loss, refund a fraction of hull value in Credits (small faucet). Net negative by design.
- Clones, not permadeath: you respawn at a station; only what you fly is at risk — assets in station hangars are always safe. This is the core guardrail.
- Security zones (mapped onto geography, so risk rises with Δv/reward):
- High-sec (Earth/Mars vicinity): NPC response, aggression punished, safest, thinnest margins.
- Low-sec (Belt): limited response, piracy viable, better yields.
- Null/lawless (outer system, Kuiper/Oort): no response, richest resources (ice, He-3, PGM), highest risk.
- Ransom & flags: pirates can demand a Credit ransom before the kill; aggressors get a criminal flag enabling lawful bounty hunting.
Archetype → economic role
| Role | Archetypes |
|---|---|
| Extraction | belt-prospector, wreck-diver |
| Refine / build | grease-monkey, researcher, augmented, swarm-handler |
| Logistics | void-hauler, free-trader, ace-pilot (express freight) |
| Markets / finance | fixer, dockmaster, corp-exec, cardsharp |
| Predation (loss-sink) | corsair, bounty-hunter, sellsword, whisper, ghost |
| Smuggling (tariff arbitrage) | smuggler, grifter |
| Services / soft power | ships-surgeon, envoy, colonial-governor, homesteader, starborn-zealot |
NPC economy & cold-start
Empty markets kill new economies, so the world bootstraps with NPCs that then fade:
- NPC market-makers seed each station with buy/sell anchor orders so a solo player always has a counterparty; their weight shrinks as real volume grows.
- NPC agents (miners and haulers that actually move goods, plus pirates that create the loss-sink) make the world breathe without players.
Progression & monetization
- In-game progression is horizontal (EVE-style): wealth → bigger cargo / more Δv / better-fit ships → reach farther, richer, riskier markets. Not levels.
- Monetization is all via Tokens and all fair: premium time, cosmetic skins, convenience slots. Power is always earnable in-game.
Resolved design decisions
- Currency: a single universal Credit (₡). Factions affect taxes/tariffs/standings, not the money itself.
- Loss severity (tunable defaults): clones, not permadeath; respawn free at home station; only what you fly is at risk. On destruction ~50% of cargo drops as a lootable wreck, ~30% of modules salvageable; insurance refunds ~40% of hull value, premium ~5% of hull per period → net sink.
- Skills: hybrid, time-trained-leaning (EVE-style), progresses offline. A training queue advances in real time; archetypes give starting bonuses and training-speed modifiers. Tokens may buy queue slots / a one-time respec — never instant levels or stat boosts.
- Stations: NPC-only in v1. Player-built structures are a later phase.
- Token price: free-floating with a studio buy-back band to dampen extreme volatility.