Crafting Part I— Surveying
How to discover material deposits and prepare your NFTs for resource generation in our next expansion!
Surveying is the first stage of Project Nebula's crafting system that introduces multiple new mechanics into the game allowing players to start preparing their planets for the extraction of materials. This article will reveal a few entirely new concepts in Project Nebula such as material deposits on planets and Mercantile Ships, but most importantly it will explain the process of getting your NFTs to generate valuable resources to fully participate and engage with crafting in Project Nebula.
Deposits & Materials
There will be a total of 24 different materials that players can extract from their planets. While not the only materials to exist in the game, these 24 planetary materials will establish the backbone of Project Nebula's crafting economy and they come in four rarity categories:
Abundant — 4 material types
Common — 8 material types
Uncommon — 8 material types
Rare — 4 material types
Materials can be found in deposits that are a completely new feature to our planet NFTs. Each planet has multiple layers, each of which contains multiple deposits. These deposits define what type of materials and in what capacity can be produced from that planet, with every new layer increasing the costs and difficulty of extracting materials.
Deposits exist in 3 sizes (small, medium and large) and every layer of each planet is bound to have at least one deposit of each size category. Additionally, each planet has a chance of containing up to three extra deposits. Each extra deposit slot is tied to the deposit size, meaning that if your planet has three extra deposits, one of them is large, one of them is medium and one of them is small. The chance of these extra deposits appearing is in correlation with the rarity of the planet NFT.
Each deposit category has its own probability distribution of how rare a material it will contain (the smaller the deposit, the higher the likelihood that it contains a rarer material).
The likelihood of any specific material appearing in a deposit is dependent on planet types. Although every planet has a chance to contain any material, they are heavily skewed (80/20%) towards containing planet-specific materials.
Discovery & Preparation
Discovering the deposits available to you and preparing them for extraction are the two main activities of the surveying stage and they are carried out by using discovery and preparation probes.
All of the material deposits on planets remain hidden from players until they are revealed through the use of discovery probes. Discovery probes are player-built NFTs that can identify available material deposits - one discovery probe fully identifies a single material deposit on a planet.
Once a deposit has been identified, the next step is to prepare it for extraction which can be accomplished with preparation probes. Preparation probes are player-built NFTs that “ready” a portion of a material in a deposit for extraction. Unlike discovery probes, players will need to use multiple preparation probes on a single deposit to prepare it to full capacity, but material production may begin before the whole deposit is prepared.
Surveying will introduce 6 unique discovery probes and 16 unique preparation probes, as well as new planetary upgrades called Workshops that are required for crafting these probes.
The first tier of probes are built exclusively from components that can be purchased for Credits from traveling Mercantile Ships. Those components are then combined and crafted into working probes in workshops for Industry points. Mercantile Ships are new dynamic map objects that carry a limited, randomized stock of components.
We haven’t forgotten about research either! A total of 21 new research options will be introduced with the Surveying expansion, allowing players to branch out and specialize either into crafting specific probe types or sourcing the components needed to craft them.
TL:DR Summary
- The backbone of Project Nebula's crafting system will revolve around 24 planetary materials
- These materials are divided into 4 rarity categories
- Players will be able to extract these materials from deposits on their planets
- The kinds of deposits that spawn on a planet will depend on the planets rarity and type
- Deposits will be discovered using discovery probes and prepared for extraction using a succession of preparation probes
- Components to construct these probes will be acquired from Mercantile Ships
- These new Mercantile Ships will carry a random, limited selection of items, purchasable with Credits
Surveying is the first part of Project Nebula’s crafting system and it's set to be released in May, 2022. Join the wait and meet our community in Discord!
