Greetings, Spacefarers!
It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these, but we’re back, and happy to bring you another treasure trove of questions and answers from our Discord. It’s a beefy one, 12 pages of Q&A goodness!
Q: Ospjp4 (UNK) — 06/30/2022
When is there supposed to be a playable alpha??
A: dapperdon — 06/30/2022
Our focus is to get an Alpha going late this year to allow folks to start earning with full commercial launch, marketing push, etc early 23.
Q: butaneko24 — 07/01/2022
P2E is in 2023?
A: dapperdon — 07/01/2022
It’s a balancing act. We want to release when the game is good and ready, when it’s feature complete and has the best chance at being successful. Deep progression, tight economics and it almost goes without saying, heaps of fun.
So the devs are working on a plan so that we can get the dust flowing even before full commercial launch, which has the added benefit of seeding the economy and reducing thrash when we’re in live-ops mode.
And now, more than ever before, we have to be cognizant of what’s happening in the space and make sure we’re putting protections in place economically to protect our earliest adopters.
Q: Xeta — 07/01/2022
Will the unsold claims be eventually for sale for dust only? As in people can play or buy enough dust to buy into a claim? Noticed there’s about 2/3 of the embers legendary and epic claims that aren’t sold yet
A: dapperdon — 07/01/2022
Dust only? That I’m not sure about. I’ll ask around.
Q: butaneko24 — 07/01/2022
Celestial claim What are the advantages of remaining an owner?
If P2E starts in 2023 or even earlier, people might consider stopping being owners once and for all.
Since the game was originally scheduled to start in Q2 of this year, can’t you give out DUST based on the length of ownership going forward?
For example, you could promise to give out half of the DUST that we would have originally gotten in the game, depending on how long we hold it until the game starts…
Please think of some relief for those who believe in you guys for a long time and hold CLAIM.
A: dapperdon — 07/01/2022
That’s exactly what the dev team is talking about, how to make sure we are taking care of Celestial Claim owners before commercial launch. There’s talk about staking, and a number of different avenues but I would be talking out of turn since the plans are still in motion. (edited)
Q: Kevinator — 07/01/2022
Will the ship skins provide utility or increased earning in the game? Does anyone know?
A: Ships skins will be cosmetic only. No increased utility planned right now.
Q: Xeta — 07/04/2022
I’ve got a few questions - if in a guild will the FOW be gone like in AOE when playing teams (seeing your team’s units and their LOS) - including celestial object discovery information?
The epic claim has 5 mines that can generate 2 resource types - does that mean each does generate two, or youll get a combination of say 2 of one and 3 of the other resource on this? Thinking about how this works, like for legendary would that be 7 mines that youd be able to do 2x of each resource plus 1 more of one of the other 3? Would this be a differentiating factor that we’d know when probing, or can we configure this ratio ourselves later? (and even make it heavy on one resource for example, such as an epic only focusing 1 resource heavily)
Is there any differences of the travel time between the 3 claim regions / the house space / core space - or is it all fairly equidistant
A: HF Artemis, Queen of Leeks — 07/05/2022
First one, FOW will not be gone, unless you have a fleet or claim on location there. At this time, it doesn’t apply to guilds, everyone has to explore for themselves
Second one, depending on quality, you’ll get 1, 2 or 3 resources mineable on a claim. It isn’t for example, have 3 claims, so you get x resource for all of those. You see the resources available there when you probe it, and you can choose whether or not to take that as one of your claims. If you hold multiple, it’s in your best interests to choose ones with varied resources to be able to have easy access to all of the types
Resources can’t be altered, they are what they are for each claim, so you can’t change up what’s mined where
it’s something you want to be aware of when picking your planets
Q: Xeta — 07/05/2022
Got it, so people can choose which resource is mined - i.e. on a legendary does it have about an equal distro of all 3 resources - or do they slightly vary between the types of celestial objects/stars for legendary (where theres more of 1 of the 3 resource types) - where as an epic would be picking which two of the 3 resources or for uncommons/rares which 1 resource type you get
A: HF_Shadow — 07/05/2022
to be a bit more specific, the owner can choose what they want each mine to collect. So if you have a legendary you could have all of your mines collecting Ore if you wanted to. Every lease in each mine would then be collecting Ore. Each time you refresh one of your mines (for a maintenance and repair fee) you can change the resource that is collected, as long as it’s one that the overall Celestial supports
Q: Xeta — 07/05/2022
That does! What are the 3 resources? so that means the 7 mines would be able to be 2/2/3 for resources on a legendary then? or 2/3 for an epic for it’s 5
A: HF_Shadow — 07/05/2022
correct
Q: Xeta — 07/05/2022
so then all legendary claims will be somewhat equal in terms of resource options/production qtys - but you can determine which you’d like to have a priority on - or is it where this one type has a higher rate on ore than others - I am assuming Epics will be different combos of 2 of the 3 resources then a variety for rares/uncommons - will all rare/uncommon ore planets have the level of output across the board, with mostly aesthetic differences? (edited)
A: HF_Shadow — 07/05/2022
currently the differences between legendaries is mostly location and aesthetics. the outputs of the resources are equal at each rarity. The choice differentials will come into play based on who is investing the most into their claim to level/tier it up.
Q: Spooky | BTB | WillNotDMFirst — 07/08/2022
wen ship release?
A: dapperdon — 07/08/2022
We want to do the Flagship and Paragon release but we wanted to make sure that this sale has a load of info around what they can do and how it ties into the economy before we pull trigger.
Q: Xeta — 07/08/2022
how will different tiers of nfts impact this (ship stats)
A: dapperdon — 07/08/2022
There’s more detail than this but the basics, each quality tier of Flagship has a higher floor and ceiling of stats then the one before it and much better than non-NFT Capital ships.
Q: Xeta — 07/08/2022
can non nft capital ships have equivalent stats at endgame comparable to the nft ones - how many of these ships can someone have/use at once
A: Technically, yes but it would be very expensive and nearly impossible to do, since the cost and chance to reroll all of your stats on your capital ships to be within striking distance of the NFT variants will make things very difficult on that end. An absolutely min-maxed quality capital ship would only be about as good as a bottom third NFT Flag Ship of the same rarity and tier. Some elements (like perks/bonuses) of the Flag Ships are also specific to the NFT version, so the NFT would still have a leg up. Second question, we’re looking at 12 being the max right now, but we may increase that for Celestial Object owners so they can park ships at each claim.
Q: Xeta — 07/08/2022
would you have 1:1 per claim ideally of these or how many would the player use
A: dapperdon — 07/08/2022
Each player can unlock up to 12 fleets (based off homebase progression) so you could have 12 Flagships operating at end game.
Q: Xeta — 07/08/2022
could you have 12 of your own ships mining your own claim at that point
A: dapperdon — 07/08/2022
Absolutely
Q: SynysterGryn — 07/08/2022
Free to play options?
Openin’ the floor to errybody?
A: HF Artemis, Queen of Leeks — 07/08/2022
it will be free to play, yes
we’re being very intentional about building in a pathway to ownership for our free players, and making sure everyone can participate in the game
Q: SynysterGryn — 07/08/2022
Grind for ownership?
A: Yes, that’s the idea. Players should be able to grind to earn Dust and eventually spend that Dust to become owners in the future.
Q: Voldrid — 07/08/2022
Can claim owners also grind to this ownership? Or just free to players?
A: The “grind” is the same for everyone. Everyone is trying to earn more Dust to then spend in the in-game economy, or use to sell on the open market. There isn’t a separated free to play only path, the idea is for free to play players to become earners, and then use the Dust they earn to become owners.
Q: TheZorroGALA — 07/08/2022
How vast is the galaxy of Echoes of Empire?
A: Currently we’re looking at 4 million map squares all told. So… pretty vast.
Q: Xeta — 07/08/2022
how would the earned claims compare to the nft claims - would earning a claim be buying a nft
A: There is no separate “earn a claim” system. When we talk about the path to ownership, we’re talking about players earning and saving enough Dust such that they can then go and buy an NFT from someone else who is selling it on the open market.
Q: Spooky | BTB | WillNotDMFirst — 07/08/2022
how long will it take to go from one side of the map to the other???
A: Undetermined currently. Any answer I gave you now wouldn’t be helpful anyway, as that is something that is going to change internally quite a bit until we’re sure we’ve got the tuning and balancing correct.
Q: Xeta — 07/08/2022
can these non nft claims be attacked and lost
A: We’re looking into how non-NFT points of interest will work right now, which is what I think you’re referring to with this question. The short answer is, yes. Any non-NFT point of interest is not intended to be holdable in perpetuity, so if there is a system in which you can act as a de facto owner, we would make it pretty easy to kick folks off via combat.
Q: cool — 07/08/2022
Are there any stealth ships or cloak devices?
A: Maybe 
It’s a secret 
Q: SynysterGryn — 07/08/2022
Cool, then is Dust incredibly scarce or highly useful/expendable in some way that creates scarcity of Dust? What might we be using Dust for?
A: dapperdon — 07/08/2022
DUST > Writs that can be used in all facets of progression, travel, etc. We’ll do a deeper dive when we do the tokenomics AMA.
Q: illminded — 07/08/2022
How big can you build your fleet is it unlimited
A: dapperdon — 07/08/2022
Multiple probes, 12 fleets with stacks of support ships as well as gear for the ship as well as Heroes to man them.
Q: illminded — 07/08/2022
When moving through the map how long would it take you to get to other areas say for instance you have claims in different places will you be able to get there fast enough to defend
A: TBD via tuning and balancing. That being said, if you’re all the way in a different cluster, I would not expect to be able to get to your claims fast enough to defend yourself from attacks. You should think about it relationally, instead of in absolute terms. If there are attackers who are positioned 50 squares away from your claim, and they move in for an attack, and you’re 50,000 squares away, even the fastest travel methods are probably not gonna get you there in time.
Q: Xeta — 07/08/2022
for the in game claims that can be purchased how many will there be - say there are 100 legendary nft claims in embers - how many ‘legendary’ non nft claims will there be in addition to these
A: Not sure yet. We want to make sure that the map has plenty of space for player growth, and for claim selection to be an important strategic decision. Similarly, we wouldn’t want it to be possible for some sort of coordinated effort to brigade all the legendaries in a given area, and then subsequently do nothing with them, such that no players can engage with them. So it’s important that there are more “claimable” objects than there are claims.
Q: Spooky | BTB | WillNotDMFirst — 07/08/2022
so no seasons in EOE its perma?
A: dapperdon — 07/08/2022
We will have events and leaderboards to scratch that itch.
Q: IcePickle — 07/08/2022
Can we switch capital ship classes if we find that our current one isn’t working out very well?
A: You can salvage a capital ship for parts and resources towards crafting a different capital ship if you’re looking for a different class. Capital ship crafting is random, so expect that you’re going to get non-ideal class choices somewhat frequently. NFT Flag ships are the only way to guarantee class and rarity.
Q: Dorbs84 (Pak) — 07/08/2022
How will you balance new users that enter later with older players with upgrade ships. Ie will it be disheartening for new players to get annihilated by older players?
A: HF Artemis, Queen of Leeks — 07/08/2022
House Space will always be a safe place for entry level players to come in and learn, advance, and get into a position to venture out
Q: glockjs — 07/08/2022
any systems in place to slow down a snowballing guild/player?
A: dapperdon — 07/08/2022
There is great incentive for guilds to move into the Core, which will massively drain basic resources to gain Guild Resources.
Q: Renderdog — 07/08/2022
When the game starts, where will players begin their journey? Like the center of the map or random?
A: All players begin in house space, it’s a specific zone, and you learn the game there, earn basic resources, etc
Q: Spooky | BTB | WillNotDMFirst — 07/08/2022
will it take dust to travel away from the free zone to another “area”
A: No. There will always be a free method of travel. Leaving house space will be the point at which we highly encourage players to get a wallet address and begin earning, however it doesn’t necessarily become a requirement until a bit further than that.
Q: Spooky | BTB | WillNotDMFirst — 07/08/2022
will one be able to mine from an unclaimed object?
A: HF Artemis, Queen of Leeks — 07/08/2022
Yes, there are tons of objects that aren’t owned that anyone can harvest from
dapperdon — 07/08/2022
At a greatly reduced rate, as it’s undeveloped (unclaimed) think depleted from the House SPace.
Q: codyphan612 — 07/08/2022
is the combat in this game live action or just cgi, random statistics?
A: dapperdon — 07/08/2022
Async combat, in that you will be building fleets, capital ships, heroes and gear + passives, defenses at bases and claims and the game calculates the outcomes and then you can observe how the battle plays out orbiting whatever celestial claim is near where the battle takes place in space.
Q: MrPickles — 07/13/2022
@HF Artemis, Queen of Leeks small question. So the game will be available for pc and mac. However will the first playable version will also be available for MAC owners so they don t end up behind?
A: HF Artemis, Queen of Leeks — 07/15/2022
There will always be new players coming in, so yes, some users will be “ahead” of others, but the game isn’t a race, and doesn’t have a finite end. People will be constantly working to advance and get stronger. As goulven said above, there are technical limitations to simultaneous releases, and it creates issues when trying to stamp out bugs, especially early on. People that are in sooner than others will be playing sooner, but there won’t be a huge advantage to it, it’s just simply the passage of time allowing them to advance. Everyone else that comes along later can also do that in the same way, nothing is gated behind behind being the first in game. Does that make sense?
Q: TricksyHobbit780[GEM] — 07/13/2022
Will the EoE development team be in charge of the tokenomics for Dust? Max supply, earning abilities for NFTs, etc? If so, has the team learned anything from TOWNs tokenomics issues? Will EoE be approaching anything differently as a result? @dapperdon
A: HF_Shadow — 07/13/2022
We work in partnership with Gala on our Tokenomics design. We’re looking at a lot of what has happened elsewhere and are using learnings from wherever we can to tailor our design. We’re putting a lot of focus into making sure we build a thriving economy both from an in-game perspective, but also a macro, out-of-game perspective
dapperdon — 07/13/2022
To piggyback on what Shadow said, EOE’s econ team works very closely with Gala’s and they will be managing these aspects together. And yes, there’s been tons of data and adjustments have been made based off of it. Devs across the WEB3 space are pretty good about sharing numbers.
Q: Voldrid — 7/13/2022
will we be capped at how many ships we can have out/make? and if so, will NFT ships count against this?
A: HF_Shadow — 07/13/2022
we’re still discussing the mechanics of fleet caps. it will likely be something that grows as you progress, but I’m not sure what the minimum number will be yet. probably not 1 though.
the other part that we’re considering, is increasing the max cap for every owned celestial object so that players who own a wide number can at least have 1 fleet at each for defenses.
Q: Voldrid — 07/15/2022
Except for celestial claim owners though right? Cause we’ll have the land rush at the beginning?
A: HF Artemis, Queen of Leeks — 07/15/2022
Yes, but if someone can’t use the available build, or if all platforms aren’t there immediately, that would be beyond our control
Q: Voldrid — 07/15/2022
Will there be any way to relocate a claims location? Say you buy a claim off opensea once the games started, but it’s right in the middle of the old owners claims, can you relocate it to an empty spot?
A: HF_Shadow — 07/15/2022
currently we don’t have plans for relocating. Positions are permanent. There may be a case in which we detach claims from celestial objects, but that would also remove all associated upgrades and progression that took place at the celestial object
Q: Druifje — 07/16/2022
Since people with a higher rarity CO get earlier access at land rush time:
What if some large guild(s) probe all CO’s, claim all the CO’s with the same type of resource and setting the mining of those CO’s to “guild only mining”? Wouldn’t that be bad for the game as a whole?
Have you guys thought about something to prevent individuals/guilds from claiming all CO’s which will give the same resource at level 1? Like a max % or something? (edited)
A: dapperdon — 07/16/2022
I love the theory craft going on in this Discord! The team did in fact discuss guild ownership of large swathes of celestials and you are correct, the algorithm that populates space will evenly distribute both resource nodes (claims & non-claims) across the 4million map squares which would be so stretched out that it would be easy to isolate and attack these “arms”. And even then with a massive % owned by said guild it would only be able to occupy a heft portion of 1 of the 3 zones. The travel time and the cap of 12 fleets per Homebase would be highly problematic in resource defense and mining ship allocation.
Q: Druifje — 07/16/2022
But a player can claim CO’s and don’t use them / let nobody use that claim except for yourself? Not using them means nothing to raid, so nothing to defend. A guild can use their CO’s which are in their neighborhood and will be the only ones that could gather that resource type. (edited)
A: dapperdon — 07/16/2022
You could do that, you could set it up so only you can access it, or your guild. But if they owned and wanted to claim all the legendary celestials, they would be spread across 3 different zones and the travel time and cost would be prohibitive and they would then have to own the rares and uncommons around the legendaries as well to create that “neighborhood”.
If they buy them and don’t log in to participate they don’t generate dust and the distribution would fall to the owners and earners that are active.
So buying the tokens, claiming the celestial and then locking it down so no one can mine it would earn the person zero activity points. The intent is for players to set the taxes, upgrade, defend, etc and the earners will be looking for the active ones to mine so they can also earn dust.
Q: Xeta — 7/16/2022
@dapperdon you referenced Legendary claims having surrounding rares. Is it possible for epics to be located next to legendaries? And for rares to be next to epics?
Also, when the land rush begins and we “probe” space, will we be moving through the fog of war till we find a spot we like? Or will the whole map be revealed for placement?
I ask because I plan on having my 1 epic surrounded with my rares and horde of uncommons.
A: dapperdon — 07/16/2022
While there will be a fair distribution in all 3 zones, so no zone is “better” than another, you can expect to see Ancients at the center of a cluster and then legendary, epic, rare and uncommon radiating out from that center. That being said no 2 “systems” will be exactly alike, there may be 5 rares and 15 uncommons out on the fringe of a cluster. I’ve seen 3 epics and a load of rares grouped together. It varies greatly as long as each cluster has the same amount of each.
And even then interspersed between are non-NFT PVE targets and services so that could influence a decision on where to set up camp. Or how close to the “space lanes” that you want to be. You should have no problem grabbing a system yourself if you have enough claims.
As far as the land rush, @HF_Shadow is working on that with his team. We want it to coincide with galachain because we want to update the ownership aspect on chain so IF you want to sell it a player can see coordinates, the name, the area, etc. That and we need the chain so we can “age NFTs”, that is that Celestial Claim progression needs to update as well so that as you play your claim, build up its capacity, it’s defenses and ultimately its inherent value to another player that may want to purchase it from you.
Q: Voldrid — 07/16/2022
That sounds dope, being able to sell leveled up claims is awesome
What happens to claims that are not claimed?
A: dapperdon — 07/16/2022
Current thinking if I’m not mistaken (I’m COO of Hit Factor and Artemis and Shadow rep ION Games and the dev team and have a better knowledge) Unclaimed celestials, until they are claimed and developed will act as undeveloped claims and will have the resource generation akin to common space junk and will not generate activity points so no DUST either.
Q: @Xeta
How many claims are in a cluster typically
A: dapperdon — 07/16/2022
As I remember it, 2200 per Zone and then that divided into the 4 clusters? Keep in mind that each zone will be even but the layout per zone, per cluster will vary. There may be more rares in one system, within a cluster, within Ember’s Grace then in one system, within a cluster, within Aurora’s Edge. If that makes sense.
Q: butaneko24 — 07/16/2022
I would like to know one thing. Do the resources obtained from unclaimed celestial bodies depend on their rarity?
dapperdon — 07/16/2022
Unclaimed act as undeveloped, which means they all have the same flat rate that you’d find anywhere. It would be like mining a depleted star in House Space. (edited)
Q: Xeta — 07/19/2022
Can non nft ships be damaged beyond repair
A: HF Artemis, Queen of Leeks — 07/19/2022
non nft ones can be destroyed, yes
Q: Voldrid — 07/19/2022
@HF Artemis, Queen of Leeks will there be different rarities to the nft ships? Or all the same?
A: HF Artemis, Queen of Leeks — 07/19/2022
different rarities, I believe, I’ll double check on it
just confirmed it, yes, ships will come in different rarities
Q: goulven — 07/22/2022
I’m wondering something ; what is the “light effect” on the tile under the epic claim ? because it look like light but it’s not symmetrical so i’m wondering if it’s something else
A: HF Artemis, Queen of Leeks — 07/22/2022
nope, it’s just light, because I have fleets sitting at that planet
dapperdon — 07/22/2022
The light is just a light but it also is the radius you can see with the FOW. In some instances it gets very large and depending on what kind of probe or Flagship you have you can see much farther which will let you uncover pirates and such at greater range. Maybe the team should do a blog around FOW since it’s so pivotal in EOE?