The game can be played for free, but spending money on the in-game currency allows significant additional options like purchasing items, skills, deeds/shares, services from other players.
Nearly all of the main in-game activities (such as hunting, crafting items, mining, etc.), require expendable resources (ammunition, probes, guns, finders, extractors), which must be purchased from vending machines (or other players). These items are either expended during each try (ammunition, probes), or they decay with use and will require repairing eventually (ranged and melee weapons, mindforce weapons, mining equipment). Many items are now (L) - meaning they are limited and cannot be repaired causing the player to have to buy another when it is decayed to the extent it can no longer be used.
This decay and expending of consumables encourages people to craft the items other players may need, promoting a thriving market in the items and ingredients needed to craft. However currently it is difficult to craft items (XX% return in TT costs of the ingredients, but a much lower chance of successfully creating an item depending on skills and the Quality Rating of the blueprint).
The three main activities (hunting, crafting and mining) have loot returns which are appear random, but have been confirmed to be influenced by the equipment, skills and activity (mob, blueprint, area), of the avatar. The better matched the skills, equipment and area of the activity, the more likely the player will have a 'success' - determined as either a hit, an evade or dodge, a successful craft or the finding of an ore or enmatter.
Skills are gained from either hitting, being hit, healing (using various healing equipment), crafting or mining.
These skills are extractable and can be sold to other players.
There is no account fee or connection charge. The in-game activities that do not require PED are:
sweating creatures (called mobs),
walking around looking for (and gathering up) fruit/stones/dung on the ground,
socializing.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YACkfMidNeI