Prospectors (Part Three) ~ All You Need to Know About Games

Work & Energy

In Prospectors, you can order your worker to do work in two ways.

The first way is to manually send your worker to the plot, where the job is, then order him to perform the task after having reached there. However, this method of working is highly discouraged (in my opinion) due to the fact that it adds in an additional uncertainty, i.e. there may not necessarily be any opening/job left by the time your worker reaches the plot.

Not to mention that you will need to log into the game for a second time, after your worker reaches the plot, in order to then make him perform the job.

The only time you will be forced to use this method is when the job your performing is very far away (from the worker) or when your trying to mine resources at a "free" plot of land.

The second way is to combine the two orders, to move to a plot and to perform the job, all into one command that you give (to the worker) at the very start of the movement. This makes your worker move to the plot (in question) and then perform the job (automatically) once he reaches there, all the while ensuring that the opening/job will still be there for your worker (by the time he reaches there).

What you've done here is to reserve the opening/job specifically for your worker, so that no one else can snatch it away from you.

However, this method of ordering your worker will only be available if the job you wish to perform is within 2 hours of travelling distance away from the worker (will be more if your using some speed boost like mug of coffee, horse or donkey).

The easiest way to find jobs which fulfill this criteria is to click on the portrait of the worker and use the "Find a Job" button.

Energy is required and used when your worker performs a job/task. It is measured in minutes and every 1 unit of energy allows your worker to perform an equivalent of 1 minute of work in the game.

Usually, your worker will only be allowed to do work that is equal to the amount of energy that he has left (in his energy pool). However, in certain cases (like when doing transport jobs), you can be allowed to ignore or even go over this limitation.

When this happens, the game will simply deduct whatever energy that your worker has in his energy pool and let the job go through as per normal.

Depending on your account's status, the maximum amount of energy that your workers can accumulate in their energy pools and the rate at which the energy recovers varies.

At the start of the game, your workers will each only have a maximum energy pool of 60 minutes. By spending some in-game gold to buy a one-time only "certificate", you will be able to permanently increase this pool to 300 minutes each (for all the three workers). If you are willing to spend money to go premium, you will be able to boost this pool to 420 minutes.

As a non-premium customer, regardless of whether you've bought the "certificate" or not, your workers will only recover their energy at a rate of 2 units of energy per 1 minute of time spent resting (not ordering your worker to do anything). For a premium customer, the recovery rate is boosted to an amazing 420 units of energy recovered per 1 minute of resting.

The only way for a non-premium to somewhat match this insane recovery speed is to utilize the "Energy Buying" function that the game has provided. It allows you to fully recover your worker's energy (without any waiting) by spending some in-game gold.

You can get to this function by clicking on the "lightning" icon found beside the energy bar (as shown in the "Energy Buying" picture above).

University

Found at the plot (00/-01), the University is where you will need to send your workers to in order for them to be able to perform jobs which requires certain qualifications.

Depending on the course of study, they will need to pay a certain amount of in-game gold (as learning fees) and be locked up (unable to perform any other task) for a certain amount of time period.

In general, the more variety of items that your worker can make (after completing the course), the more expensive and time consuming it will be (to learn).

Although the amount of study time needed is fixed (1 day, 3 days or 4 days), the learning fees of the courses fluctuates. So if you aren't in any hurry, you might consider waiting for it to become cheaper before sending your workers there. Of course, there's no guarantee that it will be cheaper if you do wait.

Banks

The whole point of Prospectors, in my opinion, revolves around the mining of gold. No, not the in-game gold, but rather, its raw and unprocessed form. This is in turn then held up by an entire ecology of industries that supports and improves upon the efficiency of its extraction. But since I've digressed, I shall leave it at that.

Anyway, in order to convert this raw form of gold to the in-game one which you typically use to pay for your materials, tools, salary and rent, you will need to engage the services of a "Bank". This can be done by ordering your workers to carry the unprocessed gold to the bank to convert it.

The bank will naturally be charging you a percentage of it as a processing fee of course, but this percentage can vary depending on the owner of the bank and what rate they've decided to set it as.

Owner and rate you say??

Yup. As a player, you are given the ability to build your own bank if you so wish to. However, you will need to jump through a couple of hoops first.

Obtain a Bank License

Before you are allowed to build your bank, you will need to acquire the approval from the Central Bank (-01/00) of Prospectors. This approval comes in the form of a "Bank License" that you will need to purchase by coughing up 10 million in-game gold upfront. The good news though, is that this upfront fee that you've paid is refundable. You can sell the license back to the Central Bank should you decide to shutter your joint.
Own a Plot of Land
This part ought to be elementary right? Your bank HAS to be built upon some plot of land. And it cannot be a "free" plot...unless you want someone to snatch away what you've built by renting up the plot.
Not sure if the game allows that to happen of course, but just in case.
Basically, having to own a plot would also mean that you will need to take into consideration a permanent rental cost of about 150k in-game gold, monthly.

You can either set your processing fee low enough and pray that you will entice sufficient people (to your bank) to cover for this upkeep, or have some other forms of income as a complement/backup (if you don't manage to).
Have the Necessary Materials

The final step in all of this, is to procure all of the necessary materials and tools that you will need in order to build the bank. You don't need to have all of them ready right from the get-go, but you will at least need to make sure that you have those that are necessary for the immediate stage (in progress).
All three stages have to be completed before you can get your bank up and running.
You can ignore the tools requirements if you plan on hiring other players to help construct the bank. They will be the ones who will need to prepare those tools instead. However, as they will want you to bear the cost of those tools, you might probably have to factor it into their work salary or else no one will likely take up your job order.