All You Need to Know About Games: Prospectors

Railway Station

The railway station is something that was just recently implemented by the game developers. Situated at (-01/-01), this train station allows players to move cargo (materials and tools) in between Yukon and Wild West.

To make use of the system, you must first move the cargo, that you wish to transport, into your storage area on the plot where the railway station is. After having done so, click on the railway station to bring up the "Transfer" window. All of the items that is found in the storage, that can be transferred, will be shown in this window. You can then select the item and click the "Transfer" button to open up the order form.

This is also just about the only place where you can safely put your items in as well as put them up for sale, without needing to own the plot. It is your personal storage area and stuff in it cannot be stolen by others.

Although you can make (technically) an infinite number of transport orders, they must each be of a single type (able to stack together) and meet the weight requirement of at least 10 kg and at most 5000 kg. If you need to transfer multiple, different types of items, you must submit a separate order for each one of them.

Much like how you would migrate PGL in between the two servers, you will also need to enter the target recipient's name on the corresponding chain (for this transfer). However, one additional step is needed, that is you must key in the "Price / Kg" that you're willing to pay in order to transfer the cargo.

As the cargo space of the train is limited and the train only departs twice per day, you will actually have to compete with other players that are also looking to move their stuff between the two servers. And unless you are willing to pay enough for them to prioritize your transfer order (over the others'), your items can literally sit there and gather dust forever.

Prospectors State Shares

Remember I've mentioned previously that the government building at (00/00) had no particular use whatsoever? Well apparently it does now.

Together with the new railway system, which allows players to move goods in between Yukon and Wild West, something called the "Prospectors State Shares" was also concurrently introduced. Players were rewarded with this PSS in return for donating the materials required (for the railway) and for working on the construction of it (for free).

All in the name of "Contributing To A Public Project" (Rofl 😂).

Thankfully, in return for all that "free" work, players owning the PSS would now be entitled to a tiny share of its earnings (about 10%?) that is collected from the fees that other players pay when using the railway system to transfer their cargo. This passive income can then be collected, by the player, at the aforementioned "Government" building daily.

Although how much you get in passive income (from this) will depend on how many players actively uses the railway system (which can be an uncertainty) and how many PSS you presently own, what you can be sure of is there will be many more "Public Projects" to come. And with that, preferably, a more diversified source(s) of income as well as more opportunities to earn/increase the number of shares that you hold.

Additional Need To Knows

As most of the time spent in playing Prospectors is merely clicking here and clicking there, to send your workers out building, mining or repairing stuff, then logging off whilst waiting for their timers to cool, rinse and repeat...blah blah blah...

I find that there shouldn't be any need for me to explain much more of the technicalities of the game. I'ld just be droning on (from that point onwards) and boring you to death.

It is a literal sandbox where there is no storyline/quests whatsoever, so I can't do any covering on that either.

Therefore I shall just leave you to explore the rest of the world yourselves. What I've mentioned thus far should ought to have covered enough for you to gain a foothold and survive.

However, before I end it on this note, there are two minor topics that I absolutely have to cover in order to complete this entire aspect of Prospectors being a cryptogame. So do bear with me just a little bit longer.

Staking, Unstaking and Renting CPU/NET

As you already know, the EOS and Wax cryptos work on the premise of requiring CPU and NET for each and every transaction that occurs on their blockchains. And as each command that you perform in Prospectors requires you to sign off and confirm on that order (via your chosen wallet), the platform actually treats each of them as an individual transaction.

Whenever you order your worker to move somewhere, to equip/take off an item, to transfer something in and out of your storage, all of them are deemed as transactions and will consume some of your account's CPU and NET resources. But thankfully though, considering the way these resources work, you don't actually lose much (if any) EOS or Wax when making them (the transactions).

Just imagine doing this on the present Bitcoin and Ethereum platform. The fees will definitely kill.

Since you are expected to be giving dozens of orders (for your three workers), each time your online and playing the game, unless you have sufficient amounts of them (CPU and NET) or your wallet covers for you on that aspect, you will inevitably run into a situation whereby you do not have enough to properly enjoy the game.

It is at this point where you will need to learn where to go and how to stake, unstake and rent more of these resources (CPU and NET).

Now although some wallets do provide their own way of letting you stake your EOS and WAX for CPU and NET resources, personally, I still like going to an external blockchain explorer like Bloks.io or EOS Authority to do this kind of stuff.

Why? The reason being that the interface of some of these external explorers offer me more control over my crypto account. In addition to that, it also gives me a certain number of CPU-free transactions per day (which is quite useful for times when you are running low on resources).

But anyway, in order for you to do something about your crypto account being low on resources, you must first use your wallet to log into your account at the blockchain explorer website. From there onwards, you can either choose to stake/freeze your own cryptos (EOS/WAX) towards your account and increase your resources in that way or you can spend a tiny amount of it to rent for those needed resources from others instead.

Both of them have their uses, but in short, those who choose to stake typically have "fat wallets" while those who choose to rent are typically low on their budget.

Should you choose to stake, you must first select the "Stake CPU/NET" option, key in the account name of the receiver (of the stake), then choose how much of your liquid balance to stake towards CPU, NET or both and finally hit the "Stake" button to sign and confirm the allocation.

By default, the name of the receiver is usually that of the account you have used to log into the website. Should you choose to enter a different name, your staked cryptos will be used to increase the resources of that account instead. At the same time, a checkbox will also appear that allows you to permanently transfer the cryptos to that account (on top of staking it).

Yes, this means you will lose control of those cryptos in the event that you check this box and sign off on the allocation.

Once staked, you should immediately see an increase in your account's CPU and NET resources. However, should you decide to then unstake them at this point in time, you will have to wait for a period of 3 days before these staked cryptos return to their "liquid", "spendable" form. You can find the option to unstake the cryptos that you are in control of, via the "Unstake" tab (which can be found right beside the "Stake" tab).

As for how much resources you will get for your staked cryptos, that will have to depend on the blockchain platform in question. But using EOS as an example, from what I've sighted off EOS Authority, you can get about 1 ms of CPU resource per 4.1667 EOS staked.

Given that 1 ms is equivalent to 1000 μs, this means that the 1 ms of CPU resource that you've gotten would roughly allow you to perform and sign off about 3 commands in Prospectors (at about 267 μs per command). If the blockchain is congested, it will most likely cost you more in CPU resource which means even lesser commands that you can issue.

These resources will then slowly replenish themselves over time (heard it takes about 3 days for it to drop from 100% back down to 0%), so therefore if you have staked enough to cover for 3 days worth of commands in Prospectors (or if you properly pace yourself), you should likely not need to ever worry about that troublesome thing called "transaction fees".

But even so, assuming that you give on average about 15 commands per day in Prospectors, you are still likely to be looking at staking (at least) 62.50 EOS into just CPU alone. Not to mention that you will also need to put some into NET to get things moving.

And with EOS at a price of about 3.20 USD each, it's a whooping sum of 200 bucks (to be frozen up) just to properly play this game.

Naturally, you are not gonna lose the EOS when all you are doing is just staking them, however since the price of EOS fluctuates, you will still be exposed to some risks nonetheless.

As far as I can tell, most of my issues with transactions not going through are due to having insufficient CPU resources rather than NET and RAM. Therefore, you should only look to increasing your NET and RAM resources as and when you are very close to hitting its limit. Else, its just a waste of your precious cryptos.

Should you choose to rent for your resources (afaik only for EOS since WAX doesn't have such resource issues to require implementing such a renting mechanism yet), you will need to select the "REX" option instead.

From there, select "Borrow CPU/NET", key in the name of the account that will be receiving the rented resources and then the amount (in EOS) that you wish to pay for the rental of the CPU and NET resources. The system will then allocate the resources (that you will get) according to the then prevailing market rate.

The "Auto Renew Fund" should only be used if you desire to automatically renew the lease when it expires.

To put things into perspective, spending 1 EOS (at the moment) allows you to rent 3391.0939 EOS worth of CPU or NET resources for 30 days. And if we used the previously calculated value whereby we needed to stake 62.50 EOS into CPU, this would translate into a mere cost of ~ 0.0184 EOS (about 0.06 USD) per 30 days.

Way more affordable, right?

And if we couple that with the fact that we can sell the PGL that we get in Prospectors for EOS, it would be theoretically possible for you to continue playing this game on the rented resources, "for free", without putting in a dime.

Using Newdex.io To Buy Or Sell PGL

Just like when interacting with the blockchain explorer, you will also need to log into your wallet at Newdex.io as well. To do that, use the "Sign In" button that can be found on the top right hand corner of the website.

However, before you proceed to selecting the actual wallet (that you are using to sign in), you must check to ensure that you are signing onto the right blockchain account. This can be done via the drop-down menu found at the top left corner of the pop up (that appears after you click "Sign In").

If you are trying to sell PGL that is found on your Wild West account, select "EOS" from the drop-down menu. If you are selling PGL that is on your Yukon account, select "WAX" instead. Once you've done that, from the list of available options, select the exact same wallet that you are using to play the game with.

After logging in, you should then select "Main", "EOS" and then the corresponding pair for the trade...which in this case is "PGL/EOS". If you are on your WAX account, you should select "Side", "WAX" and then "PGL/WAX" instead.

Assuming that you've logged into the right account (the one you use for the game) and that you've already exchanged your in-game gold into PGL, you should (by right) see that your "available balance" isn't zero.

From here onwards, all you need is to use the "Sell PGL" column for when you are trying to sell your PGL or the "Buy PGL" column for when you are trying to buy PGL.

The system here basically works much like a stock exchange interface. To the left hand side, you have your list of ready buyers (in green) and sellers (in red) of PGL, the price (in EOS) that they are buying/selling at and the available amount (the liquidity).

Just key in the "Price" (that you are willing to accept), the "Amount" that you wish to buy/sell, tick the "Free CPU operation" (to take advantage of the resource-free trades, on EOS, that Newdex provides daily) and sign off to execute the trade.

The system will automatically match you to whatever amount that is available at/below (if buying) or at/above (if selling) your desired price. Should there be not enough to fill your order, the system will simply queue the rest of it as a buying or selling order for others to match.

As Newdex isn't there to provide this service for free, they actually do skim a little bit off of your matched trades (regardless of whether you are buying or selling). But as it is merely a 0.20% fee taken from both the buyer and seller, it is still actually pretty cheap in my opinion and almost negligible for you to even care about.

Oh and as a just for fun calculation, do you still remember the ~ 0.0184 EOS fee for renting CPU resources? If we ignore the 0.20% fee taken by Newdex and assume that PGL can be sold (at present) for about 0.00695 EOS per PGL, this would translate into a cost of roughly 2.648 PGL per 30 days or 89 in-game gold per day.

Which should be totally doable with your 6 workers from both Wild West and Yukon.

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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.