How Sol Trader uses information as currency

There are two currencies in Sol Trader: Credits, which are used to purchase ships and goods, and Information, in the form of knowledge about events. Read on about I’m using information to enhance the gameplay.

Gaining information

When you start the game, you know about all the event that have happened to you, and many things that have happened to your close family and friends. The rest of the world, however, is a mystery.

As you chat to other characters in the game, they tell you about events in their past. You can continue the conversation by talking about something else that happened to you, exchanging one piece of knowledge for another. As long as you have similar information to share, they’ll keep about themselves and other people they know. If they tell you about an interaction they had with someone else, you get to learn about that relationship.

Some events are more private than others, and you’ll only get information about them if the character really trusts you, or they’ve had too much to drink…

Using information

This information can be “spent” in various ways:

• A mission you’ve undertaken will often ask you to discover a particular piece of information in return for a reward.
• You exchange information about sensitive events with other characters when chatting, in exchange for knowledge about more sensitive events.
• Event knowledge could be sold to an in-game journalist for credits. This assumes the character is high status enough, or the event is notorious enough. This will really annoy the character that you’re exposing, though, so watch out! Any action in the game you take which has the effect of harming another character will generate a ‘backstab’ event, which can rebound back on you if you’re not careful.

Events have other effects, too. Beware of telling others about your sensitive events! If everyone gets to know about them, your ability to take work with organisations will become limited.

Most of this is already in the game. I hope to release a video or two in the coming weeks showing the gameplay in more detail.