Design Principles

You are a Real Human in the Frontier:

• Identity is at the heart of EVE Frontier. We recognize the inhabitants of the world as true beings; entities of their own agency and will. Through their expression, actions, contributions and achievements, players will be recognized as part of the Frontier’s living universe.

• In a world where automation threatens to undermine the value of human agency, we have made a deliberate choice: EVE Frontier is a game that prioritizes the intelligence, creativity, and decision-making of human players. We recognize the challenges posed by bots and multi-boxing in online games, where automated systems can unfairly tip the scales. EVE Frontier places human skill at the forefront with every action in the world requiring energy, imbuing its universe design with inherent Sybil resistance to brute force machine repetition and automation. Our systems of energy arbitration and skill-based gameplay ensure that human players, focusing on a single avatar, will have the upper hand over machines attempting to find repeatable and exploitable sequences. While this will remain a constant battle, the design objective is that a single focused human should out-master any machine automation, or attention division.

Scarcity and Impermanence:

• In EVE Frontier, nothing comes easy. Just like in the natural world, resources are finite, and their scarcity drives conflict, cooperation, and creativity. Every decision players make - whether it’s traveling across the galaxy, maintaining their ships, or engaging in combat - comes with a cost. These resource constraints ensure that players must strategize, plan, and execute their options carefully. Scarcity breeds innovation; by making resources limited and unevenly distributed, we’ve created a dynamic world where players are constantly challenged to adapt, compete, and collaborate. The asymmetry of resource distribution fuels emergent gameplay, where Syndicates are formed, wars are waged, and economies are built. This careful balancing of scarcity and opportunity ensures that every player’s decisions have weight and that the world remains vibrant and unpredictable.

• Just like in the physical world, nothing lasts forever without upkeep. Every system, structure, and resource requires ongoing upkeep to survive the harshness of space. This omnipotent force of decay pushes against players as they attempt to overcome the challenges of the world. By embedding this principle into the core, we have created a world where collaboration, resource management, and planning are essential for long-term success. This concept of impermanence drives players to work together to construct a system that stands the test of time, even as they face the inevitable challenges of entropy and decomposition.

Emergent Behavior:

• We have designed a world where the actions and decisions of its inhabitants drive the evolution of the universe. Complex systems and patterns arising out of relatively simple interactions is the end goal of every system we design. We believe that the most compelling stories, challenges, and opportunities come not from pre-scripted events, but from the organic interactions of players shaping the world around them, with the tools provided. By giving players more powerful tools to influence the game’s economy, politics, and social dynamics, we will build a universe that lives and breathes from player behavior and effort. Whether through collaboration, conflict, or creative problem-solving, EVE Frontier empowers players to forge their own narratives and leave a lasting impact on the world. Our digital physics ensure that every action has a resulting consequence, making the game an ever-evolving landscape of creation, decay and destruction that is entirely player-driven

No Reward without Risk:

• Sustainability is not possible when rewards are given freely. For effort to be truly valuable, some amount of risk must be taken on. Asymmetric risk is possible, but some amount of risk will always be present, from passive cosmic radiation that decays the objects in the world to active marauding from pirates attacking shipping lanes. Effective management of risk through strategic, skillful gameplay and social organization will yield the greatest rewards.

Third-Party Development:

• Players should have the freedom not only to exist and engage within the world but also to shape it in meaningful ways. That’s why composability is central to EVE Frontier. From the beginning, we are embracing third-party development by providing players with the tools to build and modify the game world to their needs and desires.

• With Smart Assemblies, our open-source framework, and secure off--chain-to-on--chain Zero Knowledge tooling, players have the freedom to create custom systems. Whether it's designing automated defenses, building private economies, or programming new ship functionalities, these innovations all operate within the game's immutable digital physics. This moddability ensures that the game will continuously evolve and adapt as the community grows. By allowing players to create, modify, and expand the world, we are unlocking limitless possibilities for emergent gameplay and community-driven innovation.

Progressive Development:

• The world of EVE Frontier will continue to grow and evolve in perpetuity. We have created a progressive development model that allows it to expand organically and for that to be driven collectively. Starting with a smaller, carefully designed feature-set built on digital physics. As it grows, so will the opportunities for players to contribute to its evolution. As the universe grows, inhabitants will exert control through decentralized governance.

• A pantheon of developers will join in the implementation of EVE Frontier, ensuring a diverse body of interests are represented and enacted. The technology and product stack required is deep and specialization in distributed computing and cryptographic techniques will be in high demand.