As a combination of travel, mining, resource management and good old fashioned market economics strategy, Openspace seems to have the right mix on first appearances as a blockchain web-based game. It's also a play2earn model which, in theory, should offer some motivation (but I've yet to earn more than 1 wax on it myself). 

Game Economics

Openspace works with a serious of assets which can be bought as packs if the drops are still going on NeftyBlocks (none at the moment) or on the secondary market. Interestingly, Openspace has been around for a while; it just hasn't had strong fanfare until more recently has its NFTs have gained more presence on markets like AtomicHub. Generally, a player can be a miner or a trader. It's important to read the whitepaper and understand how these two work before getting started, otherwise you'll buy stuff and then realize you can't use it based on your starting choice (okay, fine, I'll explain it here since you're not going to read the white paper anyways). 

Again, you can only be a miner or a trader, not both on a single Wax account. However, you can play with more than one account and be the alternate on the second account, at least for right now. Depending on your function choice, you will either be locked on a given planet or moving around a lot between planets. 

Game economics are controlled by the screen menu:

This allows you to see your DMATTER balance as well as in-game tokens, and then your controls for making changes in the game. 

The Planet Center is where you exchange tokens for what you need at the time. The in-game swap has a very minimal fee, but any withdrawal of DMATTER has a 10 percent hit. Of course, the idea is to keep DMATTER in the game versus the external market. 

From here you can also see the Universe Exchange, which gives a player an idea of what's going on with all the planet markets and current values. For the math/spreadsheet types, this feature is a great way to keep track of changes and find trading opportunities, especially when transporting and trading. 

Planet Center is also where you manage bringing DMATTER into the game as well as withdrawing it (ergo the withdraw/deposit buttons).

Trading

Right up front, trading is harder. It takes longer per turn (1 hour per cycle vs. 8 hours trading), you have to sink funds into better ships, and you're subject to planet market changes. Many folks who want to see quick returns will opt for mining instead. Grinding and clicking just make a lot more sense with predictable results. That said, there are only a small amount of traders with ships moving cargo, and so far that has proven to be very lucrative for those who have made it work. 

I'm still getting started in trading myself, so I don't have an opinion on it yet per se. 

Trading ships vary in size. Small ones are easier to start with at low cost, but bigger ships move more cargo and more return on investment (presumably). As a cost of operation, the player has to manage fuel as well as ship durability which wears down with trips. Both generate costs that have to be addressed to keep going after a certain number of trips. Ideally, one figures out the market differences between planets and arbitrages a profit to stay ahead of the curve. 

Mining

As a miner, you pick a planet and then stake your equipment. Once staked into the game, you then find a plot and start mining. Better equipment produces better results. Depending on the planet you mine, you will harvest that planet's in-game token. There four options for harvesting: metal, crystal, deuterium, and stardust. You will need all of them for something as a miner. It works a bit like this:

• One of tokens is your income.
• One will be for repair.
• One will be for energy.
• Stardust is for buying additional equipment slots.

To get started, you're given a beginner allocation, but it's only just enough to get you in trouble. Basically, plan on converting 10 or 20 WAXP outside the game into DMATTER. Then, take that and deposit it into the game. Now you have the neutral means to buy what you need to get started correctly, depending which in-game token you have to swap to. 

Using Your Mining Equipment NFTs

Equipment wears down both your energy as well as durability. While there is an in-game bonus where you might win some additional benefits of energy, durability or NFTs, don't depend on it. Generally, your harvesting will bounce between one or the other to keep your equipment going. While you can get started with small equipment like rovers, they pay little and it's a lot of clicking with little result. Epic equipment pays the best, but you're going to pay a price for it on secondary markets if you're not lucky enough to pull an item from a pack. Medium equipment tends to be the best mix for starting, producing a decent return for a modest price. In the Ferrox side of things (metal) you're going to have Pulse Picks (small), Forge Hammers (medium), and Magma Tools (large). A similar model exists for the other planets as well. When buying NFTs to set up, make sure you pick the same grouping as you can't use equipment from other planets on the planet you choose to start on.

Each player gets up to a maximum of 6 slots for equipment, period. How you use them is up to you. You start with one slot, and then use Stardust to buy additional spaces.

You can switch planets to try others, but that means repairing to full strength, unstaking, and then replacing your equipment with the ones that match that planet. The only equipment right now that works on all planets are the basic rovers and transport ships. 

Lands

There is the option to own land in the game. At this point, however, there is little utility in doing so. While miners can work the land, the player can't control them except to boot lazy miners who are not active. There is no apparent revenue benefit from it, and land doesn't give a player any advantage in equipment or income earning at this time. 

Lands do provide a basic advertising option for projects though under Land Management when clicking on the Land asset detail button. So, for other WAX Blockchain ventures who want to have some visibility in Openspace, it seems like an ideal means to gain some market visibility. That said, for a user to actually see the billboard, they would have to click on the given space, which doesn't show the ad right away. It's buried in menu options, so the marketing benefit is lost as well right now. Maybe with future game enhancements it might become more prominent.

Premium Benefits

Players can boost their income and access additional features with Premium Tokens.

These are NFTs that come in Lite, Bronze, Silver and Gold values. Depending on the premium, a player can generate more income per equipment. However, the premium tokens are only good for 30 days versus being ongoing. In terms of an ROI, the value gained doesn't seem to pay for itself. As a feature of the game, it would have been better to make the benefit effect longer, like 6 or 12 months versus a 30-day utility (but that's just my opinion). You can operate without the premium tokens and the added income at the medium equipment level isn't that much of a boost, maybe 10-15% at best. 

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