Hello everyone. We’re getting closer to have a playable version of the Phase 2 of the Blockchain Tycoon. In today’s post you’ll get to see samples of the updated placement system and models. First thing you’ll notice is the fact that everything is delivered by drones. As you might know, images are from the upcoming Phase 2 version of the game that will be released when it is ready. We can say that the coding part is almost finished and we’re moving on to update the visual style of the game which includes new 3D models. When the visual part is done, next task is to redesign the UI.
Room construction props surrounding the building.
Humans and drones working in harmony to place new mining units.
Bulk placement system followed by drone delivery.
Solar panels placed on the roof.
New GPU mining rig with spinning fans.
New ASIC mining rig.
Feel free to share your suggestions and ideas. See you on the next blog post.
Phase 2 - Devlog #5 - Campaign & Sandbox
Hey everyone. As you might have read on the previous posts, Blockchain Tycoon is being completely redesigned for months now. Since it is taking more time to add new systems and fix old bugs, the game will be updated with the “Phase 2” version whenever it is ready. Previous updates to Blockchain Tycoon was based on the same game logic and project. So, it was easier to update whenever something was finished. Current version of the “Phase 2” have unorganized UI and placeholder 3D models that will be fixed after the core systems are ready. Things I’ve coded in the last month really made a difference in gameplay. Campaign mode and sandbox mode are almost finished. There are also systems like hardware durability, ICO investing, token staking.
New Systems
Campaign Mode
8 tutorial style campaign levels that will let you use all the systems in the game incrementally. Starting with GPU-only one-room warehouse, you’ll learn about mining followed by overclocking the GPU. Then, learn about energy production with solar panels. ASICs will unlock as you progress in the following levels, and you’ll see how it makes a difference in mining. In later levels you’ll learn how to create your own coin in ICO. And, the final level is about ICO investing and token staking.
Sandbox Mode
Classic sandbox mode can be created by selection of multiple parameter. Things you can select to crease a customized game are: available mining hardware, number of rooms, startup cash, growth of the miner network, daily price variance in coin exchanges, number of tokens, electricity price, hardware durability preference, and more. There is also a menu allows you to select your own winning conditions. These conditions might be amount of cash to win, gameplay duration in years, or it can be number of coins you’ve mined.
Hardware Durability
As you know, nothing lasts forever. Hardware you are using for mining can be damaged and eventually break when you are mining 24/7. From mining hardware to case fans, and motherboard to PSU, all units will break after some time. If it is not completely broken, a staff in the warehouse can repair (if they are trained to repair the unit) or it will stop mining. You’ll have to replace units that are broken. Individual hardware units can be repaired or swapped, so you don’t have to sell everything for one unit.
Cryptocurrency Types & Naming
The game will have coin and token types. Coin can be mined and tokens can only be traded in exchanges. You’ll also have the option to create a coin or a token in the ICO. The game also have the popular coin and algorithm names unchanged. Some of the coins are “BTC, LTC” and algorithms are “SHA256, Scrypt”. There are also algorithms specifically modified for the game.
ICO Investing
It is different from developing your own coin. You can look at upcoming ICOs and invest in them by analyzing the given information. As you know, not all coins are listed on exchanges. So, not all investment are profitable. A project that look good at the beginning might be abandoned later and your investment could fail.
Token Staking
A popular method to use your tokens is to stake them in order to get a staking reward and turn it into profit later. Not all tokens support staking. Tokens that support staking returns an annual yield that can be received monthly.
Advanced Statistics
Previous version of the game did not have a clean interface for statistics. You’ll have a dedicated statistics interface for analyzing how many coins did you mine in the given month, how many sold, your profits. Every payment is now logged.
What’s next?
New build system that supports warehouse staff finding its way through the warehouse to place, repair or swap hardware. Staff can be assigned to rooms by you to allow better management. Also job distribution for the given tasks.
New UI.
New 3D models.
As always, feel free to share any ideas or suggestions you might have. See you in the next blog post.
Phase 2 - Devlog #4
Hello everyone, you’ll be reading great news today. Second phase of development consists of redesigned systems, new campaign mode, new 3D models, and updated UI. Developing the new systems and fixing the old bugs is almost finished. All the features mentioned below are being developed for the ‘Phase 2’ version of the Blockchain Tycoon. It will be available whenever development is finished. Development blog posts are letting you know about the progress while we wait for the new version.
What is completed?
Mining system will be updated in Phase 2. The algorithm that coin is based on is the main factor in mining. A GPU has varying hash rate values for each algorithm it supports. ASICs also support only one algorithm.
There is a new event system for coin prices. For example, price for a coin might drop after ASIC for the algorithm is introduced.
There are new accounting rules which affects how you plan your strategy. Balance can now go below zero. Salaries and bills are always paid on time and you can only buy new stuff if the balance is greater than zero.
Hardware swapping tool allows you to swap specific hardware on the shelf. For example, you can select multiple units and swap GPUs whenever a new model comes out.
New ICO System
Developing and releasing your own coin consists of several stages which are Pre-ICO, ICO, and Post-ICO. You have to have a team. Finish the development cycle and do an ICO. When a coin is released to public, it does not mean that exchanges will list the coin. You’ll need more progress to list the coin on a cryptocurrency exchange.
Team members working on an ICO will have skill points that can be increased by training.
You can work on multiple coin projects at the same time.
Durations of the development steps can be increased or decreased according to your design.
Cryptocurrency exchanges will have requirements for coins to list them for buying and selling.
What’s next?
Classic campaign system with tasks and rewards. Features will unlock as you progress in the campaign.
Parameter based sandbox mode. You will set the parameters of the game you want to play.
That’s it for now. Thank you for your patience. As always, feel free to share your suggestions.
Phase 2 - Devlog #3
Hi everyone, as you might have read in the previous posts, Blockchain Tycoon is being redesigned right now and it is not ready for phase 2 yet. Development of the new prototype is going great so far. The plan is to create a simple prototype with all systems working properly to test the systems and balance the game accordingly. As soon as this process is finished, game will be in playable state and the new version will be uploaded to Steam. While waiting for the new version, you can read the development blog to learn more about the process.
Overclocking System
Overclock is setting the clock speed higher to get more speed from a GPU. More speed means more power consumption. This is where the undervolting comes in. Undervolting is decreasing the voltage used by a GPU to consume less power. In the mining world, higher clock speed for a GPU means more hash rates and low power usage means reduced electric bills. Each GPU is unique in its way when it comes to overclocking and undervolting. Miners try different values to find out the optimal values to apply to their GPUs. You have the option to have maximized clock speed as long as the PSU connected to the GPU is adequate enough for such power usage. If you also want to have more power efficient setup, you can decrease the power target of GPU to make it consume less power. Keep in mind that undervolting slightly decreases the hash rate. Here is an example values for a GPU with and without overclocking:
What is the downside of overclocking? It affects the device lifespan. The more you use the GPU overclocked, lifespan of GPU decreases slightly. Every model and manufacturer is different when it comes to overclocking performance. There is also change that GPU breaking beyond repair if you apply overclocking values that the GPU cannot handle. Another subject to consider when talking about overclocking is the cooling. More power means higher temperatures. You have to have cooling to apply higher clock speed values. New version of the game will offer two cooling solutions. One for applying to the shelf and one to apply to the room. There is also a tool for applying overclock values to multiple units at once.
Warehouse Staff
One of the important things that will change in the “Phase 2” is warehouse staff. Staff management will be more detailed and some of the actions will be done by the staff. Things you can do with the staff are:
Placing mining units
Assigning staff to specific rooms
Train the staff for skills like repair
Repairing broken units in the room
Swapping hardware in a mining units (like PSU or GPU)
What’s next?
ICO system will be completely redesigned. We need a system that is more detailed especially managing the post-ICO stages of a coin. As in real world, it is hard to be listed in an exchange after ICO. There are also projects abandoned after launch that practically makes the coin useless.
Feel free to share your suggestions in comments, discussion forums or by sending an email.
Phase 2 - Devlog #2
Hello everyone, It’s been a productive week and development of “Phase 2” is going great so far. As mentioned before, Blockchain Tycoon is being redesigned and most of the systems are being developed again to allow more features that we couldn’t have in the first iteration. The game will be in Early Access until all the systems are balanced. The game is not updated because the “Phase 2” version is not ready to play yet. In the meantime, you can learn about the process by reading the development logs.
Pricing System and Exchanges
If you look at the cryptocurrency exchange (or trading systems), there are separate values for ask and bid for coins. ‘Ask Price’ is how much a seller accepts for a coin or stock that is being sold. ‘Bid Price’ is how much a buyer is willing to pay for a coin. Coin prices in the game are now determined by a similar system that allows variations in price and we are observing a better simulated price. Supply and demand determines the price increase and decrease in the simulation. While your orders are still executed in a fixed-price basis, coin prices in simulation varies depending on other trades. Next step is to add buying/selling orders to and exchange order-book and simulate the orders.
Exchanges are redesigned so that coins can have varying prices when compared with the price in other exchanges. There will also be a simple tool that lets you sort prices by coin in multiple exchanges.
Here are example events affecting price (blue line is the exact price) - A good example of sudden drop and increase in a coin: - Bad example for increase and decrease of price - Almost stable coin price that has increased in value after some time - An increase in increments and coin doubling its price in a year - Differences between varying increase / decrease events. Some events have more effect on price.
What’s next?
Overclock. Increasing memory and undervolting the GPU to have more hash-rate and decrease the power usage. Traditionally, you should overclock by finding a safe value for the specific GPU and there is a chance of frying your graphics card if you set values too high. Not sure how it should be implemented in game. Maybe we can have selection of cooling in the shelf we are placing the GPUs in and allowing more overclock options if there are enough cooling. If you do not have sufficient cooling, there could be a chance to break the GPU.
Feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions in comments, discussion forums or by sending an email.
Phase 2 - Devlog #1
Happy new year everyone!
We’re starting the 2020 with the dev log to let you know about the current state of the development. Blockchain Tycoon in now in “Phase 2” of its development process. The game is being redesigned according to all the feedback gathered so far. In series of development logs, you’ll read about current and future state of the development process. Since everything is in-code or in design stage at this point, there are no screenshots today.
Updates in Phase 2:
All coins are different from each other. They use a hashing algorithm. Bitcoin uses “SHA-256” and Ethereum uses “Ethash”. Algorithm determines how the coin is mined. Multiple coins can use the same hashing algorithm.
Each coin has a unique block reward mechanism. The coins we are mining are rewards for the verified blocks. Current reward amount for BTC is 12.5 and 2.00 for ETH. Rewards have pre-determined rules depending on the coin. For example, BTC rewards are halved every 210K blocks.
When you use the same hardware for mining a different coin, hashrate will be different. That was something not included in the game due to simplification. It will be included in phase 2. Power usage also change depending on the algorithm. For example, RTX 2080 TI has hashrate of 52.5 Mh/s for Ethash and 2.80 Mh/s for NeoScrypt.
ASIC’s are designed to mine a specific algorithm. For example, there are different ASICs for SHA256 and Scrypt and they can’t mine coins that are using different algorithms. This needs to be included too. There are also cases that a new ASIC is introduced to mine a coin that was previously mined with only GPUs.
What systems are already completed?
Formulas for mining reward calculations using different algorithms. There are 5 algorithms planned right now (multiple coins can be created using the same algorithm).
A new mining system which allows GPUs to have hashrate value depending on algorithm. ASICs also only mine for coins using the same algorithm. So, you have to buy a new ASIC model to mine a coin using a different algorithm.
What is being developed right now?
Pricing system same as a real exchange (ask, bid values executed in order)
Multiple exchanges allowing price alternatives
Task system for the campaign
The game will be updated as soon as all the systems are redesigned. By estimations, it might take a little over a month for the new version to become playable and balanced.
Thank you all for the patience and as always feel free to share your suggestions.
Phase 2: Future of Blockchain Tycoon
Hey everyone,
It’s been a long time since the last update. There was a lot of thinking and designing. I’ve gathered all the feedback received through Steam and email. After analyzing them and expanding my knowledge of cryptocurrency and mining ecosystem, I’ve redesigned the game. Most of the systems will be rewritten and it is planned to be completed before April.
Changes are focused on a few things:
ICO: We need more generic coins. Some coins are scams as we’re observing in real life, which means that even if you mine them; coins might not make it to be listed in an exchange.
Campaign: Classic style objective based campaign with ranking system.
Heat & Overclock: Most important part of the professional mining process is dealing with the heat. High temperatures can break the hardware.
Workers & Repair: Workers in your warehouse is crucial for your daily operations.
Events: For example, failure in an exchange results in loss of coins. Exchange might got hacked and you might lose coins in the wallet.
Motherboard and PSU components:
GPU’s placed in the shelf
New movement, placement system with pan, tilt camera
Updates will continue once the new systems are in playable state. Feel free to share your ideas.
Still Alive
Hello everyone,
I’ve been working on adding new features and some of them did not work as I’ve planned and broke other systems in the game. That is why the game was not updated for a long time. I think it is better to update when there are stable features.
I’ve been working on improving the gameplay and fixing the reported bugs. While doing so, I’ve realized that some of the systems must be completely rewritten to allow improvements. For example, the price generation seems like going linear except there is an event and there is a limit to minimum and maximum amount that a coin price can change in a year. This is because the price parameters are pre-generated at the beginning of a new game, so that we have reasonable prices (coin price not going from $500 to $50000 in a year). We need a new system for price generation to allow random seasonal events (for example, if other buyers are buying so much of a coin, price can go up according to that).
I’ll be back with a revised roadmap and will continue to improve to game. The game will not leave Early Access until all the features are completely implemented and stable.
As always, feel free to share your suggestions.
Alpha 4.2 - Coin Switch Tool
Hi everyone,
In Alpha 4.2, we’ve prepared a new tool that makes changing the coin to mine easier. Simply select rooms, hardware type, and coin to be mined to change the coin.
An important note; There is a known bug and we’re working on fixing it. In some cases hash rate drops to negative numbers after changing the coin manually or using the new tool. Apparently this is an old bug. It is not certain that it is happening because of save/load system or a mistake in calculating hash-rates after bulk buying of hardware. Hopefully it will be fixed before the next update.
As always, feel free to share your feedback and suggestions through discussion forums or email.
Alpha 4.1 - Coin Exchange
Hello everyone,
In Alpha 4.1, we’ve redesigned the interface for exchanging coins and introducing the coin exchange system. You can now use your in-game phone to deposit/withdraw your coins to a coin exchange and buy/sell using the exchange.
You can deposit the coins to the wallet in the coin exchange and sell your coins. The coin balance in the bottom left corner and coins in the wallet are separated. Once you deposit coins to the wallet in the exchange, they are subtracted from your balance. It is similar to real-life exchange process. First you find a cryptocurrency exchange and send your coins there to exchange them for cash. Buying coins are also similar. Once you buy your coins you can withdraw them from the exchange. In real-life, once you buy cryptocurrency from an exchange you have the option to store them in the wallet in the exchange or your own wallet. If you are storing your coins in the exchange and the website got hacked, you lose your coins too. This might be the case for the next update.
Transaction Fees! This is not good news. There is a 2% transaction fee on every buy/sell operation now. More realism to come :)
As always, feel free to share your feedback and suggestions through discussion forums or email. We’ve included most of the requested features in the game so far.
