The Economy
Two currencies drive the core loop, one honest job each — crystals measure how much you farm, Parts measure how often you show up. A third, Nauts, sits off to the side for convenience only — never power, never access.
01 Two currencies
- Collected by touch, in the water
- Banked by charted fields, paid out through Fleet Dispatch
- Won from skill-pickup catches
- Spent building parts at the Workbench, and at the Quartermaster’s counter
- One, automatically, per new Ledger discovery
- A chance per skill-pickup catch, on top of crystals
- Spent alongside crystals building parts at the Workbench
- Sold back to crystals at the Quartermaster’s counter
A skill-pickup catch is a genuinely premium find, not a rounding error: a Quicksilver Wisp pays roughly 5× a single crystal from its own zone’s field, and it carries a real chance of a bonus Part on top. A Skittish Glowmote pays roughly 3× a crystal, in pure crystals — a glowmote catch never rolls a Part. Either catch also drops 2 tier materials of the water it lives in — a small, repeatable drip of the same craft materials rock rubble pays. See The World for how to actually catch either one.
Building a craft part at the Workbench is the real sink for both currencies at once — every craft row spends crystals and Parts together. See The Part Catalogue & Workbench for the full price list.
02 Charted fields feed Fleet Dispatch
Collect from the same crystal field enough times and it becomes charted — automatically, no key to press. Charting still matters: it is what makes that field count toward Fleet Dispatch’s offline payout, covered in full next. What charting no longer does is put a drone to work on its own while you play. There is no assignment step, and nothing credits your wallet live from a charted field — while you’re actually piloting, hunting crystals by hand is how you earn; Fleet Dispatch is what pays for the time you’re away.
Every field, and its Dispatch rate
| Field | Zone | Charted after | Dispatch rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reef Westerly Field | Sunlit Reef | 4 collects | 2 ⬡/s |
| Reef Shelf Field | Sunlit Reef | 4 collects | 8 ⬡/s |
| Reef Midshelf Field | Sunlit Reef | 4 collects | 3 ⬡/s |
| Reef Field | Sunlit Reef | 4 collects | 8 ⬡/s |
| Reef Easterly Field | Sunlit Reef | 4 collects | 2 ⬡/s |
| Twilight Statue Field | Twilight Zone | 3 collects | 4 ⬡/s |
| Twilight Field | Twilight Zone | 3 collects | 6 ⬡/s |
| Twilight Hollow Field | Twilight Zone | 3 collects | 3 ⬡/s |
| Twilight Silt Field | Twilight Zone | 3 collects | 3 ⬡/s |
| Twilight Deep Field | Twilight Zone | 3 collects | 7 ⬡/s |
| Midnight Trough Field | Midnight Zone | 3 collects | 7 ⬡/s |
| Midnight Arch Field | Midnight Zone | 3 collects | 3 ⬡/s |
| Midnight Hollow Field | Midnight Zone | 3 collects | 3 ⬡/s |
| Midnight Angler Field | Midnight Zone | 3 collects | 4 ⬡/s |
| Midnight Field | Midnight Zone | 3 collects | 6 ⬡/s |
| Lower Dark Shelf Field | The Lower Dark | 3 collects | 8 ⬡/s |
| Lower Dark Stair Field | The Lower Dark | 3 collects | 6 ⬡/s |
| Lower Dark Mid Field | The Lower Dark | 3 collects | 4 ⬡/s |
| Lower Dark Field | The Lower Dark | 3 collects | 9 ⬡/s |
| Lower Dark Column Field | The Lower Dark | 3 collects | 6 ⬡/s |
| Kelp Deep Field | The Kelp Forest | 5 collects | 14 ⬡/s |
| Kelp Shade Field | The Kelp Forest | 5 collects | 9 ⬡/s |
| Kelp Glade Field | The Kelp Forest | 5 collects | 12 ⬡/s |
| Kelp Boom Field | The Kelp Forest | 5 collects | 10 ⬡/s |
“Dispatch rate” is only ever read by Fleet Dispatch’s own offline payout formula (next section) — it is not a live income while the game is open. Every rate scales with your Yield stat, the same way a hand-collected crystal does — a ledger or part bonus to yield lifts both at once.
03 Fleet Dispatch — banking hours offline
Nothing is credited automatically while your tab is closed. Instead, active piloting — tab focused, actually moving or acting, not idling at the Berth — banks Expedition Hours at a fixed rate: one real minute of piloting banks one hour of offline work, up to a hard 24-hour ceiling. You can’t stockpile more than a day’s worth no matter how long a single session runs.
Banking hours doesn’t spend them, and it doesn’t send the fleet out by itself. Before you close the tab, open Fleet Dispatch (P) and throw the lever to arm it. Leave without arming and the fleet just sits idle — no matter how many hours were banked or how long you’re away, nothing is earned.
Come back with the fleet armed and a claim screen greets you before anything else. It pays for whichever is smallest of three numbers — the time you were actually away, the hours you had banked, or the 24-hour ceiling — at 60% of your live auto rate, and never more crystals than your Fleet Haulceiling allows — Fleet Haul is purely this offline payout cap, never a limit on what you can carry mid-dive (that’s the Hold’s own squares, see Inventory & Warehouse).
The payout, worked
Say only the Reef Field is charted (8 ⬡/s). You pilot for four minutes before logging off — that banks four Expedition Hours — then arm the fleet and close the tab.
20 min × 8 ⬡/s × 60% efficiency = 5,760 ⬡, paid out in full — nowhere near the 10,000 ⬡ Fleet Haul cap.
The bank only had 4h to give, so that’s what’s paid: 4h × 8 ⬡/s × 60% = 69,120 ⬡ raw, clamped down to the 10,000 ⬡ stock Fleet Haul cap — raise Fleet Haul (hull parts, Hold Pearls) to actually carry home a longer haul.
Collecting is its own step, not automatic either — the amber Collect button on that screen is what actually credits the crystals. It also spends exactly the hours it paid for from the bank and disarms the fleet, so the next trip away needs its own arm. Dismissing with Esc instead is safe: nothing is lost, and the same claim (or a larger one) is still waiting next time you open the game.
It works this way on purpose: the bank only fills while you’re actually piloting, so offline pay is a reward for playing, not a substitute for it — and the 24-hour ceiling means coming back within a day is what makes the trip worth taking.
04Quartermaster Bell’s counter, now
The counter has been rebuilt twice. Buying Parts with crystals was retired first — it let crystals stand in for depth a pilot hadn’t personally reached. Selling Parts back for crystals went next, retired the same pass Nauts arrived as their own currency. Bell’s balance strikes exactly one deal today: crystals stamped into Nauts, a flat 1,000 ⬡ per Naut. Parts have no sell-back leg at all any more, in either direction — a craft material now, spent building or held for later. Full detail on the counter, and the lever itself, is in The Berth.
05Nauts — the account’s convenience currency
A third currency sits beside crystals and Parts, and it plays a different role on purpose: Nauts never touch what you can reach, only how fast you get there. No amount of them opens a depth, a recipe, or a tier a pilot hasn’t personally earned — the same fair-play line the rest of this game draws everywhere else.
There are two ways into a Nauts balance, and neither is required to keep playing:
- Stamp crystals for them at Quartermaster Bell’s counter — 1,000 ⬡ per Naut, slow but entirely free. See The Berth.
- Buy a pack directly through the Nauts Shop — press the Naut chip in the HUD, wherever you are, docked or diving. Checkout happens on Stripe’s own hosted page, so the game never sees a card number; packs come in a handful of sizes, from a quick top-up to a deep one, and the price of each is shown there at checkout, not quoted here — it’s the one number in this manual set by the owner rather than read off a content file.
A purchase lands in your account the moment it clears, and follows you to any device you sign into — buy on a phone, keep piloting on a desktop, same wallet either way. If the credit lags a few seconds behind the redirect back to the game, nothing is lost: it arrives automatically the next time you sign in, exactly like any other cross-device sync.
What Nauts actually buy, today: a Warehouse row (1,800 Nauts flat, see Hold & Warehouse), a class re-calibration (3,000 Nauts, see Pilot & Classes), and building a Workbench part you’ve already unlocked straight out, without hunting down the last of its materials. Every one of those is a speed-up on something already earned — never a shortcut past it.