The Thunderdome: Battling on Alien Worlds

5 min readJan 22, 2021

Alien Worlds’ initial functionality has been based on mining and staking. Various other features are being released but one that we are very excited about is the Thunderdome battles where explorers get to put their Minions into fights against other Minions.

In Alien Worlds, there are potentially a myriad of ways that the minions and weapons will be used. This post outlines how the first Thunderdome battle game will work.

Key concepts

This first battle game will be in a Battle Royale / Hunger Games format where many Minions enter and only one minion emerges as the final victor.
The overall winner will get the largest rewards (A percentage of the Trilium from the Thunderdome fund and an NFT drop). However, some of the minions eliminated in the final stages will also receive rewards along with the planets they are affiliated with.
Each entry will cost Trilium (Amount TBC) — This will be split between the Thunderdome fund and the Treasury (which may decide to burn the TLM).
Each Minion can be equipped with one Weapon
Each Explorer can enter as many full health, equipped Minions as they would like to
Each Minion also fights on behalf of a planet — they will fight other planets Minions before their own and they get a share of “Planetary Power” per battle
Each entry can optionally throw an artifact into the Thunderdome that will affect the contest

Fire Wand, Gem Aura Enhancer and Nature’s Lightning Rod Artifacts

Each entry is sent in with initial orders (Evade, Attack Strongest, Attack Weakest and Defensive Mode). These dictate how the minion will fight.
Each hour the Thunderdome phase changes to favour minions and weapons of a particular element type
The battle schedule will be calibrated to allow for a maximum of 720 battles per day and/or a minimum of 8 minions per battle
The battles will use seed random numbers and then will run according to transparent published logic in a deterministic way. Through this method external parties will be able to verify that the battles take place fairly.

How to Enter a Minion

Choose a Minion,

2. Equip it with a weapon

3. Choose the planet affiliation

4. Throw in an Artifact (optional)

5. Give orders (Optional)

And finally pay your TLM fee.

The battle will begin when the calibrated number of minions is reached. e.g. if the battle requires 20 minions then when the 20th minion is entered the battle will be kicked off. The next minion entered goes into the next battle pool.

The Thunderdome Battle

Once all minions are entered, the battle will begin. This will happen off chain but through a verifiably deterministic process.

Each round, the external system will work out who is attacking whom and damage will be calculated. The Minion and Weapons attributes will play a large role but Minion orders, Artifact effects, Planetary Power and Thunderdome Phase bonuses will also affect the results.

Rounds will continue until only one minion remains. The result will be sent back to the chain where the on-chain actions will be effected.

Because of the game mechanics it may well be the case that the strongest minion / weapon combo will be targeted by other minions. Hence the Explorers will need to come up with smart strategies that maximise their chance of winning. The game will also be set up so that ever entered minion will have a chance of winning (although this will be extremely small in the case of the weakest minion / weapon combinations).

After the Battle

The top minions (the number will vary according to the number of minions in the battle) will get their rewards and NFT drops (declining in quantity and quality depending on position). The planets which the top minions are affiliated with will also receive their shares.

All losing minions lose their health and their weapons will be damaged. To repair them, the Federation will offer a hospital, where minions can be healed, and a weapon repair shop. More powerful minions and weapons will require more resources to heal/fix. A percentage of funds from healing will go to the Thunderdome fund, a further percentage will be paid to the Treasury.

In addition to these services, specific artifacts (the Minion Elixir and Weapon Nano-repairer) will be available as NFTs which can be mined.

Roadmap to the Thunderdome

Artifacts relevant to the Thunderdome battles will be released through mining
Shining will be available for minions/weapons
The Smart Contract for the first battler game will be deployed on the WAX Testnet
The game logic for this first battler game will be implemented on an external server
Testnet testing will begin
Balance adjustments will be implemented
The first battler game battle logic will be published
Beta UI and smart contract deployed on Mainnet
Limited Mainnet testing
Full release of the first battler game
Designs for future battlers released