AETHERIA
Drag to orbit · pick a world to inspect, then travel. One planet per wallet.
Your colony at a glance.
Every colonist begins in a galaxy. Inside it you claim one world and grow your colony — Earth is the shared hub. When a galaxy fills out, a new frontier opens.
Your home is permanent for your wallet — you can visit others, but you build only here.
Make this world your own home planet — your base to build on.
Sell crafted Aurium to other players for $AETHER. $AETHER only ever moves player-to-player. Simulated until mainnet — not investment advice.
Your position and everything on this world.
Buy & upgrade weapons with materials looted from mechs (iron · alloy · cells) + $AETHER. Tougher mechs need bigger guns.
Assemble a custom weapon from modular parts — each part shifts its stats. Forge it, then equip from the Armory.
You've claimed a world. Here's the loop that grows your colony — the tracker will guide you through it.
Your colony kept working while you were away.
Grow your colony to earn Aether Shards.
How to play Aetheria.
Your weapons, items, cosmetics, blueprints and resources.
Trade your current colony for Aether Cells — a permanent currency that makes every new colony grow faster. Here's exactly what you earn, keep, and reset.
A playable 3D web3 world on Solana. Walk real spherical planets, claim a home world, build your colony, fight rogue mechs, refine Aurium and trade $AETHER across a living galaxy.
Aetheria is a build-and-survive colony game set on a galaxy of real, walkable spherical planets. This guide walks you from your first steps to flying between worlds and ascending. New here? Read top to bottom — it doubles as the tutorial.
You arrive in a living galaxy. Your job is to make one planet your own, grow a colony on it, defend it from rogue machines, and trade your way up — then ascend and do it all again, further each time.
There's no single "win". The loop is: claim → build → fight → refine → trade → ascend. Each pass earns permanent power, so every new colony grows faster and reaches higher. Play for ten minutes or settle in for the long game — both work.
On first launch you pick a character and a name. It's purely cosmetic — every colonist plays the same. Your name appears top-left in the HUD. Note that your own name never floats above your head; only NPCs and other players get nameplates.
Open the galaxy chooser and pick a planet as your home — one home per player. Your home world gives a production bonus and is the only place you can build. You can also fly out later and claim a world directly. Other planets you can visit and fight on, but not build on.
You walk the surface of a sphere — gravity always pulls to the core, so you can stroll all the way around a planet and never fall off. The horizon curves; that's intended.
Move with WASD (or the left stick on touch). Hold Shift — or the Sprint button — to run. Sprinting drains the stamina bar in your vitals cluster; when it empties, sprint cuts out automatically until stamina recovers past a third. Walking and standing refill it.
Press Space to jump. Buildings are solid: you can jump onto them and walk across their roofs, stacking your colony upward. There's a little coyote-time and jump-buffering so platforming feels forgiving.
Drag to look around (the cursor only appears in menus). Press V — or the View toggle in the Main Menu — to switch between the over-the-shoulder third-person camera and a first-person view from your colonist's eyes (your body hides, the held tool stays). Holding RMB aims and zooms in.
Building is the heart of the game. You place parts, then physically weld them up — it's tactile, Space-Engineers style, not an instant drop.
Press B (or the Build button) to open the build catalogue. Build mode only works on your own claimed planet. Pick a part and a holographic blueprint follows your aim; R rotates it. You can't place over existing objects — the ghost turns red when blocked.
With a blueprint placed, hold LMB (aim with RMB). Your colonist points the weld tool and the building fills in transparent → solid with a percentage bar. Release to pause, hold again to continue. It costs resources, charged as it completes.
Production buildings are your economy: Extractors pull Crystal, Metal and Gas; Solar Arrays add output; the Refinery crafts Aurium. Buildings come in tiers — higher tiers and faction structures need Cores (won in combat), so building and fighting feed each other.
Click a placed building to open it. You can upgrade it (upgrading your Command Spire raises your colony level and unlocks more), move it, or sell it back. Buildings take damage in raids — repair them to keep production up.
Rogue mechs and creatures roam the colonies. Fighting isn't optional flavour — it's how you earn the Cores that gate your progress.
Press C (or Fight) to draw your blaster — a centre crosshair appears. Hold LMB to fire a visible beam; hold RMB to aim and zoom for accuracy. On touch, the Shoot button fires while you're aiming. Build mode and combat mode are exclusive — one weapon at a time.
Enemies take damage, die, and drop loot — most importantly Cores, the combat material. You need Cores to build higher tiers and to upgrade weapons, so hunting is part of the core loop, not a side activity.
Your vitals show shield, health and stamina. Incoming damage drains the shield first, then health. If you fall, you respawn — head back to where you died to recover what you dropped (a corpse-run).
Press G to open the Armory. Spend Cores to upgrade your gun along the path Blaster → Pulse → Plasma, each stronger than the last. Better guns make tougher enemies (and faster Core farming) viable.
Everything you gather is a real resource with a place in the chain that ends in $AETHER. Here's the short version — the full breakdown lives in the Docs.
Producers generate raw Crystal, Metal and Gas over time (even while you're away — idle earnings). Feed them into a Refinery to craft Aurium, the commodity you actually trade.
Press K for the Aurium market and sell Aurium for $AETHER (you keep 95%, a small fee is burned and banked). $AETHER is the game's token — see the Docs for exactly how its value flows.
Planets are close together in one connected galaxy. When you're ready to expand, you fly.
Press F (or the Fly button) to summon and board your spaceship. Press E to step out again once you've landed.
Flight is full 6-degrees-of-freedom: Space climbs, Ctrl descends, Shift boosts (with exhaust streaks), and the arrow keys ←/→ roll. Drag to steer the nose. It's weightless space flight, not bound to the planet's gravity.
Fly close to a world and press F to land beside your ship. Open the Star Map / Universe Map (M) to see every planet as a real rotating model — your world is gold — and click one to fly there. An on-planet compass, radar and full map keep you oriented.
Several systems keep pulling you forward, short-term and long-term.
The quest line doubles as the tutorial spine — claim, build, fight, refine, trade, upgrade, fly — each with a hint for the next concrete action. Daily rewards and login streaks pay out Shards, a premium meta-currency.
When a colony has grown enough you can ascend: restart it in exchange for Aether Cells, a permanent currency that buys boosts making every future colony grow faster. You keep your Cells, upgrades, home and character; only buildings and raw resources reset. The in-game Ascension screen shows exactly what you'll bank.
Everything in one place.
A complete, plain-language reference to how Aetheria's world, colony, economy and token work. Written for players, not traders — there's no jargon you need to know in advance, and nothing here is financial advice.
Aetheria is a playable 3D colony game with an optional web3 value layer on Solana. You explore real, walkable spherical planets on foot and by ship, build and defend a colony, fight rogue machines for materials, refine a commodity called Aurium, and trade it for the game's token, $AETHER. Then you ascend and do it again — further each time.
It runs in any modern browser, on desktop and mobile, from a single codebase. There's no install and no launcher; you press Play and you're in.
At its heart it's a build-and-survive simulation. The "web3" part is a thin, optional layer bolted on top of a game that stands on its own — the loop of claiming, building, fighting, refining, trading and ascending is the product. The token gives the economy a real sink and store of value, but you can ignore it entirely and still have a full game.
Think of it as: a colony builder, a third-person shooter against rogue mechs, an idle/economy game, and a light flight sim, stitched into one continuous galaxy.
Aetheria boots and plays fully offline as single-player. Every multiplayer and on-chain feature is strictly additive: with nothing configured, none of them run, and the experience is identical to pure offline play. The networking and chain calls are guarded no-ops until you explicitly turn them on. You never need a wallet to play.
If you just want to play, you don't need any of this — start with How to Play instead. These docs are for understanding the systems in depth: the economy, the token, fairness, privacy, and the roadmap. Use the sidebar to jump to any chapter; the active section is highlighted as you scroll.
Aetheria's worlds aren't flat levels — they're real spheres in one connected galaxy you can fly between.
Each planet is an actual sphere. Gravity always points to the core, so you can walk all the way around a world and never fall off — the horizon curves beneath you as you go. Buildings, terrain, water and props sit on the surface and are fully solid; you collide with them, stand on their roofs, and the camera can't clip through them.
Every planet has its own biome, relief and palette, so landing on a new world looks and feels distinct.
All planets live in one shared galaxy. Earth acts as a central hub with landing pads, a repair-and-refuel station, and gates onward. The Universe Map shows every world as a real rotating 3D model — your home world is marked gold — and you click one to travel there. An on-planet compass, radar and full map keep you oriented while you're on the surface.
You claim exactly one planet as your home. Your home world is the only place you can build, and it grants a production bonus tied to its type. You claim it in the galaxy chooser at the start, or by flying out and claiming a world directly. Other planets you can travel to, fight on and (when online features are on) visit, but you can't build on a world that isn't yours.
Worlds aren't passive backdrops. Each home type tests you differently with periodic hazards — dust storms, cold snaps, auroras and raider surges — that temporarily change production or send hostiles your way. Tending your colony (and surviving raids) keeps your output healthy; neglect lets it drift down through soft decay.
Your colony is the engine of the whole economy. Everything you earn starts with what you build.
Buildings come in categories — production, structure, faction and more — and in tiers. Producers (Extractors, Solar Arrays) generate resources; the Refinery crafts Aurium; faction structures add signature bonuses. Early tiers cost raw materials; higher tiers and faction buildings also require Cores, the material you win in combat, so building and fighting are deliberately linked.
You don't drop buildings instantly. In build mode a holographic blueprint follows your aim (rotate with R); it turns red where it would overlap something, so you can't build on top of existing objects. Once placed, you hold the weld tool and the structure fills in transparent → solid with a percentage bar — tactile, Space-Engineers style. Resources are charged as it completes.
Your Command Spire is the heart of the colony. Upgrading it raises your colony level, which scales production and unlocks more of the catalogue. Most progression goals route back through levelling the Spire and expanding what feeds it.
Raids and raider surges damage your buildings, which drops their output until you repair them. If you fall in combat there's a corpse-run to recover what you dropped. Away from a world, production drifts down through soft decay; returning and tending the colony recovers the rate back toward full. The stakes are real but recoverable — nothing is permanently lost to a bad day.
A handful of resources drive everything. Most are produced or won in-game; one is the tradeable token at the end of the chain. Here's each in turn.
The three raw materials and the base of the whole economy. Extractors and related producers generate them over time on your colony — including while you're away, as idle earnings. You spend them on building and feed them into the Refinery. More producers and higher colony levels mean faster raw output.
The combat material. Rogue mechs and creatures drop Cores when defeated. Higher building tiers, faction structures and every weapon upgrade in the Armory require Cores — so you can't just turtle and build; you have to go out and fight to keep progressing. Cores are the reward loop that makes combat matter.
Your tradeable commodity. A Refinery converts Crystal, Metal and Gas into Aurium. It's the bridge between raw production and token value: you don't sell raw materials, you sell the refined Aurium they become. Keeping the Refinery supplied is the core of any earning strategy.
A premium meta-currency earned from login streaks and daily rewards. Shards persist across Ascensions and feed retention and convenience features. They're part of the game's progression, separate from the on-chain economy — you can't mint $AETHER from Shards.
$AETHER is the game's token and the top of the value chain. You earn it by selling Aurium on the marketplace, and you spend it within the game's value layer. The single most important fact: $AETHER is never minted by playing — gameplay only ever moves it between holders or burns it. See the token chapter for exactly what that means.
Value flows in one direction, with sinks along the way that keep it from inflating.
The full loop is: raw materials → Aurium → $AETHER. Producers make Crystal, Metal and Gas; the Refinery turns those into Aurium; the marketplace turns Aurium into $AETHER. Combat sits alongside, supplying the Cores that unlock the better producers and refineries that speed the whole chain up.
Producers generate raw materials on a timer, scaled by your colony level, your permanent upgrades, your home world's bonus, research, and any active hazard or decay multiplier. The Refinery consumes raw materials to craft Aurium at a rate you can grow by building and upgrading. Optimising this pipeline — enough raw input to keep the Refinery busy — is the heart of the economy game.
The Aurium market settles in $AETHER. When you sell, you receive 95% of the value and a 5% fee is taken. Prices respond to supply and demand rather than being a fixed exchange rate, so timing and volume matter.
The 5% fee splits 50% burned and 50% to the treasury. Because nothing mints $AETHER during play and every trade burns a slice, circulating supply only ever shrinks from activity — the economy is deflationary by design. The treasury half funds ongoing development and player rewards rather than disappearing.
Premium boosts are gated by USD-pegged hold-tiers and capped at +50%. That cap is deliberate: it limits how much advantage money can buy, so a large holder is at most modestly ahead of a small one, never dominant. It keeps the game competitive rather than pay-to-win.
Your producers keep working while you're away. When you return you collect what accrued in your absence, within sensible limits, and a welcome-back summary shows what you earned. Combined with daily rewards and streaks, this means short sessions still make progress — you don't have to grind to benefit.
The most important chapter to read before you think about value at all.
$AETHER is a utility token for the game. It exists to power the in-game economy — a sink for Aurium, a store of value between sessions, a medium of exchange. It is not designed or offered as an investment vehicle, and any value it carries should be treated as part of playing the game. Nothing in these docs is financial advice.
In code, $AETHER is never minted as a reward — gameplay only moves it or burns it, and the marketplace burns half of every fee. There is no faucet that creates new tokens for playing. The result is a supply that can only shrink from in-game activity, which is the opposite of an inflationary reward token.
The on-chain layer is built as a devnet seam that is OFF by default. Until it's switched on, the economy is fully simulated and clearly labelled as such, so you can play, learn and test every system safely without anything touching a real chain or real value.
A real mainnet launch is hard-gated — structurally blocked in code behind a checklist that includes legal review and an independent security audit. This isn't a toggle that gets flipped casually; it's a deliberate, reviewed decision the owner makes only when the prerequisites are met.
To be unambiguous: the token is not launched. There is no public $AETHER to buy today, and the live economy remains simulated. Be wary of anyone claiming to sell it — until an official launch is announced, any such offer is not real.
Several systems pull you forward, from your first five minutes to the long game.
The quest line doubles as the tutorial spine: claim, build, fight, refine, trade, upgrade, fly. Each quest carries a hint for the next concrete action and rewards XP, so following it naturally teaches the game while moving you up. An always-on objective tracker keeps your current goal in view.
Daily rewards and login streaks pay out Shards and keep short sessions worthwhile. Streaks reward coming back; missing a day is not catastrophic, but consistency compounds.
Ascension is the long-term hook. When a colony has grown enough, you can restart it in exchange for Aether Cells, a permanent currency. You keep your Cells, permanent upgrades, Shards, $AETHER, home world and character; only your buildings and raw resources reset. Each ascension makes the next run faster and reach further. The in-game Ascension screen shows exactly what you'll bank before you commit, with a confirm step so you never reset by accident.
Aether Cells buy permanent boosts — higher production, cheaper builds, and a "fast start" that front-loads output early in each run. Because these persist through every Ascension, your tenth colony grows dramatically faster than your first. This is where the long-term power curve lives.
Everything online is opt-in and additive. None of it is required to play, and all of it is off unless you explicitly configure it.
An optional layer can sync your save and colony snapshots to the cloud, so progress follows you across devices. Off by default; otherwise your save lives locally in your browser.
When enabled, you can see other players moving through your world in real time. The presence layer is built to hibernate when no one's around, so empty worlds cost nothing to keep available.
You can visit another player's colony read-only — walk their world and see what they've built — without the ability to change anything. It's a way to share and show off colonies without risk.
The on-chain value layer (Solana devnet) binds the economy to real tokens when enabled. It's a separate, flagged seam; with it off, the same economy runs simulated. This is where a future home-as-NFT binding and on-chain $AETHER live, behind the mainnet gate described above.
Every networking and chain call is a guarded no-op when its flag is off. The offline game always boots identically — the online features simply aren't on the play path unless you turn them on. This is a hard design rule, not a preference.
A few ground rules that shape the whole design.
The economic / earn layer is intended for adults (18+). The visual style is friendly and approachable, but anything involving real value is for an adult audience.
Aetheria does not provide investment or financial advice. $AETHER is a utility token for play. Make your own decisions, do your own research, and never spend more than you can afford to lose.
The hold-tier cap (+50%) exists specifically so the game stays competitive rather than pay-to-win. Skill, time and strategy should decide who gets ahead far more than spending does.
Offline play keeps your data on your device. If you opt into online features, only what's needed to sync your save and present multiplayer is sent. You're never required to connect a wallet to play the game, and the most privacy-preserving option is always the default.
The foundations are in place: spherical worlds, building and welding, combat and the Armory, the full Crystal→Aurium→$AETHER economy, flight and travel across one connected galaxy, and the additive multiplayer + chain seams.
Ahead: deeper colony and faction systems, richer worlds and more content, broader social play, and — only after legal review and an independent audit — the owner's decision on whether and when to launch the token. Until that point the value layer stays simulated and clearly labelled. Roadmaps are intentions, not promises; priorities shift as the game grows.
Crystal · Metal · Gas — the three raw materials your producers generate.
Cores — combat material dropped by defeated enemies; gates higher tiers and weapon upgrades.
Aurium — the commodity refined from raw materials and sold on the market.
Shards — premium meta-currency from streaks and dailies; separate from the chain.
$AETHER — the game's token; earned from selling Aurium, never minted by play.
Aether Cells — permanent Ascension currency that buys lasting boosts.
Ascension — restarting your colony to bank Aether Cells and grow faster next time.
Hold-tier — a USD-pegged premium tier; boosts are capped at +50%.
Home world — the one planet you claim and can build on.
Do I need a wallet to play? No — Aetheria plays fully offline as single-player, no wallet required.
Is the token live? Can I buy $AETHER? No. $AETHER is not launched; the economy is simulated until a mainnet decision is made. Anyone offering to sell it now is not legitimate.
Is this pay-to-win? No — premium boosts are capped at +50% by the hold-tier system, so spending can't dominate.
Can I lose my progress? Your save persists locally (and in the cloud if you opt in). Ascension resets buildings on purpose, but keeps your permanent currency, upgrades, home and character.
Do I have to fight? Yes, to progress — Cores from combat gate higher tiers and weapon upgrades. But you set the pace.
Is this an investment? No. It's a game with a utility token, and nothing here is financial advice.
What platforms? Any modern browser, desktop and mobile, from one codebase. No install.
Your colonist, account and stats.
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