Litepaper

Introduction to Carda Station

Carda Station is a Cardano metaverse set on the moon. The vision of Carda Station is to have a blockchain based, lived-in world where residents and visitors can interact with each other and their novel surroundings as a character in the in-engine environment. Carda Station represents a unique opportunity to explore a piece of our world that very few have (or will have) the opportunity to do in real life.

In this moon-based virtual world, you will be able to:

Own and build on plots of land
Interact with other players
Play a variety of games
Host and attend events
Interact with/set up a business

One thing that has governed the decision making at Carda Station is the desire to maintain some level of realism within the metaverse. The idea is not to stray too far into sci-fi where Carda Station transforms into a fantasy land. At its core, Carda Station is a representation of what everyday life could look like in the decades to come. Having said that, this ethos will not be at the expense of a fun and engaging world.

Land on Carda Station

On Carda Station, you have a chance to own a part of the (virtual) moon. Carda Station Land Owners can deploy pre-build structures on their plots or create their own structures from scratch. This could be a home, a maze, a business, or even just a space to display some NFTs, the choice is truly yours.

The entire map of Carda Station is 20km2 . As this is a metaverse on the moon, we had considered mapping the surface area of the moon to add an extra layer of realism, however we decided against that for two reasons:

Size: Mapping the surface of the moon would mean we would have a world with a total surface area of over 38,000,000km2 . This is an incredibly large number which would ultimately lead to a lot of empty space and added difficulty for players to interact. This takes away from the MMOG feel of a metaverse
Convoluted Process: If we did map out the lunar surface and decide to just scale down, it would present its own challenges. E.g., historical landing sites would not be proportionate; no craters/mountains would appear in their true size (relative to the players). These are additional technical challenges that don’t add too much value and take away from actual development

With that said, we made the decision to have a rough layout of the moon, while striving for maximum authenticity for certain areas, e.g., historical sites and landmarks

Colonies

With several metaverse projects, there tends to be a single massive area where all plots are located. They might be separated by water, objects, etc., but they are immense slabs of land filled with tens of thousands of plots.

Our approach is to have separate areas that each contain their own group of plots, i.e., Colonies. Each Colony will have its own unique feel and landscape. This approach also adds another layer of realism to our world.

Imagine a real colony on the moon. As the population grows, a group of people will eventually go exploring to find another suitable place to settle away from the first in the hopes of finding additional resources.

This is exactly what we are implementing with the 2nd Colony.

Additionally, this ties in with the Exploration gameplay. To get to Colony 2 from Colony 1, you would need to traverse the rough outerworlds with the help of inventory items - rovers, battery packs, etc

Reserved Areas

These are Carda Station plots that are occupied by existing structures. These are:

Stadium
Garage
Bio Farm
Solar Farm
Central

Each of these plots have the ability to provide owners with $CAST rewards and can be very lucrative. For example, if you owned one of the plots of land that the Stadium is built on, you would receive a percentage of the revenue generated for any ticketed events taking place in the stadium.

This reward system applies to all reserved area plots. The exact reward system for each of the reserved areas is still being scoped out and is TBC.

Residences

In the heart of Sector 1 of the 1st Colony is the Community Centre. This is the central hub of Carda Station. The Community Centre is a massive multi-function complex filled with open spaces and plots available to purchase. These plots in the Centre are called Residences and serve as an alternative for anyone who doesn’t want to build out an outdoor plot from scratch. Additionally, these units are located in an area of heavy foot traffic and make excellent locations to set up a business, or to just use as a home to be in the heart of it all. They will still be customisable however: open it up, close it off, build in it, or leave as is. The choice is yours. Mint date for Residences TBC.

Gaming on Carda Station

Carda Station is a metaverse that should be fun. Players who jump in should want to get back into our virtual world - there is so much that can be done that would be a blast with the lower gravity on the moon. With the idea of a decentralised, community-driven and fully customizable world, there is an endless number of games that can be made available and playable on Carda Station. Outside of the community built activities, the Team is dedicated to building in-world games that are equally fun and rewarding.

Recurring tournaments, one-off events and leaderboards are some aspects we will be implementing into the games on Carda Station, with $CAST rewards available. Some examples of games we will be working on:

Rover Racing
Jetpack Racing
Jetpack Obstacle Course
Inter colony competitions
Building projects

Exploration

Exploration will play a big part in Carda Station. “Exploration” is the general term used for any activity outside of the Carda Station Colonies. This is essentially the area that cannot be settled on. When outside the safety of the colony, the gameplay mechanics evolve to simulate a survival 5 game. You need to keep an eye on your oxygen levels, suit power, rover power and other factors when stepping out into the outer worlds. With Exploration, other gaming possibilities will also be unlocked. Treasure Hunts, which we did a small test of within the colony, will be back bigger and better than ever.

Tokenomics

In April 2022, we announced the native token for Carda Station: $CAST (Carda Station Token). As the utility token for our metaverse, $CAST will be used for our internal marketplace and all in-game transactions. It can also be earned as rewards from various activities. There will be a total of 1,500,000,000 $CAST minted in May 2022. This supply is fixed, meaning there will be no more $CAST minted in the future.

Distribution Breakdown

Airdrops

To reward the early members of the Carda Station journey, 25% of the total supply of $CAST tokens will be airdropped to the holders of the Construction Crew NFT Series, 1st Colony Land Owners and 2nd Colony Land Owners.

The amount of CAST airdropped to wallets depends on the NFTs owned by that wallet. Construction Crew NFTs yield the greatest aidrops per NFT, rewarding the very first supporters of the Carda Station project.

The table below outlines the breakdown of airdrops:

Schedule

The free Airdrops of $CAST will be released on a schedule. We have decided to adopt this approach to minimise the risk of immediately flooding the market with the tokens, which will negatively affect the price action. Ultimately, the goal is to have a trusted, reliable (and profitable) token that will serve as the “currency” of the moon.

Token Listing

We believe listing a metaverse token significantly ahead of any utility for said token is not necessarily the right approach. We want to list the token closer to a point where we are confident about the utility of the token within the metaverse. The date for $CAST listing is TBC.

Our Approach

In the metaverse ecosystem, Carda Station is slightly different in the way we have approached development and releases.

As opposed to a traditional product, e.g., a new banking app, we identified a unique opportunity to receive constant user feedback and testing by making our development build available as soon as that was possible.

This means we are able to have a continuously iterative product development process. With this in place, we can maximise our ability to deliver a product that has been thoroughly vetted by the community.