published on April 20, 2026 in devlog
In this week's devlog Michi talks about the recent election on Promitor and the progress with the post-tutorial contracts.
Michi (molp)
I don't recall a day in recent years when I woke up to 15+ private message requests on Discord. Obviously, something was going on. After checking the servers were doing fine, I started reading. If you have been out of the loop or haven't read Discord over the last 48 hours, here is what happened:
The election on Promitor ended two days ago with members of the 琉璃主权资本 (FOXV) corporations winning a majority of 3 out of 5 seats. Almost immediately, the new government raised production taxes across all industries to the allowed maximum. Also, 25 million ICA were transferred from the government's account to the governor's private account.
To affected players, these actions were completely unexpected, as they were not mentioned in any of FOXW's campaigning. Also, I received many messages claiming that throw-away accounts (or multi-accounts) equipped with gifted PRO time might have been used to interfere with the election. At this time we can neither confirm nor deny these accusations.
Assuming there weren’t any rule violations in play, taking over a planetary government in an election and changing the rules is within the limits of the game's rules. As is the withdrawal of government funds. Under regular circumstances, we consider this emergent gameplay and see it as a desirable part of PrUn’s non-combative gameplay.
At the same time, we haven't seen a switch of power and a change in policy of this scale before. Critics have voiced their opinion that the players (especially the inhabitants of Promitor) currently do not have any option other than waiting for a new election and lobbying for change. There is no 'vote of no confidence' or re-elections in the game yet. We will use this experience as well as the feedback we have received from both supporters and critics of the current system to further refine the political features of PrUn in the future. Also note that more political features are planned in general, such that eventually, a “withdraw funds” motion might not be required anymore, for example.
Last but not least, one more clarification concerning the accusations of using multi-accounts / throw-away accounts to interfere with the election: If they were confirmed, these actions would be in clear violation of the guidelines and our terms of service. We started an investigation with the goal of finding out whether the election was interfered with. If we find clear signs of illegal behavior, we will take action accordingly. Please allow us some time to collect and analyze the evidence.
On to the regular devlog topics: last week I continued the implementation of the post-tutorial contracts. Below you'll see examples of what these contracts might look like, and the motivation behind them.
This contract introduces the faction contract offers and asks the players to fulfill at least three of them. We believe faction contracts can offer additional income and keep new players busy. They'll interact with PrUn more often and get to know it and its interface better.
The 'buy consumables' contract serves as a reminder that buying goods from the commodity exchanges, especially consumables, is something that most players do regularly.
The next contract requires the players to demonstrate that they can earn money. Commodity exchange sales, contract payouts and income from shipping contracts all count towards the 25k goal.
Having a satisfied workforce supplied with the necessary luxury consumables can be the deciding factor for turning a profit. We think it is important for players to know about this feature going forward.
This contract is not really a meaningful contract at all. It is rather meant for the players to think about where and how they want to expand their company. Given the countless options for a second base, we cannot create a set of contract conditions that direct the players. Instead, we simply add a condition to wait for some time (24h) and give them instructions on how to proceed finding a good spot. Please note that the blue texts in the preamble are links that will open the respective commands.
The last contract in the series will provide the necessary materials to start a new base. Since we don't know where the players will settle, this doesn't include the additional building materials required for planets with extreme environmental conditions. We are currently thinking about replacing the individual materials with a single core module kit, to prevent potential abuse of these starting materials.
As always, we'd love to hear what you think: join us on Discord or the forums!
Happy trading!