u/Thranodi

Genuine design question for this crowd. We just added stealth limpet mines to our persistent browser space MMO — and the twist is they don't kill, they sabotage.

A mine silently attaches to any ship that passes within range and degrades its shield resistance — no warning. The victim feels perfectly safe, and only finds out when they pick a fight and their defenses fail far faster than they should (or when they dock).

The strategic part: plant one right next to a Port. Every trader has to dock there to buy and sell, so a single mine quietly taxes the whole sector's economy — you're not hunting one target, you're degrading everyone who trades through. Three tiers trade range for cost (25 / 300 / 1000 km), debuffs stack up to −60, and there's real counter-play (dock to reveal it, or an anti-mine sweep).

Short clip of the system in action: [VIDEO]

There's more in this update too — Kryllith countdown encounters, combat fixes, and a hard guarantee your progress survives every server maintenance. Full devlog: https://kronwars.com/devlog-5-silent-warfare/

Where does this crowd land: in a persistent 4X-style economy, do you want indirect "economic warfare" tools like this — weapons that attack the enemy's logistics instead of their hull — or does it cross the line into griefing?

(Context, not a pitch: it's at kronwars.com, closed beta.)

Genuine question for this crowd.

We're building a persistent browser space MMO with a 4X-shaped core — eXplore thousands of interconnected sectors, eXpand through colonies and outposts, eXploit a player-driven economy, eXterminate via PvP/PvE and corporation warfare.

But there's no "end turn" and no victory screen: the galaxy is persistent, so expansion means diplomacy (or war) with real people, and the economy is one shared system everyone trades in at once. This cycle we reworked travel — you plot a multi-jump route and it runs server-side while you do anything else, the ship still moving when you switch screens.

Short clip: [VIDEO] What I'm curious about: does the 4X loop actually survive without a win condition? In a persistent shared galaxy, "exterminate" never really ends and "expand" never caps out. Some of you have thousands of hours in Stellaris/Distant Worlds/GalCiv — do you think a 4X economy works as an MMO, or does losing the turn structure and the endgame break what makes 4X satisfying?

(Context, not a pitch: it's at kronwars.com, closed beta.)

Kron Wars is a persistent sci-fi trading MMO that runs in your browser. This update rebuilt how travel works: set a course across multiple sectors, launch Express Warp, and the journey keeps running in the background — switch to your stats, manage your fleet, come back, and your ship is still in flight, kilometers ticking down toward the Jump Gate in real time.

The video shows the full loop: undock from the StarDock, plot the route, warp, switch pages mid-flight to prove it keeps going, and watch the distance count down. Free to play, currently in closed beta.

https://kronwars.com

Trade Wars Frontier is a persistent sandbox space MMO that runs in your browser — modern rebirth of the 1987 BBS classic Trade Wars 2002, with the strategic depth of EVE-style economies and none of the download.

One player-driven economy across a growing multiverse: trade legally through the StarDock, or smuggle contraband through the ShadowDock in lawless space. Build Spire Citadels, refine resources, craft ships from blueprints, fight in PvP and PvE with full ship fitting — solo or with your corporation.

The video shows the universe map plotting a route across the first universe's 5,000 sectors, colored by security status.

Free to play, currently in closed beta — open beta coming. Happy to answer anything!

https://twfrontier.com