Earth & Beyond - Gameplay

Gameplay

Earth and Beyond is played by controlling either a humanoid or spaceship avatar in the third person.Each game server, or Universe, consists of 12 main star systems. Each system contains multiple sectors. Warp gates are used to travel from sector to sector, and system to system.

Players create a character by choosing one of the three races, and one of three professions: Warrior, Trader or Explorer. Characters gain three types of experience: Combat experience is gained through fighting and completing combat jobs (being incapacitated results in "EXP Debt" and the character only receives half of the normal experience until the debt is repaid), Trade experience is gained from selling loot, by building items and by taking trade jobs, and Exploration experience is gained by from visiting navigation points and exploration jobs. In general each system has a number of "nav points". Visiting a nav point for the first time gives a certain amount of exploration experience. After a nav point is visited, it appears on the "radar" when the player is in the system.

Player's ships are constructed from a reactor, shield and engine. Optionally, a ship may have weapons or other devices that may buff or debuff other ships. Ship equipment can be reverse-engineered, rebuilt and enhanced. Player-made items could have better stats than dropped or purchased items, depending on the skill of the builder.

There were several varieties of boss spawns: Some were activated after a certain number of lower level monsters were killed, while others were time-based. For example, the Crystal Daeva, which produced valuable loot, had a spawn time of 72 hours. Nearly all bosses carried valuable and rare loot, which could be sold for significant amounts of cash on the in-game market.

Some sectors had areas where "Invasions" were staged. Sectors like Aragoth Prime contained a heavily defended Red Dragon base that was surrounded by multiple layers of defense turrets, carriers, battle cruisers, and frigates. Invasions often involved a multitude of clans joined together to attack the base and a huge battle would ensue.