What is Influence?
Facts checked 25 Oct 2026
Influence is a space strategy game you play in your web browser. You command crews in a shared asteroid belt, extract resources, process them into more advanced items, and trade with other players in an economy that never pauses.
The setting
Influence takes place in Adalia, a far-off star system ringed by an asteroid belt of 250,000 asteroids. Each one has its own size, its own mix of resources, and its own orbit. Because the asteroids really do move, the distances between them change over time, and so does how easy it is to travel or ship goods from one to another.
The people of Adalia are descended from the passengers of the Arvad, a generation ship that carried colonists from our own Solar System. Some of the game's crewmates come straight from the Arvad, complete with the jobs they held on board. Others, the Adalians, were born in the new system. Our Lore section tells their story in more detail.
What you actually do
Influence is about industry and trade. Almost everything you do feeds into a production chain that starts with raw materials and ends with finished goods:
- Command Crews: A crew has one to five crewmates. Each can be a Miner, Engineer, Scientist, Merchant, or Pilot, and their classes and traits make the crew better at some jobs than others. You can run more than one crew at a time.
- Prospect and Mine: Core samples show you what lies just beneath the surface; Extractors get it for you.
- Build and Produce: Warehouses store your goods. Refineries, Bioreactors, Factories, and Shipyards turn raw materials into fuel, food, parts, and even ships.
- Trade: Players buy and sell at marketplaces run by other players, using the in-game currency, SWAY.
- Move Things: Goods travel across an asteroid's surface by hopper, or between asteroids by ship. Shipping between asteroids means planning around orbits, propellant, cargo space, and flight times.
- Work with Others: You can do everything yourself, or specialise in one part of a production chain and rely on other players for the rest. Many players join organisations to tackle bigger projects together.
How it feels to play
Actions in Influence take real time. You plan some work, set your crew going, and come back later to see the results, a bit like tending a garden. There is no set amount you have to play each day.
There is also no single way to win. Influence is a sandbox: you set your own goals. You might supply a busy local market, build a dependable production chain, run a haulage service, or help develop a whole settlement.
What it costs
There are two ways to get a crew of your own, both bought in the game's Store:
- Recruit a Single Crewmate: A new crewmate costs about $5, and one crewmate is enough to form a crew and start playing. You choose which asteroid your crewmate starts on.
- Buy a Starter Pack: Each pack includes several crewmates plus allowances to lease your first lots and construct your first buildings on Adalia Prime, the belt's largest asteroid. The game's guided starter missions, Your Foothold in Adalia, are designed around these crews.
You don't need to buy an asteroid either way. Once you are up and running, expect ongoing costs such as food for your crew, lease renewals, and materials. Our guide Starter packs compared goes through the options.
Not ready to buy anything yet? The Academy's Training Ground lets you hire an Academy crew for a few SWAY and practise the basics first.
Signing in and the blockchain
Influence runs on Starknet, a blockchain network. In practice, that means the crews, ships, and asteroids you own are genuinely yours, and other community tools, like this Academy's My Assets pages, can read them.
You don't need to know anything about blockchains to start. You can sign in with an Influence Account using Google or an email address, and the game sets up a Starknet account for you behind the scenes. Your SWAY and the things you own are kept there, so you don't need a separate wallet app just to play.
A wallet app of your own, such as Ready X or Braavos, is recommended for extra functionality, such as using community tools outside the game. Our next guide explains how to set one up.
What isn't in the game yet
You may read older articles describing combat between players, technology research, or skill trees. These are planned for the future but are not part of the game today. Everything in the Academy's guides describes the game as it is now.