Gem Economy
Gems are Starship Survivors’s premium (“hard”) currency. They sit alongside Credits (the soft currency earned from arcade runs) and are the only currency used for time-skips, in-run revives, and direct pulls without tickets. Source of truth: src/starship-survivors/data/economy.ts.
Acquisition
Gem pack ladder
Five tiers, mapped to standard storefront price points. During beta every pack has betaTopUp: true, meaning the pack grants gems for free with no real payment — the storefront UI still shows the dollar label so layout and copy match the launched version.
| Pack ID | Gems | Display price | Bonus tag |
|---|---|---|---|
gems_100 | 100 | $0.99 | — |
gems_550 | 550 | $4.99 | — |
gems_1200 | 1,200 | $9.99 | — |
gems_6500 | 6,500 | $49.99 | +50% BONUS |
gems_15000 | 15,000 | $99.99 | BEST VALUE |
Special offers
Two bundles ship alongside the pack ladder. The Starter Pack is one-time per account; the Weekly Bundle is repeatable.
| Offer | Contents | Price | One-time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter Pack | 300 gems + 5 tickets | $0.99 | yes |
| Weekly Bundle | 150 gems + 3 tickets | $4.99 | no |
Ad-reward gems
One slot in the daily ad-reward strip grants gems directly: resource_gems pays 50 gems for 5 ad views. The same strip surfaces ticket and credit slots; gems are the slowest of the resource slots by views-per-unit.
Starter inventory
A fresh account starts with 0 gems (see STARTER_INVENTORY — gems and credits both start at zero). All gem balance is earned, awarded, or topped up via the pack ladder.
Spend paths
Death Defiance (in-run revive)
Gems buy back a death mid-run, restoring 50% HP and granting 3s of invulnerability.
- Base cost: 20 gems for the 1st use.
- Escalation: linear —
cost = 20 × useNumber. So 1st = 20, 2nd = 40, 3rd = 60 gems. (Note: there is a paralleldeathDefianceCost(n)helper that returns20 × n; the file comment mentions 30/60/90 but the constants and function produce 20/40/60.) - Maximum uses per run: 3.
- Free uses per day: 1 (resets daily).
The prompt has its own dramatic timing — see death-defiance-timing — but the gem cost itself is the only spend that matters to the economy.
Mission timer skip
Long missions run on a real-world timer. Players can buy out the remaining time.
- Cost:
max(5, ceil(remainingHours × 8))gems — roughly 8 gems per hour, floored at 5. - Mission board refresh: flat 30 gems.
Pulls
Pulls (ship gacha) accept either tickets or gems. The storefront names them “Warp Crystals,” but they are gems 1:1.
- Single pull: 1 ticket OR 100 gems.
- Ten-pull: 10 tickets OR 900 gems (a 100-gem discount vs. 10× single).
Daily limits
- Ad-tickets: capped at 5 per day (
DAILY_AD_TICKET_LIMIT). - Free Death Defiance: 1 per day.
There is no hard cap on gem balance or daily gem spend.
Beta posture
Every entry in GEM_PACKS carries betaTopUp: true. Until that flag flips off, every pack hands out the listed gem count for free when tapped — there is no payment processor wired in. Treat in-beta player balances as designer-granted rather than monetized. The display prices (99.99) are presentational and exist to validate the storefront UI before launch.
See also
- Death Defiance timing
- Revive system
- Supporter tiers
- Magnet pickup (for credits flow on the run-reward side)