Derby Stars NFT in-game Utility

Derby Stars is a horse racing game built on the Polygon network. If you are a fan of anime and horse racing, this game is for you! In order to start racing, you will need at least one Horse - the main NFT in the game. There are many things you can do with your Horse NFT such as training, participating in PvP matches, breeding, etc. We will cover more later on in this article. Most importantly, this is a play to earn game where you can earn Governance token ($RUN) and Utility token ($CRT) throughout the game.

What are the NFTs in Derby Stars?

In Derby Stars, NFTs come in different types, with the most significant one being the Horse (ERC-721). Each Horse NFT is unique, with over 10 billion possible variations in appearance, stats, skills, and talents. Other NFT types include Souls (ERC-721), which are special energy masses obtained after horses mate, and Foals (ERC-721), the young offspring of Souls.

Rarities

Let’s talk more about the Horse NFTs. The rarities of the Horses are Common, Rare and Unique.

• If you own a common Horse, it means that the body parts of that Horse are all common grade.

• Rare Horses have more than one rare body part, ranging from 1 to 8.

• The best is unique Horses where all the body parts are unique.

• The great news is that the rarity of the Horses do not affect their ability and talent. It only determines the appearance of your Horse. The higher the rarity of your Horse, the prettier it looks.

Body Parts of Horse NFTs (Source: Derby Stars Medium)

Stats

The 5 basic stats of a Horse NFT are Speed, Power, Stamina, Grit, and Intellect.

• Speed determines how fast your Horse can go.

• Power affects the acceleration of your Horse.

• Stamina is essentially the Health Points (HP) of your Horse. The greater the stamina, the longer your Horse can run at maximum speed.

• Grit determines how adaptable your Horse can be to external environments like track condition, weather, number of competitors, etc.

• Intellect simply means how smart your Horse is, which affects its’ chances and frequency of using skills.

You can increase the stats of your Horse. Upon eating food, your Horse gains EXP. As you accumulate EXP and level up your Horse, you will gain 1 stat point. You can choose any stat to level up. The maximum level of a Horse is 50 and the total number of all 5 stats cannot exceed 300.

Stats of the Horse NFTs (Source: Derby Stars Medium)

Talent - running style of your Horse

All Horses have 4 types of running style, namely Runaway Runner, Front Runner, Stalker, and Stretch Runner. Each running style is graded from S to E. Each horse will naturally have an advantage in a particular running style and cannot be changed through training in the game.

• Runaway Runner is where your Horse is always aiming to stay ahead until the finish line.

• A Horse with a higher grade in Front Runner is the kind of Horse that paces the Runaway Runner and will speed up in the middle of the race.

• A stalker stays behind the Front Runner, then increases its speed halfway through the race and finally accelerates at the final track to overtake the other Horses.

• Stretch Runner is the kind of Horse that pace itself consistently by staying at the back, then it accelerates at the final track.

Track Preference

Every Horse has a preference for the type of track. The preferences are ‘Like’, ‘Dislike’ and ‘Normal’. This is an important consideration to take when signing your Horse up for a certain race. If you want your Horse to excel in the race, make sure to choose the track that your Horse likes. On a side note, track preferences cannot be changed.

Skills

Last but not least, let’s talk about your Horse’s skills. Each Horse has 1 Special skill and  5 Common skills. Skills are activated during a race and determine the performance of your Horse in the race. And, Intellect determines the chances and frequency of skills activation.

Skills of the Horse NFTs (Source: Derby Stars Medium)

What can I do with my Horse NFTs in Derby Stars?

There are 3 ways you can use your Horse NFTs. First, you can train your Horses. Training your Horses is important for improving the stats and level of your Horses. And, it is the prerequisite to entering a race. Once the required number of training is completed, your Horses can participate in the PvE competition.

Next, PvE competitions, which comes after training.This is where you can race your Horses against NPCs. You’ll be able to earn the governance token, $CRT from PvE competitions. You can also race your Horses against other people in PvP competitions, where you can earn $RUN and $CRT token. We will cover more details about PvP competitions in another article.

Last but not least, you can breed your Horse NFTs to create a new Horse NFT. You need to pay a certain amount of $CRT and $RUN token for breeding. The amount of $CRT token required increases as the number of breeding increases. The amount of $RUN token required depends on the sum of rarities of both Horses. Once breeding is complete, Soul (also an NFT) is created. After 5 days, Soul can be hatched into a Foal NFT. After 72 hours, the Foal NFT will then grow up into a Horse NFT. The rarity, appearance, colour, stats, and skills of the Foal NFT depends on the parent Horse.

 Is there a market for these NFTs, and can I make a profit?

Yes, there is a vibrant marketplace in the Derby Stars website, where players can buy, sell, and trade NFTs with each other. This is the link to the in-game marketplace - https://derbystars.com/market/horse . You can also head over to either OpenSea ( https://opensea.io/collection/derbystars) or OnePlanet (https://www.oneplanetnft.io/collections/derby-stars)  to buy or sell your Horses, Souls and Foals.

How do I acquire Horses in Derby Stars?

Acquiring Horses in this game is very straightforward. One way you can get Horses is buying them through the marketplace as mentioned above. If you already have Horse NFTs and want more of them because you love playing the game, you can breed your Horses to obtain Soul NFT, which will then be hatched into a Foal NFT. If you just want to try out the game with minimal commitment, the Derby Stars team will be pushing out an in-game rental system for the game’s Alpha Launch on 7 Aug. So do keep a lookout on Avocado DAO Derby Stars Forum to stay updated on the rental system.