Leaderboards & Activity Feed
SpaceDwarves includes a light, optional social layer: a set of ranked leaderboards and a rolling public activity feed. Both are read-only for everyone and writable only by VIP players who have explicitly opted in. Free players can browse every board and read the whole feed — they simply cannot appear on them. Everything here lives on the server; see Accounts & Authentication for how accounts and opt-ins work.
Leaderboards
The eight boards
| Board | What it ranks | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Total Credits | Current credits in your treasury | Submitted on expedition return, mega-project completion, sales, and a ~5-minute heartbeat |
| Dwarves Collected | Lifetime count of dwarves ever recruited | Cumulative — does not drop when dwarves are dismissed |
| Legendary Dwarves | Legendary-rarity dwarves currently on your roster | Current count; can go down on dismissal |
| Mega Projects Completed | Fully finished mega projects | Counts projects where every phase is done |
| Galaxies Reached | Distinct galaxies unlocked | The starting Home galaxy counts as 1 |
| Expedition Depth | Deepest expedition stage ever completed | Hard-capped at 5 (expeditions have 5 stages) |
| Expeditions Completed | Cumulative count of “completed” expeditions | An expedition counts only if it banks loot and the squad isn’t wiped |
| Sectors Owned | Current number of sectors you own | Current footprint, not a lifetime total |
Seasons
Every board runs in two timeframes:
- All-time — the default, persistent ranking.
- Seasonal — a rotating board that resets per season.
Requests default to the all_time season unless a season is specified.
How ranking works
- Boards are sorted highest value first, with rank computed by position.
- The public read returns paged entries (default 50 per page, maximum 100) plus the total number of qualifying entries.
- If you read the board while logged in, the response also includes your own self-entry — your value and exact rank — even if you fall outside the visible page.
- Expedition Depth only ever updates upward: submitting a lower stage than your stored best leaves your record unchanged.
- Only players with
leaderboard_opt_inenabled are counted, ranked, or shown.
Eligibility & opt-in
- Appearing on a board requires an active VIP subscription and the leaderboard opt-in preference turned on.
- Free players see boards in read-only mode and cannot submit.
- Turning the opt-in off immediately deletes all of your existing leaderboard entries — opting out removes your presence from every board. (Manage this via your account preferences; see Accounts & Authentication.)
Integrity & anti-cheat
Because cloud-saved game state is stored as-is and not re-simulated, the server applies plausibility checks to every submission rather than trusting the number blindly:
| Board | Absolute max accepted | Max increase per real hour |
|---|---|---|
| Total Credits | 1×10¹⁵ | no rate cap |
| Dwarves Collected | 10,000 | +20 |
| Legendary Dwarves | 500 | +5 |
| Mega Projects Completed | 100 | +1 |
| Galaxies Reached | 1,000 | +1 |
| Expedition Depth | 5 | (hard cap — no rate check) |
| Expeditions Completed | 1,000,000 | no rate cap |
| Sectors Owned | 10,000 | +10 |
A submission is rejected if it exceeds the absolute bound, or if it jumps further than the per-hour rate limit allows compared with your most recent recorded stat snapshot. Rejected values return an error explaining the maximum acceptable value.
Activity Feed
The activity feed is a rolling, public, newest-first stream of notable milestones. Anyone can read it; only opted-in VIP players post to it.
Tracked event types
| Event | Fires when |
|---|---|
| Legendary Dwarf Found | A legendary-rarity dwarf joins your roster (from any source) |
| Mega Project Completed | A mega project finishes its final phase |
| Mega Project Milestone | A mega-project phase completes while the project is still ongoing |
| Galaxy Claimed | A new galaxy is unlocked |
| Deep Expedition Won | An expedition completes after reaching stage 4 or 5 |
| Artifact Discovered | A rare artifact is found on an expedition |
| New Sector Claimed | A new sector is added to your empire |
Each event carries a small payload (the dwarf’s name and ability, the project and phase, the galaxy name, the artifact, etc.) and is displayed under your corporation’s display name with a timestamp.
Reading the feed
- Public, no login required.
- Paginated newest-first: default 25 events per page, maximum 50, with an ISO-timestamp cursor for fetching older pages.
- Can be filtered to a single event type.
- Only events from players with the activity-feed opt-in enabled appear.
Posting to the feed
- Requires active VIP plus the activity-feed opt-in preference.
- Rate limited to 20 events per hour per player.
- If you post while opted out, the request succeeds silently and nothing is stored — no error, no feed entry.
Free vs. VIP at a glance
| Capability | Free | VIP (opted in) |
|---|---|---|
| View leaderboards | Yes | Yes |
| Appear / rank on leaderboards | No | Yes |
| Read activity feed | Yes | Yes |
| Post to activity feed | No | Yes |
Both features are purely social and carry no gameplay power — they exist to celebrate progress, not to gate it. See VIP & Monetization for the full perk list.