![cover](https://i.imgur.com/gQjWbnn.png) Hello, Fellow Citizens! Another week, another deep dive into the engine room. Today I want to give you a full rundown of what landed on the server this week, plus an early look at something we have been designing that is going to change how quests work in a really meaningful way. This update has two parts: first, a pretty significant behind-the-scenes hardening pass on the smart contract, and second, a sneak peek at the **Quest Revamp + Crate Shop Expansion** that we are putting together. Let's get into it.
## **What We Shipped This Week** ### Verifiable, Deterministic Randomness This one is big for fairness and transparency. Every combat roll, quest roll, boss loot pull, and crate item draw in TerraCore now uses **seeded randomness tied directly to the Hive blockchain**. What does that mean in plain English? Before this change, outcomes were generated using JavaScript's built-in random function — which works fine but cannot be verified or reproduced. After this change, every roll is seeded with the block ID and transaction ID of the action that triggered it. That means anyone — any player, any developer, anyone — can take a block ID and a transaction ID and independently verify that the outcome they received was fair and correct. This is how blockchain gaming is supposed to work. The Hive chain is the source of truth, and now TerraCore's RNG is provably tied to it.
### Race Condition Fixes Across the Board We did a full security audit of the smart contract this week and found several places where two transactions arriving at the same time could produce unexpected results. These are classic "race condition" bugs — the kind that are hard to spot but important to get right when real tokens are on the line. Here is what we fixed: **Duplicate claim prevention** — The SCRAP claim process now uses a single atomic database operation to reserve your claim slot before broadcasting the payout. Previously there was a small window where two rapid claim attempts could both succeed. That window is now gone. **Boss fight cooldown** — Same story on boss fights. The cooldown is now claimed atomically in a single step, so two rapid boss fight transactions cannot both slip through. **Concurrent attack guard** — The combat system now sets the battle timestamp inside the same write operation that resolves the fight, preventing two simultaneous attacks on the same target from both processing. **Marketplace double-purchase prevention** — NFT marketplace purchases now check that an item is still listed as available in the same write that removes it. Two buyers racing to grab the same item will now have the second transaction cleanly rejected rather than both going through. **Transaction replay protection** — Hive Engine transactions now check a stored hash before processing quests and boss fights. This prevents a replayed transaction from triggering game actions a second time. None of these were being actively exploited that we know of, but finding and closing them now — before the player base grows — is exactly the right call.
### Automatic Node Failover TerraCore's smart contract reads the Hive blockchain in real time. To do that it connects to Hive API nodes — and like any distributed network, individual nodes go up and down. Before this week, when a node started misbehaving, it would keep being used until someone noticed and manually restarted the process. Now the system monitors node health continuously. If a node racks up errors, the contract automatically switches to a faster, healthier node — no restart needed, no manual intervention. This means fewer dropped blocks, fewer missed transactions, and better uptime for everyone. It is one of those quality-of-life improvements that players will never consciously notice because things will just... work.
### Cleaned Up False Alarm Alerts Small one, but worth mentioning: the ops alert system was firing a warning every time a player attacked someone with 0 SCRAP on them. That is completely normal gameplay — sometimes you just want the fight, not the loot — but it was generating noise in our monitoring. Cleaned it up so alerts only fire for things that actually need attention.
--- ## **What We Are Building Next: Quest Revamp + Crate Shop Expansion** Now for the exciting part. We have been designing a major overhaul of the quest system, and I want to share the vision with you early. The short version: **quests become a daily, meaningful SCRAP sink that rewards geared players without locking out newcomers.** And the crate shop gets upgraded so that all rarities are purchasable — creating on-demand deflationary pressure whenever veterans want to go deep. Here is how it works.
### The Daily Quest Board Every day at midnight UTC, a fresh board of **5–6 quest slots** generates. The same board is visible to every player. Each slot is a specific quest type and tier. You pick a slot you qualify for, pay the SCRAP cost, and your character goes out on the mission. Come back after the timer expires, collect your relics, and that is it. No more click-spam. No more racing to hit the button at the right moment. Just a clean daily rhythm — send your crew out in the morning, collect at the end of the day.
### Five Quest Types Each quest type maps to different stats and rewards a different playstyle: | Quest Type | Primary Stat | Flavor | |---|---|---| | **Combat Raid** | Damage / Crit | Attack missions | | **Salvage Op** | Engineering | Resource extraction | | **Stealth Run** | Dodge / Luck | Evasion missions | | **Fortune Hunt** | Luck / Crit | Pure high-variance gambling | | **Heavy Defense** | Defense | Defensive operations |
### Items Start to Matter for Quests Here is the part that ties equipped items into the quest loop in a real way. Each quest type has a matching item slot — a weapon for Combat Raids, armor for Stealth Runs, and so on. At **Tier 3 and above**, that item must be equipped to start the quest. Tiers 1 and 2 remain open to everyone, but if you want access to the highest-tier missions you need the gear to back it up. On top of that, the **rarity of your equipped item adds a direct bonus to your roll**: | Item Rarity | Roll Bonus | |---|---| | None equipped | +0 | | Common | +5 | | Uncommon | +10 | | Rare | +20 | | Epic | +35 | | **Legendary** | **+50** | A legendary weapon on a Combat Raid can push an average roll from "two commons and an uncommon" into "one rare and one epic" territory. This gives itemization a direct, tangible payoff that compounds as you upgrade.
### Five Tiers With Real Scaling Quests scale from quick and cheap all the way to multi-hour commitments with serious relic rewards: | Tier | Level Req | Stat Req | Base SCRAP | Duration | Reward Multiplier | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | 1 | 1+ | ≥ 10 | 10 SCRAP | 1 hour | 1× | | 2 | 10+ | ≥ 50 | 50 SCRAP | 2 hours | 1.5× | | 3 | 25+ | ≥ 100 | 200 SCRAP | 3 hours | 2× | | 4 | 50+ | ≥ 200 | 500 SCRAP | 4 hours | 3× | | 5 | 100+ | ≥ 500 | 2,000 SCRAP | 6 hours | **5×** |
### Oracle-Adjusted Costs (The Key to the Economy) The SCRAP costs listed above are **base costs**. The actual cost at any given time is multiplied by a live oracle that reads the SCRAP price every four hours and adjusts accordingly. The target is to keep quest costs at a consistent USD value regardless of where SCRAP is trading. The multiplier floors at 1× (never cheaper than base) and caps at 10× (never more than ten times base). At current SCRAP prices, the oracle sits around **10×**, meaning: - Tier 1: 100 SCRAP - Tier 2: 500 SCRAP - Tier 3: 2,000 SCRAP - Tier 4: 5,000 SCRAP - **Tier 5: 20,000 SCRAP** Our Monte Carlo modeling across 2,700 players shows that **20% daily engagement** flips the net daily SCRAP flow from inflationary to deflationary. That is the target — a healthy burn that does not require everyone to participate, just enough to balance the books.
### No More Mine Rate Decay One more thing coming alongside the quest revamp: **we are removing mine rate decay entirely**. The original purpose of decay was to create a SCRAP sink through the upgrade pressure it generated. The oracle-adjusted quest system handles that now in a much cleaner and more player-friendly way. Punishing players for not upgrading on a specific cadence is not fun — especially for players who want to play the PvP or quest side of the game without worrying about their mine rate slowly eroding. Once this ships, your mine rate stays stable as long as you are active. PvP players, quest-focused players, and miners all get to play the way they want without a decay clock pressuring them into upgrades. *(The maxAttacks decay that limits idle farming accounts stays — that one is doing its job.)*
--- ## **Crate Shop Expansion** The second half of this update brings higher-rarity crates into the shop for direct purchase. Right now only common crates are available to buy. The plan is to add uncommon, rare, and epic crates — each with an oracle-adjusted SCRAP price targeting a fixed USD value: | Rarity | USD Target | SCRAP at Current Prices | |---|---|---| | Common | $5 | ~2.5M SCRAP | | Uncommon | $25 | ~12.5M SCRAP | | Rare | $125 | ~62.5M SCRAP | | Epic | $625 | ~312.5M SCRAP | | Legendary | — | Boss-exclusive only | The veteran who buys a single Rare crate at current prices burns the equivalent of almost three weeks of net inflation in one transaction. These are big, meaningful deflationary events — and because players want the gear inside for quest tier access, the demand is real. Legendary crates stay boss-exclusive. Some things should be earned, not bought.
--- ## **How It All Connects** The goal with both of these systems is a self-reinforcing loop: **Mine SCRAP → Spend on quests → Earn relics → Forge into crates → Open for items → Equip items (unlock better quest tiers) → Upgrade with FLUX → Do higher-tier quests → More SCRAP spent → Repeat** Mining stays passive income. Quests become the primary daily spend. Items become genuinely valuable for what they unlock. The crate shop becomes a meaningful place for veterans to put SCRAP to work. Everything connects.
--- ## **Wrapping Up** This has been one of the heavier development weeks in a while. The security hardening and RNG work alone were a significant lift, and having the quest revamp design locked in and ready to build is exciting. I will post again when we are closer to shipping the quest changes and crate expansion — there will be more details on the UI, the roll animation, and the specific timeline. In the meantime, feel free to jump into the Discord with questions or feedback. Community input shapes what gets built and how. Stay tuned, Fellow Citizens. Big things coming.
--- *That's it for today, all the links are below be sure to follow us to hear what we are working on and follow the progress!* [Play Terracore](https://terracoregame.com) | [Check Out our Wiki](https://wiki.terracoregame.com) | [Follow us on Twitter](https://twitter.com/terracoregame) | [Follow us on PeakD](https://peakd.com/@terracore) | [Come join the Discord](https://discord.gg/terracore)