stands, human pilots known as agents control their robots remotely, participating in the Perpetuum Project, with their main goal to transfer as much energy as possible back to earth. Nia is home to three alien factions: the Pelistal Empire (green, preferring missile launchers), the Nuimqol Union (blue, preferring railguns) and the Thelodica Clan (yellow, preferring lasers). The faction representing Earth is known as the Syndicate, which will also provide new agents with an Arkhe, a weak but fully featured beginner robot. Alpha islands are represented by a syndicate foothold, also providing security for agents against other agents. Gameplay Players start the game by either selecting a previously-created character or by creating a new one. Each Perpetuum account allows for up to three characters to be made. When players create a new character they start by choosing one of the three Earth megacorporations (ICS, Truhold-Markson, Asintec), followed by schools (combat, industrial, logistics) and further specializations. These choices also affect starting extensions and attributes. Choosing an Earth megacorporation also determines for which alien faction you'll receive starting extensions for, but by no means limit or determine what faction the player eventually can or cannot use. Universe The playing environment in Perpetuum consists of several islands, and have either alpha, beta or gamma status. Islands are connected by a teleport network. Alpha islands are relative safe; player vs player (PvP) can not be initiated unless players activate their PvP flags, and NPC's are (with some rare exceptions) of relative low difficulty and/or value. Beta islands offer more of rarer resources, more challenges and higher rewards, but players can always attack each other. Additionally, beta island offer corporation-owned outposts, to be conquered from other corporations in what is known as an intrusion. This system was later improved, with a more organic mechanic, where ownership of an outpost must be reinforced by completing small objectives randomly set every 8–16 hours, ensuring the owner has a convincing foothold in the area. All islands originally belonged to one of the three alien factions, and feature faction-specific textures and architecture. Advancement Unlike most other massively multiplayer online games, player characters in Perpetuum advance continuously over time by the accumulation of extension points (EP), a passive process that occurs in real world time so that the advancement process continues even if the player is not logged in. One EP is assigned every minute to a player's account's EP pool,