Motes

Motes are the currency of Railborn. Announced on 5 May 2026, they are what you spend to upgrade the technology tree. You can find some in the world, but Washbear is explicit that the majority are harvested from plants you grow yourself, and frames them as “your reward for saving the ecosystem in the Railborn world”. Depositing motes into the matching mote vault rebuilds the biome in question — collect enough Forest motes and your Forest biome grows, which in turn unlocks technology items.

Update 011 is the post where Washbear revealed the whole economy at once — motes, biomes and the maturity system — and they opened it with a spoiler warning: “If I was playing Railborn for the first time I would want to discover the Biome system in game.” It is the clearest single description of how progression works that the studio has published. They closed the post by asking players what they thought of the system, which suggests it is still open to change. The usual disclaimer applies: features may change before and during Early Access.

Motes come from the plants grown in plots, whose other contents can affect crop output. The studio offers a hypothetical example in which adding Coral Buff could speed mote growth. Maturity can improve mote quality or grant another benefit; the Common Lilly example yields a starred mote when its cover requirement is met. Plots occupy train cars, while Update 014 adds that Atlas bases contain plants required to unlock technology.

The published sources explain where motes come from and how their output can change: most are harvested from cultivated plants, and the corresponding vault links them to biome restoration. Environmental conditions matter to maturity bonuses, with Common Lilly requiring cover in the demonstrated example. The announcement does not provide a complete set of mote prices, harvest yields or growth timings. Its illustrative numbers are not a tested production guide.