Edit: moved the detailed breakdown to the useful references thread so that I can better keep it up to date
–
Natural blocks have a prestige of 0 (not negative). However, beacons have prestige multipliers that are bonuses based on:
- block variety (different types of blocks)
- exotic colors (colors from other worlds)
- chiseled blocks
- built vs unbuilt space (e.g. to discourage builds that are just a bunch of plots full of high prestige blocks)
I believe these are generally all calculated against the distribution of blocks in the beacon—so, in order to have a high multiplier, you need to maintain a decent balance of all of the above aspects. In this case, the base prestige of the beacon didn’t lower, but the multiplier did