World Explorer: balance

How hard the game is, what things cost and what they pay, and where each number lives, so the next change knows what to edit. Every number here is read from the code; a change to the code changes this file too.

Two modes share one combat core and differ in tuning:

• Arcade (src/js/arcade.js): one run through the eight worlds, three waves each, the flagship in the third. Its numbers are tuned for a short, dense run; three difficulty rows in arcade_modes change them. The worlds come in an order of the player's (a route, a card at each break: see The arcade's route and cards), so its numbers go by the run's step (0 for the first world flown to 7 for Eclipse), which is the world's index on the map's order.
• Campaign (stations, contracts, trade): raiders come in patrols, the world's armour and shields are met at full strength, and the pace is set by contracts and ranks.

The world files (src/js/worlds/<world>.js) are the base both modes start from.

The worlds: threat, armour, shields

Each world has a threat level, wave, that scales raiders' hull and speed, and an armour share and shield that every raider there carries.

• A world's place in the order of threat is world_tier ((wave - 1)/2): Haven 0 to Eclipse 7. The raiders' tier, contract rewards, resource prices and the threat shown read it, never the world's place in the list.

• Where: world.wave, world.armor, world.shield, world.weapon, world.attack, world.defense and expedition.required in each world file.

• The gate check (allowed_world in src/js/campaign.js) compares the gate's needs with your ratings:

  • weapons (attack_rating): Hotter plasma + Rapid resonance levels + 3 per Prism level + 2 per Orbit drone + Guided plasma level + the gun rating (guns_rating in src/js/hardpoints.js: your best gun's rating plus its tier minus 1, and 2 more for each gun past the first);
  • defence (defense_rating): Phase armor + Shield capacitor levels + the ship's shield / 35, rounded down;
  • radiation (radiation_protection in src/js/expedition.js): the hull's own share + 20% per Radiation lining level, at most 98%;
  • armour (armour_rating, gate_armour_share in src/js/campaign.js): one mounted gun that keeps at least 20% of each hit through the world's raider armour (gun_armour_share in src/js/hardpoints.js; the armour at the story's front, world_armour). A cannon with no Hotter plasma keeps 19% in Dustfall, so the guide's plan adds Hotter plasma 1 (38); in Obsidian the cannon, the shotgun and the ion gun keep 9% to 13% at any tier a pilot has by then, so the plan names a gun that bites (the Seeker or the Lance railgun, licensed at Vanguard with chapter 4). The guide's plan adds up to two Hotter plasma levels when they are enough, else that gun (preparation_plan in src/js/guide.js), and its button opens the ARSENAL. Before, the gate let a pilot with a shotgun into Obsidian, where it died over and over (18 to 39 deaths for the bot).

• The raider mix (world.mix) is the share of each type: chaser, tank, shooter, splitter, lancer. Haven is [0.7, 0, 0.3, 0, 0]: chasers and shooters only.

• Each world's flight rules (rules in the world file) change speed, shield recharge, gravity and the pulse energy drain; they are part of the difficulty too. Eclipse drains 1.8 pulse a second; Haven recharges shields 25% faster.

Raiders

A raider's hull grows with the world's wave (base_spawn_enemy in src/js/combat.js):

In the campaign every raider but a flagship carries twice that hull (campaign_raider_hull in src/js/campaign.js; the arcade scales its own, below). That gives, in the campaign at NORMAL:

• A tank carries 1.4 times the world's shield (spawn_enemy in src/js/campaign.js).
• The story's front (campaign; raider_tier in src/js/campaign.js): a world the story has moved past fights harder. Its tier is the larger of the world's index and the chapters claimed less one. Past the world's own index, each tier is a threat level of two more wave (hull and speed, as in the tables), 4% more armour (72% at most), 15 more shield, 8% more to the raider's gun, 8% more flagship hull, and a patrol as often and as many as that tier's world sends. In act I it touches only a world you go back to (Haven during chapter 3 fights like Verdant). In act II (chapters 9 to 16, story 8 to 15) every world fights seven tiers past its own: Haven's raiders have Eclipse's hull and guns, 28% armour and 105 shield; Eclipse's in chapter 16 have a threat level of 29 (a chaser 225 hull), 72% armour, 305 shield and guns 2.12 times Haven's.
• A shot is taken by the shield first; what passes is cut by the armour twice (armour_hull_damage in src/js/campaign.js): its plating takes a flat 50 × the armour share off every hit, never more than three quarters of it, then the share takes the rest in proportion. Many small bolts lose more to a heavy hull than one slug does: in Eclipse (52% in the arcade) a hit loses 26 before the share. A raider's shield comes back at 10 a second after 6 seconds unhit (src/js/navigation.js).
• Raider guns (world_audio_base_enemy_fire in src/js/campaign.js): rail 30, missile 14 to 40 by its kind (below), ion 17 (and it drains 8 pulse), scatter 12 a pellet in a fan of three, plasma 10; each 8% more a world past Haven (raider_hit_scale), Eclipse's 1.56 times, and in the campaign 8% more a tier of the story's front (above). From Nova Forge on, darts and seekers come in pairs. A raider fires every 3.6 s, a tank every 2.8 s (src/js/navigation.js), a shooter every 2.1 − 0.04·wave s, at least 1.2 (src/js/update.js), each times its reload (raider_reload in src/js/campaign.js): in the campaign half of that (campaign_raider_reload), so every 1.8 s, 1.4 s and 0.6 to 1 s; in the arcade the mode's gap. In both a missile raider reloads twice as slowly as one with another gun (arcade_reloads).
• Measured (a bot taking contracts with a story pilot's kit, 4 minutes a world, seeds 1 to 3 in Haven, 1 and 2 elsewhere; before, and after the raiders took twice the hull and half the reload, with the growing hold waves, the campaign dash's grace and one gun a mount of the same change): shots at you a minute, Haven 4 → 18, Obsidian 13 → 33, Eclipse 14 → 28; raiders killed before they fire 74% → 49%, 49% → 25%, 77% → 65%; the share of the time in a fight 24% → 45%, 41% → 46%, 36% → 44%. Deaths: Haven one in 12 minutes, before and after; Obsidian and Eclipse none before, one in each 4-minute run after.
• Raider shot speeds (raider_shot_first × raider_shot_boost, read by raider_shot_speed in src/js/campaign.js), before the world's projectile rule: a gun's bolt flies 3.84 times the speed it is fired at (plasma and scatter 210, so 806; a shooter's 180 + 4·wave; a flagship's gun its design's, boss_designs in src/js/bosses.js), a rail slug 520 × 3.84 = 1997, an ion bolt 275 × 3.84 = 1056; a missile 190 × its kind's speed × 4.32 (dart 1067, seeker 821, torpedo 575); a shot of a flagship's pattern (a ring, a fan, a spiral) 1.61 times its speed. A bolt's flight is 6 s over its factor, a missile's its kind's flight (below) over 1.8, so the reach stays as it was before the boost (2.4 for guns and missiles, 1.4 for a pattern). In every world each bolt and missile outflies the fastest cruising ship (an interceptor with three Slipstreams; the closest are a Haven shooter's bolt, 707 against 620, and an Eclipse torpedo, 575 against 558); turbo outruns the bolts, not the missiles (below). Hits are checked along a shot's whole step (hostile_shot_contact), so a slug never passes through a small hull between two frames.
• Every raider's gun leads its aim (raider_aim in src/js/arcade.js), in the campaign and the arcade alike: it fires where you will be when the shot gets there if you hold your course, at the shot's real speed, or straight at you when it could not catch you within 1.5 s. The course is taken as straight, so a turn is what dodges it.
• A raider's missile keeps up with the ship it chases, turbo included: it flies at 1.15 times the ship's speed at that moment when that is more than its own (missile_chase in src/js/missiles.js). It turns no harder sideways than at its own speed (its turn rate falls as it speeds up), so a ship in turbo that turns hard shakes it, and one far enough ahead keeps its lead until the missile's flight ends.
• A raider's missile goes off at its fuse, units from your shield's edge (or your hull without one), and its blast is a wave: the full damage within the fuse, falling to half at the blast's rim; a wave sets off the missiles it reaches whose toughness its damage there beats, three deep at most (missile_kinds, missile_kind_for in src/js/missiles.js). Fighters (chaser, splitter, lancer) fire darts; shooters, elites (Haven's carry missiles) and flagships fire seekers; tanks fire seekers, torpedoes from Nova Forge on.
• A dash (Shift) gives a quarter second of grace, in the campaign and the arcade alike: it covers bolts, slugs and rams but not a blast, a missile's wave or a ship's explosion (dash_grace, damage_player's blast): a missile is outturned or cleared by the EMP, not dashed through. The run's first raider missile within 600 m says so in a toast. Before, the campaign's dash made you untouchable for that quarter second: a bot dashing at every missile within 220 m took no damage at all in Dustfall and Nova Forge (4 raiders, 60 s, a story pilot's kit).

• Measured before the boost above (stepped, 120 s, three raiders 560 m out, no shield): a missile costs you on average about 15 hull sitting still and 7 to 11 circling at 260/s, before and after the fuse and the wave; a dart 14 still and 9.5 circling; a torpedo 39 still, 10 circling: slow and dodgeable, deadly to a ship that sits.
• Ramming you costs 16 hull, a tank 25, a flagship 35 (src/js/update.js).
• The difficulty switch scales raiders at spawn: CHILL 0.8 speed and hull, OVERLOAD 1.2 speed and 1.15 hull (base_spawn_enemy).
• Score and XP: base_damage_enemy in src/js/combat.js and kill_xp in src/js/resources.js. A flagship scores 5000 and gives 60 XP.

Your ship

• Where: one file per ship in src/js/ships/; ship is the catalog entry (opens: the world it goes on sale in, below), hull_profile the radiation, traction, braking, cooling, turbo and extra turbo seconds (endurance).

• The Mule Prospector mines 2.5 times faster (mining: 2.5) and its drone bay holds four drones, other ships two (drone_bay in src/js/drones.js).

• All six ships deal ×1 damage today (damage: 1).

• Shield: the ship's own + 25 per Shield capacitor level (shield_max in src/js/helpers.js). It recharges after 5 seconds unhit at (5 + 2 per capacitor level) a second, times the world's shield rule (src/js/update.js).

• Damage you take is multiplied by the difficulty (CHILL 0.65, OVERLOAD 1.2) and cut 12% per Phase armor level, 15% in Obsidian; after a hit you cannot be hit for 0.85 s, and the combo resets (damage_player in src/js/combat.js).

• Crowds (the arcade only, src/js/arcade_crowds.js): a raider's shot, missile or dying blast hurts × 0.45, and after it only that raider's next hit waits 0.35 s, anyone's 0.1 s. With 0.85 s for any hit one raider firing at you filled most of it (a raider of Ion Reach hits about 50 times a minute on its own), so twelve hurt little more than three; a 0.35 s for any hit lifts twelve only × 1.2. Measured with immortal raiders round a pilot that circles and dodges as the playtest bot does (NORMAL, damage a minute):

  World	3 raiders before / now	12 raiders before / now
  Verdant	546 / 386	792 / 884
  Ion Reach	1202 / 1235	1540 / 1955
  Nova Forge	1073 / 817	1314 / 1455

  A ram, a flagship's fire (its beams, pools, rings of shots), a flare, a vent and a rock keep the whole hit and 0.85 s for any hit, as in the campaign.

• Crashes: an ore rock costs hull above 110 m/s, up to 24 (resolve_solid_ore in src/js/flight.js); drifting debris costs 8 + 2.2% of the closing speed, up to 40 (src/js/expedition.js).

Weapons

• Where: weapon_catalog in src/js/fleet.js (opens, below); the specials in hit_with_weapon and fire_equipped_weapon.
• The ARSENAL's gun cards show ARMOUR: the share of one hit, at the tier you own and your Hotter plasma, that passes the armour of the world the guide heads for (gun_armour_share in src/js/hardpoints.js), red below the gates' 20%. At tier 1 with no Hotter plasma, in Obsidian (50%): the cannon, the shotgun and the ion gun keep 13%, the beam 18%, the Seeker 29%, the rail 80%.
• A shot deals gun damage × (1 + 36% per Hotter plasma level) × (1 + 22% per tier past the first) × the ship's damage: Hotter plasma lifts a slug as much as a bolt (hotter_plasma_share). Prism gives every gun more a shot (gun_shot_count): two bolts or pellets more a level to the cannon, the ion gun and the shotgun, a missile more to the Seeker's salvo, a lance more to the beam, and the rail's slug goes through a raider more. The interval is cut 12% per Rapid resonance level, never below 0.065 s.
• Fully upgraded (tier 5, Hotter plasma 5, Rapid resonance 3, Prism 2), on a hull with no armour: the cannon 2860 a second, the ion gun 3100, the shotgun 1810, the beam 4200 while the pulse lasts, the rail 890 a raider and up to three in a line, the Seeker 1550 and its blast.
• Tiers run 1 to 5. In the campaign a tier costs (130 + 22% of the gun's price) × the tier you have × 1.5 (gun_tier_cost in src/js/fleet.js): tiers 2 to 5 cost 2676 for the shotgun, 3765 for the ion gun, 5580 for the rail, 6570 for the Seeker and 10530 for the beam. (Before, without the 1.5, a story pilot had its gun at tier 5 by chapter 7 and kept 15 000 to 25 000 salvage unspent through act II.) In the arcade a cleared world raises every gun you own a tier, and a new gun takes the run's tier (arcade_weapon_take).
• A gun fits a mount of its size or larger (gun_fits in src/js/hardpoints.js), and every mount fires its own gun, in the campaign and the arcade alike. A mount fires only a gun bought for it (ship_loadout, guns_owned): the cannon you start with is one gun, and a second mount needs a second gun, the same or another. A gun bought goes on a mount it fits, an empty one first, else the weakest gun there making way (in the campaign only a weaker one), which stays yours, spare, and goes back on for free (mount_gun_anywhere). A gun no mount of your ship fits names the ships that take it; a mount with no gun left stays empty, and the ARSENAL draws it red, with Buy another on the cards of the guns that fit it; the HANGAR counts a ship's empty mounts. A tier is one for every one of a gun.
• Before, in the campaign, one gun bought armed every mount of its size: the cruiser with one rail and one ion gun fired four guns. A campaign save from then gets as many of each gun as its ships carried (guns_kept), so every mount it had armed stays armed.
• Arcade gun price: 120 + 45 × the gun's rating. Campaign: a gun's price, and the same again for each more of it (gun_copy_price; the start cannon 120).

Modules and supplies

A module level costs its base price × (1 + 0.48 per level you have) (module_cost in src/js/upgrades.js). Modules move between ships.

H Haven, V Verdant, D Dustfall, I Ion Reach, O Obsidian, C Cryosphere, N Nova Forge, E Eclipse: see What each world opens, below.

• Where: upgrade_options and supply_options in src/js/upgrades.js; the effects in src/js/update.js, src/js/helpers.js, src/js/expedition.js, src/js/flight.js, src/js/combat.js.
• The pulse (Space) fires at 100 energy: a ring runs out at 760 m/s to 480 m and hits each thing as its front arrives, 200 damage beside you down to 110 at the edge (140 on average, as before; a flagship 457 to 251), before the amplifier; a kill blows up 0.05–0.14 s later and sends a chain ring: 110 m, 28 damage, ×0.82 a step, 3 steps, ×1.35 from a tank, elite or flagship (src/js/pulse.js). A kill gives 4 energy + the amplifier level.

What each world opens

Every ship, gun and module level goes on sale in a world of its own, and reaching that world opens it at every shop from then on, in the arcade and the campaign alike (src/js/tech.js). The world reached (world_reached) is in the arcade the run's step, and from a world's cleared screen on the next one, as its depot is the way into it; in the campaign the furthest world visited (campaign.visited) or that a chapter claimed took the pilot to, so an old save opens what its trips earned. What a save already owns beyond that stays its own and flies or fires as before; only buying it, or one more of it, waits. In the campaign the rank still licenses ships and guns on top; the arcade's free gun tier for each world cleared stays, up to the tier the next step opens: 2 in Dustfall, 3 Ion Reach, 4 Obsidian, 5 Nova Forge (gun_tier_opens in src/js/tech.js; the play log of v0.9.0 had every gun at tier 5 after Ion Reach). Tier 4 waits for Obsidian, not Cryosphere: with a plasma kit a tier lower the bot could not clear Obsidian's siege on any of three seeds.

• Ships and guns: opens on each ship (src/js/ships/) and gun (weapon_catalog), a world tier.
• Module levels: level L of a module with M levels opens at world round((L − 1)/M × 8) (module_level_opens): 2 levels Haven, Obsidian; 3 levels Haven, Ion Reach, Cryosphere; 4 Haven, Dustfall, Obsidian, Nova Forge; 5 Haven, Dustfall, Ion Reach, Cryosphere, Nova Forge; 7 one a world from Haven to Eclipse, Obsidian skipped. Phase armor and the Shield capacitor name their own (opens: [0, 1, 4]): Haven, Verdant, Obsidian. With the formula's Ion Reach and Cryosphere, the gate to Ion Reach (defence 3, from Verdant or Dustfall) and those to Cryosphere and Nova Forge (defence 5, from Obsidian) would let in only a pilot flying the Viper or the Bastion.

• What a world opens is said once: in the arcade's depot before it, under the next world's rules (New on sale Bastion Gunship, Lance railgun, Seeker launcher, 17 module levels); in the campaign by a toast as you first arrive (Now on sale · ... · at every station). An item not yet open shows its world in a lock badge where a rank-locked gun shows its rank (Opens in Ion Reach), and cannot be bought.

• Why the arcade opens a world at the depot before it, not on arrival: its depot between worlds is where a run shops. Opened on arrival, what a world opens is bought only after it is cleared, and Ion Reach (the first raider shields, a flagship of 18 900) became a wall: bin/playtest's bot died three times there in two seeds of three (NORMAL), where it had cleared it with no death before.

• The campaign's story still works (checked by hand against the gates' needs, allowed_world): each gate is met with what the world before it opens. The Obsidian gate's gun that bites (the Seeker or the rail) opens in Ion Reach, where chapter 4 brings its Vanguard licence; Nova Forge's 80% radiation from Obsidian asks for a hull with 20% of its own (the Mule or the Bastion) as Radiation lining 4 opens in Nova Forge itself. The guide's plan (preparation_plan in src/js/guide.js) names only what is on sale: module levels up to what is open, a gun or a protected hull you own or that is open.

• Measured (bin/playtest's bot, NORMAL, seeds 1 to 3, before and after; the bot now arms each empty mount with one more of its gun, keeps its mounts when it buys a sturdier ship, and buys the rest of the shop once the fight's core is bought):

  	before	after
  runs won, deaths	1 of 3; 0, 3, 3 (all in Eclipse)	3 of 3; 0, 0, 0
  run, s	616, 619, 574	720, 509, 634
  Ion Reach, s	79, 76, 88	102, 67, 80
  Obsidian, Cryosphere, s	67 and 69, 71 and 58, 50 and 70	137 and 115, 59 and 48, 54 and 89
  Nova Forge, Eclipse, s	69 and 50, 128 and 172, 61 and 176	76 and 57, 48 and 50, 59 and 61
  left after the Cryosphere depot (levels + ships, salvage kept)	29 + 3, 2339; 32 + 3, 1231; 34 + 3, 2678	32 + 3, 2589; 15 + 2, 12; 28 + 3, 2118
  the shop ran out	never	seed 2 at the Nova Forge depot (7.7 min), the others never
  salvage left at the end	861, 607, 605	1353, 3469, 854

  The bot is a poorer shopper than the play logs' pilots (it saves for the next ship and never maxed out before), so it shows the shape, not the pilots' pace: nothing can run out before the depot ahead of Eclipse, and it did there once. Its deaths went because what a world locks pushes it to a two-gun ship sooner, and the later worlds still take it about a minute. OVERLOAD: the bot dies three times in Haven in every seed, before and after (Haven's shop is the same), so it cannot say whether OVERLOAD got easier; its raider growth (arcade_modes.overload.growth) stays 0. The campaign has no bot in bin/playtest; its gates were checked by hand (above).

Salvage in

Salvage (◆) is the one currency.

• Kills: a raider drops an artifact 76% of the time, worth 2 + wave / 4 (rounded down; in the arcade the step's wave, 1 + 2 × step, threat_wave): 2 in Haven and Verdant, 3 in Dustfall and Ion Reach, 4 in Obsidian and Cryosphere, 5 in Nova Forge and Eclipse. Shards drop none. A flagship drops 12 artifacts of 10. (base_damage_enemy in src/js/combat.js.) The Relic processor adds 25% a level.
• Rocks: a broken ore rock drops 3 artifacts of 4 + wave / 5 (base_damage_ore in src/js/render.js); a broken drifting rock or wreck one of 2. A Dustfall cliff that falls (arcade) drops 2 of them and one more a raider it crushed (Dustfall's cliffs).
• Arcade: a cleared world pays 80 + 40 × the step, so 80 for the first world up to 320 for the seventh (arcade_clear_bonus); Eclipse ends the run. Salvage left at the end scores 10 points each (arcade_salvage_points).
• Campaign: you start with 90. Contracts pay most (see goals.md); a raider may also spill cargo (cargo_spill in src/js/resources.js: 15% for most, 30% shooters, 50% tanks, always a flagship), and cargo sells at stations.

An arcade world at NORMAL, as a rough sum from these formulas: Haven sends 13 + 17 + 21 raiders and 3 + 4 flagship escorts, so about 58 kills × 76% × 2, about 88, plus 120 from the flagship and the 80 bonus: near 290 salvage before rocks and the Relic processor.

Salvage out

• Campaign extras: builder drone 150 (builder_price), mining outpost 120 and 6 ore, defense platform 160 and 4 ore (structure_kinds in src/js/structures.js), transport line 350 (transport_price in src/js/transports.js), a mining drone 45, drone tiers Hauler 220 and Harvester 520 (drone_tiers in src/js/drones.js).

Trade

• Each world has its own prices for refined ore, energy cells and relic components (world.prices). You buy at that price and sell at that price −2.
• Each world imports one good (expedition.import); its demand starts at 80 + 20 × the world's index. While it lasts, a sale pays +6 a unit (up to the demand left), and the buying price there is +6 too. Demand comes back by 10 units every 90 seconds of flight (src/js/expedition.js).
• Each world's own resource (Haven iron 16 up to Void matter 60, resources in src/js/resources.js) sells for 60% of its worth at home and 30% more for each world farther along the list; it is never bought.
• Where: market_price, trade_total in src/js/trade.js; commodity_base_price in src/js/resources.js.

Elites and flagships

• Where: arcade_elite_make, arcade_flagship_spawn, arcade_flagship_update in src/js/arcade.js; spawn_operation_enemy in src/js/operations.js; spawn_enemy in src/js/campaign.js.

• Every flagship fights as its world's entry in boss_designs (src/js/bosses.js) has it, an arcade one as its duel changes it (below): a way of moving, a gun between attacks, and a cycle of attacks; below 50% hull it roars (1.4 s, a toast naming what changes) and runs a second cycle. Each attack shows a tell first: a drawn lane, aim lines, a dashed reach, a glow, a swirl. A big attack ends in a stall: the hull is exposed for 1.6 to 4.5 s, its shield drops and hits do ×1.6 (boss_hit_factor, asked by damage_enemy). Hits that are not shots (a beam, a burst, a wave, a well) grow as a raider's do (raider_hit_scale) and by the mode's hits; shots are the raiders' own (enemy_fire), at raider_shot_speed's pace. The mode sets the gap between attacks (CHILL ×0.8, OVERLOAD ×1.15, overdrive ×1.3 more), never the length of a tell. Drawn attacks aim where you are; only the gun between them leads you, as a raider's does.

• The campaign's flagships fight as their world's design, with their own hull: with a gunship (rail and two launchers at tier 3), the Ember flagship falls in 15 s and the Void Dreadnought in 28 s. The table is the campaign's fight; the arcade's duels below change some of it.

  World	Moves	Attacks	Below 50%	Exposed
  Haven, the Crescent	orbits you at 380 m	wingtip plasma fans; a strafing run down a drawn lane, dropping bolts to both sides	wider fans, a ring with one gap (marked green), two chasers	2.2 s after a strafe
  Verdant, the Thorn Beetle	drifts with the current, lunging sideways	a spiral of spines; spores that drift and burst near you; three rings of thorns	faster spiral, more spores, its eyes burn and it hatches a brood (shards and a splitter)	after the thorns and the brood
  Dustfall, the Sawtooth	coasts, overshooting as you do	hatch missiles; side-pod flak; a saw charge leaving dust that bursts	missiles from four hatches, two charges in a row, two lancers	2.2 to 2.6 s after a charge
  Ion Reach, the Storm Wheel	holds 520 m; jumps (a ring marks where)	ion bursts from its four pods; four lightning spokes sweeping a quarter turn, draining your pulse	four pods launched round it: while any flies, the hub takes a third of a hit	1.6 s after the spokes; 3 s when the last pod falls
  Obsidian, the Iron Stair	still, then a heavy step	rail sights that track, lock and fire; a gravity well under you; a broadside of six lanes	five sights, two wells, a double broadside half a lane apart	2 s after a broadside
  Cryosphere, the Frost Crystal	glides round you	ice plates turning round it stop your shots (4 of 6); a spiral of shards; icicles bursting round you; a frost nova that slows you	5 plates turning faster, a three-arm spiral, more icicles	2.6 s after the nova, the plates drawn in
  Nova Forge, the Furnace	lumbers in to 320 m	a sweeping flame from its vents that heats your guns; embers that leave burning slag; missiles; a flare	twin flames, more slag	2.6 s after the flare
  Eclipse, the Eclipse Eye	hovers at 560 m; jumps	an eye beam turning after you at 0.4 rad/s, draining your pulse; a fan of rail lanes; a singularity pulling you in	two beams, wider fans, more jumps	4.5 s while it holds the singularity

• In the arcade each flagship is a duel of its own, a way to win it besides its hull (boss_duels in src/js/boss_duels.js): the line said as it appears, the HUD's card says what to go for now and an edge marker points at it off the screen. Its hull carries the duel's factor, for time to fight the duel through both its halves. While the flagship turns your shots from where you are (armour, blade, ice, a shut dome, a plate of its shell) and it is the nearest raider, the guns take the nearest other raider within 650 m; a nest within 760 m is taken before the Beetle (boss_duel_aim). A part of a duel (a nest) goes with its flagship. When the flagship falls, its own drop (12 × 10 salvage) is drawn in (boss_duel_watch): a duel keeps you at a gap, a weak point or the edge rather than at its hull, and the flagship is often the last ship, so the world cleared at once and its drop was lost (the bot's salvage at Haven's depot was 120 short). Drawing in all the salvage lying round gave the bot half as much again as the base there, so only the flagship's is.

  World	The duel	Its fight changes	Escorts
  Haven, the Crescent	runs for the portal farthest from you 1.8 to 4.2 km off, there in 62, 46, 40 s unhurt (CHILL, NORMAL, OVERLOAD); each third of its hull lost slows it ×0.8 and opens it 2.5 s; at the gate it gets away: the wave goes on, no flagship bounty, the cleared screen says so	2 s between attacks (the campaign's 1.1); two fans, then a wide fan, its ring and a fan; no strafe	50%, no last stand
  Verdant, the Thorn Beetle	2, 3, 3 nests 600 m round it, unarmed, a tenth of its hull each; while one stands grown, a shield round the Beetle stops every hit; at half its hull 1, 2, 2 more sprout, and the shield rises again 2.5 s later	as the campaign's	50%, no last stand
  Dustfall, the Sawtooth	its blade lets half of a shot through; a charge that ends on a rock stuns it 4.5, 3.6, 3.2 s, hits ×2; the rock in its lane is lit while it winds up	saw charge, hatch missiles, charge, flak; then two charges in a row, more missiles; two lancers at half	40%, no last stand
  Ion Reach, the Storm Wheel	a shell of six plates with two gaps turns round its core at 0.32 rad/s and stops your shots; below half eight plates, two gaps, 0.45 rad/s, turning back every 6 s; lit lanes show the gaps	its spokes become arcs: lightning out to 700 m across each plate's side, 16 a hit and your pulse drained, safe in the gaps; no pods	50%, no last stand
  Obsidian, the Iron Stair	stands still and turns its bow to you at 0.3 rad/s; armour stops your shots but at one weak point, each a quarter of its hull, opening in turn at its stern, a flank, the other flank, its bow; a broken one opens the hull 2 s	three rail sights, never five; they hold fire while you are more than 1.1 rad off its bow; 1.8 s between attacks	50%, no last stand
  Cryosphere, the Frost Crystal	ice lets 15% of a hit through; it glows (×1.5) after its spiral, while it gathers its nova and 3 s after it, and while it roars at half	no plates; its nova gathers 2.4 s (the campaign's 1.4)	66%, 33%
  Nova Forge, the Furnace	a ring of fire 1400 m round the fight closes to 620, 500, 440 m as it heats (75% of its hull lost and the time: 240 s, 150 s in its second half); outside it, 10 a hit and your guns heat 30 a second; it keeps inside	as the campaign's	50%, 20%
  Eclipse, the Eclipse Eye	keeps to the black hole's edge at 1.3 radii, its jumps too; its dome opens only while you are 1 to 1.8 radii from the hole's centre, 15% of a hit through otherwise; a surge makes the hole pull ×1.35 for 4.5 s, the dome wide open	a surge in place of the singularity	66%, 33%

• Arcade elites have a trick of their world, every 5 to 7 s while you are within 750 m, of the same kinds (elite_tricks): Haven a three-bolt burst, Verdant two spores, Dustfall a charge, Ion Reach and Eclipse a jump, Obsidian a locked rail sight, Cryosphere a small frost ring, Nova Forge three embers. From wave 2, 35% of the lines and pincers fly mixed: a second type of the world's mix in every other place (arcade_squad_mix).

• Contract enemies grow with the contract's level: +12% hull a level past the first, up to ten levels (spawn_operation_enemy).

• A chapter's flagship keeps the damage you dealt it: towed home or docked, you find it as you left it (boss_hp on the contract, kept by src/js/navigation.js, and carried past the autosave by the tow in src/js/checkpoint.js). Before, it came back whole after each tow, or as it was at the autosave up to 15 s before: in chapter 16 a story pilot (the Aurora Cruiser, two Lance railguns at tier 5, every module) took the reborn dreadnought (29 640 hull) to half in each life, died ten times in 13 minutes without killing it, and the bot gave the chapter up. After, the same pilot kills it in its second life. Its bar names the ship the stage sends you after (boss on the stage): the Helios warship of chapter 15 was shown as the Ember flagship.

The arcade's difficulty rows

• Where: arcade_modes in src/js/arcade.js; the menu's line for each mode is sync_mode_note.

• Lives: a run has 3 on every row (arcade_lives in src/js/arcade.js). A death costs one; with lives left its screen offers to retry the world from its first wave, as the run stood when that world began but with the lives the run has now (arcade_retry), and the HUD blinks the one lost for 2.4 s (arcade_life_flash). The last ends the run: its score is weighed against the best and recorded if it beats it (save_best, as every death and the finale do). A save keeps the lives (arcade_snapshot); one from before lives loads with all three. The bot (bin/playtest) plays by the same lives. Before them it allowed three deaths in each world, so the runs counted won below with deaths in two worlds or more would be lost now. Measured with lives (NORMAL, seeds 1–12): 5 of 12 won instead of 8; of the 7 lost, 4 lost all three lives in Eclipse and one in Verdant, as the old rule would have lost them too, and 2 lost them across two worlds (Obsidian twice then Eclipse, Haven then Eclipse twice).

• A raider's hull is the first table's (base_spawn_enemy, without the campaign's ×2) × the mode's hull × (1 + growth × step) × the step's shop, so on NORMAL an Eclipse raider has ×2.05 and ×3 on top of the mode's ×1.5; the flagship keeps its own scale but for the shop (arcade_hull_scale). The shop (arcade_shop_hull, arcade_shop_flagship): raiders ×1 to Obsidian, then ×2.2 Cryosphere, ×2.8 Nova Forge, ×3 Eclipse; flagships ×1, 1, 1.8, 1.3, 2, 4, 4, 2. From Obsidian on a world sells the gunship's third mount, Prism 2, the cruiser's fourth and the top gun tiers, and a play log of v0.9.0 (NORMAL, 0 deaths, 19 min) killed a raider there in 0.4–0.6 s against 1.7 s before, a flagship in 2–13 s. Measured after it (bin/playtest, seeds 1–3): NORMAL 793–824 s instead of 572–651, two of three won (the third reached Nova Forge's depot 22 short of the cruiser and died three times in Eclipse; seed 1 lost two lives in Obsidian's siege); CHILL 626–633 s, no deaths. OVERLOAD carries the shop too since v0.10.3: its growth with your gun tier stops at tier 5, and a play log of v0.10.2 there (16.6 min, no deaths) lost no hull from Cryosphere on. Its Eclipse flagship that died in 2 s had fallen into the black hole: raiders spawned within the hole's reach of you and the core took them. No raider spawns within 1.5 × a hole's radius now (base_spawn_enemy, the campaign too), and the arcade's flagship is neither pulled nor taken by a core. Measured after it (NORMAL seeds 1–3): Eclipse 114–129 s instead of 49–112, its flagship wave a real fight (643–1283 hull); two of three won. The bot cannot clear OVERLOAD's Haven, so OVERLOAD waits on a play log. Raiders carry the mode's share of the world's armour and shield, elites of its armour (defense, read in arcade_update and arcade_elite_make). Radiation is 35% of the campaign's (arcade_radiation).

• Measured (a bot through the keyboard, NORMAL, 4 runs each of a careful and a casual player, before growth and with the share at 50%, then as now): 8 of 8 runs won instead of 7 of 8. From Dustfall to Nova Forge a world costs the careful player 40 to 65 hull and shield instead of 21 to 48, and the casual one 72 to 195 instead of 37 to 74. Eclipse costs them 533 and 705 instead of 163 and 153, with one casual death there. Haven and Verdant (no armour or shield to speak of) stay as they were. A run takes 394 to 448 s instead of 368 to 486. CHILL: still no deaths, Eclipse 90 instead of 44. OVERLOAD is unchanged. The cost: with the railgun or the beam instead of the cannon (one run each) the careful player now dies three times in Eclipse, where both got through before. Why: problem 1 of playtest-2026-10-05.md.

• A wave holds 10 + step + 4 per wave past the first + the mode's extra raiders (arcade_wave_size): on NORMAL 13 in Haven's first wave, 24 in Eclipse's second. With the world goals gone (2026-10-18) waves 1 and 2 are full again, and 2 a step made Eclipse's second wave 31: the bot won 3 runs of 12 (27 deaths in Eclipse); with 1 a step it wins 8 of 12, as before, every death in Eclipse. A squadron is 3 + min(3, step / 2) + (wave − 1) + the mode's extra, and the next comes after max(2.6, 5.5 − 0.3 × step) seconds × the mode's gap, but not while more than 14 raiders are alive (arcade_squads_update).

• Wave 1 is chasers (70%) and shooters; later waves follow the world's mix. The type drawn sets how the squadron comes (arcade_squad_pattern):

  • a tank (three raiders or more) leads a wall, shooters in a row 80 m behind it carrying the world's gun, not missiles, or a convoy, chasers in a ring round it, half and half; two tanks from seven raiders on. The escorts keep their places at the tank's pace until it dies or you come within 300 m (arcade_role_steer);
  • lancers lie in ambush (70%, when there are rocks 450 to 1000 m from you): still beside the rocks, with no warp flash, until you come within 420 m, hit one, or 25 s pass;
  • the rest come in a line across their heading, 640 m away, or, from four raiders on and 35% of the time, in a pincer: the line split to both sides of you.

• Packs (src/js/arcade_pack.js): a squadron's chasers, shooters, splitters and lancers (three at least; not an elite, an escort or a lurker) hunt together. Farther than 300 m (340 m for a shooter) from you, the first flies for where you will be, 1.2 times as fast while it is beyond 450 m (the cut-off); the next two swing to your sides, 300 m out (the flanks); the rest come in 220 m behind you. Closer, each fights as its type does. Hold still or circle within 300 m for 4 s (CHILL 6, OVERLOAD 3.5) and a pack within 1.2 km closes a ring round you: from as far as it is (330 to 600 m) down to 230 m (CHILL 270, OVERLOAD 210) at 30 m/s, turning slowly, its round drawn; closed, it holds 3 s (CHILL 2, OVERLOAD 3.5), then breaks and its raiders fight close; it rings you again no sooner than 10 s after (CHILL 14, OVERLOAD 9), and opens at once when you are 150 m out of it. A second pack ringing you joins the first's ring. By world (pack_flanks, pack_rings):

  	Haven	Verdant	Dustfall	Ion Reach	Obsidian	Cryosphere	Nova Forge	Eclipse
  packs	from wave 2	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
  flanks	–	–	yes	yes	–	yes	yes	–
  ring	–	yes	yes	yes	–	yes	yes	–

  Flanks are kept from Haven and Verdant, as the fanning out of squadrons that the packs replace was, and both from the rail worlds, where a slug crosses the screen in a quarter second.

• Raiders with jobs (src/js/arcade_raiders.js, raider_kinds): by the world's share a squadron gives one of its line raiders' places (two from Cryosphere on in a squadron of six or more) to a raider of a kind; a kind opens in its world from wave 2 and in every later world from wave 1, twice as often in its own world. At most world + 1 of a kind at once (one in Haven), and fewer of the slow-to-answer ones in a rail world. CHILL brings 60% as many. The campaign has none.

  	Haven	Verdant	Dustfall	Ion Reach	Obsidian	Cryosphere	Nova Forge	Eclipse
  share	40%	50%	55%	60%	50%	65%	70%	55%
  opens	interceptor	carrier	bulwark	sniper	mine-layer

  • Interceptor: hull 20 + 6 × threat, 95 m/s; near (950 m), it winds up for 0.45 s (its engines flare, a dashed arrow shows its way), then bursts for 1.1 s at 1.3 × your cruise (CHILL 1.15, OVERLOAD 1.4), never above 0.6 × your turbo, turning slowly, then coasts 0.7 s.
  • Bulwark: hull 100 + 16 × threat, 1.4 × a tank's shield; an arc of ±63° round its front stops your shots, turned to you at 0.75 rad/s (CHILL 0.55); your guns pass over a bulwark that faces you for a raider up to 350 m farther.
  • Carrier: hull 120 + 18 × threat; keeps 520 to 720 m; two drones from its bays every 7 s (CHILL 9), 4 at most (CHILL 3), each tied to it by a thin line, ringing you at 110 m, darting in, popping on a ram (9 before the world's growth); they fall when the carrier dies; it drops 2 salvage pieces, the drones none.
  • Sniper: keeps 580 to 820 m; a red line follows you for its charge, 1.6 s (CHILL 2.1, a rail world +0.3), locked for the last 0.35 s; a slug of 24 before the world's growth, every 4.5 s (CHILL 6.5); a rock in the way grays the line and holds the shot.
  • Mine-layer: plans a 700 m lane across your way, 420 m ahead of you or through itself when it is farther ahead, and drops a mine every 55 m (CHILL 75) along it; a mine arms after 0.9 s, lives 15 s (CHILL 11), trips within 60 m, bursts 0.35 s later for up to 18 (before the world's growth and the mode's blast) within 85 m; a pulse or an EMP clears the mines it passes; 70 at most.

  The run's first of each kind brings a toast that says what it asks of you.

• Marksmen (arcade_marksmen, raider_aim): a share of the raiders shows its aim, where you will be when the shot gets there if you keep your course (as every raider aims), as a dashed line for the last half second before it fires (arcade_aim_time, drawn in render_hostile_marks). Its missiles steer for that point too, and turn 1.15 times as hard as others (arcade_marksman_turn). Holding one course, a circle included, gets you hit; turning as the line brightens breaks the aim. The share, before the mode's factor:

  Haven	Verdant	Dustfall	Ion Reach	Obsidian	Cryosphere	Nova Forge	Eclipse
  0	20%	30%	30%	15%	25%	20%	5%

  An elite is always a marksman where the share is above 0; a flagship and a shard never are. The run's first marksman brings a toast that says what the line means. The campaign has no marksmen; its raiders lead their shots all the same.

• Measured (bin/playtest's bot, NORMAL, seeds 1 to 3, with one more of its gun bought for each empty mount; before and after the marksmen and the fanning out): all six runs won with no deaths. All damage taken, hull and shield: Ion Reach 83 to 149 instead of 10 to 51, Cryosphere 94 to 161 instead of 45 to 126, Obsidian 131 to 510 instead of 131 to 222, Eclipse 455 to 689 instead of 243 to 522; Dustfall and Nova Forge stay at 0 to 14, as the bot dashes past every missile and a dash's quarter second of grace covers it. Raider bolts that hit: Ion Reach 17% instead of 6%, Obsidian 18% instead of 9%.

• Measured (the same bot, NORMAL, seeds 1 to 6, with one more of its gun for each empty mount; before and after a dash stopped covering blasts, missile raiders reloaded twice as slowly and a missile's blast took the mode's blast factor instead of its shot factor): all damage, hull and shield, Dustfall 79 to 130 instead of 0 to 19, Nova Forge 100 to 325 instead of 0 to 56; most of it lands on the shield (hull 0 to 29 in Dustfall, 0 to 268 in Nova Forge). Missiles now cost something from Verdant on: Ion Reach 36 to 155 (57 to 149 before), Cryosphere 76 to 269 (84 to 161). Seeds 1, 2, 3 and 6 are won with no deaths, seed 6 lost before; Eclipse costs them 321 to 820 instead of 455 to 689. Seeds 4 and 5 die three times in Eclipse, as they did before (2227 and 2241 then, 1961 and 1981 now, most of it rail slugs): a wall for this bot that seeds 1 to 3 had hidden. Tried and dropped: a dash that covered nothing for 1.5 s after the last (the first round) made the rail worlds walls; the blast at the shot factor (×1.6) with missiles at their old pace cost Nova Forge three deaths in every seed; at ×1.2 with the slower reload it walled Nova Forge for seeds 4 and 5, whose repairs had left them one gun. CHILL seed 1: still no deaths, Dustfall 52 and Nova Forge 51 instead of 9 and 0. OVERLOAD was lost before on seeds 1 and 2 (three deaths in Eclipse); seed 2 still reaches Eclipse and dies there, seed 1 now dies three times in Dustfall, after three deaths in Haven and Verdant.

• Wave 2 of each world draws an event from the world's pool (arcade_event_pools in src/js/arcade_events.js), with a toast and a mark on the map; it ends with the wave:

  Event	What it does	Worlds
  Convoy	an unarmed freighter (a tank's hull ×4) on a 2 km run past you, about 30 s; 6 artifacts of 8 + 2 × step if caught	Haven, Verdant, Dustfall, Ion Reach, Cryosphere
  Fleeing ace	an elite, 30% faster, jumps away after 20 s; 4 artifacts of 10 + 2 × step if caught	Haven, Ion Reach, Obsidian, Cryosphere, Nova Forge, Eclipse
  Jammer	a gunner with twice the hull, 900–1300 m off; while it lives the minimap and the radar show only it	Verdant, Dustfall, Obsidian
  Heat surge	every 6 s a line of 8 vents, 1400 m long, across your way; each warns for 1.4 s, then bursts for 22 within 80 m	Nova Forge, Eclipse
  The ion storm (your shield at 0 for the wave, wherever you were) went on
  2026-10-15: there was no answer to it, and it undid Ion Reach's own storms.

• A ship that explodes hurts everything within 1.8 × its blast size, less with distance: a chaser 10, a tank 26, a flagship 50, an elite ×1.5 (arcade_blast_from_kill).

• Eclipse is the gravity world (src/js/arcade_gravity.js, the arcade only; one hole of 560 m, core 56 m, its pull reaching 2260 m: 131 m/s at 600 m from the centre, 490 at 300). A toast as the world begins says so: "it bends every shot · pass close to the hole to sling · lead raiders in".

  • Shots bend. On top of the pull that moves everything, a shot's way curves toward the hole by 1.2 × 10⁻⁶ rad a metre for each m/s of pull across it (arcade_shot_bend), the same curve at any speed. A bolt of 1100 m/s aimed to pass 600 m from the centre turns 33° (15° with the pull alone), aimed at 1 km 22° (11°); a rail slug of 2600 m/s 14° at 600 m (3°); one aimed within 400 m swings round into the core, which takes it. Your shots and the raiders' alike, missiles too (their guidance steers back); a flagship's shots and a marksman's keep the line they showed. Twice the bend whipped a bolt aimed at 600 m 120° round the core.
  • The slingshot. Within 1.5 radii of the centre (840 m) and 120 m clear of the core, the part of your flight across the pull builds extra speed: pull ÷ cruise × 0.45 of cruise a second, at most +60%; diving straight in builds none. It holds 1 s after the pass, then fades by 40% of cruise a second; B drops it, and the ship turns as it does at cruise (arcade_sling_*). A pass at 550–650 m reaches it in 3 s; SLINGSHOT shows once a pass, at +20%. The core still kills.
  • Raiders mind the pull, but not while closing on you. Within 1.8 radii of the centre (1010 m) a raider's way leans outward by the pull over its speed × 1.5 (arcade_mind_band, arcade_mind_lean): it holds off at the edge rather than drift in (before, nothing steered them out). One within 500 m of you and heading at you (within 72°: an attack run, a chaser coming in; arcade_lure_reach, arcade_lure_heading) forgets the pull, and the hole pulls it ×1.5 (arcade_lure_pull), so a chaser of 165 m/s cannot pull out within about 800 m of the centre instead of 480: lead it past the hole. The flagship, as before, is neither pulled nor taken, and holds its place itself. A raider the core takes is a kill as before, and its drop, which fell in with it, is paid instead: 150 points and 6 salvage, SWALLOWED over where it fell.
  • Measured (bin/playtest, NORMAL, seeds 1–12, against the build before it run beside it): 7 runs of 12 won instead of 6, 21 deaths in Eclipse instead of 22 (6 elsewhere in both), Eclipse 66–323 s instead of 61–245; the hole took 339 of the bot's 1891 Eclipse kills (18%). The bot keeps 1.6 radii off the hole, so it never slings. With every raider careless near you (900 m, any heading) a pilot circling at 600 m let the hole take a whole first wave in about 5 s, and the bot won 9 of 12.
  • Circling against fighting away from the hole (build/dev.html, no god mode, a cruiser with four tier-5 cannons and the bot's Eclipse modules, 340 hull and 205 shield, three tries each): wave 1 (20 raiders) circled with the stick took 14–18 s, the hole 6–13 of them, 17–34 hull and shield lost; circled with the keys' eight ways 18–19 s, 2–5, 26–51; the bot's way away from it 17–23 s, none, 58–77. Wave 2 (24): circled 9–16 s, 6–12 swallowed, 0–70 lost; away 17–25 s, 94–392 lost. Most of the loss is raiders' shots either way: led for a straight flight, they miss a ship going round, and the raiders that mind the pull keep 400 m or more off it. The circle's price is the core, which a slip costs.

NORMAL in numbers, a row a step (named for the world flown at it on the map's order; any world flown at that step has its numbers):

Dustfall's cliffs

In the arcade, Dustfall is the world where you change the ground, not only shoot what flies over it (src/js/arcade_cliffs.js; the campaign has none).

• Six cliffs (cliff_count), 115 to 150 m across in radius (cliff_size), 1.5 to 2.3 km round the middle, 1.1 km apart, each leaning across the ring, the same every visit (their own seed). The ore rocks under a cliff and down its fall zone go (78 rocks stay of 95), so the zone is bare ground until the cliff falls.
• The fall zone: from the cliff's middle 520 m out past its face (cliff_reach), as wide as the cliff at its foot and 130 m wider each side at its far end (cliff_spread); drawn faint, warmer with a raider under it, red while it rumbles and falls.
• Hull: 180 × the mode's raider hull × (1 + its growth × step) (cliff_hull): 351 at NORMAL's third step, 2.3 s of two cannons, 4.7 s of the first gun; CHILL 216 to 238. A bar over it once hit, orange once it is primed (a quarter left, cliff_primed). Your shots, the pulse and your missiles wear it down to primed; the last quarter gives only to the guns while they aim at its crack. Raiders' shots stop on it and do not wear it (Dustfall's solid rule wears its ore rocks only).
• The guns aim at a crack within 600 m of its face (cliff_aim_reach) when two raiders are under it (cliff_aim_least), or one once it is primed, and you are out of its zone (60 m to spare); or when you point at the cliff. With nothing else near they wear a cliff down to primed, as they shoot rocks.
• The fall: broken, it rumbles 0.6 s (cliff_rumble, a red ring and ROCKFALL), then the fall runs down the zone at 2 km/s (cliff_fall_pace) and each hull it reaches loses 1.6 × its hull and shield together (dead, its armour aside: cliff_crush), a tank, bulwark, carrier or elite 0.9 × (left with a sliver: cliff_crush_heavy), a flagship 0.15 × (cliff_crush_flagship). You lose 40 (cliff_hit, a blast: a dash does not cover it). Eight rubble rocks of 26 to 42 m (cliff_rubble) land in the zone as the fall passes them (ore rocks: your shots break them, with their salvage), and where the cliff stood is open.
• The pay: the crushed raiders' kills (the combo counting up through them), 60 × n × n score on top (cliff_points), and 2 + n pieces of a rock's salvage in the zone (cliff_salvage): a toast CRUSHED ×n.
• Squadrons come to the cliffs: half of Dustfall's lines and pincers (cliff_squad_share) warp in a third of the way down the zone of the nearest standing cliff 500 to 1400 m from you (cliff_squad_range), when you are out of it, in one line.
• The world's arrival says it once: CLIFFS · SHOOT A CLIFF'S CRACK · THE ROCK FALLS ON WHAT IS UNDER IT.
• Measured (bin/playtest's bot, NORMAL, seeds 1 to 4, Dustfall third): no deaths in Dustfall before or after; its time 94, 88, 109, 117 s against 143, 107, 243, 92 before (mean 102 against 146); hull lost there 56, 24, 0, 0 against 16, 24, 57, 15, all damage 135 to 192 against 126 to 380. The bot does not seek the cliffs: its guns felled 2 to 5 a run, each with raiders under it, and crushed 6 to 10 raiders a run (up to 6 at once); no fall caught the bot. With the last quarter open to any shot (the first try), 14 falls of 21 came down on no raider, shot through by fire at raiders round them, and two caught the bot (30 each).

The arcade's route and cards

At each break between two worlds (after the cleared screen, before the depot: src/js/arcade_break.js) the player takes one of three cards, then chooses the next world of two.

• The route (src/js/arcade_route.js): Haven first, Eclipse last. The offer is the lowest world left on the map's order and one more of those at most a step past the next one (its tier at most the next step + 1; arcade_route_steps), drawn by the run's dice (arcade.seed, kept in the save with the route and the cards); after the seventh world only Eclipse. Taking the first (lower) one every time flies the map's order with the numbers of before. Obsidian comes only at its own step, the fifth world: it is tuned to that step's hull. bin/playtest's bot (NORMAL) lost the run there 6 times in 9 when it came fourth, 6 in 9 when it came sixth or seventh (the shop's ×2.2 and ×2.8 raider hull), and 2 in 12 in its place, both with two guns. So the first three worlds after Haven are Verdant, Dustfall and Ion Reach in an order of yours (VDI, VID, DVI, DIV), and Cryosphere and Nova Forge come after Obsidian in either order: eight routes.

• What goes by the step, whichever world it is: the raiders' hull, armour and shield, their threat level (hull, speed, the shooters' bolts and reload, the flagship's pattern speed: threat_wave), their hits, the wave and squadron sizes and gap, the elites' shield, the flagship's hull with the design factor of the step's world (so Ion Reach flown third has Dustfall's 5 940, not 26 730), the world bonus, an event's pay, your EMP, what a kill drops, what the depot opens (Opens at world 5) and the free gun tier. What stays the world's: its map (rocks, black holes, storms), its rules, its raiders' gun and type mix, its marksmen and flank arc, its events, its flagship's attacks and its elites' trick.

• The cards (arcade_card_pool in src/js/arcade_cards.js): one of each kind a break, by the run's dice; a kind with none left gives its place to another. A gamble lasts the next world and pays its prize when that world is cleared (in Eclipse, where the run ends, 25 000 score instead); a trade-off lasts the rest of the run and is taken once; a boon is given at once, or lasts the run. What is in force shows as chips over the gauges.

  Card	Kind	What it does
  Bounty contract	gamble	×1.5 raiders a wave; prize +15% damage
  Flagship wager	gamble	flagship hull ×1.6; prize a module level the depot does not sell yet
  Armoured raiders	gamble	raider hull ×1.4; prize every gun a tier past the depot's
  Elite hunt	gamble	an elite leads every squadron from wave 2; prize +20% hull
  Hot zone	gamble	raiders reload ×0.77 (30% faster); prize your guns 15% faster
  Afterburners	trade-off	speed +20%, hull −15%
  Glass cannon	trade-off	damage +30%, damage taken +25%
  Heavy plating	trade-off	hull +35%, speed −12%
  Overclocked guns	trade-off	fire rate +25%, hull −20%
  Shield over hull	trade-off	shield +60%, hull −20% (with 25 shield or more)
  Field upgrade	boon	a module level on sale now, free
  Prototype	boon	a module level not on sale yet, for twice its price
  Second wind	boon	once a world, a hit that would destroy you leaves 30% hull
  Supply cache	boon	+2 repair kits, +1 EMP, +1 stasis cell
  Tuned guns	boon	+12% damage
  Black-market tier	boon	every gun a tier past the depot's, for 400

• Measured (bin/playtest --pick=... --route=..., NORMAL): the old order with no card (--pick=none --route=low) won 5 of seeds 1–6 (the game before: 2 of seeds 1–3); a card and a world at random won 5 of 6, always the gamble and the later world 3 of 3, and CHILL with the later world 3 of 3 with no death. The two runs lost ended in Obsidian (with two guns, at its own step) and in Eclipse. Before Obsidian kept its step, runs that took it early or late ended there more often than not (above), and before the flagship's hull went by the step, Ion Reach flown third had a flagship of 26 730 and ended three runs of eight.

Campaign pace

• Patrols: every 11 s in Haven, elsewhere every max(4.5, 10 − 0.6 × tier) s, 1 + min(9, tier) / 3 raiders (the tier is the world's index, or the story's front past it, above), while you are outside the station's shelter and fewer than 12 are out (src/js/navigation.js). While you hold a hunt or a mining stage, growing waves come instead (see goals.md).
• A death (campaign): a tug brings the ship to the world's station, docked and repaired, for 10% of the salvage saved; the cargo aboard is lost, the contracts keep their progress, a flagship its damage (tow_to_station in src/js/checkpoint.js). Before, the flight resumed at the last autosave with the hull and the radiation dose saved there, which could die again at once, over and over.
• Ranks license ships and guns: XP from kills (table above) and from contracts.

• Where: rank_thresholds, rank_names in src/js/fleet.js. The world that opens a ship or gun is a second condition (What each world opens, above); in the story both come together.
• The licences follow the story. A story pilot (the campaign bot, below) reaches Courier with chapter 1, Pathfinder with chapter 2, Vanguard (gunship, Lance railgun, Seeker) with chapter 4, before Obsidian's 50% armour asks for a heavy gun, Ace (Flux beam) with chapter 6 and Commander (Aurora Cruiser) with chapter 8, as act I ends. Before (120 / 380 / 800 / 1450 / 2500), Commander came with chapter 6 and nothing was left to license for the last ten chapters.
• Measured (2026-10-12, a bot playing the campaign as a story pilot on a virtual clock with the game's own guided flight: it follows the chapters, buys what the gates ask, takes side contracts when it cannot pay, and spends the rest on a sturdier ship, a better gun and its tier). Before: chapters 1 to 7 took 33 to 41 game minutes, 1.4 to 6 minutes a chapter; the gates never stopped it; it died 18 times in Obsidian with a shotgun and 25 times at the Ember flagship with a tier-1 beam; a death resumed at the autosave and could die again at once (205 deaths in a row once, from a burnt-out radiation shield). Act II from a chapter-8 kit (the cruiser, the Seeker at tier 5): all eight chapters in 49 minutes, no hull lost outside Nova Forge, no death, and 58 000 salvage left unspent. After: chapters 1 to 4 as before (12 to 13 minutes); the Obsidian gate asks for a gun that bites, the bot earns it with two Commander bounties in Verdant (7 to 8 minutes) and clears Obsidian with no death; in act II, Obsidian cost 710 hull and a death where it cost none, and chapter 11 took 10.9 minutes instead of 4.7 (the bot's runs ended at chapter 12, the machine being slow that night).
• Measured again (2026-10-12, second round, the same bot). A full campaign from chapter 1: chapters 1 to 7 in 31.5 minutes; the pilot owns every module by minute 28, two Lance railguns at tier 5 by minute 31 and the Aurora Cruiser after chapter 8. Chapter 8 took 15.1 minutes and 5 deaths, all at the Void Dreadnought, which came back whole after each tow. Act II from that kit (two railguns at tier 5, two shotguns, every module): chapters 9 to 15 take 1.9 to 4.3 minutes each (chapter 14, with its 100-second relay, 11) with no hull lost and no death; 10 000 to 37 000 salvage pile up with nothing left to buy. Chapter 16 was a wall: the reborn dreadnought, back whole after each death, killed the pilot ten times in 13 minutes. After the flagship kept its damage, chapter 16 takes 14 minutes and 3 deaths (two at the dreadnought), and chapter 8 with the same kit 10.2 minutes and a death.

Scoring

• A kill scores its type's points (table above) × the combo. The combo grows by one for each kill within 4 s of the last, up to ×8, and a hit on you resets it.
• An artifact picked up scores 25.
• Arcade Dustfall: raiders crushed by one cliff's fall score their kills (the combo counting up through them) and 60 × n × n on top: 240 for two, 960 for four (cliff_points).
• Arcade: salvage left at the end scores 10 each.
• Campaign: a claimed contract scores 10 × its reward (expedition_base_guide_base_claim_contract in src/js/station.js).
• One best score is kept for both modes (save_best in src/js/controls.js, stored as pulse_drift_best).

Leftovers

• sectors in src/js/worlds.js (fifteen sectors of an older run) is still read for a few HUD lines and the background colour; its mix and color are overwritten by the current world's (visual_base_generate_map in src/js/campaign.js). choose_upgrade in src/js/upgrades.js (a free module after each sector) is no longer called.