Xenobiome Command reference

Every rule in the game, in the game's own words. The text below is the in-game codex, rendered from the same strings the game ships, with the shipping numbers filled in. The tables under each entry are read straight from the engine data. Synced 2026-10-01.

The Colony

Morale

How the colony feels.

Morale moves toward its target slowly at first, then faster the longer it keeps going the same way. A drop closes half the gap in about 2.4 days, a rise in about 3.2 days. Outpost > Services shows what makes the people happy.

The target Morale cap is 85. You get 15 for housing everyone, up to 55 for covering the services people ask for, and 15 for having Biomass and Filtrate in the stores. Every colonist who has nowhere to sleep costs 5. A service people ask for but don't have costs Morale. Dead colonists with no grave cost 1, plus 1 more for every 4 dead, up to 4, and each Burial Field buries 6. Shortages, an open incident, and having no Heat Cells all subtract.

The Morale cap is 85 for most colonies, some buildings and colonist traits increase it. The floor is -50. Command refills once Morale reaches either 50, or 75% of what housing, services and food can give together, whichever of the two is lower. Below -10, unrest costs Command every few days - more the lower Morale sinks, and sooner the more Command you hold. Below zero, colonists start leaving too, sooner the heavier your Morale penalties are, and no more than one every 4 days.

Command

Your standing with the Directorate. At zero you lose the run.

Command only changes on certain events. Outpost > Leaders lists every gain and every loss - Unrest, Losses, Desertion, Directorate impatience, and the rest.

Finishing a quest gives you 3. A colony above 50 Morale refills about 0.35 Command per day, slower the higher it gets. Every colonist who dies or leaves costs 8, and each later loss costs 2 more. Every new colonist gives 2. An overdue quest costs 0.75 per day until the quest is done.

Command is checked at the end of every day and after every incident choice. At zero the Directorate recalls you.

The Diplomat never refills Command passively. Quests pay twice the usual payout instead, and relic finds still count, so ruins matter more to that commander.

Patience and overdue quests

The patience budget on the current quest, and what it costs to miss it.

Every quest has a patience budget in days. It ticks down while the quest is open and refills when you finish it.

At zero the quest is overdue and you lose 0.75 Command per day, multiplied by the difficulty level and the pace level. On Hostile the drain starts early, with 44% of the budget still left, and on Lethal and above with 53% left. It doesn't stop until the quest is done, but it shrinks once Command runs low, and on Nominal and Hostile it stops at 6 and 3 Command. The Diplomat never goes overdue.

Relaxed pace multiplies every budget by 2 and the drain by 0.5. Sandbox has no quests, patience or scoring.

Vigor

What every action costs.

Every action costs Vigor, and it refills on its own - a base rate, plus more for every colonist. Colonists beyond the first 4 add half as much. A Council and some techs increase the rate further.

Vigor has a soft cap of 3. Every point above it slows the refill a little more, until it stops at about 5 plus 1 per colonist. Spend it instead of sitting on it.

Population

How the colony grows.

To grow, you need to build beds, Biomass in the stores, Morale above zero, and no incident waiting. Running out of Filtrate doesn't stop arrivals, but it does kill people. The Outpost panel shows what's holding you back.

Morale has to stay above zero for the colony to grow. Below that cap it doesn't change the speed. When Morale climbs past what housing, services and food can give, every point over it speeds growth up.

New colonists wait at the door for 16 days. If nobody lets them in, they leave, and that counts as a loss: it costs 2 Command and makes the next loss cost more. If the colony is empty you have 15 days before you lose. A colonist waiting at the door pauses that clock, and welcoming one ends it.

Resources and storage

Seven types, four of them at the beginning.

You start each run with 4 types of resources: Biomass, Filtrate, Fiber and Heat Cells. Medicine, Regolith and Alloy come later, when research unlocks them. Once Medicine is unlocked and the colony reaches 7 colonists, every colonist uses 0.05 Medicine a day.

Every resource has a capacity. A store below its capacity accepts one scavenge or production tick even if that goes over the capacity, but a store at or over capacity gains 0. Capacity comes from buildings, plus a few techs, doctrines, boons and artifacts. Sustenance 1 unlocks silos, which hold more than stores. After that you can't build new stores, but the ones you have keep working.

Scavenging gets you additional resources on top of your production. The scavenged resources arrive as map bubbles 2 to 5 days later for you to collect. Each scavenge of a resource costs more Vigor than the last. Biomass and Heat Cells climb 1 per scavenge, up to 4 over the base. Fiber and Regolith climb slower, Medicine and Alloy climb faster, and Filtrate never climbs. Every 6 months each price drops one step, down to 1 Vigor.

You can order a building or tech research you can't pay for. The game shows which resource will go negative. A negative store acts like an empty one, and the order pauses while that store is at zero or below. Nothing else that costs that resource can start while the resource is in the negative.

All 54 buildings

Uplink and research

Four research tracks across Uplink Tiers.

Research runs in 4 tracks, each levelled 1 to 4, in Outpost > Up⁠link. Warfare buys Warden gear, fortifications and a Command payout. Sustenance is for housing, Biomass, Filtrate and healing. Industry unlocks Regolith deposits, then Alloy, then an extra build team. Every track opens Regolith scavenging at Uplink Tier 4. Survey improves surveying, and makes surveys and expeditions pay better.

Tier is one plus your total levels across all four tracks, capped at 7, so it stops growing once you researched 6 levels. Each tier adds 15% Warden strength, with a further 40% at tier 3 and 40% at tier 6. Tier also sets the Vigor a festival pays, and Vigor income rises again at tiers 5 and 6.

Level 2 is free to take on any track, but the levels above it force you to spread out. Level 3 needs 3 total levels across all four tracks, and level 4 needs 5.

Tier also caps how many copies of one producer an area can hold. For example at tier 3 you can build three kilns per area. Condensers on a wetland are exempt, and the Landing Zone holds one more condenser of each type than the tier.

Finishing a level always offers a tech draft of 3 cards, drawn from the track you just finished. Other tracks fill in only when that track has no cards left. You keep one. The ones you passed on can come back in a later draft. Techs are small permanent bonuses.

Track levels

Tech draft pool (14)

Surveying

How you survey the fog.

Surveying reveals a fogged area. It costs more Vigor the farther the area is from the Landing Zone, 1 for adjacent areas and up to 3 at the far edge. Every 4 areas you've claimed add 1 more. A large area can cost 1 more and a small one 1 less. You can only survey areas that border your revealed areas.

Survey track level 3 decreases every survey's cost by 1 Vigor. A Warden sitting near a fogged area decreases it further given enough time. The Surveyor pays -1 Vigor for survey and +1 Vigor for claims, and sees what's on an area before you survey. The Forager surveys blind - feral packs stay hidden until they reach your border.

Expeditions

Gathering from areas you don't own.

You can send an expedition to any surveyed or claimed area except the Landing Zone, for 2 Vigor, as long as no ferals stand on it. It returns after 3 days with what that area produces: Biomass on sporeplain and warren, Fiber on chitin grove, Filtrate on wetland, Heat Cells on ruinfield.

Expeditions don't need the area claimed, so they are the cheapest way to farm areas you can't hold yet. Survey track level 4 increases every expedition's output by 1. A pack wandering onto the area doesn't cancel an expedition already on its way back.

Warrens and orchards

Two ways to grow Biomass, and only one survives the Drift.

A Spore Orchard on sporeplain produces 0.375 Biomass per day. An Animal Pen on a warren produces 0.25. The orchard stops during the Drift, pens don't.

Isolation

Cut-off areas stop producing.

An area is only yours while claimed areas connect it back to the Landing Zone. Rivers and lost areas break that chain.

Cut-off areas stop producing and lose buildings one at a time. They cost 5 Morale each, up to 15. Eventually the colonists there walk away.

Reclaiming any missing link repairs the whole chain at once.

Seasons and the Drift

The cold season in months 12-2.

In the first Drift Heat Rings burn Heat Cells 5x faster, and every Drift after it adds 1x, up to 10x. Sporeplain stops producing Biomass. A Heat Ring only burns for the colonists it keeps warm, so spare rings cost nothing. Heat Rings also matter more, because their Morale floor drops by 60 until the Drift ends. The calendar and the map clock both show it coming. The Driftborn's production ignores the Drift entirely.

Store Heat Cells before the Drift. Freezing kills faster than starving.

Verdant (months 3-5) has no penalty. The first Arid (months 6-8) decreases Filtrate production to 0.5x and raises Filtrate use to 1.25x. Every Arid after it is harsher, down to 0.3x production and up to 1.5x use. Ashfall (months 9-11) decreases Biomass production to 0.75x. A year is 12 months of 8 days.

Running out

What running out costs you, and how fast.

Running out decreases Morale first, then it kills. Filtrate is the fastest: after 4 days without it, every colonist has a 15% chance to die each day. Biomass takes longer, 5 days, but the chance is higher at 25%.

Freezing is the worst of the three. During the Drift, running out of Heat Cells gives you 3 days before the 15% daily chance starts, or 6 days at 8% with a supplied Drift shelter. Stock up before the Drift, because once the Heat Cells run out it's too late to build anything.

Resonance Festival

The reward for keeping people happy.

A festival unlocks when Morale reaches the festival target. The target is the highest Morale your colony can currently reach, at most 100 and at least 80. If your buildings can't even support 80 Morale, the target drops to what they can support.

A festival costs no Morale. It gives you 3 Command, Vigor equal to your Uplink Tier, and 5 extra days of patience. The feast increases Biomass and Filtrate consumption by 25% for 3 days. The next festival is possible 48 days later, or 42 with Festival Drums researched.

Governance

A permanent choice about how you run the colony.

Once you reach 5 people and day 60 you have to pick a governance. This is the one choice you can't undo.

Autarchy gives you 12 Command at once. Inspire gives you 8 Command, but you start losing Command below 20 Morale instead of below -10. Council costs 8 Command up front and pays it back over time: hold 60 Morale or better and Vigor refills 25% faster.

Each choice also has its own incident that fires once when its trigger hits. Autarchy gets unrest when Morale runs low, Inspire gets exhaustion during the Drift, and Council gets deadlock when a shortage drags on.

Relic sweeps

The only Command you can earn on your own schedule.

Sweeping a claimed ruinfield turns up 3 relics, each worth 2 to 4 Command. It costs 3 Vigor the first time. Unlike quests and festivals, you can do it whenever you like.

The Command arrives as bubbles on the map a few days later, and you have to collect it. Each sweep costs 1 more Vigor every 2 sweeps, up to 12.

Incidents

Decisions with a countdown. Leaving one open costs Morale and growth.

Incidents arrive as map bubbles. You have 6 days to resolve it before it opens on its own. An open card costs 10 Morale until you resolve it. The Kindler doesn't pay the cost of choices, and gets one fewer option.

An open card also stops population growth completely. Don't leave them open for too long.

An incident fires at most once a run. Some cards carry between runs - if you met one in an earlier run, there's a 10% chance it comes back.

The Corps

Wardens

Keeping the borders safe.

Wardens heal 2% per day on claimed areas, or 5% with a working Med Bay. A healing Warden shows a pulsing green ring on the map. Antiseptic Moss multiplies that rate by 1.25x. Disbanding gives back 50% of the first recruit's 3 Vigor, scaled by the health that Warden has left. On Nominal and Hostile, a Warden who dies gives back 30% of it.

A Warden becomes a veteran after killing 3 whole packs, and ranks up again at 6 and 10. Each rank adds 15% strength and heals faster on your claimed areas: 1.25x, 1.5x and 1.75x the usual rate. Fights that leave the pack alive don't count. If a veteran dies, you lose more Morale. Retreating from a fight costs no Vigor.

Every claimed area increases your Wardens' strength by 2%, and 100 Morale increases it by 10%. Reaching Uplink Tiers 3 and 6 increases it by 40%, every other Tier by 15%.

The first Warden costs 3 Vigor. Later recruits cost more (4, 6, 8, 10, 12) and need more population (3, 6, 9, and so on). Training starts at 4 days and takes longer for each recruit (6, 16, 20, 24, 28). There's no fixed cap: you can have at most 1 Warden per colonist, and every recruit past the 6th costs 2 more Vigor than the last. You can only recruit on claimed areas, where there's no other Warden.

Warfare research unlocks squad kit, one piece per Warden. Chitin Plate at Warfare 1 decreases the wounds a Warden takes by 50%. Venom Blades at Warfare 3 adds 30% strength against a bloom or the nest. Signal Lance at Warfare 4 lends 50% strength to a fight two borders away. Kit is carried, not stored, so it marches with the Warden and it is lost for good when that Warden dies. Equip it from the area panel on any claimed ground where a Warden stands.

After 3 fights a Warden is promoted and you choose a class. An All-rounder stays as it was. A Defender fights at x1.4 on your own ground and x0.7 in the field. An Attacker is the opposite: x1.3 in the field, x0.8 at home. A Supporter is weak alone at x0.6, but lends x1.8 of the usual share to fights next door. Gear stacks on top, and the class can't be changed.

Recruiting

Gear

Warden upkeep

Wardens use supplies every day, more outside claimed areas.

Every Warden on a claimed area uses 0.06 Biomass and 0.06 Filtrate per day. That cost is flat - ten Wardens cost ten times one.

Each Warden outside your claimed areas uses 0.08 Biomass and 0.18 Filtrate and burns 0.005 Heat Cells per day for every Uplink Tier, so a Warden outside costs three times as much at Tier 3 as at Tier 1. On Mild and Hostile that cost is flat per Warden. On Lethal it grows faster than the headcount, and 5 Wardens outside cost as much as 6.9 would at the flat rate. From Brutal up, 5 cost as much as 9.5.

If Biomass or Filtrate hits zero, Wardens outside your claimed areas lose 10% of their health every day and can die. Wardens on claimed areas take no damage from hunger, but they don't heal and they fight at 80% strength.

Warden area interaction

How adjacent Wardens lend strength.

An area holds one Warden at most. You can't march onto an area another Warden stands on, and you can't recruit there. You can't recruit on contested areas either - clear the ferals first.

Adjacent Wardens lend 50% of their strength to a fight in an adjacent area, but only if they aren't fighting themselves. An area with no Warden standing on it is still undefended - Wardens don't defend areas from adjacent ones.

The Landing Zone adds strength to every fight it can reach: 1 full Warden's worth on the zone itself, and 0.5 for adjacent areas. Wardens fighting on the zone itself are 1.5x as strong.

A Warden adding strength from an unclaimed area counts for 70% of its strength.

Marching

How Wardens move.

Drag a Warden badge to send it to any claimed or surveyed area. A day consists of 10 ticks - entering a claimed area costs 3 ticks, entering a surveyed area costs 5.

Marching costs no Vigor, and a Warden is considered staying in the area it left, until it arrives to its destination - so if you cancel its movement, it was like you never moved it in the first place.

Warden economy assist

A standing Warden slowly decreases survey and claim costs around it.

A Warden standing on a claimed area decreases the Vigor cost of surveying an adjacent area. One standing on a surveyed area, that is adjacent to any claimed ones, decreases the cost of claiming it. Claiming costs more the farther the area is from the Landing Zone, and 1 more for every 3 areas you've claimed. Reclaiming an area costs half of its original claim cost. The discount grows by 1 Vigor every 22 days and stops once the cost reaches zero.

An assisting Warden uses 0.1 Biomass and 0.1 Filtrate per day on top of its normal upkeep, and the work stops if either of the resources run out.

The Wilds

Fights

Where strength comes from, and how a fight resolves.

A pack's strength comes from its size and breed, the difficulty, and where it stands: a bloom you haven't cleared multiplies it by 3x and a nest by 1.4x. Your side gets the fighting Warden's strength and health, 50% of each adjacent Warden, plus bonuses on claimed areas, from Uplink Tier, defensive buildings and Morale.

A fight resolves once per day. The first day kills at most half the pack, so every fight lasts at least two days. After that you usually kill one feral a day. At more than 1.4x the pack's strength, you kill more, up to 8 per day. If the pack is more than 3x as strong, you kill fewer than one per day, down to one every 10 days. On a bloom or a nest that starts at 2x, and a pack stronger than your side wounds your Warden harder each day, up to 1.5x the usual wound. Off blooms and nests it works the other way too: a pack weaker than your side wounds less, down to 30% of the usual wound when you badly outnumber it.

Any pack can be killed eventually, some fights just take longer than the Warden survives. You can retreat whenever you want by marching the Warden away, but the pack always gets its first swing. Leaving before the first day's fight still wounds the Warden by 30%. After that, leaving wounds it by 5% for each day fought, up to 15%. Light Step removes that later wound, but not the first swing.

A pack entering from a fogged area catches you by surprise and decreases your strength to 50%. A Stronghold on the area prevents that.

Feral breeds

What each breed does.

There are 6 breeds. Early campaign regions only have standard Feral packs. Later regions add more, and the last region has all of them. Blooms spawn only standard Feral packs until day 180; after that, 40% are standard Feral packs and the rest are breeds. From day 450, only 10% are standard Feral packs. Tap a pack badge to check its breed.

Brutes fight at 2x strength. An Alpha pack fights at 1.5x, and when you kill the pack, half of it scatters to adjacent unclaimed areas instead of dying. Corroders fight at normal strength, but if you fight them on your own claimed area, you lose the area even when you win, and it stays locked for 10 days. Fight them outside your claimed areas.

Stalkers go after the nearest Warden instead of the Landing Zone. They will cross claimed areas to reach a Warden. When Burrowers reach an area next to your claimed areas, they wait a day, go underground, then surface at the Landing Zone. Kill them at the border or fight them at the Landing Zone. A Stronghold doesn't stop them.

A Broodmother fights at 1.25x strength and makes its bloom spawn twice as often. Each nest has one. A pack standing on a nest also gets 1.4x strength.

Pack movement

How packs wake up, walk, and try to take your areas.

A pack takes 0.6 day to enter the next area, then waits 1 day before moving again. It normally takes the shortest route to the Landing Zone. If a Warden is next to it, it goes for the Warden instead. The map shows where it stands, and a red arrow points to the area it will enter next.

Packs on the map begin being asleep. One wakes when a Warden stands next to it, or you claim an adjacent area. A sleeping pack within 2 areas of your land also sends a full copy toward you every 31.5 to 48 days. Higher difficulties send them more often, but the sleeping pack never gets smaller. Those copies don't start before day 120. A pack you wake yourself attacks immediately, day doesn't matter.

A pack on one of your claimed areas starts a countdown if no Warden is there. Send one within 5 days or lose the area. The Landing Zone gives you 10 days, because if you lose that, it's game over. A Warden arriving stops the countdown. You can reclaim a lost area again after 10 days.

Lure costs 1 Vigor and takes 1 day. It pulls the whole pack onto the adjacent area where your Warden stands. That lets you choose where the fight happens.

Bloom

Purple areas that spawn packs. Bloom doesn't spread.

Bloom is purple ground. Every day, each bloomed area you didn't clear has a small chance to spawn one feral pack, but not while a Warden stands on it. The pack appears on the bloom and starts to walk toward you. Higher difficulties and longer runs increase the chance. Packs standing on a bloom you haven't cleared have 3x strength. Every pack your Wardens draw off a bloom leaves the ferals that later defend it 10% weaker, and this stacks.

If a Warden walks onto a bloom, a pack of 2 ferals immediately spawns on it, on top of anything already there. Later defending packs are bigger: one more feral every 450 days of the run, up to 4. Kill everything on it, and the bloom is cleared: it stays purple, and it stops spawning for now. Normally you can't claim a bloomed area - on a few campaign maps you can. You can also burn a cleared bloom: it costs 4 Vigor and 6 Heat Cells, and a Warden has to stand on it for 3 days. The bloom fights back with a few ferals each day of the burn, and finishing it wakes the nearest sleeping pack. Then the purple is gone, the area is dead ground, and you can claim it. A cleared bloom you don't burn within 8 days grows back.

Every map has one special bloom area: the nest. Clearing the nest removes every cleared bloom, and then you can claim those areas - as dead ground, with nothing to gather or grow, no resources on them. Uncleared blooms continue to spawn packs until you clear them. While a Broodmother lives on a bloom, it spawns twice as often. Killing the nest also gives you 10 Morale and 2 Command.

Edge nests

Nests past the edge of the map. They never stop sending packs.

Every campaign region has at least one feral nest past the map edge. A purple line on the edge marks each one. You can't reach a nest, fight it or clear it. Each nest sends a pack in through the area next to the line, and the pack walks toward the Landing Zone like any other. On Mild a nest sends 1 feral about every 48 days. On Lethal it sends 2 about every 24 days. The gap changes from pack to pack, and now and then a pack comes one or two ferals bigger. Each year the packs get one feral bigger, up to 6. From year 3 the nests send more often, down to half the gap, more packs are brutes, corroders or stalkers, and every feral grows 10% stronger a year, up to 60%. Fungal Grid stays gentler: its packs stop at 4 and it skips the late-year ramp. The first pack comes after the grace period ends.

A campaign region always has the same number of edge nests. A scenario map rolls when it's made: half have none, and a few have up to three. Keep Wardens on the area next to a nest and they meet every pack as it comes in.

The Landing Zone

Lose it and the run ends.

The Landing Zone is your starting area. If a pack takes it, the run ends.

Only Wardens can defend areas - a Stronghold doesn't. If a pack reaches the Landing Zone with no Warden there, you have 10 days to send one. Its arrival stops the countdown.

A Stronghold adds strength to fights on its own area and prevents surprise attacks there. Buildings with combat bonuses help every fight on the map, not only fights where they stand.

The Run

Difficulty and pace

Difficulty changes the world and the clock. Pace only changes the clock.

Difficulty changes feral numbers and strength, all resource consumption, starting Command and Morale, score multiplier, desertion speed and quest patience. Hostile is the baseline. Every other difficulty scales from it. The setup screen has the exact numbers.

Pace only changes timers. Relaxed gives quests 2x as long and drains 0.5x as much Command when they are overdue. Sandbox has no quests or score. Campaign mode doesn't have Sandbox pace.

Ferals grow stronger as a run goes on. Higher difficulties rise faster. The bonus stops at +50%.

Twists

Modifiers you take on for score.

Assignment and scenario modes use twists. You start with 26 available, out of 33 total. There are 3 kinds of twists: 17 "hostile" make the run harder. 10 "boon" make it easier. 6 "trade" give you a benefit with a cost.

Only twists with a downside increase score. A hostile twist adds 15% to your final score, and a trade twist adds 5%. Boons add nothing. The bonuses add up, to a cap of 1.6x.

Scenarios give you 2 twist slots and you can buy 2 more with stars. Assignments come with a fixed set of twists instead.

Scenario map traits (16)

Assignments

A fixed scenario that changes every few days.

An assignment is a scenario the game sets for everyone: one map, one difficulty and a fixed set of twists, the same for every player, rolling over every 3 days. It unlocks after your first campaign win and shows on the Progress screen's Overview tab as the Active Assignment.

Its twists are rolled based on the date, you can't pick or buy them. 4 times a year a seasonal event replaces the roll with its own set for two weeks. Score and stars work as in any scenario.

Seasonal events

Side quests

Optional goals that pay Vigor and Command.

Scenarios hand out side quests on top of the main chain: store a resource, grow the colony, hold a number of areas, or clear a named pack. Up to 2 run at once and each expires after 45 days. Finishing one pays Vigor, Command or both. Missing one costs nothing.

Score and stars

How a win is graded and turned into stars.

Score starts with (900 minus finish day) / 3 for speed, plus 15 per survivor, plus Command / 2. Reaching 100 Morale adds +10%. Difficulty then multiplies it, from 0.75x on Mild to 3.3x on Hardened III. Assignment twists multiply it again, up to 1.6x. Finishing after day 900 gives no speed score. A loss scores zero.

Stars use fixed score thresholds: 120 for 2, 250 for 3, 400 for 4 and 600 for 5. A 5-star win needs a quick finish on a high difficulty. Mild can't reach 600, however well you play.

Feats

Five side goals tracked per region.

Every campaign region tracks 5 feats, 135 across the campaign. Progress > Feats & Doctrine lists them per region.

The feats are: finish within 220 days, win on Lethal or higher, finish with 16 colonists, lose no Wardens, and win without losing any areas.

How a run ends

The three ways a run ends.

At zero Command, the Directorate recalls you. This is the usual slow loss. Outpost > Leaders shows what's draining it.

Losing the Landing Zone ends the run instantly. A pack has to hold it for 10 days first.

Having 0 population ends the run after 15 days with nobody housed. Growth keeps running while the clock does, so one arrival resets it.

Undo and cancelling

We all make mistakes.

Undo reverses up to 5 actions before the next day ticks over. Find it in the map controls, Outpost > Resources, or with Ctrl+Z on pc, CMD+Z on mac.

Cancel a build before a crew starts it for a full refund. Once work has started, it can't be cancelled.

Between Runs

The Progress screen

Everything you keep between runs, and where it lives.

You can find your various progressions behind PROGRESS on the main menu. It holds everything that carries over from run to run, split into tabs. Overview: the Active Assignment and three Rebuilding bars (your best scores added up, colonists raised across all runs, and regions won, each against a fixed target). Artifacts: the 27 you can own and the ones you acquired.

Contribution: your star balance, the 12 boons, and Supplies, the 4 things stars buy repeatedly (offer and artifact rerolls, a region reseed, a twist slot). Feats & Doctrine: feats per region and the doctrines you've drafted. Commissary: 40 cosmetics. Requisition Roster: content you unlock by playing. Frontier Map & Regions: the campaign map and your best result on each region.

Stars are the one currency here. Boons, cosmetics, rerolls and reseeds all use it. Artifacts, feats, doctrines (50) and unlocks (15) are earned by playing and can't be bought.

Doctrines

Small permanent bonuses drafted after new wins.

There are 50 doctrines in three families: 17 production, 17 society, 16 knowledge. Each is a small tweak of a few percent, and everything you acquired applies to every campaign and scenario run.

The first time you win a campaign region at a difficulty you haven't secured it on, you draft one of 3. A win that already offers an artifact draft doesn't offer a doctrine. Progress > Feats & Doctrine shows what you acquired, by family.

Artifacts

Permanent bonuses you pick between regions.

There are 27 artifacts, listed under Progress > Artifacts. Securing a campaign region for the first time offers 3. Keep one and it applies automatically to every later run.

Bigger regions offer better artifacts. Each campaign drafts from its own set. Rerolling the offer costs stars.

Boons

Starting advantages bought with stars.

There are 12 boons under Progress > Contribution, each costing 3 to 8 stars. Owned boons apply to every future run, such as extra starting Vigor or Command, more storage, or faster growth.

Boons make a run easier without affecting your score.

Stars

What a win's stars buy.

A win pays stars based on its score. Stars are the only currency between runs, and they don't expire.

Spend stars on boons or rerolls. Rerolling a setup offer costs 1, an artifact offer 2, a region map 4, and a permanent twist slot 6. Each gets more expensive when you buy it again, up to a cap.

Caps: setup offer reroll: 1 star, +1 every 3 buys, caps at 4. Artifact draft reroll: 2, +1 every 2 buys, caps at 6. Region map reseed: 4, +1 per buy, caps at 10. Twist slot: 6, +1 per buy, caps at 10.

Rerolls change what a run offers you, boons change what you start it with.

Stars also buy cosmetics under Progress > Commissary: 40 items across 4 slots (card plates, map palettes, victory banners, menu titles), from 3 to 80 stars. They change looks only. The rerolls and the twist slot are bought under Progress > Contribution > Supplies.

Supplies

Commissary (41)

Achievements

Long-term goals tracked across runs.

There are 61 achievements. They track secured chapters, regions secured at each difficulty, stars earned, feats collected, and a few particular finishes.

They unlock the moment their condition is true, even between runs, and never need claiming. Nothing in the game is locked behind Achievements, and no Achievements are locked behind anything.

Leaderboards

Where a score goes after the run.

A finished campaign run posts to that region's board, a daily drop posts to that day's board. Scenarios and assignments don't use leaderboards. The score is the same one on the results screen.

Each entry carries your stars, finish day, difficulty and the year you reached alongside the score. Boards need a connected platform account. Nothing is posted from an offline run.

Secrets

One hidden find in every campaign region.

Each campaign region hides one secret, 27 in all. The hint sits on the region's card in the Campaign menu, so read it before you start. Some secrets are a thing on the map to find and tap once the area is surveyed. Others want a particular order, a particular day, a particular commander, or a run played a particular way.

A found secret opens a card with a plate and a lore entry, and both stay on the Secrets tab in Progress. Secrets never change the run: nothing is gained in-game, and nothing is locked behind them except the achievements for finding every secret in a campaign. Scenarios don't carry secrets.

Daily drop

One fixed map per day, the same for everybody.

Each day has one drop: a fixed map, difficulty and twist set based on the date. You bring your own commander. Everyone who plays that day gets the same run, and you can retry it as often as you like: the best score counts.

Drops stay playable for 30 days. Only today's drop counts toward a streak. Personal bests are kept for each drop.

Commanders and colony traits

Two picks at setup that change different rules.

Besides the Pathfinder played in the tutorial, there are 18 commanders and 15 colony traits. Commanders change how you act: action costs, research pace, etc. Traits are pure bonuses that shape the opening: extra stocks and storage, free Vigor on your first surveys, claims, builds, scavenges or expeditions, an extra colonist or Warden, a head start on Morale or Command. Most are locked until you earn them: Progress > Requisition Roster lists what you unlock by playing: 8 of the traits and 7 of the twists, with the condition for each.

Some change rules rather than numbers. The codex notes those where they matter: The Diplomat for example gets Command only from quests and relics, while The Driftborn ignores the Drift.

Three commanders carry an ability with a cooldown. The Speaker rallies for +20 Morale every 15 days. The Driver surges for +5 Vigor every 20 days. The Hunter purges a small pack next to your land for 15 Command, every 25 to 45 days depending on how strong the pack was.

Wins with the same commander earn a mastery title shown on the setup card: Commended at 3, Decorated at 5, Exemplar at 10, Vaunted at 15, Storied at 25, Undying at 50 wins.

The Bookkeeper

• +20% Vigor refill
• Uplink offline until day 50

Runs things by the numbers. Fast hands, and the Uplink stays dark for the first 50 days.

The Warden-Captain

• +50% Warden strength
• Wardens never retreat or recall

Wardens hit half again as hard. Once they're in, they're in.

The Driftborn

• survey cost: +2 off-Drift
• claim cost: +2 off-Drift
• Drift never slows production

Raised in the frost. The farms don't notice Drift, and nobody wants to walk in the warm.

The Surveyor

• -1 survey cost
• sees pack sizes in the fog adjacent to surveyed areas
• +1 claim cost

Counts the packs in the fog before anyone crosses. Surveys run cheap, and she takes her time signing off a claim.

The Tyrant

• -5 Morale target
• +50% quest patience
• colonists never abandon

Nobody leaves, nobody argues, and nobody smiles.

The Hoarder

• auto-builds storage at caps

Shelves go up before you ask - along with the Fiber bill. Caps won't bite.

The Foreman

• every build finishes in 1 day
• each build order: -1 Morale

Everything goes up overnight. Nobody's happy about the hours.

The Den-Boss

• grows without housing
• grows even in low Morale
• 1.5x abandonment risk

Den caps are just suggestions. Dens fill up anyway; people who don't like it know where the door is.

The Recluse

• +50% output on areas with one adjacent claimed area or none, -25% with three or more

A lone area works hard. Crowd it with neighbors and it slacks off.

The Kindler

• incident choices cost nothing
• one fewer choice on every incident

Trouble never costs a thing. There's just less to choose from.

The Forager

• feral-free surveyed areas forage themselves (+0.5/day each)
• packs stay hidden until they touch your border

Every surveyed field feeds the pot on its own. Ask what's living out there and you get a shrug.

The Marshal

• Wardens finish training in 1d
• each Warden needs the next population gate up

Turns a recruit into a Warden overnight. Won't sign one up until the colony's grown into it.

The Frostwalker

• claims, Wardens and recruits never wake sleeping packs
• sleeping packs wait 1.5x longer between attacks
• unclaimed surveyed areas fog over after 20 days

Walks right past sleeping packs and they never stir. Areas she surveys and leaves unclaimed fog back over.

The Alchemist

• stores overflow into Filtrate -> Biomass -> Fiber -> Heat Cells

Nothing overflows the stores: spare Filtrate becomes Biomass, spare Biomass Fiber, spare Fiber Heat Cells.

The Diplomat

• Command only comes back from quests
• quests pay 2x Command
• overdue quests drain Morale, not Command

Quests pay double and Command comes from nowhere else. An overdue quest wears on Morale, not on the Directorate.

The Speaker

• -5 Morale target
• Rally - +20 Morale (15d)

Quiet until they rally everyone. Morale dips between speeches.

The Driver

• -15% Vigor refill
• Surge - +5 Vigor (20d)

Daily pace drags, but they'll crush deadlines in one big push.

The Hunter

• -20% Warden strength
• Purge - Finish an adjacent pack (max 4 Str, -15 Command) (25-45d)

Routine hits are soft, but the kill shot clears the whole pack.

Colonist traits (15)

Mastery titles

Requisition Roster

Factions

Who you're playing as.

Scenario mode has 4 factions. Each changes combat, production and feral behaviour, and has its own map and interface color.

The first campaign is played as the Foothold and the second one as the Carrion. Scenarios let you pick any of the four.

Foothold plays the base rules. Full toolkit, no handicap, no gimmick.

Carrion produces at 75%. Every feral kill salvages 0.6 Biomass and 0.4 Filtrate, cleared blooms and nests pay 2x, and each kill adds 0.15 Command refill for 5 days.

Symbiote grows 0.4 Biomass per colonist and 0.15 per claimed area on its own, and gets +4% output per distinct claimed terrain. It can't build Spore Orchards or Fauna Pens, and blooms grow their packs 1 feral larger before they stop (normally 5).

Mycelia doesn't claim. It creeps into surveyed areas in 3 days and regrows lost areas in 2, ignores rivers, and fights at +25% on defense and 80% on the attack.

Campaigns

Two arcs, two factions.

The Foothold campaign has 17 regions. Securing Last Stand unlocks the Carrion campaign: 10 regions, where the goals count kills and the packs keep coming in tides.

Each campaign drafts its own artifacts on a first win: the Foothold regions the original set, the Carrion regions 10 of their own. Everything you acquire applies to every future run.

The Foothold Campaign

The Carrion Campaign

The build itself

Saving

One colony, saved continuously - there are no save slots and no manual save. The game writes after every meaningful change and restores exactly where you left off, including mid-order. Saves are versioned and migrated forward, so a colony started on an older build keeps playing on a newer one; a save written by a newer build than the one reading it is refused rather than guessed at, and left untouched so upgrading again recovers it.

Controls

Mouse and keyboard, touch, or a gamepad, and the on-screen hints follow the device actually in your hands rather than the platform you bought on. Keys are rebindable, with Escape and the fullscreen pair reserved - a rebinding that could lock you out of the menu that does the rebinding is not offered.

Graphics

Terrain quality, ambient effects and map detail are separate settings rather than one slider, because they cost different things: terrain is memory, ambient is frame time, detail is both. A frame-rate chip can be turned on from options to see what a change actually did.

The demo

The demo is the tutorial plus the first six campaign maps - Fungal Grid, Spore Reach, Abyssal Tide, Drowning Deep, Fracture Zone and The Sundering - with scenarios, the daily drop and assignments held for the full game. A demo colony carries over: the full game recognises it and picks up where the demo stopped rather than making you replay it.

Glossary

The game reskins classic colony-sim vocabulary onto its alien setting:

External links