Factions

Know what you are fighting

Six factions, each with its own way to win. For each one: what it believes, how it plays, the rules only it follows, the building and the research only it has, and every unit it fields, with the numbers the game itself uses.

All of it is built from the game when the site is: each model is the unit or building as it is drawn in a match, and every number is read from the table the game plays by.

Every faction plays by the ground. A unit on lower ground cannot see or shoot up onto raised ground: what stands up there stays hidden, and out of its fire, until one of its side climbs a ramp, or a flier looks, while from above the low ground is in plain view and in reach. Holding the high ground is shooting without being shot back.

Distance and tempo

Meridian

It believes: What is measured can be controlled.

Ranged, quick and fragile in the way a thing that keeps its distance can afford to be. Meridian wants to be shooting before the other side arrives, and a second base early enough to pay for it. Its shields come back between fights, its tender mends the line, and its lancer outranges everything.

How it plays

Best at

Its lancer reaches furthest of any.
It alone fields a mender (the tender).
Its Survey Mast sees twice as far as any other building.
Its Calibrated Optics carry its lancers and heavies a fifth further.
Its Field Medicine mends half as much again at each touch of a tender.

What it pays for that

Its fighter has less health than any but Prism’s.
Its Survey Mast is the most fragile building, dearer in crystal than ore, stands only within sight of a field, and is shown to every enemy.
Its Calibrated Optics help its lancers and heavies alone: its fighters reach no further.
Its Field Medicine does nothing for a unit that fights.

Playing it: Keep your distance. Lancers behind fighters, shooting first; pull hurt units back so their shields return, and keep a tender with the line. Raise a Survey Mast beside a field to see them coming. Expand early to pay for it.
Playing against it: Close the distance. Its fighters are lightly built, so get into them before the lancers have done their work, and keep hitting so shields never get the quiet they need. Its Survey Mast is on your map wherever it stands, and fragile: break it and it is blind again.

Its own rules

Reach: Its lancer hits from 11 m away, further than anything else in the game. Meridian wins by shooting first and never letting the other side close in.
Shields that come back: Its heavy carries a 90-point shield that starts to refill 3 s after the last hit. Pull it back out of a fight and it returns whole.
The tender: The only mender in the game: it mends the most hurt machine within 4 m by 10 health a second. Keep one behind your line.

Its own building

Survey Mast

Meridian

A tall, thin mast that sees 32 m all round, twice the 16 m any other building sees, with nobody standing at it. It can stand only within sight of a field that still has something in it.

The catch: The most fragile building in the game, dearer in crystal than ore, and shown on every enemy’s map wherever it stands.

Cost: 25 ore · 60 crystal
Build time: 9 s
Health: 100
Ground: 1 × 1

Its own research

Learned at its lab, in place of the weapons and plating it no longer researches.

Field Medicine

A tender mends 15 health a second instead of 10.

The catch: It adds nothing to a shot or to armour: a tender has to be there, and alive.

Cost: 75 ore · 100 crystal
Research: 25 s

Calibrated Optics

Lancers and heavies reach 20% further: a lancer’s 11 m becomes 13.2 m.

The catch: Only lancers and heavies: its fighters reach no further.

Cost: 50 ore · 40 crystal
Research: 20 s

Its units

Worker

Meridian

Walks · Unarmed

Health: 60
Armour: 0
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 6 m/s
Sight: 16 m
Cost: 50 / 0
Supply: 1
Build time: 5 s

Unarmed
Dies quickly
Quick
Cheap

Fighter

Meridian

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 100
Armour: 0
Damage/s: 20
Range: 6 m
Speed: 6 m/s
Sight: 16 m
Cost: 75 / 25
Supply: 1
Build time: 7.5 s

Ground only
Quick
Cheap

Heavy

Meridian

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 260
Shield: 90
Damage/s: 20
Range: 7 m
Speed: 3 m/s
Sight: 16 m
Cost: 150 / 45
Supply: 2
Build time: 22 s

Ground only
Hits hard
Hits a group
Shell can be outrun
Hard to kill
Slow
Expensive

Skimmer

Meridian

Flies · Hits ground and air

Health: 70
Armour: 0
Damage/s: 16
Range: 5 m
Speed: 9 m/s
Sight: 22 m
Cost: 100 / 30
Supply: 1
Build time: 12 s

Answers what flies
Quick

Lancer

Meridian

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 90
Armour: 0
Damage/s: 23.8
Range: 11 m
Speed: 4.4 m/s
Sight: 20 m
Cost: 80 / 30
Supply: 2
Build time: 9.5 s

Ground only
Outranges most
Hits hard

Tender

Meridian

Walks · Unarmed

Health: 100
Armour: 0
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 5 m/s
Sight: 14 m
Cost: 20 / 45
Supply: 1
Build time: 8 s

Unarmed
Mends its side
Cheap

Hauler

Meridian

Flies · Unarmed

Health: 150
Armour: 1
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 7 m/s
Sight: 12 m
Cost: 100 / 50
Supply: 2
Build time: 15 s

Unarmed
Carries ground units
Hard to kill
Quick
Expensive

Mass and ground

Basalt

It believes: What endures wins.

Slower, heavier and cheaper for what it fields. Basalt trades range and speed for armour and bodies, and wants the middle of the map. Its units mend themselves out of a fight, and its bastion is a wall that walks.

How it plays

Best at

Its fighter has the most health of any.
It alone fields a bastion.
It alone raises a wall, one its own side walks through and no enemy does: a Bulwark section costs no crystal, and under a fifth of the ore for each point of health that any unit of its pays.
Its Deep Anchors take two from every hit on an anchored unit.
Its Kiln Mending triples its mend, and starts it five seconds sooner.
Its Flak Rounds let its fighters hit fliers as well as walkers.

What it pays for that

It fields no lancer: nothing of its reaches far.
Only its defence tower can hit a flier until it learns Flak Rounds, and its fighters reach less far than most fliers do.
Its fighter is slower than Meridian’s, Drift’s and Prism’s.
Its Bulwark stops its own army’s fire as surely as the enemy’s, has no weapon, and falls to one fighter of any faction in under twenty seconds.
Its Deep Anchors help only a unit anchored, which cannot move.
Its Kiln Mending does nothing for a unit still being hit.

Playing it: Take the middle and hold it. Its fighters are the toughest and cheap for what they field; walk the bastion forward, anchor it, and wall the way in with cheap Bulwarks, leaving a gap under your tower.
Playing against it: Never stand in front of it. Nothing it fields reaches far, so outrange it, kite it, and strike where it is not: it is slow to come back to its own base. A Bulwark does nothing but stand and breaks quickly: go round it, or through it, and its own army must use the same gap.

Its own rules

Anchor: Its bastion sets itself down. Anchored, it reaches 6 m instead of 1.6, wears 2 more armour, and its shells slow what they hit to 67% speed for 2 s. It cannot move until it lifts again.
Mending: A Basalt machine that nothing has hit for 10 s mends 1 health a second, wherever it is, until it is whole. Win a fight, rest, and walk into the next one ready.

Its own building

Bulwark

Basalt

Stone wall, dragged out in a line of up to 8 sections: each costs 10 ore, no crystal, and goes up in 4 s with 200 health. Basalt and its allies walk through it; every enemy is stopped.

The catch: It does nothing but stand, a lone fighter breaks a section in seconds, and it stops shots both ways: Basalt cannot fire across its own wall either.

Cost: 10 ore · 0 crystal
Build time: 4 s
Health: 200
Ground: 1 × 1

Its own research

Learned at its lab, in place of the weapons and plating it no longer researches.

Deep Anchors

An anchored bastion takes 2 less from every hit.

The catch: Only while it is anchored, and cannot move.

Cost: 100 ore · 75 crystal
Research: 30 s

Kiln Mending

Mending rises to 3 health a second instead of 1, and starts after 5 s unhit instead of 10.

The catch: Nothing for a unit that is still being hit.

Cost: 125 ore · 75 crystal
Research: 30 s

Flak Rounds

Its fighters hit fliers as well as walkers, from 3.8 m.

The catch: They reach no further: most fliers’ guns outrange them.

Cost: 100 ore · 75 crystal
Research: 25 s

Its units

Worker

Basalt

Walks · Unarmed

Health: 75
Armour: 0
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 5.2 m/s
Sight: 16 m
Cost: 50 / 0
Supply: 1
Build time: 5.3 s

Unarmed
Dies quickly
Cheap

Fighter

Basalt

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 170
Armour: 1
Damage/s: 15
Range: 3.8 m
Speed: 4.6 m/s
Sight: 16 m
Cost: 65 / 15
Supply: 1
Build time: 7 s

Ground only
Cheap

Heavy

Basalt

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 340
Armour: 2
Damage/s: 16.7
Range: 5 m
Speed: 2.6 m/s
Sight: 16 m
Cost: 150 / 45
Supply: 2
Build time: 21 s

Ground only
Outranges most
Hits hard
Hits a group
Shell can be outrun
Hard to kill
Slow
Expensive

Skimmer

Basalt

Flies · Hits ground

Health: 130
Armour: 1
Damage/s: 14.7
Range: 3 m
Speed: 6.5 m/s
Sight: 18 m
Cost: 110 / 25
Supply: 1
Build time: 13 s

Ground only
Has to get close
Hits a group
Quick

Bastion

Basalt

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 420
Armour: 3
Damage/s: 14.5
Range: 1.6 m
Speed: 3.2 m/s
Sight: 16 m
Cost: 120 / 20
Supply: 3
Build time: 12 s

Ground only
Has to get close
Shell can be outrun
Hard to kill
Slow

Hauler

Basalt

Flies · Unarmed

Health: 150
Armour: 1
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 7 m/s
Sight: 12 m
Cost: 100 / 50
Supply: 2
Build time: 15 s

Unarmed
Carries ground units
Quick
Expensive

Gather. Move. Survive.

Drift

It believes: Anything rooted can be destroyed.

Nomads whose whole base walks. Drift once had cities and watched them fall, so nothing it owns is ever rooted: every building is a walker that packs up, walks where it is sent and unfolds there. It lives on salvage from the wrecks a fight leaves, and its siege walker fires probes through the ground, past walls and cliffs. It is built from soft things: legs, masts, sails and woven canvas, and it is fast, light and far-sighted, with no shields and no armour.

How it plays

Best at

Its fighter is the fastest on the ground.
Its kite sees furthest of anything.
Its siege walker reaches furthest of any heavy.
Its camp walks, and it alone salvages wrecks.
Its army rides in its Mule, and lives when the Mule falls.
It alone raises fallen enemy machines to fight for it.
Its Salvage Yard strips the wrecks near it by itself, without a crew.
Its Light Frames walk its packed buildings a quarter faster.
Its Strip Faster strips every wreck half as fast again, and banks a third more than it takes.

What it pays for that

Nothing it fields is armoured.
It raises no defence post, and nothing of its mends.
Nothing it fields is shielded.
Its Mule walks: it crosses no cliff or wall, as a flying hauler does.
What it raises falls apart, at half health, and uses up the wreck.
Its Salvage Yard is unarmed, works only standing, and strips more slowly than one crew.
Its Light Frames unfold nothing faster, and a building on the move does no work.
Its Strip Faster pays only where things have died.

Playing it: Raid, salvage, move. Its outriders are the fastest on the ground and its kites see furthest: hit where the enemy is not, walk the Salvage Yard to the wrecks a won fight leaves, and walk the camp away from trouble.
Playing against it: Pin it down. Nothing it fields is armoured or shielded and it has no defence posts, so a fight it cannot run from is one it loses; a lost fight feeds it nothing.

Its own rules

A base that walks: Every building packs up in 5 s, walks at 2.4 m/s to wherever you send it, and unfolds in 5 s. While it is packed it does no work.
Salvage: Every unit that falls in a match with Drift leaves a wreck holding 30% of its price, and only Drift’s striders can strip it. A won fight pays.
Probes under the ground: Its siege walker throws probes 8.5 m that travel under the ground, so walls and cliffs do not stop them.

Its own building

Salvage Yard

Drift

Walk it to where the fighting was. Standing, it strips 2 from the nearest wreck within 8 m every 2 s, all by itself, with no crew.

The catch: Unarmed, it works only while standing, and more slowly than one crew at a wreck: it pays only where things have died.

Cost: 75 ore · 40 crystal
Build time: 10 s
Health: 250
Ground: 2 × 2

Walks, like all of Drift

Its own research

Learned at its waystation, in place of the weapons and plating it no longer researches.

Strip Faster

Crews and Salvage Yards strip every wreck 50% faster and bank 40% of the fallen unit’s price from it instead of 30%.

The catch: It pays only where things have died.

Cost: 100 ore · 50 crystal
Research: 25 s

Light Frames

Packed buildings walk at 3 m/s instead of 2.4.

The catch: They pack and unfold no faster, and a building on the move does no work.

Cost: 75 ore · 75 crystal
Research: 20 s

Its units

Strider

Drift

Walks · Unarmed

Health: 65
Armour: 0
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 6.6 m/s
Sight: 18 m
Cost: 45 / 0
Supply: 1
Build time: 4.8 s

Unarmed
Dies quickly
Quick
Cheap

Outrider

Drift

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 110
Armour: 0
Damage/s: 18
Range: 4.5 m
Speed: 6.8 m/s
Sight: 18 m
Cost: 70 / 20
Supply: 1
Build time: 7 s

Ground only
Quick
Cheap

Siege walker

Drift

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 300
Armour: 0
Damage/s: 21.5
Range: 8.5 m
Speed: 2.8 m/s
Sight: 18 m
Cost: 150 / 45
Supply: 2
Build time: 21 s

Fires through walls
Ground only
Outranges most
Hits hard
Hits a group
Shell can be outrun
Hard to kill
Slow
Expensive

Kite

Drift

Flies · Hits ground and air

Health: 70
Armour: 0
Damage/s: 12
Range: 4 m
Speed: 10 m/s
Sight: 26 m
Cost: 85 / 25
Supply: 1
Build time: 11 s

Answers what flies
Dies quickly
Quick

Sling walker

Drift

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 120
Armour: 0
Damage/s: 23.3
Range: 8 m
Speed: 4.8 m/s
Sight: 20 m
Cost: 85 / 35
Supply: 2
Build time: 10 s

Ground only
Outranges most
Hits hard
Hits a group
Shell can be outrun

Scrapwright

Drift

Walks · Unarmed

Health: 90
Armour: 0
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 5.2 m/s
Sight: 14 m
Cost: 75 / 50
Supply: 2
Build time: 15 s

Unarmed
Raises fallen enemies, for a while

Mule

Drift

Walks · Unarmed

Health: 160
Armour: 0
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 4.6 m/s
Sight: 12 m
Cost: 75 / 25
Supply: 3
Build time: 15 s

Unarmed
Carries ground units
Riders survive its fall
Hard to kill

Connect. Grow. Adapt.

Thicket

It believes: Nothing survives alone.

A garden that learned to defend itself, or gardeners who became the garden: Thicket does not say which. Its buildings are grown, not built: a heart for a base, a canopy where its machines bud, a grove where it learns. It is slow and sturdy, short-sighted, with bark for armour and no shields. Bulbs, petals and bark, with its colour glowing in the veins.

How it plays

Best at

Its heavy has the most health of any.
It alone heals on a root network.
Its Rootwalker, rooted, carries the network’s healing into the field.
Its Grafter tangles the enemy’s ground: half speed inside its graft.
Its Seed Vault regrows a building lost near it, once, for half its price.
It alone learns Deep Roots and Thorned Bark: roots reach half as far again, and the network heals four a second.

What it pays for that

Its fighter reaches least of any.
Its fighter sees least of any.
Its heavy is the slowest of any.
It may grow only where its roots reach.
Its Rootwalker heals only rooted, cannot move rooted, and is unarmed and the slowest it fields.
Its Grafter stands still while a graft grows, waits twenty seconds for the next, and fliers walk free.
Its Seed Vault keeps no seed cut off from a heart, and a seed grows for the whole build time.
It learns no weapons or plating: off the network its research adds nothing to a fight.
Its Deep Roots carry no healing further than before, and its Thorned Bark heals nothing off the network.

Playing it: Fight at home. Its heavies are the toughest of any, and on the network they heal as they fight; grow nodes to carry the roots, and the network, toward where you mean to fight, or root a Rootwalker behind the line. Graft the ground the enemy has to cross. Grow a Seed Vault where you expect to be raided, and keep it joined.
Playing against it: Cut the roots. Its fighters reach and see least of any and its heavies are slowest: draw it away from its network, and break a node to wilt everything beyond it. Kill a rooted Rootwalker first, and walk round a graft rather than through it. Cut a Seed Vault off from its heart before the raid, and what falls stays down.

Its own rules

The root network: A building within 16 m of a heart, or of a building joined to one, is on the network. Cut off, it wilts and works at half speed, and Thicket can grow only where its roots reach.
Healing on the network: A Thicket unit within 16 m of a joined building heals 2 health a second, even while it is being hit. A rooted Rootwalker carries that healing out into the field.

Its own building

Seed Vault

Thicket

A grown store. A building lost within a root’s reach of it, while it is joined to a heart, leaves a seed that regrows it once, for 50% of its price.

The catch: Cut off from every heart it keeps nothing, a seed takes the building’s whole build time to grow, and what regrows leaves no second seed.

Cost: 100 ore · 50 crystal
Build time: 16 s
Health: 300
Ground: 2 × 2

Its own research

Learned at its grove. It researches no weapons or plating.

Thorned Bark

Healing on the network rises from 2 to 4 health a second, beside a rooted Rootwalker too.

The catch: Off the network it gives nothing.

Cost: 100 ore · 100 crystal
Research: 25 s

Deep Roots

Roots reach 24 m instead of 16, so the network, and where Thicket can grow, stretches further.

The catch: A longer network can be cut in more places.

Cost: 100 ore · 75 crystal
Research: 25 s

Its units

Seedling

Thicket

Walks · Unarmed

Health: 75
Armour: 0
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 4.8 m/s
Sight: 13 m
Cost: 50 / 0
Supply: 1
Build time: 5.5 s

Unarmed
Dies quickly
Cheap

Bramble

Thicket

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 150
Armour: 1
Damage/s: 16
Range: 2 m
Speed: 4.4 m/s
Sight: 13 m
Cost: 60 / 15
Supply: 1
Build time: 6.5 s

Ground only
Has to get close
Cheap

Bloom

Thicket

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 460
Armour: 2
Damage/s: 16.3
Range: 6 m
Speed: 2.5 m/s
Sight: 14 m
Cost: 150 / 55
Supply: 2
Build time: 22 s

Ground only
Outranges most
Hits hard
Hits a group
Shell can be outrun
Hard to kill
Slow
Expensive

Thistle

Thicket

Flies · Hits ground and air

Health: 120
Armour: 0
Damage/s: 10
Range: 3.5 m
Speed: 7 m/s
Sight: 20 m
Cost: 70 / 20
Supply: 1
Build time: 10 s

Answers what flies
Dies quickly
Quick
Cheap

Thorn

Thicket

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 150
Armour: 1
Damage/s: 24.5
Range: 9 m
Speed: 3.8 m/s
Sight: 15 m
Cost: 90 / 40
Supply: 2
Build time: 10.5 s

Ground only
Outranges most
Hits hard

Rootwalker

Thicket

Walks · Unarmed

Health: 280
Armour: 2
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 2.2 m/s
Sight: 11 m
Cost: 100 / 50
Supply: 3
Build time: 18 s

Unarmed
Rooted, heals your units near it
Hard to kill
Slow
Expensive

Grafter

Thicket

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 110
Armour: 1
Damage/s: 4
Range: 5 m
Speed: 4.2 m/s
Sight: 12 m
Cost: 75 / 50
Supply: 2
Build time: 13 s

Tangles enemy walkers to half speed
Ground only

Align. Share. Transcend.

Prism

It believes: Strength is connection.

A distributed mind that shows up as bodies, the way one tune is played on many instruments. Its machines are pieces that never touch, held in exact relation: broken rings, arcs and floating planes, with its colour in the light between them. Every one is light-bodied and shielded, and its beams land at once.

How it plays

Best at

Every unit it fields is shielded.
Its lancer hits hardest of any.
It alone shares a blow across its formation, a few at most.
Its Resonator makes a crowd of its machines strike harder, two fifths at most.
Its Dissonant hits harder for every enemy close to its target.
Its Lens Array brings shields back twice as fast near it.
It alone learns Wider Chord and Phase Lock: a blow shared by seven, and shields back after half the wait.

What it pays for that

Each of its kinds has the least health of any faction’s.
Its buildings work only inside its field.
Its Resonator is unarmed, and gives nothing to a machine alone.
Its Dissonant shares no hits, and against one enemy alone hits less than a facet.
Its Lens Array has the least health of anything it raises, costs twice as much crystal as ore, and works only inside a field.
It learns no weapons or plating: its research adds nothing to a shot or to armour.
Its Wider Chord shares a blow only within the same four metres, and its Phase Lock brings a shield back no faster once it has begun.

Playing it: Stay together. Every machine is shielded and a formation shares its wounds, so keep units close; its lancers hit hardest of any. Raise beacons before you build further out, and fight beside a Lens Array when you can.
Playing against it: Hit the many at once. Splash lands on every machine it reaches, so area damage beats sharing, and a lone Prism machine has the least health of any. Break a beacon to power down what it held. A Lens Array is fragile: break it, and keep hitting so shields never come back.

Its own rules

The field: Its buildings work only within 18 m of its choir or a beacon. Outside every field they power down until a field covers them again.
Shared hits: A blow to one Prism machine is shared with the nearest of its side within 4 m, up to 5 in all. Area damage lands on each of them, so it beats sharing.

Its own building

Lens Array

Prism

A ring of lenses that brings your machines’ shields back 2 times as fast within 12 m of it.

The catch: The least health of anything Prism raises, twice as much crystal as ore, and like every Prism building it powers down outside a field.

Cost: 40 ore · 80 crystal
Build time: 9 s
Health: 120
Ground: 2 × 2

Its own research

Learned at its lens. It researches no weapons or plating.

Wider Chord

A blow is shared by up to 7 machines instead of 5, still only those within 4 m.

The catch: The formation has to stand as close as ever, and area damage still lands on every one.

Cost: 75 ore · 125 crystal
Research: 30 s

Phase Lock

Shields start to come back 1.5 s after the last hit instead of 3.

The catch: Nothing in a long fight: it helps only between fights.

Cost: 100 ore · 100 crystal
Research: 25 s

Its units

Drone

Prism

Walks · Unarmed

Health: 45
Shield: 15
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 5.8 m/s
Sight: 15 m
Cost: 55 / 0
Supply: 1
Build time: 5 s

Unarmed
Dies quickly
Quick
Cheap

Facet

Prism

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 70
Shield: 40
Damage/s: 20
Range: 5 m
Speed: 5.4 m/s
Sight: 16 m
Cost: 70 / 25
Supply: 1
Build time: 7 s

Ground only
Cheap

Octave

Prism

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 200
Shield: 120
Damage/s: 25.3
Range: 7 m
Speed: 3 m/s
Sight: 16 m
Cost: 160 / 60
Supply: 2
Build time: 21 s

Ground only
Outranges most
Hits hard
Hits a group
Hard to kill
Slow
Expensive

Arc

Prism

Flies · Hits ground and air

Health: 55
Shield: 30
Damage/s: 14
Range: 4.5 m
Speed: 8 m/s
Sight: 22 m
Cost: 35 / 55
Supply: 1
Build time: 11 s

Answers what flies
Quick

Chord

Prism

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 70
Shield: 30
Damage/s: 28
Range: 10 m
Speed: 4.4 m/s
Sight: 18 m
Cost: 40 / 65
Supply: 2
Build time: 10.5 s

Ground only
Outranges most
Hits hard

Resonator

Prism

Walks · Unarmed

Health: 60
Shield: 30
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 4.4 m/s
Sight: 14 m
Cost: 50 / 75
Supply: 2
Build time: 15 s

Unarmed
Its machines nearby strike harder together
Expensive

Dissonant

Prism

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 50
Shield: 20
Damage/s: 16
Range: 6 m
Speed: 5 m/s
Sight: 16 m
Cost: 60 / 35
Supply: 1
Build time: 9 s

Hits harder into a crowd; shares no hits
Ground only

Absorb. Reform. Become.

Tessel

It believes: Nothing is finished.

Programmable matter: one mass that splits into forms and merges back. Where others build a tank, Tessel spends matter on whatever it needs to be right now, and a form that comes home gives most of it back. Its machines are blocks of dark tiles, cubic grains and lattice, compact and never quite settled, with its colour in the seams where the matter is being rewritten.

How it plays

Best at

Its fighter is the cheapest of any.
Its heavy is the most armoured of any.
Its flier hits fliers twice as hard as any other.
It alone calls its forms home: one that reaches a Core or a Well dissolves and banks three quarters of its price, as a share of the health it brings.
Its Core trains every form it fields, and its Wells train its shard and scatter near the front.
Its AI Core researches for less than any lab, and goes up sooner.
It alone learns Full Recall and Fine Grain: a form brought home banks seven eighths, and its scatter sprays a metre wider.
It alone reforms a form into another where it stands, in half the new form’s training time, paying only the difference or banking three quarters of it.
It alone merges two to four of its forms into one Mass with a fifth more health than all of theirs and a tenth more firepower, and splits it back into them.
It alone changes the ground: its Span lays itself down as three cells of wall that stand until it is told to rise, or as a ramp up or down a cliff one or two levels high for twenty seconds.

What it pays for that

Nothing it fields is shielded, and nothing of its mends or heals.
Its worker is the slowest of any.
Its lancer reaches least of any.
Its heavy reaches least of any.
Its flier hits nothing on the ground.
A form killed gives back nothing, and one going home walks there and fights nothing on the way.
It raises no tower, and its Well has the least health of anything that trains.
Its AI Core has less health than a lab, and stands only once a Well does.
Its Full Recall still pays only for the health a form brings home, and its Fine Grain spreads its scatter’s spray but hits no harder.
A form reforming neither moves nor fights until it is done, keeps only its share of health, and gives back nothing if killed meanwhile.
A Mass walks at four fifths of its slowest part’s pace and hits one target, every blast hits all of its parts, and merging or splitting takes three seconds in which it neither moves nor fights.
Its Span carries no weapon; laid down it neither moves nor fights, its wall stops its own side too, its ramp carries the enemy too and is gone when it stands up, and it lays down again only thirty seconds after it stands up.

Playing it: Spend and take back. Its shards are the cheapest fighters and its folds the most armoured heavies: trade with them, and call home what is hurt before it falls, for most of its price. Raise Wells toward the fight so forms condense near it and have somewhere close to come home to.
Playing against it: Catch it away from home. Nothing it fields is shielded or mended, its folds and scatters reach least of any, and it has no tower: kill what it sends before it walks back to a Core or Well, and break the Wells, which are fragile, so it has further to go.

Its own rules

Coming home: Told to return, a form walks to the nearest Core or Well and dissolves there, banking 75% of its price for the health it brings. One killed on the way gives back nothing.
Reform: Told to reform, a form becomes another where it stands in 50% of the new form’s training time, paying the difference in price, or banking 75% of it for a cheaper form. It neither moves nor fights until it is done, and keeps its share of health.
The Mass: Two to 4 of its shards, folds and scatters, told to merge, walk together and after 3 s standing are one Mass: all their health, 110% of their damage as one blow, 80% of its slowest part’s pace, and every blast hits all of its parts. Told to split, it comes apart again as quickly, sharing what health it has left. The card shows the smallest, two shards.
The Span: Told to lie down, a Span becomes a wall 3 cells long after 1 s, across the spot where it stands, for 20 s. Nobody can walk through it, not even Tessel’s own forms. While it is a wall, it can’t move or fight. It stands up when its time is up or when it is told to, and can lie down again 30 s later. Or it lies down as a ramp, for the same time, from where it stands up or down a cliff one level high. Everybody can climb it, the enemy too, and when it stands up the way is gone.
One matter, two places to condense: Its Core trains every form it fields; its Wells, 150 health each, train its shard and scatter near the front. No starport, no lab, no tower: its forms are its defence.

Its own building

AI Core

Tessel

A cube of tiles thinking in a lattice cage: where Tessel learns everything it researches, and what its scatter needs standing. It costs 100 ore and 50 crystal, less than any lab, and goes up in 8 s.

The catch: Less health than a lab, and it stands only once a Well does.

Cost: 100 ore · 50 crystal
Build time: 8 s
Health: 250
Ground: 2 × 2

Its own research

Learned at its AI Core. It researches no weapons or plating.

Full Recall

A form brought home banks 7/8 of its price for its health instead of 3/4.

The catch: It still pays only for the health a form brings, and nothing for one killed on the way.

Cost: 100 ore · 75 crystal
Research: 25 s

Fine Grain

The scatter’s spray reaches 2.5 m round what it hits instead of 1.5.

The catch: Wider, not harder: every grain hits as it did.

Cost: 125 ore · 100 crystal
Research: 30 s

Its units

Grain

Tessel

Walks · Unarmed

Health: 60
Armour: 0
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 4.6 m/s
Sight: 15 m
Cost: 50 / 0
Supply: 1
Build time: 6 s

Unarmed
Dies quickly
Cheap

Shard

Tessel

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 120
Armour: 0
Damage/s: 16
Range: 3 m
Speed: 5.6 m/s
Sight: 15 m
Cost: 55 / 15
Supply: 1
Build time: 6.5 s

Ground only
Quick
Cheap

Fold

Tessel

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 380
Armour: 3
Damage/s: 20
Range: 2 m
Speed: 3.2 m/s
Sight: 14 m
Cost: 150 / 40
Supply: 2
Build time: 20 s

Ground only
Has to get close
Hits hard
Hard to kill
Slow
Expensive

Shift

Tessel

Flies · Hits air

Health: 100
Armour: 0
Damage/s: 16
Range: 5 m
Speed: 9 m/s
Sight: 20 m
Cost: 85 / 25
Supply: 1
Build time: 14 s

Answers what flies
Outranges most
Quick

Scatter

Tessel

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 110
Armour: 0
Damage/s: 20
Range: 7 m
Speed: 4.6 m/s
Sight: 18 m
Cost: 80 / 35
Supply: 2
Build time: 11.5 s

Ground only
Outranges most
Hits hard
Hits a group

Span

Tessel

Walks · Unarmed

Health: 240
Armour: 0
Damage/s: —
Range: —
Speed: 4.6 m/s
Sight: 12 m
Cost: 75 / 25
Supply: 2
Build time: 12 s

Unarmed
Lays itself down as a wall or a ramp for twenty seconds
Hard to kill

Mass

Tessel

Walks · Hits ground

Health: 288
Armour: 0
Damage/s: 35
Range: 3 m
Speed: 4.5 m/s
Sight: 15 m
Cost: 110 / 30
Supply: 2
Build time: 3 s

Merged from two to four forms; splits back
Ground only
Hits hard
Hard to kill