The Armory
The Armory is the station board you shop at between runs. Everything here is bought with Scraps, and everything here is permanent — it never resets, and it's never at risk from a bad run. See Gold, Scraps & Gems for why that split exists.
Building the train
- Carriages. A permanent carriage is a grade (see below): buy it here with Scraps and every run starts with it. Each one is a place to mount more guns, and holds up to four. You can add five to the train you start with; each costs more than the last.
- Gun mounts. Likewise a grade. A mount is one gun slot, bought one at a time for the whole train: it goes on the first carriage with room, and only once that carriage's four are filled does the next carriage open. Each carriage's mounts cost more than the previous carriage's, so arming the fifth carriage is a real investment where arming the first is not. The card just says +1 extra gun mount while there's room to add one. A mount needs a carriage to sit on — when every carriage is full, the card locks instead of doing nothing: need more carriages to purchase, if buying one would actually help, or MAX if you're already at the five-carriage cap and there is no carriage left to buy.
Guns
Guns are bought here permanently, for Scraps, under the Train tab. A gun you own here is on your train at the start of every run, until you sell it here — its card carries a Sell for half of what you paid. Each further gun of the same kind costs more than the last one you bought — the first is always the cheapest. See Guns, Cores & Elements for what the four gun types actually do.
The Depot sells the same four guns mid-run for gold; those are gone when the run is. A permanent gun sold at the dock mid-run pays out in gold for that run and comes back next run — only a sale here is for good.
A locked gun type reads Not researched, and its button says Research with the price beside it — pressing it buys the TYPE, not a gun. You then buy the gun itself with gold, in the Depot, on a run. Two presses, two currencies, two different things: research it once here and it stays researched forever; buy the gun every run you want to carry one. Once a type is unlocked, the small green ▲ in the card's corner buys its next rarity.
Weapon rarity — common, uncommon, rare, epic, legendary — unlocks in order as you push further up the Track Ladder. Common is available from the start; each rarity above it opens once you've reached far enough up the ladder, with the gates getting steeper each step — uncommon by rung 2, rare by rung 5, epic by rung 10, legendary by rung 20. Unlocking a rarity is a one-off purchase, not a level, so it ignores the bulk-buy switch.
Grades
Every stat the Depot sells mid-run also has a permanent version here, called a grade. Buying a grade doesn't just apply immediately — it raises the floor the Depot starts every future run from. Grades are the reason a Depot wipe at the end of a run isn't a wipe back to nothing.
A grade costs more than the same level does at the Depot — you are paying for it to keep. But its price climbs more gently than the Depot's does, and that is what makes grades the thing that actually carries you up the ladder: buying inside a run gets expensive fast, buying here does not. Scraps you spend here is worth more than gold you spend mid-run, every time.
Special attacks
The Special tab is where your special attacks live. There are seven moves, and you unlock them one at a time — each is the reward for beating a boss for the first time, in a fixed order. A locked card tells you which boss clear opens it.
You can carry two at once. Every unlocked card has a Slot 1 and Slot 2 button; press one to put that move in that slot, and it's there on every run from then on. Choosing a loadout is free and instant — it's a decision, not a purchase — and the two-slot limit is the point: which pair you bring is a build choice.
In a run the two slots are the round buttons clustered in the bottom-right corner, next to the game-speed box. Tap one to use it. Most moves fire at once; a move that needs a target (Airstrike, Singularity) arms instead — a banner at the top names it, and your next tap on the ground is where it lands. Tap the button again, press Cancel, or wait a few seconds to put it away without spending it. The ring around each button fills as the cooldown runs down, with the seconds left printed inside.
Game Speed
A separate ladder that raises how fast the simulated world runs — the world speeds up, not the train itself. Buying a level here raises your owned maximum speed; a small control in the run view then lets you dial your actual speed anywhere up to that maximum, run by run. This is not the same as the train's throttle, which controls how fast the train itself drives along the line — game speed and throttle stack independently.