You start with VECTOR. The other five are earned by flying.
At a glance
| Ship | Hearts | Gun | Heat | Unlock |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VECTOR | 4 | Steady single stream | Medium | Free |
| MAULER | 5 | Slow, heavy shells that pierce | Low | Pilot level 4 and 2,500 coins |
| WASP | 3 | Twin light stream | High | Pilot level 7 and 4,000 coins |
| LANCE | 4 | Fast piercing bolts | Never jams | Pilot level 10 and 5,500 coins |
| HALO | 3 | Lighter gun, with a shield every sector | Low | Pilot level 13 and 7,000 coins |
| RAZOR | 3 | Fastest, heaviest stream | Highest | Pilot level 16 and 9,000 coins |
All guns cool at the same rate, so Heat shows how fast each one heats up. Hotter guns spend more time in Redline, where shots hit harder, and more time jammed. New to heat? See How to play.
VECTOR: the all-rounder
VECTOR is the starter ship, and it's the ship every pilot flies in the Daily. Its gun fires a steady single stream that heats at a moderate pace, and it has four hearts. With no special trick, it's a good ship for learning how heat and banking work.
MAULER: heavy shells
MAULER fires slowly, but each shell hits twice as hard as a VECTOR shot and carries on into the next block after a kill. Orange armour falls in two shells instead of four. The slow fire rate also keeps heat down. MAULER has five hearts, the most in the fleet, and it falls a little faster than the others.
WASP: twin stream
WASP fires two light bullets side by side with every shot, so it covers more of a wall at once. It's also the lightest ship and falls the most slowly. The price is heat and hull: its gun heats up fast, and it has only three hearts. Expect to graze a lot.
LANCE: the gun that never jams
LANCE fires fast bolts that pierce: after breaking a block, a bolt carries on through up to two more. Its gun builds heat a fraction slower than it cools, so it never jams. The flip side is that it almost never reaches Redline either. LANCE has four hearts.
HALO: a shield every sector
HALO starts every run with a shield that blocks one hit. At the start of each new sector, if that shield is gone, it gets a fresh one. In exchange, it fires more slowly than VECTOR, and its bolts travel more slowly too. HALO has three hearts. A hit that your shield takes doesn't cost your bank, which suits pilots who like to chase motes.
RAZOR: the glass cannon
RAZOR has the fastest fire rate in the fleet, and every shot hits as hard as a MAULER shell. It also runs hotter than anything else and has only three hearts. You'll spend a lot of time in Redline and jam often unless you graze well. Of all six, it's the hardest ship to keep alive.
How ships are unlocked
Each ship needs two things: a pilot level and a coin price. Your pilot level rises with every run you fly, and faster for higher scores, more targets, broken gate cores and deeper sectors. Once you reach a ship's level, you buy it in the Hangar with coins.
Coins come from every run (one coin for every 20 points in Endless), daily missions, medals, league finishes, the season track and the free supply drop in the Shop. The Shop also sells coin packs, but no purchase raises your pilot level, so every ship is still earned by flying.
Mastery and ship levels
Every ship has a mastery mission. Complete it and you earn that ship's mastery skin, which comes with its own trail. Mastery skins are never sold.
| Ship | Mastery mission | Skin |
|---|---|---|
| VECTOR | Bank 240 points from motes | Ace Gold |
| MAULER | Break 5 sector cores | Forge Copper |
| WASP | Destroy 40 targets while Redline is active | Ghostline |
| LANCE | Destroy 400 targets | Harpoon Teal |
| HALO | Score 5,000 in one run | Corona Brass |
| RAZOR | Destroy 60 targets while Redline is active | Edge Steel |
Progress adds up across all your runs in that ship, except HALO's, which needs a single run.
Each ship also has ten levels of its own. A ship earns 1 point per target, 25 per gate core and 5 per run, and each level pays a reward once from that ship's card in the Hangar. Most levels pay coins. Level 5 pays 15 gems and level 10 pays 50.
Looks
Looks change how your ship and the course appear. They never change how the game plays.
- Skins recolour your ship and your shots. Mint is free. Cobalt, Rose, Ghost and Prism cost gems. The rarer skins add a second colour and a trail, and Prism also cycles through colours and brings a kill effect.
- Trails follow your ship, and kill effects play when you break a block. Both use your skin's colours, so a trail you buy looks right on every skin.
- Themes change the background of every run, not just the menus. MIDNIGHT is free. PLASMA, ICE, SYNTH and MONO cost gems. EMBER and AURORA come from the Season 1 pass.
- Mastery skins and season looks can't be bought with gems at all.
Every look follows one rule: it has to stay clearly different from the colours of walls, turrets, enemy fire and pickups. A skin or theme can never hide a threat. The LOOKS tab in the Hangar plays a live preview before you buy anything.
Gems come from missions, medals, the season track, the top three league places, ship levels and inviting friends. They're also sold in packs.
Try them out
Start a run with VECTOR, or read about the Weekly Lab, where you fly your own ship against a new twist each week.