Updates from the lab

Players reset the game before. Sometimes to replay it better, sometimes because they got stuck without the Cu to climb back out. The old reset erased everything and gave nothing in return. New Start turns the restart into a decision — you keep your history, and you carry a permanent bonus of your choosing into the next run.

The three operator roles — Auditor, Defender, Hunter — stop being decorative. Each one changes what the slot it sits in actually does. The Black Market moves out of its popup and into a screen of its own, restocks on a daily clock instead of after every sale, and stops lying about two negative traits.

The Refactoring chamber gets a second mode. Rarity used to be the one thing you couldn't grind — same-rarity parents in, same-rarity child out, so a run of unlucky rolls kept you at baseline forever. IMPROVE RARITY changes that. Two same-rarity models become one child a rarity higher, paid for in bred depth instead of Cu. Costs slots-for-nothing (rarity + depth = zero-sum), keeps installed SW, and — for the first time — makes bad luck something you can work with.

The two mechanics that give a model a life beyond the sale. REFACTORING merges two saved brains into one — deeper slot, higher quality ceiling, more headroom — inside a chamber that can burn one, both, or neither. LENDING sends the model out to work on its own — SW carries the payout, quality carries the wear, and vendor SW preferences turn the loot chain into a real target for the first time. Plus the schema, the tiers, the trade-offs, and the reasons none of it is a shortcut.

A release about a single question — what is that brain, really? Benchmark grades your model on a twelve-step scale, probes and certifications turn the answer into paper, and paper has a price at the vendor's desk. Plus rebuilt achievements with 79 custom icons, redesigned screens across half the game, and — for the web-side devlog stream — a catch-up note on July's 1.6.6 and 1.6.7.

A big one. What started as an economy pass turned into a whole new gameplay layer — runs drop source-code fragments and research notes, a crafting chain turns them into a library of 55 unique software programs, and perk slots let you install those programs onto your models to boost sale value. Plus a proper economy rebalance, one-tap contract delivery, a fragment merge mechanic, a retrain lockdown, and a stack of quality-of-life fixes underneath.

A brand-new layer of progression that survives a brain sale — certain brains discover optimization potential, and from that moment on their modules build permanent know-how that carries over to every future brain. Plus an optional calibration minigame — Packet Filter — that lets you push the optimization bonus higher, a fundamental contract-flow cleanup (train first, match after), and a copy fix on the Prediction module.

A living news feed lands in the Market — industry pulses, market trends, world beats, opt-in leaderboard callouts, gentle tips, and out-of-universe system announcements, all delivered without an app update. Plus rotating weekly leaderboard rewards, a change to how sectors unlock, and small polish.

Two big additions in one release. Autotrain is a one-tap easy-mode pretrain that stops itself at the sweet spot, sitting alongside the classic Manual loop. Neuron Archiv is a hall of records that captures the best traits of every rare brain you've ever sold — the trace they leave behind. Plus progressive hardware unlocking, contextual pulse hints, and quality-of-life fixes.

The biggest update since v1.4.1. A whole vendor world replaces the old passive contract list — 63 clients across 7 sectors and 3 classes, each with their own reputation ladder and their own bonuses to hand out. Cognitive Overload gets reworked into a hands-on gauntlet. Pretrain configuration deepens. Rarer model tiers open up. And the Black Market gets a Flash Deals refresh.

The biggest visual overhaul since launch. The HUB has been rebuilt from a list of menu buttons into a proper command center with per-tile preview panels. The Brain screen rides along with the same grammar. Brain Lab retires and reappears as Telemetry. Plus a holographic brain projection that changes shape with your Model Potential tier.

The Knowledge Domains screen gets the same drill-down treatment as Pretrain Configuration and Hardware Config. Five corpora become a Tier-1 selector, each with its own colour identity and per-domain icons. Plus a brief look at how the Prediction module overlays affinity hints on the buy buttons.

The Hardware Config screen gets the same drill-down treatment as Pretrain Configuration in v1.2.5 — one dedicated screen per chassis, a hero rig visualization, Tier-1 component selector, Tier-2 variant chips, and clear per-tier item lists. Plus an A4000 rental revision in flight alongside.

Pretrain Configuration screen rebuilt as a drill-down accordion. Plus a new Welcome Tutorial for first-time players, a Daily Rewards screen, Black Market vouchers, live per-hour brain rates in Run config, balance tweaks, and bug fixes.

A UI-only release. The Modules / Upgrades screen has been rebuilt from a flat scroll list into a three-category drill-down with custom neon icons. Same logic underneath, very different feel on top.

A point release on top of v1.2.0 — Contract Board refresh choices, the first in-game Help button that deep-links to the web, a Black Market sellback flow, plus a round of tuning from this week's playtest feedback.

A new 7-day Daily Reward chain in the Market, a meaningful Ru income boost for the mid-game, and dramatic Model Potential tier reveals.

First devlog. The game is out, the site is up, here's what's coming next.