Node grades & cores

A freshly placed node works at the gray grade. With Synth energy and a core of the target colour you raise it step by step: gray → green → blue → purple → red → orange. Each grade makes the effect much stronger – a production node gives +1 % at gray and +25 % at orange, for example. You'll find the values of every node type on the category pages.

Upgrade costs

Each upgrade costs Synth energy plus exactly one core of the colour you're upgrading to. The table below lists all prices. Going from gray to orange costs about 788 million Synth energy in total, plus one core of each colour. To upgrade, click an active node in the network.

Ultimate nodes

Nine special nodes start straight at orange and cannot be upgraded further. Most of them unlock a new ability – an extra combat round, an additional scanner slot, the raid colony warp or extra escape flight speed steps, for example. In return, they sit deep in the network, 17 to 24 steps from the centre.

How bonuses stack

Most bonuses simply add up: two nodes with 10 % each give 20 %. General and specific nodes work together – “total resource production” and “Pig iron production” add up on your Pig iron mine, for example.

Reductions of time and cost, on the other hand, apply one after another (multiplicatively): two times 50 % gives 75 %, not 100 %. This applies to ship and defense build time, building and raid colony build time, fuel, the Spice consumption of thermo plants and the recycler return boost. Such reductions never quite reach zero.

Synth cores and fragments

• Cores come in green, blue, purple, red and orange – matching the node grades. You'll find them in the “Synth cores” tab.
• Combine 50 fragments (shards) of one colour into one core of the same colour.
• Trade 10 cores for 1 core of the next higher colour. The other way round, you can split 1 core into 10 cores of the lower colour.
• Your first core exchange each day is free. Every further one costs 25 Urplasma (Urplasma).